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9 - X-Men #43-47 - Gary Friedrich and the End of the X-Men
0 Playsin 7 hours
PLUS, Issue #53 of The Avengers!
A brand new writer, Gary Friedrich, joins the X-Men creative team and PROMPTLY DESTROYS THEM.
Also, Matt went to a comic book convention, Pat is 40, Pat explains beepers to Matt, and we talk about what the word "mutant" really means in the Marvel Universe
We talk about:
Magneto is glad Professor X is dead he SWEARS! Quicksilver can fly. Toad is back and weirder than ever. NO TRAPS. Cyclops has no regard for sailors. Marvel's prototypical super-hero: THE RED RAVEN. Wait, what is a "Red Raven"? Every idea is Angel's idea. Warren Worthington has ADHD. "No one tells Cyclops to halt!" Mutant Separatism. Seymour the Skydiver joins the Loser League. THE AVENGERS. Everyone is an unreliable narrator. The REAL Juggernaut is back. Foggy Nelson is a defense attorney. Globules. Warlocks eaws huwt. Hank McCoy's "Wonderous Wench." THE ICEMAN COMETH.
Email us: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Syncing
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm at Allcamp. And this is... Mutant Menace.
00:00:44
Speaker
That's the one. I think that's the one we'll go with. Okay, that's what we'll do from now on. We'll just try to... I've noticed when people who aren't in the same room try to sync up their voices, that's
Audience Engagement Strategy
00:00:55
Speaker
what they do. They slow down.
00:00:57
Speaker
yeah. yeah ah mut It takes a little while for you to catch on that I'm... We need a signal. Maybe we should say say it with me now. Mutant menace. You didn't.
00:01:10
Speaker
Oh, OK. And the people home will it. I guess this one doesn't work. I thought I was saying. I thought you were saying should the people. Maybe the people at home should it. That's such a good idea. Everybody. Oh, and we should say somebody's name.
00:01:22
Speaker
So that they think we're talking to them like a kid show, like, ah like Boza the Clown or something. So it's like, all right, Steve. All right. um all right chris Magdalene.
00:01:33
Speaker
No, that's not a good one. ah We can count our listeners and assume. ah The odds are very low. We take a count of our listeners and we take a chart of the most popular names in those countries.
00:01:50
Speaker
And then we just map over the... We should take a poll of ages so that we can cross-reference it against popular baby names. If you're listening to this podcast right now, just email us your name. Nothing else.
00:02:05
Speaker
Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Nothing else. Just your
Pat's 40th Birthday
00:02:10
Speaker
name. and in your In the subject line, your name. In the body, your name. Nothing else. So then at the beginning, we'll be like, hey, I'm Matt Allcamp.
00:02:20
Speaker
and Oh, I thought we were waiting for the email. Oh, no, no, no, no. We're going to do the whole thing. So, hey, I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And, hey, Gerald, say it with us now.
00:02:33
Speaker
Welcome to Mutant.
00:02:36
Speaker
Menace!
Baseball Podcast Idea
00:02:40
Speaker
Alright, so what have you up to you this past week, Pat? you i I had a 40th birthday, Matt. Holy shit! I'm finally a man. Have your mutant powers kicked in?
00:02:54
Speaker
No. Unless they're joint pain.
00:03:00
Speaker
i don't think they'd even let you into the team for that.
00:03:05
Speaker
I had um ah had a very nice weekend. I had a good party that, Matt, you were present for. What? ah It was... i think one of my highlights of the whole weekend was my dad trying to explain the rules of baseball to you while you very patiently and respectfully...
00:03:23
Speaker
listened and nodded along he said to me or he said to you he was like do you also have to explain the rules of tiddlywinks to this guy you did and you said uh we don't play tiddlywinks anymore and i said i get too angry it was a good bit he also recommended you start a podcast about baseball which would be Which would be so funny with your completionist ah podcast mentality because yeah baseball goes for 160
Gifts & Comics
00:03:54
Speaker
years. goes back to the 1860s.
00:03:57
Speaker
That is a good bit, right? if and You just have to go to the beginning of like I was going to say televised baseball, but you could go back to radio baseball if they keep archives of that stuff.
00:04:08
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, yeah. There's huge, huge swathes missing. Matt, they keep meticulous stats. You could tell the story of a game by just reading, like, the box score.
00:04:19
Speaker
and yeah Well, what I'm saying is it would be funny to do it as if... and it It would also be impossible because... ah Baseball happens multiple times a week, so you would never be able to.
Mutant Powers & Real-World Genetics
00:04:34
Speaker
You would not have enough time to catch up ever.
00:04:38
Speaker
but But if you pretended like you were keeping up with the sport, but started back at the beginning and you're like following players. All right. Game one of 162. The year No.
00:04:55
Speaker
did you enjoy your birthday I really did. i i got some sick presents. I got a t-shirt that references the movie Tar, one of my all-time favorites.
00:05:07
Speaker
Okay. I got a ah
Comic Convention Experience
00:05:11
Speaker
sweatshirt that references Daredevil. I got a copy of a comic that includes the first appearance of Forbush Man.
00:05:22
Speaker
i don't know if... ah This part's going to make it to any sort of video clip. There's no reason for it to, but I'm holding out to the camera right now. This was from my good friend, Matt Allcamp.
00:05:33
Speaker
Whoa. As well as that's like a plushy, a plush Wolverine. That sounds great. That sounds like a fun birthday. And this hat and a life-size cardboard cutout of myself.
00:05:47
Speaker
I was thinking ah about mutant powers because of what you just said, the joint pain thing. And i was thinking there must be something more to it because, okay, every now and then a writer will turn up like this idea that, hey, some mutants aren't going to have good powers.
Beepers & Nostalgia
00:06:03
Speaker
Right? Like some guy's going to have three faces or somebody's going to have bones that grow through their skin or something. Someone will shoot exactly teeth out of their mouth.
00:06:14
Speaker
Real mutant menaces know that reference. So there must be something else to it. And this isn't i this isn't necessarily a bit. This is just me trying to win my no prize here.
00:06:26
Speaker
There must be something more to it than just a regular, like just anything could be different with your body, right? Right. Yeah, yeah. Because there's very rarely, oh, I just have a tumor, right? Or, oh, my elbow faces the one of my elbows face the wrong way.
00:06:42
Speaker
So there must be something either mystical or like of like that your mutant power brings something out in your human potential that allows you some extra ability, right? Because it is always, even if it's not a very useful ability, it's always an ability.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's not um it's not any of the mutations that we know. And it's not the mutation of, like, a single nerve. And those people must still
X-Men Comics & Magneto's Storyline
00:07:09
Speaker
exist.
00:07:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Right? Because evolution had to happen, for first of all. ah So there had to be, you know, natural selection, which would have required mutation, right? Yeah.
00:07:21
Speaker
there had to, there have to just still be people with genetic conditions. There have to still be people with neurodivergence, right? There still have to be people whose bodies developed and minds developed differently than some other people's.
00:07:33
Speaker
None of whom we're referring to as mutants. Well, that's what what I'm saying is those are genetic mutations. So those still must happen. So somebody in the People in that universe must make that distinction between, oh, this is a mutant.
00:07:49
Speaker
That's just a person with a mutation. Yes. Yeah, they're not. ah That's curious. It's something to keep an eye out for as we go. mention Yeah.
00:08:05
Speaker
what's a genetic diabetes Sickle cell anemia. Yeah. We'll see. you they yeah Can't wait.
00:08:16
Speaker
All right. Anyway, went to a comic book convention. Oh, that's I was just going to say, Matt, did you do anything X-Men related this week? it I mean, it was, you know, on that lower scale.
00:08:30
Speaker
of comic book convention, right? It was just a bunch of people in a circle with a ton of long boxes around a hotel conference room, right?
00:08:42
Speaker
Outstanding. I really like those types conventions. I smell it. i I don't... When I go, I don't, like, invite friends. I don't, like... i don't make a big deal. I just buy the $3 ticket and I go and I dig through boxes. Because, like, you can't... They're not fun.
00:08:57
Speaker
They're just... <unk> Yeah, they're pretty, they're fairly quiet. It's just shopping. I love when people show up in cosplay to those conventions, though, like just the ah boring comic book room conventions, and then somebody's just dressed like Mystique.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, that happened. So I was walking out of the convention and again, no, no, it was small, just a bunch of older nerds, people just digging through boxes. Some people coming in, getting disappointed, like, oh, this isn't what I thought the comic book convention would be in leaving and And yeah, as I was walking out, there was a a boy coming in dressed as Beast Boy from the Teen Titans.
00:09:39
Speaker
And it's just like, oh man, you're going be disappointed when you're walking in. He's going to be the one to... I know, yeah, it happens every time you go to one of these very small conventions. is somebody Somebody didn't get the memo.
00:09:54
Speaker
Somebody forgot to check their email. Somebody ah didn't ah turn on their fax machine that morning and missed the memo.
00:10:07
Speaker
Someone missed my beep. They could have called me back and I would have given them the memo. it I've never experienced a beeper. de you Did you ever experience a beeper?
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah, my dad had one when i was a kid. so my My parents both had them for work, but I never like looked at them. what All it was was it would show the number of who... What happened? What's on beeper? Yes.
00:10:32
Speaker
So should I start with the person beeping or the person being beeped? Both. I want to hear both. Because I think we do more than just call the beeper's number. I am the person beeping. I'm
Narrative Styles in Comics
00:10:44
Speaker
trying to get a hold of my dad, a young a young five, six-year-old Pat Reber.
00:10:49
Speaker
i Calls the phone number that's attached to his beeper, and then I hear a message, a recorded message, saying, like, enter enter your phone number.
00:11:01
Speaker
Then I enter my phone number, and I forget if I press a button or it just hang up, but then it sends whatever I punched into the keypad to my dad. Okay. ah So my dad gets that beep and he says, oh, this is Patrick's phone number.
00:11:18
Speaker
I need to, is you would have to have the phone number memorized or just take a chance, get to the nearest pay phone, ah put a quarter in call that number and say yeah either, hey, Patrick, it's your dad. Or you would say, hey, who is this? You just beeped me Okay.
00:11:39
Speaker
Why do you have to memorize it? Did did it not stay on your beeper? No, a beeper didn't save numbers. it just, it displayed whatever you punched into that, into the keypad as the beeper. So you could beep somebody and not use your phone number?
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes. You could do the old 80085 if you wanted to. you could also prank somebody, right? you I could beep you with your ex-girlfriend's phone number.
00:12:04
Speaker
And so they make you call
Avengers & X-Men Crossover
00:12:06
Speaker
her house. That'd be fun. Or like the NSA's number. Patrick. nice spell enough patrick Yeah. Speaking of... talk about the X-Men with me?
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. I am excited to start talking about the X-Men here. i Today, we're going to go We're going to go from issues 43 to issue 47 and take a brief divergence to an Avengers tie-in.
00:12:33
Speaker
It's a wild ride, folks. Buckle up. Starting... Now that your seatbelts are fastened with issue 43... The Torch's Past, alternate title, The Power of Magneto.
00:12:47
Speaker
Cover date, April 68. Actual release date, February 8th, 1968. Stan Lee presents with perspicacious pride this magnetized masterwork by Roy Thomas and George Tuska, inked by John Tartaglione, lettered by Sam Rosen.
00:13:02
Speaker
Perspicacious, right? Not perspicacious? Perspicacious. Perspicacious. Perspicacious. ah The issue opens on Professor X's funeral to which only the X-Men
Red Raven's Character Exploration
00:13:13
Speaker
show up.
00:13:14
Speaker
Or do they? Yes, they do show up, but are they truly the only ones? Quicksilver, back with Magneto after renouncing humanity, pushes himself to his limit and runs to secretly catch the funeral himself.
00:13:26
Speaker
The X-Men's arch foe, Magneto, meanwhile, is watching the funeral on a on first a globe and then a monitor and is now mad at Quicksilver.
00:13:38
Speaker
After the funeral and a weird missed connection with Quicksilver, the X-Men head home and press a button that Professor X told them to touch before he died, if he ever died. It reveals a projector that shows the last recorded message of Professor X,
Angel's Character Critique
00:13:52
Speaker
in which he tells them that he had been dying of an incurable disease for a while. Yes. At that point, there was, like, reel-to-reel video, right? There was video.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yes. but So it shouldn't have been such a massive reveal that, oh my God, Professor X made an incredible machine that displays him talking to us.
00:14:15
Speaker
Well, it was pretty tough to do with the touch of a button. Right. Unless he was broadcasting it to like a UHF signal. But in the 60s, though, this is the late 60s.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. Where it wasn't, you didn't have to crank the camera as you were going. Yeah, but you didn't have like a VCR you could just press play on. Yeah. It's impressive that you press
Cyclops vs. Quicksilver Analysis
00:14:37
Speaker
a button and suddenly Professor X appears on screen saying like, here's my final message to you.
00:14:44
Speaker
But do you so you think at that point they would have still found it. They would have looked at that like they do in this book. And been like, holy cow.
00:14:55
Speaker
No, they're overreacting a little bit. But it's the professor. I pulled it up
Avengers Issue 53 Summary
00:15:02
Speaker
as we were talking. and you're right. Home use didn't start until about three years later.
00:15:08
Speaker
But this was being... used in businesses for like 10 years at this point. In this video, Professor X reveals that he's been dying of an incurable disease. He, because of this, had been teaching Gene how to use telepathy instead of just telekinesis.
00:15:26
Speaker
And also that he suspects Magneto is back on Earth. Magneto, meanwhile, on his island base in the Atlantic Ocean, has stolen supplies from a cargo ship and allowed the crew to escape while destroying their boat behind them.
00:15:39
Speaker
Quicksilver returns on a magnetically powered vehicle where he's ratted out by Toad, who for some reason is hanging out with Magneto again. Quicksilver had gone to Professor X to get a cure for his sister, he reveals.
00:15:53
Speaker
Scarlet Witch, if you don't remember who in in Avengers issue, had lost her hex powers. Magneto bursts in, tortures Toad, argues with Quicksilver about who was better, him or Professor X, and says that he was working on a device to restore Scarlet Witch's powers.
00:16:09
Speaker
We then find out in a thought bubble that it was Magneto who caused a human's bullet to graze her skull and cause her to lose her to powers to begin with. And he has more plans, including taking another cargo ship.
00:16:21
Speaker
Unbeknownst to him, though, that ship contains the X-Men. Turns out the machine Magneto is building is some kind of computer that will enslave the minds of all humans. i And he needs a vital piece of equipment from this ship.
Professor X's Will & X-Men's Future
00:16:34
Speaker
The X-Men reveal themselves. They fight Quicksilver, Toad, and Magneto. Magneto's powers have gotten stronger, and Quicksilver is trying to protect the x-men even while he's fighting them to keep them from dying and then toad uses some kind of mechanical battering ram with the head of an actual ram on it it's just like a they just have it set up there and the x-men are all lined up in front of it yeah like but and he pulls he flips a switch and a ram on a big like steel
00:17:05
Speaker
no Like, like, yeah, Battering Ram
Juggernaut's Return & Chaos
00:17:09
Speaker
just knocks all every one of the X-Men over at once. But, ah well all the X-Men but one, oh it is no match for Cyclops' his powerful I-beams. He blasts off and the Battering Ram blows apart.
00:17:28
Speaker
Then Magneto turns on his electric floor and zaps them all. To be continued. So, do you think Magneto watching the funeral from home, is that sweet or creepy?
00:17:44
Speaker
He won't go to the funeral. mean, at this point, he's never taken his helmet off. We would be disrespectful for to go to the funeral. Well, he didn't kill Professor X. Yeah, but would you he's his worst enemy.
00:17:57
Speaker
But they were also best friends, which we don't know yet in this the comics. But, like, there's but there's a part of me that thinks, like, Just as we've oh I've always said, and I think there's evidence for it in the... We'll talk about it next issue. But just as we've talked about how there's something about Magneto that makes him hesitate whenever he gets... Whenever he's able to kill the X-Men.
00:18:21
Speaker
And it's neither text nor subtext in these issues. We're kind of extrapolating. But... um I like you wouldn't. He's like, aha, I'm so glad Professor X is dead. I'll just sit here and watch his entire funeral, which the narration describes as long and sad.
00:18:42
Speaker
He's like, I'll just sit here and watch it ah to to gloat to gloat to gloat. Yeah, i it is very funny. ah So in the beginning, he's ranting about how glad he is that Professor X is dead. It's very funny to read it as no I'm glad Professor X is dead.
00:18:59
Speaker
That guy was the... I hated him. He was my worst enemy. i i didn't i didn't i didn't want him to be alive. yeah i didn't want him I never wanted him to be alive, actually.
00:19:11
Speaker
Now I'm free to pursue all my goals. he was He was the one holding me back. I'm going to watch his funeral. yeah I'm laughing it's because he's dead.
00:19:23
Speaker
ah The funeral itself actually has some emotional weight to it. It's a little brief, but upon Professor X's death, we didn't get anything except for a bunch of stunned...
00:19:38
Speaker
sad faces. This is them actually working through it emotionally and everybody gets their own little piece to say like, oh, this sucks. Also Toad is back.
00:19:50
Speaker
Magneto's back. Shouldn't we be surprised that Magneto's back too? Why is everybody back? I'm surprised. I'm surprised that Magneto's back. I am thrilled that Toad is back. He is ah he's turned into like an Igor character for some reason. but I feel like at some point we should read the Avengers issue where Magneto comes back because we have to figure out how, how did, did he agree to let Toad come with him?
00:20:16
Speaker
I know. Well, he's, I guess, okay. So we, we should assume that the, they're reunited because the stranger at some point did capture him. Yes. And bring him back to the weird planet. Oh, because last we saw him, he was flying away in his Magna car. Magna car.
00:20:32
Speaker
With the stranger chasing him. Like, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. That's how he exited the X-Men. that So, he and Toad linked back up.
00:20:48
Speaker
We should write this story. If it doesn't... If it doesn't yeah exist, we should write the adventure of Magneto and Toad. A couple of things about Magneto and like how much ah Toad annoys him on the ride back home.
00:21:02
Speaker
They're like several light years that it takes to get back to the earth. So some things about Magneto. First, crazy eyes are back.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yes. With like a lift, like a vengeance. It's like, I didn't have crazy eyes enough the last time he appeared in X-Men. So i' we're going to make these eyes the craziest they've ever been. um It's great.
00:21:25
Speaker
He's so mad. Also, at one point, Toad is like, shall we set some traps for the master? And he's like, no traps this time. He yells at Toad that they're not going to do traps this time. it's like, wait, it was a reasonable thing, dude. You always did traps.
00:21:43
Speaker
He's so mean to Toad. He's really mean. Which speaks to with the several light years long ride they had to take together. because Toad has regressed. Toad has gotten so much more annoying. Yeah, he's gotten way worse. And he's just like sniveling.
00:22:02
Speaker
And he's constantly bickering. Now that he doesn't have a mastermind to bicker with, he's bickering with... ah Quicksilver. Quicksilver. And Quicksilver doesn't care. She's like, what are you talking to me? Somebody at one point, somebody calls him a gnome, which I thought was really funny.
00:22:24
Speaker
Weird little imp. Here's another thing that I'm sure you caught, it which is that but the X-Men got passage on that cargo ship. Yes. Using Lauren's monthly allowance. He calls it his allowance.
00:22:40
Speaker
You're an adult man. You're an adult man, comma, man. And also... Beast makes fun of him for it. he He mentions that the allowance would actually allow him to buy the ship itself if he wanted it. They... So... They're on the ship that Magneto...
00:23:04
Speaker
i draws to his secret island because Scott specifically dropped the news that there would be a powerful supercomputer to power his device on this cargo ship.
00:23:22
Speaker
The crew is not in any way aware. As soon as it starts, yeah as soon as they start getting drawn towards, they are panicking. They just put yeah all of these people with me in the, in the line of fire here.
00:23:37
Speaker
Though I do think it's worth noting that Magneto is, unlike his previous appearances, he is allowing these humans to live.
00:23:48
Speaker
In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? ah he said They're dead.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, we don't see how he sends them going. um Also, there is...
00:24:01
Speaker
there is Moving on to the end of this issue, there is a bonus feature. Yes. With a lot of blasting action. we get We get him taking on the ah battering ram, in the main feature.
00:24:17
Speaker
Cyclops. Yes, okay. Yeah. ah we get him We get him taking on the battering ram with his eye beams and he crushes it. And then we get this bonus feature that's just like, guess how strong Cyclops is? Here's all the things he can blast.
00:24:32
Speaker
He can blast a tank. He can blast a bus gently. He can blast a big rock. He can blast ah the vanisher. it It talks about the science behind Cyclops that he absorbs sunlight through his eyes, converts it to force.
00:24:51
Speaker
Via photosynthesis. And then releases it as beams and that it's not, it's not heat. They just made that up, right? As they were putting that down on the page.
00:25:01
Speaker
They've said multiple times that it's just force, right? Yes. And very clear here. Only force, not heat. I was looking through one of the issues from last episode ah where Cyclops welds together a bunch of steel beams.
00:25:16
Speaker
And I was like, hey, wait a second. We didn't talk about this. But he it specifically says, oh, my force beams will hold these beams together for a short time until they can be welded.
00:25:28
Speaker
yes It's like you know that the artist was like, and he welds them together with his heat beams. He's... Yes. Actually, that was two episodes ago, but yeah, yeah, yeah. They show him shooting rivets in with his eyes. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
and doesn't make any sense let's move on matt that's all ah that's everything i want to say about this issue okay number 44 red raven red raven released uh in march of 1968 edited by stan lee written by gary friedrich laid out by don heck Penciled by Werner Roth.
00:26:03
Speaker
Hey, he's back. ah Inked by John Tartaglione and lettered by Sam Rosen. Also, the plotting here is done by Roy Thomas. So we got a new writer, Gary Friedrich.
00:26:16
Speaker
And Roy Thomas, this is his last issue for now. All right. okay Okay. Magneto has just defeated the X-Men and is about to kill them on Toad's insistence when Quicksilver shames him into putting them into weird prison devices instead. Again, Magneto just can't kill the X-Men.
00:26:37
Speaker
at Every time he comes up with some excuse why he shouldn't. Cyclops gets a lead helmet. Marvel Girl gets hypnomagnetic bands. Beast is put in titanium hand and feet cuffs.
00:26:50
Speaker
Angel's stuck in an electrified cage. And Iceman is held in a thermonuclear heat tube in his underwear. Pretty good. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch try to explain themselves to the X-Men as to why they're with the Brotherhood now. But Cyclops calls them Charlie Brown and they give up.
00:27:07
Speaker
That's how that argument goes. he says you I'm sorry. yeah Quicksilver is saying we should create a separatist nation of only our race.
00:27:20
Speaker
And Cyclops says, okay, Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown never said that. I've heard these words before from Charlie Brown. And they're like, no, you didn't. it' They're like, there's no use talking to this guy.
00:27:35
Speaker
This is that ah Charlie Brown had hoes tweet.
00:27:42
Speaker
Angel escapes with some kind of welding torch that was left too near his cage. He tries to free Cyclops, who worries that this is a trap. So he sends Angel out to find the Avengers. And then, as we'll find out, quickly forgets that he did that. Angel barrels past the bad guy and Quicksilver flies!
00:28:01
Speaker
He can do that. ah We're going to pause here and talk about how this apparently happened in Avengers number 43. um I looked it up. Quicksilver learns that he can fly for very short distances by waggling his feet really fast. Like Luigi does in Mario 2. That's so weird.
00:28:23
Speaker
In the second Mario game. Float in the air for a second by kicking his little legs. Yeah. oh my god Dick Van Dyke.
00:28:33
Speaker
So he flies after Angel, but he can only remain airborne for a few seconds and Angel gets away. On his way to New York... ah he gets Angel gets caught in a storm and tires himself out and rests on a small rock.
00:28:48
Speaker
But moments later, the small rock grows into a giant island, heroically resisting the urge to continue his mission. friends He valiantly gets distracted and decides to explore the island to sate his own valorous curiosity.
00:29:05
Speaker
He really, internally, he wrestles with it a lot. He wrestles with his ADHD. He's like, Oh, there's a door over there. But no, the lives of my teammates depend on it.
00:29:18
Speaker
But I'm sure it can wait long enough for me to look in that door.
00:29:25
Speaker
but yeah he knows his friends. He's like, you know, Magneto is just holding them. He's not killing them. its Literally, that's his reason. That's not joke.
00:29:40
Speaker
that's not a jokerk So inside the island, there are a bunch of futuristic structures and machines. Supposedly, that's what's described. It's unclear based on the panel.
00:29:51
Speaker
um But before he gets the chance to really look at them, another winged man, calling himself the Red Raven, swoops down and attacks him. and They fight in midair with their wings and their fists and Red Raven has a laser gun um while both narrating everything they're doing.
00:30:10
Speaker
I've thrown a punch at you. I hit you with my wings. Oh, I will dodge your wings. And here's my laser gun, which I will fire at you. I've dodged your laser gun. So they suddenly stop fighting.
00:30:21
Speaker
And then Red Raven tells Angel his entire backstory. It's like when Beast was interrogated by Lucifer. yeah So when Red Raven was young, he survived a plane crash that killed his parents and everyone else on board when it struck an island in the sky. The island was home to a race of bird people who agreed to raise the boy.
00:30:43
Speaker
As he grew older, he realized the bird people wanted to destroy the human race and he tried to argue with them against it. When that didn't work, He gassed everyone on the whole island with knockout gas and put them into suspended animation and sunk it beneath the sea for 20 years.
00:31:00
Speaker
So now that 20 years is up, he he wakes up. fights Angel, and then after telling a story, he decides he's just gonna do it all again. So he knocks Warren out, and then s sinks the island, and he puts himself into dis suspended animation, and then Warren wakes up on a raft in the middle of the ocean.
00:31:22
Speaker
ah Then... Warren decides he'll just go find the I the Avengers what I'm supposed to exactly he just like shakes himself off he's like well okay I'll go find the Avengers now that's our yeah can i ask that's the end of the issue that's our first Gary Friedrich issue yeah it sure is i is what Red Robin did genocide Red Raven but
00:31:55
Speaker
Oh, red Raven. What the hell's a red Raven? Ravens are black.
00:32:02
Speaker
I think that's why it's special.
00:32:07
Speaker
Uh, is what he did genocide? Oh, because he puts an entire race of people. He removes an entire race of people from the earth. Yeah. And he's, I mean, they're not dead. He's keeping them indefinitely in suspended animation, but it seems like he doesn't have a plan to let them out of suspended animation.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, he doesn't have a plan. He's just going to do this every 20 years? every Wake up and be like... ah Did I think of anything yet? Oh, man. i was asleep that whole time. I forgot to think of anything. I'll just put us back under.
00:32:37
Speaker
yes Maybe he's trying to do it until the human race just dies out of out naturally. And he's like, okay, now you guys can go. Yeah, yeah. Now you actually have the odds.
00:32:49
Speaker
Because the whole reason he tries to stop them isn't to save the human race as much as it's to say, yeah hey, you you think there's only like 20 people down there? There's way more. So i want to I want to talk about some history here because we've got two things to give people the history for. First, it's going to be real short.
00:33:08
Speaker
First, ah since this is the first Gary Friedrich issue, um he was just a writer who was friends with ah Roy Thomas. I think they knew each other like back in college or something. And he was writing...
00:33:26
Speaker
romance comics at the same time as Roy Thomas was. And then Roy Thomas got him a job at Marvel where he wrote a bunch of Westerns and some Nick Fury books. Some actually well received Nick Fury books.
00:33:38
Speaker
Okay. And then they just kept throwing him on books that were really close to cancellation. Oh boy. This is not a ah good sign. So that's, that's all I know really about Gary Friedrich. It's not worth going much more into it because he'll be gone by the end of this episode.
00:33:55
Speaker
he I'm noticing his signature thing is i having characters narrate every single thing they're doing. Yeah, from like the Stan Lee school of writing.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yes. ah we Yeah, we got a break from that with Roy Thomas, who had his own obnoxious writing quirks, but it wasn't. Wasn't this. All right. So the other thing, Pat, this is Red Raven's second appearance in comic books.
00:34:23
Speaker
I, well oh, So, uh, he was a golden age character created by Joe Simon and Louis Casanova. appeared. I'm in co-creator of Captain America.
00:34:36
Speaker
Well, that makes sense. Cause he was working. Um, and this was for timely comics and he was working an issue with Jack Kirby. Like this was a, uh, It was one of those ah early comic books that was just like a bunch of really short stories of a bunch of different here. They were just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:56
Speaker
So he appeared in one issue called Red Raven Comics. Number one with ah characters, your favorite characters, characters you'll know and love, like the human top Magar, the mystic.
00:35:10
Speaker
And the the Jack Kirby, John Carpenter ripoff, Comet Pierce, and Space Adventurer. Sorry, does the human top just spin around?
00:35:22
Speaker
I did not read all of it. Like, i ah I read the Red Raven story. I did not read the human top story. Okay. But it sounds, i'm yes, I'm i'm betting.
00:35:35
Speaker
um So it's very different than the stories being told here in ah this comic. The Birdmen are actually good. And they send Red Raven, who is also, just like in this comic, never given like a human name.
00:35:45
Speaker
They just call him Raven and then they change his name to Red Raven. um They send him back to the human world to end all suffering there. ah And the first thing he does is he tries to get a job by joining an employment line.
00:36:00
Speaker
And then some guy tries to butt in line and Red Raven beats him up. So a criminal named Zilmo, Z-E-L-M-O, Zilmo, or Z-E-L-M-O, tries to recruit him to his gang. He's like, oh, look at this tough.
00:36:17
Speaker
I'll get him on my gang. ah And then so Zilmo offers him like a bunch of gold coins and he throws the gold coins at Zilmo's face. So they open up a pit beneath him, which he falls into. um And then they just have a girl. Like, she's not in the comic before.
00:36:33
Speaker
They just have a girl. And they're like, ah throw her in there, too. And they toss the girl in the pit. It sounds like you're describing a dream to me right now.
00:36:44
Speaker
It'll get worse. It'll get worse. So um Red Raven ah pulls out his wings and escapes. But so does Zeomo. Zeomo escapes out the window and I don't know is gone. So I guess he flew away.
00:36:55
Speaker
um So ah ah Red Raven goes back to the bird people and tells them they have to invent a gold detecting device so that he can. advertise it in a newspaper to lure zilmo in and it works and zilmo shows up and red raven beats him up the end ah Then he doesn't appear again for 28 years. He's gone for 28 years after that single adventure.
00:37:25
Speaker
Zilmo, I don't think ever comes back ever in anything ever. i't but So what do you think? That's insane. Who is this man? Fascinating. That's what the girl said who wasn't given a name, I don't think.
00:37:43
Speaker
This is so... So, it this is like a I mean, i guess it's not uncommon for like 30s and 40s comics where like Superman would get in a fight with somebody for being rude at the grocery store. and it would turn out that guy was actually fully made of metal.
00:38:02
Speaker
take Yeah. So... What was that, Pat? did i ask Did I hear you asking if it was called Red Raven Comics number one? How was this his only appearance?
00:38:14
Speaker
ah say Yeah, what happened in Red Raven Comics number two? Oh, there wasn't. It was Human Torch number two. Red Raven number one, Human Torch number two, and Human Torch number three and four and five and six and six.
00:38:26
Speaker
Is there no Human Torch number one?
00:38:31
Speaker
No, it starts with, I mean, there there would be, I guess, later in other Human Torch, but yeah, no, it starts with, the comic starts as Red Raven and then continues as Human Torch.
00:38:45
Speaker
Okay, so that's where Red Raven comes from. There's our history lesson. And our mini mutant menace episode within an episode. yeah Yeah, that's our... Red Raven comics number one. bur Bird menace.
00:38:59
Speaker
Avian menace. yeah i Okay, back to this issue. That's like the whole thing.
00:39:11
Speaker
what the fuck uh warren what the fuck warren what are you thinking it man also it's so funny okay there's a moment where warren is flying away remember scott tells him go get the avengers yeah yeah one pan one page later warren is flying and he's like hmm, now that I've escaped, what should I do? Maybe I'll go get the Avengers. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yes!
00:39:44
Speaker
He treats it like his own idea. keep So, okay, a couple issues back, he did that to Jean when she discovered messie the the helmet. She's like, oh, I remember the mind helmet.
00:39:55
Speaker
And he's he's she's like, well, what if you use the mind helmet? Exactly! And we were like, oh, it's just a sexist thing. He's just mansplaining. But no, he's just, either he's a complete idiot Or he's got that big of an ego that anytime somebody tells him an idea, 10 seconds later, he's like, I have an idea.
00:40:17
Speaker
It's that. It's definitely that. I think he sees Scott as like a cuck and just says. like That's why. Oh my God. That's why he basically like gifts Scott Jean earlier on. Yeah. He's like, go ahead, pal.
00:40:33
Speaker
Oh my God. It's all, it's all gelling in my head now. And that's why he forgave him so quick for zapping him. He's like, you did that on purpose. And then he's like, hey, don't worry about it.
00:40:45
Speaker
Because it's like... i Yeah. excuse Aw, little Scotty. Little Slim Summers. This Angel at his absolute worst. And he's not even the hero of this issue.
00:40:59
Speaker
Right? And he doesn't stick to the mission either. he He acts like it's his idea and then... Is like, well, it's not that important of an idea. We will find out that this escape wasn't even that heroic.
00:41:16
Speaker
In like two issues or something. Oh. But he... Then, yeah, then he doesn't do anything. All he does is land on a... Like gets tired, lands on it an island, gets distracted, loses a fight.
00:41:32
Speaker
With a guy who shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. Then interrupts his story. and then keeps And then gets knocked out again and then then keeps yeah going. Can't prevent him from committing genocide.
00:41:44
Speaker
That interruption is so funny, too. Like, it's so clear that it was, like, the artist. Who's the artist on this one, again? Don Heck and Werner Roth. Yeah, yeah. So it's clear that they were told, like, okay, he's telling the story to Angel.
00:41:57
Speaker
So the artist just put in a few panels of, like, and then they'll have a little conversation and they'll go back to the story. yeah and instead of putting any a meaningful interaction gary friedrich writes the angel going like ah in the very middle of the story okay but that doesn't explain why you're here yeah and then red rain red raven's like uh i'm i'm getting there i'm getting there when are you going to get to the good part
00:42:30
Speaker
Oh my God. this he's This is his featured issue too. the the The cover says the X-Men and in much bigger letters featuring the angel and it shows a a fight between him and Red Raven.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And this is this is what they're like, this is the best we can do with this guy. I really do think they got themselves into a trap. Like, I think that they invented Angel and were like, oh, that's cool. A man who can fly a man with wings.
00:42:58
Speaker
And then very quickly, every superhero that was created could fly. And yeah this far back, they're running into this problem like, then what do we do with Angel? What does he do?
00:43:10
Speaker
Like, every now and then he'll say things like, oh, I've got eagle-eyed vision, or, oh, I've got an incredible sense of direction, or, oh, I'm faster than a normal person. But it's just like, okay, all right, yeah, you needed something, because all you got is wings.
00:43:25
Speaker
Spider-Man has all of those things.
00:43:29
Speaker
And you'll get, like, there'll come a point, again, not in, I guess in a little while, but, like, there'll come a point Where in the Marvel Universe, Angel just changes forever.
00:43:42
Speaker
He just becomes a different character and he's a different character forever. And anytime they even try to revert him back to this Angel, he's still informed by the time that he was a completely different guy.
00:43:54
Speaker
And I think like this is, I think it's telling that this early on they're running into this problem about like, yeah, we need something else. hmm. ah There is one cool sci-fi concept. I feel like it's been a little while since we've gotten an actual interesting science fiction concept here. But at the very end, the Red Bird, Red Raven, says, i i'm going to use my anti-gravity gun on Angel here, now that he's unconscious, and just leaves him there so the entire island sinks.
00:44:27
Speaker
But because... angel has been zapped with an anti-gravity gun he's just floating in place above it all so as not to kill him and sink him with the the island i thought that was just like yeah yeah doing something you gotta find you gotta find something you gotta find the little moments I just went and read storiess a different comic. i like i I actually kind of liked the Red Raven number one story more than I liked this.
00:45:00
Speaker
You need some Joe Simon. ah Pat, will you tell me what happens when Mutants Clash? Yes, it happens in issue 45, in fact. When Mutants Clash, 1968 release date, April 9th, 1968.
00:45:11
Speaker
up for the magical Mutant...
00:45:16
Speaker
roll up for the magical mutan shame The Magical Mutantia Tour? Roll up for the Magical Mutantia Tour, Marvelites. Your gallant guides will be Stan Lee, editor, Gary Friedrich, scripter, Don Heck, layout man, Werner Roth, penciler, John Tartaglione, inker, Sam Rosenletterer. That's a lot of credits, too. It actually can't say the Magical Mutantia Tour.
00:45:43
Speaker
Magical... it just can't It just can't say it. Wouldn't Magical Mutantory Tour... That album had only come out like five months earlier.
00:45:59
Speaker
And it wasn't very popular.
00:46:03
Speaker
Oh my god. Okay, alright. I want to hear the story. We're not starting off on a good foot. But I still do want to hear the story. Cyclops is getting impatient waiting for Angel while Angel's ADHD ass is out playing with some bird man.
00:46:20
Speaker
So he decides to go break himself out instead. He does so by just blasting so hard like he's never blasted before. he runs, he releases the shackles from his eyes. He starts running from door to door, checking for other X-Men and is spotted by Toad who flees to tell Magneto and Cyclops runs after him trying but failing to catch him.
00:46:42
Speaker
Meanwhile, Warren meaninglessly recounts the last issue while he flies to find the Avengers, which will all happen in Avengers number 53. Glad we took the time to include that.
00:46:53
Speaker
ah Back on Magneto's Island, Cyclops is walking around when Quicksilver leaps in front of him, asking just to talk. Which I do to you all the time. Like, to be fair, ah you know... yeah I jump over your head and leap in front of you. I'm like, Bat!
00:47:11
Speaker
We need to talk! ah And you have hit me a few times, which I appreciate. Yeah, yeah. appreciate I told you not to sneak up on me. ah hi Cyclops, of course, instantly tries to blast him. Of course, you would too.
00:47:25
Speaker
At that same moment, Toad warns Magneto that Cyclops has escaped and is rewarded by being tortured with bolts of magnetic energy for letting escape in the first place.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yeah. Quicksilver and Cyclops have begun talking and he starts swaying Cyclops to the idea of setting up a mutant sanctuary on a private island ruled by Magneto. Cyclops is intrigued by the idea, but rejects anything that Magneto is a part of.
00:47:51
Speaker
He and Quicksilver start fighting again, and the two seem to be so evenly matched that both are struggling for an advantage. that both are struggling for an advantage Magneto, Toad, and the Scarlet Witch are all watching and discussing the fight on the Magna screens, which is just a monitor.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. As Quicksilver takes the lead and then Cyclops knocks him out with a desperate blind optic blast. He starts trying to wake the unconscious Pietro up when he's surprised by the Avengers arriving on the scene. What?
00:48:23
Speaker
To be continued. you i To be continued in Avengers number 53 out the same month. Holy shit. Yeah. This is the first fuel full Gary Friedrich issue. How do you feel about it?
00:48:39
Speaker
i It had a little less waste of space than Roy Thomas issue, I feel like. but but It was just a fight. Yeah. and It was just like a conversation and a fight.
00:48:52
Speaker
It was just like two plot points. and narration of the entire thing. scott is Scott is wandering the halls of Magneto's Fortress saying, I'm going to check this door, and then I'm going to check this door. i think i think the fight between...
00:49:11
Speaker
So Pietro and Scott is – which is Pietro Maximoff Quicksilver's name. Yeah. So we we're on a first name base. So Pietro and Scott, I think their fight is really cool because you you get to the sense of, oh, these are both guys who are kind of like – incredibly skilled at what they do they're both around the same guild around the same height around the same skill level they just have very different power sets and their powers are about as powerful as each other even if they do very different things like it's the fact that they were fighting each other to such a standstill was i think really interesting to me just this idea of like oh quicksilver and scott summers are about evenly matched
00:49:59
Speaker
And I think that forges a sort of like begrudging respect between them forever in the comics from now on. it's a big It's a big part of their rivalry is that like, yeah, they know the other is, which I guess is a pretty common theme among X-Men rivalries. Yeah, I guess so.
00:50:18
Speaker
But yeah, Cyclops also has that with several other people. Like him and Wolverine, it's kind of similar. I mean, there's going to be yeah romantic tension there, but it's still like, there's still this constant back and forth of like, which one could kick the other's ass.
00:50:35
Speaker
Both of them are fully convinced they could kick the other one's ass. Yeah. It's maybe it's just Cyclops's thing with absolutely everybody. I think, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of ink.
00:50:50
Speaker
spilled about this idea that Cyclops is consistently kind of written as a neurodivergent. Okay. That he had, he is somewhere on the autism spectrum and he ah sort of has this obsession with routine and regiment and detail.
00:51:08
Speaker
ah He's sort of comforted by those things. He um has trouble relating to other people. He has trouble ah expressing his feelings. Yeah, yeah, he's always putting the mission over emotion.
00:51:22
Speaker
Right. um And when he needs to express feelings, he does it either awkwardly or in these very strange bursts. Like later, like when he... Strange blasts.
00:51:34
Speaker
When he proposes to Jean Grey, even, it'll be in like a moment of weird passion that he has to pull back and then like let it happen organically again.
00:51:46
Speaker
right, we don't want to get into spoilers. ah yeah spoiler, the Gene and Cyclops end up together. um but ah
00:52:00
Speaker
I don't know how I was relating that to this issue. do What did you want to talk about? i but just It is a very cool fight. There's also a really... the Him breaking out of his shackles as much as it doesn't make any sense is also pretty cool.
00:52:13
Speaker
It shows the beams like ah burning their way through these lead shackles that he's got around his eyes. um Yes. But okay they also made a point to say, like hey, we've disabled every ability he has to use his eye beams.
00:52:30
Speaker
So he shouldn't be able to do that in that moment. Right. Otherwise, yeah, none of it makes sense And it's not like his I-beams can increase in intensity just by him raising and lowering his visor, right?
00:52:44
Speaker
Right. So he has to be able to touch his visor them And in this, he just... And he doesn't control their strength or intensity, which has always been weird thing about him. It's like...
00:53:00
Speaker
He doesn't control it coming out of his eyes. He can control it via the little knob on his visor. Right. But in this instance, he controls it by by just like concentrating really hard. And he does it so hard, pushes through like it lifts his visor and then blasts through the lead.
00:53:18
Speaker
Doesn't make any sense at all. No. And also, so in the last issue, when we see Cyclops' power set, they make a point to say like, hey, people write into us about this all the time.
00:53:29
Speaker
He's also got a little button on his hand that's secret. Even Magneto can't see it. i That allows him to also do his button. So that's how he shoots when he's not holding his hand to his eyes.
00:53:40
Speaker
The very next issue, Toad is like, I've disabled his secret hand thing that nobody knows about. ah So he shouldn't be able to shoot beams out of his eyes there. Yeah. it's not to I don't want to be like a I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder guy.
00:53:54
Speaker
i i just they were so specific about it at the end of the last issue and at the beginning of this issue. Yeah. I don't know how they missed it. It's yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a it's a it's a frustrating moment, but I think it does play into this idea that is important to the X-Men lore, which is everybody underestimates them constantly.
00:54:18
Speaker
Yes. Like, they're kids, or they're just mutants, or, ah like, these guys are incredibly skilled at basically everything they try to do, right?
00:54:31
Speaker
All of them are well-trained, all of them have, like, how many times do people try to brainwash the X-Men, and one or multiple of them are just too mentally, well, I know, are just too mentally...
00:54:49
Speaker
Well trained. Yeah. To be brainwashed. Like, it happens constantly. And I think... So, I do think there's something cool about that. They underestimated Scott and he proved them wrong.
00:55:01
Speaker
Maybe that's it. They... They put a little too... They didn't put enough lead on his face. And... Let's just fucking forget about whatever he did with his visor. We have to keep saying.
00:55:16
Speaker
um And... it Cyclops has a bunch of good lines here, but do you... do I... I...
00:55:27
Speaker
i No, let's go down that rabbit hole first. Okay. He is... Yeah. First is, there's a point where Cyclops is diving through a doorway.
00:55:38
Speaker
Toad runs through a doorway and closes it behind him, and Cyclops has to dive after him before the door closes. Now, in between, when he starts the dive and finishes in the dive...
00:55:51
Speaker
He yells, must dive through before it's completely shut. Almost have it made if I can slow it with another blast. And then he blasts the frames of the door so that he can to slow down the... Oh, well, he says all of that and does all that while diving through the door. And it can only make me think that that door is closing really slowly. Because we can't see motion in a comic.
00:56:14
Speaker
He must be in the air for like three so full seconds laid out. Must dive through before it's completely shut. Almost have it made if I can slow it with another blast. Or... He leaps multiple times.
00:56:28
Speaker
And we're only seeing one of them. He's just like... dive through. Before it's completely shut. guys Almost have it made.
00:56:39
Speaker
And Toad is on the other side. Like, it's closing. really It's like that Austin Powers thing. Right? Where that guy, where the... where the Yeah, yeah. The steamrollers. There's like a roller is a runaway steamroller halfway across a warehouse from a man. he's just standing there screaming until he gets flattened.
00:56:58
Speaker
Toad's just like, oh, just walk away. ah This is weird. ah This actually is uncomfortable. For me, the weirdest guy on earth. Um... Also, well the reason Cyclops states for blasting Quicksilver isn't just that he scared him that he jumped out in front of him, which is why he would blast him.
00:57:21
Speaker
It's that when he jumps out in front of him, he says, Halt, Cyclops, I need to talk to you. And Cyclops says, No one tells Cyclops to halt. Boo! Okay.
00:57:33
Speaker
Slow down. What can I say to you then?
00:57:38
Speaker
he's Halt is a very aggressive command, especially after leaping over someone's head.
00:57:47
Speaker
Hell no. I'm not going halt. Yeah. Really interesting moment here where Quicksilver plants the seed of mutant separatism in Cyclops' head.
00:58:00
Speaker
Absolutely. This idea of like, we should have an island nation that's all our own. And Cyclops' only argument against it is, well, nothing Magneto is in charge of is good.
00:58:15
Speaker
Right. is If Magneto is doing this, it must be for his own personal gain, not for the good of actual, which Magneto reveals is true later. He's like, yeah not these mutants. These guys stink.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah. I want real mutants on my eyes. That's an interesting thing about this, as Magneto ah is the savior of mutant kind, but he hates basically every mutant he's ever met.
00:58:46
Speaker
He thinks they're so annoying. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting. I think that'll sit in Cyclops' head for... 50 years. Sure. There's some, there's some relevant parallels in that conversation too, right? Where, i think we talked about it last episode or earlier.
00:59:05
Speaker
a couple ago, but just the the idea of... Yeah, there's a real legitimate cause here. mean, separatism is questionable, probably, but i it's an intriguing cause that Cyclops won't engage with because of the fanatic that's pushing it.
00:59:24
Speaker
Right, right. Interesting. You gotta wonder what social cause they're applying this to at the time. They might not be... Oh, is it like the liberation of South Africa or something? is Yeah, a room full of middle-aged white men saying, it's you know, these causes could be good, but the people behind them are a little crazy for me. 1968, might not be. Oh my gosh, yeah. like All right.
00:59:53
Speaker
I'm on to you, Gary Friedrich. Do you want to hear about Avengers 53? Yeah. Yes, finally. battle, joined. Wait, wait, wait, Matt. well I'm sorry. This is an X-Men podcast. We're reading an Avengers comic?
01:00:09
Speaker
I know. Wait till we find out why. All right. Okay. All right. This was released in ah April of 1968. So the exact same month, same day, actually. Yeah, hit shelves the exact same day.
01:00:24
Speaker
Holy cow. You could buy them together. Stanley edited. Roy Thomas wrote it. John Buscema drew it. George Tuska inked it and Artie Simic lettered it. And those last two names were upside down.
01:00:38
Speaker
Fuck them for doing that. For some strange reason. We pick up. At the end of our last issue of X-Men, just like right afterwards, where the Avengers are bursting in on Cyclops right after Pietro has been knocked out.
01:00:54
Speaker
A classic Marvel mix-up ensues and the heroes fight each other. We flashback to Angel arriving at the Avengers mansion and leading the Avengers team, which is at this point comprised of Hawkeye, Black Panther, Wasp, and Goliath to Magneto's lair.
01:01:11
Speaker
There they notice a tracking device on Angel and use Hawkeye's spy arrow to see but not hear the conversation between Cyclops and Quicksilver from last issue. The two things together leads them to believe that the X-Men are working with Magneto.
01:01:25
Speaker
Magneto and Toad are watching the Avengers arrive and talking about their ingenious plan to... all right, help me with this, Pat. They're letting Angel go to yeah lure the Avengers back to their base and trick them into fighting the X-Men.
01:01:43
Speaker
Is this a good plan? Yes. Yes. Okay. Watch. Just watch. Just see what happens. Okay. ah Then Magneto's really, really, really mean to Toad.
01:01:54
Speaker
ah Magneto uses his big computer device thing to mind control the X-Men and make them fight the Avengers. The X-Men lose the fight, which makes madbe Magneto mad, and he's taken unawares by Angel, who punches him and Toad in their faces.
01:02:07
Speaker
The Avengers burst in and claim they knew everything that was happening the whole time. Magneto flees and tells Toad to blow up the part of the island the heroes are on, but Toad finally stands up for himself and blows up the whole island instead, as he, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch escape on something that flies and is not made of metal.
01:02:28
Speaker
Magneto grabs onto it, and Toad stomps on his finger, saying, The coat the Toad calls no man master ever again! and Magneto falls in the water as the base explodes.
01:02:39
Speaker
The X-Men and the Avengers have meanwhile escaped. The end. It all worked out. ah This is the last time we will ever see... we I think he shows up in some random Avengers issues.
01:02:53
Speaker
But this is the last time we'll see Toad in the X-Men again until the 1990s. That's crazy. I know! Just when he was getting so good.
01:03:04
Speaker
We think of him as this major part of the X-Men, probably because of like the animated series. And we think of him as like integral to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But he's only in like six issues.
01:03:15
Speaker
Yeah. And so I imagine when he came back in the 1990s, people were thinking like, oh, this is just some obscure throwback character. Can you believe they had a character called the Toad? And now look at him.
01:03:29
Speaker
Starring in movies.
01:03:32
Speaker
ah X-Men Origins Toad out next to He is, I mean, there is a story, I'm telling you a story to be told about what Toad has been through up to this point and probably what he does between now and the ninety s I mean, I think I mean, it'll be another 50 episodes of this podcast or more till we get to it. But I wonder if there is a toad origin at some point.
01:03:55
Speaker
Like, I wonder if eventually we get toad origin. I hope so. I want to know why he got so fucking weird. He doesn't even have a name at this point, right? Mortimer Mortimer Tweenby.
01:04:07
Speaker
He's just toad. He's just toad. Sometimes toad. How do you feel being back with Roy Thomas for a second? i Roy Thomas does the same thing with the Avengers that he was doing with the X-Men, where he just tries to ramp up the interpersonal drama.
01:04:22
Speaker
And I think it's really funny. There's so many, especially Hawkeye. hawkeye Roy Thomas' Hawkeye is ah provocative. He really likes to antagonize his teammates.
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah. And they fight each other. It's yeah in at this point, Black Panther is just joining the Avengers. Captain America has just left. Iron Man has just left. And they are they just don't know what their identity is yet. And that's the part of the Avengers that Roy Thomas wanted to explore.
01:04:59
Speaker
Right. ah Very cool concepts, but very weird execution. aah roy Thomas.
01:05:09
Speaker
can we ah yeah Can we talk about these plans? Because like nothing no moment in this comic hangs together. right like There's the moment where the Avengers...
01:05:22
Speaker
burst in and Cyclops who has asked Angel to go get the Avengers when the Avengers show up he says this must be some trick by Magneto the Avengers I will I'll beat you all up and wow ah And then, so then Magneto's like, ah, this is all working according to plan. How could he have known any of this would happen? How could they have known they would have found the tracker on Angel? How could they have how could he have known that Quicksilver and Cyclops would be talking and the Avengers would see that? Plus, he didn't even want Cyclops and Quicksilver to be talking. He was mad that Quicksilver and Cyclops were talking.
01:06:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:05
Speaker
I think... At this point, he we have an unreliable narrator again. Because the person he's telling us to is Toad, who's like, Master, is this part of your genius plan? He's not trying to tease him. He's legitimately asking, like, yeah I know you're a genius. You must have planned for this. And so with Magneto's like, yeah, I i said the the X-Men and the Avengers would fight each other.
01:06:30
Speaker
I didn't tell you about that part. He keeps hitting Toad and like torturing him. And that leads to his downfall. Yeah, true. Literally, he falls down.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:45
Speaker
And then, sorry, these not to not to just shit on Magneto's plans. The Avengers and Warren's plan was pretty weak, too. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's what we like.
01:06:57
Speaker
Why don't you just pretend we don't like you and then we'll go fight your friends, but they'll figure out that we're all pretending. Which also couldn't be because they argued with Angel in private.
01:07:10
Speaker
They actually fought Cyclops. They didn't, like, kind of, sort of fight Cyclops. They actually fought Cyclops. And then the X-Men were actually brainwashed to fighting them. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't an act. They actually going to kill the Avengers.
01:07:23
Speaker
No moment of this was an act. And then suddenly, like, ha-ha! We were kidding. We were kidding. What part? What part was fake? I'll tell you. part was an act? It's another unreliable narrator.
01:07:36
Speaker
It is... Beyond its time here, everybody, you you don't know who you can trust as you're reading, and that's what makes this so exciting. A room full of people with huge egos being like, I knew it.
01:07:49
Speaker
actually Actually, I did that on purpose. and Actually, this was me. I made this happen. But this is also where we find out that ah Toad and Magneto let Angel escape. They left the thing nearby's cage on purpose and let him escape.
01:08:05
Speaker
So again, jumping back. Right. Angel is even less heroic in the in the angel issue. um We do get a very cool X-Men vs. Avengers panel. the The last time we saw them fight each other, they were just grappling a whole lot. They were just picking each other up and holding each other in the air.
01:08:27
Speaker
they're actually using their powers against each other. It's a really cool, uh, full half page, full half, half page panel. We'll put it on the Instagram, but yeah, it's like giant man is grabbing Cyclops by the face to hold his visor closed. a ice man is freezing Hawkeye's feet while he fires arrows at him. and Jean Grey is trying to drop machinery on giant man's head. uh,
01:08:56
Speaker
Black Panther and Beast are just scrapping. Yeah, they're just wrestling. It's... yeah It turns out Hawkeye was able to stop Iceman by gunking him up. He had a gunk arrow. would He go this guy's night good and gunked up.
01:09:15
Speaker
oh um All right. okay Okay. A couple quick thoughts. Number one, you skipped right over this in your recap map, but we first see Angel.
01:09:26
Speaker
ah Well, I should say first we see Seymour the Skydiver ah just floating through the sky when suddenly an Angel zips by him super fast, disrupts his skydive, and he ends up pulling his parachute early, just having a lot of time to think ah while he floats back to the ground.
01:09:48
Speaker
immediate loser league candidate
01:09:54
Speaker
just a guy who was skydiving yeah guy who was skydiving was affected by angel i hope he comes back i don't think he will because i'm pretty sure stan lee added seymour the skydiver in an editor's note otherwise unnamed Yeah, I mean, his ah all of his wiki pages. He's got he's got wiki pages.
01:10:18
Speaker
Seymour the Skydiver's got wiki pages. He's just this one. Just this? All right. But yeah, I mean, a man who appears for three panels. Three big panels. Because first we see him. He's trying to shatter all existing skydiving records.
01:10:32
Speaker
He's got ambitions. And he says, all you gotta worry about is bumping into an angel. And he bumps into Angel. And then all all the way down, he's just like, huh.
01:10:43
Speaker
So Angel legitimately fucked up his skydiving record. Yes. Almost killed him. Like, he he literally says, I'm good. I'm safe as long as in as long as the X-Man Angel doesn't fly by at this moment.
01:11:00
Speaker
So Magor, the killer. Yeah. oh god we gotta keep the list the outcast yeah uh rock and red bone rock and red bone what's the cowboy's name i always i always forget quarter mac quarter mac and now see more of the sky with uh each of your particular sets of skills i have a mission Wait, i use okay, I am left with one question about this issue.
01:11:32
Speaker
At the end, sort of at the Avengers call an aero car. Very cool to come and pick them and the X-Men up and fly them off this island that's about to explode. Great.
01:11:42
Speaker
Except, a I don't think you can fit nine people in an aero car. It's like a sedan. and ah Hello? ah Aero car?
01:11:54
Speaker
Maybe a Quinjet.
01:11:59
Speaker
Next going to tell me you can fit 12 people in a fantastic car. look
01:12:07
Speaker
Six max. Yeah, maybe if they're sitting on each other's laps. one All right. All right. Let's move in. Let's move on. Let's move in. Let's move in.
01:12:19
Speaker
It's time to move in. Let's move in. It's issue number 46. The end of the X-Men. the end of the x-men Cover date, July 1968. Actual release date, May 9th, 1968. Edited by Stan Lee. Written by greg Gary Friedrich.
01:12:35
Speaker
Laid out by Don Heck. Gary Friedrich. Gary Friedrich. Laid out by Don Heck. Penciled by Werner Roth. Inked by John Tartaglione. And lettered by Artie Symeck.
01:12:48
Speaker
The X-Men are back in front of Professor X's grave.
01:12:56
Speaker
The X-Men are back in front of Professor X's grave, thinking about how it's going to hard to continue on as a team in his absence. Just then, Fred Duncan from the FBI shows up calling himself Amos Duncan for some reason, taking ah the X-Men back to the mansion, where it turns out Foggy Nelson whoa is waiting to read Professor X's will. He's a defense attorney, but...
01:13:22
Speaker
Foggy Nelson from Daredevil Comics, by the way. Yeah, of course. Daredevil's best friend. If there's... Sorry, I'll get overexcited if we start talking about it now. yeah He gives all of his money ah to a charity that Scott is put in charge of and the school to all of the students with Scott as the prime trustee.
01:13:43
Speaker
They yeah ah see Foggy off and return to Fred Duncan and whatever he wanted. He tells them he has a matter of grave importance, which may affect the future of the entire world.
01:13:55
Speaker
Whoa. when we When he finally tells us what that is, we're going to be blown away, right? We're going to be like, it it must be Galactus is on his way or like something like that, right? It's got to be huge news. It's going to be huge.
01:14:07
Speaker
This is Fred Duncan using a fake name from the FBI. It's like a looming, it like he's implying, and we'll find out, I'm assuming, it's a looming threat.
01:14:18
Speaker
Yeah. That's something he must know about. Yeah. That imperils the entire world. yeah And maybe this will give us a clue. Meanwhile, Juggernaut is floating in the crimson cosmos when he finds himself suddenly zapped back to the basement of the X-Mansion, where he starts smashing stuff.
01:14:36
Speaker
Classic. as it is The X-Men run to the basement to see what's causing all that noise, and they are confused to see the juggernaut there. He says he must have been brought back by x Xavier, and the X-Men tell him that his stepbrother Xavier is dead.
01:14:50
Speaker
He freaks out, accuses them of lying. He's in deep denial. He starts throwing machine parts at them. He knocks out each X-Man one by one. Swears he'll kill them, only knocks them out.
01:15:01
Speaker
yeah i Juggernaut then bursts upstairs and throws Fred Duncan through a window after smashing his head on the ceiling. They call that defenestration.
01:15:13
Speaker
That's right. And then stomps off to see Charles Xavier's grave. The X-Men attack him again and Juggernaut starts glowing and little balls of energy, I'm sorry, globules of energy start shooting off of him as projectiles.
01:15:28
Speaker
a Gene finally uses her new telepathy and staggers the dude with her mighty mind bolts.
01:15:38
Speaker
But He takes Angel as a hostage to get her to stop and then suddenly disappears again.
01:15:46
Speaker
Okay. Agent Duncan joins them again to tell them, oh, that it's mandatory that they split up because they're too easy of a target for the evil mutants and they can be more effective if they spread out across the country. Okay, Pat. But then he tells them what the matter of grave importance, which may affect the and future of the entire world is, right?
01:16:07
Speaker
Right. They must disband and he'll send them their assignment in a few days. Wait, hold on. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I get that. But what's the matter of grave importance? which And then he leaves. That's
01:16:22
Speaker
and it.
01:16:25
Speaker
Beast rightly points out this is that this is unconstitutional, but Scott says they have to do it anyway. The X-Men all pack up and cry. The end. But what's the matter of grave importance that threatens the future of it?
01:16:41
Speaker
They could have gone back to the beginning of the issue and changed that line of dialogue when they realized they didn't have one.
01:16:53
Speaker
Right, like, I get that comic book writers write in this, like, incredible, like, you end an issue or something with, like, and we're about to face our gravest threat yet. But you can't say there's a matter of grave importance which threatens the entire world on page one.
01:17:10
Speaker
And then on page 15, it's like, ah, we need you to break up because and we just think it's a little dangerous for you guys. And plus, you'll do better if, like, you spread out. This is like when Professor X was like, I've got a letter for you that ah will change the fate of the X-Men forever. And it turned out just to be like, hey, Gene, you got into college.
01:17:36
Speaker
Oh my god, it makes me legitimately mad. Also, it makes me mad that they agree to it, because it fucking Beast is right!
01:17:48
Speaker
The government can't come in! there's no jurisdiction here for the FBI. Yeah! A random FBI agent can't walk into your house and say, hey, you're not allowed to hang out with your friends anymore. You need to.
01:18:00
Speaker
spread across the country because and the reason is because we think you you know like it's a little dangerous uh for not for the world but for you guys and also it would be huge help if you know can take out evil mutants in oregon one of you don't i know everyone stays in new york except for like yeah they don't actually spread out ah but like why does cyclops say no he's right we gotta do it So he does provide some justification. You don't have to go along with it, but his justification is basically like, look, we don't have a lot of allies. This guy is the head of mutant affairs at the FBI. Like we can do what he says or we can deal with the FBI.
01:18:50
Speaker
At that point, Bobby or somebody should have said, dude, he doesn't even remember his own name. yeah Right. Does nobody else notice this? I'm shouting at the comic book.
01:19:03
Speaker
is This is Fred Duncan, you idiots. So, okay. there This issue, I liked, ah honestly, besides the framing device here, I liked this issue.
01:19:20
Speaker
because Yeah, yeah. Because Foggy Nelson made an appearance. You had Juggernaut being Juggernaut. Like, he comes in, he's talking like Juggernaut, not like Roy Thomas villain. Yeah, yeah.
01:19:31
Speaker
He's just... He arrives and just starts smashing shit. He's just filled with rage. It just, like... Goes on a revenge mission. Wants to beat stuff up. Wants to... Wants to get his revenge.
Iceman's Heroic Effort
01:19:45
Speaker
He is so taken aback by the fact that ah Charles Xavier's already dead.
01:19:52
Speaker
ah that he just starts hitting more shit, right? and then there's this incredibly cool moment where he's ah thrown machinery at Beast and knocked him out. I forget how he knocked Warren out. He knocked Warren out somehow.
01:20:09
Speaker
ah he Warren just gets zapped yeah and falls down. He has just ah ah Cyclops and Jean have just used their power to the point where it makes them black out and Juggernaut is about to kill them and then suddenly he is covered just head to toe in ice and iceman is just there freezing him and juggernaut starts breaking the ice and advancing on iceman and i can't hold me with ice and iceman's just got his hand out just like piling ice on juggernaut yeah i'm gonna fucking try
01:20:49
Speaker
And he fails. talks through it. Yeah. Ultimately, Juggernaut breaks through and knocks Iceman out. But it's still like he just saved two of his teammates' life lives. He just stood up to Juggernaut all by himself.
01:21:04
Speaker
yes Yeah, yeah. just pushed his powers to the absolute limit, even though it was like a futile errand. It was a really cool Bobby moment. it was maybe the best Iceman moment we've seen.
01:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. Very very heroic Good to see him ah do something for once. Yeah, the best
Hank & Bobby's Adventures
01:21:23
Speaker
moment since he had since he fell on the ice while ice skating or he gaping maw in his head when he was a snowman.
01:21:30
Speaker
Since he ran around nude. Since he made his own ice cream when he was supposed to be doing homework.
01:21:40
Speaker
so much cooler yeah not ice cream era i do kind of miss ice cream era bobby ah wish we had that instead of just like hitting on every woman bobby which is you know the performative heterosexuality will be interesting eventually but like not right now at this moment it's just kind of annoying right now I think we can take a look at Bobby and his womanizing, right? With issue 47, The Warlock Wears Three Faces.
01:22:14
Speaker
Edited by Stan Lee. Written by Gary Friedrich. It's Gary Friedrich's last issue, Pat. Are going to miss it? And... And the new writer, will be here for about about the same length of time, Arnold Drake. Arnold Drake.
01:22:29
Speaker
ah Lavish layouts by Don Heck, perilous pencils by Warner Roth, inks by John Tartaglione, and lettering by Artie Simak. This was released in June of 1968. How old were you? I yeah.
01:22:46
Speaker
ah thirty seven i want to say okay yeah I had just been born negative 37 years ago. I was, ah for me, it was negative. Wait, not 37, 27. 17. No, we're way off.
01:23:02
Speaker
Yeah. What? You were negative. You were negative 17. I was negative 18. Oh, all right. I'll take your word for it. Hank and Bobby are walking through Greenwich Village, moping about the X-Men being broken up and ah while, you know, if they're on their way to pick up Zelda and Vera, like always.
01:23:20
Speaker
They try to get tickets to see the Maha Yogi, a new magic act with a, you know, slightly culturally appropriative name, but it's sold out.
01:23:32
Speaker
Instead, they head to the coffee a go-go. Meanwhile, the Maha Yogi is hypnotizing sleeper agents with with his show to be his own personal army. Like, he'll hypnotize them, and eventually they'll wake up and he'll have a big army. Whatever. Calls them human time bombs.
01:23:48
Speaker
At the coffee a go-go, the boys and their dates are listening to poetry when a group of beatniks try to pick a fight with them. Bobby freezes the circuit breaker to shut off the power, and the two kick the shit out of the beatniks. When the fight is over, they tell Vera and Zelda they were just hiding under a table the whole time.
01:24:06
Speaker
You know, the Peter Parker special. Luckily, though, they managed to snag four seat cancellations to see Maha Yogi. Hank and Bobby recognize the turbaned magician with a cape covered in stars and moons. He's got you know, he's got a big green cape and a green turban and a yellow or an orange, um like, tunic.
01:24:27
Speaker
ah They recognize him. I'm sorry, Matt. this The cape with stars and moons is not new. He was wearing this the last time we saw him. They recognize him as Warlock, a.k.a.
01:24:39
Speaker
the legendary ah magician Merlin. um As he hypnotizes the audience, they change into costume and rush the stage to fight him. Warlock uses a bunch of illusions to make Iceman think he's being suffocated by snow and then drops several sandbags on Beast's head.
01:24:56
Speaker
But the two rally and Iceman starts popping stage lights with ice, which totally confuses Warlock and hurts his little ears. Warlock throws a gem from his hair at Iceman, who deflects it into some, quote, power circuits. And that so somehow sends a bunch of dazzling lights at Warlock, giving him an even further headache.
01:25:18
Speaker
The spell over the audience is now broken and they start cheering on the X-Men. Iceman then plays a radio really loud at Warlock and his ears hurt so bad, he gives up and lets the police arrest him.
01:25:31
Speaker
That's how this fight resolves. ah Vera and Zelda are waiting outside, thinking they've been stood up when Hank and Bobby show up. The girls try to break up with the boys, but somehow don't.
01:25:42
Speaker
And they walk away arm in arm. The end. They're going back to coffee a go-go. Yeah, because Bobby's like, the the reason they don't break up with him is Bobby's like, we got tables. It's like, Copa.
01:25:52
Speaker
And they're like, oh my god, I would love to go there. And he's like, actually, we don't. What if just go down to Greenwich Village? And the two are just like, now okay. Like, they don't then go, wait, I was just breaking up with, the only reason was breaking up with you is Copa.
01:26:08
Speaker
right Goodbye, Gary Friedrich.
01:26:13
Speaker
hey just hate Hate to see you go, I guess. I guess. i I love this issue yeah because it is just a parade of Bobby and Hank beating up rude, annoying guys.
01:26:28
Speaker
the
01:26:30
Speaker
There's no challenge to them whatsoever. they yeah get to the coffee shop. A hippie tries to fight them for not liking Bernard's poetry. It's not Bernard.
01:26:42
Speaker
oh it's not Bernard. No, it's a new guy. Oh, I thought this was just, uh, artists interpretation. It, uh, let's see. It could be, but they never say Bernard and they call him the fat man. And Bernard's never been fat in any other.
01:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. All right. I assume a new guy. Maybe it's Bernard. Maybe it's a, yeah, maybe it's a weird interpretation of Bernard. Well, either way, there is a very aggressive hippie ah that tries to fight Hank, and Hank has been waiting for it because he's clearly still upset about the X-Men breaking up.
01:27:17
Speaker
So as
Bobby Drake's Origin Story
01:27:18
Speaker
soon as the lights go dark, he's like, oh, yeah, and throws the guy across the room. i And then... yeah They get to the theater. They realize that ah it's Warlock. Bobby calls him Mahahuha.
01:27:36
Speaker
look maha whoha
01:27:41
Speaker
Uh, and then, a hu and then they just beat the shit out of him. He puts up no fight. They just like, they, you is he gets overstimulated and then they just start like throwing shit at him and up and they win.
01:27:58
Speaker
That's all this is. And then they come back. They talk to the girls for 30 seconds and they're, uh, they're back in good graces. I love also just how, like, they just keep cracking up, right? Yeah. Early on.
01:28:12
Speaker
There's so much. Like, early on Beast says something like, oh, are we on our way to court our own true ladies' fair? and And Iceman's like, oh, I thought we were just picking up Zelda and Vera. What?
01:28:26
Speaker
I think. Got it. Their, like, weird latent sexism is, like, Oh my god. and well i think They're just so blatant about it. At one time, he's like Beast is sitting next to Vera, and he's like... He calls her to her face his wondrous wench.
01:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, they also... He refers to them as the feminine species. think he's reading incel blogs.
01:28:57
Speaker
Oh man, yeah. They're just like... They're calling people names. They're like... cracking jokes. They're calling people other people's names like Edgar. Way to Edgar.
01:29:08
Speaker
ah And then, okay, there's a moment you have to you've to you have to talk me down from this because think there's a real homophobic moment in this issue. I think it is shrouded But when he throws one of the beatniks at the other beatniks, he says, who's who's this that says it? Let me let me quick.
01:29:30
Speaker
Beast says it. Okay. He says, far be it from me to separate a real doll boy like you from his loving buddies. Oh, okay. When you read it like that, yes, it sounds homophobic.
01:29:43
Speaker
Loving buddies. Still, it's like... I think that's a little better than loving buddies. love buddies Still, what's doll boy mean in that scenario? And what's the loving yeah buddies?
01:29:56
Speaker
I think, like... I think he's saying a real doll. Like, you're a real doll. You're a real doll boy. Because that's a phrase you would typically say to a woman. To a woman. So you add the boy suffix.
01:30:08
Speaker
You're not taking away the homophobia here. Then you are infantilizing the guy and feminizing the guy. no, no. things that are traditionally associated with homophobic slang. Just infantilizing because he makes it clear that he's referring to him as a boy. Just like, oh, you're you're like a... Okay. It seems like you're... I think he's sarcastically saying like, oh, it seems like you're a real pleasure to be around.
01:30:35
Speaker
Okay. and And his buddies are real fun Your good friends who love you very much. Okay. ah I don't know. He says he's a a real doll boy and that he's sending back to his loving buddies.
01:30:49
Speaker
And he also calls Vera a wench a short time later. yeah Yeah, exactly. ah What are some other really good things people say in this thing? Frozen fingered me.
01:31:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You forgot about. Frozen fingered me. You we just say me. Whew. this issue here's what uh gary friedrich is good at and we'll see if this arnold dr if this like flowery slang filled language is like arnold drake like arnold drake will stick around for a little bit so we'll see you next episode of this podcast um but gary friedrich is what he does is he just writes these short little
01:31:32
Speaker
Adventures. These little rots. Just like, oh, ah one thing happened today, let me tell you about it.
01:31:43
Speaker
i do i I love, crazy i mean, you know me. We've talked about this so many times. i do know you. love good Bobby and Hank boys day out.
01:31:54
Speaker
Like that's yeah that always makes for a fun story. And that's all this is. They never get to the to a wider plot or a real legitimate threat to Earth. It's just them winning.
01:32:06
Speaker
winning And the cover features them, just like the Angel one, just like yeah I don't think we mentioned, a but there's a Cyclops cover. This one is the X-Men featuring the Beast and Iceman.
01:32:19
Speaker
Right. hey yeah Hey, so there's only one X-Man who doesn't get their own cover, huh? Yeah. Is there something specific about her, you think, that sets her apart from the other X-Men? Oh, wait. Hold on. That's interesting. Her.
01:32:33
Speaker
You said her? Yeah. Her and the other X-Men.
01:32:39
Speaker
She does, I think, in the next issue, which, again, we'll get to next episode, she will show up partnered with Cyclops. But still, it is a little it is a little weird. Cyclops gets his own issue.
01:32:50
Speaker
ah Before we get to next episode, though, we should finish this episode. Let's do it. So, I think, hey, we've been keeping a secret from you, listeners.
01:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's right, Gerald. What you don't realize, Gerald, unless you've been reading along, is that there has been two... stories in each of these issues and uh so in the background and like ah as ah as a backup story to each of these issues we've gotten an ice man origin story and guess uh you know why don't we'll give albert like three seconds of silence to his name is gerald show some respect we're only going to address one listener per episode oh okay yeah albert
01:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, i think we jump I think we can, if we address the list, we can just say it different. Okay, anyway. Mary. We'll give Mary. This one's for Mary. ah We'll give Mary three seconds to guess ah the name of the Iceman origin issues.
01:33:53
Speaker
It's the Iceman coming. It's the Iceman coming. Of course. yes I'm sure you figured that out, Gary. The first three are written by Gary Friedrich and drawn by George Tuska. The last one is written by Arnold Drake and penciled by Werner Roth.
01:34:08
Speaker
The inkers are John Verporten and John Tartaglione. They're lettered by Artie Simak, Irving Watanabe, and Joe Rosen. So those are the talent behind these three stories. do you want to just like go rapid fire back and forth?
01:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I'll take the first one. Okay. The year is 1963. Bobby Drake is walking with some girl named Judy Harmon, and he's about to tell her he loves her when some men jump out and tackle him.
01:34:35
Speaker
Turns out it's Rocky Beasley and a bunch of school bullies that took that look 45 years old. Yeah, yeah. Bobby freezes one with his powers, and Judy runs away scared.
01:34:45
Speaker
She tells her parents, and eventually the whole town starts gossiping about it as Bobby... runs home and tells his parents what happened. A mob descends on his house, and he belts the mob with snowballs until they do overpower him and put him in jail.
01:35:01
Speaker
Professor X and Cyclops read about this in the paper, and back in his cell, Bobby hears a big zapped The zapped was Cyclops, who's come to bust him out of prison, but Bobby won't go.
01:35:13
Speaker
So Cyclops attacks him as he does. This causes the mob to grab guns and follow the two ah who are in a big fight on the street ah where bobby Bobby goes into full snowman form.
01:35:27
Speaker
ah He escaped. Bobby escapes in a boat and Cyclops blasts the dock so that the mob all fall into the water. They fight even more until they tire out and a man points a shotgun at Bobby's head.
01:35:37
Speaker
The mob wants to lynch the mutants, but the sheriff won't let them. So the mob tie the sheriff up first. They then get the kids ready to hang from a tree. Professor X is rushing over in his role's voice and telepathically tells Scott that it is the time to break free Oh, he does. So, and after doing so, they both run back to Bobby's house while Professor X erases the whole mob's memories. He also wipes Bobby's parents' memories and Bobby joins the X-Men.
01:36:08
Speaker
Now he's Iceman. And then the fourth and one is just like the description of his powers and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It is beautifully illustrated by Verna Roth, but that's... There's not much to say. to it You know Iceman's powers. He makes ice. He's cold.
01:36:22
Speaker
If this is And I'm not saying it's out of the realm of possibility, but if this 1963, isn't Bobby like 13? Why he confessing his love to a woman and then fighting a bunch of adults...
01:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, and i though so they are supposed to be school bullies. They call him teenage Bobby Drake. They call um Rock Beasley young Rock Beasley. But these guys, these guys look older than me and you.
01:36:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. They look like ah Dick Tracy criminals. yeah Melt face. It definitely tracks that forcing people to join the X-Men and then erasing the memories of every bystander has been successful for them in the past.
01:37:12
Speaker
Because by the time we we meet the X-Men, they're doing it left and right. they love to do They love to do it. And this is the origin of why they thought this would work. This is the origin of why Cyclops just throws punches at everybody, friend and foe.
01:37:27
Speaker
Because dumbass Bobby is just like, okay. Oh, cool. all right All right. Thanks for beating me up, mo pal. Marvin. Whatever you say, Marvin. He calls him Marvin.
01:37:39
Speaker
Again, it's like call each other. Like, that's... That is the insults. And they just call each other other people's names. It is disrespectful. Like... Yeah.
01:37:50
Speaker
If you... After... I've known you for decades, Matt. If I just started calling you Marvin... Why does he have to erase Bobby's parents' memories? I know they approve. They yeah they are okay with his mutant powers.
01:38:04
Speaker
They knew about him the issue before of the story started. Professor X gets their permission before he erases their memories. He's like, I'm going to take them to a mutant school. And they're like, okay.
01:38:15
Speaker
And he's like, and you're going to forget about the whole thing. So ridiculous. So ridiculous. Also, um it's interesting. In the
X-Men Comic's Struggles
01:38:23
Speaker
animated series, they give this bit of story to Beast.
01:38:28
Speaker
In one of the early issues, Beast gets arrested. And yeah he's sitting in jail and Cyclops tries to bust bust him out. And he's like, no, I'm going to wait here for my trial because I care about justice.
01:38:39
Speaker
And ah they'll find me innocent. I didn't do anything wrong. And that's what Bobby does here. It's a fitting moment. It's a fitting moment for Hank because it's a smart thing to do. It's a fitting moment for Bobby because it's a dumb thing to do.
01:38:55
Speaker
All right. Well, so that is issues 43 through 47 of the X-Men Plus Avengers 53. A bit of a long one here. Do we have, though?
01:39:06
Speaker
Apache Steals and Steals this week? Oh, we do. I need to make sure that's set up. While I am gathering my resources, what do you yeah what are your feelings on this ah Oh, the overall?
01:39:20
Speaker
I mean, obviously, there's there's the obvious thing here, right? Like, these were a bunch of desperate attempts to fix the X-Men, to fix the title because the sales were low, right? At the end of Roy Thomas' run, they kill Professor X. And then they bring back Magneto, the first villain they ever fought, back when the title presumably sold fairly well.
01:39:39
Speaker
Then they cross over with the Avengers to make Avengers fans by the book. I'm guessing Avengers was super popular at this point. And then they break up the team. Like you're saying, giving people like solo adventures to try and test them out. Almost like a like a secret pilot to see if the issue sells better because it has a specific X-band featured on the cover.
01:40:01
Speaker
Right. And then breaking up the team is sufficiently dramatic and like for people to want to buy the issues again. So I think there's something interesting about, oh, and then they have him team up with red everyone's favorite Red Raven.
01:40:14
Speaker
Red Raven. Yeah. You bring in the superstar to to sell issues. Yeah.
01:40:19
Speaker
there's not much evolution going on here beyond that, right? Like, I don't think we get, I don't think this brings us into, there's some moments where we get things that will come up later by writers who probably didn't know this happened to begin with, but still, as we are, as we are becoming X-Men historians, we can link it together in our brains. Like we have Cyclops being introduced to this idea of a,
01:40:45
Speaker
X-Men nation, but knowing that it needs righteous leader. We have some repeated themes. You know, you have mobs of people fighting mutants. You have the Avengers mistrusting mutants.
01:40:58
Speaker
You have people underestimating the X-Men, the departure of Toad. Sure, we'll all miss him You also get like you get Bobby ah you taking that step up to like in that heroic moment that you described. Oh, yeah. good You get Jean expanding her power set like she has evolved even further.
01:41:22
Speaker
i wonder I'm going to justify it by saying this was just the evolution of her mutant power. which No, i think you're I think you're right. I think that is very important. The fact that she now has telepathy and hasn't used it these entire this entire run of issues.
01:41:38
Speaker
yeah She fired one mind bolt at Juggernaut. One mind bolt at Juggernaut. Whatever happened to his psychic protective helmet? I don't know. Why he wearing in pants? He's wearing the helmet in the issue, though. and it's and Anyway, this is something I don't think I noticed my first read through of all this.
01:41:52
Speaker
In Gary Friedrich's run, Jean is almost entirely absent. She's always in the background. She doesn't have any single. Oh, yeah. She barely has any thought. She barely has any conversation. She doesn't have a heroic moment. She is just.
01:42:06
Speaker
We have. I don't know. We've mentioned Jean like four times on this entire two hour episode. yeah And it's not because we're sexists. Yeah. I mean, we might be, but it's missing that's not why. Yeah, she's just gone. Most of the time she spends like trapped and captured.
01:42:24
Speaker
I agree with you, Matt, that it seems like this is sort of a dying comic book. The stuff you mentioned makes it obvious, but also behind the scenes, like the revolving cast of writers and artists and even letters. Like there's an issue where they say, hey sorry, Don Heck isn't drawing this one because he's working on Spider-Man.
01:42:43
Speaker
Like that's more important. We're saving Don Heck for this very important Spider-Man issue. So we're bringing in a guest artist who isn't somebody that like would sell comics. You wouldn't buy that because George Tuska is drawing the X-Men this month.
01:43:01
Speaker
But and most of these issues were ah laid out by Don Heck, but penciled by Werner Roth. It's not Werner Roth's best work at all. You know, it barely feels like Werner Roth. yeah Still our perfect baby angel, but certainly not his best work.
01:43:14
Speaker
And yet it suggests that like when we start here, roy Thomas is still plotting because he had the idea, but he didn't he got pushed to the Avengers, which is selling very well, instead of focusing his time on even completing the story he started.
01:43:30
Speaker
And then they do the same with Don Heck. Yeah. I mean, Roy Thomas never liked the X-Men. He never wanted to be there. oh yeah He never wanted to write them. he even if Even if your theory is wrong that he didn't want to write comics at all.
01:43:42
Speaker
I mean, he said in interviews he didn't like the X-Men. He didn't want to write the X-Men. And I don't know about Gary Friedrich. I don't know how Gary Friedrich felt about the X-Men, but I think we can guess. because i don't know about Gary Friedrich.
01:43:53
Speaker
Because he breaks them up into pieces and then leaves the title five issues later. Yeah. The X-Men are in a rough place right now. Yeah, yeah. ah It'll get better before it gets worse, but it will get worse.
01:44:10
Speaker
Oh, boy. You know... um It'll get worse before it gets better and then gets worse. Oh, yeah. i don't I do not... Honestly, I have a really hard time remembering... i had a hard time remembering this run. i have a hard time remembering Arnold Drake's run.
01:44:25
Speaker
But we will get, again, a very good Roy Thomas run. Before we get a couple terrible Roy Thomas issues. And then the entire.
01:44:36
Speaker
The series gets cancelled. And we'll be following the X-Men. Through other titles. Stay tuned. yeah So that's what that's what you guys can expect. In the a couple couple episodes. Holy shit. Not starting next episode. right it's We got a couple to go before the cancellation.
01:44:54
Speaker
Next episode will be Arnold Drake. And then the Roy Thomas Neil Adams run begin. Which will stick for a couple issues. And then it's the dark era. like Episodes, I think, 14 and 15, we won't be reading the X-Men.
01:45:07
Speaker
Chilling. All right. what's what Tell me, ah pat this week's Pat's Steals and Deals. Well, Matt, let me ask you this.
01:45:19
Speaker
Yes. Are you tired of being guinea
01:45:26
Speaker
Because you could drink on pounds of weight fast the fun way. No, no, Gains of up to, gains listen to me, gains of up to a pound a day proven by thousands. It's delicious.
01:45:37
Speaker
It's wild. The new taste sensation Crash Weight Gaining Plan. No, thanks. Developed by Joe Weider, Trainer of Champions, Architect of Beauty. don't. Helps you drink on pounds. Up to a pound a day. i don't want to. Easily and enjoyably while you rest, relax, watch TV. I don't.
01:45:55
Speaker
Sleep? I don't... Pat, i don't you don't want to sleep, Matt? I do. I don't want gain anymore. Men, women, and children see measurable gains instantly and say goodbye to your skinny, undesirable string bean body now.
01:46:11
Speaker
I prefer to have my string bean body back. I'm fat. I'm 38. who Aren't you sick of your undesirable string bean body? Do you know that it's undesirable?
01:46:23
Speaker
I didn't know it was undesirable. i guess why do i wonder I guess I wouldn't want my strength in the body. If it's undesirable. Joe Weider,
Critique of Protein Supplements
01:46:32
Speaker
Weider, Vider, Vider.
01:46:34
Speaker
he is He was part of like the 60s, 70s bodybuilding craze. A la Jacqueline. A guy who is pre-Arnold Schwarzenegger.
01:46:48
Speaker
And here is his protein supplement powder. I've found a few facts on this. Okay. I mean, you know Joe Vider lives till 93, so... Yes.
01:47:01
Speaker
Yeah, these bodybuilding guys lived fucking forever, and they kept lifting weights the whole time, too. It's like crazy. But I don't think he was drinking this stuff. It's a powder that... i So, number one, in 1972...
01:47:18
Speaker
They founded Formula No. 7. appears to be a precursor to Formula No. 7, which was a very popular drink. ah In 1972, he and his brother Ben found themselves the target of an investigation led by U.S. postal inspectors for mail fraud.
01:47:36
Speaker
The investigation involved the claims regarding their nutritional supplement. The product was a weight gainer. And the reason is because ah the claim centered on consumers being able to gain a pound per day in mass.
01:47:50
Speaker
Oh my god This was... Mostly sugar and anemic soy protein just mixed together. The recommended dose was around 1,800 calories da daily. That's just the powder.
01:48:03
Speaker
The way they recommend to drink it is to mix it with pancake syrup, chocolate sauce, ice cream, and raw eggs, bringing the recipe to about 2,500 to calories per day.
01:48:16
Speaker
My God. And then they recommended you sit, relax, watch TV or sleep after doing it. Why don't I just stuff that right into my arteries? Why don't I just cut open a vein and stuff that stuff into the vein itself?
01:48:32
Speaker
He's just putting protein powder into a milkshake and then telling them they don't even have to exercise. They're like, hey, drink this milkshake with raw eggs. Kick back.
01:48:42
Speaker
You're going get big. ah So i've I've just been, while while while you've been doing that, I pulled up two medical studies. Of... and pulled up two medical okay the lifespans of bodybuilders.
01:48:55
Speaker
um Because I was curious. I mean, i thought 90-whatever was a long lifespan for a bodybuilder. And maybe you're right, maybe some of these really early bodybuilders, before people just started drinking shit like this and pumping themselves up to Arnold Schwarzenegger's size, when people were, smart like, maybe were actually healthier, maybe yeah white people lived longer.
01:49:16
Speaker
But right now, and any bodybuilders listening, you should know this, um I'm sure there's plenty. A study of fifty nearly 1,600 male bodybuilders competing from 1948 to 2014.
01:49:33
Speaker
Their average mean ah lifespan was 47.7 years. Yikes. I don't know if you knew this. Apparently in 2021, there was like a spate of like 30 bodybuilders who just like died.
01:49:50
Speaker
Some of COVID-19. some of heart attacks, and then some of random shit. But well, there was, there was a really, I remember, and I'm gonna get the numbers wrong. But there was, I think, around that time was a big to do about the amount of caffeine they were putting in protein powders to give, like, and like testosterone supplements. It's just like, these guys are wearing on their hearts. So yeah, when COVID came around, it was already about to burst, or they were just lifting weights and their heart Yeah, I mean, there's also like the increased like like I'm just I don't have time to read a medical study while we're recording this podcast, but just skip skimming through. um It seems like some things to consider human growth hormone hormone fucking people up.
01:50:35
Speaker
Oh, I thought you wanted me to consider it. And like the increased pressure being put on bodybuilders, ah like in bodybuilding forums and stuff, like in this like yeah modern lifting culture is like less stress on health and more stress on gains.
01:50:52
Speaker
Yes. And what you're describing is an early version of that. We're kind of a wellness podcast. yeah Because this is right in the middle of that study, right? Like some of these 1,500, 1,600 people who were studied drank this thing, undoubtedly.
01:51:10
Speaker
Absolutely. And it was probably delicious. ah How much was it? So this is what makes it a Pat Steele and deal. Okay. i can get a seven day supply for $7.50. Okay. In today's money around $75. My God, seven days.
01:51:29
Speaker
You spend seven. You spend $75 for seven days. That's $10 a day. $300 a month. I'm going to lose it. Yeah. ah But Matt, you get a deal when you buy in bulk. You know how much a 14 day supply is?
01:51:43
Speaker
I guess less than $15.
01:51:50
Speaker
that era's money, that's $0.20. That's a $0.20 discount. Holy cow. ah That's my steal and deal.
01:52:02
Speaker
Pat's steals and deals. Thanks, Pat. And that's about it. About half of your steals and deals are hilarious and about half of them are depressing as fuck. Yeah, very scary. yeah Remember the one where we just talked about how a bunch of monkeys died?
01:52:17
Speaker
<unk> but yeah all right everybody thank you for listening that hilarious thank you for listening to mutant menace next week we're covering issues uh 50 48 to 53 the arnold drake run and pat we're gonna get some like new characters i don't want to spoil anything finally some real cool new characters so make sure you guys tune into that what else can they do matt Well, they can check us out on Instagram at mutant menace pod.
01:52:51
Speaker
Correct. And then you can email us mutant menace pod at gmail.com. um Check out our YouTube. Also on Instagram and YouTube, we post video clips from the shows, ah some of our favorite moments, and they come along with the cute, ridiculous little illustrations. Like Matt doesn't.
01:53:08
Speaker
When Pat. My Pat's Dinosaur Facts animation. Yes. When Pat told us that ah the ogre looked like the guy from the Lockhorns became a superhero. And then he told us that the guy um that... It looked like Bob Hoskins from the 80s with a helmet on. Yeah, you get to see what that would actually look like.
01:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Thank you to Krils Wilson for our intro music. and outro music. And thank you to Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby.
01:53:41
Speaker
How about you, Pat? Anything you want to say before we go? I am so hot, Matt. I turned off the air conditioner for the length of this podcast, and I think everybody should know.
01:53:51
Speaker
I'm also
Closing Remarks & Humor
01:53:52
Speaker
wearing a corduroy button-up shirt, so it could also be my fault. But aside from that, as I say at the end of every episode, turn loose of my fist, you mile-high meatball.
01:54:07
Speaker
And as always, may I suggest you organize safari.