Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
8 - X-Men #38-42 - The Death of Professor X and Cyclops’ Origin
45 Plays8 days ago
It’s a wrap on Factor Three, folks, as the X-Men’s final confrontation with the MUTANT MASTER wraps up. You know, the MUTANT MASTER, the biggest villain ever in X-Men history? He would go on to… oh, I guess this is his last appearance…
We also get the Origins of Cyclops and Professor X and some background on Roy Thomas’s X-Men experience.
We talk about:
Comedy club etiquette. “Horatio at the Bridge?” NO TIME FOR THAT NOW. Roy Thomas can’t talk normal. Contract-tracing the “Holy Hannah” pandemic. Fred Duncan’s dudes. Don Heck was famous for drawing machines? A major punch-fest. A political rant. New costumes!! The REAL Frankenstein. Stop calling me “Tiger.” Grotesk. Professor Xavier’s Solar Orbs. An amazing trainman. A convincing disguise.
Email us: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Mutant Menace Podcast
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.
Podcast Tone and Theme Discussion
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And welcome to Mutant Menace. Hooray! This is a podcast where we talk about the X-Men.
00:00:46
Speaker
I think we did, I'm pretty sure last week we did the, like, ah pretending to be public radio yeah announcers. Well, it makes sense because we come in so soft with that jazzy piano riff by Kroves Wilson.
00:01:01
Speaker
I know. And the melodic line reading from Julius Ellie, of course. But it's too funny because we are not, that's not our tone at all. like Like, hey, give us something absolutely chill so that right afterwards we can go bonkers and blast people's ears off.
00:01:19
Speaker
That's right. we We just, we hit that much harder after the theme song. Yeah, it gets us all hyped up.
Punk Shows and Audience Dynamics
00:01:27
Speaker
If we played the real X-Men theme song and then you heard this voice, it would be... yeah it would be boring it'd be yeah exactly but now it's filled with excitement every beat also just every x-men podcast uses the x-men themes it's because it's such a good song it's a perfect song everybody anybody who's making a thing about the x-men it's like well we got to use the x-men theme song it's like yeah yeah you do unfortunately we we can't all
00:01:56
Speaker
I've told you with this before, but I have a distinct memory of being in high school. You and I went to the same high school and attended the same punk shows at the same local venues. Don't dox me.
Comedy Shows and Audience Interaction
00:02:07
Speaker
You were in a punk rock band. Yeah. As lead guitarist, I believe. I remember being at one of those shows. Somebody, I think your bassist broke a string, so it had to be replaced, and we were all waiting. And so you said, to kill time, here's the X-Men theme. And then you played the riff.
00:02:25
Speaker
Slowly but perfectly on the high up on the neck of your guitar. Did it get a good reaction? It got a good reaction from me. i think the crowd had started socializing already. Oh, yeah. well You know that moment at a show when like there's some equipment failure and it has to be fixed and it's a local show so nobody's hooked on your every word and the crowd just kind of, you lose them.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, like any local art event, everybody's just waiting for the thing to be over to hang out and socialize. Like you go to a comedy show and you're just sitting there like, when do I get to talk to my friend?
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. you see This is local art, of course, not a... Please don't do that when you go to see famous comedians. Well, i you don't you shouldn't talk over the performer anyway, but there's this but there is this sort of like building tension of like, ah this this is making me feel social.
00:03:20
Speaker
Please be over so I can talk to my friend, even if you're enjoying it. yeah You and I have done comedy for years. You wouldn't know about this show. Oh, boy. How many times have you seen an audience member at a comedy show mistakenly think that it is a conversation?
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. Just way too many, like massively amount. It's unbelievable. Like I know we used to run shows that encouraged some audience participation. So we know that was our sort of way of getting in front of it, too.
00:03:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. yeah Yeah. We expected it so we could play with it, but we saw a lot more of it than you usually would because we kind of welcomed it. But like you and I have both hosted stand up shows or even just gone to see stand up shows where.
00:04:07
Speaker
i I would say just under half of the standup shows I've been to, someone in the audience thought that the comedian was talking to them and inviting them to answer their questions.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder, sometimes I have a couple thoughts about that. Sometimes I wonder if that's because of lack of understanding and thinking that maybe, you know, dealing with hecklers, that's part of what's fun about going to see a comedian, which it's not.
00:04:34
Speaker
If anybody says that,
Comedians and Audience Experiences
00:04:36
Speaker
ah, you need to be, if you're going to be a comedian, you got to learn to deal with hecklers. No, don't That's like saying, oh if you're going to be a, if you're going to firefighter, you got to learn to accept that there's arsonists on your block. No, there's arsonists.
00:04:52
Speaker
If you're going to be a banker, you got to, you got to accept that people are going to commit fraud.
00:04:59
Speaker
somebody's going to rob you with gun sometimes. It's just part of your job. If you don't know what to do when a porters person points a gun at your face, then maybe you're in the wrong line of work, banker.
00:05:10
Speaker
um People don't say that, but they say that about comedians. So there's, that's the one thing I think. The other thing is, I think there's like, the social awkwardness of feeling like you're being talked to because that's a that's a stage performers job is to make everybody feel like they are yeah sure person being targeted and this feeling this like maybe growing sense of unease in that person like should i be am i supposed to am i they fell for it do i am i should i and eventually they're just like the person's like have you guys ever been to hawaii and
00:05:44
Speaker
I have been to Hawaii. I have been to Hawaii. It's nice. it's it's nice It's nice. I like it there. Thank you. Have you ever been to Hawaii and seen those guys who... No, I haven't.
00:05:55
Speaker
i haven't seen them. I have. It's like the comedians that are supposed to say, oh okay. And they do a different show. yeah I have, as you know, a tattoo from one of our comedy shows that we did for a long time.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah. Very
Exploration of Improv and Comedy Culture
00:06:11
Speaker
proud of it. I was referred to the tattoo shop by a friend, somebody that worked on the show with us. I love the tattoo. It's very, it's close to my heart. But the guy that gave It's very far from your heart.
00:06:23
Speaker
I'll say that. ah It's, yeah, that's, see that's fair. But yeah, but it's close to your heart. But it's close to my heart. The tattoo artist who... was generally a great guy told me a story when he found out that this was for our comedy show about the one comedy show he's ever been. He said, i went out to Los Angeles. I went to the UCB theater. He said, have you ever heard of that? Which of course.
00:06:53
Speaker
And he said, yeah, I went to the show. It's called ass something ass. Yeah. And I said, ASCAT, which if you don't know, this is maybe a little more inside comedy, but ah ASCAT is a regular improv show that took place at the UCB in l LA that just was legendary for having the founders of the UCB theater, which includes Amy Poehler and then all of their celebrity friends, as well as just talented improvisers that hadn't gotten their break yet.
00:07:25
Speaker
It still happens, and it's just like their most veteran improvisers. It is their, it is the top of their current talent at all times. This guy sets the tone by letting me know that he had a 40 in each hand walking into the theater.
00:07:41
Speaker
oh God. Interrupts the show several times to the point where Will Arnett... i has to stop the show and say, yeah this you are out of line, leave the theater right now.
00:07:58
Speaker
And I guess they get into a brief verbal spat when Amy Poehler steps up and says, okay, everybody calm down and turns right to him, the tattoo artist, and says, are you going to be able to behave for the rest of the show? And he goes, yes. And she says, okay, then you can stay and let's just get back to the show.
00:08:17
Speaker
And... Then he was silent for the rest of the show. He finished his forty s in silence and the the show went on. And then he ends that story with, so ah yeah, that's my experience with comedy.
00:08:29
Speaker
Oh my God. ah that showing up to a comedy show with two 40s in hand, like, oh, this is going to be a party. Yeah. you Already.
00:08:41
Speaker
ah Hey, man, may this night is not about you. we have to start. Like, we should start there. Like, that should be written over every comedy theater door. Hey, this night is not about you.
00:08:53
Speaker
Come watch somebody. And it's an improv show. Like, and and I can understand if it was a stand-up comedy show. There's ah a bit of maybe a different crowd expectation there but these are not ah confrontational people this is yeah these are theater nerds that you're yelling at right you're not watching somebody in that point you're not watching somebody who feel who is making it like they're talking directly to you you're basically watching a play and being like hey me too I've also been to New York it's it's like yelling at a the music man don't trust him
00:09:34
Speaker
He's lying. i love I love you too, Juliet. Juliet, I agree. i agree. I agree that you remind me of a summer's day.
00:09:45
Speaker
ah or Or worse. I don't think she's that pretty.
00:09:52
Speaker
shes matt i gotta ask. Yeah. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? I did. Well, I was going to tell you about one thing specifically, but then I had ah an incident just before we were recorded where I might have an X-Men power.
00:10:10
Speaker
Wow. so Tell me all about it. I was getting ah glass down from my cabinet when a different glass fell. And I caught it on my arm. Okay.
00:10:25
Speaker
And it shattered on my arm. Whoa. Oh, there's a... okay yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's blood. Are you okay, buddy? Yeah, i'm fine. um But it shattered on my arm.
00:10:36
Speaker
But I guess... Yeah. The fact that I got cut is a good so yeah indicator that it wasn't because of my own super strength or invulnerability.
00:10:47
Speaker
I'm sorry, pal. Did it hurt? are you Okay. It didn't hurt at the time. It was just very confusing. And I had to pick glass out of my arm and like a real badass.
00:10:57
Speaker
All right. This is what I was going to tell you about. You're very brief. I got a book called Comic Creators on X-Men. It's an out of print book that is ah very.
00:11:09
Speaker
It costs more than I wanted it to. let's Let's say that. But it is Tom DeFalco, former writer and editor of Not Very Good Writer. But former editor of Marvel Comics. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
Good editor. You might like him because he was a big spider. He was like a big part of Spider-Man's. Sure was. But ah anything he's ever done that's been X-Men related has been some of the worst comics I've ever read.
00:11:34
Speaker
um So he interviews... ah This was back in 2006, I believe. And he interviews just a ton of people who worked on the X-Men, including...
00:11:48
Speaker
Relative relevant to our current where we currently are in the podcast Stanley and Roy Thomas. Oh, so one of the things i do want to tell you is we've been right about so much of the stuff we've said about Roy Thomas.
00:12:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. Great. Not only. Did Stan say, oh, Roy Thomas was just the guy I put on every book that I didn't want to write anymore? I'm paraphrasing, but um but also, Roy Thomas is like, I didn't get the whole mutant thing at the time, at least in his first go-around, and he wasn't too excited about the X-Men, and he specifically didn't want it to be about mutants anymore. He just wanted it to be a book like The Avengers.
00:12:34
Speaker
He just wanted to tell fucking science fiction tales. Right. He like he talks about how that's that's why he brought in the super adaptoid and the puppet master and stuff.
00:12:45
Speaker
um He thinks that some of these were Stan's ideas, but he this is another thing he said. um He was he believes at least he's the first person to write Spider-Man besides Stan Lee when he put Spider-Man in the background of the what was that? The puppet master issue.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yes. We were foiling the bank robbery. I don't know that that's true. It's just what Roy Thomas says about it. um Interesting.
Superheroes in Manhattan
00:13:11
Speaker
Wait, no, because they ask him there to be, to join their team. And he's like, dude, I just turned down the Avengers. Although maybe that took place in.
00:13:20
Speaker
Stan Lee was writing the Avengers. Oh shit. Okay. Okay. So he believes he's the first person to write Spider-Man besides Stan Lee. And then ah it was his idea to put Spider-Man in issue 35. So that we were wrong about.
00:13:36
Speaker
ah Along came a spider? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. um But yeah, he wanted to get it get them away from just fighting mutants. Another thing I learned is that the factor, factor three was supposed to be like a cabal of James Bond villains, which it's a little hard to get,
00:13:52
Speaker
but it's but that name, that shitty name, factor three is about. Three is very James Bond, right? Well, the idea is that in James Bond and James Bond-like shows, it was the U.S. versus the Soviets.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, they wanted to be third factor. The third factor in the equation, which really comes into play in what we're talking about today. Yeah, sure does.
00:14:22
Speaker
um Once we get to it. Once we get to it. You have yet to ask me if I've done anything. ay ah Yeah. Yeah. I'll ask you and then you'll say no. And then we'll. That would have been a great segue.
00:14:34
Speaker
Okay. What did you do that's X-Men related this.
00:14:38
Speaker
you Not much. I was. I did.
00:14:43
Speaker
I did spend the weekend in New York City. o Yeah. Did you see any superheroes? Maybe. Maybe. i would as I mean, I wouldn't know unless they were in oh ok uniform. Oh, okay. If you saw them in their civilian garb. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:00
Speaker
I was looking up for Spider-Man. but ah Do you do that every time you visit New York City? Yeah, yeah. How often do you think in the Marvel 616 universe, the average Manhattan resident sees Spider-Man? Like actually sees him swing by either maybe ah a window or just as they're walking on the street?
00:15:23
Speaker
I think if you live in Manhattan all the time, right? Okay. If you live elsewhere, it's kind of rare. But if you live in Manhattan, you're seeing superheroes nonstop because you got the you got Stark Industries.
00:15:39
Speaker
You got the Avengers Tower, which I guess become the same thing most most of the time. They're the same thing. and You got Four Freedoms Plaza. Sure. Sure.
00:15:50
Speaker
that's where Spider-Man spends like most of his time, even though Spider-Man lives in Queens. He spends most of his time in Manhattan, right? Yeah. Yeah. He, he takes the train into Manhattan and then swings around. Like, I think if you live in Manhattan, it's just superheroes all the fucking time. and um Whereas if you, and I like the power pack lived in Manhattan. Everyone lived in Manhattan.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, Spider-Man specifically. Okay. and wouldn't, Like, I see Iron Man, like, oh boy, there's another billionaire soaring through the sky.
00:16:26
Speaker
um I bet you'd see... i definitely Definitely once a year. Everybody sees Spider-Man at least once a year. And some across the army some people see him like weekly.
00:16:38
Speaker
Other people see him a couple times. a couple like it's Okay, I would say it's about how often when me and you were both... um Living around and doing comedy in Westchester, Pennsylvania is about as often as we saw Bam Margera.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Right. Like he was just, he was always around there somewhere, not where you were at any given time, usually. Speaking of Westchester, Matt, wait, here's our segue. Here's our segue. Shut up.
00:17:07
Speaker
I'm just saying, much more exciting to see Spider-Man than fucking Bam Margera. We have to sneak that in in case somebody is there is like at home thinking, oh, cool, they lived to where Bam Margera is. No, it's not cool. Not cool even a little bit.
00:17:23
Speaker
No, Matt, Bam Margera is good again on the internet. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, he's... said He wasn't the entire 20 years lived in and around Westchester, Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah. ah Speaking of Westchester... Yes.
00:17:44
Speaker
Do you want to tell us, Matt, about what's going on in Westchester, New York, in issue number 38 X-Men? I don't even know if
X-Men Comic Issues Discussion
00:17:54
Speaker
issue number 38, it doesn't even take place in Westchester, New York, but I'll tell you about it anyway.
00:18:00
Speaker
Issue 38, the sinister shadow of doomsday edited by Stan Lee, written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Don Heck, your boy inked by George Bell, lettered by L.P. Gregory. I don't know either of those last two.
00:18:17
Speaker
Uh, don it's Please don't call Don Heck my guy. He's your guy. He's your boy. He is a Marvel legend. i ah And you love him. He's your favorite one.
00:18:29
Speaker
That doesn't include any commentary on his art. Picking up from the last issue. The X-Men have just escaped Factor 3's traps and are face to face with the mutant master on a big video screen.
00:18:45
Speaker
a Beast detects a bomb in the floor with his talented tootsies and they flee in a Factor 3 flying saucer.
00:18:56
Speaker
They're all obsessing over his feet, but the he gives them a solid, there's no time for this now.
00:19:04
Speaker
the The first time he hasn't wanted to talk, like he's allowed to talk about his feet. But there's no time for you to talk about his feet. They are getting really into it. Changeling, meanwhile, argues with Mutant Master about how the X-Men were able to escape.
00:19:19
Speaker
And we learn a bunch of things about him and his plan. Apparently, Mutant Master is immobile, relying on Changeling to bring all the mutants together. And Mutant Master keeps everyone in line with a series of weapons that he seems to control mentally.
00:19:35
Speaker
The plan is to spark a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, as if there's some kind of third factor in the Cold War, so that mutants can rule over the resultant wasteland.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yet Changeling is worried that he's simply trading the oppression of humanity for slavery under a dictator. The X-Men pick up Factor 3's radio signals in Eastern Europe and Washington and split up to investigate using Factor 3's ridiculously fast flying egg-shaped saucers.
00:20:07
Speaker
Angel, Beast, and Marvel Girl fly to the USSR and find Vanisher and the Blob there with a small squadron of masked henchmen planning to blow up a gathering of military leaders.
00:20:19
Speaker
Beast fights a bunch of military guards while Angel and Jean fight Blob and Vanisher. His absolute favorite thing. Holy shit. I get to fight. Beast gets to just solo a squadron of military.
00:20:34
Speaker
Cyclops and Iceman go directly to some U.S. military base and try to convince some general to disarm all his bombs. When he doesn't immediately agree, they run out and start trying to destroy every nuclear warhead in the place while the army shoots at them.
00:20:50
Speaker
Back in the USSR! Hmm. Gene telekinetically creates a bubble of Vanisher's knockout gas around the blob to knock him unconscious, and Vanisher teleports away, leaving the two X-Men to fight the remaining hooded henchmen, which turn out to be androids.
00:21:08
Speaker
When they head to warn the Soviet generals of the bomb, they get mistaken for assassins. Angel and Gene, along with Bob and Beast, Bob, Blob.
00:21:21
Speaker
I'm the Bob. Watch out for me. Bob trick. Along with the blob and beast get thrown in prison, leaving us with several dangling questions. First from Jean.
00:21:36
Speaker
ah Why did mutant master cover the robot faces with masks? Changeling. Am I trading one tyrant for another? And professor X. How can you rule over a nuclear wasteland? Won't you all be killed too?
00:21:52
Speaker
and that's the end? Yeah. Are we going to get any any conclusion in the next issue? No, it says all done. No, it will not be continued, it says. No, it's to be continued.
00:22:03
Speaker
Wow. This issue, it feels like a lot happens and not a lot happens, right? Well, here's the thing, Yes. Yes. Okay, the plot doesn't move forward very much.
00:22:18
Speaker
Right. mean, it's the last issue. they essentially start and end in the same place, right? The the final issue that we we read last time, they were going after factor three, they get trapped, and then they escape it, they fight a bunch of guys, they get re-trapped.
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah. It happens again here. They just, they escape their trap, they fight a bunch of guys. Yeah. They just end up in a life-threatening situation at the end.
00:22:48
Speaker
It's another to be continued, which this is... Don't get me wrong. This is a very... A big effort, this five-issue arc that we're in here. But... Yeah. Yeah, they're just kind of...
00:23:01
Speaker
starting and stopping at the same place and making the issues slightly shorter so they can continue it on do you think that the factor three saga was selling well and that's why they wanted to make these a little shorter start to fit two stories per issue and stretch it to think it's a fifth factor three issue i would say the opposite i i think factors i think x-men's probably not selling well at this time So they're trying to entice readers in.
00:23:33
Speaker
They're trying to do two things. First, entice readers in by also putting backup origin stories, which we'll get to ah in these issues. But second of all, make the X-Men less of a workload on their talent by giving them less to write and less to draw.
00:23:51
Speaker
So like, okay, we're going to keep putting out X-Men even though it's selling badly, but we don't want you to spend all your time on it. So we're going to put ah bunch of guys on this instead of just two. Yeah, that's fair.
00:24:03
Speaker
It is especially with Don Hex, uh, fucking very busy art. ah So, Oh, so he's not your guy. I think I, I, I don't know if I blame maybe the, the anchor here, George Bell,
00:24:21
Speaker
Because I do think Don Heck's art gets better in the next couple issues. Yes. Yeah. are you I'll get to that. Okay. But i think you're blaming Don Heck. I'm saying that I think maybe George Bell's to blame.
00:24:35
Speaker
All right. Yeah. Fucking George Bell.
00:24:39
Speaker
he so There are some, i could see there are some scenes where it is a little hard to tell what's going on because there's just so much shit in the panel.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yes, there is a lot of action. And it's just not like, even the the very first page, the splash panel that we open with is just Don Heck's reinterpretation of the final panel from the issue before it.
00:25:05
Speaker
Like they are... essentially just a different camera angle on the same setup, repeating the same words, just redrawn by Don Heck and characters are in slightly different positions. And you can see the clear contrast there. Like Don is really just getting used to drawing the X-Men here.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, because in the last issue was Ross Andrew. um But it's I think the way he draws like machinery is really confusing.
00:25:39
Speaker
Well, he's a he's a robot man. He's a robo man. Yeah, but so if he's a robo man, then why is his machinery all so confusing? Like there's these panels. There's this panel where ah Changeling is working some sort of machinery doing something that's kind of,
00:25:57
Speaker
He's standing before a towering radio generator, it says, but it just looks like a bunch of lines. Yeah. I mean, that's... is Again, this is This is what you asked for when you asked for Don Heck.
00:26:10
Speaker
i He loves a big, complicated machine. he you know he i one of the co-creators of Iron Man, right? Right.
00:26:21
Speaker
But before that, he was doing science fiction comics. He was just drawing robots and monsters and freaks and strange mysteries all over the place.
00:26:35
Speaker
But Jack Kirby was that kind of guy and also. And Jack Kirby's machines were so much better. Yeah. Well... But I guess it is fair to say... Don't have ideas, guys.
00:26:50
Speaker
um and I can't remember how we felt about Werner Roth's crazy machines. Were we... Were we ah hype on them? I feel like those weren't as detailed.
00:27:02
Speaker
Werner Rothkin, do you know wrong? Still batting a thousand. A thing I love about speaking of weird machines is how Roy Thomas has to call everything the weirdest names ever.
00:27:15
Speaker
Right? Like... ah Oh, my God. Somebody shoots lasers and instead of just being like... I shot them. Somebody has to say, i shot my ray blasts at them. Or like, or or like, ah
00:27:30
Speaker
people don't talk normally. And I know ah this is in all comics, but people like go out of their way to mention the technology they're using. They're like, if if Instead of saying, like, I'm going to fly away, you'd be like, I'm going to use my Repulso jet helicopter engine to fly out of here. And it's like, it makes me wonder about Roy Thomas's just like home life.
00:27:53
Speaker
Right? Like, does he call a spoon a soup lift device? Does he call? Does he call a shower? He's like, hey, ah honey, I just got to hop in the hydro blaster to clean my human body before we go.
00:28:09
Speaker
I'm dying, Matt, at your note here that just says, hey, honey, can you bring me soup lift device? ah so its He adds a brand new one here, too. He calls it the predictoscope, and they don't use it.
00:28:28
Speaker
They just mentioned that they have one. They have a predictoscope. What is a Predictoscope supposed to do? Does it look into the future? i think it tells the future. I think it like... Why not use that all the time?
00:28:42
Speaker
yeah it seems like it's not fully
00:28:47
Speaker
accurate. It seems like there's some there's some flaw in the design that only allows it.
00:28:54
Speaker
It's funny. You were talking about how ah Hank, no time no time for that now. ah Everybody about his own feet. But he does it about everything, right? Like he breaks when they um when they meet the Soviets. He know time for that now is them about to be like destroyed by factor three and needing to warn them about. and But he uses still so many words. He's the beast.
00:29:20
Speaker
So he doesn't just say it's like he doesn't just know time for that now. He's like, hello, my Polkitudinous pals. ah Me and my Maleficent men want to invade your... Oof.
00:29:36
Speaker
He's... ah Yeah, i I'm no Roy Thomas. Not an easy not easy voice to improv in. No, he can't improv it!
00:29:44
Speaker
ah But he's still just like... He's speaking so much for a guy telling you, i don't have time to tell you what's going on. I think he did, buddy.
00:29:56
Speaker
i think he did. Just use fewer words. I love, as always, and we mentioned it in the recap, but Hank gets to do his favorite thing, beat up the military. It's in Eastern European military, so he doesn't even have to feel guilty about beating up U.S. military. Yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker
Cyclops also gets to fight the military. It's the US military, which is his favorite thing. He hates the military. And one of them, I'm to get mad about this. i i mean The entire episode, Matt, one of them says, holy Hannah, the troops are saying holy Hannah now, which seems to be what triggers Cyclops to attack him.
00:30:38
Speaker
That's his thing. That's the last straw for him. Cyclops says a weird ah weird Holy Hannah in ah upcoming issue. ah But yeah, you're going have a real issue ah with all this. um What's...
00:30:53
Speaker
I think it's Bobby says he feels like Horatio at the bridge. It's Angel. It's Angel is redeeming himself by being brave after that issue where he was like, ah if we if we save these people, we're going to give away our identity. So maybe we shouldn't. this In this issue, he's redeeming himself by being like,
00:31:13
Speaker
Gene, stay back. I'm going to fight all these Soviet troops and die. Or it's the androids. I can't remember which one. But he says ah Horatio at the bridge, ah which is just Roy Thomas getting a literary reference wrong.
00:31:29
Speaker
This tortured genius.
00:31:34
Speaker
So what he's referring to is a poem by Thomas Babington Macaulay, which That is about Thomas Abington Macaulay. Yeah. ah Which is about a story about a Roman soldier who was fighting the Etruscans.
00:31:52
Speaker
I don't know the exact details. The Etruscans.
00:31:59
Speaker
He was fighting somebody on behalf of Rome and to stop them from getting to Rome proper. They collapse a bridge and Horatius Cockles, I guess his name was, um supposedly sort of single-handedly holds them off while they destroy the bridge behind him.
00:32:21
Speaker
So that's that's that's the reference, but his name's not Horatio and the poem is not called Horatio at the Bridge. Roy Thomas just... And also, it is when they're fighting androids, Gene just walks around him and takes out the androids instead.
00:32:36
Speaker
He's like, yeah, he's like, stay back. I'll i'll handle it. I'll sacrifice myself. And Gene's like, um and it's fine, dude. i I actually got this one. i Okay, i have I have notes for...
00:32:52
Speaker
Roy Thomas and notes for Stan Lee. Oh, okay. On this one. Number one, I'm going to read you a i Roy Thomas narration here that is just supposed to say, yeah ah now let's check in on Professor X.
00:33:11
Speaker
At this pulsating point, faithful one, we regret that we must momentarily interrupt our sense-shattering narrative. But we thought that after, lo, these many issues, it was time that we heard from a decidedly immobilized Professor X. Shut up. Shut up!
00:33:29
Speaker
ah Just take us there. Yeah. This is on a panel where we're just looking at Professor X. We know...
00:33:36
Speaker
yeah Anyway, Stan Lee is getting a little reckless with his editor's notes in this issue. He's not even taking shots at Roy Thomas anymore. yeah He's not critiquing the i the overly poetic Shakespearean narration.
00:33:55
Speaker
He's just... i We cut to a shot of the bomb that ah Gene and Warren are trying to stop. And he adds a note that's like, ah just so you know, we wanted to make sure everybody saw the bomb. That's why this mean that's why this panel's here. Thanks for reading.
00:34:16
Speaker
Stan. Smile and Stan. That It is a ridiculously written editor's note, but I also, I was glad for that editor's note because I could not tell what that was a fucking picture of. It's fair.
00:34:29
Speaker
um Okay, so at the end of this issue, there is a secondary, like a backup story, as we were referring to. Yes. It's by Roy Thomas and Werner Roth, our pal, our guy. We love him.
00:34:42
Speaker
The story's called but a Man Called Yeah. It opens in an FBI office as two agents watch a TV news story of a riot breaking out over a mutant and they decide they must investigate the mutant menace. Mutant menace.
00:35:00
Speaker
It's cut to Professor x Xavier's house where he's been a recluse ever since the Korean War. tap No, he hasn't. Yes, he has. No, he hasn't.
00:35:11
Speaker
No, he hasn't. It says right here in the comic. He's been a wreck since the Korean War. He was, he had use of his legs in the Korean War. And then he went out adventuring for years where he like overthrew a small nation's government.
00:35:27
Speaker
And as we'll find out in the future, had a whole shit ton of other adventures at this time, like had children at this time. Okay. He reads in the newspaper that the FBI will be investigating mutants, so he flies to Washington, D.C. to intervene. Using his telepathy to get past the guards, he ends up sitting on... Sitting in...
00:35:51
Speaker
On Agent Fred Duncan and some other guy, watching footage of a teenager using powerful red optic blasts to save a crowd from a falling industrial-sized air conditioner.
00:36:02
Speaker
And the crowd turning on the kid... They decide to find and investigate the kid when they discover Professor Xavier is already in the room with them. they try They try to just wheel him out of the room. They're like, oh I know what will take care of this guy. And they get to wheel him out. And it won't move. They can't do it.
00:36:21
Speaker
And then they try to shoot him, but they can't pull the trigger. So instead, they agree to work with him on tracking down and training mutants. The end.
00:36:32
Speaker
To be continued. Sort of. Yeah, I don't think that one says to be continued, but it does. it it does become continued. Yeah, it's a little serialized. This is a neat little story to follow. It's got its own flaws, but it is the only Werner Roth X-Men art we're getting at this time, right?
00:36:52
Speaker
ah Yes, I think so. I think it's a fun little story. gives us a ah look into how Professor X decided to start the X-Men and also a look into how he got the ah FBI on his side.
00:37:15
Speaker
But who the hell is this other guy? ah Fred Duncan always has a crony.
00:37:24
Speaker
He's always got some other dude in the room with him. Well, I guess we've seen him twice now, but both times he's just had some other guy there that he's been like, excuse me, I have to talk to this bald man.
00:37:39
Speaker
And I guess other people don't question him. Maybe he's high up enough. We.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yes, sir I'm grappling with some timelines here because this is a flashback. ah hu But the fucking feds are saying, holy Hannah. or that i can't find this. I've been looking.
00:38:04
Speaker
Fred Duncan pulls a gun on the professor. oh he thinks. OK, I see it now. i was. Yeah. Thinks to himself. Holy Hannah. So we know that the professor. Well, maybe he picked it up from. OK, maybe he picks it up from Fred Duncan reading his mind in this moment. and Okay. Passes it on to Bobby. He's just frustrated with Bobby one day and says, holy Hannah, Bobby, get your shit together.
00:38:31
Speaker
And Bobby's like, ooh. And then he starts saying it. Cyclops picks it up. The yeah government agents the that are monitoring them start to pick it up. And that's how it's made its way to the the military. and military. Yeah.
00:38:46
Speaker
Because they are monitoring communications between the U S military and the U S military starts saying it. So then the Eastern European military starts saying it. This is how, this is how a a meme spreads.
00:38:58
Speaker
Now I don't want to start ranting about this, but do you think so with, Right now, we are in the era of the Batman 60s television show.
00:39:14
Speaker
I think it's just completed like its first or second season. It is a huge hit, and Burt Ward is always saying, holy something Batman, right? And it's always unique to that situation.
00:39:26
Speaker
this yeah This is very sudden. they The X-Men are not holy people. Do you think this is just an attempt to... make fun of that, recapture that magic.
00:39:38
Speaker
Do you think Roy Thomas every time is like, ah he's got to say, holy something, holy Hannah. I can't even venture a guess.
00:39:50
Speaker
All right. Thank you for indulging me. I mean, it's going to come up again. i know we're going to talk about it more. Yeah. Because they say it a lot in this series of issues. Pat, do you
Frankenstein's Monster in X-Men
00:40:03
Speaker
want to tell me about issue 39, the fateful finale?
00:40:08
Speaker
Yes, yeah, I do. Issue 39, the fateful finale. Stan Lee enthusiastically endorses this Roy Thomas Don Heck excitement laden epic.
00:40:19
Speaker
We're not sure just what Vince Coletta, Inker, and Artie Simek, letterer, think of it, though. it This is a gag that they go back to. like They're trying to be too cute here. Release date 10th, 1967. date December 67. Hmm.
00:40:32
Speaker
cover date december of sixty seven Iceman and Cyclops press past the attacking U.S. military to find that Factor 3 was intending to vent some kind of gas through the air filtration system.
00:40:45
Speaker
They freeze the pipes when suddenly big tentacles burst through the walls to trap them. Mastermind steps out to brag about it, and that immediately clues the boys into the fact that these tentacles are illusions.
00:40:58
Speaker
They escape only to find Unis is there also. Back in jail, Jean recovers enough to use her telekinesis and floats the sleeping security guard over to the cell so that Beast can grab him and choke him out.
00:41:12
Speaker
And then Jean telekinetically grabs the keys and gets them out. They escape, bursting into the room just as some ambiguous Eastern European leaders are about to declare war on the U.S.,
00:41:25
Speaker
To try and restore peace, Angel starts punching everyone. Marvel Girl discovers the bomb in a suitcase and is about to steal it away when the blob shows up and starts punching everyone. Beast punches him.
00:41:37
Speaker
Cut back to Cyclops and Iceman who are punching and being punched by Unus and Mastermind. Cyclops has Iceman create a bunch of ice and melts it with his force-based, not heat-based, I-beams and creates an icy mist. He has very important in icy mist around the room to cover their escape.
00:41:56
Speaker
Another fucking sick move. they If it worked, if it would work, if you could melt with force rather than with this, with heat, it would be a sick move. What? No, Matt, this is awesome. he was Iceman creates a big mound of ice and Scott blasts it as hard as he can to essentially create like snow drift. You ever been driving in the snow? like The wind blows over some loose snow and it just like you can barely see what's ahead of you.
00:42:27
Speaker
Okay, so they call it a mist, which made me think that Scott was melting the snow. No, no, no, no, no. because But I see what you're saying. He's just projecting the particles into the air.
00:42:38
Speaker
Gotta say, there's a lot of weird fogs coming up, so buckle up. Yeah, that's true. Bobby and Scott move their goalposts from disarming every missile to prevent nuclear war to just neutralizing the gas so that, I guess, the military can remain in control of the base. Yeah, this is really confusing. This was added in the last minute here, for sure.
00:42:59
Speaker
i So they can consider their mission a success. Everybody's goals change during this, right? In the last issue, it was... um We'll talk about it. Well, I think we'll talk about it at the end because I think we need to learn a little bit more about Mutant Master first. Back in Eastern Europe, Gene talks blob out of holding onto the bomb.
00:43:19
Speaker
An angel flies it up into the air where it explodes harmlessly in the immediate atmosphere. yeah This proves to the Eastern European generals that the X-Men were on the level, not actually trying to assassinate them, and they let them go.
00:43:32
Speaker
We cut to the mutant master who is bummed that the X-Men foiled his plan and reveals that he let them go so that they'd be blamed for the attack rather than each nation blaming each other, which was the whole... Yeah, what's going on here?
00:43:47
Speaker
what Nothing! His whole plan falls... so Okay, okay, keep going. He also reveals that he can't find Changeling and that if Changeling knew his true plan, he'd try to stop him. He's doing a lot of internal out loud monologuing.
00:44:01
Speaker
yeah All five X-Men meet up at Factor 3's base where they're confronted by Mutant Master, Blob, Vanisher, Mastermind, and Unus. They're about to all start punching when Professor X interrupts them and claims that the Mutant Master is the real enemy.
00:44:17
Speaker
Professor X starts grilling Mutant Master on why he sentenced the X-Men to the Oblivio Ray instead of death. Why did he let the X-Men escape? Why did he try to provoke a world war? But instead of answering, Mutant Master sicks an army of androids on everyone.
00:44:32
Speaker
The battle wakes Banshee up, who uses his powerful scream. Yeah, do you remember Banshee is also involved here? I completely forgot. So cool. I love the Banshees here. He's been unconscious for three issues. He wakes up, he uses his powerful scream to destroy all the androids and start stripping away all the robotics off of the Mutant Master, revealing him to be a giant, weird, green alien from the Star Sun Sirius.
00:44:56
Speaker
All the mutants team up to fight the alien. Then a second Professor X shows up and tells Jean to capture the first Professor X using telepathy. But before she can, the mutant master commits suicide.
00:45:10
Speaker
ah The evil mutants and the X-Men part as temporary allies. They just shake hands and forget about the international incidents. like, next time we meet. Next time we meet, we'll kill each other. Bye.
00:45:22
Speaker
And then the changeling is. Yeah. Unclear. ah Yeah. To wrap it all up, the X-Men get home. Finally, jean has a gift for them. They put on all new costumes that Jean made them herself.
00:45:41
Speaker
The end. So. Okay, so now now that all the details are out, we got to talk about it. Mutant Master's original plan, as stated to us, was that he was trying to provoke a war between the U.S. and the U.S. and the the Soviets, right?
00:45:58
Speaker
Right. He was trying to spark off the Cold War. Two issues in a row, he let us know. This was his ultimate plan. Make them create a nuclear holocaust. ah So both of them were going to the leaders to say like, hey, this is what's going to happen.
00:46:14
Speaker
You've got to not nuke each other. It's not the U.S.'s fault. It's not Russia's fault. Yeah. USSR's fault at this point. But then, as I guess Roy Thomas is like, ah this is too complicated.
00:46:28
Speaker
Punch. yeah Instead, it just becomes, oh, uh, actually, Factor 3 was just gonna knock them out with knockout gas. And blow them up.
00:46:39
Speaker
Here's how it all kicks off. yeah Hank busts into a room full of Eastern European Russian-speaking generals.
00:46:49
Speaker
And reveals that he can also speak Russian and just starts saying, like, hey, we mean you no harm, i you guys are in great danger. There's a bomb here. They're surprised.
00:47:02
Speaker
yeah And before they can really react, to Warren flies in the window, says, I don't speak Russian, but I know what this means and starts punching them all.
00:47:14
Speaker
They're like, Hey, we've got to prevent world war three. Punch everyone. Now, here is what I think happened to ah Scott and Bobby.
00:47:26
Speaker
I believe that, yeah, their initial plan was let's destroy all of these nuclear warheads so that when Mutant Master's army takes over this military compound, they won't be able to launch them.
00:47:41
Speaker
But that wasn't Mutant Master's plan. It wasn't to take over the compound. It was to... assassinate the leaders so that the leaders would think oh this was the other country let's start launching the right okay so he was going to release poison gas into the nuclear missile command center where all the nuclear guys are we're all Yeah, where the men with the their fingers on the button are.
00:48:12
Speaker
yeah And they froze up the gas pipes. So now that doesn't work. I think this was kind of reasonable. They should have started with this, just been like, hey, maybe we can... But then Mutant Master's like, hey, this was all part of my plan because...
00:48:27
Speaker
I wanted the X-Men to be blamed for this. But if the X-Men were blamed for this, then neither country would launch their nukes and nothing would, ah like, it wouldn't have happened. it's Okay.
00:48:38
Speaker
I'm, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt here because he's an alien from the star sun series that the X-Men being blamed for it was kind of his contingency plan, right? He realized, but he let them go.
00:48:56
Speaker
So it wasn't his contingency plan. It was plan number one. Did he actually let them go, though? It seems like... That's what he said. I know that's what he says, but he he's struggling at that point. I think... Oh, you think he's lying. an unreliable narrator. Okay. You think there's a lot of... ah You think there's nuance to this. You think this is a Kazuo Ishiguro subtle text.
00:49:20
Speaker
That's for right. Fucking Roy Thomas, tortured genius. Strikes again. ah um uh okay so that's that's the one thing that doesn't make sense and then this end thing and this is going to get more confusing over the next even fucking i think 20 issues where the the feeling of the what is about to happen here do you know do you know this plot just no we we won't say it out loud but do you know what's happening with the professor here
00:49:52
Speaker
No. Okay. all right. then Then
Literary References in X-Men
00:49:54
Speaker
I'm not going to reveal it, but this is going to, for about 20 issues, this is going to be confusing. um Okay. So Changeling mimics the professor.
00:50:06
Speaker
And then the professor uses his telepathy to say to Gene, hey, I'm the real professor. That's Changeling. Get him. And then something happens and we never see the Changeling again. But Gene says in like some...
00:50:22
Speaker
just a random word balloon like oh off panel well we got changeling what did she say she says what about the five evil mutants professor including the restored changeling but all the evil mutants are standing there and changeling's not there so we just we don't see changeling again professor x is the real professor x because he used his telepathy right Yes, that's how they deduce it He captured telepathically says, capture the Professor X that I'm pointing at. And Gene says, well, even if he's a shapeshifter, he can't mimic his telepathic abilities.
00:51:03
Speaker
Right. So I think we should just note all of that. I think we should just keep that in our heads. That is what happened. That is what happened. That is what is said to have happened is that Changeling turned into Professor X for seemingly no reason to tell them to do what Professor X would have told them to do anyway.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah, he was helping. I thought it was part of the plan. Yeah. But then, yeah, nothing ever came of it.
00:51:29
Speaker
Okay. um Okay, so here Cyclops says, how in Holy Hannah?
00:51:41
Speaker
ah Back to his old habits. ah ah he's He doesn't even just exclaim the Holy Hannah. He's like, how in Holy Hannah? Yeah, he's he's he's no longer just praying to Hannah. He is asking he's asking for foresight from Hannah.
00:51:58
Speaker
It's a dangerous path he's going down. Well, I think We get sort of a like hugging. Here's what I learned today. Moment at the end where professor X kind of shakes hands with the evil mutants saying like, Hey, we know that we're typically enemies, but today we fought side by side to take down the mutant master.
00:52:23
Speaker
a good game essentially yeah yeah yeah fucking these guys tried to tried to cause an international they tried to trigger world war three yeah i get that he wants to like show some mutual respect and thank them for helping but i think their crime outweighs the uh the level of respect they're owed for for what they did This is some end of Harry Potter ass shit where these guys did not wouldn't know redeem themselves, right? Like, these guys did not. Like, the amount of bad these guys did does not mean that in if in the last second they're like, all right, well, we'll help you get the really big bad guy.
00:53:11
Speaker
It doesn't make up for it. They're not now suddenly heroes. Yeah, they should be probably tried at the Hague.
00:53:23
Speaker
um But there is some political allegory here. Like we were talking about it last episode. what What is Roy Thomas trying to say? And I think there's some more politics that kind of filter in in this issue, right?
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah, sure. There's this whole idea, which I think was important at the time and is even more important now, this idea of warning about charismatic leaders who take on, say, an activist's position just to gain power.
00:53:54
Speaker
Right. There was a lot in these. There was a lot of stuff that happened in the civil rights movement. Right. Where people would sort of infiltrate and be like, I'm a civil rights leader and let's kill white people. And it was just to sort of lure civil rights activists into politics.
00:54:10
Speaker
Saying, yeah, let's do that, and then getting arrested. The same thing happened in the 2000s, like late 2000s, with people going to mosques and trying to recruit terrorists.
00:54:24
Speaker
And that actually be the FBI. Yeah. And why it's super relevant right now, i think, is the amount of conservatives in the U.S. jumping on the pro-Israel bandwagon.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yes, and tying Israel to Jewish identity, which is very anti-Semitic in itself, but doing it just to exploit people who are tied to their Jewish identity.
00:54:51
Speaker
And I can see this happening with people that I know, people that I... Okay, so recently i saw a friend, not a friend, an acquaintance, um who is Jewish and has family in Israel and is ah very pro-Israel.
00:55:08
Speaker
who shared a Charlie Kirk video e on his Facebook. And I had to comment and be like, you know, Charlie Kirk is a man who believes that there is a shadowy Jewish conspiracy in the U.S. that believes that Jewish dollars are going to fund cultural Marxism and overthrow the governments of, quote, white people, right? yeah That is also what Charlie Kirk has been preaching in his... ah and with Turning Point USA for 10 years now.
00:55:41
Speaker
And now all of a sudden, Charlie Kirk is reading the Torah to people at rallies and actual liberal Jewish pro-Israel people are saying, yeah, Charlie Kirk's got a point.
00:55:55
Speaker
This is a guy who, Charlie Kirk wants you dead. Like I guarantee Charlie Kirk wants you as a Jewish person dead. He just wants the Palestinians dead more.
00:56:06
Speaker
Charlie Kirk subscribes to, and a lot of conservatives, try to secretly subscribe to this theory that the Christian apocalypse will be triggered when all of the Jews are removed from other countries in the world and centralized in Israel.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yes. I'm getting us into some really heavy territory, but I, I, I think like that is what this story evokes for me in this, of course, in the silliest of ways.
00:56:37
Speaker
It's like, Hey, I'm a mutant too. And I'm all about mutant stuff. And I know mutant stuff. And you know, us mutants should rule the world. And he's just doing that to bring about literally the apocalypse so that aliens can, I don't know, whatever take over.
00:56:51
Speaker
um He said his mission was to conquer a world. Yeah. but And literally that is what a guy like Charlie Kirk is doing. I think the the trans movement deals with this a lot too, right? Where people are ah in the name of feminism becoming extremely anti-trans or in the name of gay rights saying trans people are trying to take our rights from us so they can have them. Stuff like that is really... yeah And you end up with people who, again, aren't
00:57:26
Speaker
aren't pro women pretending that they're taking a feminist position to eradicate trans people and figuring, well, once we get this done, then I'll, then I'll take care of all these women who I accidentally support.
00:57:43
Speaker
it's the Exactly. hmm. hmm.
00:57:48
Speaker
Anyway, so I think i so I don't think Roy Thomas is conscious of this level of depth that he is brushing up against. But I think that this is a salient point that has been important for, at you know, at least 100 years, if not for all time.
00:58:08
Speaker
This idea of a person taking on a fake cause. To promote their own agenda. Yeah. For insidious purposes. Right. And so like. Where a guy like Magneto.
00:58:21
Speaker
Is a legitimate believer. in Yeah. yeah Depending on the era. Either mutant supremacy. Or mutant exclusionism. um ah true fanatic.
00:58:33
Speaker
Exactly. Alright. Anyway. That's our political rant for this episode. a Also I should say. This issue had a backup story about Cyclops' origin. The next few issues do. We're going to tackle them all at once.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get We'll get to it. Don't worry. Hold on to your butts. Stop freaking out. Because instead, I'm going to tell you about issue 40, the mark of the monster.
00:59:03
Speaker
My God, buckle up.
00:59:07
Speaker
The X-Men are training in the danger room when Professor X calls them to the study where he's working on a secret project with Marvel Girl. He had apparently recently intercepted a radio broadcast about the actual Frank... Actual! The actual Frankenstein's monster. The real Frankenstein's monster.
00:59:26
Speaker
Being found frozen in ice in the Arctic Circle and transported to New York Harbor. Professor
Frankenstein's Influence on Culture
00:59:32
Speaker
X always suspected the monster was real!
00:59:38
Speaker
And also an android. But now he wants to examine it to see if it's a mutant because Roy Thomas doesn't know what mutants are. In this book, this interview book that I was reading, yeah um Roy Thomas still in the 2000s is like, yeah, I'm not sure if Super Adaptoid is a mutant or not.
00:59:56
Speaker
No, he's not. He's robot. Can I say at this point, I am fully bought in. Professor X mentions that Frank, that he believes Frankenstein was actually a work of nonfiction. And he mentions Mary Shelley by name. He's not like, he's not suggesting that there's any other fantastical element to this. Everything that we know it exists, but Frankenstein was real and Mary Shelley was sworn to see. Yes, absolutely. I'm bought in. Please give him laser eyes.
01:00:30
Speaker
This is confirmation bias at its best, right? Because like, okay. Turns out he's right, but he had no reason to believe this. Right? There is no reason that he should have thought. That is like, it is it is like the people who are just paranoid.
01:00:47
Speaker
And then it turns out that something, one of the millions of crazy things they believed was true. And they're I knew it! No, you didn't! You didn't know it because you didn't know any of the truth or reasoning behind it. You didn't have any reason to suspect that. You just guessed!
01:01:04
Speaker
It's such a bold choice. Okay, so at the City Museum, Dr. Powell is lowering the temperature against the government's instructions and his colleagues' warnings.
01:01:18
Speaker
I think they mean raising the temperature. I think they basically probably, they mean like lowering the air conditioning or the freezer settings, but they say yeah lowering the temperature.
01:01:29
Speaker
um The X-Men show up outside and at x Xavier's telepathic command, let's I just want to note that Xavier uses his telepathy to make this command. Marvel Girl slams a guard into the wall and they rush into the museum to find that the monster has come alive!
01:01:46
Speaker
Each X-Man in turn tries to attack the monster, but it's too strong for them. Scott determines that it is in fact an android, ah because his eye beams bounce off of him, when the monster almost kills him. But Gene saves him at the last minute.
01:02:02
Speaker
He zaps them with eye beams of his own, the monster does, and then stomps away to pursue his quote goal. leaving the unconscious X-Men to take blame for wrecking the museum.
01:02:15
Speaker
Thank you for giving Frankenstein laser eyes.
01:02:20
Speaker
Angel follows Frankenstein's path of destruction through the city and alerts Professor X, who then uses telepathy, I just want to note that, uses his telepathy to steal a Pan Am helicopter.
01:02:32
Speaker
They trace him to a freighter and beat up a bunch of sailors. And Professor X, again, using his telepathy, holds them in stasis instead of explaining because there's no time for that now.
01:02:43
Speaker
Of course. Beast finds Frankenstein and a big fight breaks out. It knocks out ah the monster, knocks out all the X-Men one by one, telling them that nothing must keep them from his goal.
01:02:54
Speaker
And then starts going for Professor X, who slows him down with mental bolts. and then awakens Iceman to freeze him. Despite having been frozen in the Arctic Circle for a century, this ice makes him explode.
01:03:11
Speaker
i all right yeah hang on a second he is he's been frozen in the arctic for yeah a hundred years he is terrified of being frozen solid again very reasonable thing to be afraid of yeah and so he tries to fight it so hard that he blows himself up it's very tragic it's very much like the weight that it deserves it's a parallel to what we'll see with um these backup stories in a couple issues.
01:03:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. All right. Then Professor X tells everyone that Frankenstein was a robot made by colorful aliens to help those, those aliens make contact with the human race. But the robot went berserk.
01:03:58
Speaker
So the aliens chased it to the Arctic circle and just left there. Matt, is I hate to correct you again, but, for a very specific reason i have to okay these are aliens that s sent their own android to earth to explore if we were a friendly people and then the story of frankenstein happened and the uh i ah hope you're familiar but dr frankenstein uh takes him up to the arctic circle and does leave him there so
01:04:35
Speaker
It is a tragic story. These aliens just go through the same motions. It's just it's not Dr. Frankenstein. It's aliens. So none of that happens on panel.
01:04:46
Speaker
What you're trying to say is that everything in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was true. Except for how Frankenstein came to be.
01:04:58
Speaker
Yes. um And you're just saying that's implied by Roy Thomas's narrative. He doesn't say any of the stuff you just said. the was The narration, I'm just talking too much, but the narration at the end does explain that like their purpose was for him to be their envoy, their liaison to humanity.
01:05:21
Speaker
I guess he's kind of splitting the difference where... so you'll But you're saying if we read in between the lines... Right there, where Professor X says he became a menace, that's where the entirety of Frankenstein, the plot of Frankenstein, not the narrative of Frankenstein happens.
01:05:41
Speaker
ah Yes. Yeah, okay exactly. Okay. In this two-panel recap. In between those two panels, the plot of Frankenstein happens. Okay, all right.
01:05:53
Speaker
But still, it doesn't make sense why the aliens leave him in the Arctic Circle while they're just, ah, let's leave him there. And they fly away. and then when it was revived, so explains Professor Xavier, the X-Men's colorful costumes reminded him of the aliens, so it made him attack them.
01:06:10
Speaker
Which isn't what happened in the story, but whatever. eat Yeah, yeah.
01:06:17
Speaker
you The end, by the way. the The reason that I wanted to make that correction, Matt, is because this is not a layer that the story of Frankenstein needed. yeah know!
01:06:30
Speaker
this there They're telling the same story, just with the X-Men. This is so much of, like, this idea of the sci-fi ah authors of the time being up their own asses about how they're, oh, we're true artists.
01:06:44
Speaker
And so, Mark... Some of them legitimately were. Like Isaac Asimov was a true ah ah brilliant writer writing literature. So was Ray Bradbury. Philip K. Dick was putting out five books a month at this point.
01:06:57
Speaker
half of a or A third of those books were really true literature. Yeah, yeah. Kurt Vonnegut was starting to write, right? sure So like these are sci-fi authors who are making literature.
01:07:09
Speaker
Then you got guys like Roy Thomas. Tortured genius. not who Who is Who is writing. He's like, oh, if I reference Frankenstein.
01:07:20
Speaker
Like, this is his brilliant idea. As he's sitting there in bed thinking like, I'm a tortured genius. He's coming up with this idea of like, what if what if Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was really an android left by aliens?
01:07:33
Speaker
With laser eyes and magnet boots.
01:07:38
Speaker
Magnet boots. At one point, Iceman can't move him because he's got magnet boots. What the? Like, this is what Roy Thomas is like, ah, man, I'm trapped here in this bullshit medium comics where I could be writing true literature. Like what if Frankenstein was secretly a robot left by aliens?
01:08:01
Speaker
Do you think when Frankenstein accidentally killed that little girl, he did it with his laser eyes?
01:08:11
Speaker
um Are they allowed to use Frankenstein? So ah yeah I'm glad you asked Matt. Frankenstein has a long and fascinating copyright history.
01:08:24
Speaker
Okay. The book Frankenstein's monster, the Frankenstein's monster, who I'm just going to from here on out refer to as Frankenstein. Yeah. The book version of Frankenstein public domain. You can do whatever you want with that.
01:08:36
Speaker
However, Frankenstein's. In 1931, Universal made the Boris Karloff Frankenstein movie. i That, I believe, enters public domain in 2027. But right now, they will sue the shit out of you for a Frankenstein that has bolts, green skin, a big forehead, a scar, and a flat top black haircut. So...
01:09:02
Speaker
mostly like Abbott Costello meet Frankenstein or the Munsters or i any Frankenstein or reboots that you've seen since then, and those are owned by Universal.
01:09:14
Speaker
oh other versions of Frankenstein have to be. i There's i think there's one of the popular. There's plenty of interpretations of Frankenstein where he's just some ripped dude with weird skin and looks yeah a little deformed. Maybe like this guy.
01:09:33
Speaker
But yeah. I don't, or yeah, like the, sorry, I thought you were looking at a picture. Yes. I'm just looking at a picture of my neighbor. Like, ah, like this guy. Like this guy.
01:09:45
Speaker
Ripped, weird skin. This Frankenstein, the universal Frankenstein, was actually at the center of a Supreme Court case around home video recording and fair use laws when they first started releasing Betamax, the, uh,
01:10:01
Speaker
the precursor to the VCR. And you could conceivably record a showing of Frankenstein on TV, onto your own device and own it for your own viewing that way in the Supreme Court decided, hey, that's okay.
01:10:17
Speaker
That's that falls under fair use. One other fun little fact, the funny Frankenstein was probably most popular from SNL sketches where he doesn't actually really know how to speak and he just says the fire bad.
01:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, that was taken to court as well. Center of a big lawsuit. But ah succinct Frankenstein is fair use for parody.
01:10:44
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. Real weird. I mean, this is not the last time the X-Men come into contact with Frankenstein, all right? yeah. He's a Marvel regular.
01:10:57
Speaker
Hey, Pat? Yeah. How come when Marvel Girl is just hanging out with the professor in his room, she's wearing her whole costume and mask and everything?
01:11:10
Speaker
I think...
01:11:13
Speaker
Sex stuff. Yeah, me too. I really think so, too. I think it looks cool. It's hip. It is a miniskirt. It is a fun new mask. Everybody else's new costume is essentially just new colors.
01:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, we should describe these, actually. Yeah, do you want to describe their new costumes? I guess. They're... All right, well, the Cyclops is what will become a Basically the Cyclops costume in various forms forever.
01:11:45
Speaker
ah Yeah. It is yellow gloves, yellow boots, yellow underpants. And then the rest is just blue all over. a blue skull cap covering his head and then his is, is a thinner yellow visor. Um, and various formats of that will be Cyclops costume.
01:12:07
Speaker
Yeah. Cyclops is pretty iconic. ah beast is in essentially the same costume, but he complains about the arms being tighter, which is fair. He's got huge arms.
01:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, and they just replaced the yellow with red. Hmm. Hmm. Iceman looks the same. Iceman looks the same. notes he know gets new boots and gloves.
01:12:29
Speaker
And the X on his belt is new. But other than that, he's the same. I guess that's pretty that's pretty iconic. this is He remains this way for a long time. ah Yeah, he gets spikier as time goes on.
01:12:42
Speaker
and But he's basically this forever. He's very smooth right now. ah Warren is wearing ah yellow shirt and like bright yellow shirt and bright red suspenders and pants and his wings fly out the back. He's got a blue mask over his head now.
01:13:03
Speaker
ah Like a blue one of those spiked masks like Scarlet Witch, like like face and bread kind of masks. And it's awful. And he's got... black and red striped armbands and yellow underpants outside of his... Yeah, it is It's funny if Jean Grey was like, hey, I thought... i I was thinking of you when I designed this and handed you this.
01:13:30
Speaker
What does Jean Grey think of you?
01:13:33
Speaker
Well, we know not much, right?
01:13:38
Speaker
Well, she's not into him romantically, at least. Yeah, yeah. And he's kind of the dick on the team. Right, and they get into several arguments in this series of issues. Right. Gene...
01:13:49
Speaker
however, is probably the biggest change, right? She, her mask is not all that different. It's, it's just yellow now, but it's still got that sort of spike, like half butterfly look to it.
01:14:04
Speaker
Yeah. And then she's wearing a green dress that has a very low cut top and a very high cut skirt. Yeah. And this yellow and green become her colors for, again, basically ever.
01:14:22
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Iconic costume, although think they make her hemline a little lower in the future. This is. Yeah. her I mean, her costume changes a lot, but it's the yellow and green that stick with her.
01:14:37
Speaker
So. Pat, if you're about to take me to the next issue, it is not time yet. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. A couple of things, couple of moments. It's not, believe it or not.
01:14:48
Speaker
Okay. Well, it feels like it. Number one, Bobby has a yeah good line here for once. As I believe it's Hank is training in the danger room. He says he's got to look out for those force beams I just turned on because they will knock you clear into next year's dictionary.
01:15:09
Speaker
This one tickled me. I don't know why. and pretty good That's pretty good. That's pretty good. And then there's a moment, so they get to the museum where Frankenstein is being kept. i in So they get to the museum where Frankenstein being kept. yeah ah The guard says, Professor x Xavier, so nice to see you again. And Professor x Xavier says, thanks, guard. That is that old money mindset. He does not need to know the help's name.
01:15:41
Speaker
I don't need to know your name. Thanks. Thanks, Butler. and Thanks, servant. Thanks. Thanks, underling. Finally, huge fight X-Men versus Frankenstein on a Navy or it seems like a merchant Marines ship. Maybe i they do a shit ton of damage. That thing is torn up to hell, barely still floating.
01:16:05
Speaker
The X-Men leave. Frankenstein leaves. the entire The professor erases the entire piece of memories. How are they going to answer for this? Yeah, they wake up they're like, why is our ship completely destroyed? ah um cargo.
01:16:20
Speaker
Why did he have to erase their memories? It's not like theyre their their identities were revealed. He doesn't want them knowing that the X-Men fought Frankenstein. The... the
01:16:34
Speaker
Oh God. Secret that Frankenstein is a nonfiction book. Hey, if we're exhausting our notes before we move on to the next issue, I want to say, ah Roy Thomas, stop calling me a tiger. Yeah.
01:16:46
Speaker
Relax, dude. Yeah, it ah in your note, you're like, hey, why don't we move on to the next scene, tiger? Leave me alone. i'm just reading here. Yeah.
01:16:57
Speaker
Knock it off. Leave me alone. I'm just trying to live my life. Stop hitting on me. Stop hitting on me. I've had phones in for a reason. ah Pat, want to tell us about issue 41? No, you know what? One more thing. i'm just know We've exhausted our notes on issue 40. Issue now strikes the subhuman o Face front, because Stan Lee's creative combo of Roy Thomas and Don Heck has done it again.
01:17:23
Speaker
Done what? Don't bother asking George Tuska, inker, or Sam Rosen, letterer, because they'll never tell. What? Yes, they will. Yes, they're all joined together to tell the story. What are you talking about? Release date, December 12th, 1967. Cover date, February of
01:17:42
Speaker
We open with action as a large, stout, hairy man attacks a subway car. He's got pale yellow skin, red eyes, a golden mane, and is scantily clad in purple. he He takes the train head on and stops it.
01:17:55
Speaker
But guess who's on this train? That's right. Bobby Drake and Hank McCoy with their dates, Zelda and Vera. They sneak off. Vera's still hanging on, even though she hate absolutely hates Hank.
01:18:08
Speaker
Not keeping that a secret. ah They sneak off. You get into costume and investigate what caused the train crash. But as soon as they reach the front of the train, they're attacked by this trollish creature.
01:18:20
Speaker
a fight ensues during which Hank calls the creature grotesque. The creature mentions that he has lost all of his memories and he will be adopting grotesque as his new name. Just as Hank and Bobby are starting to get overwhelmed, the Monsterman dips into a tunnel and seals off the entrance with an immovable rock.
01:18:38
Speaker
Bobby and Hank decide to rush back to the mansion to tell the rest of the gang, regretting that they will once again not be able to enjoy their break in the city. We find Grotesque deeply beneath the city, trying to recover his memories, which he does with absolute minimum effort.
01:18:54
Speaker
ah Turns out he forgot that he was a conqueror prince of the underworld, leading a military force through caverns deep below the Earth's crust, raising whatever societies they found. But...
01:19:05
Speaker
There was a sudden nuclear disaster and his castle, which had existed there since time out of mind, collapses around him. Following that, any of his people that survived died shortly after of radiation poisoning.
01:19:18
Speaker
And now he is alone. is only How does he know? How does he know? How does he know it's radiation poisoning? How does he even know what radiation is? well I mean, they have a society down there. They're not... ah Yeah, but not a society that's created, that's discovered the science of radiation. don't know that? They had some weird robot costumes.
01:19:42
Speaker
You're right. Okay. All right. yeah they Yeah, they made... yeah Grotesque decides his only choice is to find the device that caused this nuclear disaster so that he can use it to destroy the overworld. Yeah.
01:19:55
Speaker
We briefly cut to a lab up here on the surface that has invented a nuclear oscillotron to create earth tremors, and which, is as it turns out, is the device that collapsed Grotesque's world.
01:20:07
Speaker
We cut back to the mansion where the professor is being exceptionally cranky. He's lecturing Gene, Warren, and Scott about their danger room session when Hank and Bobby rush in to tell them about Grotesque the Subhuman.
01:20:19
Speaker
The professor will have none of it because they should not be entering the danger room in street clothes, Matt, and issues each of them two demerits. No city trips for a month.
01:20:31
Speaker
They're adults. You can't keep doing this, Professor X. He tells Bobby and Hank to shut up about their news. He won't hear of it and rolls off with Gene. Grotesque, meanwhile, continues to plot against the surface. The scientists continue to debate whether the nuclear oscillotron is a good idea. But suddenly Professor X has changed his tune.
01:20:53
Speaker
He knows about Grotesque after reading Bobby's thoughts and is now sending the X-Men boys to find him, urging Gene to stay back. They're able to find Grotesque's lair, but he's already left to kidnap a scientist for questioning.
01:21:07
Speaker
Bobby and Warren go back to the mansion to tell the professor where Gene tells them that the professor is unavailable, which Warren is livid about. Feels that Gene and the professor recently have been hiding something.
01:21:19
Speaker
and that they clearly consider that thing to be more important than the safety or the lives of the X-Men.
X-Men Issue 42 Overview
01:21:26
Speaker
Scott and Hank, meanwhile, hang back at Grotesque Slayer to wait for him to return, which he does with a scientist in hand.
01:21:34
Speaker
Looks like we're about to get another fight to be continued. Pat, will you excuse me for a second as I roll right into issue 42? What? What?
01:21:46
Speaker
what We open with a reminder that Angel, this is issue 42, If I Should Die, by edited by Stan Lee with Roy Thomas, writing in Don Heck, drawing inked by George Tuska, lettered by Sam Rosen, released on January 9th, 1968. We open with a reminder that Angel is berating Jean over her and Xavier's perceived lack of concern for the X-Men.
01:22:12
Speaker
The professor returns, commands Gene to keep Warren and Bobby from leaving the mansion while he scutes off again. This does not de-escalate the situation. Meanwhile, Hank and Scott are just barely holding their own against Grotesque in his lair.
01:22:28
Speaker
After some fighting, Grotesque remembers he's trying to find the tremor machine and uses his chest plate stud to create a wall of solid fog and gets away. Hank and Scott return to the mansion for a sit rep and Jean reveals she's being telepathically commanded to keep them at the mansion too.
01:22:53
Speaker
Everyone objects, but then Gene gets a new command. Bring the whole team to the professor at once.
01:23:05
Speaker
Cut to grotesque, smashing through the science lab where the nuclear oscillotron is kept. He grabs the scientists and demands that they use it to destroy the earth, just as your kind destroyed my race.
01:23:18
Speaker
The scientist reveals himself to be Professor X in one of his elaborate disguises. This angers grotesque who throws him to the ground. Just the professor used... Defeats right there. Yeah.
01:23:30
Speaker
The professor uses his mind bolts to try and stop Grotesque from activating the nuclear oscillotron, but Grotesque manages to activate it. The X-Men are arrive at the lab right on time. If they can defeat Grotesque, they can turn off the machine while it's still warming up.
01:23:47
Speaker
A fight ensues that involves solar orbs. more chest plate discs and grotesque spinning Warren above his head. Really, really fast.
01:24:00
Speaker
Uh, the professor is able to do some serious mind blasting on the machine and get it to stop warming up. Grotesque goes to attack him, but the machine blows up. Grotesque is dead, but the professor is still breathing. However, he reveals that his secret, recent secret experiments are actually him trying to treat a terminal illness.
01:24:20
Speaker
He has been unsuccessful and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory by taking out Grotesque himself. After revealing the truth, the professor dies in Lauren's arms. Our villain is dead, but so is dear Charles Xavier.
01:24:38
Speaker
Professor X is dead. Yeah. Which they told me was going to happen on the cover. Yeah.
01:24:49
Speaker
On the cover. They say, Professor X dies for real. No tricks. This is happening. like there're Yeah. Let's really remember that. Not a hoax. Not a dream. Not an imaginary tale. This is real. let's Let's remember that.
Grotesque and Professor X's Storyline
01:25:03
Speaker
Yeah. I've got it in my mind. don Get that look off your face. And remember how many times, let's just, oh, again, just remember how many times Professor X in front of us has used his telepathic powers before he died.
01:25:19
Speaker
And now he's dead. Now he's dead. Now it's over. Okay. I remember. So how do you feel about Grotesque? I i think he rules. I think he is a pretty high concept. He, now this is not the first thing.
01:25:38
Speaker
underlayer of the earth that the x-men have been to yes they fought this has happened again recently this is a combination of the plots of The Tyrannus plot and the Frankenstein plot just smashed together.
01:25:53
Speaker
Right. This guy he... So if you just see, he's stout, but he's large, right? He looks like a an offensive lineman, a Jason Kelsey, if you will.
01:26:06
Speaker
I think we cut the Jason Kelsey stuff out of the episode. Describe his costume, though. Okay, so he is wearing... we start We'll start from the top. He has a beautiful head of golden hair ah god that drapes over his shoulders and kind of pops out of some other places.
01:26:24
Speaker
He looks like a very hairy man. i He is wearing bright purple, appears to be leather vest that has a lot of holes in the sides, like showing off his ribs. Okay.
01:26:43
Speaker
He and also just completely open down the center. So you can see like the the hair that kind of you can see blows off his chest. ah Below that, he has a I would say like a sumo style belt. It's gold. It's got some sort of emblem on him on it. I think it's supposed to evoke a bug, but it's not actually like a picture of a bug.
01:27:04
Speaker
underneath that belt with the little flag ah hanging down. he is wearing purple scaled underwear. It's like an armored underwear.
01:27:17
Speaker
No pants. He's got, you can see his legs in their full muscular glory. And then he's got some purple boots on.
01:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's grotesque. He is, And he's got a tiny little ah stone hammer that he uses to hit guys. Yeah, he's also extremely strong.
01:27:38
Speaker
The first thing we see him do is stop a train. Mostly he uses it. I say he uses it to hit guys, but mostly he uses it to wave in the air. Yeah, he's he likes to. I mean, he doesn't seem like he wants to fight.
01:27:53
Speaker
It seems like he's kind of forced into these fights until he remembers that he was a conqueror prince and that ah his whole purpose in life is to raise and kill and conquer.
01:28:05
Speaker
I love how also when grotesque appears, um Roy Thomas tells us that he surprises an amazed train man. Yes, train man is the train man, I believe.
01:28:22
Speaker
how else yeah what a what do you What are your feelings on this little ah two-parter here? So, Don Heck clearly getting more comfortable with the X-Men. think these last couple of issues, he's drawing them.
01:28:35
Speaker
ah There's more fluid action, more dynamic poses. Even the emotion on their faces is showing through a little more. and like He's drawing them a little more consistently. um It's not quite so awkward. I appreciate that he's he's getting there. I...
01:28:51
Speaker
I do love also the argument that they're having in the mansion between both issues when warren is flipping out on Jean and when the whole team is arguing with Jean about how she's trying to hold them back.
01:29:06
Speaker
This is good drama. This is them in a tense situation, exercising their social dynamics. um As much shit as we give Roy Thomas, he understands the X-Men's personalities and how those personalities interact at different adrenaline levels, which is pretty cool.
01:29:26
Speaker
One more. i'll give I'll give it one more compliment. I was fooled this time by Professor X's disguise. Had no idea that he was that scientist until he revealed himself. He got me.
01:29:40
Speaker
He gotcha.
01:29:45
Speaker
I have so many questions about grotesque. First of all. They say that their society is responsible for causing volcanoes. When they get in fights, it makes a volcano happen.
01:29:58
Speaker
Yes. And then, which is absurd. But that is that good lore or is that just absurd? It's just new. Why does he forget who he is?
01:30:09
Speaker
What causes him to forget who he is? And then how does he suddenly remember? Yeah, this is... Not well done, but it seems like the his castle collapsed on him.
01:30:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:27
Speaker
He's.
01:30:30
Speaker
He came out with his memories. Okay. yeah Because he discovers all his people dead. Yes. Or dying of radiation sickness. Maybe it's the radiation. Maybe he just goes into fugue states from ah the cancer that he has now.
01:30:48
Speaker
And then just every now and then he has moments of lucidity where, well, I guess manic episodes where his memories are available, but he can't really control his actions. And he just starts attacking shit. He becomes like a trained force. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:31:07
Speaker
Um, what's, let me, let me pose a question to you. Okay. What do you know about professor x Xavier's solar orbs? That Angel enters battle that becomes their deus ex machina, the way they're able to slow down.
01:31:26
Speaker
It really feels like Don Heck just drew drew some weird circles in Angel's hands that were firing bolts. What's this guy do again?
01:31:38
Speaker
And then... then... And then Werner Roth... eric Sorry. ah And then Roy Thomas is just like... I don't know what that is. I don't know what... I don't know what that is He's, like, yelling at his at his like at his, like, friends. He's, like, or at the other people in the office. He's, like, I don't know what that is.
01:31:54
Speaker
Don won't answer the phone. I don't know what to put here. There's... I don't know. There's solar... or This guy lives underground. they're There's solar orbs.
01:32:07
Speaker
He hates the sun. He hates the sun. it it makes him ah die. The end. done It's Roy. Call me back.
01:32:21
Speaker
it's ah It's a cute little... um I think this is a cute little story. I don't think there's much going on here. Grotesque continues to reappear throughout Marvel Comics here and there.
01:32:33
Speaker
Does For like decades. Awesome. He is a maniac. And yeah, he's it's it's clearly mental illness, which is maybe why I'm a little... Why he's got a little soft spot in my heart for him.
01:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. A lot more Holy Hannah's in this one, though. I know. Scott starts saying, I thought Scott might give it up after he heard the military saying it because he hates he hates the U.S. s military so much.
01:32:57
Speaker
But yeah no, that did not deter him. Sincerely, the last two pages where they're kind of... The explosion happens on the third to last page. We're essentially just told that it kills Grotesque.
01:33:13
Speaker
And the final two pages are ah six panels of them kind of realizing Xavier is dying and then him dying. And then a final single panel full page of them all very solemnly carrying ah dead Professor X...
01:33:33
Speaker
home, I guess. And there's too much Roy Thomas narration on it, but the final few panels where like they hear his final few breaths, they kind of accept that he's gone and then they sadly march out is really well done. Like there is emotional impact there.
01:33:56
Speaker
Yeah. I do think Roy Thomas Ruins it a little bit. ah Yes. ah Don Heck is drawing the heck out of it.
01:34:07
Speaker
Okay. I can't believe it took me that long to get there. ah So we do get sorry, Matt, before you move on to I i can hear it in your tone.
01:34:18
Speaker
Okay. We are promised the next issue, the one that we'll get to at the top of the show next week features Magneto. Whoa, Magneto finally back. He's been gone for what? Like 20 issues?
01:34:33
Speaker
As soon as they lose the professor too. Wow. ah I think we're also coming to the end of our Roy Thomas run. Oh, thank God.
01:34:46
Speaker
I just need to break. I'm sure he's yeah coming back. I need to take a breath and and hear someone else describe the X-Men.
01:34:55
Speaker
Let's find. Yeah, we'll find out if you think that whoever comes next is good. it is an improvement or not?
Cyclops's Origin and Jack Winters
01:35:05
Speaker
All right, Matt. I think it is time for us to talk about the minimi issue broken up over the course of these ah five issues.
01:35:16
Speaker
Yes. Yes. So this this took place issues. What? Thirty nine.
01:35:23
Speaker
40 41 and 42 yes although it ties into the one professor the professor x's x-men origin from issue 38 as well yeah i mean i think all the x-men origins are going to tie into each other but they all are their own sort of separate stories ah So we'll start with issue 39.
01:35:45
Speaker
This one is called Lonely Are the Hunted by Roy Thomas and Werner Roth. This picks up from the footage of Cyclops disintegrating the air conditioning unit from a man called X in issue 38.
01:35:57
Speaker
He runs from a mob and hops a freight train, realizing he can't return to his orphanage. Meanwhile, Professor X looks over the potential mutants with Agent Fred Duncan and settles on finding Scott Summers at the Sunset Orphanage.
01:36:11
Speaker
However, when they call the orphanage, they find out that Scott went on a trip to New York and disappeared. The FBI begin a search for Scott while x Xavier visits his optometrist, who originally turned him into the feds, and tells him about fitting him with ruby quartz glasses to fix his glowing eyes and headaches.
01:36:30
Speaker
Hopping off the boxcar, Scott finds a group of hobos around a fire who invite him to eat with them and then try to mug him. But they're interrupted by the police. The police recognize Scott, pull his glasses off, which causes his beams to fire, and ah the police go running.
01:36:48
Speaker
Scott then wanders through the woods until he finds a shack that seems to be calling to him. And inside is a man who claims that he, too, is a mutant. He reveals himself to be Jack Winters in The First Evil Mutant by Roy Thomas and Verna Roth.
01:37:06
Speaker
ah He has psychic powers and the power to teleport, which he does with himself and Scott just before two police burst into the shack. Professor X using Cyberno.
01:37:19
Speaker
oh my God. It's his precursor to Cerebro, he tells us Sure it is. also sees them disappear on his monitor. Later, Jack takes Cyclops into a nuclear power plant and explains that he got his powers in this very plant in a radioactive explosion that turns his hands into pure diamond. So not a curtain then.
01:37:41
Speaker
ah Now he calls himself Jack O Diamonds. He brought Summers here to help him recreate the explosion and turn his whole body into diamond. But just then, Professor X shows up to stop him. and In issue 41, we get the living diamond.
01:38:00
Speaker
like Xavier manages to stop Jacko diamonds in his tracks until Jack uses his diamond hands to bring down the whole ceiling on everyone. He and Scott just escape and Scott is worried about the man they just buried under the rubble.
01:38:14
Speaker
But Jack still needs him because apparently this was actually the wrong building and they actually have to go break into another one actually. Scott comes along trying to reduce the harm Jack is trying to cause, and Jack gets into the cyclotron.
01:38:29
Speaker
Back at the power plant, Professor X has used his mental bolts to protect himself from the falling debris, and he heads towards the cyclotron building. He gets there and makes contact with Scott just in time for Jacko Diamonds to have turned himself entirely into the living diamond.
01:38:49
Speaker
Got a second name for him. Issue 42, the end or the beginning. Roy Thomas and Werner Roth tell us that after transforming into a whole diamond man, the living diamond realizes he's moving slower and kind of woozy.
01:39:04
Speaker
However, Professor X can no longer penetrate his mind. He and Scott flee and lock themselves in some nuclear room with some nuclear machine.
01:39:16
Speaker
Right. Obviously, the living diamond breaks in to kill them both, but Professor X projects the ability to control said machine into Scott's mind. Scott turns it on and turns it on the living diamond, who, in trying to resist, explodes.
01:39:32
Speaker
That'll happen. Scott worries he's a murderer. He is. But ah Professor X soothes him and takes him back to his mansion, where he gives him a costume and a visor and the name Cyclops.
01:39:47
Speaker
Wow. That's dramatic. It's a lot. So Scott's orphanage was in Nebraska.
01:39:55
Speaker
He was on a trip in New York. But his optometrist was in Washington, D.C.? Okay, I've thought this through. Okay. Yes, he's an orphpha in in orphan in Nebraska. Okay.
01:40:09
Speaker
He needs the finest optometrist in the world who works in Washington, D.C. Okay. okay He's also from Alaska. So just to add another thing in there.
01:40:20
Speaker
Oh, right. I'm sure we'll get there. But... At the time, even now, not a ton of direct flights from Nebraska to D.C., right? You would want to probably lay over in New York, fly straight east, and then maybe he had a day or two to hang out in New York before his flight from New York to D.C.
01:40:44
Speaker
And that's where we find him. Isn't it fascinating to you that his optometrist is the one that turns him in? His optometrist is like, oh, this boy's not right. I better call the FBI.
01:40:56
Speaker
Right. i you Hold on. Sorry. You're right. I just searched for ah span of two months and there are no flights from Omaha, Nebraska to Washington, D.C.
01:41:12
Speaker
I know my flight patterns. Holy cow. Why? Why? Where does it fly to if not? Okay. Anyway, strange. wait So this is a huge, going back to the optometrist, a huge breach of doctor patient confidentiality, yeah right? He, of his own accord, it's not like the FBI even came around and asked and he gave into pressure. He just said, I think this guy's a mutant.
01:41:38
Speaker
I should call the FBI. Yeah. He should be his license should be revoked. But on top of that, no wonder Scott doesn't trust optometrists. He doesn't want to see the one i at the back after that one big fight at the emergency room. Yeah. Yeah.
01:41:53
Speaker
This guy's going to fucking turn him into the feds. ah Here's the origin of Ruby Quartz, though. This is, I think, the first time they mentioned Ruby Quartz, right? ah Yes, I believe it is. I was very excited when I saw those words. Ruby. Yeah.
01:42:09
Speaker
Also, they fixed Cyberno. Apparently, it was the precursor to Cerebro. Yeah, pretty good retcon. I'm not falling for it. he was using the He called the same machine Cerebro in Cyberno. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue because he used to use Cyberno way back in the ah Cyclops origin days.
01:42:32
Speaker
I love how um Jack O'Diamond's motive... is legitimately the It's the exact same story as the Mimic, right? Oh, i yeah I got my powers in an accident. Now let's recreate. I need you to help me recreate the accident so I can get my powers double. powerful yeah Also, he has ah such a strange combination of lab accident powers. He has local telepathy. It's got very limited range, but he does have some telepathy. He can yeah teleport. Yeah.
01:43:04
Speaker
a la the vanisher and but only also local also local also very short distances it's the uh the misty step in dnd if you will uh and then also his hands are made of diamonds which is the last part of his power that he reveals like before he said my hands are diamonds you've already got a lot of power dude this is yeah you can do some shit But he's not a mutant, right? Like, that is... that is he's um He's a mutate, right? Like, just like Spider-Man.
01:43:35
Speaker
Yes, or Mimic. Or Mimic. There's a lab accident. He got his powers. Hey, Pat, I don't know if you caught Roy Thomas's subtle ah literary techniques here.
01:43:49
Speaker
But did you notice how we we're supposed to know that Jack... has the exact opposite sort of morality of Scott. Because Jack's name is Jack Winters.
01:44:04
Speaker
While Scott's name is Scott Summers. ah This guy again, you're you're right. This guy should have been writing the next Pride and Prejudice.
01:44:18
Speaker
Yeah. i But yeah i he has some really good lines. He calls the professor egghead come lately.
01:44:29
Speaker
Good one. He calls himself Jack O. Diamonds. He insists that the apostrophe between o and Diamonds is there. So it's like ah like an Irish last name. i And then here's the the cream on top.
01:44:47
Speaker
i He tries so hard that he explodes. Ending. Just like our boy Frankenstein. Yes. He does come back a few times.
01:44:59
Speaker
Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but he does. um
01:45:05
Speaker
Weird character. Weird character. Really sort of lived the perfect story here. I don't think he needs to come back. i Scott gets over his guilt for murdering someone pretty fast.
01:45:20
Speaker
Right? Yeah, he's like, all right, I guess this is just my life now. Oh, my God, I've I've murdered someone. And then the professor comes along and puts his hand on his shoulder and says, no, you didn't.
01:45:33
Speaker
And he says, oh, i it you know what? You're right. right. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Do you think this was the inspiration for Emma Frost? Like, it's interesting that this early on there, like once you've turned into diamonds, I can't penetrate your like brain with telepathy.
01:45:48
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i it must. The only other time we see somebody turn into diamond form is Emma Frost. Right. And it's the same sort of thing. And I mean, i have, I highly doubt that Grant Morrison read this story.
01:46:06
Speaker
Before creating Emma Frost. But I do wonder if some nerd ass editor. is like look. If you're going to do this. We've already set a precedent.
01:46:17
Speaker
By the way, Mr. Morrison, I don't think this would actually work. CB Cebulski takes him, ah it takes him like, ah ah because like, ah hey, can we have a quick call? Because we got a CB Cebulski voice.
01:46:34
Speaker
All right, Pat. Yeah.
01:46:41
Speaker
oh all right pat yeah Do you have a Steals and Deals for us this week? All right, before we get there, how
The Factor 3 Storyline
01:46:49
Speaker
do you feel about this arc? Factor 3 wrapped up?
01:46:52
Speaker
Okay. I got a few thoughts. Number one, end of factor three. I really appreciate that they took a full year to sort of seed this story. Yeah. Let some of it flesh out, then go away from it while still dropping some information in the occasional panel.
01:47:11
Speaker
um And then they saw it through to a conclusion. The conclusion conclusion is fucking weird. ah I don't know that that's what they had in mind a year ago, that it was some...
01:47:22
Speaker
alien and that they were going to recruit all these evil mutants but definitely not they stuck to it they saw it through i can appreciate that right i have the same thoughts as last week as far as like they're kind of just treading water in their superhero progression but they're showing a lot of growth and impact on their personal lives and that's sort of we're getting any progress that we want I love the move to two stories per issue, a lot of strange tales or the tales of titles from Marvel.
01:47:54
Speaker
Roy Thomas, I think, needs those boundaries. Like, he just, I think he would write forever if he didn't have to keep it to 30 pages or whatever. i think the grotesque story is fun. i don't, ah I have a real soft spot for things that add to continuity, I guess.
01:48:13
Speaker
And the grotesque story doesn't do that at all, which, Knocks it down a little bit in my book ah below the factor three story, but the fact, but it's definitely yeah more of a, like a tightly written and ah maybe even smarter story than,
01:48:31
Speaker
Not that either of them are smart stories, but smarter story than the Factor 3 story. But I do really, i like the Factor 3 story, I think, more. Yeah, yeah. Tickles your X-Men history bone.
01:48:44
Speaker
Glans. yeah It tickles my X-Men history glands and expresses them all over its pages. It drains my X-Men history glands. It will. Especially as those sexy tentacles. I mean, sorry, those sexy tentacles. i No, I mean those hot. sex I mean, ah sorry, what did you want to say?
01:49:04
Speaker
Here's the thing that I'm missing, not just necessarily in this arc. there's It's been for a little while now. Cyclops is never successful with his blasts. He is constantly using them to like maybe puncture a hole in a cage they're stuck in or pop a lock off a door, could get a gun out of someone's hand.
01:49:27
Speaker
It's been a long time since he has just like walked up to a bad guy unleashed his blast and let them just like let them fly off, be injured or defeated by it.
01:49:40
Speaker
you Give the man a win. Right. It's, I think one of the problems is that he's so, it's, that his blasts are so powerful that they have to keep putting limits on them. Right.
01:49:52
Speaker
I think I complained about that last episode is that that is one of the ways that they constantly undermine Cyclops and it makes him, i mean, legitimately less interesting. and
Comic Ads and Listener Interaction
01:50:03
Speaker
um Patrick. Yes. you have Steals and Deals for us this I do, Matt. I truly could not decide between a few. So I'm going to give us two today and leave one. Hopefully it comes up in a future issue. ah Number one, here's my runner up. It's just really cool. ah Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention have taken out full page ads in but these X-Men comics to promote their new album. We're only in it for the money.
01:50:39
Speaker
I'll read you some of the copy here. It's very ah Frank Zappa. That same wonderful, wholesome and American teen rock combo that is responsible for freak out and absolutely free thrilling LPs. I'm sure you will want to own boys and girls thrilling, clean, fun, cleans you, thrills you, cleans and thrills you fun, expensive. You must buy all of these products now.
01:51:02
Speaker
And then they include a coupon that you can fill out and send to them for a free copy of We're Only in It for the Money by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
01:51:15
Speaker
I think this is one of those, like, I think this is the editor's At Marvel, understanding that a large portion of their ol audience at this era is ah hippie college kids.
01:51:31
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And not wanting to quite admit it out loud. They still but they still want to project that the audience is kids, but it's very much, you know, like there's a very strong college age contingent.
01:51:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we've also, i haven't mentioned this, but I've seen some like male pattern baldness, uh, cure ads. So they know it's not just young, yeah young people.
01:51:58
Speaker
Okay. um But also just it is if you're a fan of Frank Zappa at all, whether it's the music or the personality, this is extremely Frank Zappa. It's in full color, too.
01:52:11
Speaker
It's really yeah fun stuff. It is interesting. Yeah, that it is. It is. It is a weird thing to see. This seems like an ad you would see in nineteen eighty s indie comics. But here it is in a 1960s mainstream comic.
01:52:24
Speaker
Yes. Okay, that is just our runner up though. Here is one that blew my mind. i couldn't find any information about it. So let me know if you can Matt, but another little classified ad one of those pages that has 35 to 50 different ads on it. This one.
01:52:42
Speaker
is a small one. It just, it's got a yeah the large picture of a dollar sign taking up about a third of the ad itself. And then next to it says, ideas, we pay you.
01:52:55
Speaker
Send us your idea on any subject. The wilder, the better. It could make you rich. We are ideas brokers with contacts in business, science, and industry. automatically we will send you a professional evaluation of your idea.
01:53:08
Speaker
If it's good, we pay you big money. Companies like Ford, Midwest Research, IE, DuPont need thousands of ideas a month. Do they need yours?
01:53:22
Speaker
What the fuck?
01:53:26
Speaker
Much like the Frank Zappa record, I put this on Steals and Deals because technically it's free.
01:53:36
Speaker
You can send them as many ideas as you want for the cost of a postage, Sam. Wow. I, wow. Yeah. I, I can't even begin to, I don't even know how one would begin to research this.
01:53:48
Speaker
I know. I tried. So I've heard stories. This is just me yeah conjecturing. I have heard stories and we've seen sort of a more modern version of this in nineties television commercials where it was like,
01:54:04
Speaker
You could be an inventor. Have you always had a great idea? send us your information and we'll send you a free catalog. to develop your invention and then send it back to us and we'll let you know if it's good or not. And essentially they are getting themselves in on the patents for new products when people come in and claiming ownership, like by sending them your idea, you are giving them ownership of your idea.
01:54:32
Speaker
They're obligated to pay you because of what they're saying in this ad if they use your idea, but there's no actual share listed here they just say we'll pay you a whole bunch they're getting their recurring money and they're paying these inventors a one-time or idea men a one-time sum for that idea also there's there's very little a kind of bit like there's very little to identify them and it's a p.o box yes yeah this could very well just be uh One crazy person that wants to explore the world of ideas.
01:55:09
Speaker
We could do this. We could do this. If you have ideas, email us. Mutantmenicepod at gmail.com. ah Any subject, the wilder, the better.
01:55:21
Speaker
Mutantmenicepod, gmail.com. ah Any idea, literally any idea you have about anything. And hey, if it ends up being something that makes us rich, we'll pay you. We'll pay you.
01:55:33
Speaker
We'll pay you. Guaranteed. 100%. We will use your idea and we will pay you. If it's good. If it's good. The specification here is, if it's good, we would have made great snake oil salesmen.
01:55:47
Speaker
Do you ever think about that? You and I have a good together. If anybody, again, wants to email us about anything at all, ah mostly probably X-Men or the podcast, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod.com.
01:56:03
Speaker
ah Thank you to Krils Wilson for our intro and outro music. Thank you, Julia Selle for the amazing voice of Trish Tilby that opens our episodes.
01:56:16
Speaker
Pat, you have anything to say to our listeners? Well, just the same thing that we always say to our listeners at the end of the episode. Okay. So ah remember, a heavier dose of that stuff should make me hard as diamond.
01:56:31
Speaker
And always remember,