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19 - X-Men #101-105 - The Phoenix
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WELCOME NEW LISTENERS! You're just in time for the return (?) of a beloved character who we were POSITIVE died last issue! Matt watched New Mutants (2020), Pat visited a bunch of comic book stores, and we take a trip through to the end of Chris Claremont's second year on The X-Men, as a bunch of weird stuff happens and it might be connected?
Topics Include:
Furry Nightcrawler. The Month of 100 Editors. Jean Grey, who did NOT die… Everyone wants to kill Nightcrawler. The X-Men are going to Ireland! Wolverine hates vacation. Cassidy Senechal Eamon O’Donnell. A real Canadian Tuxedo. Black Tom and Juggernaut; true friends. The ol’ “bad Irish road maintenance” trope. An X-Polycule. Nightcrawler is so damn cool. Storm’s (maybe too many) origins! "You ungrateful, unspeakable cur!" MISTY KNIGHT! Stop answering our rhetorical questions, Chris Claremont! Literal Leprechauns. The Suez War (bad). The Arm That Looks Like Spider-Woman? LOGAN!!! Neuronic Tangler Glove. Sword/axe/castle/thunder! "YOU KILLED MY FRIEND NOOOO!" Dungeons & Dragons. Apologies to Andy Yanchus. ANGUS MACWHIRTER! Eric the damn Red again. Banshee has the most metal power. A "form-fitting coffin." Alien bug... lady? The Furies. THE STARJAMMERS!! Why is Firelord here? Ohhh The Arm That Looks Like Spider-Woman! The X-Men sitting around drinking coffee. Phoenix is uhhhh pretty powerful. How many Dave Cockrums are there?
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Live Report from Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey
Introduction to 'Mutant Menace' Podcast
00:00:35
Speaker
everybody, I'm Matt Aukamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And it with us, Pete. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:46
Speaker
menace oh Pete, you're really late there. so
Weekly Recap and Recording Schedule
00:00:51
Speaker
So, how are you doing, Pat? i I'm pretty good. Sincerely, i'm ah I'm having a pretty good week.
00:00:59
Speaker
It's... ah
00:01:02
Speaker
I was going to say it's Thursday, but that doesn't matter to anybody here. You don't know
Comic Book Day Discussion
00:01:06
Speaker
what day we record. it could be Thursday, July 24th. Who knows? Also, what's so good about Thursday? I have my ah HR guy at work.
00:01:18
Speaker
Sweet guy, let me his entire collection of X-Men cards just to peruse, just because he knows that I like the X-Men. Interesting. He's got a crazy, complete collection of all the you know like X-Men trading cards from the 90s. It's wild. Yeah. ah Anyway, when you ask him how he's doing on any given day, he just says the day of the week.
Email from 'Email Michael' on Nightcrawler
00:01:40
Speaker
So you say, hey, how are you doing? And he's like, well, it's Monday. Or, oh, it's Wednesday. ah sha It's Friday. There are only maybe two days a week that that actually works for it. It says it for all five of them. And I don't know. i don't know if he's laughing in his head like, oh, it's my bit. Or if it's just like he learned long ago that you can say that and people will respond with whatever their interpretation of that is.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah. Like, uh, yep. It's Tuesday or yep It's Wednesday. Gotta love new comic book day or whatever. I'm a big fan of Thursdays. So I think we're, uh, I think it's a good omen for us that we had to cancel earlier this week and then they're recording on a Thursday.
00:02:26
Speaker
A little peek behind the curtain. Whoa. What's that? Oh yeah. I got to cut this off,
Nightcrawler's Fur Debate
00:02:33
Speaker
Matt. I'm sorry. That is our music cue for Pat's email corner.
00:02:37
Speaker
That came out of nowhere. Yeah, I know. Well, we are beholden to the music. So yeah, true. I want to first read email from one of our favorite regulars here. Email Michael. He says, yeah, welcome back. Email Michael.
00:02:54
Speaker
Tell Matt that I'm confident. I knew Nightcrawler was furry when I was a kid, but I can't for the life of me tell you how I knew. It wasn't mentioned in the 80 page Marvel X-Men guidebook from 1992. I had as a kid and tracked down on archive.org. That's interesting. That is interesting.
00:03:10
Speaker
I had conversations with my friends about how Alan Cumming was not furry in the movie. We all agreed it would have looked worse if he had been, though. Yeah, I still can't picture a furry nightcrawler. Like, I can picture his the little chin fuzz I think he had on the X-Men Evolution cartoon.
00:03:27
Speaker
And his, you know, furry curly hair, but I cannot picture Nightcrawler having like furry... A furry man. Yeah, furry neck. They brought him back for, I want to say, age of Apocalypse, and that movie is forgettable enough that I do not remember... i think it was just called Apocalypse, but yeah. ah Yeah, you're probably right.
00:03:50
Speaker
Folks... This is gold. If you know anything more about Nightcrawler's fur history, please. Yeah, we got to talk about. Yeah, I want to talk about Nightcrawler's fur every episode.
00:04:04
Speaker
Michael goes on to say ah a few things, but he ah wants to assure us that he loves the name Email Michael, or rather is totally fine with it and sees it as completely neutral, i which I interpret as loving it.
00:04:20
Speaker
He's considering getting new business cards printed with that name on them and a tattoo. He says, carve it on my tombstone. Okay. That's see. Okay.
00:04:33
Speaker
You're neutral with it, but you want it carved on your tombstone. You might be. so we were a little worried about you. Email Michael. Cause we hadn't heard from you in one episode. Uh, we may have over inflated your ego about this.
00:04:49
Speaker
was,
Weapon Jason's Praise on Podcast
00:04:50
Speaker
uh,
00:04:52
Speaker
Please don't tattoo this on your body. Or If you do, i can't do it. There's nothing I can give you or do. to ah But i'll I'll be like, wow, that's cool.
00:05:03
Speaker
We have a another email from a regular weapon. Jason writes in. Hey, weapon Jason. Email subject. You two are the best there is at what you do. Whoa!
00:05:16
Speaker
And then first line is, and what you do is make folks laugh. Aw. Thanks, Weapon Jason. Thanks, Weapon Jason. He goes on to say a lot here. I'm going to do some paraphrasing, but he does begin strong. The shift in tone and quality of this early Chris Claremont stuff has really energized the podcast after the Dark Ages.
00:05:35
Speaker
You two were firing full power. Eye blasts of humor and insight. Just peak Mutant Menace podcast stuff. Podcast stuff. Podcast. ah He says that we covered everything pretty well. He doesn't have many comments, but he does want to fill us in on what the Avengers are doing during these first few X-Men issues because it would shock you to find out it's X-Men related and not just because Beast is joining the team.
00:05:58
Speaker
After the Avengers number 136 reprints, the Amazing Adventure number 12 where Beast kills Iron Man and how low is the Avengers sunk that they're doing a reprint issue. Yeah, that's wild.
Avengers Storyline Overview
00:06:10
Speaker
In number 137 of July 1975, we get the ever-loving blue-eyed beast joining the Avengers as part of the team's new membership drive. This is when Yellowjacket and the Wasp rejoin, Scarlet Witch and Vision take a honeymoon, and Moondragon is a big part of the plot.
00:06:25
Speaker
Ew. Ew. But that's not the interesting part, he says. The interesting part is that this issue ends with the reappearance of an old X-Men opponent, the Stranger, from X-Men number 11, is the captions. room Wow.
00:06:38
Speaker
In number 138, the Avengers end up facing off against the Stranger, but we find out that it's actually just Toad pretending to be the Stranger, using advanced space tech to do thought projections. Oh my god.
00:06:51
Speaker
After asking to be left on Akron's planet after the events of Avengers number 76, he built a spaceship capable of faster than light travel to go back to the stranger's prison planet to build this thought projection machine so he could return to the Earth and ask Scarlet Witch to marry him.
00:07:09
Speaker
Toad! Just because you guys got naked one time together. That wasn't even voluntary. That was yeah that part of a plan. And not... But...
00:07:21
Speaker
He was too late. She's already married to Vision. And so he changed plans instead to destroy the Avengers out of jealous rage. Beast, of course, uncovers that Toad is behind all of it.
00:07:33
Speaker
So he goes on to talk about whether or not we should read those Avengers issues. And at this point, we're past it. I'm going to say absolutely not. i don't want to read Toad's story. I don't want to read Toad. I mean, it's just everything we hate. It's Toad. It's the stranger. It's just gotten good again.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, that's.
00:07:58
Speaker
It's like a stretch to say that's interesting, but I'm glad I know it. So thank you, weapon, Jason. Yeah, thank you,
Fan Art and Listener Interaction
00:08:04
Speaker
weapon, Jason. we ah OK, before you do one more, I have been Googling ah fuzzy and furry nightcrawler.
00:08:14
Speaker
OK. It's all very horny. So like now i'm I'm very confident what a fuzzy Nightcrawler looks like, a Nightcrawler with fur. But it all every picture that anybody has ever drawn of Nightcrawler being fuzzy is the horniest shit you've ever seen.
00:08:34
Speaker
yeah so usually he's either nude or he's wearing a thong that is drooping real low. Wow. Wow. I mean, I believe it. He is... I am captured with this man already, having having read him for 10 issues now. But I don't need large dick to be part of the Nightcrawler story.
00:08:55
Speaker
You know what i mean? Like, does he have BDE? Of course. But I don't need him to actually have a big dick to respect and admire Nightcrawler.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah. To be fair, he wears a pretty tight costume, so I feel like we would recognize if he had... A giant hog. he was packing something larger than average, yeah. Yeah. i We do have one more email from Magic the Dog. It says, hello, Pat, long-time listener, first-time emailer. i drew a pair of pics of you and Matt. More to come.
00:09:30
Speaker
I don't think these were truly drawn by a dog, but it has picture of Matt and Pat, a little cartoon doodle on a sticky note. We'll have to...
00:09:42
Speaker
explain I don't know if I like that. can over or a podcast the I mean, I appreciate it. I appreciate it, but I don't know if I like it. Have you seen the second photo, Matt?
00:09:53
Speaker
The second one is, yeah, the second one is fine. The second one is Patnito and Mode. Oh, I was looking at them the other direction. Yeah, the second one is the one that you shouldn't like.
00:10:03
Speaker
The second one I don't like. First one is fine. Quite flattering to me. He draws my face a Magneto helmet ah would with some big muscles. um I look very menacing, but he draws Matt
Promoting the Podcast
00:10:20
Speaker
with his face sort of... but We know <unk> magic here.
00:10:24
Speaker
can draw Matt. He does, he does a pretty good drawing of Matt, but he draws Matt with his face kind of contorted like toads is. It's sad. It's pretty upsetting.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's, it's very upsetting. Uh, I'm really, the more to come feels now like a threat, but thank you for the, um drawing.
00:10:47
Speaker
Thank you. Magic the dog. First dog emailer in history. Well, that was Pat's email corner. Pat, did you do anything X-Men related this week? Matt, I did.
00:10:59
Speaker
What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took it upon myself to do a little tour of comic book shops in the immediate area. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
00:11:14
Speaker
Is that the only thing you did X-Men related? Yes. Oh, okay. i mean, I went to a bunch of comic book stores with, with you bought a lot of comic books. um If you are a new listener that ah found this show through our flyers, send us an email. Let us know.
00:11:34
Speaker
Send us a picture of the flyer. Send us a picture of the flyer with you giving us the finger in front of the flyer. But nothing would make us happier. And if you send us fan art or a picture of yourself with the flyer, let us know in the email if it's okay if we repost it on Instagram or whatever.
00:11:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah. yeah Or we just post it on Instagram and tag us. That's cool, too.
Review of 'The New Mutants' 2020
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, at mutantmenacepod on Instagram. ah But yeah, that was ah very exciting. It was very fun. i loved getting in a car with you, Matt, and just spending some time face-to-face like real friends.
00:12:09
Speaker
Like real friends who don't have to monetize not even monet this isn't monetized or we're losing money once again we are only losing money on this but uh who don't have to commodify our friendship pat you asked me if i did anything x-men related i did and i'll restate it if you want me to yeah please matt did you do anything x-men related this week i did patrick i watched i watched a movie called the new mutants oh 2020 yeah sure
00:12:41
Speaker
yeah sure It's good is the thing. It's good. It's good. It's kind of good is the thing. It's kind of good. It's the thing is it's good. i mean, it doesn't there's they take a lot of liberties with the story of the new mutants. But yeah, I think they do ah magic really well.
00:13:02
Speaker
I think they do Wolfsbane incredibly well. I think they do Moonstar. Okay. And while I might have liked to see an actual Afro-Brazilian as Sunspot, right?
00:13:20
Speaker
I think their characterization of him is really good. The only thing I didn't... I didn't love Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie. was just going to say. His fucking British ass going like, um i When I blast Dan, vulnerable.
00:13:37
Speaker
wow bo rebel Yeah, that guy you annoys me a little bit. I know Sam Guthrie is one of your favorites, too. So that had to be painful. Yeah. Well, and Magic has definitely overtaken. Now that I've read the New Mutants, Magic has overtaken him and as as one of my favorites of that team. Okay. but yeah And so I was really, really happy. I think Anya Taylor-Joy is, like, incredible casting for that. She nails it.
00:14:05
Speaker
Anyway, i think it was actually, like, it was very, very character-based. just like the comic book series. If you're not looking for something comic book accurate,
00:14:17
Speaker
i think I think there's a good movie there. I do think it's a little... It got a little fucked by post-production. Like, I would love to have seen what the original... Yeah, that movie was recut, like, five times, right?
00:14:30
Speaker
Wasn't it in production hell for a long time? Yeah, yes. It was... They started filming, I think, back in 2015, and they didn't release it until 2020. And they barely promoted it at all, because...
00:14:44
Speaker
They were not confident. I think what it suffers from is this, i this, when they greenlit it, it was right after Guardians of the Galaxy hit, right?
00:14:56
Speaker
When they were just greenlighting everything. They were like, even the dumb ass movie works? And so they were just gobbling up. Grabbing every story they could.
00:15:07
Speaker
Every property they could, but because the Marvel movies were hitting so hard, they were like, but they all have to be exactly like this. yeah um Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of Marvel Cinematic Universe formula applied to what was not a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie.
00:15:25
Speaker
Exactly. So New Mutants was they had it planned as this like kind of horror movie. Yeah. This very character based bottled up in this hospital facility horror movie.
00:15:38
Speaker
Really, really cool idea. And they tried to recut it to be a, you know, what he said he wanted to do. He wanted to do like a cross between a horror movie and a John Hughes film.
00:15:53
Speaker
which is a fun and smart idea, and you can see that you could see that living in the script a little bit. But... Well, number one, i I think some of the performances like Sunspots and things get and the Stranger Things kids couldn't quite pull that off.
00:16:13
Speaker
um But then again, some of the John Hughes actors weren't great either. They came to life from his scripts. um And Cecilia Ray is that actor. Not very good. Some of the dialogue was pretty bad, but it's hard to tell which of which of that was just like maybe there was better. Like, it's so hard to tell what was just cut to hell, you know?
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But but anyway, i I enjoyed it all the way
Anticipation for 'The New Mutants' Comics
00:16:39
Speaker
through. And I i loved that the demon bear was there. I loved their conception of Ileana and Limbo. ah Trust me, folks, I'm an expert here.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I'm um'm here to tell you, New Mutants was good. Let me ask you this, Matt. Yeah. In the interest of creating a timeless podcast... Is that on any streaming service right now?
00:17:07
Speaker
So do you want to talk ah about... is I'll tell you what. I am very excited to read the New Mutants once we get there. And there's only one way to get there, Matt. And that is through X-Men number 101.
00:17:24
Speaker
Like a Phoenix from the Ashes. Now you guys don't know which one of us is going to read it. Ooh. Chris Claremont, author. Dave Cockrum, artist.
00:17:36
Speaker
Frank Chiramonte, inker. Jay Costanza, letterer. B. Wilford, colorist. Archie Goodwin is the editor. Archie Goodwin, Matt? Wasn't it just Marv Wolfman?
00:17:48
Speaker
It was Marv Wolfman literally last issue. i had to go back and check. And surely there wasn't a third editor squeezed in there somewhere between the last issue and this issue. It seemed like you know something. Okay, I know a couple of things. Number one, Archie Goodwin...
00:18:05
Speaker
Ups and downs. he is the creator of Luke Cage, one of my all-time favorite characters. Of course, the Luke Cage that he created certainly has its problems.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah. he replaced, actually, Jerry Conway, ah who accepted the position of editor-in-chief and left after a month and a half. So over the last year and a half, I believe, we have...
00:18:32
Speaker
Roy Thomas stepping down, Len Wein stepping in, Len Wein stepping down, Marv Wolfman stepping in, Marv Wolfman stepping down, and yeah Jerry Conway stepping in, but Jerry Conway stepping down, and Archie Goodwin stopping in. Matt, between issues of the X-Men, there was yeah an entire run of an editor-in-chief.
00:18:53
Speaker
I think this was the era where they called it, and it it was clearly more than a month, but they refer to it as the month of 100 editors. Yeah. I think Archie Goodwin lasts for like a year and a half, and then it's Jim Shooter until forever.
00:19:08
Speaker
Forever. Yeah, I think all the way to like what, Bob Harris or something? Yeah, Tom DeFalco maybe? Okay. Yeah, so Jim Shooter all the way up until 1987. dev Do you think he had to leave because Secret Wars 2 was so bad?
00:19:22
Speaker
they were like, fuck off. he was You get out of here, you little bitch. Are we going to touch on Secret Wars? We'll have to. we Okay, because there is so much to talk about around...
00:19:36
Speaker
how that happened and why it happened and why it's so bad. And it's just it's just Jim Shooter. both like And he gets worse with Secret Wars number two, but it's just Jim Shooter listening to the toy company owners that are now his boss.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yes, that's... that Yes, that is Secret Wars 1. But then Jim Shooter got up his own ass about it and he was like, that was the best comic ever. And now I know how to write comics better than anybody else.
00:20:03
Speaker
And then he became much more of like a overbearing editor. And so by the time Secret Wars 2 came out, He was just writing all of his political rants as the Beyonder.
00:20:16
Speaker
Like, that was just – we'll get into it eventually. like So, okay. He's like a super – he's a big Ayn Rand guy, isn't he? Oh, gosh. That – I mean, that would make sense. There's a ah lot of – rugged determinism bullshit. And so, I mean, we'll get there. So Jim, Jim Shooter is is from 1978 to 1987. Then Tom DeFalco takes over. You're right. From 1987 1994. Then it for a year, it breaks up into everybody has different, like a bunch of different editors that take different. yeah
00:20:49
Speaker
And ah Bob Harris comes out of that as the overall editor in chief. Anyway, this is ah if anybody finds this interesting, um, Go back and listen to some old episodes. I'm sorry that you're like us.
00:21:02
Speaker
sorry that suffer from the same afflictions that we do. ah All right. So the release date here is July 1976.
00:21:14
Speaker
You're not calling my bluff. The cover date is October 1976. Welcome to the last moments of a young woman's life.
Jean Grey's Transformation into Phoenix
00:21:23
Speaker
Those are the words that open the issue as Jean Grey pilots a StarCore spacecraft through a solar storm to crash on the runway of Kennedy Airport.
00:21:33
Speaker
The wreckage skids across the tarmac into Jamaica Bay, where the water swirls and steams for a moment. until Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men and Peter Corbeau pop out of the water.
00:21:47
Speaker
This is, Matt, this opening sequence, so fucking good. Yeah. Just a splash page of action followed by ah full two-page spread split up into unconventional panels.
00:22:01
Speaker
Of the space shuttle just ripping in half on the yeah yeah tarmac, yeah. You really wonder how they're going to ah how they could possibly survive it. Like the I know I always talk about scale, but this seems huge.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. So Scott wants to dive into the wreckage to check on Gene. But the X-Men try to hold him back because no one could have possibly survived both the solar flare radiation and the crash.
00:22:29
Speaker
But suddenly the water seems to catch fire. Out of the spot where the shuttle came to rest, a fiery flash of green, gold, and red rockets out of the water.
00:22:41
Speaker
The figure appears to be Jean Grey in a brand new costume. She calls herself the Phoenix and seems to be suffering from an overwhelming deluge of new sensations before passing out into the water, yelling Scott's name. All right.
00:22:58
Speaker
We got to eat some crow address this, yeah. Pat, yeah. Uh... We did a whole thing last episode saying goodbye to Jean Grey. yeah yeah Hey, hey. Jean Grey, who did not die.
00:23:15
Speaker
even Even the best of us get fooled sometimes. we We were sure she was dead, and I guess she wasn't. Huh, Pat? No, she's back and seemingly ah more powerful than ever and more in love with Scott than ever.
00:23:32
Speaker
God also, with he tells Nightcrawler, Nightcrawler says, like, Scott, you couldn't possibly survive the dive. And he tells Nightcrawler, if you try to stop me, I will kill you.
00:23:46
Speaker
he pu loves People always fucking try to kill Nightcrawler. This is the second issue in the first year where somebody tries to literally kill Nightcrawler. All right.
00:23:59
Speaker
So it's sometime passes. And now ah we see Wolverine. He's out of costume. He's picking up flowers and wondering to himself, why Jean Grey has wormed her way so deep into his affections?
00:24:14
Speaker
For some reason, he's surprised to find the rest of the team and Moira in the hospital waiting room and and drops the flowers in the trash in frustration. Scott ah sits by himself brooding over the time he wasted not telling Jean his true feelings.
00:24:31
Speaker
And then choosing the new X-Men over her. When Corbeau and Jean's doctor walk out to announce to the room that she's going to be just fine. The X-Men rejoice.
00:24:42
Speaker
good Scott wanders off to cry. I guess he's sad about it. guess he wanted her to die. And no, it's the opposite. and And the professor announces that the rest of the team are going to be taking an enforced vacation while Jean recovers.
00:24:57
Speaker
Sean suggests they head to his ancestral home in response to the letter he received from Flaherty. The X-Men are going to Ireland! is I have a question, Matt. Yeah?
X-Men's Vacation Plans
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:25:10
Speaker
Is Peter Corbeau a medical doctor? ah No, he's just allowed in any room where science is happening. why is the Why is he consulting with a medical doctor on Gene's condition?
00:25:22
Speaker
And he's yelling at the medical doctor. shouldn't They wander out and he's like, and the doctor's like, I don't care what you say. She's fine. So it clearly Peter Carbeau is like, she's not. I watched her go through a solar flare.
00:25:38
Speaker
She has to be dead. also Wolverine does not want to take a vacation. yeah He pops his claws out and starts threatening the professor saying, i don't take vacations.
00:25:52
Speaker
yeah
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah. he'd think he'd You'd think he'd learn to enjoy it. Well, I think maybe he just has good instincts because, Pat, every single time the X-Men go on vacation, something fucking terrible happens immediately.
00:26:09
Speaker
True. This is a death sentence for the X-Men. Yes. Yes. So after some travel... Sean,
Ambush at Cassidy Keep
00:26:18
Speaker
Aroro, Wolverine, Kurt, and Peter all arrive at Cassidy Keep, a big medieval castle built onto a rocky bluff on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, where Banshee apparently grew up.
00:26:32
Speaker
Their approach is monitored by Sean's cousin, Black Tom, who is holding the Cassidy Seneschal Eamon O'Donnell's family hostage. Can you say those four words together again?
00:26:44
Speaker
Cassidy Seneschal Eamon O'Donnell. Yeah. Thank you. The X-Men begin to settle in, watched from the shadows by some tiny folks. It's fucking weird. Storm, feeling confined, conjures up a summer shower before Nightcrawler appears to escort her to dinner.
00:27:03
Speaker
but Also, there's a cute little scene where he plays with his little image inducer. Yeah, he turns into what Groucho Marx, the Gone with the Wind guy. Yeah. They got Clark Gable.
00:27:15
Speaker
Clark Gable. There it is. Somebody I didn't recognize. and then he settles for Errol Flynn again. Let me see if I can recognize who the guy you didn't recognize. it and I'm trying to flip to it now. Nope. um
00:27:29
Speaker
They show up to this fancy dinner. Yeah. Well, they don't get to the dinner. they They're in the hall. Yeah, they show up. Sorry. They show up for this fancy dinner and everybody is dressed up for the occasion except Wolverine is wearing wiit a canadian tuxedo he has denim pants a denim suit jacket a bright red button-up shirt with a bolo tie a bolo tie a cowboy hat and he's the one complaining that banshee is just wearing like casual street clothes and banshee's like i'm the lord of the manor i don't have to dress up the way you do yeah he's got a good point it's his house it's my house i'm the lord i'm a lord
00:28:14
Speaker
So the gang begins to walk through the halls when suddenly a trap door opens beneath their feet and they find themselves face to face with black Tom Cassidy and his new best friend, Juggernaut.
00:28:27
Speaker
Whoa. Before the issue ends, Storm, gripped by what appears to be some sort of claustrophobia, screams.
00:28:41
Speaker
Um...
00:28:44
Speaker
juggernaut's back yeah this i'm how they how they do all this i don't i don't know how did they they made a trap door there what are these what are these little little guys yeah very confused very so with the first few pages of this issue have some action in them as the, the plane comes down to the ground.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah. Last few panels, the last like six panels or so have some action in them as they like get caught in this trap door and then realize that they're about to fight the juggernaut.
00:29:26
Speaker
Nothing in between. The rest of this is just like a sci-fi soap opera. yeah The rest is but is is like them trying to figure out their passports and ah Wolverine buying flowers.
00:29:39
Speaker
It's so good, though. This is what I want to read. I want to read them like figuring their shit out between yeah weird adventures. and And we are deep in it. Speaking of passports, has Charles x Xavier not sorted out the immigration paperwork for all of these people that he, that he brought back to his school.
00:30:02
Speaker
No, he gets, he gets them fake passports. See, like they are all illegally American identities. They're all illegal immigrants. Hey, a human being can't be illegal by the way, but yeah, it's true.
00:30:15
Speaker
They want to deport the X-Men.
00:30:19
Speaker
yeah So there is a really unfortunate panel in this issue. Yeah. It is Jean, like as she recovers, Professor X...
00:30:34
Speaker
ah harkens back to the worst moment in X-Men history. And he talks about how, Oh, Jean was a girl. He once thought he loved.
00:30:48
Speaker
don't have to go back and acknowledge this. I know that's it's the absolute worst. one Nobody else ever mentioned it again. I mean, I'm glad he says thought he loved like that is better than we had before.
00:31:03
Speaker
But fuck, man, I would rather have just forgotten about it forever. I would. You know what? old man You could have acknowledged it. Chris, you do crazier stuff than this. You could have gone like when I was possessed by Lucifer's mind control. I once thought that I was in love with.
00:31:21
Speaker
But he does use that moment to to tell us that he also once loved Moira McTaggart. It's okay. He also loves adults.
00:31:32
Speaker
i There are a couple of fun moments if you're done with all the the gross stuff. it's not It is not my fault. We can't blame me for this.
00:31:43
Speaker
There is a full, beautiful half page of the X-Men in a little European car driving up the road to this castle. The...
00:31:54
Speaker
dialogue for the entire panel every character gets a uh a line in here it is all about the poor irish road maintenance was this a popular topic in the 70s i don't know but i i drove a rental car in scotland which is not ireland i know this they're very they're different countries they're different islands but the road maintenance in scotland was pretty bad too because I've driven in Ireland before and the road maintenance was fine. Wait, really?
00:32:28
Speaker
No worse than Pennsylvania with like, it's got some potholes and... The problem with European roads is that they are just so fucking narrow and and windy. Like, Pennsylvania roads are very windy.
00:32:42
Speaker
and So is most of the East Coast because it was that it was built piecemeal, right? Like, it was built around ah landmarks and stuff when... The country was just forming, right? And that's why Europe roads are so windy, because again, these fucking places are so fucking old.
00:33:02
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah, it was very scary driving on Irish mountain roads. Right, but that that's the thing about Europe versus the US. Roads here are much wider, and so when you're driving in Europe, it's just so scary.
00:33:18
Speaker
you know, he's probably laughing at us right now. Sinewave Sean. Sinewave Sean. Because he just drives them all the time and he's like, hey, these roads are fine, buddy.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. You guys are all coddled by your American ah ah ah shoulders. And big ass trucks. and Probably doesn't even know what it for military use. Probably doesn't even know what a shoulder is.
00:33:44
Speaker
I mean, not on your body. It's like there's a shoulder on the side. It's the space between the road them. Sign with Sean. UtanmenasPod at gmail.com. Format. Hi, Pat. Tell Matt whether or not you know what a shoulder is You know what a shoulder, the shoulder of a road is.
00:33:59
Speaker
Anybody else is welcome to sound off on this, too. If you've driven in Europe, we've got a lot of calls to action this episode, and very few of them are about the X-Men. Pat, do you want to tell me about X-Men number 102?
00:34:13
Speaker
No, I don't. i want to tell you about one other very funny moment. Colossus, Kurt, and Storm are, well, I should say Colossus and Nightcrawler are in kind of a competition over Storm, and Storm says, i will not have you bickering over me. You are both my date to this dinner party.
00:34:33
Speaker
And for a moment, it seems like all three of them are really into it. This isn't so much funny as it is sexy. yeah yeah Yeah. This is what you're going to be thinking about all night.
00:34:45
Speaker
Fucking night. The three purest X-Men that we've ever met. If you are Pat's wife, email us, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com and tell us what you think about Pat's new fetish.
00:35:00
Speaker
She doesn't listen to this. It's not my fetish. It's just the the thought of it is exciting. Not in a sexual way. a but not. It's the thought of Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Storm having a threesome is exciting to you, but not in a sexual way.
00:35:18
Speaker
I just, it would be sick. It would be very cool if. I don't think it would be sick. I think it would be beautiful. If they were a polycule. I don't think, I don't think polyamory is sick at all, Pat. I think it's beautiful.
00:35:29
Speaker
I think it is. All right. Legitimate way to live. Let's move on to X-Men number 102, Matt. i think You mean who will stop the juggernaut?
00:35:40
Speaker
ah Nope. this is This one's mine. ah But yes, who will stop the juggernaut? Who will stop the juggernaut? Who will stop the Juggernaut? so Who do you think will stop the Juggernaut?
00:35:53
Speaker
Hey! Who will stop the Juggernaut? she i Chris Claremont, author, Dave Cockrum, artist, Sam Granger, inker, John Costanza, letterer, Bonnie Wilford, colorist, Archie Goodwin, editor.
00:36:07
Speaker
Chris Claremont, not a big fan of the cheeky credits. This one hit shelves September 21st, 1976. this one hit shelves september twenty first nineteen seventy six The cover date is December The issue opens with Juggernaut punching Colossus in the stomach and yelling his own name while Storm has an apparent psychological breakdown in the foreground.
00:36:28
Speaker
The fight goes like this. Banshee flings himself at Black Tom. colla Colossus tries to help Storm, so Wolverine flings him at Juggernaut. Colossus then argues with Wolverine and gets thrown through a wall Wolverine tries his claws on Juggernaut's armor, but only produces sparks.
00:36:45
Speaker
Nightcrawler tries to help Storm, but desists when Juggernaut turns his attention on him. Nightcrawler then flees, trying to pull Juggernaut away from the rest of the team. Juggernaut fails to take the bait and grabs Storm by the hair.
00:36:58
Speaker
oh So what do you think about this? Before we move on to this next part, what do you think about this fight? How did you feel about it? you know, Nightcrawler is holding his own one-on-one against the Juggernaut.
00:37:10
Speaker
Like, yeah he is bouncing around, he's agitating him. Juggernaut cannot catch him. Juggernaut is getting agitated and a little thrown off balance. And if any of the other X-Men were conscious, it would be a great opportunity for them to attack.
00:37:25
Speaker
Here's the thing I love about ah Chris Claremont fight scenes is they aren't just fights, right? At this moment, we could have just said they fought.
00:37:36
Speaker
Like, that's how we would write the description for our recaps. But we can't do that here because each moment tells a little piece of story, right? Like Colossus doesn't want to fight Juggernaut. He'd rather help Storm and Wolverine's like, you have to fight Juggernaut.
00:37:52
Speaker
And if you're not going to do it, I'm going to do it for you. Throws him into Juggernaut. jugging her yeah And then Colossus turns on him. Wolverine pops his fucking claws. And it's basically like go to move at this point.
00:38:07
Speaker
And again, like Kurt is the reason that he's bouncing around trying to distract Juggernaut is to get him away from Storm. Ultimately, it fails, but it's like each of these moments is a piece of character developed. Yes, you're right. Every there's not a moment of a wasted action here. It's not yeah just explaining the fight. It's also raising the stakes of the situation.
00:38:31
Speaker
And neither is it just showing off people's powers, right? Like, that's another thing that used to happen in these comics. is It's just like, oh, it's just an opportunity to show what their powers are. But no, their powers are just part of who they are. This is an opportunity to show off their personalities.
00:38:48
Speaker
So, anyway, Juggernaut has Storm by the hair. Right. As she cries helplessly, we flash back to... Harlem, New York, 1951.
00:39:02
Speaker
Baby Aurora is in the arms of her mother, Indare, a princess of Kenya. Her husband, photojournalist David Monroe, is packing up the taxi to move back to Africa.
00:39:13
Speaker
Cairo, Egypt, 1956. The Suez War is in full swing and the city is being bombed by French aircraft. David,
Storm's Backstory and Challenges
00:39:22
Speaker
Ndare, and Aurora are fleeing their home to the American embassy when a plane crashes down, collapsing their building.
00:39:30
Speaker
Aurora's mother and father are killed instantly while Aurora is buried in rubble face-to-face with her mother's body. Where have we seen this As the years passed, Aurora grew into a young thief under the tutelage of a man named Ahmed El-Gibar until she grew weary of it.
00:39:48
Speaker
At 12, she hiked her way 2,000 miles south to the Serengeti Plains, apparently specifically the small corner that extends into southwestern Kenya. Yeah, I guess so. There she stayed until, as an adult, she met Charles Xavier.
00:40:02
Speaker
Back to the present, in that same moment, Charles x Xavier is struck by images of Storm and Juggernaut and rushes into Jean's recovery room to tell Scott. Out in the hallway, Scott tells the professor he will not be flying to Ireland to help the new X-Men because he belongs with Gene.
00:40:18
Speaker
He won't make it in time, and the new team need to learn to fight for themselves. Professor X calls him an ungrateful, unspeakable cur. Jesus! Jesus! Charles!
00:40:31
Speaker
Prepares to backhand him. Yeah! Before he's struck by the same alien dream again. Within the room, Jean talks to her new roommate, super spy Misty Knight, about how she may have died and brought herself back to life.
00:40:47
Speaker
All right. Misty Knight, man. Yeah. First thing here, Misty Knight. Little background. Holy shit. She first appeared in Marvel Premiere 21 in 1974, so just a couple years ago.
00:40:59
Speaker
She was created by Tony Isabella and Arvel Jones. Do you know Arvel Jones? I do. you ya Yeah, yeah. He was the second black artist to work at Marvel, and even then only preceded by Billy Graham by like ah a year or two.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah. Misty Knight was a former cop and an Iron Fist supporting character, along with Colleen Wing. And the two formed a detective agency together.
00:41:25
Speaker
ah Also, she has a cybernetic arm and dates Iron Fist, ah which that detail will actually be important later in the X-Men. But she rolls. She's a cool character. it's It's really interesting that Chris Claremont brings her into the story. like that He's clearly he just like he's just like, oh, Misty Knight is cool. I want to play with her.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Let me put her in something. yeah she's So she's Jean's roommate, which is an incredible coincidence. yeah exactly Yeah, yeah, yeah. It also means that she's not going to be surprised at all when Jean starts doing crazy shit around her.
00:41:58
Speaker
I also well so the their first interaction Misty Knight's like so Jean are you feeling okay after all that Jean goes well I'm pretty sure I died and then came back to life brought myself back to life it's it's such a creepy panel her eyes are glowing like there's a there's a there's that same phoenix fire behind her hospital bed and like psychic energy coming off of her head it's wild And imagine you just moved in with this woman like a few weeks ago.
00:42:31
Speaker
you thought you knew her well enough to live with her, but now you're learning the ah home behavior.
00:42:40
Speaker
Anyway, back in Ireland, the fight continues. Nightcrawler continues to evade Juggernaut by inches. Wolverine is knocked unconscious. Nightcrawler pulls a swashbuckling move by swinging from his tail on a chandelier and jamming a brazier of hot coals in Juggernaut's face. Fucking rolls.
00:42:58
Speaker
Black Tom shoots Nightcrawler in the back, who falls unconscious in a shadowy corner, and weirdly, half of his body disappears in the darkness. Yeah, you just see his legs and tail sticking out and then you just you see the dark corner like you see the you still see the bricks on the dark corner where his body should be.
00:43:18
Speaker
Black Tom throws Banshee off with an info dump. Apparently, Sean Cassidy was an Interpol agent who sent Tom to prison, and now there's a mysterious person who freed him and Juggernaut and gave them the money to booby trap the castle.
00:43:32
Speaker
That's what's going on here. You have you asked last issue. you Yeah, that's asked and answered. What? Claremont keeps doing that. We keep having our little observations, and Chris Claremont's like ahead of us. It's pissing me off.
00:43:47
Speaker
Back in the 60s, this used to be funny.
00:43:53
Speaker
Back to the fight, Black Tom knocks Banshee out. Colossus gives a very big punch to Juggernaut, then a very big kick, and then a wall falls on them both, and only Juggernaut remains standing.
00:44:05
Speaker
Storm finally unleashes a lightning bolt, but it's too little too late, and she gets knocked out too. Meanwhile, literal leprechauns kidnapped Nightcrawler through a hole in the wall. right To be continued. Pat, you said, hold on.
00:44:20
Speaker
You said literal, hold on. You must have, you said literal leprechauns. You might want to go back and we might need to edit that. use You accidentally said literal leprechauns kidnapped Nightcrawler through a hole in the wall.
00:44:30
Speaker
ah Right. ah I should say we haven't verified these are leprechauns. It seems like they might just be little gnomes running around the castle in Ireland.
00:44:41
Speaker
You're not telling me that that a bunch of little gnomes popped out of a hole in the wall and dragged Nightcrawler's body through it. Yes, that that is verifiably true.
00:44:56
Speaker
I just don't know that they're leprechauns. Oh my goodness. I do. That's fucking weird. Before we discuss the leprechauns, you want to talk about how do you feel about Storm's backstory?
00:45:09
Speaker
I think it's in it's having read through this much Claremont to this point, it feels like another story that we'll probably revisit in the future. Her probably her mentor.
00:45:23
Speaker
Ahmed Aljabar. I think. There's a lot cool about it, but do you do you ever, did you know Storm's backstory before this episode? No, I didn't realize her parents were killed in front of her as a child.
00:45:37
Speaker
Okay. I think that really informs her, like, anti-violence stance, that and her living through the Suez War. Yeah, yeah. And obviously that's the origin of her claustrophobia, right?
00:45:50
Speaker
That's what they're implying here. But I do think sometimes I wonder if it's a little, if it's trying a little too hard, right? Like if, if Chris Claremont is putting a little too much on the back of the single black character, right? Like, well, you're,
00:46:08
Speaker
father was an important Harlem photojournalist. Your mother was a Kenyan princess and you were born in Harlem, but now you're raised on the streets of Cairo as a young sneak thief pickpocket beggar.
00:46:29
Speaker
And then you hiked your way all the way to Kenya to become an African goddess of the storms. It's like, That feels like four different black characters. That that is a lot to carry.
00:46:43
Speaker
It's a lot to carry. And it's, yeah, it's a lot of like, it's almost like he just, he wanted her to have all these different cultural touch points of an African-American.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah. and To the, to the point where he builds her as like a fantasy character. Exactly. Exactly. Where, yes. I mean, All of those things are cool. And all of them weirdly inform Storm, right? Like she has the dogged determinism of a journalist right she has yeah the poise and grace of a princess she has the skills of a of a master thief she has just she has the power of a goddess uh she has uh you know this anti-violent stance but she can take care of herself like they they allow her to hold it all but i i just wonder like
00:47:41
Speaker
it It almost felt like Chris Claremont was like, well, I'm going to get one black character. So I want to put in everything I know about African-Americans. And like, I want to put in a little piece of all of my favorite, you know, like, ah characteristics of my favorite black characters or my favorite black real world figures.
00:48:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very... It's very 1970s Marvel treatment of a black person. It is You're either. oh my god yeah High born and received an elite education or you are written in jive.
00:48:20
Speaker
ah Yeah. In jive, a criminal who gets superpower by being experimented on in prison like Luke Cage. Right, right, right, right. yeah. Or you're Misty Knight. She's pretty rad. She doesn't do much in this issue, but she's still very cool.
00:48:37
Speaker
Chris Claremont, to his credit, does not hold back about Western militarization. No, he does not. has some damning things to say about the Suez War. That's true. but Yeah. Good for him. He's a big military nerd that can still recognize shitty military intervention.
00:48:54
Speaker
He puts allied forces in quotes. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Yeah, pretty And course, it's responsible for the death of Storm's parents. he we use' There's a thing that we kind of skip over.
00:49:06
Speaker
me... Give me one second. I got one thing. So it's explained to us that... Banshee, Sean Cassidy, is immune to his cousin, Black Tom Cassidy's powers.
00:49:22
Speaker
Shillelagh powers. Vice versa. They can blast at each other all they want and nothing's going to happen.
00:49:31
Speaker
Gross. if that's the case, is Banshee the only one fighting Black Tom? Why doesn't he try to fight Juggernaut and anyone else takes on Black Tom?
00:49:43
Speaker
That's a good point. Well, it's like in the a couple issues ago, Cyclops and Havoc are immune to each other's powers and only they fought each other on that rooftop. So here's what I don't understand, Matt. We see, this is a few issues back, we saw Black Tom delivering a letter or asking for a letter to be delivered to Banshee, right?
00:50:07
Speaker
No, we see Flaherty delivering a letter. And Black Tom kills Flaherty. Black Tom kills him. yeah so Flaherty delivers the letter. The letter, as it turns out, is letting Banshee know that he has inherited a castle in Ireland, like a like a sitcom or a horror movie.
00:50:32
Speaker
ah Right. And so they all decide to go. they They end up getting a vacation. They all decide to go together. We get to the end of this issue, and Black Tom tells Banshee that the X-Men arrived ahead of schedule. He didn't expect them there.
00:50:46
Speaker
just yet did Banshee actually inherit this castle and it just happens to be that Black Tom is taking it over I thought this was part of the setup was to say like oh big winner you got a castle bye but I'll say this I mean we I don't think we ever ever ever ever see Banshee's family again So he did inherit the castle because the rest of his family is dead. I assume so. assume so. Except the leprechauns. Well, we'll get to the leprechauns.
00:51:18
Speaker
And I think maybe he lives there. it's i don't i i don't know. We'll have to keep close watch. We're looking for that and we're looking for the arm that looks kind of like Spider-Woman.
00:51:28
Speaker
The arm that looks kind of like Spider-Woman. Remember it was in front of the TV screen when the Lange was watching. Who the fuck? All right, Pat. while we While we ponder on that, why don't I tell you about X-Men number 103, The Fall of the Tower. Sorry, there was no exclamation point, so I had to adjust on the fly. the Fall of the Tower.
00:51:48
Speaker
um Chris Claremont, author. Dave Cockrum, artist. Sam Granger, Inger. in John Costanza, letterer. Janice Cohen, colorist. Archie Goodwin, editor.
00:52:00
Speaker
you Release date, November 16th, 1976. Literal leprechauns are carrying Nightcrawler's body through a secret passageway like Gulliver's Travels while they give a recap of the last issue.
00:52:14
Speaker
Nightcrawler wakes up and after quickly adjusting to the reality of leprechauns, reintroduce him to Eamon O'Donnell, Seneschal of Cassidy Keep.
00:52:26
Speaker
He tells them about how a month ago, Eric the Stupid Red brought Black Tom and Juggernaut to the castle and they kidnapped most of what are real leprechauns and intended to lure Banshee back to...
00:52:39
Speaker
ah and Well, I mean, do what they just did. Yeah, we just talked about it. yeah Also, Nightcrawler learns he can turn invisible in the dark. but The literal actual leprechauns lead him to laboratory. refer themselves as leprechauns.
00:52:52
Speaker
Where Juggernaut and Black Tom are torturing the X-Men, trying to provoke Professor X into coming to Ireland. i I do want to say they don't actually say it's Eric the Red. Right.
00:53:04
Speaker
They don't mention that it's Eric the Red. And at one point they do mention that it is a man in red armor and a horned costume.
00:53:14
Speaker
Who has a Viking who has a Viking sounding name. Yes, it was which to be fair.
00:53:23
Speaker
Could be Eric the Red could be Magneto. Right? Red armor. Yeah. Horns. Horns on his helmet. little bit He's got the little horns. ah Yeah. Is is Magneto. that's Does that sound Viking-y to you?
00:53:39
Speaker
No. I guess that's. No. That's like a. key I was thinking Magneto. But that's more like a Mag. Yeah. Like Mag Gore the killer. um Yes. So. Moments later.
00:53:51
Speaker
After Juggernaut and Black Tom are talking about luring Professor X there to kill him, Professor X appears in the lab. What the fuck? Well, he was worried about him.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah. Juggernaut attempts to tackle him. But at the last moment, Professor X leaps out of the way. what Donkey kicks Black Tom and hops onto the wall like Spider-Man.
00:54:15
Speaker
This is so cool. Juggernaut
Nightcrawler's Strategy Against Juggernaut
00:54:18
Speaker
realizing this is in fact Nightcrawler using his ah image inducer punches a hole in the wall.
00:54:27
Speaker
Seeing the sky, Storm gets her mojo back and whips up a hurricane which shatters all the X-Men's holding devices. Wolverine, Colossus, and Storm are all free, but Banshee is captured by Juggernaut.
00:54:38
Speaker
Nightcrawler, meanwhile, is crushed under some rubble, so the non-metaphorical leprechauns rush to his aid. and Black Tom and Juggernaut hold Banshee over the edge of the castle and threatened to drop him if the x-men don't come up there within five minutes the generous time frame it's like i'm gonna count to five well i've got a couple's a little short let's say five minutes let's say three i'll count to 300 storm flies up uh storm flies up to the the top of the thing colossus throws wolverine up colossus throws wolverine
00:55:15
Speaker
He does it because Wolverine calls Storm a broad. He's like, it's like don't you don't do that again. ah He goes, don't do it again. And then he does it again. And he's like, I told you. It was justified.
00:55:31
Speaker
Then he begins scaling the wall himself by just like bashing his fingers into the digging in with his bare hands. This fucking guy. ah One of the leprechauns helps Wolverine find his way to the tower because Colossus threw him too far, but also seems to know his actual name, Logan. That's strange.
00:55:54
Speaker
Now we can stop saying Kurt, Aurora, Sean, Peter, and Wolverine. Yeah.
00:56:01
Speaker
While Storm distracts the castle's weaponry, Tom, and Juggernaut, Nightcrawler frees Banshee. While the rest of the X-Men hold off Juggernaut, Sean Cassidy sword fights an axe-wielding Black Tom on top of a castle in a thunderstorm. It fucking... It's fucking cool. It rolls!
00:56:21
Speaker
It's so good! The fight ends when Banshee sends Tom over the edge of the castle. They're, like, fighting. Tom has him bent over the edge, and then Banshee just, like, rolls backwards and kicks him over top of his head.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, he actually starts to take both of them over the ledge, right? and But Banshee can fly, and Black Tom cannot. Yeah, yeah. Juggernaut, enraged at the death of his, quote, only friend...
00:56:52
Speaker
Leaps off the castle after him. Immediately gives up the fight with the X-Men. No, you killed my My friend! the ski You killed my friend! You killed my friend!
00:57:03
Speaker
No! But he jumps off to save them instead of... yeah So, I think this tracks. I think that Juggernaut Has not had a single person be nice to him now his entire life. Black Tom Cassidy is the first person to be like, hey, you're actually pretty special. Do you want to ah help me?
00:57:27
Speaker
with this project and then treats him with respect i think this moment is why juggernaut sometimes enters the hero realm like in the deep deep future i think is because of this exact moment like you're saying it's yeah people are like oh he's he's got some emotional depth to him we now understand what makes juggernaut a villain and it's not because he's deeply evil inside yeah it's because his father abused him and so he turned that on charles x xavier and he became bully and everyone hated him and was mean to him and then he got trapped in a temple in uh vietnam or korea or whatever for 10 years so juggernaut and black tom they disappear into the waves as storm calls off the rain in the end eric the red sits in front of a computer
00:58:20
Speaker
Watching his failure while a weird man yells at him on one of his screens. And a picture of Magneto is there on a third screen. Magneto, you say? Apparently Magneto. So it still could be either red armored man in a horned helmet.
00:58:37
Speaker
ah Yeah, it could be either one because now they're both in play. I mean, i I have a pretty strong guess as to which one it is because I put it in the description as the one. But hey, maybe you're right.
00:58:49
Speaker
A couple of fucking cold lines from characters in this issue. Number one... Nightcrawler and Aemon develop a plan to try to rescue the X-Men after the leprechauns help them. And Aemon expresses his concern, saying like, hey, Nightcrawler, this is very dangerous.
00:59:11
Speaker
Nightcrawler says, don't worry, i'm i'm a pro. And then here's the line he he says as he exits. Yeah. If it doesn't work, though, Eamon, and then we cut to a panel of him bamfing out, send my body to Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.
00:59:28
Speaker
That's good. That's really good. And just the the two panel sequence that it's spread over where he's there and then he's not. He's just a puff of smoke is so rad. And then later.
00:59:41
Speaker
yeah Juggernaut gets tossed to the floor below him and he says, oh real nice, Banshee. All I have to do is walk back up the stairs. Colossus, Storm, and Wolverine are standing at the top of those stairs. And Colossus says, then you will not climb these stairs, Juggernaut.
01:00:01
Speaker
Yes. I got chills reading that. Real good. Real good. There's some dumb stuff. Yes, there certainly There is ah a Roy Thomas-ism here. It's a glove, Matt. Tell me the name of this glove. The Neuronic Tangler Glove. He's torturing the X-Men and he's just like, i will use my Neuronic Tangler Glove. And Juggernaut's like, shut up about your glove. We could just punch them. Juggernaut's so sick of this shit. Listen, you're my best friend I've ever had. I feel comfortable saying this.
01:00:40
Speaker
Shut up about the glove. The glove sucks. I just want to punch these guys. that That neuronic tangler glove is there to serve a 30 second purpose.
01:00:50
Speaker
Exactly. There's no no reason for it. One more, this guy is so fucking cool moment from Nightcrawler is when he uses his image inducer to show up as Professor X and then just teases Juggernaut and Black Tom as he dances around the room. being Yeah, like I'm going to kick your ass as every, going to kick your ass as the most insulting thing I could.
01:01:16
Speaker
Yes. Nightcrawler really It's so clear that he is Dave Cockrum's favorite character. Like, obviously, Chris Claremont loves him, too.
01:01:28
Speaker
um I think Chris Claremont has a stronger affection for Storm than anybody else, to be honest. But Dave Cockrum just loves drawing Nightcrawler. And once, yeah just like any time there's a fight, action somehow drifts over to Nightcrawler. Any time it's like everybody's knocked out except for it's Nightcrawler.
01:01:47
Speaker
and And we know that these are characters that Dave Cockrum had sitting in a notebook forever. Like, the the detail and consistency in Nightcrawler's action is really impressive. Just like, almost like a Spider-Man where it is... He's fully formed out the gate.
01:02:05
Speaker
Exactly. There is a very distinct set of movements. It's very acrobatic. There are specific muscles that get activated when he does these moves. It's really... Just like his incredibly famous power disappearing in shadows.
01:02:20
Speaker
Now
Influence of Dungeons & Dragons on X-Men
01:02:21
Speaker
this is something you can do in Dungeons and Dragons.
01:02:27
Speaker
It does seem like Chris Claremont was playing some Dungeons Dragons when he wrote this story, doesn't it? za Yeah, sometimes it seems like he's the way wait he's got a battle map planned out. i'm not I'm not saying that is like he oversimplified it. He clearly had a plan for this entire round of combat to play out.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's that's really funny. This definitely is a dungeon master playing with all the characters. That's wild. um And the the characters rule there. It's a great party.
01:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. That's true. I wonder if this is what got so many people into Dungeons and Dragons in the 1980s. is Just seeing this and saying, i like can do that.
01:03:12
Speaker
I want to do that. Yeah. Yeah, man. So I what you said about Dave Cockrum having Nightcrawler sitting in a notebook just hit me emotionally really hard just now because it's just this thing of like he had this idea for a character and he wanted to make this character happen.
01:03:30
Speaker
It was turned down to the Legion of Superheroes and then he got to do it and he got to bring this character to life so strongly. Yeah. Think about how close we were to never seeing him, never meeting the coolest fucking character I've ever seen.
01:03:46
Speaker
But also just think about how great this must feel for Dave Cockrum to make this guy live. This guy who was sitting in his notebook. This and Mr. Steel.
01:03:57
Speaker
right. Do you want to tell me about X-Men number 104? X-Men number 104.
01:04:02
Speaker
x-men number one oh four the gentleman's name is Magneto. Again, The name is Magneto. Yeah, it just sounds sassy. Chris Claremont, author, Dave Cockrum, artist, Sam Granger, inker, Patterson, letterer, A. Yankus, colorist, and A. Goodwin, you start editor.
01:04:23
Speaker
You're starting to make these up. yeah' A. Yankus sounds like an insult. This guy a real Yankus. No offense to A. Yankus, colorist. Patterson sounds like, okay, one time you gave me, back when this was possible, you gave me access to your Netflix. Yeah.
01:04:43
Speaker
And it was right when they ah started allowing... you to create multiple multiple profiles and you created four different profiles with stupid names yeah yeah you and they were like schvaltz was one schvaltz yeah sure schvaltz with a v duggan was one and the thing was you thought that they were automatically created by Netflix.
01:05:12
Speaker
I did. I thought Netflix was like, oh, here's some fun, cute names. ah But Patterson sounds like one that I would have done. it does. You know how much I had to pay Netflix when they yeah switched on billing per profile, by the way?
01:05:28
Speaker
I never got rid of those until... Netflix changed their billing model and I started getting billed for all five as separate accounts. Wait, really? You had to pay you to pay you had to pay per profile?
01:05:41
Speaker
Yes. I ignored a number of emails about their pricing change, so I probably could have done something about it. I had long stopped using your Netflix by then. oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You were stealing someone else's at that point.
01:05:54
Speaker
I released a January 18th, 1977. We open in Scotland where Banshee and the X-Men are arguing with a boat man about renting one of his hover boats.
01:06:05
Speaker
That's not just a boat man, Pat. It's Angus McWhorter. Angus McWhorter. Are we going to get to know this guy later? Angus McWhorter. Yeah. Because he gets named and then fights the X-Men.
01:06:18
Speaker
And loses embarrassingly. So if he doesn't show up again, we can pop him into loser league. We will see this man again. Anyway, he does not seem to like mutants.
01:06:29
Speaker
Having been through quite an ordeal, the X-Men simply get violent with him and steal his hoverboat. We've learned that they need this boat to reach Moira McTaggart's private lab where she left James Madrox in charge.
01:06:43
Speaker
He's stopped reporting back to her and she fears the worst. James Madrox? The multiple man? multiple man. As they reach the shore and spot the lab, they see a bolt shoot out from it and tear the ship into pieces.
Confrontation with Magneto
01:06:55
Speaker
And as Banshee notes, these pieces seem to be moving on their own.
01:06:59
Speaker
They manage to pull themselves ashore where they're met with a series of obstacles. A force field stops them from entering the lab and then the ground underneath them rises and hurls them directly at one of the building's thick concrete walls.
01:07:11
Speaker
Their only option is to team up and punch through the oncoming wall, which they do perfectly. Perfectly. they've gotten very, very good at bursting through walls as a team over the last six issues.
01:07:25
Speaker
It's the one thing that they've practiced more than anything else. But this is a shallow victory because out of the darkness bursts the terrifying, familiar form of Magneto, monologuing about his history with and sworn vengeance against the X-Men.
01:07:41
Speaker
Outside, Cyclops and Moira, who is now dressed like Black Widow in white, are landing the Blackbird and entering the lab, unaware of this commotion below.
01:07:52
Speaker
They find Madrox unconscious, who explains that bringing the X-Men here was a death sentence. Through a flashback, he explains that Eric the Red showed up with Havoc and Polaris and found Baby Magneto in one of the cells.
01:08:05
Speaker
They zapped him with an age ray to make him i into a grown man. Eric and Magneto then discussed their shared interest in taking down the X-Men and came up with a plan.
01:08:20
Speaker
That very plan involved drawing the X-Men right here to kill them. Scott knows that these new X-Men don't stand a chance against Magneto. Since he's been a baby for a bit now, they hadn't even trained for Magneto in the danger room.
01:08:34
Speaker
So he starts rushing in to help them. A few floors down, Magneto and these new X-Men are entering combat for the first time. He makes fairly short work of them. Wolverine is, of course, metal.
01:08:47
Speaker
Colossus is, of course, metal. Storm's lightning is, of course, i reflected by metal. and i Magnetic fields.
01:08:59
Speaker
Nightcrawler's teleportation creates vibrations in the metal in the air so Magneto can feel them and identify where he's popping up. It's this whole thing about magnetic fields. Like, they're just magical.
01:09:11
Speaker
Magnetic fields are this magical thing that surrounds us at all times that you can do anything with. you can You can harden them to create a force field. You can use them to fly. You can control. like it's it's i wouldn't say I wouldn't say I'm religious as much as I'm spiritual. I feel like there's magnetic fields that connect all of us.
01:09:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:35
Speaker
This leaves only one mutant without a metal power, apparently. Banshee, who ironically has the most metal power. He earns Magneto's respect as a foe. Is that funny?
01:09:46
Speaker
Like, hes does that track he can... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I get you. Yeah. There we go. The most metal power. Somebody needs to ah somebody needs to play take Ozzy Osbourne's place.
01:09:57
Speaker
Through a tense battle. What? Through a tense battle. He earns Magneto's respect as a foe, but is ultimately defeated when Magneto pulls ferrous particles from the air and fuses them around his body, turning him into a statue.
01:10:13
Speaker
Of course. He is so thirsty about this, too. He calls it form-fitting coffin. Yes, he's really, he's thought this one through. He's horny for that. It's a great idea. That banshee cocoon.
01:10:32
Speaker
This is, he watched Mastermind get turned into a statue in front of his eyes and it foiled his plans. So he's trying to do the same thing to the X-Men here. yeah Enter Cyclops, who is able to catch Maggie off guard with a well-timed blast, stunning him for a moment and allowing Scott to help the team recover.
01:10:51
Speaker
But Scott insists that they are not going back into battle. He tells the X-Men, against Wolverine's objections, that they need to give up the fight and run away. Magneto counts this as a victory, while Scott explains that drawing the X-Men here must have been a diversion by Eric the Red.
01:11:07
Speaker
They need to return to New York as soon as possible before Eric can kill the Professor. Whoa. And then we get a nice little epilogue here, a series of frames in different locations.
01:11:19
Speaker
Number one, back at the lab, as Magneto lavishes his perceived victory, he leaves without ever noticing the big door behind him that's labeled Mutant X. We're told we'll get to the story another time.
01:11:31
Speaker
Across the
Introduction of the Starjammers
01:11:32
Speaker
face of the universe, we see two characters named Christopher and Ch'ad, one of whom is a big fish man. I'll let you guess which one. Discussing an emperor's plan to open a dimensional gate and destroy the universe.
01:11:45
Speaker
Back across the universe to a parabolic orbit above Earth, where we see the alien bug man who reveals she is the sister of this mad emperor. Alien bug lady? Yeah, alien bug lady. The doctor was a woman.
01:12:02
Speaker
Back down to Earth, we see Professor X, Gene, and Misty Knight welcoming Gene's parents to their New York apartment, while Eric the Red, Havoc, and Polaris watch from outside, preparing to murder them all.
01:12:14
Speaker
To be continued. So... Did you notice that... and in There's one panel where the bug girl, they discover that the bug girl is loose.
01:12:30
Speaker
Yes. Wolverine is like, I recognize that bug girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah So this never comes back up.
01:12:42
Speaker
Oh. This was supposed to be the setup to a series that Dave Cockrum was pitching called The Furies. Here, I'm going to read from comic creators on X-Men.
01:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Was there stuff you planned to do during that first stint on X-Men but never got around to? And this is Dave Cockrum. Yeah, when the team went to Muir Island, Wolverine notices that the insect girl from Count Nefaria's Animen had escaped from confinement. And that was because I had worked up an idea for a spinoff book that I was going to call The Furies.
01:13:13
Speaker
It was going to feature the insect girl, Storm, Clea from Doctor Strange... Tigra, Namorita, Dragonfly, and an alien girl that I had come up with called Moonfang, who rode a giant bat.
01:13:32
Speaker
I'd gotten it a tentative okay to do the book, but I just never got around to finishing the first plot, so it never happened. That escape was left hanging. They never cleared it up. So yeah, Storm, Clea, Namorita, Tigra.
01:13:44
Speaker
And he says insect girl, but he also says Dragonfly. I think those are the same person. They are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We established last time her name is Dragonfly. Her powers are she's be an insect girl.
01:13:57
Speaker
And also she's a little psychic. Yeah, yeah. She's just a little psychic. i and Matt, is Moira running a mutant prison and brainwashing inmates?
01:14:12
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that's not No, she's this is the career she left behind to be a housekeeper. And Cyclops yells at her about it.
01:14:23
Speaker
He does. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I've been, you know, I've been with the professor for years. Why is this the first time I'm hearing about a secret lab? We'll talk about this later. Oh, you're right.
01:14:35
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it is cool that Jamie Madrox from Fantastic Four, the one time Fantastic Four character is here. Made it here. Yeah,
Jamie's Connection to Marvel Events
01:14:45
Speaker
yeah. And is rehabilitated enough to take over this.
01:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Prison. ah Yeah. I mean, we do we do as we said at the time, Jamie Madrox innocent. Right. It's weird. Even Chris Claremont doesn't seem to see his potential here, though.
01:15:04
Speaker
i'm i'm I'm a little confused why he's like, yeah, stick him on this island and we'll see him every 20 issues or so. And he's he's he doesn't even multiply. No. No. Here's, okay, here's some things I love.
01:15:17
Speaker
Dave Cockrum always draws Wolverine's mask ears as droopy when they're wet. He does it a couple times in the issue so far where Wolverine gets wet and his little ears droop down.
01:15:29
Speaker
Yeah. Just at the tips, there was a... When they're telling about Eric the Red showing up. Right, right, right. The flashback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, he seemed in a rush, like he was pressed for time.
01:15:44
Speaker
So he ran into Magneto's cell and quickly turned him from a baby back to a man. and And then ah they sat in the room and talked all day. And Eric the Red is sitting back very casually, legs are crossed.
01:15:57
Speaker
He's sitting back sipping tea and... It's like he shop so one which one was it? yeah yeah um My final very ah very weird thing is that at the end of this issue, did they leave Jamie and Moira behind with Magneto on Muir Island?
01:16:18
Speaker
Well, okay, they do show Magneto choosing to leave the island after he's defeated the X-Men. But Scott, of course, doesn't know that. So, yes, he only gathers the X-Men and gets them out.
01:16:31
Speaker
It's so... Goddamn. Via the same mode of transportation that Moira arrived on. He takes the Blackbird. He takes it, and he leaves her, and he's just like, Ah, you guys can handle this, right? Bye.
01:16:46
Speaker
here's Here's my last observation here, Matt. Okay. The X-Men, definitely known for blowing up aircraft or automobiles that they ride around in.
01:16:59
Speaker
Chris Claremont is leveling this up. They have, in his, what, 10 issues so far, he has blown up like six airplanes. They keep this stolen hovercraft for one page before it is blown to bits.
01:17:14
Speaker
Yeah. He is having fun with it.
01:17:19
Speaker
yeah You know what? There's a lot. I should have been interrupting you more because now that I'm looking at these notes, there's just so many weird things. So that when Banshee ends up being the only one who can fight Magneto.
01:17:31
Speaker
Yeah. Remember that time that Cerebro told ah Professor X that Banshee was more powerful than Magneto? Yes, you're absolutely right.
01:17:42
Speaker
Isn't that interesting? That is interesting. That's so interesting. Wow, that tracks. That's like in the 20s issue numbers. Also, Magneto ah it says that he is the leader of the Legion of Evil Mutants. What the fuck's that?
01:18:00
Speaker
And finally, Star-fucking-jammers are here! i i you This is a huge blind spot for me, Matt. I do not know who that is. You don't know who Christopher and Ch'od are?
01:18:15
Speaker
No, no idea. You saw them and you're like, what the fuck is that? A cool fucking karate kid style headband. The other is a giant fish man. do Do either of them look kind of familiar to you?
01:18:27
Speaker
One of them looks like Forge to me. Oh, yeah, he does kind of look like Forge, but with a ah really nice head of ah brown hair. Yeah, sure. you ever see a really nice shaggy head of brown hair before?
01:18:42
Speaker
i I mean, on the best head of hair in the X-Men. Who's that? Scott Summers. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's think about that for a little while.
Cultural Context of X-Men Issue 105
01:18:55
Speaker
Hey, do you want to hear about X-Men number 105? Phoenix Unleashed? Oh, it is about time. By Chris Claremont, Dave Cochran, Bob Layton, Tom Orr's, Andy Yankus.
01:19:12
Speaker
Sorry, Andy. This guy's a real Yankus. And Yankus! um and yeah ah and
01:19:27
Speaker
Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. um I guess that's Tom Morzikowski. ah what Bob Layton is inking? Yeah, they they are getting even more minimal with the credits. They don't attribute any actual media to these folks. just i only I only know Bob Layton as a writer. I didn't know he did. ah or wait it says here he's an artist.
01:19:49
Speaker
I only knew him as a writer. I guess he was an artist and an inker, too. Anyway, interesting stuff. ah Editor art Archie Goodwin. Release date March 15th, 1977. The X-Men. It's been a fucking, it's another year, Pat.
01:20:05
Speaker
This is year, we just passed year two Just two months before the release of Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope. and It is the year of the Sex Pistols.
01:20:18
Speaker
It was the year of punk rock. It was the year of real punk rock. Oh, yeah. The Clash self-titled came out, too. Yeah, it's the year of it was the punk rock year. It was the punk rock year 1977.
01:20:29
Speaker
Anyway, the punk wasn't dead.
Battle at the X-Mansion with Fire Lord
01:20:33
Speaker
ah The X-Men converge on Eric the Red in the X-Mansion's airplane hangar. ready to end him.
01:20:40
Speaker
But once they get a good few licks in, Eric begs for peace. What? Before anyone can react, a fiery blast erupts into the room, taking out Wolverine. In storms, Fire Lord, former Herald of Galactus.
01:20:56
Speaker
What? Fire Lord disposes of the X-Men with ease, stopping short of killing them. Eric the Red thanks him for the help, explaining that this is the exact type of unprompted violence he told Fire Lord the X-Men are famous for, if and that they would have killed him if Fire Lord hadn't stepped in. In his head, though, he cheekily reveals that he's actually lying.
01:21:19
Speaker
yeah He says that, he's like, i'm a good thing I'm lying to this guy. Yeah, no.
01:21:28
Speaker
Via flashback, Eric reveals that at the same moment he saw the X-Men were heading for him, Fire Lord started flying around. Why? i don't know. He and Polaris and Havoc attack Fire Lord through his mental grip on them, knowing that Fire Lord will retaliate with a force they can't withstand.
01:21:47
Speaker
This gives Eric the chance to play victim, claiming he was attacked by Polaris and Havoc. quote, of the X-Men, because they are only motivated by taking over the world and enslaving humanity.
01:21:58
Speaker
Fire Lord falls for it and agrees to help just as the X-Men show Are fucking Havok and Polaris dead? ah They might be. Also, this all takes place between them leaving Scotland. Like, Eric the Red doesn't have a plan yeah when the X-Men first leave Scotland.
01:22:18
Speaker
This all happens. The former Herald of Galactus just happens to show up in like the yeah eight hour window it takes to fly from one place to the other. Yeah, he's a he's a quick thinker, I guess.
01:22:32
Speaker
ah Back to the present. We're in space. We see the strange bug ship we've come to know and love, but now we see it's being stalked by a bigger, creepier bug ship.
01:22:43
Speaker
Aboard that that bigger bug ship, we see a crew, including the Emperor's sister, analyzing Earth and being shocked by the fact that they've beaten back Galactus four times.
01:22:55
Speaker
They're the commander of this ship when he learns that they've beaten Galactus four times goes, what? Yeah. um Hey, Pat, do you have that issue in front of you right now?
01:23:11
Speaker
I can pull it up real quick. Yeah, could you? I have it up. Okay. looking Go to the panel where, um, uh, where a board be. Yeah. The what panel I need you to look.
01:23:23
Speaker
I need you to look really carefully. The one right above it, like three panels earlier.
01:23:31
Speaker
I need you to look really carefully at that panel. The one where he says status report science officer where where they're clearly just doing a star Trek thing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking. And speaking of, while Pat looks for this, this is they are definitely a Star Trek thing. The guy's name is Captain Kirk.
01:23:50
Speaker
yeah And his, like, one of his other guys is named Mr. like Mr. Sulu or whatever. I don't know. I'm not a big Star Trek guy, so I don't know what all these people are, but they are 100% Anyway.
01:24:07
Speaker
anyway ah You looking at that page? Yeah, what am I supposed to be looking Why don't you look at the left side of that panel? on ah Why don't you focus maybe on the arms?
01:24:20
Speaker
Oh, is it the ah the praying mantis robot?
01:24:26
Speaker
Praying mantis robot? No, this is this is the spider woman design on the arm oh that was watching Stephen Lang! no way!
01:24:37
Speaker
These are the arms that we were supposed to be looking for. That's where we got all that info. Yeah. So the little bug ship, the familiar one.
01:24:47
Speaker
Yeah. Is being stalked by a bigger, creepier bug ship that these guys are on. And these were the guys that were watching Stephen Lang watching the X-Men. And they're the ones who are now ah upset that Earth has beaten back Galactus.
01:25:02
Speaker
Right. So they determine there must be gods on Earth to be so powerful, and they need to stop the Emperor's sister from... From getting to this powerful, powerful planet. So they launched some torpedoes at it.
01:25:17
Speaker
She, the Emperor's sister in the smaller bug ship, hops into her bug costume. And just as the ship explodes, manages to beam down to Earth Star Trek style to the exact location of Charles x Xavier.
01:25:30
Speaker
His dream has come true. At this point, they are fully acknowledging that this is yeah Star Trek technology. It's like, oh, he's here. Like, so she look, they just teleported in like Star Trek.
01:25:43
Speaker
Is this, do you think this is a tension between Dave Cockrum and Chris Claremont where Cockrum's drawing all this stuff and Claremont is like, boy, Dave, this looks a little Star Trek-y. Let me leave you some feedback via dialogue. I thought you were going say this is a tension between Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum where Chris Claremont just wants to draw them, just wants a scene where they're sitting around having a party and drinking tea and Dave Cockrum wants them to be having a space battle.
01:26:14
Speaker
I believe there's some quote by John Byrne where he says exactly that. He's like one of the reasons that his partnership with Chris Claremont dissolved. He's like he would he'd be happy if the characters just sat around drinking coffee for an entire issue.
01:26:30
Speaker
ah sure So ah the Emperor's sister speaks in an and alien language and then passes out while Choro shouts Lalandra at her. Gene asks if he knows her, but before he can explain, Fire Lord bursts through the wall like the Kool-Aid man. This looks like trouble to everyone but Gene, who says, Get the hell off my property and transforms into Phoenix in a brilliant flash.
01:26:56
Speaker
She proceeds to dog walk Fire Lord through New York, just absolutely humiliating him. A herald of Galactus. Yeah. Yeah. oh
Jean Grey's Phoenix Power Display
01:27:08
Speaker
Unbelievable.
01:27:08
Speaker
He says he specifically says he's like, I haven't been hit like that since Thor. Yeah. Eric, the red, meanwhile, sees this as his chance to move in on x Xavier, not romantically um like violently, ah but because Xavier's defenseless. Now he enters through the door and is immediately recognized as Shaqari by Lalandra, the Empress's sister.
01:27:32
Speaker
He blasts her. All right. we We've got to put this together because this is getting confusing. Yeah. Yeah. ah Maybe we'll do it at the end. Okay. There's there's a real fun scene that kind of strings it all together where Eric, the red take chooses to enter through the door instead of bursting through the wall.
01:27:50
Speaker
Charles Xavier shouts, Eric, the red should and Lalandra shouts, Shikari. It's like, oh okay. This guy is both people. The professor manages to send a message to Jean among the chaos, begging her to end her battle with Fire Lord and revealing to her the full stakes of the situation. After Jean punches Fire Lord all the way back to the Meadowlands, the Jersey Meadowlands, they say it. She punches him out of New York into the Jersey Meadowlands. to New Jersey.
01:28:17
Speaker
She reflects on how she might have killed him if she hadn't been interrupted. The X-Men show up in that weird fucking manta ray jet just in time to see Eric the Red slash Diane Shikari activating a portal device he's built. He calls it a Stargate.
01:28:32
Speaker
They're too late! Eric fires a blast and finally blows up that ugly pancake plane. Yes! But the X-Men are already well-versed in falling out of an exploding aircraft and are fine.
01:28:44
Speaker
Kurt in this moment even says, oh no, not again. painful The professor can only sit by and watch as Eric the Red carries Lalandra through his space portal as the X-Men try to regroup and return to the building.
01:29:00
Speaker
Kurt gets there first, but not in time to catch Eric before the portal deactivates. Eric and Lalandra are gone. Not only that... Jean explains that Lalandra was leading a revolt and her failure will mean the destruction of the universe.
01:29:15
Speaker
Jesus Christ. the high High enough stakes, you think? The professor freaks, but Phoenix tells him to calm down. It's so good. People keep yelling at Xavier. Like Scott yeah like scott and Jean keep being like, stop it or no or calm him down. As he's freaking out.
01:29:34
Speaker
And she she uses her Phoenix powers to power up the damn portal, her damn self. like Xavier sends the X-Men through the portal to save the universe, choosing to stay behind himself.
01:29:46
Speaker
so like Why isn't he present for this mission? Yeah, ah interesting. Just as they disappear into the void, who storms back in but Fire Lord? He demands an immediate rematch with Phoenix or he'll blast everyone.
01:30:02
Speaker
it's so funny fucking when when fire lord bursts in misty knight pulls gun so yeah she's so cool she's just like she's like what are you doing here get out of here pulls a fucking gun on a herald of all galactus which she would even if she knew he was the herald of galactus you know what i mean that's just like who she is that's her go-to move yo All right, we have to break this down because we've gotten a lot of plot and it's so tough. So.
01:30:32
Speaker
And then in, sorry. Yeah. Well, let's untangle this web of plot. And while we do, just remember that there is a random former Herald of Galactica. assume a Silver Surfer villain just flying around and involved in the whole thing. All right. So, Lalandra, the sister of the Emperor. The Mad Emperor.
01:30:56
Speaker
the mad emperor of some alien race is fleeing in the middle of like a ah war, what appears to be a revolution to get to earth, to find professor X and the X-Men for some reason. We don't know how she knows about them. We just know that she's somehow psychically connected to professor X. And she thinks that she can get to earth.
01:31:20
Speaker
The X-Men will help her, uh, win her revolution against the mad emperor and save the universe. Right. We can infer all of this so far. The Mad Emperor sends some people after her to stop her.
01:31:32
Speaker
These are the people in the big bug ship. They have been monitoring events on Earth that they have used to try and, I guess, kill the X-Men?
01:31:45
Speaker
Learn about the X-Men? are they in charge of... Because they send Eric the Red, clearly. You're right, Yes. So they do want to kill Charles x Xavier, Eric the Red's main target. Right. haviier He's been trying to kill Charles Xavier. And in doing like to do so has been sending people after the X-Men like Havoc and Polaris, who he brainwashed.
01:32:07
Speaker
He's been he sent Magneto against them. I guess he had something to do with Stephen Lang. Right. He was he had a hand in it somehow. We don't know how, but somehow he had a hand in it.
01:32:19
Speaker
um And he sent he freed Black Tom a juggernaut. And all of this just to try and get his hand. Yeah, and Magneto. All of this to get his hands on Professor x Xavier.
01:32:29
Speaker
When Landra gets to Earth, they are about to kill her. And she teleports down. Appears in front of x Xavier. But Eric the Red is one step ahead of her.
01:32:42
Speaker
Because of this weird Fire Lord intervention, which is just happenstance. And yeah yeah kidnaps her through this Stargate. And the X-Men, who also, you know, because Cyclops put this together moments before it happened...
01:33:02
Speaker
The X-Men get yeah are there just in time and leap through the Stargate after them. ah Yeah, in the meantime, some crazy shit has happened, like Jean Grey's turned into Phoenix, whatever the fuck that means.
01:33:15
Speaker
We don't know. This is the through line for what we've seen being hinted at and then built up for 10 issues now. Yeah. This cosmic war.
01:33:25
Speaker
so that yeah i mean So there's other stuff like the Angus McWhorter stuff, the Mirror Island stuff, the like Magneto's back, ah Mutant X, the Mutant X thing, whatever just fucking happened with Phoenix.
01:33:40
Speaker
So there's there's a lot of like other plot stuff swirling around that will have to be resolved later, but so many of the threads have just come together. Right. And he yeah, he's dropping new ones, but these threads seem to be.
01:33:53
Speaker
Well, here's the thing, Matt, is they're coming together, but there's no resolution here. No, it seems like they're just opening more doors. And your plot synopsis here is very clear.
01:34:05
Speaker
Fine. But why is he Eric the Red?
01:34:13
Speaker
Eric the Red, if you yeah if you haven't been listening from the start, Eric the Red is a ruse that Cyclops created yeah to trick another villain into thinking he was a villain and could be trusted to take over the rest of the X-Men who were imprisoned at the time.
01:34:31
Speaker
I'm probably getting a few small details wrong, but that's like the... Yeah, and this guy Shikari must have just like seen it as he was on his way to Earth. And I was like, I like that. Oh, rad. i want I want everyone to see my nipples too.
01:34:48
Speaker
Not fair that he's a good guy in disguise. Yeah, it it doesn't. Yeah, you're right. there's there's There's no sense to it. It is just.
01:35:00
Speaker
This is one of the reasons I hate Eric the Red. And ah like spoiler alert. He will come back and be another guy. Like another guy will dress up like Eric the Red before we're done with the X-Men.
01:35:15
Speaker
i I fucking hate it. i i Every time he appears, I'm like, I hate this. It's so weird. du It's also a bad costume. It's pretty sexy.
01:35:26
Speaker
yeah yeah man pat you've gotten horned up this episode huh i'm not horned up i'm just i can appreciate when something is like a threesome between nightcrawler colossus and storm or sexually a positive for the world it's not about me i'm not involved here
01:35:50
Speaker
i'm just glad that people are being beautiful all right uh if any if any of this is horned you guys up write in mutant menace pod at gmail.com the art in this battle between phoenix and fire lord is like is the establishing of this iconic phoenix art that we know and right we know that the phoenix has a handful of stories from here on out she does but like The big flaming bird, the bolts, the way that like these orbs of darkness kind of radiate in these i what kind of purple fuchsia auras that form around her. Right. this is all being put together right here. It's not just the like pencils and inks either. The colors are so vibrant.
01:36:36
Speaker
It's really cooking here. It seems as if the whole reason they brought Fire Lord here was to show us. This lady is fucking wildly powerful.
01:36:50
Speaker
Right. This is our first time seeing her in action. And it's like, hey, she is as powerful as Thor or a herald of Galactus. And it's done so cleanly, too. Like in the past, it would just be, oh, this is the most powerful mutant we've ever seen.
01:37:08
Speaker
Right. They don't even have to say it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. they They just put on a display of power. I really like this issue is wild. I have no jokes. I'm just kind of in awe.
01:37:22
Speaker
Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum show up in this issue, too. oh do they really yeah they're in the park and uh chris is like anyway davey hits the ground with this incredible sound effect and then the next ah panel it goes foo yeah that's i was wondering why there were two extras that had so many lines and dave dave cockram says chris do us all a favor shut up and run Okay, hang on a second, because that man that says, do us all a favor and run, looks eerily like the doctor that makes care of Jean Grey.
01:38:03
Speaker
think Maybe we should start keeping our eyes out for how many Dave Cockrum's Dave Cockrum draws into this comic book. Yeah. um Yeah, man, this this issue is really great. And I made goof about it earlier, but I do think it is cool how the X-Men are starting to stand up to x Xavier, especially because he's being belligerent and shitty, right? Like he says, are you blind, Gene?
01:38:32
Speaker
And then she's like, calm down, right? And like earlier, when he calls Cyclops a cur, Cyclops is like, I'm not listening to you. yeah There's no time for this now.
01:38:45
Speaker
Right. Like he's just yeah like the paternalism, the anger and like verbal abuse is just no longer working. Like he's out like Professor X is out of his depth trying to control these what used to be kids.
01:39:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting, interesting little dynamic shift. What are your thoughts on this run, Matt? We're up to number 105. I think this is just, yeah, 105, their second year. And I think it's Claremont and Cockrum just having a fucking blast, dude.
01:39:25
Speaker
I think therere they're sitting around going, oh, oh and then we'll have leprechauns. Oh, fuck. And then ah but dont what if Fire Lord shows up? Oh, shit. and Let's bring back Magneto. And oh, man, what if Juggernaut makes a friend? Like their whole idea right now.
Character Development and Interactions
01:39:42
Speaker
is clearly just built out of manic enthusiasm for telling an adventure story. And they're doing bi-monthly issues, so they have the time to sit back and like make the corrections they need to, do some of the extra work that you don't usually get to put into your comics.
01:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. How about you what do you? How do you feel about this little bit of... The second year of Claremont. So it's he has left his mark here. He's really redefined how these stories get told. yeah i There are so many panels or moments that are just dedicated to characters.
01:40:26
Speaker
Moments where Wolverine is just argumentative but still cooperative. Kurt being his jolly swashbuckly self. yeah Peter being really noble. Storm being like...
01:40:39
Speaker
wise and very powerful. Scott reflecting on his past and realizing that his mistake was choosing the X-Men over Gene. Like he... yeah He is putting this in seamlessly to an action-adventure sci-fi story.
01:40:56
Speaker
But the drama in that, like the personal... The interpersonal interactions are as important and as exciting as the action. Like it's not just...
01:41:09
Speaker
It's not just for character development. It's also a compelling dialogue to read through. And then everyone here, this is what we've missed in the past. Everyone's choices are made for a reason instead of just needing a way to tell the story. I think yeah that's the huge difference.
01:41:26
Speaker
That's what we really liked about Neil Adams too. And the Neil Adams or Roy Thomas run, it's something that we really like, or I'm really enjoying about Claremont too. Yeah. Also, I know I just mentioned this. The art is absolutely wild. Yeah.
01:41:40
Speaker
It's been back to psychedelic, like Kirby style weirdness since Cockrum took over. Right. But once he gets his hands on the Phoenix, he's really taking it to another level.
01:41:51
Speaker
And like I said, it's not just the pencils, the inks, the colors, too. There's a whole new color palette that they're working off. It's really bold. It's really vibrant. It's very bright and it's varied. There's so many different colors squeezed into each panel.
01:42:06
Speaker
Yeah. Really harmoniously. I'm really impressed. Yeah. There are, there are moments where it feels like we're reading some of these old comics, right? Like there are moments where Cyclops is blasting something and he's like, I have to use my blast and perfect.
01:42:23
Speaker
And there's, there's moments where um the art is, you know, as stiff in Marvel style as it used to be. But those are few and far between, and they're getting yeah yeah fewer and further between as as these guys are just injecting character into every moment.
01:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, and we're we're not even at the point where they are selling like gangbusters, right? Yeah, yeah. They're doing well, but they aren't they don't have their full creative freedom yet. Yeah, I mean, the book's still bi-monthly.
01:42:56
Speaker
i So, yeah, I mean, i think if you are listening to this podcast and you're like, oh, I gotta go read this stuff, it's still gonna feel like old comics.
01:43:07
Speaker
Yes. Like, I don't wanna... There's still some real ridiculous stuff as we make fun of, and there's still a lot of words. Like, a lot, a lot of words.
01:43:18
Speaker
it took a little while to get through these five issues. Yeah. But and when you're reading them analytically, they really, really come alive. When you're reading them just for fun, they can feel a little sloggy.
01:43:30
Speaker
I'll bet. It's like you said a couple episodes back. We're coming from it era where comics just didn't make sense. So this is, i think you called it water to a dying man and in the desert.
Upcoming X-Men Crossover Journeys
01:43:44
Speaker
Whereas if you're yeah reading a lot of modern comics and going back, yeah, it can be a little tough to... It can be a little tough to read. It's just... It's so much reading when you want to just sink into a comic.
01:43:59
Speaker
So I want to just real quick let everybody know the next episode we'll be doing a couple issues of X-Men and then a bunch of non-X-Men issues because the X-Men have a little journey that they take through other people's books.
01:44:13
Speaker
So it's going to be fun. i'm I'm pretty... It's going to be a lot of issues. So I think people... Not that our podcast is ever short, but be prepared for some long ones. Relatively long.
01:44:26
Speaker
Do we even have a friggin Pat Steelser? Am I going to hang up this
Humorous Critique of Shoe Commercial
01:44:30
Speaker
call? Boy, Matt, do we ever. Oh, great. This one's a little bizarre. Um. uh as opposed to all the or all the rest so this one is you'll see what i mean in a moment when i say yeah a little relatively bizarre uh this is and i'll just say it up top a shoe commercial for c cleats made by a company called spot built spot built now let's read the copy hey kids this is oj simpson coming at you with juice mobiles multi-purpose shoes by spot built
01:45:06
Speaker
Juice mobiles, molded cleats dig in when you're breaking toward the daylight for six or when you're stretching a double into triple or setting up a shot on the goal. These these are all sports terms, Matt. uh juice mobiles helps you do your best at any sport played on grass spot built juice mobiles are designed like the shoes i wear but they're priced for you also for a fabulous these are cleats yes these are it seems like cleats that you're ah you can also or like cleats not for one specific sport they're kind of made to be all purpose which is is that a need possible okay uh i don't know if it's possible
01:45:45
Speaker
okay Where you don't trust the endorsement of Juice Simpson?
01:45:52
Speaker
i the there's no price listed. I assume these are a steal because ah oj Simpson went to prison for heist activity. But there is a cherry on top here for a fabulous full color poster of the juice. Send one dollar to spot built poster for 32. Well, I won't read out the whole thing, but they're in.
01:46:17
Speaker
and And it is it ah it is a draw. The poster is a drawing. And I'm wondering, is that somebody drawing the poster or is the poster a drawing? The whole thing is sort of done in like a comic book style. There's a few different panels and dialogue balloons. And then, yeah, it's ah a hand drawn picture of a poster.
01:46:39
Speaker
Do you know Spot Built was bought by Saucony? Who's Saucony? Oh, the odd they they make comfortable sneaker company. They're like yeah yeah geared around there for old man, old man shoes.
01:46:52
Speaker
ah like Like Owen James Simpson.
01:46:58
Speaker
Orenthal. What? Orenthal James Simpson. That's not a name. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. Yeah, big thank you as always to Krils Wilson for the opening theme song, to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby.
01:47:15
Speaker
Thank you all for listening. Email Pat's email corner. at mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod.
01:47:27
Speaker
Again, let us know if you found us through our flyers. We want to know if they're working. Yeah, yeah. A little campaign. And while we are on a tear trying to promote this podcast a little more, we could really deeply, honestly, super duper use your help.
01:47:43
Speaker
Please, please share this with your friends, family, children, grandparents, strangers. Listen, there's not that many X-Men podcasts out there. So if you know an X-Men fan, they're probably dying for a new one.
01:48:00
Speaker
So... Matt, I think that leaves us with just one thing to do before we close this episode out. I can't imagine what. Well, it's the same thing we do at the end of every every episode. We like to say, i may be old, but I'm not stupid.
01:48:19
Speaker
And stand still, you impish jackrabbit!