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29 - Uncanny X-Men #138-142 - Days of Future Past
95 Plays13 days ago
Plus X-Men Annual #4!
Hot off the heels of one of the most famous X-Men stories of all time, we take a short respite with… ONE OF THE GREATEST X-MEN STORIES OF ALL TIME. A story made even more salient, unfortunately, by current events. Plus, we get a recap issue, we get to know Kitty a bit more, and we take a brief pit stop in HELL (?)
First, though, we spend some time imagining an X-Men Stardew Valley.
Topics Include:
A funeral, but other than that it’s pretty funny. Cyclops’ Brain damage. Holoempathic Matrix Crystal. Goodbye, Cyclops! A shirt that says “BITCH”. Warren’s back and worse than ever. “I’m sorry, Mr. Robot, but I’m much stronger than you.” A Wolverine and Nightcrawler road trip! STEVIE HUNTER!! The Night Creeper. Alpha Flight! Oh, the Wendigo. John Byrne is a baby. Snowbird is rude. Justin Trudeau. The Blob?? The NEW Brotherhood??? Days of Future Past!! It’s shorter than you think. Big Alex, Robbo, and George. Logan looks fucking cool, twice. Franklin Richards! A LOT of first-time appearances. The fulcrum. Everyone dies. Dr. Strange! The X-Men are going to Hell! Dante’s Inferno, but it’s a little messy. This run was good. Saturday Morning Cartoons.
VISIT OUR NEW FRIENDS at Big Bang Comics in Bayamon, PR, Blackbird Comics in North Las Vegas, NV, and Nerds 4 Ever in Newcastle, WY!
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Mutant Menace Incident in Westchester
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.
Show Introduction and Pete's Exit
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Venice, Pete. You gotta to at least wait for Matt to finish speaking.
00:00:46
Speaker
That was so fast, my dude. He just cut you off. It's alright, he's already out the door, he's running away. He knew what he did. He was just in a hurry today. He knew what he did and he's running away.
00:00:58
Speaker
He's hopping in a plane back to Australia or whatever. Back to the outback.
Listener Engagement and Outreach Strategy
00:01:03
Speaker
How's it going, Pat? pretty good guess it's been a chaotic week i've mostly just played a lot of stardew valley in my non-work time sounds sounds chaotic sounds chaotic things have been wild well look patrick i have some important things that i have to tell the listeners before we even do anything we sent so in addition to our street team and by the way you can still join our street team email us at
00:01:33
Speaker
mutant menace pod at gmail.com with the subject line street team and send your address in the name of your favorite X-Man. We will send you a envelope with a couple of flyers for you to put up around town or your local coffee shop at your local comic book shop. And as a thank you, we will send you ah drawing made by one of us of your favorite X-Man.
00:02:02
Speaker
It won't be good. No, no, no. Another thing we did is we sent we sent letters to a few comic book shops in every single state in the United States with a series of flyers.
00:02:16
Speaker
What we, our research showed were some of the people's favorite comic book stores in each state. We sent about, you know, five per each state. And we've been hearing back from those comic book stores.
00:02:27
Speaker
So I just want to give some shouts out. Blackbird Comics in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Yeah, yeah. Nerds Forever in Newcastle, Wyoming.
00:02:39
Speaker
That's the number four. And Big Bang Comics in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Hey. If you live in any of those places, check those places. Check those comic book shops out. theyre Again, we only sent flyers to comic book shops that we read really amazing things about.
00:03:00
Speaker
So yeah if you check those stores out, you're going to find some cool shit. They like us. So if you like us...
Comic Shops and Promotions
00:03:08
Speaker
And you can walk up to the counter and say, hey, Mutant Menace sent me. And they'll say They'll give you a free pack of gummy bears. They'll say, oh, OK.
00:03:21
Speaker
All right. Do you remember that? Does that does that joke track? There was a time in like the mid 90s when you could go to McDonald's and say Nick sent me and they would give you like a free pack of gummy bears.
00:03:31
Speaker
What? Or Teddy Grahams, maybe. What the hell are you talking about? Immediately what I thought we're asking people to I have a mea culpa here,
Jean Grey and the Dark Phoenix Saga Discussion
00:03:41
Speaker
Pat. I fucked up.
00:03:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you did. You really did, dude I deeply fucked up. All right. In about the middle of our giant-sized Dark Phoenix episode, I said something. When Phoenix destroys the sun and kills all those blue, shaggy-haired, broccoli-ish people,
00:04:04
Speaker
When she kills all those people, I mentioned how this changed the entire story of the Dark Phoenix saga. And then was like, I'll explain later.
00:04:14
Speaker
never explained later. Yeah, yeah. Not just the Dark Phoenix saga. It changes the entire Marvel universe, right? Yes. So the original story...
00:04:26
Speaker
Phoenix wasn't supposed to die. a series of pages were written and drawn in which Jean Grey, and this is what they fought for. This was like this, the rest of the issue was pretty much the same.
00:04:41
Speaker
This was the conflict. It wasn't, we are going to kill her. It was, we are going to take her mutant powers away. Oh, So,
00:04:53
Speaker
There were, again, pages drawn by John Byrne in which the X-Men lost and Jean got her powers taken away and Wolverine freaked out. But Jean submitted to it, you know, semi-willingly like she did her own death. Right.
Jim Shooter's Editorial Decisions
00:05:11
Speaker
Then what was supposed to happen from there on was Gene was just no longer a mutant, no longer an X-Man. Cyclops was going to quit the X-Men. They were going to go away and live together forever.
00:05:24
Speaker
And like Claremont's idea was that the X-Men would rotate in and out. as like it wouldn't be you wouldn't always You wouldn't have the same cast. People would graduate and move on and live regular lives. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
So what happened was, Something to the effect of Claremont wrote, and then she destroys a son. and then Byrne was like, oh, well, she's destroying a son. I bet it'll destroy some planets.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then drew ah picture of those blue men getting destroyed. Yeah. Like watching their son explode. And then Jim Shooter saw that panel and was like, hey, uh...
00:06:07
Speaker
She committed genocide, you guys. And he was like, you can't just take away her powers. She committed genocide. You have to kill her.
00:06:18
Speaker
And again, after the story was already written and drawn, but not published yet, they had to go back and kill Jean Grey. That is fascinating. Yeah, I had no idea.
00:06:31
Speaker
and a rare case in which Jim Shooter is right. Well, well. Okay. I know we don't talk about Jim Shooter a lot on this podcast, but his philosophy was a break from traditional Marvel philosophy around continuity, right? And making sure that every story arc returned back to its original point.
00:06:54
Speaker
His big philosophy was... we don't have to get back to original continuity. We should start killing people. Like that was the unfortunately most creative way he had of altering trajectories. But you see under his leadership, Marvel characters start dying. They start refreshing with new identities or new, like entirely new people. Yeah.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think it's necessarily a bad philosophy. I think it's definitely bold and risk-taking, but again, his only thought to alter ah trajectories of stories was guy a major loved character dies.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, he was a terrible writer, I think is the main thing about Jim Shooter. And like, he wasn't a great editor. He pushed Marvel towards a direction in which they improved.
00:07:53
Speaker
However, he wrote some of the worst Marvel stories of all time. He's made some of the worst editorial decisions of all time. Jompshooter is not a figure to be revered.
00:08:07
Speaker
But what we like about Marvel Comics, unfortunately, wouldn't exist without this guy named Jim Shooter who mostly sucked. So anyway, I just wanted to tell everybody that because I meant to mention it last
00:08:25
Speaker
Matt, time to time to stop before we make this another three-hour podcast.
Email Corner and Listener Interactions
00:08:31
Speaker
It is time for Pat's email corner. All right, I'm ready. One stipulation before we dig into the mailbag here.
00:08:40
Speaker
We're getting a lot of emails. we Which is a good problem to have. Yes. Yeah, we love receiving them. We have a lot of regulars here. We're not at this point yet, but just to throw a warning out there, there may reach a point where we can't read everybody's email on air, as we have been doing.
00:08:58
Speaker
We're getting close. is Yeah, yeah. So if in the future you don't hear your email read, I'm sorry. we It is nothing against your email. We still want you to keep emailing.
00:09:09
Speaker
And so ah here we're condensing a few. So again, no offense to the folks that wrote in. Your emails were winners from start to finish, but we got to pull out some highlights.
00:09:20
Speaker
First one, we're starting with Mike. Matt, this is not email Michael. This is... What the hell? A new listener. There's two listeners named Mike. uh well one's michael okay sometimes signs off as mike but this is just mike this is listener mike uh he did write us two emails so he gets the rare two email read on one corner you know what i think we should call him mike two emails
00:09:46
Speaker
mikey two males that i good fellas we got to use his emails everything twice everything twice yeah we got to email michael and then we got mikey two males
00:09:59
Speaker
ah Mike wrote in his first email. It just says, mike
00:10:07
Speaker
This is it is clearly someone who started listening from the beginning because I think it's episode two or three that we ask listeners just to send us their name.
00:10:18
Speaker
Congrats, Mike. I love, I fucking love that. It was before we decided that every single episode would start with us saying, having Pete say the intro with us.
00:10:29
Speaker
We were just going to say a different listener's name every episode and we just stuck with Pete. Well, congrats to Mike for being the second person in 29 episodes to email us their name as instructed.
00:10:44
Speaker
He does ah write in again. and I can't place exactly what episode this email belongs in, but it's it it is very interesting. It says, hello, Matt and Pat. are Ignoring formatting, but that's okay.
00:10:58
Speaker
Hello, Matt and Pat. I have caused several lab explosions from an old job of mine. I literally had a combustion show in an old museum where I did fire show experiments with combustibles, and my museum used to used to sell bug suckers.
00:11:13
Speaker
What's a bug sucker, Matt? I don't know what the fuck a bug sucker is. Hey... Mike, how many people got superpowers is what I want to know. and i'm I'm almost positive that's what we were asking about. Like, if you've ever caused a lab accident, let us know, because in the Marvel Universe, it happens nonstop.
00:11:32
Speaker
And everybody who causes a lab accident gets superpowers. Mike does attach proof of a mini combustion at his museum show.
00:11:42
Speaker
it you yeah it's very cool. Thank you, Mike. And yeah, please let us know how many people develop superpowers and what a bug sucker is. Happy to hear from you.
00:11:53
Speaker
Unless a bug sucker is something that we don't want to know about. No, then I especially want to know about it. If I don't want to know about it, I want to know about it.
00:12:05
Speaker
i Another one from listener Eric, who Matt, at this point, I think we can officially bestow the nickname Ambitious Eric. He's Ambitious Eric. He's been so ambitious.
00:12:16
Speaker
Congrats, Eric. Congrats, Ambitious Eric. He writes in, he says, Hey, Pat, tell Matt I splurged and read all 22 issues of Captain Ultra.
00:12:26
Speaker
has been in since his debut in 1961's Fantastic Four number 177, just to get an accurate assessment of my favorite appearance of his. Believe it or not, only the third time he appeared in comics was during the Defenders run you guys covered. Unbelievable. Wild.
00:12:44
Speaker
My favorite stories of his were after he began his stand-up comedy career, particularly 1988's What the Number 15. There are better jokes in the second half of Marvel Comics Presents Number 50, but the first half of that story is fairly abysmal, even if it does finally provide us his origins and cure his pyrophobia.
00:13:02
Speaker
I love the idea of a superhero who is also a standup comedian. That's not a bad, that's not a bad gimmick. I would have trouble finding standup comedians with the moral compass to be a superhero.
00:13:19
Speaker
But I guess that's, that's what the comics are for. Yeah. ah He goes on to talk about spam calls a bit. Thank you very much. Ambitious Eric. And then he says, i leave you with this. What swarm did with bees paved the way for squirrel girl to accomplish with her rodent retinue.
00:13:35
Speaker
And where would we be today without squirrel girl? Insincerely yours, Eric J. Hard to say. It's a great vocal warmup. Squirrel girl. Squirrel girl. Squirrel girl.
00:13:46
Speaker
We did get another email from Simon from Hell. If you remember, he offered to participate in our street team activity. We politely declined just because his art was almost too good for it. And so he has offered to draw us our favorite X-Men match. Yes!
00:14:03
Speaker
We can get a picture just from Simon from Hell. Think on it, and we'll... ah No, let's figure it out right now. What would you... Who's your guy? Who would call you love... What?
00:14:14
Speaker
Hands down, Nightcrawler. He already sent us a picture of Nightcrawler. He did. I know. Another one, please. I always like the kids. So like Anoli or Pixie.
00:14:28
Speaker
the like the kids from later on later on on for later years i mean if you wanted to do a duo brew and dupe i've always wanted to write a brew dupe miniseries oh my god yeah actually i'm voting for this uh and we'll get there 20 years from now but let's okay one of us is brew the other one's dupe and then we'll just put our pictures together Perfect.
00:14:50
Speaker
Thank you, Simon from hell. Simon from hell. And then we got the old standards here. Email Michael says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that I do get spam phone calls on a regular basis, but never as many as 20 in one day. And I don't enjoy them.
00:15:03
Speaker
OK. All right. Thanks, email Michael. Yeah. Thank you again. All of this information around spam calls is very informative for me, so I appreciate it. Why? What are you learning from this? It's just what other people get out of it.
00:15:18
Speaker
OK. And every single person has said, yes, I get them. No, I don't get that many. No, some people have said they don't get that many. But nobody, matt this is interesting. Nobody likes them.
00:15:32
Speaker
So that's a shared experience for me. Yeah. All right. You're right. ah He does sign off here. Never seen a Bad News Bears movie. Really? neither. I know that the two of you should start a Patreon where you watch Bad News Bears movies together.
00:15:47
Speaker
I did ah watch Hellraiser though recently. Okay. Is that, does that something you wanted to know? That's close. Okay. ah Finally, we have weapon Jason who is ah writing in. is If you recall, I think last episode we read his part one response to episode 27. Here is his part two response. Okay.
00:16:11
Speaker
Matt, he is shocked at your lazy attitude towards Latverians and Madripoor. says I can only chalk this up to the late hour and the woozy effects of trying to process so much Mantlo. You said, and I know it was in the heat of the moment, but some pretty offensive things about Latverians and Madriporians.
00:16:29
Speaker
You said the word lazy. Did you mean to say racist? i Yes. Did I say lazy? Yes. I don't think lay the word lazy is here at all.
00:16:40
Speaker
Okay. I may have added that. Okay. All right. Yeah. Listen, I don't, I've never liked.
00:16:49
Speaker
I don't know what to tell you. Matt, you need to stop. Weapon Jason says to come to Mantlo's defense. He does acknowledge later that he's truly not one of the greats. But to come to his defense, apparently he was fast and able to deliver her on time.
00:17:03
Speaker
So was tapped for a lot of work on that basis. Who fucking cares? He also helped create the Micronauts and ROM Space Knight runs. Yes. yeah Helped invent Rocket Raccoon and Cloak and Dagger.
00:17:17
Speaker
And also had a decent run on the Incredible Hulk. Okay, maybe he had a decent run on The Incredible Hulk. That's fine. And I've heard that Micronauts and Rom are good. Better than they had any right to be, at least.
00:17:29
Speaker
Cloak and Dagger and Rocket Raccoon are good characters, but I've read every Cloak and Dagger appearance up to 1991 And... so far and They're all bad. It's a good set of characters who have never, who had never up to that point, at least up to 1991, had never had a good story.
00:17:53
Speaker
And you feel like that's that's the writer's fault? Yes, it's the writer's fault. All right. Sorry, Weapon Jason. Argument dismissed. ah He does go on. This is important. He says, note, some gases that would be knockout capable would be various forms of ether, which are used in hospitals for knocking folks out for surgery.
00:18:12
Speaker
So totally, it could be done. Oh, that there would be knockout gas in a hospital. Yeah. i this is so This is like scraping the corners of my brain to try and remember what the fuck we talked about in episode yeah two of our Defenders.
00:18:29
Speaker
appropriately enough. He says, you guys were so tired by the end of this. I hope you slept for days and have absolutely no memory of anything from this episode. So this entire pair of emails is confusing for you.
00:18:40
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah. Almost. Yeah. i elder Weapon Jason. Thank you so much. That is the end of Pat's email corner. Wow. Efficient, efficient this week, Matt.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah. Did you ah do anything X-Men related this week? You know, Pat, I can't even think of a fake one.
00:19:05
Speaker
Okay. How about you? Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
Stardew Valley and X-Men Crossover Idea
00:19:10
Speaker
It's okay once in a while if you don't have anything X-Men related to in in a week. ah This week, I did do some X-Men related things. Oh, okay.
00:19:19
Speaker
ah There's a scene in the run that we're about to touch on here where Peter Colossus is pulling a stump out of the ground doing his old farm boy work ah reminded me a whole lot of the video game Stardew Valley which I have been playing obsessively for the last three weeks.
00:19:41
Speaker
It was the free game on PlayStation last month. It's probably no longer by the time this episode drops but Wow. Fascinating. How do you feel? I had a baby. oh wow. who Okay. Yeah. Who's your who's your marriage partner?
00:19:55
Speaker
Who's your crush? I married Leah. I started by dating Emily. and things got a little cold between us and ah it just didn't work out.
00:20:08
Speaker
Emily's one of the few that you can have sex with. Yes. Yeah, we did. ah We did make love. In the woods. In the woods. And then we like, it's not like that was the end of it. It was, we went on for a little while, but Leah.
00:20:23
Speaker
You are even a fan her parent. I do not like birds as pets. I do think that that's a red flag. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you didn't like, i'm I'm guessing you didn't like that. Emily was all about dressing you up in various types of clothing.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah, she well, here's the thing. She was really fashion-oriented. She said a lot of weird stuff, which is fine. i that's like That's her personality, and I didn't mind it. She is the weirdo, yeah. But she only talks about herself, ever.
00:20:56
Speaker
There was no... Wait to the conversations we were having. And like, as I got to know Leah, as I encouraged her to ah get into her art and really engage with the rest of the community, it just it clicked.
00:21:12
Speaker
I was dating both of them for a short time. Patrick, they were fine with it.
00:21:20
Speaker
But then, yeah Emily, it was pretty, it was fairly mutual. I had to do the breaking up. Emily wasn't thrilled about it or when it was happening, but like we were both in the same place about it.
00:21:31
Speaker
Generally, I'll date everybody and then marry Penny pretty much every time. Wow. Penny makes sense for you, I think. Yeah, I'm into Penny. Yeah. Listen, that is very X-Men related. yes is Yeah, not dissimilar from X-Men.
00:21:45
Speaker
Could you imagine an X-Men farming sim where like you're tending farm at the x Xavier mansion and you're dating the different X-Men and you pick a power?
00:21:58
Speaker
oh my god, a power that would just be naturally useful on your farm. Yeah, they'd have, say, maybe 12 powers you pick through. At the beginning of every, the way that you pick a farm type, beginning of every game, you pick a power for your character. And they all do different things, but equal equally beneficial.
00:22:19
Speaker
you know You can form like a like a laser scythe, or sure you can turn into a goat. Sure. Right, or you can fly over bodies of water or something.
00:22:31
Speaker
All right, yeah. That's my X-Men-related detail for the week, Matt. It's literally all I've done with my time. Well, here's what I want from you now. Me? From me?
00:22:41
Speaker
Here's a thing I want from you. Yeah, please, Matt, anything.
Uncanny X-Men #138 Analysis
00:22:44
Speaker
I would love you, my friend Pat, to tell me about Uncanny X-Men number 138. You mean Elegy?
00:22:54
Speaker
Please. Please, God. Written, co-plotted, and penciled by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Inked by Terry Austin. Lettered by Tom Orszakowski. Colored by Glynis Ween. and Edited by Louise Jones. And Jump Shooter, Editor-in-Chief.
00:23:11
Speaker
Release date July 15th, 1980. Cover date October, 1980. It's a recap issue. Recap issue. And Matt, a funeral issue.
00:23:22
Speaker
okay. Scott Summers stands by Jean Grey's grave, along with all the other X-Men, new and old, and thinks through the last 28 episodes of this podcast from his perspective. During this. thiss So Gene's grave is front and center. And it's interesting to look at the years. It's 1956 to 1980.
00:23:44
Speaker
ah So if comics moved in real time, Gene Gray would be 70, 69 years old. so sixty nine years ah 69 years old right now but hey hey very cool but i kept thinking how funny it would have been if you turned to the page from this everyone crying around next what next page was a full page spread of her bursting out of the ground which is like hear me x-men the woman you knew as jean gray is dead
00:24:21
Speaker
It's like, Gene, stop it.
00:24:28
Speaker
There is a really good. They're introducing each X-Man and their powers and they just get to Bobby and they say, you and Bobby Drake, Iceman for obvious reasons. And he's just standing there as a big block of ice.
00:24:46
Speaker
Also, hey, Nightcrawler isn't at Gene's funeral.
00:24:52
Speaker
Isn't he? Well, during the flashback sequence, we see a glimpse back to issue 32, where the X-Men had just fought the Satan Saints at Bobby Drake's 18th birthday party. Rockin' Redbone!
00:25:05
Speaker
Afterwards, whether by retcon or Scott's faulty memory, Scott remembers taking Gene on a walk through the park and telling her about his childhood, about his brain damage, and about how it's the reason he can't control his optic blasts.
00:25:19
Speaker
He didn't do that, though. Right. I went back and read that issue. he's He chickens out on telling her. Yeah, this will ah this will make you a little more upset, Matt. He also, contrary to what we read, remembers that this was the night they declared their love for one another.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Okay, that too. Both of them think about how, oh, I wish I could tell them I love you, but can't. They distinctly end that conversation by thinking to themselves, I wish we had shared our feelings with each other.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. it So again, he just talked about his brain damage. I don't know if that's like an axe. Like if you like, i don't know if this is an axe in Claremont's part or he's like, he's brain damaged. He forgets shit.
00:26:04
Speaker
I think it's to clean up the story a little bit, right? Like we can try to build it into canon if we want to. But I really think that he's trying to say, like we read through all those issues. At no point do they acknowledge that they're dating. They are just one day they're pining for each other. the next day they're declaring their love for each other. It's during, i think, what, Mike Friedrich or Arnold Drake, one of their ah FBI broke us up.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. and Run, yeah. Everything else is pretty much exactly as we remember it, though we find out that Cyclops felt that Xavier's fake death was cruel, but held his tongue about it.
00:26:39
Speaker
We get so much Cyclops lore just around. i think like the the big moment here is he thought Xavier's fake death was cruel, but he really goes through his relationship with x Xavier during this flashback. Like it's almost told from the point of, boy, here's when I trusted him and here's how that slowly eroded over time.
00:27:02
Speaker
Right, right. We also, during the flashback, get cameos from both Porcupine and Locust. yeah i mean we ah Yeah, I mean, we get everyone. We get the living monotony. We get grotesque. Yeah, we even name grotesque.
00:27:21
Speaker
ah The funeral ends and Lalandra approaches Jean's parents with a gift meant to honor Jean's life, a hollow empathic matrix crystal which holds a 3D image of Jean and an impression of her personality.
00:27:34
Speaker
You didn't need to tell me that. You said a hollow empathic matrix crystal. Right. Which we all remember from last episode when Lalandra had one of Charles sitting by her bed. Yeah. ah Scott then approaches Professor X and Nightcrawler informing him that he's leaving the X-Men.
00:27:50
Speaker
Wait, what the fuck? He has a lot to reflect on and he's ready to live a whole new life. Wait, why is Nightcrawler there? He was actually hiding in the tree, Matt. That little scamp!
00:28:03
Speaker
He's just playing a little prank on his friends at a funeral. They point out that Hank is in his Hank mask again. He's not letting his blue head, his blue furry head show through.
00:28:15
Speaker
i wonder sure if there is a risk here of like revealing secret identities, which is why they said, hey, Nightcrawler, can you hide in the tree for the funeral?
00:28:28
Speaker
Couldn't possibly be because Hank McCoy doesn't have a secret identity. The Beast is public. You're right. He's just being, I wonder what's going on. so all So everybody else at the funeral is like, why is our friend Beast not here? And who's this weird guy with a rubber face?
00:28:47
Speaker
As the funeral ends, another story begins. A taxi cab pulls up in front of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters. And out of it steps a 13 and a a half year old mutant girl named Kitty Pryde.
00:28:59
Speaker
Pat, yeah I have a question. yeah Yeah. Very cute ending to the story. She's wearing like a she's a cute little pink cap and a cute little pink jacket.
00:29:09
Speaker
And underneath, she's wearing a a black shirt that has rhinestones. And you can't read everything on on the shirt. But I'm like 90% sure her shirt says bitch. I'm pretty sure too.
00:29:24
Speaker
And it's it's the first day of school, Kitty. What are you doing? Give it some time. ah should We see, like, we can't see the left side of the shirt. And then it says i T and then what looks like a C and then we can't see the end of the shirt. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:43
Speaker
But the proportions make it very clear that there's only two letters on other side. ah Yeah, I'm pretty sure it says bitch. It's a sign of the times, Matt.
00:29:54
Speaker
Kids these days, you know? Kids these days. I also, just one final detail here. i yeah misspoke. i This is extremely corny, but instead of the end at the end of the issue here, they write the beginning.
00:30:09
Speaker
Did you tear up when you read that? I got to see i got chills. It's the beginning. It is the beginning. All right, Pat, I'm going to tell you all about X-Men, Uncanny X-Men number 139. How about that? Yeah, yeah, please do. What's the name of this one?
00:30:25
Speaker
Something wicked this way comes. Ooh, Shakespeare. there's a There's a dot, dot, dot at the front, so I think the first half of it got cut off or something. but Written by Chris Claremont.
00:30:37
Speaker
Plots and pencils by John Byrne, inked by Terry Austin, lettered by Tom Orszakowski, colored by Glynis Ween. Louise Jones is the editor and Jomp Shooter's the editor-in-chief. It's released on August 19th, 1980. Warren Kenneth Worthington full.
00:30:53
Speaker
fucking up again yep back in the x-men he's back in the x-men he's training in the danger room when he clomps into nightcrawler knocking him towards a pit of fire wolverine saves nightcrawler and he bamfs away right into the path of the robot colossus just threw making storm have to divert her flight to save him and open herself up to get snagged on some tentacles all because of angel Professor X watching on with Kitty Pryde at his back halts the exercise.
00:31:28
Speaker
I do love... This is just what he's done every time we've seen him in the danger room. Peter goes to fight the big robot and apologizes to it and is just like, I'm sorry, Mr. Robot, but I'm much stronger than you. And then just smashes it. That's his danger room exercise.
00:31:46
Speaker
Angel... What Angel is doing here, i like to call Mighty Ducks 2-ing. You had the talent, but you took too much time off of it. You got too cocky, and now you don't have it anymore.
00:32:01
Speaker
I also wonder if he ever had the talent, to be honest. Yeah, he does. Even when he's on his game in this run, he is just flying. He's just flying. We're immediately seeing some new dynamics here. First, when Warren admits to his mistakes, Wilde,
00:32:17
Speaker
Professor X doesn't hammer it in. yeah Wild. But Wolverine, of all people, offers consolation and support. He's a sweetheart. He's like, hey, we're all in this together, man.
00:32:31
Speaker
we'll We'll get there. Second, Storm is now the team leader. Hell yeah. Third, Wolverine.
00:32:43
Speaker
He's got a new sleek orange and brown costume. Yes. He's got it's core it's kind of like it adheres closer to the standard X-Men uniform. where It's got like the triangle shape on his chest.
00:32:56
Speaker
Earth tone Wolverine belt. I think we're going to get to one of Wolverine's best looks a little later in this episode. But this is absolutely one of his best looks.
00:33:08
Speaker
You love your love the orange and brown. i love Earth. i I call it more of a golden brown, but... Professor X tries to assign the name Ariel yeah to Kitty. What the fuck?
00:33:20
Speaker
While Storm suggests the much more agreeable Sprite. Also, but what the fuck? and there's I think your name should be Ariel. there's As they're having this discussion...
00:33:34
Speaker
Nightcrawler brings everybody lemonades except for Wolverine. He brings Wolverine a beer because he knows that's all Wolverine can drink. But he hands the lemonade to Xavier as Xavier is saying that he likes the name Sprite. And it's just him looking into the camera, holding up a lemonade and going, i love Sprite. It's like product Wolverine is
00:34:02
Speaker
wolverine calls Professor X Charlie, to which x Xavier says, please ah call me Professor or Professor X or Professor Xavier or even Charles.
00:34:14
Speaker
Just not Charlie. And Wolverine says, sure, Chuck. It's so good. It's sure. It's like. It's a friendlier, like even the panel even the panels are more colorful. It's like a friendlier, lighter X-Men. Like Kitty is already bringing this like lighter tone to the TV. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
ah Xavier's reaction is just like a, it's a scribble. It's just him going. yeah And he's the one who telepathically told Kirk to go get drinks for everybody. He's like being nice. it's true.
00:34:46
Speaker
He saw how. It's like knows he's deeply fucked Yeah, yeah. He saw his value dropping. He said, I got to do, I got to do something to get people to like me again. Gotta get my Q rating back up.
00:34:57
Speaker
Wolverine announces he's taking a trip back to Canada to sort out his beef with Alpha Flight and he urges Nightcrawler to come along. Yes! Buddies. Wolverine, its it's a Logan and Kurt road trip story.
00:35:09
Speaker
Hell yes. What more could you ask for? like Xavier then sends Storm and Sprite. Who? Into the city to meet with Kitty's surprise new dance instructor, a woman named Stevie Hunter. Stevie Hunter is here! Stevie, I don't know Stevie Hunter.
00:35:25
Speaker
ah She's just the dance instructor. i mean, she'll be around forever, but she's just a cool lady. That's all. In a mysterious Canadian city named Ottawa, a woman named Heather Hudson struggles with her groceries as she makes her way up to her apartment. She's caught off guard when the front door is unlocked, knowing her husband James is away on government business.
00:35:49
Speaker
So she bursts into the kitchen, wielding a broom only to face her intruders. Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Oh, she greets her friend Logan with a big hug. And we learn that she's the wife of Alpha Flight's Vindicator.
00:36:07
Speaker
Wolverine cannot help himself. He is always flirting with the girlfriend of his team leader. as As long as that girlfriend has red hair. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:19
Speaker
He grabs into it. He grabs Heather and he calls her sexy. He calls her He her in the air. Tells her she's beautiful when she's angry. yeah She sends the boys up to up north to Hudson Bay to meet with Vindicator and the rest of Alpha Flight.
00:36:34
Speaker
In Hudson Bay? Oh, but pause. Yeah. She also calls him Logan. Right. And yeah I fucking love this running bit, right? Remember, Banshee used to be the guy, but now Banshee's not in the team, so now it's Kurt, and he's like, Wolverine, she called you Logan? And he's like, yep.
00:36:52
Speaker
He's like, is that your name? He's like, yep. He's like, you never told us. And he's like, you never asked.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's a fun, weird attitude thing for him. But come on, man. You never told anybody you're your first name?
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, this isn't like when he never told anybody what his skeleton was made of or that he could speak Japanese. yeah yeah This is his first name. But remember, introduce yourself. But they were on the fucking moon and he was like, oh, there's so much we don't know about you. We'll have to fix that. And then didn't ask him. Oh, yeah. Right. Like, like, it's not entirely. Somebody was like, I don't even know your first name.
00:37:37
Speaker
It'll always be a mystery. Yeah. And also, Heather thinks that Nightcrawler's name is Night Creeper. It's pretty good. the like In Hudson Bay, Shaman, Vindicator, and Snowbird are mapping out the area from their cabin, chasing what they believe to be some giant bear that's been torturing campers in the area.
00:37:58
Speaker
When they're momentarily startled by the arrival of Logan and Kurt, a fight almost breaks out, but calms quickly when the boys offer to help. so Wolverine instantly identifies the description and a large plaster footprint cast as belonging to the Wendigo. Oh, shit.
00:38:20
Speaker
Wolverine recaps his first appearance back in episode 16 of this podcast when he and Hulk fought Wendigo. And Marie Carter saved her brother Paul from the Wendigo's curse by transferring it to Georges Baptiste. Remember?
00:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Wolverine offers to help Alpha Flight track the missing campers and find Wendigo. Nightcrawler, trepidatious but accommodating, agrees to go get their gear from the car, only to come face to face with the Wendigo itself! Oh To be continued.
00:38:54
Speaker
it's i It's the Wendigo. It's the Wendigo. It's going to be a Wendigo issue. All right, fine. I do like seeing Alpha Flight again, and we did learn one interesting thing, which is that it's been months since Gene died.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yes. I'll talk about this a little more towards the end of the episode, but... It's been months and they are still touching on the grief around her death.
00:39:20
Speaker
Like it's still clearly having an impact through the team. It's really, it's really tastefully done. Sure. wasn't little thoughts on the issue I was a little disappointed at the end there when Nightcrawler's like, I'll go get the gear.
00:39:32
Speaker
And he goes out to the truck. And I was like, gear? Both of these guys have all they need in a fight. Like, on them naturally as part of their bodies. What cool fucking invention did they bring up Canada to confront Alpha Flight? And then we cut back to the truck and he's just grabbing sleeping bags.
00:39:53
Speaker
To camp him. They're going camping. It's a road trip with the boys. I also, we touched on it, but I want to touch on it again. okay Ariel, that's the code name you were coming up from for Kitty Pryde? That doesn't, come on Chuck, that's terrible. What does that have to do with anything?
00:40:15
Speaker
This is Three Little Mermaid, too. that's That's right. He's just like, sounds kind of nice. I mean, I guess give you a nice name, ah nice person's name.
00:40:28
Speaker
But there's a character named Ariel in like a like a shakes in the Tempest, right? yeah Yes, but that still doesn't have anything to do with.
00:40:42
Speaker
Okay, in 1965, not that long ago, yeah Ariel is a poem written ah by Sylvia Plath. oh Oh. Okay, yeah, we got it. We got that. That's it. Anything else from you on this?
00:40:59
Speaker
yeah i must I like seeing I like seeing Alpha Flight again. i like it when we get to see Alpha Flight. And I'd like I like to meet Heather Hudson. Heather Hudson's cool. She's a cool character. I like her.
00:41:11
Speaker
I hope we get to see more of her. that's got We won't until. Yeah, I've got a little crush on Heather Hudson. No, I don't think we'll see more of her until we read Alpha Flight.
00:41:21
Speaker
Can't wait for now. Let's move on to uncanny X-Men number 140 rage. Okay. rage ok Chris Claremont, writer, John Byrne, plot and pencils, Terry Austin, inker, Tom Orzakowski, letterer, Glynis Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor and job shooter editor in chief.
00:41:41
Speaker
Interesting. Again, Chris Claremont is just the writer. John Byrne has plot and pencils. Huh? Release date, September 16th, 1980. Cover date, December,
00:41:54
Speaker
We get a checkup on the X-Men living their lives in relative peace. Peter vicariously relives his happy farm boy childhood through pulling stumps out of the untended field behind Xavier Mansion.
00:42:07
Speaker
Okay. Pause. Just like in Stardew Valley. Unpause. I know. Keep it paused. So this is actually ah something that John Burns cites often as one of the reasons he left the X-Men.
00:42:23
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So this scene, the opening to this this issue, where Colossus is smiling and tugging on, like he's got a bunch of chains wrapped around a tree stump and he's pulling it out of the ground. And the next panel, he's sort of leaning back and the stump's coming free. Yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
John Byrne was like, obviously, this is a picture of Colossus easily pulling a stump out of the ground like it didn't, like it wasn't difficult at all. Oh. And then Claremont wrote it as Colossus was struggling really hard with this stump.
00:43:00
Speaker
And eventually, after a hard struggle, it came free.
00:43:07
Speaker
And Byrne, who is the pettiest... Most childish adult on the face of the earth got mad at this and quit the X-Men. Oh my god.
00:43:20
Speaker
And he's still like he was still writing blogs about this in like the early 2000s. And I thought that ah Colossus should have pulled the stump up easily and instead he... That is...
00:43:34
Speaker
not be wrong right colossus can pull a stra full tree out of the ground with relative ease yes that's true we've seen him do it multiple times but still it's just like okay you could imagine okay maybe this tree had strong roots right like some trees are probably harder to pull out of the ground than others yeah yeah fucking john burn grow up he's whenever this is the thing he's a very talented guy But whenever you read John Byrne's opinions about like
00:44:12
Speaker
his like grudges in the comic book world, they're all this stupid. They are all that baby. like like it's i don't even think it's a i don't even think I'm being...
00:44:23
Speaker
because he leaves in three issues I think like right like right after this episode of our podcast, I think John Burnley did not know that. And i think like
00:44:39
Speaker
it sounds mean to call a grown man a baby, but there's no other way to say it. And I hope he hears this. Hey, the man's an artist.
00:44:53
Speaker
So Peter's pulling stumps. ah Warren flies around and complains about Wolverine for some reason. He's yeah dangerous. He's a loose cannon. Wolverine was nice to you, dude. Yeah, he was. Like, what's your fucking problem? There's foundation for this, but okay. And Storm picks up Kitty from her dance class in the big city, revealing that Aurora has some nagging, inherent distrust of Stevie, Kitty's dance teacher.
00:45:21
Speaker
Something going on here. Yeah, it seems like it's just like they she has some sort of rivalry. Like, oh, this person... but She is getting close to Kitty. My, my surrogate daughter.
00:45:35
Speaker
Overall, though, everyone back home seems to be doing okay. Also, Kitty phases through the door of the Rolls Royce. Right. And we know what her phasing does to electronics. So I just imagine Storm being like, damn it, Kitty.
00:45:51
Speaker
Now the fucking... Automatic windows don't work. These are the first automatic windows ever invented. But overall, everyone back home seems to be doing okay. Not Nightcrawler, though.
00:46:03
Speaker
We cut back to Canada, where he's going toe-to-toe with Wendigo alone. Unfamiliar with his surroundings, he can only teleport so far without the risk of materializing inside of a tree.
00:46:17
Speaker
he He lets us know it would be a pretty graphic death. i But how funny would it be? the moments before Nightcrawler dies when he's waddling up to you and he's like half tree. He's got a tree in the middle of him. Help me. He's just like, Hey, yeah help it hurt.
00:46:39
Speaker
Kurt's nimble, but Wendigo is quicker and knocks him right into the cabin where Wolverine, Vindicator, Snowbird, and Shaman are trying to formulate a plan to find Wendigo.
00:46:52
Speaker
Hey, Pat, is this funny? Wolverine says, ah i researched Wendy after the last time we tussled. And he says it's in quotations. And I wrote, ah Wolverine, maybe should have tried searching Wendigo instead.
00:47:08
Speaker
yeah what are you looking for? the The mystery of square burgers?
00:47:14
Speaker
but yeah What, are looking for some ah subpar fries? Maybe type Wendigo in your search engine. engine yeah Yes, Matt, I think that's very funny.
00:47:26
Speaker
Thank you. Chaos breaks loose. Wendigo throws a truck at the gang, causing a fire to break out. Vindicator gets a few good blasts in before getting knocked aside, and Snowbird transforms into a snow owl to tend to him.
00:47:39
Speaker
Is her power just that she turns into white animals? yeah Kind of. She can turn into any animal that is native to Canada. Okay. Okay.
00:47:52
Speaker
So she yeah they all chooses only white animals. they are They all have to be white, right? like So if she so she changes into a moose, it's going to white An albino moose.
00:48:05
Speaker
ah Shaman prioritizes putting out the forest fire as Wendigo escapes into the woods, leaving Wolverine and Snowbird to team up and pursue him. Snowbird makes a point of telling Wolverine she does not like him.
00:48:20
Speaker
again rude why is everybody being so mean to wolverine what did he do to you he's being so kind to everyone in this ah this issue too right she's just like i don't like you but i'll save you just like stop as they're teaming up they're like okay i guess it's just the two of us left and she's like yeah but you should know I don't care for you. like, no wonder he's such a grumpy guy. Like when he tries to be nice, everybody just constantly tells them him how much they hate him.
00:48:51
Speaker
We take a very brief trip back in time to reveal that Vindicator and Mrs. Vindicator were the ones that found Wolverine half dead in the Canadian wilderness and nursed him back to health.
00:49:03
Speaker
They were his most trusted confidants and he revealed to them alone how much he hated being an agent of death for the Canadian government. that'll never get subverted in later continuity, I'm sure. Back to the present, though.
00:49:17
Speaker
Wolverine and Snowbird catch up to Wendigo right in time to find him discovering the Parnells' hiding place. The Parnells, I don't think we mentioned this. Parnells are the family that the Wendigo is currently trying to find and kill for some reason.
00:49:31
Speaker
He already captured. The Wendigo already captured them and put them in his, like, little cave. Oh. And Wolverine is like, they're probably not dead because Wendigos like to eat their meat fresh. Wolverine, seeing this, snaps into action, stabbing Wendigo real good, and then guiding the family to safety.
00:49:48
Speaker
But while Wolverine's back is turned, Wendigo grabs him and brutally slams him around. This is Matt. He is getting like like ah the first Avengers movie Hulk to Loki, like just slammed by his leg into the ground. yeah yeah It looks...
00:50:11
Speaker
bad even with his adamantium skeleton he can't take much more of this but who should pop or bamf in at that very moment but nightcrawler oh i have no idea oh he's brought a big stick and a second wind and is able to pull wendigo away from wolverine and into the remaining alpha flight members Wendigo's staggered, but not beaten, and Snowbird knows what she has to do.
00:50:38
Speaker
She transforms into a white wolverine and goes absolutely ham on him. Claremont takes this moment to explain to us what a wolverine is, in case we've been confused about Logan's codename.
00:50:51
Speaker
Like, all this time. It's funny. It's such a silly idea. Like, ok The guy named Wolverine who has unbreakable metal claws and a healing factor, and he's a mutant, so he's probably stronger and faster than an average human being. And he's got military training and samurai training. He doesn't do that well against a show.
00:51:16
Speaker
But something that's supposed to be a literal the animal Wolverine destroys this thing. Hey, they're dangerous.
00:51:27
Speaker
This means that Wolverine would lose a fight to a Wolverine.
00:51:32
Speaker
That's good point. the transitive property. It's also, it's a white Wolverine. i I'm pretty sure regular colored Wolverines are native to Canada.
00:51:44
Speaker
Well, that's again, again, she can turn into anything. that It's just, it has to be white. It turns, she, she can't, she can't change her color.
00:51:55
Speaker
She can only change her shape. She can't or she won't, Matt? I... You'd have to ask her. Two problems remain. Wendigo is only unconscious and will be awake again in only a few hours.
00:52:09
Speaker
And Snowbird seems to have lost control of her feral animal form and can't change back. Shaman steps in for the first issue, performing a ritual to remove the curse of the Wendigo, while Wolverine channels Scott Summers, remembering his conversation with Gene during the Dark Phoenix saga, to help Snowbird calm down and take back control over consciousness.
00:52:31
Speaker
Yeah, like explicitly. It's like, I gotta remember what Scott did. Everyone's successful. Yay! A few notable things happen in the epilogue. Kurt and Logan have a deep conversation about the ethics of violence, and It's a really powerful insight into both characters. I think Kurt is very much just like, hey, don't kill people. You shouldn't kill people.
00:52:53
Speaker
And Wolverine saying like, hey, everything I did, I regretted, but was also in self-defense. I'm not just a maniac. Right. And Kurt asks him if that makes it OK. It's really interesting.
00:53:06
Speaker
Like that this is the thing between them. They don't agree, but they understand each other. Yeah. Yeah. And they respect each other. Vindicator meets with another crude portrayal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
00:53:16
Speaker
hate this guy. Who informs him that the Canadian government can no longer employ Alpha Flight. Uh ah Finally, we see a prisoner in a supposedly inescapable prison after a meeting with his new lawyer.
00:53:33
Speaker
escape his cell. What's worse, it's the blob. Uh-oh! He's off to thank the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for his escape.
00:53:48
Speaker
Uh-oh! What do you think of this issue, Patrick? ah
00:53:55
Speaker
i I kind of don't like Wendigo stuff. it's the That's the thing. And this is... i think this covers both... issues is yeah, Wendigo is just like a throwaway villain.
00:54:07
Speaker
You'd think he'd be more of a constant threat with his power level, but maybe that's just Canada business and we don't get to see that. Maybe this is what Alpha Flight's doing every week.
00:54:19
Speaker
What I'm realizing because of that is like There's a lot of stories here where the villain just doesn't matter. Like we're still getting good comics here. We get that really great conversation between and Logan. We get a ton of Wolverine's character development, just finding a little bit about his past and marrying that to his current actions and just figuring out what motivates him ah and really turning more into the sort of like assassin with a heart of golds.
00:54:50
Speaker
It's also this issue is also like a lot more bright and exciting. It's as if Chris Claremont is is seeing if he can take the X-Men. He's like, OK, I realized I can do dark and grim.
00:55:05
Speaker
Now, let's see if I can do bright and exciting, but keep the same level of maturity. Yeah, yeah. Which and he's succeeding very well could be Burns plotting credits here, right?
00:55:19
Speaker
That could be too. Yeah. All right, Pat. I want to, you know what I want to tell you about? This is a legendary X-Men story. It's called the Dark Phoenix Saga. It starts with two people. Buckle up, folks. We've got three hours of content to come.
00:55:37
Speaker
It's the day. It's Uncanny X-Men number 141. Days of future past. Yeah. I call it Doff Doff.
00:55:47
Speaker
You've always called it that. All right. This is written by Chris Claremont and drawn by John Byrne, both co-plotters. Terry Austin inked it. Tom Orsakowski lettered it. Glynis Ween colored it. Louise Jones edited it. And there's Jomp Shooter, editor-in-chiefing the whole thing.
00:56:03
Speaker
This was released on October 21st, 1980, and was cover dated January 1981. We're in 1981, folks. cover dateated january nineteen eighty one we're in nineteen eighty one folks eighty s
00:56:17
Speaker
We open on Kate Pride. Interesting. In a metal collar and jumpsuit monogrammed with a big M running down a dark dilapidated Park Avenue. Huh?
00:56:31
Speaker
The narrator welcomes us to the 21st century. Whoa. It's 2013.
00:56:37
Speaker
it's twenty thirteen Whoa.
00:56:42
Speaker
Could you even imagine such a futuristic time? Give it some time. This could still happen. So New York and the rest of the country, hell, the rest of the world is in a same the same rundown post-apocalyptic shape.
00:56:57
Speaker
Kitty wishes that her meeting location with Logan could be in a safer place. Logan. but acknowledges that safe places are few and far between these days.
00:57:08
Speaker
By Kitty, we, again, we mean Kate pride, this futuristic Kate pride. A trap door opens under her. Suddenly, she's surrounded by, quote, rogues. It's like a gang called the Rogues.
00:57:20
Speaker
Violent, anarchistic street punks that hate mutants and sentinel tyrants alike. They promise to make her death slow and painful. She starts fighting back, but knows she won't last long, revealing that the collar she's forced to wear suppresses her mutant powers.
00:57:35
Speaker
that The rogues move in threatening to flay Kate alive, but we hear a familiar... No, you're not, bub. What's your best Wolverine?
00:57:47
Speaker
No, you're not, bub. Okay. it As Logan appears in the doorway, looking fucking sick as hell, he's growing at the temples.
00:57:58
Speaker
Matt, this is the look I'm going to start going for. It is a fur lined jacket with gray graying at the temples and tight jeans. Black t-shirt, tight jeans, a leather bomber jacket. And it's the the wings at your temples, the white, yeah know white temples, the Reed Richards.
00:58:19
Speaker
That is my dream. I'm going to start dressing like this.
00:58:25
Speaker
He makes light work of ah big Alex, Robbo and George. Sorry. Big Alex. What? Big Alex, loser league candidate.
00:58:36
Speaker
Immediately, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would get along so well with Rock and Redbone. Yes, they would love him. Yeah. Revealing along the way that he doesn't dare pop his claws as it would reveal that he's in town to the Sentinels that patrol the city. What?
00:58:54
Speaker
Kate asks him about his time with the Canadian Resistance. and then takes the package from him, a receiver that Logan needs her to sneak back into the prison she's confined in.
00:59:05
Speaker
The narrator finally gives us some more context. In North America, in the year 2013, there are three classes of people. H, for baseline human. A, for anomalous human, which means you're a human, but you have mutant genetic potential in you. You're not allowed to breed.
00:59:23
Speaker
Ugh. um M for mutants. You're the bottom of the heap. You're made pariahs and outcasts by the Mutant Control Act of 1988.
00:59:32
Speaker
Hunted down and with few rare exceptions, killed without mercy. In the quarter century since the act's passage, millions have died. They were the lucky ones.
00:59:43
Speaker
Whew. Kate returns to the prison from her errand required to walk through the graveyard of friends to return to the building. This was so sad. Like they the entrance to the prison, the the prisoner entrance when you have to run an errand for the Sentinels is to walk through the graveyard of all the heroes the Sentinels killed.
01:00:04
Speaker
So yeah, you see skit Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Charles x Xavier, They got the whole Fantastic Four, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, Reed Richards, Susan Richards.
01:00:15
Speaker
They got Warren Worthington, Lorna Dane, Bobby Drake, Hank McCoy. Who was that last one? I don't know. It's someone. There's some that I can't make out. looks like Mary Poppins.
01:00:26
Speaker
It's like it says Mary Poppins. She's pretty powerful. They would want to take her out. Also, Kate Pride is riding on a horse-drawn bus. yeah Which is interesting.
01:00:37
Speaker
What point is vengeance against an unfeeling machine? She ponders back in prison. She meets up with her surviving friends, Aurora, Peter, Franklin, Richards,
01:00:49
Speaker
A telepathic telekinetic named Rachel. Never heard of her. And Magneto. They talk of undoing the fabric of reality, risking the past they've built for themselves, including the marriage of Peter and Kitty. Kitty reveals that the Sentinels even took the children they had together. What the fuck are they getting up to here?
01:01:10
Speaker
Franklin Richards pops the receiver from Logan into a device and suddenly the group's power suppressing collars are inert. We see Kate lying back, Rachel's hands upon her head, and they begin this phase of the plan. Suddenly, Kate is entranced, her soul flung out across the abyss of eternity.
01:01:29
Speaker
It's Friday, October 31st, Halloween, 1980, just days before a presidential election and the X-Men are training in the danger room. Kitty gets her very first danger room test and she passes with ease. Everyone's very proud. ah But before she can walk out of the room, she too feels her soul flung out across the abyss of eternity.
01:01:51
Speaker
Everybody's getting their soul flung out across the abyss of eternity. and It's this test. Yeah, it is insane that they're like, hey, Kitty, it's your first time. So you're probably going to be nervous, but just know that none of this stuff can actually hurt you. we have full control.
01:02:08
Speaker
They send her through two metal walls that are collapsing on each other. i think She's dead if she doesn't phase through.
01:02:19
Speaker
I think it's supposed to be clear that there are like cushions on the edges of these walls. But what's that going to do? Yeah, she's still she's still dead in that instance.
01:02:30
Speaker
She walks through this whole thing with her eyes closed and it makes the X-Men laugh. And it's very cool. It is cute. Very cute. All right. So she gets her soul also across the abyss of eternity.
01:02:43
Speaker
The X-Men only see her pass out and back in the medilab determine there's nothing actually wrong with her aside from a more complex brain pattern. Yes. Wolverine says she smells like a woman.
01:02:57
Speaker
Also, Wolverine is reading her brainwaves. At one point, he's like, this is too much for me. I wish the professor was here. But he's still he's getting some pretty intense readings off of her brain waves.
01:03:09
Speaker
He's the tech expert. Yeah, he's like this. ah These ah look like her brain patterns, but more complex. And she smells like a woman. She comes to and is immediately overcome with emotion, seeing her friends that just moments ago had been dead for years.
01:03:27
Speaker
She explains to the X-Men that she's actually her 2013 transported into her 1980 body to help save the future. My God.
01:03:39
Speaker
She explains to the stunned faces of the team that today the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants will assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, a presidential candidate that believes in mutant registration, triggering the oppressive Sentinel World future she comes from.
01:03:57
Speaker
Kelly's very public murder sways the country's opinion, gaining support for mutant registration and sentinel patrols and electing an extremist anti-mutant candidate in 1984.
01:04:09
Speaker
here' The sentinels eventually. There's some really chilling stuff here when they cut to that 1984 election and the candidate is standing in front of this huge banner that says 1984.
01:04:21
Speaker
it's nineteen eighty four do you know what your kids are?
01:04:27
Speaker
that aside from being like a a take on the it's 11 p.m do you know where your kids are yeah commercial like psa that was storming the airwaves at that time this rings so familiar with the present day the present did the fight for gay rights that you and i saw as we grew up and now the present day for trans rights of just like That's what sprung into my head immediately, this fight for transplants. Yeah, yeah. Is this idea of, like, you have to gain control over your what what your children are.
01:05:03
Speaker
Yeah. And this idea that your child, like, just being a different type of person than you could make them dangerous and a terrorist.
01:05:18
Speaker
Right? like Yeah, yeah. Legitimately, we just saw... In the United States, a assassination that was blamed on the transgender movement, a very public assassination blamed on the transgender movement. And they are trying to do this in the United States to death. Like, yeah, as we're talking about this. There are people that could be these people in this comic having conversations these people could be having.
01:05:48
Speaker
Oh, the guy, holding there's a guy holding up a newspaper and it says Senator Kelly's assassins colon mutants. And literally there were newspapers that were like, yes, Charlie Kirk's assassin trans roommate question mark.
01:06:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's gross. And here it is in 1980 projecting into 1984 and projecting the consequences into 2013. And we're 2025 and we, yeah, we still see this exact same thing.
01:06:18
Speaker
It's it's really hard to. it was really hard to read this part. Yeah. Knowing. And this is the moment specifically the moment we are in like this month.
01:06:30
Speaker
And this is like five panels, too. This is just showing the passage of time. And yeah, really kind of nails. I mean, we're already talking eugenics, but really nails the the path to to get there.
01:06:43
Speaker
Well, think one of the thing ah things about the Trump administration that has been so shocking to people is I think when people – people always sort of imagined that when fascism would come for the United States, that it would be done subtly.
01:07:00
Speaker
would be done sneakily. would be done in so sort of these – through these back channels. We didn't think that it would happen in these incredibly overt – transparent ways yeah yeah that have been represented in fiction for decades and that like directly and immediately mirror things that the Nazis tried or Joseph McCarthy did. yeah Right. Like these were things that it was like, okay, history has settled these questions.
01:07:36
Speaker
McCarthy isn't bad. Nazis and bad. It's not that those forces have gone away forever, but you probably won't see them in this form ever again because we all know what they are.
01:07:50
Speaker
We all know what we would immediately. We'd look at it and go, oh, that's Nazism. Oh, that's McCarthyism. Obviously. Yeah. Or, oh, that's the fucking plot of Days of Future Past. they They didn't eat it the way a comic book villain does it.
01:08:03
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yes. The Sentinels, they eventually take over. They destroy the country in pursuit of mutants, killing them or delivering them to prison labor camps.
01:08:15
Speaker
Having taken all of North America, the Sentinels have turned their eyes upon Europe, who are ready to launch a full nuclear strike on the U.S. to prevent the same thing from happening to them. The team is skeptical of her story, but figure it's at least worth checking out.
01:08:31
Speaker
The X-Men are going to D.C. Yeehaw. Yeah, because Professor X is there and they're like, hey, just in case she's right, let's be there. But also Professor X will be able to scan her brain and be like, is this true?
01:08:45
Speaker
but Professor, what she's saying true? Hey, excuse me, Professor. know you're talking to a senator. but but is she lying? This 13 year old girl might be lying to us.
01:08:59
Speaker
back to the future where logan peter aurora and franklin sneak through an old subway tunnel on their way back to sentinel hq baxter building what the fuck magneto were told sacrificed his life to help them escape the prison he eyes off screen that's crazy in a terrifying series of panels The roof is torn off the tunnel and Franklin Richards, little baby Franklin Richards, at this point, he's like a little baby.
01:09:31
Speaker
He's like a little toddler who's in the Fantastic Four comics being cute. Like that's his number one present trait. Yeah. Or 1980. He's eviscerated by a blast of light here.
01:09:43
Speaker
He's gone in an instant. Sentinels tower over the hole in the roof, giving the team the option to surrender or face immediate termination. This was terrifying. I'm feeling a lot of things in this issue. This was terrifying.
01:09:57
Speaker
Like just... Yeah. yeah they it is very graphically illustrated, the ah the vaporization of Franklin Richards. And then we cut to just this impossible sense of scale where these...
01:10:11
Speaker
these sentinels seem, are towering over. They seem like they're 10 stories tall. Yeah. Yeah. they fight, defeating the small pack of sentinels that found them, but knowing they're more close behind.
01:10:26
Speaker
Back to 1980. The Pentagon. A white-skinned, black-haired woman i named Raven... Why would you have to mention
01:10:36
Speaker
I don't know. don't know. It's just, it was written here. I wonder why... A white-skinned, black-haired woman named Raven Darkholm walks down a hallway, barking orders at high-ranking military officers along the way. She slips into a private room, immediately transforming into a blue-skinned, red-haired woman in a super villainous dress.
01:10:58
Speaker
She's better known as Mystique. Whoa. In this private room waits the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that she leads. Avalanche, Pyro, Destiny, and the only returning brother, Blob.
01:11:12
Speaker
They bicker before Mystique pulls them together as it's time to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly. So we've got some first appearances here, Patrick. really do. And some cool power sets, too.
01:11:25
Speaker
So we've got Mystique. Yeah. Metamorph. She was a Miss Marvel villain created by Chris Claremont in 1979. She's only ever had about four appearances before this issue.
01:11:38
Speaker
It's every time we see every time Chris Claremont invents a character, they're going to make an appearance in the X-Men. Yeah, exactly. Next we have Avalanche. Tell us about Avalanche.
01:11:51
Speaker
Avalanche destroys inorganic material by touching it. He seems to be able to do it across distances too, because that the narrator tells us he has to touch it, but then he immediately like the next panel destroys something he's not touching.
01:12:07
Speaker
He also, it seemed like he seems to have focused this power to be able to sort of like create ripples in the ground. Yes. Yeah. I think. Something like that.
01:12:18
Speaker
Something like that. All right. Pyro. What's Pyro's whole frigging deal? ah Pyro. He makes fire, right? No. Matt. What? Pyro controls fire.
01:12:29
Speaker
he can't make it himself. What? Also, it's I'm pretty sure he just controls fire, but in these issues, he is able to make it a solid object that can grab people and punch people.
01:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, he does that a little bit.
01:12:50
Speaker
Destiny. Destiny. i Yeah. Who's she? This is, think, really cool. She is able to see just moments into the future. She can see the thing that's about to happen and it comes into play. It's really cool.
01:13:06
Speaker
And she wears like this a golden mask across her face at all times. Yeah, yeah. It's got a good look. All right. So these are the this is the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
01:13:17
Speaker
Cut to Capitol Hill, where Kelly is grilling Charles Xavier and Moira McTaggart on why mutants should have rights. This is so fucked up. Also, he is like piecing the floor and grilling them like they're witnesses on a ah court stand.
01:13:36
Speaker
Like it's yeah not a trial. yeah yeah And he's just like, well, should they be treated like people? I don't know, he's asking Xavier and Moira, like, who know maybe they should all be confined to prison camps.
01:13:53
Speaker
I'm just asking questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Xavier senses the X-Men sneaking into the back of the room, and upon reading Kitty's mind, verifies with a stunned look of realization that Kitty has been telling the truth.
01:14:05
Speaker
She is, indeed, 2013 her transported into her 1980 body. Before anyone knows what to do next, in burst the new brotherhood and only the X-Men stand between them and Senator Kelly to be continued.
01:14:25
Speaker
Fuck, dude. So much happens. Right. What a long recap. I feel like you probably could have cut a couple pieces out there, Matt, but...
01:14:38
Speaker
Moira's dressed like Daphne from Scooby-Doo, by the way. She is. She's always got a look. She's always serving. So couple of things. They talk about the Senator Kelly is like, how ah or what did the Neanderthals feel about the Crow Magnans? and Raven Darkholm, Mystique, walks in and she's like, well, I'm about to do to you what the Crow Magnans did to the Neanderthals.
01:15:07
Speaker
ah um there breed breed with him breed breed with you're uh here now did they think that there was like a great war between the different phases of man i legitimately think that for a long time people did believe that um and that That like, oh, when a new type of man came along, they fought and fought until they were all, until only one was alive. Like, that's literally what people thought Darwin meant.
01:15:45
Speaker
The survival of the fittest is when all the birds fight all the bugs.
01:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, that's not, that's not how it happened. um In case you listening at home didn't know. because yeah this X-Men does make it confusing. Like, sometimes, like, this is not the only time the X-Men sort of parrot that weird, like, 1800s idea of evolution.
01:16:18
Speaker
Overall, dude, I was like, and you and I were talking about this off air a little bit. I don't listen to him. I don't talk to Pat off air. The story...
01:16:30
Speaker
is a a pretty popular one The general framing of it is fairly familiar, especially since the Days of Future Past movie, which gets every detail wrong here. But i does And in a way in a way that I think undermines the details. Like, I'm not i'm not a big, the comic book movie should be exactly like the comic books. Like, I'm not that kind of guy, right?
01:16:55
Speaker
But they clearly switched out some characters to to help with ah popularity. not and it And I think, like, legitimately undermined some of the impact. And I feel the same way. I know you feel differently. I feel this the same way about the Dark Phoenix saga.
01:17:13
Speaker
don't feel that too. Okay. You said it was your favorite movie of all time. No, I think you're misunderstanding. I cut it out of the last episode because the last episode was too long. But in the last episode, everybody, Pat said that Dark Phoenix Saga was his favorite movie of all I didn't.
01:17:28
Speaker
And also you're thinking of X-Men Last Stand.
01:17:34
Speaker
But what I'm trying what i'm trying to say, Matt, is please God, get to it already. I tried to go into this without all that context of like the movie or the other times we've seen this future and and things that play out in it.
01:17:50
Speaker
And the way they piece together... or the way they make you piece together what's happening here is really incredible. The pacing of the reveals here all the way up until what is about two thirds of the way through the issue when Kitty is finally like, look, there's going to be an assassination.
01:18:09
Speaker
i was sent here from the future, but I'm here or inhabiting my past selves body. All of that doesn't make any sense. It's just, you have to, i mean, it makes some narrative sense, but it's, it's,
01:18:23
Speaker
Just this loose, like, oh my God, how did the apocalypse happen? Jump into action until ah until they finally reveal it.
01:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, i think it's I think it's fairly well done. I find this issue a little slow and I think maybe it's for that reason, right? Like I already knew this story, not just this time reading it. Like I've known this story for a long time and known the differences between the published story and the retellings of it on the cartoon or yeah whatever, like well before it's the same thing of like, I knew the mastermind twist in dark Phoenix saga. Yeah.
01:19:07
Speaker
before I read Dark Phoenix Saga. There are some things that are very, like you're saying, masterfully done. But I think, like, I didn't, I never got to have the full impact of, unfortunately.
01:19:20
Speaker
Is there anything else stupid here? They mentioned the champions. They do mention the champions. They mention Mutant Menace. They say Mutant Menace a bunch of times. It's to the point where I don't think we can catch every mention of it anymore.
01:19:34
Speaker
Also, they mentioned, did we already know this, Moira won a Nobel Prize?
01:19:41
Speaker
When did that happen?
01:19:45
Speaker
ah Oh, just in between the last two issues. No, I i don't know. I don't think they mentioned it, but like I'm not surprised. And for what? For imprisoning genetic keep in imprisoning people for their entire lives without ever giving them any human contact?
01:20:01
Speaker
I don't know how many people know about that. Why would they give her a rep prize for that? ah Yeah, it seems like they shouldn't have a Nobel Prize for a human imprisonment.
Uncanny X-Men #142 and Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
01:20:15
Speaker
On to Uncanny X-Men number 142, Mind Out of Time. okay Chris Claremont and John Byrne, writer, co-plotters, and penciler, respectively. Terry Austin, inker, Glynis Ween, colorist, Tom Orszakowski, letterer, Louise Jones, editor.
01:20:33
Speaker
Jump Shooter is also still here. Release date November 18th, 1980. do you keep letting him in? Cover date February 1981. In the X-Men face off against the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in the U.S. Senate.
01:20:50
Speaker
Senator Kelly tries to send a cop against the blob with predictable results, while the rest of the X-Men are upended by a tidal wave of wood and rock courtesy of Avalanche.
01:21:00
Speaker
This is a funny this this beginning when they're facing off all the X-Men are like angry right like because it's the all the new X-Men and they're like they're like oh I'm gonna we're gonna crush these guys who are determined I'm gonna crush them and then Warren's just smiling his dumb smile guys he's like hey this is what we do this is what we do we get in big fights isn't this fun everybody it's like a senator's gonna get killed the world is about to end you fucking dope When Nightcrawler tries to use a flurry of teleport punches against Avalanche, Destiny tells him exactly where to punch and he catches Kurt off guard.
01:21:38
Speaker
Pyro blasts fire from his wrist-mounted flamethrower and, using his power over living flame, wraps a giant talon of fire around Colossus. Storm puts it out with a click blast of rain, also stopping Wolverine from killing Pyro in front of the entire U.S. Senate.
01:21:56
Speaker
Smart idea. She's the leader. Still distracted from probing Kate pride's futuristic mind. Professor X allows he and Moira to be led away from the battle by a security guard who turns out to be mystique.
01:22:11
Speaker
No, yes, them both and confers with destiny who tells her that the addition of a new random factor has made it impossible to read their futures and nothing is certain. oh In 2013, the older versions of Wolverine, Colossus, and Storm, along with mysterious Rachel and the unconscious body of Kate Pride, plan a raid on the Sentinel's main headquarters, the Baxter Building.
01:22:35
Speaker
Storm zaps the Sentinel's standing guard outside, and while Rachel stays... Sorry, I have to interrupt here because ah there's a very funny part where Wolverine's like, we're storms about to take out this guard.
01:22:46
Speaker
And Wolverine's like, good luck. And she's like, i haven't believed in luck since my parents died in front of me when I was a small child. ah It's like, yeah, it's 30 years later and you're still doing this story.
01:23:01
Speaker
He just said, good luck. All he said was good luck. You could just said, thanks. Like, you don't have to. Okay. This is her being like, I would have saved anybody. Not just you.
01:23:12
Speaker
Like, okay, all right. Storm zaps the Sentinel standing guard outside, and while Rachel stays behind to watch Kate's body, the other three press on into the building, headed for the roof.
01:23:25
Speaker
Back in 1980, the X-Men are losing against the Brotherhood, and Storm is taking it hard. In an attempt to regain the upper hand, she blasts the entire crew out of the side of the building with hurricane winds.
01:23:38
Speaker
Outside, the army's special weapons team has arrived, and as Blob and Colossus pound on each other, Colossus takes a full-on blast in the chest from a concussive laser cannon.
01:23:49
Speaker
cool arm Cool, army! Cool! Good job! The fight carries on with the X-Men trying to divert the Brotherhood's attention away from the army, but taking considerable damage in the process.
01:24:00
Speaker
When, at one point, Mystique takes the form of Nightcrawler and no one can tell which is which, Wolverine begins advancing on with his claws and when Storm stands in his way for a second time.
01:24:11
Speaker
After a brief standoff, Wolverine agrees to sheath his claws, but tells Aurora that this conversation is not over. yeah Another great example of him respecting earned authority and saying like, okay, I won't stab anybody Yet.
01:24:28
Speaker
Right.
01:24:32
Speaker
Then the fight hits a major turning point when Colossus decides to use Wolverine's body as a fulcrum for a giant steel I-beam ah launch the blob into the air, then punching him into Avalanche. He punches him right in the butt, Matt.
01:24:50
Speaker
He punches him in the butt. And this is the stupidest thing. Like, he has Wolverine kneel down. And then he puts a big steel eye beam over Wolverine's back.
01:25:02
Speaker
And then he puts it under, he sneaks it under Blob's gooch. And then he stomps on it. So Blob goes flying and then punches him in the butt at Avalanche.
01:25:14
Speaker
it's it's It's like all of a sudden we're back in 1967.
01:25:19
Speaker
And Wolverine, while it's happening, is like, this is a great idea. He's using physics. He knows that my sketle my skeleton is made of metal.
01:25:30
Speaker
Oh, boy. a Storm creates a monsoon over Pyro's head, dousing his flames, and the real Nightcrawler knocks Mystique to the ground. Mystique reveals that she knows Kurt Wagner's real name, as well as the name of his adoptive mother, Margulies Zardos.
01:25:48
Speaker
What? And as this sets Kurt reeling, she disappears into the crowd. The X-Men begin... What the fuck? I know. You've got roots, Matt. The X-Men begin celebrating their victory until they realize that Destiny and Sprite are both missing.
01:26:03
Speaker
In 2013, the old X-Men reach the Sentinel's lab and Colossus... did like the past. The aged X-Men, not the older version of the X-Men. Wait, they're in the past. The new X-Men, who are old now. Wait.
01:26:16
Speaker
In 2013. Okay. In the future. 2013, the future. They reach the Sentinel's lab and Colossus' fastball specials Wolverine into the back of a Sentinel. We get an old man fastball special. It's really good.
01:26:30
Speaker
But it turns around at the last second and fries literally all of the flesh off of Logan's skeleton. Unbelievable. It clangs lifeless to the ground.
01:26:42
Speaker
Storm reacts in rage, failing to notice a new squad of sentinels entering the room, allowing herself to be impaled. As she falls, dead, ah Colossus lashes out, throwing the robot through the wall of the building.
01:26:56
Speaker
Down on the street, Rachel clutches Kate's unconscious body and cries as she feels each of her friends die telepathically and hopes her friend is faring better in the past.
01:27:10
Speaker
This is... rough In 1980, Destiny has cornered Senator Kelly in his office with a hand crossbow. She's only a pre-con, so she's got to use crossbows.
01:27:22
Speaker
She's got to use a crossbow. and she was she She bought it at the Renaissance Fair. However, a moment before she pulls the trigger, Kate Pride runs through her, knocking her off balance due to her nature as a temporal anomaly, and the bolt misses.
01:27:38
Speaker
At that moment, Kate's consciousness leaves Kitty's body. The X-Men leave and wonder aloud if their actions have actually changed the future at all. In an epilogue, one month later, Sebastian Shaw and Robert Kelly meet with the president in secret. Now, this time, Matt, because if this comes out before, i i or I should say it comes out right after the 1980 election, but would have been drawn before they had any idea who the next president was, he's just shrouded in shadow. It's just a shady man.
01:28:10
Speaker
So they don't know that it was obviously...
01:28:15
Speaker
Ronald Reagan. and Ronald, I said that. I was saying that. You didn't give me enough time. Publicly, the president says he will have to reject Senator Kelly's proposal due to the actions of the X-Men.
01:28:26
Speaker
Ronald Reagan said that? But secretly... He's launching a new Sentinel project called Project Wide Awake, spearheaded by a man named Henry Peter Gyrick.
01:28:38
Speaker
Whoa. Wait. Now that's a name I've heard. We don't know that. We haven't heard that name in this podcast, I don't think. Have we? I don't think so either. No, I tried to find it. and Pat, who's Henry Peter Gyrick?
01:28:51
Speaker
He's a bad dude. i All right. That's all you need to know. I believe he was part of like Iron Man or the Avengers prior to this. Right. He has history prior to this comic.
01:29:05
Speaker
Yeah. So he as far as i know, he was the Avengers liaison to the White House. i I don't know how, like when we see his face here, we're supposed to be like, it's supposed to be reveal.
01:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know if it's because he was some sort of villain at this point or if it's just. We need weapon Jason. Yeah. Yeah. Weapon Jason or anybody that knows we've got a lot of emailers these days, Matt, but that's true. We got a lot more email. yeah So yeah, I like, I know where the story of Henry Peter Guyrick goes and I know where it starts.
01:29:41
Speaker
I won't say how it how how it is progressed on into the future, but there's clearly something between that origin and this issue that I don't know. So that's Days of Future Past. That's it. it yeah got ah whole It's whole... It's one of the most famous X-Men stories of all
X-Men Annual #4 - Nightcrawler's Inferno Adventure
01:30:00
Speaker
time. it's like one of the biggest X-Men stories of all time. And it's two fucking issues long. two issues. Two regular size 18 page comic issues.
01:30:09
Speaker
yeah There is a very fun moment that I can't move past Wolverine when they're entering the Baxter building is able to hack the private elevator that I guess even the Sentinels don't know about because he has an electric I-beam belt buckle, which on its own is wild and has to be part of the new Wolverine outfit that I'm putting together for myself.
01:30:33
Speaker
But also, it just shoots out a yellow beam from... his waist leans back grabs his waist it really looks like he's just pissing on the elevator to make it work hey hey it works we also we get a mention of where this is the wording they use wolverine's mutant fast healing ability clear as day here they have only sort of toyed with it in the past but this is them officially being like yes he heals as part of his mutant powers
01:31:05
Speaker
Instead of him just being like, I heal real fast. I heal fast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I guess it is. Yeah. This is more explicit. I've been waiting for that moment. Okay. So Matt, that's the end of days of future past. Is that a is that all we have today?
01:31:23
Speaker
Pretty major. It is not Patrick. In fact, we missed an issue. Oh, is that why I read X-Men Annual number four?
01:31:34
Speaker
You mean Nightcrawler's Inferno? Yes. Let me tell you all about what you just read. It's written by Chris Claremont. It's drawn by John Romita Jr. and Bob McCloud.
01:31:46
Speaker
John Romita? Lettered by Tom Orszakowski. Colored by Glynis Ween. Edited by Louise Jones. Jump Shooters there. Release date August 5th, 1980. Cover November Listen, man.
01:32:01
Speaker
It's Kurt Wagner's 21st birthday. What? He's only 21? That's what his cake says. And the X-Men celebrate by eating and drinking and exchanging presents.
01:32:14
Speaker
Kurt opens up a mysterious box without a label containing a crystal figure of himself. When he touches it, it explodes in a black cloud and Kurt falls unconscious.
01:32:26
Speaker
After some time, Aurora and Xavier come out to the anxiously awaiting X-Men and inform them that Kurt Rupert, Kurt Wagner, is no longer alive.
01:32:38
Speaker
What? He's dead? his but His body lives, but there's no mind, soul, or life force left within him. Oh. As a last-ditch effort, like Xavier calls Doctor Strange.
01:32:53
Speaker
After a quick examination with the Eye of Agamotto, Strange determines that Nightcrawler is under an enchantment and his soul has been stolen. While Strange determines that whatever did this is not evil, interestingly enough, he also notices some kind of spirit in the room.
01:33:09
Speaker
This is already getting nuts. Right. Well, you know it's wild when Doctor Strange shows It's a floating green woman's head with horns who identifies itself as Margali of the Winding Road.
01:33:29
Speaker
In moments, it releases a bunch of oozy tentacles and sucks Strange and all the X-Men, save Kitty and and Xavier, threw into some black void. The X-Men and Strange wake up in front of a giant door in the mouth of a big rocky demon face. Also, Nightcrawler's here.
01:33:46
Speaker
Yeah, he's just kind of like... Oh, hey, guys. Hey, ah what's up? we're here too and they're not like, oh, my God, you're still alive. They're just like, oh, hey, Nightcrawler. Written on this door are the words.
01:34:00
Speaker
Through me, you pass into the city of woe. Through me the way to eternal pain. Through me the way among the lost people. Justice moved my maker on high. Divine power made me and supreme wisdom and primal love.
01:34:18
Speaker
Before me, nothing was created, but eternal things, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, ye that enter. Uh-oh.
01:34:31
Speaker
Which identified as the gates of hell, as per Dante's Inferno. we Everybody knows that fucking quote, right? Like, that's not... Anyway, through the door, they find the River Asheron. I'm... By the way, folks, this issue is How would you describe the pacing of this issue?
01:34:52
Speaker
i Confusing. It's broken into four acts, which yes I hate. I think that's a terrible structure for a story. And every page is like a brand new it's also it's It's kind of like... It's kind of like when the scene shifts, they are...
01:35:15
Speaker
encountering a new like piece of the event adventure yeah it's like the like it's it's like broken up into encounters almost like dnd or something and it lingers in each encounter Well, they spend – they're going through the levels of hell, right? and they spend a different amount of time ah yeah on each of them. And they so they don't seem to be ah as concerned with narrative here as much as they are just saying – like, there's even some vocabulary lessons here, which makes it feel like –
01:35:53
Speaker
Somebody was just like, let's walk the X-Men through Dante's Inferno. And then we can just make the story fit. Yeah. So we're going kind of truck through.
01:36:05
Speaker
It's still be a fucking, like, this is still a bit of a long yeah story recap. But we are going to sort of truck through at a pace that is very different from the comic book's pace so if you feel like details are being glossed over it's because they are and because they don't really matter towards the structure of the story or because those details just didn't exist well that too that happens at some points too yeah okay all right through the door they find the river asheron but strange thinks to himself that he's been to hell and this doesn't look like it
01:36:39
Speaker
An old fiery-eyed bald man named Charon arrives in a boat and takes them across the to the Palace of Minos. Minos, guardian of the gate of hell, turns out to be a very tall, charming looking man with a shining smile and a nice black tux on. It's funny that you say yeah a shining smile, Matt, because I'm pretty sure this is modeled off of the final shot of the shining with Jack Nicholson in the photo.
01:37:06
Speaker
i in the yeah It looks well just like his his teeth gleam yeah in one of the pictures. Yeah. After hitting on Storm, and this is fucking the beginning of the Claremontian trope where everybody is attracted to Storm and has to talk about it. Right.
01:37:24
Speaker
Well, they've clearly been attracted to Storm for a couple of years now. Yes. After hitting on Storm, Minos tells Nightcrawler he's here for his sins, and a big green tail appears from behind him his throne and tosses Nightcrawler out of the roof.
01:37:39
Speaker
Storm follows behind and catches him viewing the infinite tiers of hell from above. Sick. When Storm tries to... Yeah, the art here also is fucking fantastic.
01:37:50
Speaker
It's got like that psychedelic landscape feel to it with the hell edge over it. And there's some cinematic panels, especially ones that involve Wolverine. But mostly it's that psychedelic landscape like you're talking about.
01:38:07
Speaker
But it's just like with burn style detail. Yeah, yeah. And emotional. When Storm takes tries to take them back to Minos' palace, they're both caught in a hurricane and dropped into the second circle of hell.
01:38:22
Speaker
In this circle, the winds are constant and violent, dragging along the bodies of those who gave their minds over to carnal desire. As Storm fights the winds, they're attacked by harpies.
01:38:33
Speaker
She sends Kurt through a wind tunnel back to the palace as she's stabbed in the back and falls deeper into hell. Kurt lands back in the palace and Wolverine threatens Minos causing him to back down Minos backs down Strange still thinks something is strange about this place but joins the X-Men on their search for storm in the into the third circle of hell where gluttons face constant cold rain I'm sure there's an irony there that I'm not picking up on
01:39:05
Speaker
I could take it. I could take it. Yeah, I'd be fine. And I'm a glutton. Here they fight the three-headed dog Cerberus and beat its ass. We skip the fourth circle entirely. ah they They mention it's for the avaricious, but they stop in the fifth circle where the wrathful are stuck in a big, loud, smelly swamp.
01:39:28
Speaker
Wolverine's like, oh no, if I don't watch out, I'll end up here. He does a real Scrooge. Yeah, yeah. Here they ask Nightcrawler about Margali from earlier. Yeah. Remember?
01:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. And we find out that he killed her firstborn son. But what he doesn't say out loud is that this was his own brother, Pat. Yeah. It's a real weird...
01:39:51
Speaker
i ah He gives a everybody knows that he's not telling the whole story, right? Because he's he's just like, oh, yeah, I killed a man. And so I deserve to suffer for it.
01:40:04
Speaker
He's like, wait, what? What? No, you didn't. He's like, we got to go. Yeah, we got to go. I don't want to talk about it. They fight some demons and Colossus opens a big gate and strange things.
01:40:19
Speaker
Things again. This can't be hell. Now they're in the eighth circle of hell. Yeah, we skipped a few, it seems. Yeah, we just hopped straight down. Eighth circle of hell is called Malbolge.
01:40:32
Speaker
Malabolge. Malabolge. Malabolge.
01:40:36
Speaker
A set of circular steep ravines leading into a pit. This is where frauds and thieves go. So they know so Storm, a former thief, is here. Wolverine rushes off excitedly while the rest are like, wait, where did he go? Let's go find Storm. And they find her, malformed and seemingly completely unaware of who they are. Strange tells them. So fucked up.
01:40:58
Speaker
Yeah, she looks all fucked up. Strange tells him, wait, this isn't truly Storm. And then Wolverine is there and he's like, hey, you want Storm? Here's Storm. And it's a weird pink snake thing coiled around him. How did he figure this out? Did he smell Storm's soul in this snake?
01:41:17
Speaker
Well, hold on. You're assuming he's correct. That's not what I would have assumed had I been there. Wolverine, if that's a weird pink snake thing. Nope, this is Storm. You okay, man? She drinks some of that hell swamp water?
01:41:32
Speaker
everything out Everything all right with you, bud? Let's sit down. Let's sit down. No, that's a snake.
01:41:40
Speaker
Anyway, they let the serpent bite Storm's body, then everybody's back to normal. Whatever. Now they're back and now they're in the ninth pit. Cockitus.
01:41:52
Speaker
Cockitus. Cockitus. um We're the worst of the worst. Don't correct us on these. Look, I know you guys love to write in and correct us on stuff. We don't need correcting on these ones.
01:42:05
Speaker
Yeah. Where the worst of the worst are. Nightcrawler falls through some ice and they free him. Then Satan attacks them. Strange reveals that it's not actually Satan. All right. Now we're now we're into the story. Now the story starts. This will start to make sense.
01:42:19
Speaker
It's Margulie. She's confused as to why they're all here. and Why they're here at all. She just grabbed Nightcrawler. When some lady named Jemaine appears. Yeah.
01:42:32
Speaker
She says that she deceived the X-Men into thinking she was Margali and lured them here to stop her from destroying the man she loved. Matt. Yeah?
01:42:44
Speaker
I read this explanation six or seven times. I could not figure out what role Jemaine plays in this story.
01:42:56
Speaker
Okay. Jemaine. Daughter of Margali. She... okay Margali... Sent the thing, the statue to Nightcrawler. To get him into hell. It sucked Nightcrawler to fake hell.
01:43:11
Speaker
And then Jemaine showed up as fake Margali. To pull the rest of the X-Men into hell to go get. To save. Okay. But none of that is spelled out. No.
01:43:25
Speaker
Not at all. In page. And am very smart.
01:43:31
Speaker
So ah anyway, she's she gets turned into ice. Strange fights Margali until Kurt gives up because he doesn't want anyone else to get hurt on his account. Margali demands Kurt sacrifice his life for the life he took.
01:43:44
Speaker
That of her son. Strange intervenes and it's like, hang on. yeah Do you want justice? And she's like, yeah, I want justice. He's like, all right.
01:43:57
Speaker
Well, the Eye of Agamotto will just show us what happened. So it does. Kurt, orphaned as an infant, was adopted by the gypsy witch queen Margale Zardos and raised as her son, along with her daughter, Jemaine, and her true son, Stefan.
01:44:15
Speaker
Stefan. Stefan. I think it's Stefan. Kurt and Stefan were close and swore a blood oath that if Stefan ever turned evil, he wanted Kurt to kill him. Stefan eventually became evil.
01:44:28
Speaker
This is in the span of one panel. And he and Kurt fought, and Stefan actually accidentally died. Kurt didn't kill him. He got his neck just randomly snapped in the fight. What are you, the New York Times talking about a police shooting?
01:44:43
Speaker
Kurt was found with the body moments before we met him in Giant Size X-Men number one, being chased by a mob who believed him to be a murderer and a demon. The mob found him over Stefan's body.
01:44:56
Speaker
Anyway, Margali returns them all home and apologizes and forgives Kurt. Jemaine reappears and reveals that she had been hiding in plain sight all this time as Amanda Sefton! Kurt's girlfriend!
01:45:08
Speaker
Everyone celebrates the end. all right. So we met Amanda a while back. Yeah. You told me to track her, to notice when she appears.
01:45:20
Speaker
And I did. Yes. They went saw Star Wars together.
01:45:25
Speaker
They went and saw Star Wars together. They talked on the phone a bunch of times. He had a picture of her. It's his girlfriend. Turns out his girlfriend was actually his old girlfriend, who's actually his sister.
01:45:38
Speaker
Adopted adoptive sister adopted sister. But I guess they were girlfriends and boyfriends before because they don't see they seem to know that they love each other. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, oh, now I double love you, actually.
01:45:52
Speaker
This is OK. Yeah. What is what? What's wrong? There's nothing weird about any of. Am I to believe story aside that.
01:46:05
Speaker
That they have been seeding this since they introduced Amanda Sefton to us. Which was like four years ago at this point. Yeah, of course.
01:46:16
Speaker
Okay. No, I mean, I don't think there's anything about Amanda. I don't think there's any foreshadowing here. It's just Kurt has a girlfriend named Amanda, right? Yeah. And Chris Claremont was like, oh, we should come up with a backstory for Kurt.
01:46:30
Speaker
Right? like it's Like, it is, this is this is the the prime example of rh retroactive continuity, right? Like, he is just fitting in an idea he had and being like, oh, well, I guess it kind of lines up in these ways.
01:46:45
Speaker
Yeah. And it actually, it does take us to the moment that we meet Kurt Wagner in X-Men Annual No. 3. In Giant Size X-Men. In Giant Sex X-Men.
01:46:56
Speaker
giant sex xmen and giant sex men the movie sorry it does lead us right to where we meet kurt in giant says giant sex giant sex men i can't stop saying it in giant size x-men number one sorry i can't get it off my i can't get it out of my mind now giant sex um and giant sex i don't so is is the problem here that you don't know why they're not talking what like at all about how they sell star wars together yeah This would all make sense to you if they just mentioned Star Wars once. I would. It is what you're saying. It is strange that they're not at least. talk I mean, Empire is coming out at this point. It's in theaters. It's huge news.
01:47:41
Speaker
All right. Well, how do we do this, Pat? How about we forget about that annual? OK. We remember the ways that it it applies to Kurt's life.
01:47:53
Speaker
But we forget about the annual. And let's talk about how did you think of this? What are your final thoughts here? Well, the first thing I said still holds true, I think. We get some weird villains. We get some bad stories. But it's really not about that as much as it's about the...
01:48:13
Speaker
way those stories are told in most pieces and also just about the character development that we get here the way that all our favorite heroes get to thrive they get to act very in character they get to run into conflicts of their character right you can plug you could plug the hulk in for wendigo you could plug in captain ultra like it's still going to be a story about yeah the moral differences between curtain logan right I think that's really cool.
01:48:44
Speaker
I also... yeah And it kind of dies out towards the end of this, but it goes it goes into Days of Future Past where they are doing a lot of reflection on grief and not just like... I feel like I say this for every episode where we read Claremont comics where I'm like, and it's not just this, it's this. But in this case, like...
01:49:09
Speaker
i mean that's what he does so well it's not just him saying like oh they're sad or they're still getting over the death of gene he really he reaches into his feelings and seems like somebody who is been through grief before and understands how unbearable it can become and how lasting those impacts are and sort of how like The support system that you have when you're initially grieving goes away very quickly because that event disappears from everybody else's mind, but it doesn't disappear from yours. And he does a lot of just describing that state. And it's something that I really felt like that sort of connection to.
01:49:56
Speaker
I really would have loved some of that with Cyclops, right? Like I would have loved like maybe, ah maybe a scene here or there, every couple issues where we kind of check in with Cyclops. And like, I know his, his idea here was Cyclops leaves the book, but it would have been really nice to check in and see how Claremont feels as if Cyclops is processing this now that he's all alone.
01:50:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would love to see him with you the five o'clock shadow, the ah this sort of rough and tumble life he's leading. Yeah, yeah. Is it that? Is he jumping into adventure? Getting into bar fights. That seems like a Cyclops sort of thing to do.
01:50:41
Speaker
Or is he did he rent in an apartment and he's just fucking laying around watching TV? He went back to his news broadcaster job in New York.
01:50:56
Speaker
Like, ah it's not as if we won't eventually know, right? Like, it's it's no secret that Cyclops will come back to the X-Men one day. But it would be interesting to see, like, this glimpse.
01:51:07
Speaker
And i wonder I wonder how it felt at for people at the time. Yeah. To suddenly lose Cyclops and Jean Grey at the same time. Now...
01:51:20
Speaker
I think these issues clearly show ah what you noticed ah in the Dark Phoenix saga. They're welcoming in new readers. Yes. theyre re they're recre They're resetting the team dynamics. Some of these dynamics are new and changed. Some of these are just being restated. Everything's being recapped. The book's tone is is ah brand like it's a brand new tone. We haven't seen this tone in the X-Men before.
01:51:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, um Dark Phoenix was yeah obviously the comics very popular after Dark Phoenix and will continue to be but also Dark Phoenix was the end of that era, almost like they seed a few other things, but they're giving themselves a clean slate to work from because they had plotted.
01:52:09
Speaker
They built like a two year story around Dark Phoenix. That was the conclusion of their, their arc, right? Right. i guess I guess you're right. And like, so the question, I guess, is what is still lingering?
01:52:24
Speaker
Right. Hellfire Club obviously is still out there. Right. There's Shaw working with. And we saw this come to fruition a little bit. Right. Like Shaw working with.
01:52:35
Speaker
The government and Henry Geirich. ah Right. And we saw that because he was talking to during the Dark Phoenix saga, he was talking to Robert Kelly. um Right. And about like purchasing ah mass amount of Sentinels. So we know that the that we're heading in that direction.
01:52:52
Speaker
Right. But what what else is what else is still dangling? Yeah. Very little, right? Like Corsair being Scott's dad. Yeah, but if Scott's not there, is that, are we concerned about that?
01:53:07
Speaker
we got or We got that hint of a backstory for Kurt from Mystique. She knows something about him that. Well, that now, right. Yeah. After what we just read, now there's new stuff.
01:53:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Dangling like. there's a new brotherhood of evil mutants and whatnot. But i I mean like... Carryover from pre-Dark Phoenix. Right. And it the other things that are carrying over are just, oh, we don't know a lot about these guys' backstories.
01:53:38
Speaker
So maybe we should dig into those a little bit. Yeah. And other than that, let's introduce new characters. Let's introduce new plot lines. Like, we have we have to we have to start a whole new... a clean slate. X-Men. Yeah.
01:53:52
Speaker
Very cool. Really, i think what it speaks to is kind of setting them up for lasting success. Where they do... i I actually like that they weren't carrying over a lot of complex stories. Like, we do get a definitive ending to...
01:54:11
Speaker
a long saga. And now we're yeah launching a new. It's like when a show that always ends in cliffhangers finally has one episode with a satisfying conclusion. Yeah.
01:54:22
Speaker
Well, Matt, only a few pieces of admin left here. <unk> got na eyes by i machine you like to try out and you feel
01:54:39
Speaker
That's right, folks. Today, I have three ads. What? All connected. I know it seems like a bit, but we are, if you recall from ah handful of episodes back, in the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons.
01:54:58
Speaker
And through the issues we read today, I received one ad for every major network.
01:55:10
Speaker
So we'll start with ok CBS. They call it their Tail Spinners from Out of the Sky. And it's a little... Tail Spinners from Out of the Sky. Yeah. All right it's the low The mascot is a little Frisbee with the CBS eye on it.
01:55:23
Speaker
This was too early for the show Tail Spin. Yes. This is just... a series of tales that were being spun. 8 a.m. The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jekyll. Here he comes to start the day, along with those magpies who will put you away.
01:55:38
Speaker
8.30 a.m. I loved both of those cartoons as a little kid. 8.30 a.m. The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show. To Catch or Not to Catch. This is the quest with wacky tactics to the method to their cat and mouse madness.
01:55:50
Speaker
9 a.m. The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show. The bunny and the bird are back, along with their... hilarious cast of loonies and that ain't all folks 10 30 a.m m the all new Popeye hour he am what he he he am what he am and he always will be his friends or something else 11 30 a.m the drack pack listen to this one the what the drack pack drack Frankie and howler are teenage descendants of some very popular monsters now they fight for what's right in their bizarre misadventures with the their nefarious Dr. Dread
01:56:23
Speaker
What the fuck? At 12 noon, it's the new Fat Albert show. We're going to skip right over that. At 12.30 p.m., the Tarzan Lone Ranger Adventure Hour starts. Okay, but those weren't... Those two weren't cartoons, right?
01:56:39
Speaker
I thought this was... Tarzan and Lone Ranger. these are just like reruns of the shows? No, I think... They're new episodes, but they're not her too So, yeah, yeah, I think these aren't cartoons. I think these are...
01:56:51
Speaker
Live action shows. And then at 1.30, they have the child's version of 60 Minutes that they call 30 Minutes. Controversial hard-hitting reports on current issues directly affecting you.
01:57:02
Speaker
It looks like a little picture of Ted Koppel down here. That's the CBS lineup. The NBC Saturday morning has, oh my of course, the Godzilla Dino Mutt Hour.
01:57:15
Speaker
Marvel at the fiery feats of Mighty Godzilla and the welcome Dino Mutt, the dog wonder. And there's Godzuki bouncing around. Yeah, Godzuki is still with us. We have, of course, the Flintstone comedy show. All new fun and adventure.
01:57:29
Speaker
ah Come to bedrock for laugh filled the escapades with TV's best love pals, Fred and Barney. Smiles and spooky surprises with their new neighbors, the Frankenstones. Plus Pebbles, Dino, and Bam Bam, the Bedrock Cops. Captain Caveman the lovable Shmoo will be there too. this I didn't know that Captain Caveman existed until ah Flintstone Kids.
01:57:51
Speaker
Well, he's here in the Flintstone Comedy Show. Seems to be like a clip-based. I don't know, man. honestly don't know who Shmoo And then, of course, there are the Space Stars. We have Space Ghost. We have Astro and the Space Dogs. We have Teen Force. We have the Herculoids. We have the Jetsons.
01:58:12
Speaker
And then this is interesting. The Daffy Duck Show. It seems like CBS got the rights to all the Looney Tunes with the exception of Daffy Duck, who gets his own show on NBC.
01:58:27
Speaker
And then finally, abc opens real strong with the Fonzie saying, Hey, it's me, the Fonz. Oh, goodness. Now catch my new show and my new friends every Saturday morning on ABC.
01:58:41
Speaker
We have Superman, Batman, and Robin, Wonder Woman, the Super Friends battle tough new challengers every week. Wasn't Super Friends Spider-Man's Spider-Man and Friends show?
01:58:53
Speaker
No, Super Friends was the there the Justice League. And then Fonzie goes on to say, then see me in the Happy Days gang travel to different places in a time machine. It gets really wild.
01:59:06
Speaker
I knew that existed. I've never seen it, but I knew it existed. Another, another new show. Then it's Richie rich, the richest kid in the world with a hundred thousand dollar a week allowance. That's not that much.
01:59:18
Speaker
All new Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo are back in brand new comedy cartoons. You can meet that mischievous cat Heathcliff and dingbat. I don't know who dingbat is. There's an all new plastic man, Mary's Penny. And guess what? They have a plastic baby.
01:59:34
Speaker
I can't imagine that's the whole name of the show, but. ah And for exciting adventure, watch Thundar the Barbarian. All right. So which is your which is your lineup then?
01:59:46
Speaker
ah you're You're sitting down. You're sitting down. to It's like ah we're recording this on a Thursday. Two days from now, Saturday morning. your Your wife is out of the house. So I can finally watch my Saturday morning cartoons. Exactly. So you're sitting down in front of the TV.
02:00:03
Speaker
Are you throwing on CBS? Tailspinners from Round of the Sky? Are you throwing on NBC Saturday morning? Or are you throwing on Saturday's Best on ABC?
02:00:14
Speaker
I think it's got to be ABC for ah few reasons. Number one, we have the Super Friends. So you've got Batman. You've got Superman. You've got Wonder Woman. That's got to be pretty solid. Number two, you've got...
02:00:27
Speaker
The Happy Days crew flying around in i think a yellow submarine ripoff. ah Apparently, it's a time machine. They're time traveling. So got to what Fonzie does there.
02:00:45
Speaker
And they have a dog. They have a dog sidekick. Probably that also goes a switch over during Richie Rich. That seems... boring but then you get a scooby and scrappy do cartoon solid we get a heathcliff cartoon the man deserves it and then we get a plastic man cartoon what are they doing with a plastic man cartoon i'm curious about the plastic man cartoon i would love to see the plastic man cartoon but i'm i think i'm sticking with you know i i don't know i think i'm gonna go
02:01:18
Speaker
I think I'm going to go with ah CBS. Really? it because of the Drak Pack? Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jekyll, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, Popeye. Yeah, and then I'll get to find out what the Drak Pack are.
02:01:31
Speaker
I was almost swayed to NBC strictly because of the Daffy Duck show. I really would have loved to have seen that. So how much are you charging? This is Pat Steeles and Deals. So how much are you charging for this? i Being that this is 1980 and these are like the three major networks, the cost of a TV antenna, honestly, is probably $20, $25, I'm guessing. in This is purely a guess. i'm This is just conjecture.
02:01:59
Speaker
Okay. and okay got time machine that you would like to try out and you you ah all right everybody thank you so much for listening this week thank you for being here thanks to krills wilson for all of our theme music and to julia selley for the voice of trish tilby Yeah, look us up on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. You can also email right into Pat's email corner at mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
02:02:38
Speaker
Every time I want to say Pat's email corner at mutantmenacepod.com. It is not that. and Join our Discord. There will be a link in the show notes. You can also find a link in our bio on Instagram.
02:02:52
Speaker
Like, subscribe, but YouTube, Facebook. Is that it? I everything except for the line we close the show out with every week. All right. Give it to me, Pat.
02:03:04
Speaker
Well, always remember some serpents burn their victims to ashes. Others merge with them, becoming part human, part monster. And remember, for months I've been telling myself how good my battle suit was.