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28 - The Dark Phoenix Saga: Uncanny X-Men #129-137 w/ Quinton Alexander
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This is a big one folks. An epic episode for an epic story. The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of the most transformative and dramatic chapters in all of X-Men history and listen, it’s every bit as good as (or better than) you’d imagine. These 9 issues bring in the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost, Dazzler, KITTY F’IN PRYDE, Senator Robert Kelly, and a bunch of unforgettable random henchmen like “Murray” and “Jacko.” Plus, the return of Angel, a creepy old villain, and –for a second– Peter Corbeau (with his clothes on).
This story was so big that Matt and Pat couldn’t handle it alone, so they brought in the very funny actor and fight choreographer QUINTON J. ALEXANDER to help!
The drama is high. The action is intense. The characterizations are note-perfect. The consequences are far-reaching. And Matt, Pat, and Quinton are stoked about it.
Topics Include:
Scott wasn’t thinking about it! Professor X can’t stop getting cucked. Giving a 47-year-old man 10 demerits. Why didn’t they buy Blob ice cream? A blowing-guys-up epidemic. DISCO DAZZLER. Emma Frost is not hot, she’s just rich! An awkward Blackbird flight. “It’s okay to be scared, as long as I don’t let my fear foul me up.” Goons are people, too. A teapot bun. We always comment when someone is shirtless. John Byrne Techno-Tunnels. Harry Leland sucks. Emma Frost is a super inventor? Why people like Wolverine. “If woman become powerful… She start kiss everybody?” #TheyBonedontheButte The X-Men Plummeting To The Ground Rule. The Book of Hells. “A galaxy far, far away.” Just a basic pnemonic scrambler. Angel is also here. Professor X fucks up everything. No one got to pack jammies. The Blue Area of the Moon. A robot that’s two robots, my one weakness! The Watcher sucks. “Impies.” We all get choked up.
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our new Discord: https://discord.gg/rEwuSmfU
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction and Mutant Menace Report
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Quentin J. Alexander. and and say it with us, Pete. Welcome to YouTube Menace.
00:00:47
Speaker
We were all a little slow on that one. i mean Especially Pete. Yeah, come on. Pat, who the fuck is with us? Matt, today, and we do have a guest on. ah He is an actor. He is a fight choreographer. He is ah dear friend. He also would, when Matt and I did live comedy, sorry, this is a very long intro, ah but he ah ran our show with us for years and years. His name is Quinton J. Alexander. Yeah.
00:01:16
Speaker
Quentin. Yeah. I hope you're clapping folks, folks at home. Thank you so much for being here, Quentin. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I've been long time listener. First time being on this show.
The Dark Phoenix Saga in X-Men
00:01:29
Speaker
mean we so What we decided here is today we're tackling a huge fucking story in not only X-Men canon, but Marvel canon.
00:01:42
Speaker
Pat, what is this story? This story, Matt and Quentin, is the Dark Phoenix Saga. This is what Chris Claremont has been building to in the X-Men for literally 30 issues.
00:01:55
Speaker
and me And Pat, we were talking about it. We can't handle this burden alone. We can't carry it. We can't carry each other through this. this dark night of the soul, we needed a ah bright torch to carry with us.
00:02:11
Speaker
Oh, wow. It's more than just Lorna and Alex. This is, i it's a trio. It's an X-Men trio. Lorna, Alex, and James Madrox. The Stepford Cuckoos, but we haven't met them yet.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah. Um, we'll bleep that out. How about, how about, how about how about ah The Grey family. Yeah, the Greys. We need the full power of the Grey family who we'll meet later this episode. Oh, yeah. yeah They do make appearance.
00:02:44
Speaker
You know, it's going to be in find out oh Oh, shut up, Matt. Quinton, please be quiet. Oh, okay. I wasn't saying anything, but sure.
Listener Emails and Pizza Bet
00:02:56
Speaker
It is time for Pat's email corner. like This is my segment. We took a week off from recording because we did a marathon. You're right. but It's been one week.
00:03:10
Speaker
Two weeks. Anyway, we got a big old mailbag here. It's stuffed to the gills. So I'm going to try to speed through. We got some we got some friends to chat with. First of all, i'm going to cover our pizza bets.
00:03:26
Speaker
ah okay Yeah, this was we recorded two episodes in a row and I started it by ordering a pizza. And having people email in and guess when my pizza would arrive. Now, this is nuts to me, Matt. Before we embarrass anybody, the fact that anyone thinks it would – I mean, these are two-hour episodes consistently.
00:03:49
Speaker
And we told people we were covering a lot of issues in a short time. The fact that anybody thought it would take what would end up as two hours of a finished product – For a pizza to get delivered. That's embarrassing.
00:04:02
Speaker
Hey, man, some countries, some countries, when you order a DoorDash, they've got to climb the hills. They've got to, they've got to, you know, fight through the forests.
00:04:17
Speaker
They've got to deal with That's getting nationalistic about this. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. you know I mean, I'm just saying, in our country, DoorDash just gets right here in some other countries.
00:04:29
Speaker
They have to like, they got to worry about leprechauns. It's true. ah Let's get to the bets. First of all, we have email. Michael email. Michael guesses pizza will arrive in episode 26.
00:04:43
Speaker
Let's go, bub. Hey, you're correct. um We had one other competing guest, so we can put these two up against each other. Okay.
00:04:56
Speaker
Other was from SignWaveSean, who guesses pizza will arrive early in episode 27. Rookie. Ooh.
00:05:05
Speaker
sorry Sorry. Just missed it. Just by this much. Just missed To soften the blow a little bit, he did follow up shortly after he sent that email and said, fuck. That, like... That email made me laugh very hard.
00:05:19
Speaker
Oh, we're allowed to curse on this podcast? Only sign wave, Sean. Only sign wave, Sean. Okay. You have to said this you have to send us in writing what curse words you want to say before say that. Oh, I should have said that. Oh, man. I had so many curse words I wanted to say, but I guess Gosh darn it.
00:05:37
Speaker
Okay. Now I'm going to open it up to, wi we're going to segment these
Corrections and Mythology Discussions
00:05:41
Speaker
by emailer i think. Okay. Okay. Okay. And we'll start with email Michael for episode 25. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that because I don't want to go back and relist the defenders for a day from episode 22 again, I'm just going to say you guys were 100% right about which heroes I heard of and save us all some time.
00:06:01
Speaker
I knew it. We had conflicting guesses. So I don't know if we can let you off the hook there. Email Michael. I knew like I didn't catch any real calls to action this week, but there was a discussion about the word primer.
00:06:12
Speaker
as in in introductory text, and how Matt heard it pronounced like it rhymes with slimmer and like climber. He says in American English, primer is used for introductory texts and primer is used for things like the first coat of paint on a painted surface or the charge on a blasting cap.
00:06:30
Speaker
I know! But... He says in British English that it is just primer. That's all they use. Just primer.
00:06:41
Speaker
Oh. Just primer. then Just primer. Okay. i You can both say it however you want. Nobody at all anywhere has the right to correct you, especially not me. However, Pat's pronunciation of coup de gras with the silent C-E at the end of grace, gras,
00:06:58
Speaker
Is a common mistake that I feel obligated to correct because I'm still an annoying pedant. Because it's it's coup de grace. You're supposed to say coup de grace? Actually, I didn't know that. I'm saying that like I already knew that.
00:07:12
Speaker
But I didn't know that. Coup de grace? Coup de grace. coup de grace or coup de grace well we'll just have to email in yeah michael your your call to action this week is going to be to make some clarifications here we did include a youtube video but can't be bothered to watch that he moves on to episode 26 and another email he says tell matt i didn't notice any other calls to action this episode but at one point matt guessed that venus was born when zeus jizzed into the ocean
00:07:44
Speaker
I don't know if i if I'll feel better or worse if other people have already written in to correct him on this. They have not. But just in case, no, I'm pretty confident that's not the myth. I'm pretty sure you're wrong. While accounts vary, of course, the most common story is that she was born when the severed genitals of Uranus were thrown into the sea by Uranus's son, Cronus, where sea foam spread around the site and grew into Venus. I yeah think that's what's depicted in the famous birth The Birth of Venus painting, showing her standing nude on a giant scallop shell in the ocean.
00:08:14
Speaker
okay price see Wait, man hold on. Genitals were involved. How do you How do you guys jizz? Don't answer. Don't answer this. Don't answer this. Don't answer that. Don't answer this.
00:08:25
Speaker
Don't answer that. Oh, I thought, I thought, i yeah, i was going to say I sever my father's genitals and throw them into the ocean like a normal person. He does top it off. I like this line.
00:08:38
Speaker
It might sound weird, but most people's conceptions involve their father's genitals, though in a rather different manner. Even old email Michael is no exception. yeah And signs off, never shoves his lawyer, email Michael.
00:08:51
Speaker
Thank you. Very good. Email Michael. I'm going to move on to sign waves, Sean. $3 million dollars is the subject line. He says, hey, Matt, tell Pat that the $3 million 1979 adamantium in Wolverine's body would be thirteen million three hundred and eighty seven four hundred and thirty eight dollars and two cents in today's adamant yeah yeah Okay.
00:09:17
Speaker
ah He also wrote us another one labeled Instrument of Peace. I vaguely remember this. He says, hey Pat, tell Matt that pizza bets aside, I believe the Instrument of Peace that Hippolyta's sword got turned into was supposed to be an ancient plow like the image attached. And then he did i copy and paste an image. I wouldn't call it attached. Yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker
ah yeah i think Yeah, it did look very much like the image, but it doesn't change the fact that Venus was like, I will change your sword into an instrument of peace and then dropped it on her fucking head.
00:09:57
Speaker
All right. ah Another regular to get to here, Weapon Jason. Weapon Jason. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt the shift from those more or less grounded. Let's have some fun issues. One and done to these super intense acid trippy, more adult themed stories that stretch over multiple issues is amazing.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, I
X-Men Story Arcs and Mythological Stories
00:10:16
Speaker
agree. I think Proteus is attempting to take over the world because then he'll have a nearly endless collection of bodies to inhabit. That's good theory. He doesn't mention that. Okay.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. Of course, as you probably know, the reference to Magda related to the Avengers storyline running effectively parallel to these Proteus issues. In the Yesterday Quest storyline that Byrne is penciling, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are going to learn that they are Magneto's children. No way!
00:10:42
Speaker
Should we cover that for this podcast? Or did Weapon Chasing just do it for us? Maybe. and That might be the only point to covering it. Okay, all right. He also mentions George Perez at this point has smoothed off his rough edges, and you can totally see the wonder that will be on display in Teen Titans and ultimately Crisis on Infinite Earths.
00:10:59
Speaker
His ability to handle large numbers of characters in stupidly to keep help detailed depth is unparalleled for this period. George Perez will be relevant, and Crisis on Infinite and Earths actually will be relevant later in this episode.
00:11:11
Speaker
Oh, all right. All right. Weapon Jason sends us another email just titled Champions of Nothing. says, hey, Pat, tell Matt. The Champions is a very early attempt at a West Coast Avengers, and I recall enjoying it once Byrne shows up, which he will have by the time you get this since you recorded everything in one go.
00:11:32
Speaker
yeah And while I have tried to defend Angel in the past, the costume he's wearing in these early issues is indefensible, just the absolute worst, and only partly saved by switching over the red version of his best outfit.
00:11:44
Speaker
The burn issues are salvageable hero stuff, but it is surprising that something this bad was able to last for 17 issues. It's just there's no reason for it to have existed.
00:11:56
Speaker
There's no reason that the champions existed. i i so I still, I've been thinking about it for a week now. Two weeks now. Two weeks. And just thinking like, why did that comic book exist?
00:12:09
Speaker
I know. Sitting back and editing the episodes did not help me enjoy it more. We're going to keep it moving. We're going to keep it moving. Episode 27, Weapon Jason write in. Here's a part one.
00:12:22
Speaker
Hey, Pat, tell Matt the high point of F9, he's referring to Fast and Furious, is in fact watching them jam a rocket-equipped Pontiac Fiero into high gear in space.
00:12:33
Speaker
Are you guys paying attention? Sorry! We're playing in the Google Doc. Sometimes when I hear people talk about Fast and the Furious, I do lose my attention span. I...
00:12:45
Speaker
I don't know. I've never been an action movie guy and definitely not a Cars guy. But if we do get a Patreon, I will watch all the Fast and the Furious movies with Pat.
00:12:57
Speaker
I've been meaning to watch all of those because I've only seen, i think, the first one. And then I saw like the fourth one for some reason. What? Guys.
00:13:08
Speaker
You've got to watch them chronologically, trust me. Because there's a lot of really deep lore. You've got to see the progression. okay i want to watch them so I can see the progression. okay because it's It's about yes yeah the escalations they have to make. Yeah, because I remember like the first movie as being like,
00:13:26
Speaker
kind of like an action-packed like crime drama i guess you could say yeah it's more about racing and there's a couple of heists in it but yeah like a heist movie it's about the cars and it's like now they're like in space and they're like secret agents and i'm like how did we get here and they're still in cars yeah they're in space cars yeah Matt, you weren't paying attention.
00:13:53
Speaker
Okay, all right. Just keep reading it. He does fan cast 70s Fast and Furious for us, but I don't think we need to recap all that. He says, yes, I also get spam calls. Thank you.
00:14:06
Speaker
Pat was asking people if they got spam calls. I actually like this cast list that he that he put up. right, we'll get to it. Yeah, James Kahn as Dominic Toretto, Ryan O'Neill as Brian O'Connor, Faye Dunaway as Mia Toretto, and Raquel Welch as Letty Ortiz.
00:14:23
Speaker
It's an interesting four. Interesting four. fast four. It's the interesting four. hopeful Fast and the Furious, the interesting four.
00:14:35
Speaker
ah He also agrees with you, Matt. I love Swarm. Such ridiculous origin, but it's freaky and disturbing and awesome. In the 70s, we had a big scare around the killer bees, probably kicked off by the killer bees and savage bees TV movies.
00:14:47
Speaker
He also goes on to mention some fears he has around piranhas. Did you guys remember being scared of killer bees as a kid? Because I definitely was. and this Oh, yeah. This was in the ninety s They were always talking about the the like the killer bees coming over and like it like one sting will kill you instantly. and They're called killer bees. That's scary. That's not how they work though.
00:15:14
Speaker
It's not. It's a swarm. It's just such a more powerful swarm. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like fire ants or it's like a single fire ant isn't going to kill you. But there's that.
00:15:25
Speaker
What's there's that. There was that guy who wrote a book. I can't remember when this was. I think it was early earlier in the 20th century. And he wrote a book where he just let himself get stung or bit by everything.
00:15:38
Speaker
Like by everything. Yeah. Everything that stings or bites. And Killer B's wasn't anywhere near the top of the list in terms of pain. i could take it. i could take I could get stung by Killer B. I wouldn't even flinch.
00:15:52
Speaker
This is real. This is a real thing that happened. Yeah. He wrote a book about it. yeah ill I'll come back with more details next episode. Is he is he still alive? Yeah. die oh Well, I mean, he didn't die from this, but I don't know if he's still alive.
00:16:06
Speaker
Got got hit by a car. ah Got stung by everything imaginable that got hit by a car the next day. all right. We do also have a couple of... They're returning emailers. They are, i would say, aspiring regulars.
00:16:22
Speaker
First, Christy, listener Christy writes in She says, Hey, Pat, tell Matt to tell Pat that I bet he's really great at reading stories to kids. Just a thought I had listening to the recap of episode 111. That all.
00:16:36
Speaker
that is all I went back to listen to that after I saw that email and it is like Pat's like and Wolverine says like he's like he's like got a real he's got the real reading to kids voice he's like and then they slam their way through the doorway really pained the picture I don't want my head to get too big here, but when we hang out with friends that have kids, I do get a lot of requests to read them their bedtime story.
00:17:04
Speaker
Oh. Nice. She signs off, sincerely, one of your best friends and one of your best friends' best friends, Christy. Pat, what the fuck? Since when did you become best friends with my best friend?
00:17:17
Speaker
well I think what we should do is give listener Christy nickname Best Friend Christy. I love it. Best friend. chris theory Yeah, that's very good one. Perfect.
00:17:29
Speaker
And then we're going move on to another semi regular ink ink.
Ghost Rider's Origins and Recent X-Men Readings
00:17:35
Speaker
If you folks remember the ink master, they say, yeah hey Pat, tell Matt that I am flattered that he thinks my Logan lowdown suggestion was so good of a name that it wasn't stupid enough to be used for the show.
00:17:48
Speaker
That's true. To clarify, and I think this is important. The origins of Ghost Rider, he specifically made a deal with Mephisto and had his soul bonded to a spirit of vengeance.
00:17:58
Speaker
While Mephisto can definitely be considered a devil, he is not the devil from the Bible. That would be Satan slash Lucifer, who does exist within the Marvel Universe and looks like Tim Curry's Satan from the movie Legend.
00:18:09
Speaker
While Mephisto is not actually Satan and his dimension is not actually hell, he still frequently says that they are because it inspires fear in people and makes it easier for him to steal souls.
00:18:21
Speaker
As for spirits of vengeance, their exact nature flip-flops between runs. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're evil. Sometimes they're angels that Mephisto has captured. Sometimes they're fallen angels. And sometimes they're demons. Their only real salient traits are that they punish evildoers and have some kind of connection to Mephisto.
00:18:36
Speaker
Oh, cool. I can confirm, I think this is also important, that while there are things that sometimes differ between stories in Greek mythology, Cerberus being a literal dog with three heads is not one of them, though he is sometimes depicted as having a snake for a tail and having snakes living in his fur. Right, so he always is a dog with three heads, so whatever the fuck Jenny Isabella was on about.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah, that was bizarre. That's just her own interpretation. Once again, ah just creating new Greek mythology. Sorry, I want to get to one more point because we were very confused on this. While some versions say that Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus, there are also versions where she was born when Cronos, king of the Titans and father of Zeus, castrated his father, Uranos, primordial god of the sky, and threw his testicles into the sea. In this case, her relationship to Hercules would be more like a great aunt.
00:19:27
Speaker
So he basically jizzed into the ocean. Can you marry your great aunt? So Justin O. Schmidt lived from 1947 to 2023, and he wrote, ah he created the Schmidt Pain Index. he he ah He was called the King of Sting because he let himself get stung by every insect. Oh, Schmidt.
00:19:53
Speaker
I have to know what he called the units, the units of pain. who that Oh, they're levels levels levels one through four. Oh, come on. Yeah. um And he died of Parkinson's disease at age 75 in 2023. We just missed him.
00:20:10
Speaker
Gone too soon. Yeah. So. Oh, all right. Everybody. Matt, shut up. Quinton, if you wouldn't mind giving the theme song a moment. That is the end of Pat's email corner.
00:20:25
Speaker
Oh, goodness. Quinton, did you do anything X-Men related this week? i I read a bunch of X-Men. Oh, wow. Hey, me too. Yeah, I read ah the Dark Phoenix song.
00:20:40
Speaker
Oh, hey, me too. Yeah, that's what we're here to talk about today. Oh, oh nice, nice, nice. Matt, I gotta ask. Okay. With a little more enthusiasm, I think.
00:20:53
Speaker
Did you do anything X-Men related this week? yeah Well, Pat, yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I... Well, okay, here's the thing that happened that was X-Men related. I got in ah text from my lady friend.
00:21:07
Speaker
That was ah about – it was one of those things that you see shared on Facebook all the time. It's like a little – they're a little cliche at this point. and But it's one of those posts that's like, X-Men, it's about civil rights. If you didn't get that, you don't get X-Men. Captain America fought Nazis. If he's if you don't get that, you don't get Captain America.
00:21:26
Speaker
Star Wars is about fighting fascists, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. It's like a 10-year-old – Yeah. it's It's true. It's true enough. yeah yeah Right. It's it's ah you know a little bit simplistic, but it's it's true.
Cultural Narratives in Comics
00:21:40
Speaker
But it did get me thinking a lot about, and especially I thought this was important because we're talking about an arc here that is really sort of thoughtful and mature. Mm-hmm.
00:21:53
Speaker
And so I thought it was it would be important to talk about this just this idea of a common response to those sorts of memes. Is that, oh, well, those are just stories for children, right?
00:22:05
Speaker
And that also is a little bit true. But they're stories written by adults who are experiencing the world that they're experiencing at that time. And expressing their feelings about that world through these comics.
00:22:20
Speaker
So when X-Men is kind of maybe poorly saying, don't be racist, it's a metaphor that it's it was important to the time that it was being written, right? Like this was Stan Lee talking about race issues that were happening in his day. and um And Chris Claremont talking about race issues that were happening in his day, like while the fight for civil rights was occurring. Right.
00:22:42
Speaker
And then simplifying it down to the point where a child can just say, like, read it and go, oh, it wouldn't be fair to judge somebody for how they're born. And again, it's very simplified version of how to be anti-racist. But and it is a – that's how like myths and folklore works.
00:23:03
Speaker
That's how we pass on intergenerational knowledge, right? Adults processing something through art, passing that art down, and kids taking away these like – like the values and ethics of our culture through it.
00:23:16
Speaker
And then – When you have nerds like us who want to read it really deeply, we can find the more complex layers involved. But I was thinking, I was just thinking about it and how interestingly woven into human mythology stuff like superhero comics and Star Wars, like the dumbest parts of our culture are are basically the myth making of, you know, our generations or the folklore our generations. Yeah.
00:23:48
Speaker
I think especially with like the nerd stuff that had its sort of ah cultural peak in the last 20 years. Yes. It's really cemented that like with great power comes great responsibility, which is not the Spider-Man comic book line, but – I can appreciate, even though it's clunkier, that it's simplified for anybody to be able to understand. can't help it.
00:24:16
Speaker
He can't help but take a dig at the movie version of the Spider-Man line. I think it's important. I think an intelligent, a comic book reader would say yeah with great power must also come great responsibility.
00:24:32
Speaker
A comic book watcher, would say yeah with with great power comes great responsibility as if it's inherent.
00:24:43
Speaker
But it's still like people are taking the right message away from it. And that's the same way that these comics tackle racism where it's like, okay, if you are learning about the world, this isn't a bad way to see it.
00:24:55
Speaker
But if you were have lived in the world for 40 years, you're going to poke some holes. Yeah. Captain America is now cemented into the culture of ah the past 100 years, right?
00:25:10
Speaker
um In a way that... I don't know that you could have said that 20 years ago before the movie started coming out. I think he would have just been a curio of Americana before that. And now he is a ah like a legendary figure of American you know culture.
00:25:27
Speaker
And in... Who knows? In fucking 700 years... Are people going to look back and be like, yeah, they worshipped this guy named Captain America? But regardless, they will be able to look at these stories and say, ah here are some values of the culture at that time.
Community Engagement and Discord Server
00:25:47
Speaker
One of those values was to not be racist.
00:25:50
Speaker
One of those values was to not be fascist. Some of it depends on which Captain America you read. That is true. That is true. matt you got to ask me if I did anything related this week.
00:26:01
Speaker
I was still... were Quentin. Quentin, you can ask me. Oh, yeah. I'm still ranting. Did you do anything X-Men related? Oh, sorry, Matt. Quentin wants us to move on. i I did, in fact, I joined a certain discord for fans of an X-Men podcast called Mutant Menace.
00:26:24
Speaker
Wait, that's the podcast we're on Yes, Quentin it Oh my God. Yeah, we got a discord now. Thank you for that. We do. It's a combined discord. It is us and Matt's other podcast, Save Your Game, which is very good, very fun. And I'm in a partnership with you. never said that to me before.
00:26:43
Speaker
So we share profits.
00:26:48
Speaker
ah Yes. So people start sending us money so we can share it with Pat. Anyway, you guys want to talk about the X-Men? I would love to talk about the X-Men. Yeah, let's do
Dark Phoenix Saga Deep Dive
00:26:58
Speaker
it. Well, this week we are talking about the Dark Phoenix Saga.
00:27:03
Speaker
And because we have a lot of issues to get through and The creative team stays largely the same. What we're going to do is we're just going to read these credits up top.
00:27:16
Speaker
Quinton, do you want to do the honors? Yeah, I'll read some of these credits. all right. So we're going to be covering issues number 129 through 137. ah Release date October 16th, 1979 through June 17th of 1980.
00:27:34
Speaker
Writer Chris Claremont. Artist John Byrne. Anchor Terry Austin. Letterer Tom Orzichowski. Colorists Bob Sharon and Glynis Wayne. Glynis Wayne. Editors, ah Roger Stern, Jim Salicrup, and Louise ah Jones, and editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter. Jim Shooter, Chomp Shooter.
00:28:01
Speaker
Louise Jones is here. that's hell yeah That eventually becomes Louise Simonson, who will be a big part of X-Men creative world over the next five years, ten years.
00:28:17
Speaker
Now that's interesting. I didn't realize that's who Louise Jones was. Yes, and she is also the reason that, ah was according to John Byrne, her siding with Chris Claremont on creative differences between the two of them is one of the reasons he leaves.
00:28:32
Speaker
Oh boy. So, why don't we get into it? Pat. Fucking right. Whoa. Let's kick this saga off. Issue 129, God Spare the Child.
00:28:43
Speaker
god spare the child The X-Men prepare to leave Muir Island, though Banshee, still robbed of his sonic scream, has decided to leave the team and stay behind with the grieving Moira.
00:28:56
Speaker
Jamie Madrox, Havoc, and Polaris all turn down offers from Cyclops to join the team, and so the remaining five depart back to Westchester. Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, and Cyclops fly home in the company of their old friend Jean Grey, and followed in secret by Jason Wingard on his own plane, courtesy of the secret Hellfire Club. Motherfucker.
00:29:18
Speaker
Fuck that guy. Yeah. Wingard feels his connection to Jean deepen with every use of his power, and he feels the darkness inside growing. Suddenly, we flash into another 18th century scene starring Jean and Jason aboard some old sailing vessel.
00:29:33
Speaker
She's now certain these time slips are not a side effect of Proteus's reality warping, but potentially an actual psychic shift into the memories of one of her ancestors. This is a team so often deals with psychics and telepaths.
00:29:49
Speaker
And she's like, I think I'm shifting back in time into one of my ancestors' bodies. She has no reason to believe that. She's a strong believer in past lives.
00:30:01
Speaker
yeah As a dark-eyed sailor approaches her on the deck, his visage fades into that of Scott Summers, and she's aboard the Blackbird once again. The two talk about Colleen Wing, about Scott's doubts since Antarctica, and he concludes that he shut off the part of his emotions that allowed him to feel grief since the grief would have been too strong.
00:30:23
Speaker
This kind of explains maybe why he and Misty Knight never talked about Gene being not dead. Yeah, he's like, I wasn't thinking about it. Leave me alone.
00:30:36
Speaker
But they now know what it feels like to truly love each other. Aww. Aww. When the team arrives home, they burst into the house on high alert as the mansion's defenses indicate that someone is inside.
00:30:48
Speaker
Why does the mansion's defenses not recognize the person who this is? And why did that person not know how to shut off the mansion's defense? That's right. That someone is Charles x Xavier why from space and ready to reclaim his role as the head of the X-Men.
00:31:06
Speaker
He got cut so hard in space that he forgot what he doesn't do. you want He gets cut so much in this. As the days pass, however, he grates on his new X-Men.
00:31:20
Speaker
like Xavier, having not seen the team grow and adapt together, is still treating them like children, running them through test after test, and the dude even gives Wolverine 10 demerits for having a temper tantrum.
00:31:32
Speaker
i Yeah. What did the demerits do? like do they like what are What's the penalties for the demerits? Do they have to like do extra chores? like like How does that work? Yeah, his bedpines earlier.
00:31:51
Speaker
I don't think there's a punishment associated. And I think for the original X-Men team, that was enough for them to be like, no, not a demerit. Yeah, exactly. yeah I can't imagine Wolverine giving...
00:32:04
Speaker
ah any shits about demerits at all could you imagine yeah could you imagine looking at this guy this guy who looks probably 47 old
00:32:16
Speaker
And he's Wolverine, right? Like, this is like looking at Clint Eastwood and going, Quentin, me and you were talking off air about- Oh, yeah, we were talking about he's very Clint Eastwood coded. Absolutely. It's like looking at Clint Eastwood and saying, ten demerits.
00:32:32
Speaker
Ten demerits for your behavior, Clint an Eastwood made of metal. Yeah, don't you show those ten demerits up your ass? Yeah. It is funny that he, like Xavier goes to Scott and is like, Scott, please tell your little friend Wolverine that he gets 10 demerits. Tell your little friend Wolverine. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
it's Scott is so right here. Like, this is such, honestly, this is such good writing on Claremont's part, is this idea that... Charles x Xavier still has this like paternalism and has no fucking clue what it is to deal with real adults who have done real shit.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's so funny. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is him just being like, all right, now nightcrawler, you try climbing up the wall really fast.
00:33:23
Speaker
It's like, okay, dude. Nightcrawler's like, I fought a dinosaur like three weeks ago. Yeah. i think I think I got this. I'm good, my dude. So Scott tries to talk to Xavier and urge him to treat the X-Men like adults, but x Xavier refuses to budge.
00:33:43
Speaker
The discussion is interrupted by Cerebro's discovery of two new mutants, whoa one in Chicago and one in New York. As he forms teams to go find them, Wingard and the Hellfire Club watch on a monitor thanks to a bug planted by that dork Warhawk back in X-Men 110.
00:34:01
Speaker
Barely. Jesus. The shadowy Hellfire Club chairman, Shaw, is determined to get to the mutants first. In a suburb of Chicago called Deerfield, a beautiful blonde woman named Ms. Emma Frost discusses with the Pride family her desire to enroll their gifted 13 and a half year old daughter in her academy in Massachusetts.
00:34:24
Speaker
That's Matt's writing, by the way. Beautiful blonde. Yeah. Yeah. i Well, hey. i mean, she didn't want anybody to think. Is there any description of Emma Frost that can not include the fact that she's supposed to be like the most beautiful person on earth?
00:34:39
Speaker
yeah back then she was richpped Even back then, she was drawn like like... January Jones plays her in whatever movie, whichever X-Men movie she's in.
00:34:50
Speaker
Origins. Even back then, she's drawn exactly like January Jones looks now. What about intelligent? What about confident?
00:35:04
Speaker
Right? Thank you, Quinton. In a suburb of Chicago called Deerfield, a confident blonde woman named Ms. Emma Frost discusses with the Pride family her desire to enroll their gifted 13 and a half year old daughter in her academy in Massachusetts.
00:35:19
Speaker
Kitty Pryde arrives home from the dance class with a massive headache and walks up to a room to lie down, only to find herself back downstairs on the living room floor, confused, but her headache gone.
00:35:31
Speaker
Ms. Frost leaves and Professor Xavier arrives, accompanied by Peter Rasputin, Aurora Monroe, and Logan. While Xavier stays behind to chat with the Pryde's about his school for gifted youngsters, the other three take Kitty out to a malt shop. Adorable! As the It's very cute. Very yeah late 70s, early 80s. Yeah, like, oh, let's just, yeah, let's go take her to it. Let's just go down to the soda shop and get a get a couple of scoops. But fucking Wolverine.
00:35:59
Speaker
So, okay. Storm and Kitty are sitting at a table just chatting. and I think there's some things there we should talk about. But Wolverine is just in the background reading porn.
00:36:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah. it's really He's reading penthouse. Like, very clearly a penthouse man. Right, and Colossus is looking over his shoulder like, o And there's a playboy there, too.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. i I'll admit I didn't catch it at first, Matt. I saw your note here and I had to look pretty close, but yeah, he is That's some, I think, John Byrne humor there. Wolverine's paging through. The shop owner has to come over and be like, hey, you can't just sit here and read porn.
00:36:41
Speaker
ah yeah um So Kitty's conversation with Ororo is a little, is awkward. She immediately brings up Storm's race.
00:36:56
Speaker
like Like fucking everybody does, right? Yeah, it comes up a lot. Right. Every single time somebody sees Storm, they're like, oh, that black woman? Like fucking crazy. And if Claremont hadn't done that, you would think maybe it's a cool bit of characterization, right? Like an awkward 13-year-old kid just being weird to somebody because she doesn't know ah how else to be, right? You can see Yeah, yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
being accidentally racist yeah or at least racially insensitive but again claremont has every other adult character do this to storm 2 so like it feels yeah like coming from like a teenager and and what what year are we in we're we're like in the 80s like 79 79 and stuff like that um but yeah like i i could I could see like maybe Kitty Pryde like being in and like a neighborhood where there aren't like a lot of like black children. I can, I can see that.
00:37:53
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Sure. She's. Yeah. But like coming, coming from like a teenager, that makes sense. But like from like adults, it's like, like, come on, like what are you? yeah Yeah. Yeah. You've seen a black person before. You do not have to. like this that or Like we're like, we're not that close to like the end of, of like segregation, like even, even though we are like, you know? Yeah. Right, right, right, right.
00:38:17
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's bizarre. And it's bizarre that, uh, yeah, a grown man named Chris Claremont feels like he has to write it into every script.
00:38:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But then again, yeah Just thinking about like our modern era where it's like woke this woke that like oh why does a black person have to be there? It's like big because they' there are black people in places.
00:38:42
Speaker
because So maybe maybe Chris Claremont saw like ahead in the future. It's like hey we just need to explain that people of other races will just be somewhere sometimes. That's so funny. Let's set some foundation now because this is going to be really ugly in 40 years.
00:38:59
Speaker
Right right. Like, hey, just so you guys know. Fucking Yeah. Here, I have one other observation before we move on. Yeah, yeah. When they yeah want to induct this young girl into the X-Men, they take her to a store and they give her some ice cream.
00:39:17
Speaker
When they wanted to do ah ah induct any other
Mutant Battles and Hellfire Club Conflicts
00:39:20
Speaker
person into the X-Men, they beat them up. why If they had just given Blob some ice cream, block would be an X-Man to this day. yeah Yeah, it's like, you know, let's try like a new approach instead of just beating the crap out of someone. How about we, you know, talk to them in ah in a yeah in a public space with a lot of other people around? Can you imagine how much different the Marvel Universe would have been if they'd given Blob ice cream? ah
00:39:50
Speaker
And it's not like they had, it's clearly how they got Bobby on board, right?
00:39:55
Speaker
Guy loves ice cream. Yeah. i Okay. Aurora and Kitty get to know each other, but as they do, some soldiers in big pink armor burst through the window.
00:40:07
Speaker
After a brief fight during which Kitty Pryde accidentally phases her body through the wall of the malt shop in terror, the X-Men come out on top only to collapse in a heap when Emma Frost, now in a white cape, corset, and thigh-high boots, the garb of Hellfire Club's White Queen, uses her telepathic powers on them.
00:40:26
Speaker
A pack of Hellfire goons load the unconscious X-Men into a weird hovercraft thing and speed off detonating explosives in the armor of their three pink armored pals inside the shop. Fucking brutal.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah. they They said we don't tolerate failure and they just blow these guys up. she We saw this happen in the champions too. Some sort of epidemic.
00:40:52
Speaker
ah While the Hellfire Thugs strip the X-Men naked, in the back of their hovercraft, a young 13-and-a-half-year-old girl teaches herself to walk through the wall of the cargo hold, determined to help her new friends.
00:41:05
Speaker
That's a fucking good introduction to Kitty Pryde. Yeah, yeah. It is pretty powerful. I didn't realize it was so... I mean, I didn't realize it took place here, and I didn't realize it was so well done. Yeah, I didn't even know that Kitty Pryde was introduced in this... in series of of issues. What's interesting, and we'll talk about it as it happens, but she only knows Jean Grey for this very short amount of time, right?
00:41:30
Speaker
she She appears here. Yeah. But it's so cool that the very first, her very first appearance, she just... She watches some bad shit happen to people she just met.
00:41:43
Speaker
Like adults fighting with yeah superpowers and guns and explosives and shit. And she's like, I'm going follow them. Like, yeah I'm going to sneak into their car. Just like that sets the tone for who Kitty Pryde is forever. Like, that's so cool.
00:42:00
Speaker
Okay. Number one, three, zero, Dazzler. The Rolls Royce is back. Scott, Gene, and Kurt. climb out of it onto a derelict street in lower Manhattan, searching for the other mutant.
00:42:15
Speaker
Nightcrawler stays outside to keep watch as Scott and Gene use their mini Cerebro watch to track the mutant into a dingy music venue.
00:42:27
Speaker
The little watches. The little Cerebro watch. Yeah. ah The Hellfire Club watch from a van across the street and report back to their boss, a balding man with a ponytail and an ascot named Sebastian Shaw. Whoa, he's here, folks.
00:42:46
Speaker
He's an ascot. He's also got a cummerbund, but it's like just a piece of cloth. title I do like how like all of like the like the Hellfire Club people are like, ah okay, what what are all the fancy things you could put on an outfit?
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, well yeah we'll we'll just put this on here. co level on Just pile them on. You know, ascots, cumberbuns. Let's do it all. He's got a ponytail with a pink bow in it.
00:43:13
Speaker
yeah It's great. It's good.
00:43:17
Speaker
Good looking man. Wingard promises Shaw he could bring Jean Grey into the Hellfire Club with his manipulations and leaves. As Shaw checks in with the White Queen who has stripped the X-Men and put them in cages, Kitty is getting better at mastering her powers to phase through solid objects as she spies on the meeting and sneaks her way into Aurora's cage.
00:43:41
Speaker
Storm slips the girl a phone number before she noticed and has to flee straight through the floor. ah Back in Manhattan, Jean is prowling the dance floor looking for the elusive mutant when she runs into Jason Wingard, who acts surprised to see her before suddenly the scene shifts to an 18th century churchyard.
00:44:02
Speaker
It is the day of her wedding to Jason and the day of her introduction into the Hellfire Club as the Black Queen. As she kisses her groom, the scene shifts back into the present. Scott Summers watches her kiss a smug Jason Wingard.
00:44:19
Speaker
ah Before they can discuss what the fuck just happened... A new music act is brought on stage and Scott's mini Cerebo goes wild. She's a sparkling woman in a silver jumpsuit with blue makeup spread and bursts across her eyes and a waterfall of strawberry blonde hair.
00:44:37
Speaker
Behind her, the lights seem to erupt as if from nowhere as she's introduced to the crowd as Dazzler. Dazzler's here! Dazzler's here. Dazzler. So real quick history lesson here. So Dazzler was this invention of ah Marvel Comics was trying to make a deal with a record company called Casablanca Records.
00:45:00
Speaker
They wanted to make a disco superhero that would be like a cross media ah property. Oh, man, I love shit like this. So she was going to have her own comic and she was going to have her own movie and she was going to release her own albums.
00:45:15
Speaker
And she was invented by let's so Tom DeFalco. John Romita Jr. was supposed to design her costume and then Roger Stern. Those were the three. That was the writer, the artist, and the editor who are trying to make this happen.
00:45:27
Speaker
They initially called her the Disco Queen. That didn't fly. So then she's the Disco Dazzler. And then she just came. Disco Dazzler. She just became Dazzler. Romita's early designs were based on Grace Jones.
00:45:42
Speaker
Which would have been fucking dope. But ah they decided to make her white and blonde because there was a chance. ah yeah Again, these movies weren't going to happen. But when they were talking about the movies, there's a chance Bo Derek might play her.
00:45:58
Speaker
So that's why Dazzler looks the way she does. Not like Grace Jones. Well, they could have got Grace Jones to play her if she looked like Grace Jones. I think they're, I don't know. Yes. I don't know if it was like, I don't know if it was something shitty, like, oh, Grace Jones isn't as marketable as Bo Derek.
00:46:14
Speaker
Or if it was something like Grace Jones had already said no. Like, I have no idea. Yeah. yeah But I know that, yeah, the Bo Derek thing is why they decided to change her to look like she does now. Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
But then Casablanca pulled out because it was a terrible idea. And the whole thing fell apart. So they just gave her to Claremont and Byrne for like her first appearance. And then she'll she'll really soon get her own like solo series. But yeah, this is her first appearance.
00:46:44
Speaker
awesome and Awesome. And that was like the mid-70s, right? It was years that they were sitting on this Dazzler. Yes. ah The idea of a Dazzler solo series. And they kept promising Dazzler. Like this was, they they named this issue Dazzler because Marvel fans had this buzz about who Dazzler was for like three or four years at this point.
00:47:07
Speaker
And she's finally making her appearance in- Gabbo, Gabbo, Gabbo. Yeah. Who's Gabbo? Find out next week.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah. ah This is her her debut. She's got her fucking disco ball necklace and her roller skates on. Hell yeah. What? Outside, Nightcrawler gets a call on the car phone from a panicked girl named Kitty Pryde.
00:47:36
Speaker
And a moment later, the door is ripped off the rolls by another pink armored hellfire goon. Huh? Two more goons drop in from the skylight of the disco, just like in Chicago, each equipped to deal with a specific X-Man's power.
00:47:51
Speaker
but they didn't count on Dazzler. She creates a massive burst of light around one goon, freeing the other two ah to beat some ass, including Nightcrawler's dork.
00:48:01
Speaker
ah The X-Men gather their new pal Dazzler, ah take off in the Rolls Royce to save their friends. Jason Wingard watches and laughs his way off into the night.
00:48:14
Speaker
Whoa, boy. This is pretty crazy. These are the first two issues. Two many introductions. Yeah. Well, more than two introductions. We have Emma Frost.
00:48:26
Speaker
if Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have Kitty Pryde. We have Sebastian Shaw. We have Dazzler. We have the Hellfire Club itself. Like, holy shit, you guys.
00:48:37
Speaker
Some major players. Yeah. This is wild. Can I? i Okay. Yeah, please. I'm sure this is a this discussion has been had a million times at this point. And I know that we mentioned that it's just the outfit of the Hellfire Club. But why is Emma Frost's standard costume lingerie? It's hot.
00:49:00
Speaker
It's hot. She's hot, Pat. She's not hot. She's just rich. Okay, you keep banging the drum, Emma Frost is not hot, and see where it gets you on the internet.
00:49:14
Speaker
a lot A lot of people playing Marvel rivals would disagree. That's freaks. So, Hellfire Club was based on 1966 episode of the TV show, The Avengers, you know, then with Emma Peel. Not the Marvel's Avengers. the Yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker
The Emma Peel Avengers, yeah. the The one with Sean Connery. Oh, wait, no, that was the movie. in the From the 90s. So in this episode, there is a Hellfire Club that yeah is based around like hedonism.
00:49:47
Speaker
And it's like this old secret society. And they introduce... I guess Emma Peel's character, I don't know. i haven't watched the episode. She's either, I just watched a clip.
00:50:00
Speaker
She's either in disguise or she's brainwashed somehow. I don't know. But she's introduced as the Queen of Sin and she's brought out in this like tiny little outfit. And The end of the clip I saw was the guy was just like, do with her whatever you'd like. And then they carry her around on their shoulders.
00:50:18
Speaker
like ah Like she just won the pennant or something. like You can do anything you want. You can do anything you want. want to pick her up. want to give her upies. I want to give her upies.
00:50:29
Speaker
I want to give her upies. Yeah, no, so... peace yeah no so That honestly is why they all look like they look and why Emma Frost is like they designed Emma Frost after that costume, which wasn't lingerie, but was close enough that they were like, oh, what if we just made it lingerie?
00:50:47
Speaker
I mean, the Hellfire Club also probably has a bunch of sex parties, too. Yeah, that's fair. It seems like they are. I guess you could argue, at least in this issue, that like this is the Hellfire Club. They're all about power, which definitely means keeping women within certain... Parameters.
00:51:06
Speaker
Parameters. But then she just continues to do it like the rest of her comic life. Hey, this is all I know. This is all I know. well but Over time, it becomes that she... It's not like she was made to do this. She does this because... Like, she's the white queen. She's not yeah subservient to anybody in the Hellfire Club. yeah It could be empowering for her.
00:51:31
Speaker
right that That's how she presents it yeah in the future. But, you know... I mean, this is two men writing in and drawing in 1969. They definitely just want to see oh yeah a sexy lady.
00:51:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah. A lot of really good character moments between these two issues. There's a lot of good foreshadowing too. Oh my God. Yeah. Which, you know, I think dovetails into some of those character moments you're talking about. Like in, in the description of, uh, one 29, there was that scene where Scott was like, you know, I, I couldn't bear to accept the thought of you dying, but now I fully accepted my feelings for you.
00:52:11
Speaker
and And yeah, like, What a moment of foreshadowing, right? Like he's finally accepted his true feelings. And now he can't imagine himself without Jean Grey.
00:52:22
Speaker
oof And they full on make out on the Blackbird in front of everyone. and Yes, they do. The description is like, they spent the rest of the flight together sometimes touching, sometimes kissing. yeah And then it made it it just gave me this visual in my head like, so how much room is on the Blackbird? Are they just in front of everyone just making out with each other? Or do they have like a little room? Everybody's like scooched over to one side of the Blackbird like trying to...
00:52:54
Speaker
yeah do you mind i'm trying to fly this airplane kurt repert he does two things at the end of 130 that i think are so incredibly cool number one He gets attacked outside. He's outmatched. This is a guy that was specifically designed to fight Nightcrawler. Yeah.
00:53:23
Speaker
So what Nightcrawler does is just grabs him, teleports him into the disco about 20 feet in the air. And as they fall from that point, he shouts to Scott and Gene, help!
00:53:37
Speaker
He's crashing into the club and slamming somebody into the ground. Yeah. i The other thing, after that battle, Scott says to him, how do you feel, Nightcrawler? And Nightcrawler says, black and blue all over, but I'm that anyway.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah. Adorable. I love Scott in this, too. I like i love this like the juxtaposition of the Hellfire goons trouncing the one group, right?
00:54:07
Speaker
And then they go after the other group that contains Scott Summers, who is a fucking pro. And he's so calm and collected. He treats it like they're just like a formality that needs to be dealt with. He's like, let's clobber these clowns and then we'll go see what's going on. That's the line too, right? Let's clobber these clowns. yeah His quote.
00:54:29
Speaker
Let's clobber these clowns. Goosebumps. Yeah. It's really, really good. Also a car phone. That's funny. Yes. It's Rolls Royce. You gotta have a car phone. Rolls Royce. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker
yeah ah You got to get yeah gotta to get calls in your Rolls Royce. it well in case it's but In case the stocks go yeah ah ah down. Either way, I'm informed.
00:54:54
Speaker
Xavier also apparently find this out when Kurt's thinking to himself, but apparently he was mad at Kurt about not using the image inducer any longer. That's fair. He doesn't like you know bit indian like that's very he doesn't like it All right.
00:55:10
Speaker
Are you guys ready to move on to issue number 131? Yeah, let's keep in moving. Run for your life! That's the issue name. ah Kitty Pride runs through a Chicago back alley, backlit by the headlights of the sedan that's pursuing her.
00:55:27
Speaker
Suddenly, a bright flash of light and the car crashes like it's hit a brick wall, tossing the hellfire goons driving it through the windshield. Phoenix stands between Kitty and the car, holding a telekinetic wall up with no effort.
00:55:42
Speaker
Kurt grabs Kitty and teleports her to the roof to make sure she's out of harm's way, while Scott and Jean discuss the fact that she just maimed those two guys without a second thought. These animals got no more than they deserved, she says.
00:55:57
Speaker
brutal. Back on the skyship, Jean is able to discover the name and location of the Hellfire Club by mind-reading their comatose prisoners. The Hellfire Club? Why, that's the organization that Jason Wingard belongs to in her time slips.
00:56:12
Speaker
Yeah. Cut to the gate of the Frost Enterprises building, a sedan pulls up and we see a hellfire goon driving with Scott, Gene, Kurt, and Dazzler all tied up in the back. He explains that he's captured them and is bringing them in.
00:56:26
Speaker
Gene, as Scott will later reveal, is powerful enough to psychically puppet one of their comatose prisoners enough to hold a full, convincing conversation with the guards. Not to mention driving them all the way there.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:41
Speaker
That must have been like a video game. That's a good point. yeah shit Meanwhile, Emma Frost is psychically torturing Storm, but Wolverine and Colossus are still locked up in their bird cages in the next room.
00:56:54
Speaker
In phases, Kitty Pryde. So this is this is an awesome moment. Yeah. This is brand new to her. And like Scott Summers was like, you please do this.
00:57:06
Speaker
And she says to herself, it thinks to herself, Cyclops said it's okay to be scared as long as I don't let my fear foul me up. Oh my God. what a What a cool moment. Like this awesome, like psychological lesson that like Scott Summers has taught Kitty Pryde. She's like, hey, it's okay to have feelings. Like...
00:57:25
Speaker
It's okay. You're going to feel scared. That's fine. Just don't let it just control your behaviors. ah We can't control our feelings. We can control our behaviors. So you'll feel that fear.
00:57:37
Speaker
but I still need you to walk in there and free Wolverine or whatever. Yeah. It's such, it's so much insight into Scott and into Kitty that like, that's what's playing over in her head and she's still moving forward. Yeah.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah. Also, could they just have a spare uniform lying around? Like she kind of looks like she's one of like the, like the fantastic four right now. And since the X-Men's uniforms are made by Reed Richards,
00:58:08
Speaker
I wonder if he just gives them Fantastic Four uniforms and they decorate them later. These are the old uniforms. We're phasing them out. You know, you can take them half off. It's fine.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah. Kitty Pryde phases in who discover and she discovers that she can pop the lock on Wolverine's cage just by phasing her
Jean Grey's Transformation and Emotional Moments
00:58:28
Speaker
hand through it. It's an electronic lock. Which is important.
00:58:31
Speaker
He's free, but as he recovers from the neural damage, Kitty gets zapped in the back by a stun ray. This is all Wolverine needs to get his adrenaline running.
00:58:42
Speaker
He pops his claws, grins, and we come back to the gate!
00:58:49
Speaker
Sorry, guys. ah Suddenly, a big red optic blast crackows out of the roof of the car that the X-Men are supposedly prisoner in Before the guards can react, Dazzler converts the noise around her into, in Claremont's words, a light show so intense and beautiful that the guards' minds can't cope with it.
00:59:09
Speaker
In other words, they're dazzled. right This is like a thing... this is like a thing people have a real hard time with dazzlers powers. Like, is it just light is something that you can tell they're asking themselves and each other.
00:59:24
Speaker
Like, is it just light or is it like lasers or is it like a special light? And at this early stage, it's just, I think it's just light. It's like, it's like they're blinded.
00:59:37
Speaker
Like a flash bang. Yeah. Yeah. It's also funny seeing these guards. Like this is a Claremont ism. like crazy is that he makes everybody have names guys so and they'll say each other's names like in these bizarre completely unnatural ways they'll be like this skipper yeah hey sally are you driving the car in yes uh skipper i am elton make sure you come over here and help me with this gate uh okay jacko like these are literally all these are all names that he uses hey the goons are people too
01:00:13
Speaker
wow quentin you have they have names and they have lives outside of this jeez you're right goons are people too and there people taste but they're talking about taking their kids to soccer practice sorry sorry honey dad couldn't come to your soccer game he got hit with an optic blast yeah Yeah, does the workers comp cover optic blast damage?
01:00:44
Speaker
Okay, so ah the X-Men breached the building and kick ass, ultimately finding a free Peter and Wolverine carrying a dazed kitty. Internally, Scott expresses concern over the fact that Gene was powerful enough to puppet the comatose Hellfire goon in the car.
01:01:01
Speaker
Kitty tells Peter he's neat, and Peter kind of blushes. Meanwhile, very cute moment. it is There's this is two times now that Kitty has expressed a little crush on Peter. Yeah, just like instantly has a crush on him. It's very cute.
01:01:16
Speaker
You have to ignore the fact that she's 13 and a half. ah You'll have to ignore that a lot of times over the next. 30 years.
01:01:27
Speaker
The next 30 years. yeah Meanwhile, Phoenix has split off from the group to find Emma Frost, but it becomes quickly unclear whether she is more concerned about saving Aurora or having someone to unload her wrath upon. and We see her destroying Emma Frost.
01:01:45
Speaker
in a psychic battle. Her powers manifesting in the form of a bird of fire while Storm watches in awe. Emma knows she has only one chance, channeling all her remaining powers into a psychic bolt. We see an explosion of light, the entire building collapses and then silence until that iconic bird of fire rises from the rubble and reveals Jean and Aurora unharmed.
01:02:10
Speaker
The White Queen wasn't so lucky, Jean says.
01:02:15
Speaker
Back in Deerfield, Dazzler rejects the offer to be an X-Man. But Kitty Pryde's parents have a sudden change of heart and agree to letting her attend Xavier's school for gifted youngsters.
01:02:26
Speaker
Even Professor X is surprised by this turnaround. Their daughter has been missing for two days. After the ice cream shop, the X-Men took her to Blue Up. But Jean's not surprised. And Scott and Storm notice that she seems to have crossed her own ethical psychic boundary. Should we jump right into issue number 132 and is their name Yes, we should.
01:02:49
Speaker
Let's do it. Our sweet idiot boy, Warren Worthington, the third and his lady friend, Candy Southern are hosting the X-Men at angels. Aerie in New Mexico while they hide out and regroup from the hellfire clubs attacks.
01:03:03
Speaker
Warren kisses Jean on the lips. Yeah. Yeah. It's Jean on the lips. It's weird. It's weird. It's a thing that my parents used to do too. Like they're, they're friends of the opposite sex. They would do like a kiss on the lips when they met.
01:03:17
Speaker
Do you think it's, do you think it swinger culture? Yeah, do you think your parents were swingers? Do you think your parents were swingers? yeah No, I think it was a cultural behavior at the time.
01:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think swinging was a cultural behavior at the time, too. Oh, my God. but
01:03:34
Speaker
Scott and Warren fly off into the desert to chat about what's been going on, as Warren is one of Scott's oldest friends and a member of the public-facing segment of the Hellfire Club. As they start to discuss Jean, she arrives to interrupt with a picnic for her and Scott.
01:03:48
Speaker
A picnic? Warren takes off as Gene tries to pull Scott out of Cyclops mode and share a romantic moment with her boyfriend. She pulls off his visor, to which he instantly panics before she explains that she can hold his eye beams back with her telekinesis.
01:04:03
Speaker
They look each other in the eyes for the first time in their lives and kiss as the scene fades on them, embracing each other in their solitude of the desert. This is just one of the fucking best scenes in X-Men history, right?
01:04:15
Speaker
Just this moment where they're fucking on this butt. Yeah. they're They're fucking on the butt. And they fuck, yeah. So I... I wanted to put and they fuck in the recap because they clearly fuck, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because it's just like a beautiful moment.
01:04:33
Speaker
It's also, we flash back to this moment later. And at that point we can point out that they're totally nude. Yes. Yeah, they do. We do flashback to them totally nude in this moment. So you're right. You're right. You're right. I i shouldn't have even, I shouldn't even brought it up. I'm sorry, you guys ignore me.
01:04:49
Speaker
That's right. We'll edit a quick and then they fuck into the end. and like Okay. A week later, the X-Men are flipping the script, going on the offensive against the Hellfire Club.
01:05:03
Speaker
Wolverine and Nightcrawler navigate into the lower levels of the building while Scott, Gene, Aurora, and Peter use Warren's contacts to secure an invitation to their party under fake names. And Professor X and Angel observe from New Mexico.
01:05:15
Speaker
They keep bouncing between New Mexico and Arizona, right? That wasn't just me. There's a lot of like location shifts. Like even I would i thought it was a little bit jarring that they got from New York to Chicago so quickly in the in the previous one.
01:05:29
Speaker
well Right. I mean, that's one thing, but I'm saying that... they have said that Warren's area is both in New Mexico and in Arizona, or maybe the butt is in Arizona that they flew to.
01:05:44
Speaker
I don't know. i think it only said New Mexico. I don't know that it said Arizona. I'm going to disagree with you there, Matt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Find the panel, find the panel and we'll post it on Instagram. And if ah there's no panel on Instagram, then Pat didn't find a panel. I do recall like, A mention of Arizona and a mention of New Mexico at some point. Yeah, we'll find right we'll find out.
01:06:08
Speaker
yeah i'll keep I'll keep an eye out. Because we are reading through these comics and recapping them live as we go. Yeah, yeah yeah I'm reading it for the first time now as we're talking about it.
01:06:20
Speaker
As Scott and Jean walk into the party, however, the Hellfire Club's inner circle immediately clocks her. This inner circle, comprised of Jason Wingard, Sebastian Shaw, Donald Pierce, and Harry Leland, plans to sniff out the rest of the X-Men and finally put Wingard's plan to control the Phoenix into action.
01:06:39
Speaker
When Wingard cuts in on Scott and Jean dancing, Scott begins to put the pieces together. Jean had told him about her time slips and her connection to Wingard, but the final piece falls into place as Jason leads her upstairs and, in a display of ego, lets his disguise slip and shows his true face.
01:06:58
Speaker
Mastermind. It's Mastermind, Pat! Holy shit. How did this strike you? i was floored. You had no idea.
01:07:09
Speaker
We talked about Mastermind starting in like the single digit X-Men issues, yeah right? And he only appears a handful of times. Each time I was like, oh, i hate this motherfucker. He's such a creep.
01:07:21
Speaker
Yeah. There's some vibe about him that I really, aside from just being a villain. And you do hate villains. I do. Famously. A great man once told me that with great power must also become great responsibility. Yeah.
01:07:37
Speaker
I was so, I i mean, i was stunned because at that time you had, uh, didn't want to spoil it for me, but you were like, he plays a pretty big and fucked up role in a future X-Men story.
01:07:50
Speaker
And when I found out it was this one, when this moment came, I was like, wow, this motherfucker. Yeah. And I mean, so in, in previous issues, you see Wingard's shadow on the wall and,
01:08:04
Speaker
If you pay close attention, it is the silhouette of Mastermind. Yeah. His greasy fucking slimeball ass face and hair. But there's no reason you should be thinking about Mastermind. We haven't seen him in so long.
01:08:18
Speaker
Quentin, did you know this was coming? I did not. How did it you? I feel like I vaguely remember Mastermind. um Right. and Like, yeah, it it was like kind of a shock because I was i was like...
01:08:31
Speaker
Oh, they had like someone like from like before from like the past. Right. Instead of like this new character. i I thought that everyone in the Hellfire Club was like somebody like new that had not been introduced yet.
01:08:42
Speaker
Right. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I was in the same place. I assumed this was some new guy that we were just going to keep learning about and he was going to get more and more fucked up. But he's an old guy that got more fucked up. And I mean, this has always been his character, right? Like.
01:08:57
Speaker
He was a super creep when we met him, right? He was, he had like would hit on Scarlet Witch and sort of like intimate that he could use his powers against her.
01:09:10
Speaker
Then all this time later, he fucking does it to our girl. How dare he? How dare he touch her? Get your damn hands off her.
01:09:22
Speaker
Scott chases Jean upstairs, but it's too late as a burst of energy flings him to the ground and Jean stands above him as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.
01:09:34
Speaker
Mastermind success kid posing behind her. It's the exact outfit she was in when he, what, five issues ago, was imagining what Jean Grey would look like and under his control.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, and it's kind of like a black version of Emma Frost's outfit. Yes. yeah Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's a black corset and underpants. Underpants. Underpanties.
01:10:00
Speaker
and Except she's not wearing a fur. She's wearing a cape instead of a fur. She's wearing a cape and her hair is like up in like a kind of like a bun. Like a teapot bun. Yeah. I don't think that's the name of the hairstyle, but that's what I call it.
01:10:13
Speaker
I liked it. i I was fully willing to be on board with the fact that that was called a teapot bun. I was like, yeah, sure. yeah teapot bun. Yeah, yeah, of course. yeah why wouldnt everyone Everyone knows that. Why wouldn't they call it a teapot bun? Yeah, it's a teapot bun, Pat. Of course. Thanks.
01:10:28
Speaker
Unlike Emma Frost, this does make the point that Jean's skimpy outfit is about control. Yes. About Wingard's control of her. even if Even though that is the official outfit of the Black Queen, this 100% just sublimation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:10:44
Speaker
just sublimation yeah yeah yeah Storm and Colossus rush upstairs to help, but their way is blocked by a shirtless Sebastian Shaw. It sounds silly, but he actually is pretty badass. He's buff as shit, and he knows it. He is, and he's still got that cummerbund on, too. Yeah, I mean, that's why he's shirtless. He's like, look at this.
01:11:06
Speaker
Like, not only am I going to kick your ass, but look at this. These nipples could cut. Not my belly button. like Don't look at my belly button.
01:11:18
Speaker
ah Look at my nipples, not my belly button. My nipples are up here. ah Shaw takes a punch from Colossus without a thought and gives it back as his power is to absorb, store, and redirect kinetic en energy.
01:11:35
Speaker
Fast as Colossus is, as Claremont loves to remind us, Shaw is faster and kicks his ass. Storm tries to flee and warn the others, but fails and further learns that this mansion somehow neutralizes her lightning bolts.
01:11:50
Speaker
Shaw finds her and quickly knocks her out. In the basement, Wolverine decides to strip the insulation off some of the wires, thinking that if the water in the sewer rises enough, it could short out the electricity, giving them the element of surprise later on if they need it.
01:12:06
Speaker
Nightcrawler and Wolverine burst into the basement just in time to face Pierce and Leland. They find out that Pierce is a cyborg, and Leland is a mutant capable of altering the mass of objects around him.
01:12:19
Speaker
Nightcrawler is quickly strangled unconscious, and Wolverine becomes so heavy that, even surprising Leland, he crashes through the floor and is swept away down the sewers. Right. Right, well, because Wolverine is already fucking heavy as hell, right? He's got he's got metal bones, and...
01:12:36
Speaker
Like, yeah how would anybody know that? So Leland has probably done this to guys before, right? And all of a sudden, it's like, this guy is' like 10 times as heavy as the other guys. He's like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah.
01:12:52
Speaker
I guess he's accounting for somebody's height and calculating mass from there. Oh, right. Yeah. He's looking at, oh, this, this short guy. Um, let's do, yeah The Hellfire Club with their new black queen celebrate their victory above while below Wolverine gathers himself.
01:13:10
Speaker
Okay. Sucker. Wait, sorry. Okay. Suckers. You've taken your best shot. Now it's my turn. That was pretty good. That was a pretty good bone. Yang. Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:13:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Bowen, yeah. I could hear it. And it still lands as Wolverine. I don't know about the second part, but yeah, the first part, sure. um Fuck that last panel, though.
01:13:36
Speaker
Not like fuck that last panel, but fuck, comma, that last panel, though. It's cool as hell. Holy shit. This... Well, I think a little more next issue, but this is like where Wolverine becomes Wolverine. You know what i mean?
01:13:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is where you're first like, this is not a guy to fuck with. And yeah. And almost like I knew it the whole time. Like I've seen him fight and I knew he wasn't a guy to fuck with, but I didn't really think about it until this moment.
01:14:05
Speaker
And I just realized, Hey, I just realized those guys are fucked. Yeah. Like, I just realized those Hellfire guys are fucked, man.
01:14:17
Speaker
He's gonna get them. Yeah. um What a wild ride so far.
01:14:25
Speaker
There is a thing that I absolutely love in the X-Men, which is people underestimating the X-Men and... pushing these these people's back up against a wall like they did you know when they kidnapped wolverine and storm and so and colossus like what the hellfire club did right like they these x-men were just doing their own normal stuff and these guys were like hellfire club was like well we can take these guys and put their backs up against a wall, and the X-Men just came out and beat the living fuck out of them, right?
01:14:58
Speaker
And, i mean, not yet. Like, not in when they attacked them, but, like... Yeah, yeah. Emma Frost and her goons is what I mean. Yeah. And that is a thing that I absolutely... Like, happens with the X-Men all the time.
01:15:11
Speaker
Like, everybody miss everybody underestimates the X-Men, and everybody gets their ass handed to them.
01:15:20
Speaker
And the Hellfire Club, like earlier, even acknowledges that. They said, was we've been watching the X-Men forever. The flaw, the way that people lose to the X-Men is by underestimating them.
01:15:32
Speaker
And then even thinking they're accounting for it, they continue to underestimate the X-Men. Yeah, exactly. um but But then, like smartly, Claremont does a double turn, right?
01:15:46
Speaker
And then has the X-Men go on the offensive, which again, fucking cool. Like, what a cool idea. Like, okay, these people have had us on the run. Well, and like, we are, we're we're we're changing that script.
01:16:01
Speaker
And we are going Yeah, it's time to take it to them. then Claremont, like, subverting that underestimating them thing by kicking the X-Men's ass. Yeah, yeah.
01:16:14
Speaker
The X-Men just get ruined here. Yeah. It's unpleasant. What a i have so many notes. Okay, yeah, yeah. They're all... For the most part, they are just me admiring what's going on here. This is steal so good. This is great. It's really good comics.
01:16:35
Speaker
Jean has a couple of crazy... lines here that are just like, it keeps illustrating the corruption, right? And it's not just in like black and white.
01:16:49
Speaker
Here's her saying something is a good guy. Here's her saying something is a bad guy. The moment that I'm really focusing on here is Scott is panickedly digging through rubble, trying to find Jean after the building collapses on top of her storm and Emma Frost in the fight. Right. And she appears completely unharmed. She says, it'll take more than a collapsing building to do me in, but it was sweet of you to be so concerned.
01:17:14
Speaker
<unk> All right. Like, like she's like, she's outclassed him by this point. Absolutely. It's a, it's sincere, but it's also a little condescending. it's like, it's condescending without meaning to be because she's legitimately yeah way over his head Right. He thought she was dead and she was like, oh, that's truly, that's adorable. Yeah. Oh, that's cute. Oh, you think something like that could kill me? Right. yeah Right. Yeah.
01:17:45
Speaker
I'm the fucking, I'm Phoenix, dude. Yeah. She's just becoming more and more ruthless with ye each issue. Wow.
01:17:58
Speaker
What's that? What? Sorry. I just saw one of your notes here, Matt, which is why do we always comment on who's shirtless in the recap? we We do. I don't know if it's just me. I think, Pat, I think you do too.
01:18:13
Speaker
but I think it's hilarious. But we do comment on who's shirtless pretty much every episode. Anytime somebody's shirtless, we mention that they're shirtless. I had like a note. ah that said Wolverine is hairy as fuck. I'm actually really impressed at the detail. He all those hairs. Yeah, like I'm very, very impressed with with how they drew his body hair. Yeah, Burn really goes to town on Wolverine's body hair.
01:18:42
Speaker
It's great. I am absolutely a swarthy man. It's also swarthy King. It's also funny that the Nightcrawler and Wolverine are marching through the sewer and the sewers all techno.
01:18:54
Speaker
Right? Like, like Vern draws every tunnel as if it's covered in computers. It's got a bunch of circuit boards. Yeah, exactly. They're just marching. there it's in ah It's a sewer.
01:19:06
Speaker
It's a sewer. And they they do mention out loud, they're like, oh, there's a lot of wires down here. These people must be doing some crazy stuff. that But it's not just wires we're looking at, you guys.
01:19:19
Speaker
It is. I'm looking at it. It's like, so yeah, it's like so fucking circuit boards. Stop it. in a In a sewer tunnel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are you?
01:19:30
Speaker
Who's going down there to compute? The other little Jean moment is, i mean, they're fighting, which is incredibly.
01:19:41
Speaker
Oh yeah. long I love a new interpretation of a psychic battle. And it really is just Jean's firebird form fighting Emma Frost and like grabbing her in its talents and wrapping her in Emma Frost looks so small and so weak. Yeah, it's so It's it makes Jean Grey legitimately scary.
01:20:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Like Emma Frost is completely outclassed here. yes She has a line. She's like, I understand you call yourself something of a telepath. Well, your majesty, let's see how good you really are. Yes. Her face is like covered in shadows and her eyes are glowing. It's wild. It it just really. It's Yeah.
01:20:27
Speaker
And that's this moment where you think like, oh, maybe, maybe they're going to beat the Hellfire Club. And then just to think in the very next issue is where she gets turned. One last note from me on this.
01:20:40
Speaker
Leland, what an awful power. I can make you heavier. ula Yeah, i didn't I can adjust your weight. Not the size of you in any way. ah the like not going to make you skinny. I'm just going to make you weigh differently.
01:20:58
Speaker
yeah He's got one move, which is to plummet people into the ground. I guess he can make you slow. Like if you're chasing him, he makes you slow. And he can do it with objects too. So I guess he could throw something light above your head and make it weigh a lot. And then it crashes down on you.
01:21:15
Speaker
Right. I mean, I'm sure you could think of cool ways to use the power. Although I wonder yeah if you could change something's mass midair. Now that you mentioned it, if you're throwing something, if you're throwing like a super ball at somebody and you're trying to make it,
01:21:30
Speaker
100 pounds by the time it reaches oh yeah it just whizzes through someone's skull does that impact the velocity of that object oh yeah like would the trajectory be impacted by its weight no i guess because weight doesn't affect the rate at which you would fall right but you think something would be affected correct I mean, i think it would the impact would be heavier, right? Like, you know if you drop ah a blanket on your foot versus if you drop a bowling ball on your foot.
01:22:01
Speaker
so Yeah, yeah. I've done both. And which one did you like more? The blanket. Oh, okay. It very warm. This is another issue where Professor X gets cucked, though.
01:22:16
Speaker
Oh my god, he is is just whining. yeah Yeah, he's just whining about how he's like, I told Scott I didn't like this plan. Scott's like, yeah, I didn't like it either, but what the fuck else are we gonna do, man? Yeah, it's like he like left to get some space puss, and he comes back, and...
01:22:38
Speaker
And like now everybody is like thinking for themselves. What? Yeah. What? I'm trying to tell them what to do.
Team Dynamics and Leadership Challenges
01:22:47
Speaker
I'm trying to tell them what to do.
01:22:49
Speaker
They have minds of their own. What? Frankly, this is rude. You have your own thoughts and feelings about things. a fuck not on my watch this is now what this is now what professor x's voice is like he went from a guy who liberates south american countries to a guy whines about uh young adults not taking his demerits seriously all right all right i'm ready i'm ready to move on 133 wolverine
01:23:21
Speaker
hello yes One of the hardest panels I've ever seen shows us a soaking wet Wolverine hanging stealthily from the rafters of a ceiling as four hellfire goons search for him below.
01:23:35
Speaker
One of them notices a drip of water from above, and it's all over from there. With blinding speed, Wolverine kills three of them and holds the fourth for questioning.
01:23:46
Speaker
Holy shit. this This fucking scene, you guys. We were talking about this scene earlier. Yeah. This scene is so, like, this is the first time I think they used the phrase, like, Wolverine.
01:23:57
Speaker
he's the best there is at what he does or he yeah doing what he does best. But there is a fucking moment. That fourth guy, I'm just going to read the whole quote. If that's okay. yeah He says, Hey, bub, I know what you're thinking.
01:24:12
Speaker
He's hurt and he's five meters away from me. And I've got a full clip of ammo in my rifle. Question is, can I kill Wolverine before he can reach me and cut me into shish kebab with those freaky claws of his?
01:24:25
Speaker
Well, bub, Wolverine is virtually unkillable. Wolverine's claws are adamantium, the strongest metal known, capable of slicing through vanadium steel like a hot knife through butter. And five meters afloor ain't much distance at all.
01:24:39
Speaker
For me, it's your play here. I'm waitin'. And then the guy puts his gun down and he goes, shoot, I was hoping you'd go for it. Fucking yes! Ah, it's so good, so good.
01:24:53
Speaker
There's our boy! That's the Wolverine that conquers the nineteen ninety s
01:25:01
Speaker
I immediately thought, this is like this is a Dirty Harry reference. yeah This has to be. Yes. You're so right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I know what you're thinking.
01:25:11
Speaker
um Did he fire six shots or only five? Yeah. Yeah. the Legitimately the last panel of the last issue where Wolverine is like, all right, I guess it's time to get to business.
01:25:24
Speaker
And the first panel, the title panel of this issue yeah are two of the hardest panels I've ever seen in comics. like Yeah. Jesus. ze They fuck. They are so so good.
01:25:38
Speaker
They were cooking with this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cut to the Hellfire Club's library slash torture room. Yeah. where Storm, Colossus, and Scott are bound and neutralized while the Hellfire Club watches them.
01:25:51
Speaker
scott no Scott's in a ruby quartz hood. yeah yeah oh great. This again. Hey, Scott, just bash your head against the wall. ah Why isn't he doing it? Yeah. It's worked for him. Why wouldn't he just do it every time now?
01:26:08
Speaker
Bash your head. It kind of looks like, uh, like death stroke in this, uh, Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, Scott thinks back to, uh, he and jeans, uh, passionate night on the butte in Arizona.
01:26:24
Speaker
I'm sorry. On the what in Arizona, the butte. yeah i I don't know that word. The butt. Okay.
01:26:33
Speaker
It's the butt.
01:26:36
Speaker
ah The butt in Arizona, ah where Gene created a permanent psychic bond between the two of them. Part of me in your head, part of you in mine.
01:26:47
Speaker
Unable to see or physically do anything, Scott tries to connect with Gene through this bond. Meanwhile, Shaw reveals his reason for kidnapping and the the X-Men.
01:26:58
Speaker
The future of power is genetic engineering. this motherfucker fucking this guy this is wolverine's issue though so we cut to him slipping through the dumb waiter while the staff are distracted by the very important guest senator kelly fucking senator kelly senator kelly this is going places i can feel it wolverine takes out a few more goons and makes a big scene of it to cause a distraction and we cut back to scott Scott's never been here before, floating through a psychic plane, searching for Jean's mind.
01:27:34
Speaker
Suddenly he finds himself in revolutionary era clothing, sword at a side. A door appears behind it, Jean, but behind her, Jason Wingard. This should be impossible.
01:27:46
Speaker
Mastermind doesn't have psychic powers, only illusionary ones. How is he possibly powerful enough to take up the space in her private psychic connection?
01:27:56
Speaker
Right. Wingard doesn't care to explain. He only challenges Scott to a duel for Jean's mind. Scott, as athletically tuned as he is, is no match for Wingard's swordplay.
01:28:09
Speaker
But what else can he do? He charges in, holding his own for as long as he can. But Wingard dramatically wins the fight. In real life, Scott lets out a scream and collapses to the ground in his bindings.
01:28:22
Speaker
The last words we see in this issue are, Cyclops is dead! cyclops is dead you know we didn't even we didn't mention sorry we didn't mention like two issues ago so cyclops is dead we'll never see him again it's over he's gone he's gone forever right yeah but we like yeah yeah yeah yeah let's take a second moment of silence moment of silence for our boy cyclops we followed him all this way um but legitimately emma frost is supposed to be dead yeah We didn't mention that, but like she died, right? Like that was, that's basically what the book, the comic said is that Emma Frost died in that, in that collapsing building.
01:29:04
Speaker
that's just interesting. I wonder if, uh, wonder if that'll ever come up again. Scott's dead. Emma's dead. Wild. Yeah. A whole new, uh, whole new future. So in one 34, too late. The heroes.
01:29:18
Speaker
Nope. He's alive. Scott picks himself up school from as Wolverine, as Wolverine crashes it through the doors. Go ahead. The last, the last line of the last issue is Cyclops is dead.
01:29:30
Speaker
The first line of this issue is Cyclops is alive. Yeah.
01:29:37
Speaker
Cyclops picks himself up as Wolverine crashes in through the doors while with Hellfire thugs hanging from his neck. Wingard orders his Black Queen to stop him, but while she's levitating Wolverine in midair, Cyclops feels the lock on his weird helmet pop open.
01:29:52
Speaker
Further, he hears Jean in his head, and she gives him a psychic image of the room. So Cyclops starts beating fucking ass. He pops his helmet off, knocking Pierce to the ground, frees the X-Men from their bonds, blasts Leland through the fucking wall over the banister to the first floor and pulverizes the floor beneath Shaw, dropping him into the basement.
01:30:17
Speaker
Jean, seemingly back in control of herself, frees Wolverine, who leaps from the top floor onto Leland. ah This is where Leland, I think, really misuses his his power. Okay. Because he has Wolverine...
01:30:31
Speaker
hopping on top of him from more above claws first. share ah What do I do? Let me make him heavier. i was in la on it i was cracking up so much when I read this panel like because it's like, that's basically like,
01:30:49
Speaker
Oh, hey, a guy is going to fall on me. Let me ah take it from a guy falling on me to a piano falling on me. i why yeah so Can he not decrease someone's mask? Couldn't he conceivably have like... Yeah, I was wondering if his woline powers work in the opposite? Right, just make Wolverine float up to the ceiling and then Wolverine's like... Like slapping his little arms around like...
01:31:19
Speaker
Stop it. Oh, wait. The power only works the one way. Oh, wait. No. no Yeah, maybe he's just never tried. Crazy. Or made himself heavy and drops himself through the floor. Like, there's so much you could have done, Leland.
01:31:36
Speaker
yeah If only he'd gone to the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. well He's dead now. He's dead. oh yeah Back up in the on the first floor, Colossus goes after Pierce and tears his fucking cybernetic arm off.
01:31:52
Speaker
But Pierce jams the exposed wires into Peter's face, blinding him. Nightcrawler and Storm chase Shaw into the basement, knocking him off balance, but avoiding actually striking him.
01:32:04
Speaker
Holy shit, you guys. Very clever. Nightcrawler juggles him in the air with his feet. He lays back on his back and starts juggling him like a fucking, like so like a circus performer.
01:32:18
Speaker
Because he is going back to his circus roots. ah While Storm lowers the temperature around him, freezing his body. Shaw manages to grab Nightcrawler and throw him at Storm, as escaping down the corridor where he runs into the damaged Pierce.
01:32:33
Speaker
Pierce is in a panic, but Shaw is calm as hell, calculating his losses and knowing that there is still a longer war to be won.
01:32:43
Speaker
one Quick interlude. oh Hank McCoy the Beast is on a watch duty at Avengers Mansion when a call comes in. The X-Men are on a rampage in downtown Manhattan.
01:32:55
Speaker
That can't be right. Faced with the choice of following protocol and alerting the Avengers or rushing to help his old pals, he barely thinks for a second before darting out the door.
01:33:07
Speaker
Good old Hank. Back in the club, Mastermind has hidden himself with illusions and is sabotaging Cyclops' attempts to calm the crowd of partygoers. At that moment, though...
01:33:20
Speaker
The water hits the exposed cables in the sewer, remember? i cannot. That was three issues ago. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. Yeah.
01:33:31
Speaker
The water hits the exposed cables in the sewer and the lights in the mansion pop off. Wolverine runs off to find the X-Men while Scott runs off to find Jean. Jean, meanwhile, has found her abuser, the cowardly Jason Weingard.
01:33:46
Speaker
new boy. Jean calmly watches Jason panic As she realizes that the extreme powers of the Phoenix, which had been held at bay, are now taking over.
Dark Phoenix's Power Surge and Consequences
01:33:58
Speaker
With her telekinesis, she slams the man against the wall and presses on him so hard that his body begins to crack the wood behind him. In his pocket, she finds a small vi device invented by the White Queen to allow Mastermind to access psychic powers beyond his normal range. Pause!
01:34:18
Speaker
thank you Yeah. What? Why is she an inventor? is she a super inventor that can make a telepathy machine? Yeah, also, you can you can make that? even Even in this universe, that seems a little too... Overpowered. Yeah, exactly. what Just give them to everybody. you Fucking what?
01:34:41
Speaker
yeah But, hey, it is... ah a minor detail well a pretty major maybe fucking roy thomas burst into the room at that moment that chris claremont was writing this and it's like you have to give him a you have to give him a psycho mind orito device kind of i like okay fine if you'll get out i'm not fucking calling it that if you get him if you get out of my house i will make yeah um it's just his jacket yeah
01:35:13
Speaker
yes I feel like like like it would be something you would wear on your head, but it's like you just have it in your pocket. just have it in my pocket. i can read Now I can read minds and control people's minds. ah just put this oh I just put this in my pocket and I can control anybody's mind. i can control the most powerful telepath on the planet Earth's mind.
01:35:34
Speaker
Okay, I'll put it in my pocket then. Sure. Fucking Christ. So Jean finds that she crushes it. And seeing that all Mastermind money wanted was power, she decides to give it to him.
01:35:48
Speaker
By connecting his mind with all the secret truths of the universe at once. She leaves him crying, drooling, and catatonic back to his greasy, lanky self.
01:36:01
Speaker
The illusion of Jason Weingart now gone and only a shell of the villain known as Mastermind left. This is, correct me if I'm wrong, not the first time that he's been left completely catatonic. um ah Yeah, i'm trying win that sounds right, but I'm trying to remember remember what the other event was.
01:36:24
Speaker
I don't remember how it happened, but somehow they trapped him in his own illusions. Oh, yeah, that sounds about right. He was also turned to stone and turned into a baby. Yes, all of those things. Man.
01:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, what a life. This is also, remember, so this, this, like, mega villain, right, who manages to unleash the Dark Phoenix is the guy who they sent to look, look ah walk around all of New York looking for the X-Men. Oh, yeah.
01:36:55
Speaker
Hey, hey. He's coming up oh no coming in the world. They drove right by him and he didn't find him. they drove right by him. He didn't find him. Yeah, he's coming up. He's coming up. Everything's coming up. a Mastermind until he's left drooling in a puddle of his own spit on the floor. The X-Men flee the Hellfire Club with the police closing in and the X-Men looking like criminals.
01:37:16
Speaker
And they hop in their mini X-Jet thing. It's a weird one. Cyclops, panicked about Jean's mental state, floors it towards New Mexico. But before they clear the block, Jean's power erupts.
01:37:28
Speaker
She floats in a new red and gold costume, her eyes glowing yellow and repeating the words she said when she was resurrected as the Phoenix. She blows the aircraft apart.
01:37:41
Speaker
Fuck, guys. Goddamn. What? so That Wolverine issue is so good. It is. Man. I was reading it and I was like, oh, this is why people like Wolverine. Yeah.
01:37:56
Speaker
It's like, i not not that i didn't get it before, but I really get it now. Yeah. so Yeah. Just him like clawing his way up through the sewers after just getting his ass handed to him. And he's like, and all of his friends captured.
01:38:12
Speaker
And he's like, barely breaking a sweat tearing through these guys. Yeah. Climbs up through the fucking dumbwaiter and he's sneaking around through this party, like through the mansion.
01:38:23
Speaker
So good. There's also a very good Scott moment. Okay. I think a defining characteristic of his. He he enters a psychic plane to try to connect with Gene through their psychic bond.
01:38:37
Speaker
He says when when he gets there, no way my imagination could come up with a place as weird as this. He's just in a blank space. He's just floating in a white space.
01:38:51
Speaker
It's very Scott to be like, this is freaky. I couldn't possibly come up with. kind of just nuts just a little too this mayonnaise a little too spicy yeah yeah couple thoughts scott while gene is still under the the the spell of the black queen she's flirting with harry leland and scott's like they've given her the instincts of a minx the instincts of a minx
01:39:24
Speaker
Slut shaming. Slut shaming fucking Jean Grey. Like maybe, maybe fucking she does deserve to be with Wolverine. Like Wolverine's never going to be like, why are you being a minx right now?
01:39:38
Speaker
Yeah, i I feel like in these issues, there's like a lot of a lot of themes of being threatened by a woman's sexual power. Right. And yeah, I think that's something throughout all of these issues.
01:39:52
Speaker
I think you're right. And I think that's something we're going to have to talk about in depth at the end of this issue and the end of this podcast, because I feel like it's a little hard to grasp exactly what the metaphor is here.
01:40:04
Speaker
And yeah, yeah. And it it it feels very it's it's very unlike Claremont for that to be the point. But some of this feels like that's the point.
01:40:15
Speaker
If women become powerful, she she becomes slut, right? She becomes slut. She go crazy. What's up with that? She start kiss everybody? She kiss everybody and my friend.
01:40:28
Speaker
Can't give lady power. No. Can't give lady power. She'll start kissing everyone. Honestly, the way... the women are drawn in these comics makes me think that this might be more of a burn thing than a Claremont thing.
01:40:44
Speaker
but i you yes Let me mention a couple of things that are maybe sexual in nature. ah Okay, please. Number one, here's our confirmation that Gene and Scott boned on the butt. They boned on the butt.
01:40:57
Speaker
they are They flash back. just Scott flashes back to it, thinking about that being the moment that they established the psychic bond, and they are both fully nude. Still a good moment, though. like and yeah Oh, yeah. It's very touching.
01:41:10
Speaker
but And guess who else is touching? Scott and Gene. Sometimes touching. Sometimes kissing. Kissing on the butt. And then we do get a brief Moira McTaggart cameo where she is worried about Jean's powers and the levels that they're reaching.
01:41:32
Speaker
Her breasts, Patrick, are significantly larger than they have been in past.
01:41:42
Speaker
It is insane. i didnt yeah i didn't notice. The proportions of these things. Kurt or Pert swears vengeance on whoever did this to Gene in his head.
01:41:55
Speaker
while While this is all going on, he's like, Gene, my dear friend, whoever is responsible for transforming you into the Black Queen will pay. Whatever it costs, however long it takes, this Nightcrawler swears. He when he needs to be serious, he really you know, you're in trouble. Yeah.
01:42:10
Speaker
Yeah. Warren Commission. Yes. but The Warren Commission. Angel is flying and the the flying around in New Mexico. And the narrator's like he goes he's this he's looking for trouble and he's a little disappointed when he finds well none.
01:42:27
Speaker
He's restless. Yeah. His bad superhero team ended and he didn't get to go with the X-Men. And now he's like, oh, shucks. I want to beat somebody up. Or rather because it's Angel.
01:42:39
Speaker
I want to get beat up. I was going to say not that ah not that there would be much he would do with um if he ran into trouble. He wouldn't – sorry. He wouldn't know what to do with it if he found it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So and all right. All right. A couple quick notes.
01:42:57
Speaker
ah Some more bad guys are named. Murray, Angelo, Cole, and Rosen. Yeah. um the hellfire club we find out is on the side of britain in the revolution oh yeah yeah that's what she imagined she imagines all her friends well okay she imagines all her friends are revolutionary war soldiers except for storm who she imagines is a slave she like slipped into that slave master role a little too easy yeah for my days That scene is brutal. And here's why I think it's a good scene, even though it is disturbing, is you have it paired next to this Wolverine kicking ass scene.
01:43:37
Speaker
And so you're seeing Jean and you're like, i hate this. I hate this. I hate Mastermind for doing this to her. I hate the Hellfire Club for doing this to her. This is horrible. And then immediately you cut to Wolverine and you're like, you fucking little bitches. This is what you get.
01:43:54
Speaker
Our boy, he's coming. He's going to tear your asshole open. Like it's so that like back to back thing is so ah energizing.
01:44:06
Speaker
Yes. Yes. ah It is. It's very good. And it's also just like the side by side brutality. These are two different forms of complete brutality. Oh, right.
01:44:17
Speaker
Is the Wolverine killing people left and right and Gene being ah an abusive and emotionally manipulative slave owner.
01:44:27
Speaker
Right. yeah And that thing about like she's like she keeps calling me beauty which is what Aurora means and she's doing it iron like she's doing it sarcastically.
01:44:41
Speaker
She's using my name against me with maoist which is really fucking brutal like that is so rough. yeah I got a little sucked into what Beast was reading in that in that quick little interlude.
01:44:58
Speaker
yeah And I just wrote a bunch of notes about the book he's reading. Okay, yeah, please. Okay, so he's reading The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian James. Okay.
01:45:13
Speaker
Is this a real book? It is a real book. Whoa. Holy shit. The book explores the nature of consciousness, particularly the ability to introspect and its evolution in ancient human history. James proposes that consciousness is a learned behavior rooted in language and culture rather than being innate.
01:45:32
Speaker
it's It's referenced in a David Bowie's song called The Boys Keep Swinging um in 1979. And it also plays a central role in the 2016 TV series Westworld.
01:45:46
Speaker
I thought you were going to say election. Oh, no, no, no, no. no Yeah. We're also in 1979 now in these comics.
01:45:57
Speaker
Or I guess we just turned into 1980. We're in the 80s now. Interesting. Yeah. because they Because in the David Bowie song, they do reference the bicameral mind. um I don't know if maybe somebody heard the song and they were like, oh, the bicameral mind.
01:46:11
Speaker
What's going on with that? ya Yeah, yeah. Let's put in the book. Very possible. I also thought it was funny that he said, a good book can't wait to see the movie. And I'm like,
01:46:22
Speaker
what That's a very good piece line. yeah I think that's all my my notes.
01:46:33
Speaker
Good, because it's about to get wild. With what? Issue number 135, Dark Phoenix. dark phoenix hu That's the name of the... our This... Yeah. The titular Dark Phoenix.
01:46:48
Speaker
Witness the birth of a god, the narration screams at us as the burst of light from the X-Men's airship lights up the sky over Central Park. The plane dematerializes around them and everyone starts plummeting to the ground. What's the rule, Matt?
01:47:04
Speaker
there's two rules here. Oh my gosh. First rule. Anytime the X-Men in a plane, it gets destroyed. Number two, anytime a issue starts with the X-Men plummeting to the ground from a plane, it's going good issue.
01:47:16
Speaker
It's going to be fucking gold. Great. Uh, Kurt even mentions, he's like not another aircraft destroyed. Uh, we know of course that they all know how to fall out of a plane. So we won't bore you with those details.
01:47:32
Speaker
Though, it is funny, when Storm saves Wolverine, he's like, much obliged. And she's like, I would have done this for anybody. yeah Hey, don't think you're special. I say i save people all the time.
01:47:46
Speaker
ah Back on the ground, no one wants to fight Jean, but they have to try. Unfortunately, none of it works. Storm's elemental forces, Colossus's strength, even Scott's emotional pleas have no effect.
01:48:00
Speaker
All the while, Jean seems to be sending Scott psychic images of her drowning, alone, consumed by black flames. It doesn't matter, though. She's taken all of the X-Men down.
01:48:12
Speaker
She lords over them, revealing that beating the X-Men was the last thing she needed to do to cut ties to the life of Jean Grey and live her destiny as the Phoenix. And then she takes off.
01:48:24
Speaker
Hey. Why? Why should to do this? I think it's... Why should need to fight the X-Men at all? Why? i think it's it's very ah dark side of the force coded, right? Where we if Luke Skywalker had killed his father he's finally shed the piece of him that wouldn't kill his father.
01:48:52
Speaker
Why? and Because, because good and evil, Matt. like yeah like I guess, I guess the why could be like, why didn't she just finish them off? But it's like, she she just beat him up real bad.
01:49:02
Speaker
Why even, why kill him anyway? Why not just ignore him? If you're a God, just fly away. Why? I just don't get it. I like, it's just like, oh, evil. When somebody's evil, they got to fight everybody. Like, no, you don't just don't leave.
01:49:16
Speaker
I think this makes sense. Like the Phoenix is a force trying to erase Jean Grey in this body. The strongest bond that Jean Grey has is with the X-Men. So the easiest way to affect that part of her psyche is to have her without being in control of it, responsible for all of their deaths.
01:49:41
Speaker
Like what does she have to live for beyond that point? What's the point of Jean Grey if she killed all the X-Men? Right. Well, okay. But that's that's with your knowledge that the Phoenix and Jean Grey are separate entities. At this moment in time, they are both personalities of Jean Grey.
01:49:58
Speaker
Right? Like, this idea that it's a cosmic force that lives within her is not the case right now. Yeah, but it's also been pretty clear that this is not Jean Grey, right? Not that it's like a battle for her psyche, but just that this is not the Jean Grey we know and love.
01:50:14
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. But yes, you're right. But the idea, but like, yeah, like it it makes them a bit more sense. What you're saying makes more sense when it is what it eventually becomes.
01:50:30
Speaker
Well, I think that's what they're revealing to us here. Well, no. Like, that's what she's saying is in order to... Yeah. Sorry. No, in this era, like, Claremont's talked about this a bunch of times, and Byrne has too. In this era, there was... This was just what happened to Jean Grey. Jean Grey went insane because she had too much power.
01:50:48
Speaker
And she had too much power because of cosmic rays that hit her and unlocked her natural mutant powers. So... this Right now, we are we're actually watching, as far as Claremont is intending to write it, that we're actually watching just two personalities fight inside her head. And they're both hers. they We're watching her just kind of go insane.
01:51:10
Speaker
Well, that's also ah potential answer to the question then. But yeah no, mean. It's long crazy. I see what you're saying. like it And I think that ultimately is the answer, and it's the answer they're giving us. and I just, I'm not sure.
01:51:25
Speaker
i don't know. It always feels weird to me. And like the Luke Skywalker thing felt weird to me. don't know how. We see Sebastian Shaw talking to Senator and presidential hopeful Robert Kelly minutes after the incident at the Hellfire Club discussing solutions to the mutant menace. Mutant menace! Yeah, they said the name. Mutant menace mention.
01:51:49
Speaker
They listen to our podcast. Shaw suggests bringing back Sentinels. Fuck. And the scene ends there. We see a few other cameos. The Thing and Mr. Fantastic, the thing Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and the Silver Surfer are all baffled by the power they can sense as Gene streaks into the sky, leaving Earth behind.
01:52:09
Speaker
ah The Thing's putting soap on his head. yeah um He must stink. um no please Can you make a rock? so I guess a rock could be stinky.
01:52:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I've met plenty of stinky rocks. why you were Why is Dr. Strange dr strange is reading a book called The Book of Hells? Because either that or he stole the Book of Kells from Ireland, which I don't think there's only one. copy It's not like the Book of Kells is its own book. It is a copy of the Bible that was made in Kells.
01:52:46
Speaker
So it's not like they're publishing it. No, exactly. that doesn't yeah hops just bible Yeah. So I think he's reading a book called the Book of Hells.
01:52:59
Speaker
Well, he's, he gets up to a lot. Yeah. yeah You know, when I read this page, I started thinking like, how do all the superheroes in New York decide who's going to do what?
01:53:12
Speaker
It's just like, you know, they're all in New York and it's like, uh, okay. I, I think it's actually the X-Men's day to, to do stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going sit this one out. Actually, it's Spider-Man's day to do this.
01:53:26
Speaker
They have like a rotating chore chart. it It is. They do account for the Avengers in this case, at least o by contacting beast, of course, and just being like, yeah Oh yeah. hey you them Nobody else is here. Yeah. yeah I love how like beast is just bored.
01:53:47
Speaker
Now that he's not on the X-Men anymore. Yeah. umm Yeah. I mean, and a lot of, a lot of these comics, they like, they mentioned they're like, uh, spider-man is away and the fantastic four are out of town and we don't know how to contact thor or whatever but like in this they're all there and they're just like yeah oh wow something bad is happening and anyway they stay away from that i'm gonna go i i got a uh i got a velveta mac and cheese deluxe to make oh the pizza just got here
01:54:22
Speaker
I got to go wash my head rock. but Yeah. Back in Central Park, finally arrives, just in time to help the X-Men recover and leave be before the authorities show up.
01:54:36
Speaker
Scott and Warren conference with Moira, and their discussion reveals that her power levels, that Jean's power levels are akin to a god's, and that her inhibitions appear to be gone.
01:54:48
Speaker
Meanwhile, Jean streaks through space, upsetting Peter Corbeau along the way. Peter Corbeau, is he here? ah She reaches, quote, a galaxy far, far away.
01:55:00
Speaker
yeah That had to be intentional. Sure. Well, I wonder. i would i maybe somebody that was like somebody that was alive at the time can tell us like i wonder if a galaxy far far away was something that just people in sci-fi just said like right was this as ubiquitous at in 1980 as it is today right did people just say ah galaxy far far away when they were talking about like oh it's some This is a movie or a TV show or book that deals with aliens.
01:55:35
Speaker
And then Star Wars did it. And for some reason, that's what the association hooked to. Or this just a difference? I don't know. i don't know if Star Wars did it first or if someone else did it first. and i always I always thought that Star Wars was doing it as like a play on like Once Upon a Time.
01:55:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:56:00
Speaker
And if that's the, this is, yeah, and go ahead. This is post new hope, but I believe it's pre empire, right? Empire comes about, comes out later this year. It's between four and five.
Cosmic Power and Emotional Struggles
01:56:12
Speaker
ah Right. So it hasn't yet become the.
01:56:17
Speaker
Cliche. and that it is yeah The big movie of three years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Okay. i She reaches a galaxy far, far away before feeling a deep hunger that drives her into the heart of a star.
01:56:32
Speaker
yeah She feeds, and the star is, quote, suddenly completely consumed by Dark Phoenix.
01:56:42
Speaker
This star, much like our sun, was the source of life for a nearby civilized planet. The resulting supernova puts an end to that. In a stunning aurora, the planet is destroyed.
01:56:54
Speaker
or A few space miles away, a Shi'ar warship passes by investigating the exploding star and spot Phoenix crackling with power. Understanding that she just committed a genocide, the Shi'ar attack, knowing that it's fruitless.
01:57:10
Speaker
The Shi'ar soldiers are able to reach Lalandra though, before being completely destroyed. She recognizes the firebird that was passed along in the transmission. The Phoenix, a force she hoped she would never have to face again.
01:57:26
Speaker
Back on Earth, the X-Men wonder how they could ever face Jean again, not just because of their emotional ties, but because she seems to have unlimited power. This, though, is interrupted by Scott, who pulls himself out of a catatonic state.
01:57:41
Speaker
He can sense Phoenix returning to Earth, and she's hungry. To be continued. Fuck. Wow. Yeah. um This genocide is like, there's a whole huge piece of Marvel creative lore about this. Like like behind the scenes lore that we will have to get into later. Wow.
01:58:13
Speaker
Like this, this, this, yeah, this is, this is sort of accidentally changes the entire story.
01:58:22
Speaker
Okay. Anyway. All right. Yeah. Quentin, you want to take us to 136? 136. Child of light darkness. oneth thirty six child of light and darkness Lelandra and her Grand Council of Weird Aliens meet in the Imperial Center ah to discuss the threat of the Phoenix.
01:58:41
Speaker
In light of her recent actions, they conclude that she must be destroyed. Jimmy Carter is calling the X-Men and no one is around to pick up the phone but Jarvis. Jimmy Carter and Jarvis are back. Yeah, Jimmy Carter. And speaking it is like, oh, I'm telling you. like exactly yeah Where's Iron Man? I was told the Avengers are always' always supposed to have someone on watch.
01:59:10
Speaker
Where's Hank Pym?
01:59:16
Speaker
Jimmy Carter is calling the Avengers and no one is around to pick up the phone but Jarvis ah because Beast has left his post. Beast is back in the X-Mansion developing a new ah a basic mnemonic scrambler.
01:59:29
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Just a basic mnemonic scrambler. Just your basic mnemonic scrambler. Just a basic mnemonic scrambler. No big deal. It's just a basic one. Yeah.
01:59:40
Speaker
A collar that's meant to scramble the Phoenix's thoughts when they face her next. and the rest of the X-Men train in the danger room, preparing for Phoenix's return. And return she does, quietly at first, as she lands in the yard of her parents, the Greys.
01:59:58
Speaker
but She walks ominously through the dark house until the light switches on and the and the scene warms. Jean greets her father, mother, and her sister Sarah, but she begins to feel overwhelmed by their thoughts.
02:00:12
Speaker
which you can't block out of her head. Oh, the worst. Could you imagine if you couldn't block out your mom and dad's thoughts after they just woke up out of bed together? Unbelievable.
02:00:23
Speaker
Unbelievable. It's, there's a really fun moment here where her sister goes, is it true that you're a superhero like mom says?
02:00:35
Speaker
Which is just if the last time we saw her parents, they were visiting the X mansion and she was showing them her crazy new Phoenix powers and just like lighting things up.
02:00:46
Speaker
And clearly her mom went back and was like, oh yeah, she's up to hers. You know, superhero thing. You know, your sister is a superhero.
02:00:57
Speaker
yeah You're living with us. Yeah.
02:01:05
Speaker
You know, it's her job to save people. You ever heard about that? A job?
02:01:12
Speaker
She went to college and she became a superhero.
02:01:18
Speaker
Just really hanging that over Sarah's head. Never gonna be good enough for you.
02:01:27
Speaker
She's got a boyfriend who can shoot eye beams. What's your boyfriend do again? He's a mechanic.
02:01:38
Speaker
Her parents love her, but they're also scared of her. Reacting, she displays her powers and threatens them, causing her father to denounce her. Before she can react, she notices the house is bathed in in a natural pea soup fog.
02:01:55
Speaker
Flying from the house to search for Storm and the X-Men, she stopped suddenly when Nightcrawler appears on her back, strapping the mnemonic scrambler on her head. basic It's a basic mnemonic scrambler. The basic mnemonic scrambler. It's just a basic mnemonic scrambler. No big deal.
02:02:12
Speaker
God. The other X-Men attack, trying to subdue her. But while the device limits her power, it doesn't remove it entirely. That's what happens when you go with the basic model. yes Should have used it. Should have went with the advanced model. You got there first!
02:02:30
Speaker
I was bleeding!
02:02:34
Speaker
Should have went with the advanced mnemonic scrambler. Went advanced mnemonic scrambler.
02:02:40
Speaker
ah Wolverine sees that everyone else is pulling their punches. So he tackles her and extends his claws about to stab her. He stops when he sees Jean's eyes come through in the face of the dark Phoenix full of tears. Oh my God.
02:02:55
Speaker
ah She asked him to finish her. While the human part of her is in control, he hesitates, and she flings him off, overloading the scrambler. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. wait so She should have gotten an a advanced mnemonic scrambler. There it is. Sorry. this is This is actually a heartbreaking moment, now right?
02:03:16
Speaker
And I know we've seen this referenced in a few places, but but Gene... was Wolverine saying nobody else here has the chutzpah to just kill her, which is clearly what we need to do now before she kills all of us and then destroys the world.
02:03:37
Speaker
So I will do it. I will be the bad guy here. He goes to do it and suddenly... The real Jean shows up and she is begging him to kill her. She's like, please end it now. I will do all these terrible thinking things you're thinking I'll do.
02:03:57
Speaker
And that is the moment that Wolverine is like, Jesus Christ, that's Jean. I cannot kill her. right It's so... complicated yes yeah and I think it's interesting we've we've been talking about how like this is when Wolverine becomes Wolverine this series of issues and like that thing too like i will be the guilty one I will take it yeah yeah like fine I don't like you guys can't do it I don't even want you to do it I will be the one right who lives with this right the watcher has a little something to say about that later
02:04:36
Speaker
the watcher fucking hate that guy okay the dark phoenix picks the x-men up telekinetically and holds them in midair colossus pleads with her but she see but she tells them she's no longer human and he groans in pain when cyclops appears from the trees stop it gene he says to to it's so fucking good it's just Stop it, Gene. Like, Claremont.
02:05:06
Speaker
Period. I got a little choked up during this. Yeah. for For all his words, Claremont knows when it can be really impactful just to keep something brief. And the stop it, Gene, is such like a. Oh, my God.
02:05:20
Speaker
It's that moment. She tries to to taunt him, but he persists, reminding her of who she is, all she's done for her friends, and all the X-Men have done for her.
02:05:32
Speaker
Just as she begins to relent, she cries out in pain. God damn it. collapses into Scott's arms. Professor X has arrived and uses a mind blast on her while she was distracted. That fucking guy.
02:05:46
Speaker
he couldn't, he couldn't trust Scott Summers, right? His paternalistic. He's so close. He's almost there. His paternalistic, like, fucking ego couldn't just let Scott do it.
02:06:02
Speaker
Sorry. It just, oh my God. And it was such a beautiful moment too. yeah yeah Like I was choking up reading that. Like it was such a beautiful moment, like him talking her down and he, like and then professor extra comes in and fucks it all up.
02:06:19
Speaker
And, and yeah. and such a And ah Scott is like, professor Xavier, what have you done? yeah Oh my God. The two square off in a psychic battle while the bright pink manifestation of the phoenix grows and grows and then explodes.
02:06:38
Speaker
A nude Jean Grey collapses to the ground, smoldering. Cyclops runs to her and takes her in his arms. He lifts her up, worried that she's dead and pledging himself to her for life when she wakes up.
02:06:52
Speaker
A weary Jean hears his thoughts and asks if he's proposing. Scott says he is. Gene says yes. The two kiss as the other X-Men begin picking themselves up after the battle.
02:07:04
Speaker
The Greys emerge from their house and Angel arrives from behind the professor. Hey, I'm here now. And Angel is also here. Yeah, hi. Angel is also here.
02:07:17
Speaker
Oh, is the fight done? Oh, shucks. Bing it. I was going to fly around. can do it now if you want.
02:07:29
Speaker
Before the explanations start, though, Gene, Scott, Xavier, Wolverine, and Colossus, Nightcrawler, Angel, Storm, and Beast all begin to glow and suddenly disappear.
02:07:42
Speaker
Fuck. Fuck. what God damn it. What a wild. So, okay. i did the There's not a lot of notes that that I have about this one, but i do want to talk about the cover for a minute.
02:07:56
Speaker
Yo, the cover is iconic. Yes, it is the classic cover of Cyclops holding Dark Phoenix's limp body in his hands while the ah X-Men are all behind him and her parents and Professor Xavier are all behind him like...
02:08:12
Speaker
looking away or looking on in horror. Yeah. and you know, Cyclops is holding her and kind of like yeah screaming in anguish. This will eventually be copied by George Perez on Crisis of Infinite and Earths number seven when super with Superman Supergirl, right?
02:08:29
Speaker
Yeah. And these are probably the two most famous versions of this, but apparently, so there's like, i found a thread online where people just post all the times they call it the superhero carrying posts.
02:08:42
Speaker
Yeah. and um Yeah. Supergirl. Was it Jason Todd when Jason Todd dies? Yeah. And is this the first? No. Of those covers? No. Okay. No. But it is like ah it is clearly what George Perez is referencing because it's so close.
02:08:58
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But this, yeah, this had been done a bunch of times. And a lot of people assume, i don't know if anybody's, i don't know ifs like Byrne has said this specifically, but a lot of people assume this is based on Michelangelo's paeta.
02:09:12
Speaker
which is that statue of ah the Virgin Mary holding nude Jesus limp across her lap. I have just a couple of small notes. Yeah.
02:09:24
Speaker
Lalandra wakes up in her bedroom. She's got a little photo orb of Charles Xavier next her. That's cute. Adorable. thats that's cute adorable There is something here I noticed in the Child of Light and Darkness in 136.
02:09:43
Speaker
They are taking the time to really briefly re-explain each of the X-Men's powers. Oh, Like, they give them a single frame and then say, like, okay, this is Nightcrawler.
02:09:54
Speaker
He can teleport. He can climb walls. He's also nearly invisible. Nearly invisible in the shadows. Still he is still here with us. Clearly, they're expecting some new readers here, right? it's yeah It's really clear that the Dark Phoenix issue really brought people's attention to the X-Men, which isn't going to die down after this. This is really when, like, we've been seeing stuff that the...
02:10:21
Speaker
these comic people's comics of the X-Men were just considered like, if you like comics, you should be reading the X-Men. This is a sign that Dark Phoenix really brought in readers and they now have to try to bring those new readers in and it works. Those readers stick around. The sales of X-Men start skyrocketing from here.
02:10:43
Speaker
Yeah. There's a little Claremontism that happens in issue 135, which which is uh claremont has to tell you when one of his characters made a joke basically every time like there's a there's a there's a scene where i think like storm is picking herself up off the ground cyclops is like are you all right and she's like you know besides i'm bruised and my lungs hurt and everything on my body aches other than that i'm ready for action leader or whatever and beast is like
02:11:16
Speaker
Hey, I think the lady just cracked a joke there, Scotty. like Is that? I don't think she's being sincere. Fucking yeah. This is something Claremont's going to just continue to do is people say things that are barely jokes. And then somebody else is like, oh, looks like somebody learned how to make a joke just now.
02:11:36
Speaker
Learned how to make a joke. Going back to 135, jotted down just more instances of like sexual language to describe the Dark Phoenix.
02:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's like she strikes like the angel of death, terrible in her unhuman beauty, as elemental, as majestic as the stars in the heavens and as irresistible.
02:12:01
Speaker
And then there's like a thought bubble of ah Jean's enjoying this. Using her power is turning her on. Yes. Acting like the ultimate physical slash emotional stimulant.
02:12:12
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. It's very ah similar to like the the vague sexuality that they plugged into her last time at full Phoenix power.
02:12:25
Speaker
Mending together the M. Cran crystal. Yeah. universe but also they reference that they also reference like the uh the tree of life comparison and how it differs from the mindset she's in now yeah ah quentin i do think it is on purpose right i do think this is definitely oh yeah yeah i do think it is definitely claremont saying this is sexual for her she is yeah she is having orgasmic like experiences from this power that she's imbibing.
02:12:58
Speaker
He says as much sometimes in interviews, but even, even without, even if the artist is dead, I think it's all clearly here on the page. Right. of I just find it very fascinating.
02:13:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. And sometimes I wish other people were handling it, but. Yeah.
02:13:15
Speaker
yeah It is consistent, though. It is very clear that they consider this a yeah a sexual experience for her. yeah As well as among everything else that she's experienced.
02:13:26
Speaker
Well, right. And then, I mean, like, her, like, the fact that it's linked to her sexual awakening, I guess, is what it was supposed to be with Jason Weingart. The first time she feels passion for a person rather than just, like, her schoolyard crush on Scott Summers.
02:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, And yeah this first time that, and she, like, comes out in this corset and she's like in that fucking ah ah punk rock club, punk rock disco club, like this mash of like weird genres because Claremont doesn't know what any of this stuff is. um but So she's in this club and she's just like, we pointed out earlier, she's like, I find this all exciting.
02:14:06
Speaker
it's It's Claremont somehow like sort of dealing with Jean's sexual awakening in like a, in a very weird way. Yeah. Do you have more notes, Quentin? Are you ready for me to tell you oh yeah about 137? Oh yeah, let's go for it. The fate of the Phoenix!
02:14:24
Speaker
The Watcher recaps the story of the Phoenix quick before suddenly the X-Men find themselves transported to space on the flagship of the Shi'ar's Grand Fleet.
Trial by Combat and Jean's Sacrifice
02:14:37
Speaker
Lalandra tells them before a huge auditorium of alien aliens... that for her crimes, they must destroy the Phoenix. Solemnly, Gladiator tells the group about Phoenix destroying a star called Dabari, creating a supernova that took out a planet with 5 billion inhabitants on it.
02:14:58
Speaker
The X-Men predictably take this pretty hard. Cyclops tries to plead with the Empire that the Dark Phoenix is gone and Jean has her powers under control and it does them no good.
02:15:10
Speaker
until Professor X demands a duel of honor.
02:15:16
Speaker
What? Yeah, apparently the Shi'ar are honor-bound to accept this as a form of trial. So after a quick conference with some alien leaders, Lalandra accepts. This is another part of, like, Professor X just getting himself involved.
02:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Honestly, you he shouldn't be here. He was brought along just because he's the Queen's boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he they meant to bring the X-Men. Yeah.
02:15:41
Speaker
He is fucking up this this whole plan. Yeah. And so, so bad for for everybody. And I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's wrong for them to have gone through this trial by combat, but professor X just takes it upon himself and beast comments on this, right? Like you, yeah you're just like speaking for all of us that he just takes it upon himself to be like, my guys will fight your guys.
02:16:05
Speaker
Who's going to do what now? Yeah. Like who's going to do what? sees You're not, you're not our dad. Yeah. The X-Men, speaking of that you're not our dad, the X-Men retreat to their rooms.
02:16:21
Speaker
Go to your room. And they each get a scene in which they debate internally what they should do given all the information they just received. While training on some weird bar things, Nightcrawler thinks of his days in Germany and how he'd never be able to forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust.
02:16:38
Speaker
So how could he forgive Gene? Gene? Oh, thank God. While he tortures himself, he misses a jump and Angel catches him. The two discuss their decision and Angel is likewise worried that he won't be able to fight for Gene.
02:16:52
Speaker
Wolverine, nude and showering, thinks about how he's the only one that understands Jean for who she is. He can't he believes she can't be held responsible for the actions of the Phoenix, but worries about what he'll have to do if the professor can't split those personalities apart.
02:17:08
Speaker
Meditating, he decides that no matter what happens in the future, he'll stand by her for now. He's the only one that I think has it all correct. i mean, of course, Nightcrawler saying he would never forgive the Nazis is the objectively right place to be. right But I think Wolverine is the only one who really understands the situation completely of like...
02:17:29
Speaker
I'm standing by Jean because she's a friend. She's family. i love her. But also, I've still got killing her on the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. if this if if If we can separate them, she's not culpable for this crime.
02:17:44
Speaker
Yeah. If we can't separate them, then I'm going to have to kill her later. But right and this isn't how she deserves to go out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beast, also nude and showering, refuses to even think about the decision as he knows no matter whether Jean is evil or good, she deserves a fair trial.
02:18:03
Speaker
This is also very fair. Right. He's like, I don't care. I don't care if she's guilty. I don't care if she's innocent. i don't care if she's evil. don't care if she's good. don't care if she's my friend or my enemy.
02:18:14
Speaker
This is wrong. You can't just although unilaterally decide to do this to a person. It does seem like that's where the whole Shi'ar situation was heading until Professor was like, let's actually fight each other. Professor X!
02:18:29
Speaker
Just fucking up the whole plan. Colossus, nude and in bed, thinks about how he owes his life to Jean and has just struggled so hard to save her. How can he betray her now?
02:18:43
Speaker
a simple, simple little Colossus. Very Peter. yeah Storm, nude and in bed. course. They're all nude! Anyway. ah they yeah which you didn't get they They didn't get to pack jammies. they got They got zipped up into space. They didn't get to pack jammies.
02:19:03
Speaker
And the Shi'ar just don't have any jammies, unfortunately. They don't believe in them.
02:19:10
Speaker
It actually offends us if you try to put on jammies. Actually, we killed all the people that wore jammies. Now there will be no jammies. Please. She our empire. Okay.
02:19:23
Speaker
Storm Newton in bed thinks about our friendship with Jean was the first thing that made the X-Men feel like family to her and decides based on that to defend her. Cyclops.
02:19:36
Speaker
stands on a little observation deck, staring out at the stars and thinking about how Llandra might be right. Not nude. Not nude. Not nude. Unfortunately. No, his little Scott Summers penis waving but amongst the stars.
02:19:54
Speaker
you Or it's maybe a big Scott Summers penis. I don't know. um Dark Phoenix is a threat to the entire universe, but Jean has done so much good in her life.
02:20:05
Speaker
He's torn so deeply he can't come to a decision until Jean walks into the room dressed in her old Marvel girl uniform. and Jean herself has been wrestling with the decision of allowing others to fight for her when she destroyed an entire world.
02:20:21
Speaker
Scott decides that her giving up would be letting the Phoenix win. Jean is not evil. He loves her and he'll stand by her.
02:20:31
Speaker
Jean, if you guys will notice, says she loves him too, but does not state a decision here. yeah yeah The Shi'ar have decided that the battle will take place on the famed Marvel Comics landmark, the Blue Area of the Moon, a crater on our moon and that has moon gravity, but Earth atmosphere somehow.
02:20:50
Speaker
As if atmosphere and gravity aren't related. As they fly there, Scott lets the other X-Men know that he's okay with whatever they decide, but he's fighting for Gene.
02:21:03
Speaker
Warren steps forward and tells him that the X-Men have talked it over. And they're all in. Warren, the fuck are you doing here, dude? You got zipped up! You got zipped up! Did he get a room?
02:21:19
Speaker
Or no? Did Warren get a room? we don't we don't We don't know. He just had this Sharon jungle gym with Nightcrawler. Yeah, Nightcrawler's perfectly fine sleeping on a jungle gym. Just like hangs upside down by his tail. And Warren's just like uncomfortably trying to like fit himself on like in between the bars all night.
02:21:41
Speaker
Down on the moon, the X-Men gather for the coming battle. When they see the Imperial Guard pop into the distance, Angel flies up out of the crater and passes out.
02:21:54
Speaker
What are you doing here, man? Why are you here? What are you doing? go home. He's so bad at this. So, so bad. ah though Thankfully, Storm catches him before he hits the ground. An adult.
02:22:08
Speaker
As the Imperials advance, Scott splits the X-Men up into teams. Team one is Angel, Nightcrawler, Marvel Girl, and Cyclops, while team two is Storm, Colossus, and and Wolverine. Is there one other person? Oh, and Beast.
02:22:21
Speaker
Team one quickly runs into the fiery starbolt, the super strong smasher, Manta, whose powers, I don't know, and the telepathic oracle. Team Two faces a big blobby robot named Warstar, who is actually two robots, as they find out when one springs out to tangle with the beast while the other fights Colossus.
02:22:40
Speaker
A robot that's two robots. One weakness.
02:22:47
Speaker
Gladiator shows up and rips the ground out from under Storm and Wolverine, causing Wolverine to tumble into a weird crystal dome, like through the wall. Storm tangles with Earthquake and Hussar and gets her ass beat.
02:23:00
Speaker
Meanwhile, Smasher beats Angel's ass and throws him down a hole. Nightcrawler dives after him and finds himself lost in a series of hallways. He sees and tries to sneak up on Manta, but she blasts him with some kind of light beam and he crumples to the ground.
02:23:16
Speaker
Oh, because she's Manta, she shoots rays. Hmm. Fuck this. I'm quitting. I can't read the X-Men anymore.
02:23:27
Speaker
ah Wolverine, we find out, has somehow fallen into the Watcher's house. It's weird, and we can probably ignore it. ah yeah I think they just needed to fill a few pieces.
02:23:38
Speaker
Yeah! watcher like sends him to the past and the future like what the fuck he's like please don't come here again as if wolverine went searching for him and it i wasn't trying to come here just like throws him out like ah like kicking um dj jack yeah Jazz getting thrown out of the house. Yeah. Okay. um Oh, he gets out. he Yeah, hes he gets throwns out thrown out and he sees Storm, but it's not Storm. It's a Skrull trying to make sure the X-Men lose.
02:24:12
Speaker
But then a Kree doing the same thing shows up and they take each other out. Another thing that we didn't need. this is a lot of shit happening i know yeah this is this is chris claremont's sense of humor think is ah a scroll and a cree having to fight side by side and being like doing i don't want to fight next to you right help me yeah War Star, the two robots, electrocutes Beast, and then gloss ah Gladiator and Colossus end up in a punch a giant punch fest until the building they're in falls down around them.
02:24:48
Speaker
Only Gladiator emerges. As the X-Men start to lose, Professor X looks on, tortured by guilt, while Alandra watches him feeling the thing. Good. Feel bad about this. Yeah, yeah this is your fault.
02:25:02
Speaker
You should feel bad about this. So much of this is your fault, Professor X. Cyclops and Gene find themselves running into a remote corner of the complex, trying to buy time to recuperate a little before hopping back into battle.
02:25:15
Speaker
The guard is in hot pursuit, though, and there's nowhere to hide until that is Gene uses her telekinetic powers to create a screen of dust in a nearby cubby. They tell each other how much they love one another as they get ready to jump into battle. It's it's fucking good. It's very sweet. They think they're both going to die. They know all the other X-Men are down.
02:25:37
Speaker
They grab each other's hands. It's also, it's another one of those moments where Claremont knows to be concise about it and has them just say like, hey, i could say a million words here, but what's important is we're in this together. I love you so much.
02:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They fight bravely, but when Scott hits the ground, hell breaks loose. We see the Phoenix's flames light up the sky. Suddenly, suddenly the Shi'ar ship monitoring the battle from space is struck with a powerful bolt. Dark Phoenix is back and completely out of Jean's control.
02:26:09
Speaker
Professor X knows what he has to do. He contacts all the X-Men, letting them know it's time to turn the battle against Jean. Oh, no. Scott, ever the leader, reluctantly fires the first shot. He tries to plead with Jean, but the only part of her that's fighting through the Phoenix's control is telling him he has to finish the job.
02:26:29
Speaker
Ororo tries a tornado, but she's too hurt to keep going. Wolverine and Colossus try a reverse fastball special because it's moon gravity. Of course, it's pretty cool that they do this. but ka I'll give him the moon gravity.
02:26:43
Speaker
But Colossus pulls his punch at the last moment. He's never had to kill before, let alone a friend in need. He did kill Proteus, though. That's true. yeah Although he says, I've never had to kill before. Yeah.
02:26:55
Speaker
Colossus, what are you say what are you talking about? Jean runs and only Cyclops is left to follow. He pleads with her, but it's too late. She knows she can't control it. She carries the guilt of five billion lives and it's time to end it all.
02:27:07
Speaker
She tells Scott she loves him and that he'll always be a part of her. And then, in a flash of light, she's gone. As Scott works out internally, she sensed where the weapons powerful enough to kill Phoenix were on this base and led the fight there to solve the problem herself.
02:27:23
Speaker
Jean Grey... Is gone. This isn't like when we normally say this shit. And it's like. ah And they're dead and gone forever. Like she's gone. She's gone. Jean Grey's dead.
02:27:34
Speaker
Yeah. The watcher has to explain to his robot the recorder. That this is all just part of humanity. We have the capacity for good and the capacity for evil. But what makes us unique is that we have the capacity for self-sacrifice.
02:27:45
Speaker
When faced with a difficult choice. Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die. ah human. I know you hate The Watcher, Matt, but that is, a i think, great speech to close this out. Yeah, yeah.
02:28:00
Speaker
I do hate The Watcher. It's just a lot of exposition. It's just he shows up and it's just like, oh I'm going to read a whole lot here. But let's not let it take away from this. was This is one of the greatest.
02:28:11
Speaker
It's just the last stand of Gene and Scott, right? The ultimate expression of their love love. We've learned how to do this together and we're going to die doing this together. Yeah.
02:28:28
Speaker
It's just really powerful. Like it's unreal how effectively this relationship is written between the two of them and the way that they balance her decision-making between Jean's decisions and the Phoenix's decisions.
02:28:47
Speaker
Yeah. Oh man, there's going to be so much to talk about here. um I want to talk about something stupid first, real quick. I'm not going to entirely drop the seriousness because this is warren a war in commission. He flies into the air until he freezes, stops breathing, and falls almost dying. He's so bad at using his powers. He also calls the Imperial Guard impies at one point.
02:29:10
Speaker
yeah he sucks sure but i i do think there's something interesting going on here i like interesting characterization i think warren kind of represents the old goofy like fun loving x-men and they're just he doesn't fit in with this like military task force styled x-men he doesn't fit in with the threats they have to face and the things that the challenges that they're up against like this piece he hasn't grown up yeah This piece of the old X-Men just doesn't fit anymore. And while Beast has gone off and become an Avenger so he like kind of can keep up, Angel just can't.
02:29:46
Speaker
He went and became a champion. He was in the champions in between the X-Men and now And he didn't do much there either. No. So he's just he's just not good enough, honestly. Like, he's just...
02:29:59
Speaker
And also, it's funny, ah Chris Claremont, like, congratulates himself on writing Warren Good. He's like, Warren says, like, basically, legit literally says, ah i made a big mistake. It's entirely keeping within with my character. yeah It's what my character would do, is be bad at stuff all the time ah yeah and it's like Yeah, okay, fine. Yeah, you're right, Chris.
02:30:27
Speaker
You're right, Chris. You did good writing Warren today. There's really, there's not much to pick apart here, right? This last issue, I really thought with 136, Child of Light and Darkness, that that was going to be our conclusion, and then this was going to sort of lead us into a new arc.
02:30:49
Speaker
Right. And no, it absolutely wasn't. This story just continues to be told. And they find a new and really interesting way to continue to tell it.
02:31:02
Speaker
Right. Now, I do think there's something here in the metaphor about a woman finding herself and finding her power. And...
02:31:13
Speaker
it being too dangerous she her then being too dangerous to allowed be allowed to live it's hard to tell which side of that claremont comes down yeah because yeah this is kind of one of the foundational stories of like that trope yeah of like the the the woman superhero that like can't control her powers or something like that you know right And Chris Claremont generally is more progressive about gender issues than that.
02:31:43
Speaker
And so you sort of wonder, is he trying to say like society won't allow ah woman to be powerful? Women aren't allowed to make mistakes with power the way that men are? Like, what it's hard to tell what he's trying to say. Or does he is he legitimately just not conscious of the metaphor that he's illustrating?
02:32:03
Speaker
Yeah, or like, or even in the story where fucking Charles x Xavier keeps butting in and screwing shit up.
02:32:14
Speaker
So it's like, we'll never know if she was ever going to be able to get to a place where she could control her powers. We'll never know that. Right. Because of his interference.
02:32:26
Speaker
Because of a a man who couldn't let go of his paternalism. Exactly. Exactly. And his feelings of inadequacy but ah ah compared to his male student.
02:32:37
Speaker
We'll never know what she could have been. And let's not forget that he was also in love with Jean. Oh, God. I do want to forget that. I want to forget that so deeply. Disgusting.
02:32:50
Speaker
i think that the metaphor... revolves a little more around dealing with a person with mental illness, like a severe mental illness, and just the ah impact that it has on your friends and family, on all the people around you, and how easy it is to be Mm-hmm.
02:33:15
Speaker
while suffering from mental illness, right? The gene perspective is, hey you might be at a point that's actually dangerous. You are still going to be able to maintain to a degree where people will notice that something's off, but just assume that everything's normal. That that is it's a very private battle that she's fighting. And then Because of that, the entire, her entire family has to deal with the most extreme version of that fallout.
02:33:46
Speaker
yeah i think that's that's kind of that's where i was reading this sexism aside i think that's really interesting i think yeah i mean i think like you also see a bunch of the ways that people handle a person who's mentally who's going through mental ah ah health struggles um and their connection to them right like you see again the I'm repeating this word over and over, but you're seeing like the ah paternalism of Charles x Xavier, right? And that's that sort of thing about like you're just trying to control her mental state. Yes. Yeah. Like you're exactly your parents might do that.
02:34:26
Speaker
um Or, you know, even a spouse might do that. Then you see Jason Weingart, mastermind, exploiting yeah ah that mental illness for his own gain.
02:34:37
Speaker
Encouraging her to lean into it. Right. And then you see, yeah it's it's hard to say where, where, where like Cyclops and Wolverine both are different sides of this coin of like really embracing her despite it or because of it. Right. Like I love you, not just despite your mental illness.
02:34:58
Speaker
I love you because of it. It's a part of you. It's a part of you. Yeah. and like But also can't separate it Yeah. their helplessness in being there for her. Right. right Like being, you being unable, despite being the most dedicated boyfriend or friend or aspiring boyfriend, there's nothing you can do to help.
02:35:20
Speaker
This is Wolverine's an aspiring boyfriend. Yeah. He totally is an aspiring boyfriend. So funny. um But yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good point, Pat. It is. Yeah. her battle that she, that no one can fight for her.
02:35:33
Speaker
Wild. I said something smart. Quentin, you have some final thoughts about this whole arc? Like, as it as an arc, as an arc of the X-Men, as and as a chapter of the X-Men. and Yeah, um I really enjoyed reading this this run. i know for a long time I've been trying to figure out my entry point into the X-Men and listening to this ah this podcast has really helped with oh like figuring out these these characters and what make them tick. and And this is like a story that I have heard of.
02:36:08
Speaker
i have I've seen multiple attempts to make it into a movie. And also like on the animated series.
Adaptation Critiques and Character Development
02:36:18
Speaker
And reading it and reading it None of those really do it justice.
02:36:24
Speaker
None of them got it right. not even none of not an all none of them None of them do it justice. And it reading this, it made me feel like I was really, really missing out on some really good storytelling.
02:36:38
Speaker
I was really missing out on a really great love story that the movies yeah do not seem to be interested in at all. Yeah, like like the first time they tried to do it, they killed Scott in like the first five minutes of the movie. Scott is very central to the story.
02:36:57
Speaker
Why did you kill him five minutes into the story? i i almost walked out of the movie at that moment. because And especially like almost right afterwards, they just start talking about other shit.
02:37:09
Speaker
Yeah, like, they don't even acknowledge that he died until, like, the end where you see his head stowed. Yeah, no one even says, like, and ah Scott's dead, and, like, never! It's fucking... Okay, sorry.
02:37:21
Speaker
and yeah That movie sucks. That's one of the worst... That that movie is... This is for Sinewave Sean specifically, but will stand by X-Men The Last Stand.
02:37:32
Speaker
I think it has some good elements to it, but... i want to I want to actually piggyback on what Quentin said. Yeah, you're right. Nobody's ever gotten this totally right, right? Like, I felt like I knew this story the first time I... Before the first time I read it, right?
02:37:45
Speaker
when When I'd known it from the animated series and it's reference and references to it in other comics... And then i first that the first time I read this, as an adult, I think I read it as a kid and it ah bounced off me a little bit.
02:38:00
Speaker
Sure. um But the first time I read this as an adult a few years ago, all the way through, it's mind-blowing how how much subtle character development is in this.
02:38:11
Speaker
how Yeah. How he doesn't just, like, there's big, dramatic, soap operatic things happening, but there's also really subtle cycle psychology happening in each character, and it's consistent.
02:38:23
Speaker
And unlike other comics at the time, like it's not plot based. It is entirely character based. Yeah. And the plot comes from the characters and the reactions.
02:38:36
Speaker
I think also as an X-Men story, I think this really helps define what's good about the X-Men. Like, again, you have the X-Men failing, but being underestimated and coming back and beating fucking ass, then you have them making like this decision. Like we need to take this into our own hands, going after the hellfire club, kind of failing and society blaming it on them. And those are that's consequences. We're going to see.
02:39:08
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah. Very soon in a really first footprint. Yeah. In a really big way. And another story that's almost as famous as the dark Phoenix saga. Also, You see some of the these individuals coalesce, right?
02:39:21
Speaker
We get really like, this is what Professor X's role is in the X-Men now. He has changed. He has changed from this benevolent leader to this kind of- Control freak. Control freak that is out of his league.
02:39:36
Speaker
He's out of his death yeah now. And then you have Cyclops, who you see what drives him as a leader. You see what drives him as a person. You see what drives him as as a boyfriend. You have, like, Cyclops really being the the character that was always kind of locked inside him. And his development is so fucking...
02:39:57
Speaker
and Fully informed by everything he's been through from issue one to now. A whole, like, almost 150 issues of development. yeah And they are they're all here.
02:40:10
Speaker
In his character. And then finally. This Wolverine idea. Like not only is he just a badass. In these issues. You got this idea that like.
02:40:21
Speaker
He's not just a wild man. And an asshole right. He is a loving kind person. But he has these deep. Well of like anger and brutality.
02:40:32
Speaker
But his prime. Those aren't his primary characteristics. His primary characteristic is that he exercises. Restraint over those impulses. so Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah there's a moment where Cyclops is like, we gotta go.
02:40:47
Speaker
And Wolverine's like, oh, we're just giving up. I hate that, but whatever you say, boss man. And it's like, yes, that is Wolverine. That right there. How did you not find that until right now?
02:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. His respect for earned authority. Right. and And his ability to control himself regardless of what he wants. Yeah. oh Fuck.
02:41:10
Speaker
Yeah. I have two things. I have a silly one and a serious one. Yeah. The silly one is just Chris Claremont is through this run referencing so many things that happened in the X-Men's past and Roger Stern and Jim Salicrupp feel the need to notate every single one. It's very, yeah I think that's just their job, right? They're the editor. If somebody drops a piece of past lore, they have to pop in with the little, don't forget this is from X-Men 111, Jim.
02:41:44
Speaker
They have to do it like every other page here just because it's so, so deeply sunk into the X-Men's lore. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, this was all the way back in...
02:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, I really like the citations. Or even like, this was last issue. Like, okay. ah Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's been and and an arc that has been seeded for the last 30 issues. So yeah, of course, there's going to be 30 different issues that get referenced in these nine. Yeah.
02:42:14
Speaker
It's just, it's why I've never seen anything like it. ah The serious one, and this is why I was making funny faces at you, Matt, was i think the biggest character progression we got in this arc is like Xavier's.
02:42:29
Speaker
I think the idea of... Him, through the first, what, 68 issues, being the same person that he is in this comic, but being seen as the natural leader. Like, this is just a thing that leader a leader would do in this situation, whether it's faking his own death or...
02:42:53
Speaker
calling on the X-Men to sacrifice themselves despite it not being a threat worth that sort of thing. yeah That was always just like, well, it's a superhero team. This is what they do. And I think that was sort of the style at the time for for comics. right He comes back here, and I know this isn't the first time Claremont has written him, but it's the first time that Claremont's like, what if this 60s comics Charles x Xavier...
02:43:22
Speaker
was still 60s comics Charles Xavier, and he's interacting with 70s, comics characters. Yeah. He's actually a huge prick. Like, there's no reason for people to like him. And that is highlighted in every single appearance of his here. He's egotistical.
02:43:40
Speaker
He is putting his desire for control over the well-being of his students while still manipulating them into doing what he asks them to, or at least trying to. And when he doesn't get his way, which didn't happen in the first 60 issues, it happens here, he turns into a baby about it.
02:44:05
Speaker
This is a man who at one point was a legitimate superhero, And he's fallen this far because because he's aged out of it, I guess.
02:44:19
Speaker
And I mean, there's an argument to be said that not just how it ends, but this whole thing is his fault. Yeah. He put them in these situations that led to this. He trained Jean to deal with things the way she does.
02:44:36
Speaker
Yeah. And I think beyond that, even just saying like, oh, well, he formed the X-Men and the X-Men are here He's the one and I'm not arguing. I think this is what you're saying. But he's the one who gave her this mentality. Yes. I think back all the time to him pretending he was dead, telling her and making her keep that secret, which, again, at the time.
02:45:01
Speaker
We just kind of blew by or the writers just kind of blew by because they were like, well, that's how the story works. Yeah. Plot based storytelling. Yeah. But it fits in right here where, yeah, of course, that's something that he would make Gene do. And of course, Gene accepting that as...
02:45:20
Speaker
the right thing to do in that situation, going to have some repressed, fucked up issues from it. Right. She had to pretend her father figure was dead to all her brother figures for months.
02:45:32
Speaker
And yeah yeah, I mean, even, even the very basic putting children in harm's way, even that fucking basic idea is all over this.
02:45:44
Speaker
He took a little girl. He to treat them like children. He took a little girl and he turned her, her life into this. Yeah. She didn't know that's what she was signing up for when she came to learn how to control her powers.
02:45:57
Speaker
Which is what the confrontation at her parents' house is illustrating for us. Right, where her dad is up in Charles x Xavier's face. Like, what the fuck is going on here?
02:46:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's, you yeah. They humanize her and turn that on Professor Xavier. Yes. i think it's really, uh...
02:46:21
Speaker
yeah wait Again, it's it's these little things that we've never had to do this with these comics before, but you have to take these moments and say, yeah so that explains this about their character rather than them just saying, here's what my character is going to do.
02:46:36
Speaker
ah Right. Because this is the first time somebody, yeah, I mean, we wouldn't have known any of this had we not been reading this fucking book from the beginning, including the issue issues you're not supposed to read.
02:46:51
Speaker
Right. Like champions 1 through 18. Well, I mean, that taught us a lot about fucking Warren Worthington and why he's so weird here. Like why his actions stick out like a fucking sore thumb. and We learned through champ. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is legitimizing our whole wild endeavor.
02:47:18
Speaker
All right. This was so good. So good. Yeah. So it's very good. so Thanks for inviting me to this. Yeah, thanks for yeah of course thanks for doing it with us. We're not out of the barrel yet,
Collectibles and Humorous Sign-off
02:47:29
Speaker
though. What do you mean? yeah he's got ngh out of the you by up you a time machine that you would like to try out and you feel That's right, folks. We got a Steals and Deals for you today. We've also got an honorable mention. i do want to quickly...
02:47:48
Speaker
mentioned that we saw our first ad for the star wars kenner collection action figures i grabbed this just because these are the action figures that are now worth thousands of dollars right these are the ones that a bunch of kids bought in the late 70s early 80s they took her out of the package they chewed on them they uh buried them in their backyards. Now there's only like 15 Luke Skywalker in his red five uniform action figures in existence. And they're all worth 10 grand.
02:48:27
Speaker
This was your chance to buy one of those. Incredible. yes Of course, it was only an honorable mention. We have a true Pat Steele end deal.
02:48:39
Speaker
You'll go bats for Gregory. be Big bad vampire bat. He's big. He's fearsome. But best of all, he's fun. Gregory, big bad vampire bat is eight inches tall with a wingspan more than a foot wide. Why you want this? This is just this is a rubber bat.
02:49:04
Speaker
i I don't know why they named him Gregory, but that the biggest word on the ad here. Yeah, it's Greg-gory. Greg-gory. Greg-gory. But it's just Gregory is the thing. Can I read to you some of the fun things you can do with Gregory?
02:49:24
Speaker
I would love to find out. Please do. What can I do with Gregory? Put your finger in his mouth and see what happens when you squeeze him. All right. yeah Number two, you can look at his see-through belly and watch the red liquid flow.
02:49:41
Speaker
That's what I'm always thinking about when I look at that, is like, what's going on in their belly? What's going on in that belly? What you got going on in that belly? What's going on in there? Is there red liquid in there? Let me see inside that belly.
02:49:52
Speaker
Number three, see if your friends dare stick their fingers between his fangs. what really They really want you to put the fingers in the mouth. Yeah, put your fingers in this fucking guy's mouth.
02:50:03
Speaker
And then finally, number four, wiggle his wings or shake him and watch them flap. Okay, I get that. Okay, that's the only thing I would do this guy. I get that. I actually kind of want to do that.
02:50:16
Speaker
And that's it. This is made by Mattel. He's waiting for you at your participating toy store. There's no price listed, so I can only imagine $25 to $30. Oh.
02:50:27
Speaker
I'm very drawn to his feet. That's a strange thing to say.
02:50:36
Speaker
but they're there They got these like sort of like close, like, like slightly closed like hand, but like slightly open. Yeah. Like if you were forming a circle with your fingers. Yeah. Like, like how, like how they have action figures, like how they do that so that they can hold weapons.
02:50:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Imagine putting, like, two swords or, like, in two right streets machine guns. And trying to stick your finger in his mouth. Yeah. You stick your finger in his mouth. Look out. He's got he's got two swords. Okay.
02:51:09
Speaker
You guys will not believe what Greg Gorey costs. Oh, you found it? Is this now cost? or these is oh This is a now cost. This is this is sells multiple times a month on eBay. $11. $11.
02:51:24
Speaker
eleven dollars Quentin, you want to give a guess? I'm going to say $50. All right. You guys were both way, way low. Do you guys want to both guess again? $500. Okay. $501. Okay. Quentin wins. It $220. $220. Damn. If you want Gorey today, you have to pay $220. Matt, will you one of these?
02:51:41
Speaker
two hundred and twenty dollars two hundred and twenty damn if you want greg gory today yeah you have to pay two hundred and twenty dollars matt william you one of these ah if Pat, if this had been $11, maybe if it even had been $50, I would not have told you guys I found it on eBay. I would have just bought it for you.
02:52:06
Speaker
I would just secretly bought it for you. im Incredible. I cannot believe that people spent this much money on Greg Gorey. Greg Gorey. Are you sure that's how it's pronounced and it's not just Greg Gorey? There's a dash between Greg and Gorey. Yeah.
02:52:23
Speaker
Yeah, but there's no more room on that line to fit his full name. Yeah, it life dating it because yeah but if you but if you look at the at the bottom, and like this little banner here, Greg Gorey. Yeah, and I'm looking at the original box for it, and it is Greg Gorey.
02:52:42
Speaker
Here, guys, for best results, it says. Hold him up.
02:52:50
Speaker
For best results? For best results, play with him. For best results, hold him up. He's the bat you love to hate. I still love that they led with ah putting the fingers in the mouth.
02:53:02
Speaker
They led with that. Oh, this box this box is remade. This is a remake of the box. It's got a website on it. Oh, that's bullshit. It is fucking bullshit. Greg Gorey.
02:53:14
Speaker
Holy shit, you guys. Got an eye out, stuff that you time machine that you'd to try out It's at Steel's Steel
02:53:29
Speaker
Guys, I want you thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sticking with us through this whole fucking massive episode. i was really looking forward to this one.
02:53:40
Speaker
I'm glad that we had our buddy Quentin J. Alexander on the podcast. Quentin, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Guys, join our new Discord. There will be a link in the show notes. So just look at the description of this and it'll be there.
02:53:56
Speaker
Come join us. We're goofing around. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. You can follow us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. You can write into Pat's email corner at mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
02:54:10
Speaker
As always, a huge thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby and to Krils Wilson for composing most of our music. And so I guess that just leaves one last thing.
02:54:22
Speaker
And it's just it's what we say at the end of it every episode. Quentin, do you want to tell him? Good book. Can't wait to see the movie.
02:54:33
Speaker
That's right, folks. And as always, after all, who's going to bug a butt? And remember, you want results called the Avengers.