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52 - Uncanny X-Men #181-184 & Annual #7 - Consequences!
100 Plays3 days ago
We're finally back to the regular ol' X-Men, and boy oh boy folks, did our patience ever pay off! Join us as we tackle some truly top-tier X-Men issues and start setting things back on course in the Marvel Universe. Plus, two (count em! two!) appearances from Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine! Tune in!
Topics Discussed:
Professor X fanfic. Pilk. Basketball and improv. Is Astro Boy real? Sunfire! Wolverine steals a child. The giant green dragon metaphor. An answering machine. Rogue’s thinking accent. This is not your soup. Storm’s new bedroom. A tough breakup. An all-timer issue. Juggernaut! Selene! Forge is here! Handsome ass. A forbidden Family Guy reference. A fleet of balloon boys.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Saying Hi and Catching Up
10:30 - Pat’s Email Corner
30:30 - X-Men-Related Things We’ve Done
33:44 - Uncanny X-Men #181 : "Tokyo Story"
54:44 - Uncanny X-Men #182: "Madness"
1:13:06 - Uncanny X-Men #183: "He'll Never Make Me Cry"
1:36:47 - Uncanny X-Men #184: "The Past of Future Days"
1:50:30 - Uncanny X-Men Annual #7: "Scavenger Hunt"
2:07:21 - Pat’s Steals ‘n’ Deals
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Transcript
Introduction and Live Report from Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Excitement for X-Men Comics and Secret Wars Aftermath
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey, everybody. I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Allcamp. And say it with us, Daniel. Welcome to Mutant Menace. minutes Yes. Hell yeah, dude. We got it.
00:00:52
Speaker
Pat. Yes, Matt. We are back with the X-Men this week. Oh, my God. Finally, it has been. so I've missed the X-Men, but also we have exclusively been seeing them in bad comics for. consecutive weeks. I know. It's almost like we, I forget why I like the X-Men.
00:01:17
Speaker
I was reading this week's, I don't know about how felt, but I was reading this week's comics and just thinking like, Oh, these guys are good. This is good. These comics are good. Yo, know I think, uh, obviously relatively they're very good. Right.
00:01:32
Speaker
But I think even just compared to the X-Men comics we've been reading, there's nothing exceptionally, uh, special about these story-wise, but writing-wise, they are top-notch.
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, they're all like solo. Everything that we are reading today is kind of like a so a self-contained little story. Yeah, yeah. With like hints at broader stuff, but like it's all it's all about The consequences of secret wars is the way it feels.
00:02:05
Speaker
It is like they get back. and We'll talk about the metaphor as we get through it. Like, I think there's a strong metaphor, but I think it is basically Chris Claremont saying, here's how you fucked up all my stories. Yeah, yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
Please, please look at what I've had to do because of you. ah I think even because the dragon thing, and we'll get to it, is so bizarre. It can only be.
00:02:32
Speaker
and it's the first thing to happen after Secret Wars. Yeah. So do you where maybe here is where we should go over just like the quick Where did we leave these motherfuckers? Yeah. What were the X-Men even doing?
00:02:49
Speaker
i the last time we talked to them. Here's the biggest thing I remember from the last time we talked to the X-Men. They were all, they all died. Oh, right, right, right, right. It was like Kitty fell from a tall building. Colossus got turned into a statue.
00:03:06
Speaker
Somebody was stabbed. did Yeah. Did somebody else die?
00:03:13
Speaker
Probably. I remember, okay, there was like there was a lot of interpersonal drama that was like it was still shaking out of the Paul Smith stuff, right? So Kitty was still whining about Storm.
00:03:26
Speaker
Right. So, yes. Yes.
Character Dynamics and Leadership in Secret Wars
00:03:30
Speaker
But we also, if you remember, in a new mutants episode, read exactly one issue of the X-Men yeah where they they tie that up.
00:03:39
Speaker
They made it. They made they made up. She was like, you know what? It's OK that your hair is different. and star I don't hate you for that anymore. And Star was like, that's all I wanted you to say. um But Colossus was getting all weird because Kitty made friends with Doug Ramsey.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yes, right. And then as we know, he went to Secret Wars, found a... Doug Ramsey did?
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, just by accident. There's a Doug Ramsey solo series where he's just walking around Battleworld. so ah doug ramsey and Doug Ramsey and Stevie Hunter. Stevie Hunter's driving Doug Ramsey home from a dancing lesson. They get transported to Battleworld.
00:04:26
Speaker
oh And they have to have a dance-off. A big dance competition. The Beyonder brings all the dancers and dance teachers to dance world. Who are all the best dancers and dance teachers to to face off against each other. Yeah, because he wants to figure out why dancers dance. And this is the only way he can figure it out.
00:04:46
Speaker
We're getting into Moon Knight territory here. yeah Yeah, he was like, damn it, I just missed that guy. um What else? like Xavier, is again, through the course of Secret Wars, this goes kind of back and forth. But in the X-Men main canon, Xavier can walk again.
00:05:06
Speaker
And he can finally just like walk, walk, right? Because for a year, it was like he could technically walk, but he just won't. Right. And now he can shoot hoops. No, he plays basketball. um Rogue is ah an official X-Man.
00:05:21
Speaker
And she even had her like. Come to Jesus moment, right, where it was like. All right. Like, oh, Mystique is here to save you. And she she's she's pulling you out. And she was like, no, Mystique. I want to be here.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, du essentially you can get out of this, or you have your out if you want it. And she didn't take it. She stayed with the X-Men. But she did let Mystique go. And let Mystique hold Xavier hostage so that that brotherhood could let... Which... We didn't talk about this in that episode. Why did the police say okay?
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point. it yes So what happened in case... in case you guys don't remember is mystique went to the mansion and held x Xavier at gunpoint. And she was like, you give me my daughter.
00:06:14
Speaker
While she had back the rest of the brotherhood attack New York city. So that the X-Men would be there dealing with that at the time. Right. And rogue was like, no dude, I'm here on my own volition.
00:06:29
Speaker
Fuck off. And then there was like a tearful, like they cried or whatever. And then a my a hologram of mystique appeared in New York and was like, I have your precious mentor at gunpoint. And if you don't let my brotherhood go, I shoot him. And the X-Men are like, fuck, I guess we got to let all the brotherhood go. And I guess the police were like,
00:06:52
Speaker
Well, if they say so. She's got you, X-Men. Sorry.
00:07:00
Speaker
it's That is interesting. and i And you mentioned it on the episode, but I had always just assumed this was like a continuity error where Rogue is there, but somehow Mystique still has enough leverage to to weasel out of the the consequences. Yeah.
00:07:20
Speaker
But clearly, i think I think it's intentional. Like, not rogue. Let that happen. And we just we're just supposed to infer that. So, all right.
00:07:31
Speaker
Then they all go to Secret Wars while Kitty goes off with the new mutants. Well, Kitty goes off with Doug Ramsey to the Massachusetts Academy. And then, suppress surprise, surprise, fucking the White Queen is there and takes her hostage.
00:07:47
Speaker
And then the new mutants have to go save her. But... The X-Men are in Secret Wars and what happens with the X-Men while they're there? I think the there's a few details to take away. Colossus found the love of his life and then lost her. She died. He never he never had a single conversation. He was never able to speak to you yet. Neither of them spoke the same language.
00:08:12
Speaker
Nor were they the same species. Exactly. they did bone, though. So yeah I think that's important for context. Colossus boots on. didnt indeed ah Lockheed fell in love also.
00:08:27
Speaker
with a With a chippy. So Lockheed falls in love with another dragon who Logan calls a chippy. Why Jim Stupid have two different characters call female characters... Refer to women as chippies? Chippies. Yeah, yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
I... presumably because that's a term he uses in his everyday life yeah probably because it wasn't like two of the same type using it was johnny storm and wolverine those are those are opposite characters um and then at the last minute while the x-men are being teleported home by reed richards the chippy is like, ah, me too. And flies into the dragon, flies in teleport field. Um, important detail at the time. That is a miniature dragon, just like Lockheed. Same as like the size of a puppy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
And then there's a big leadership conflict throughout Secret Wars, right? right Right. have like Xavier's kind of, like, taking control, and Storm's like, what the fuck? But she's being actually kind of like a baby about it. She's not, like, being the mature Storm that we know.
00:09:43
Speaker
Like, the the Storm we know would be upset about this. Yeah, but would be vocal and, like, righteous about it, not... Not whining and then storming off. Yes. No pun intended.
00:09:57
Speaker
And then Cyclops is like, you know, actually, maybe I should be leader still. And then also Professor X keeps telling the X-Men to listen to Magneto.
00:10:09
Speaker
And they're like, all They're all grumpy about it. So there's this four way leadership struggle. Strictly. This was strictly a product of Secret Wars. Yes. Leadership struggle. And clearly because somebody didn't understand the characters they were working with.
00:10:26
Speaker
Right. But. so We got to deal with that.
00:10:39
Speaker
Before we do, Matt, you know we have some orders of business to attend to. Fine. All right. Sure. All right. Welcome to Pat's email corner. We're going to kick it off up with Weapon Jason.
00:10:53
Speaker
mad at us. He says, hey Pat, tell Matt disappointed that the 50th episode was not something special and instead wasted on this very bad series. That's the X-Men and the Micronauts he's referring to. oh no Or was this intended to be how you wanted to celebrate issue number 50 of the podcast?
00:11:12
Speaker
ah I would say that's kind of how the how the cards were dealt. Yeah, I guess we could have shuffled it around, but I don't think I remembered how bad X-Men and the Micronauts was. Like, I remembered it wasn't fun, but I didn't remember that it was, like, also... It was this bad. It should have been... So upsetting.
00:11:34
Speaker
More fun. We also... i think... i think you and I mentioned to each other, like, once, oh, shit, this is our 50th episode, and then we forgot to mention it at all when we were actually recording. Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, well, now we're 52. That's a whole year ah fucking episodes, dude. We haven't missed a a single week.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yes, we are consistent. Our one year, our anniversary is actually coming up. So please don't think that this is us very briefly celebrating one year. We'll do that next episode.
00:12:11
Speaker
Well... Yeah, I mean, i don't know how we celebrate. ah Do we have a celebration planned? We just have a good story to read next episode. Yeah, that's all it's going to be. But it's a it's a damn good story. Tune in, folks. Hell yeah.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, shit yeah. Shit yeah. Okay. ah Weapon Jason goes on. he Says Commander Ran. This is a correction for you, Matt. Commander Ran did have a toy time traveler in the comic.
00:12:41
Speaker
Ran traveled through time in a sarcophagus. And i always thought Bug was supposed to be a version of Kronos, who's way more Bug-like than the comic version.
00:12:52
Speaker
Huh. ah ah Not I mean, just not according to the stuff that I was reading. It could be. I don't I don't know. I'm not following the Micronauts. There it is. ah He says, i used to own a Croyer, pink time traveler, blue Baron Karza and Andromeda. Force commander and Oberon Biotron and a star defender. Holy shit.
00:13:17
Speaker
Impressive. That's so many. Thank you. Weapon Jason. We're going reach into the mailbag and pull out email. Michael. Next, he says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that I haven't seen the 2020 Micronauts show. However, it was somehow leaked just last year and all 52 episodes can be viewed on YouTube. He provides us a link.
Listener Interactions and Podcast Milestones
00:13:38
Speaker
It's YouTube dot com slash at Micronauts fan channel.
00:13:43
Speaker
Oh, if you ever change your mind and decide you do want to watch it, I don't expect you to. And I'm not going to either. It says also, Pat, your reference to editor in chief Jim Dumbs, shut the fuck up, you stupid fuck, was your best name yet. I know I often jokingly use excessive praise in ways that might make it unclear if I'm sincere or not. So let me be 100% clear. I mean it this time.
00:14:07
Speaker
That was a good one. I'm not sure how you can possibly improve on it, but you've surprised me before. Oh, he tricked me into reading a compliment on air, Matt. Oh, he got you, motherfucker.
00:14:19
Speaker
He followed up on this. He said, hey, Pat, tell Matt that I forgot to mention that Jack Black, as literally everyone, is an inspired choice, et cetera, et cetera. I've driven this joke into the ground. That was a joke. i Up next, Matt, we got to get this guy a nickname. It's Daniel.
00:14:40
Speaker
All right, this is this will be the episode where we get him into it. Truly. yeah More responses. Past 20, episode 20 to 22, and future episode 47 to 49. Now, we've let Daniel know we cannot possibly respond to all of these.
00:14:57
Speaker
Past Daniel. I'm going to read a few. i mean I'm selecting a few here that I think are ah worth answering. This question is about when Cyclops or not question. This comment is about when Cyclops calls Wolverine Wolver says this just makes the joke of them finding out his name is Logan and asking why he didn't tell them even funnier.
00:15:20
Speaker
i can't tell if it was a joke years in the making or if one day they looked back on all their books and realized they never bothered to name this man and the fans never bothered to ask. I am sure that it's not that the fans never bothered to ask. they yeah yeah ah He also joins our street team. He finally volunteers his address. he let us He gave us a list of favorite expents, we have to choose which one it is for him. That's fine.
00:15:48
Speaker
Up next, another classic. His name was Dusk. His name was Dusk says, hey, Pat, can you tell Matt that I'm finally caught up to your new episodes? And boy, was it a wild ride. Excited to see that there's now a Patreon and I've added y'all there as well so I can read along.
00:16:06
Speaker
I'm not sure he doesn't say. Okay. I've heard you all mention Dungeons and Dragons on the show a couple of times. And as a forever DM, I've been thinking about which X-Men characters would play D&D and what character class they would play if they did.
00:16:20
Speaker
He gives us a long list. And I'll tell you, I don't think we have time to go through the whole list here. But things like Jean Grey would play a cleric. Yeah. yeah All right, Pat.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah. He's got a couple more here, but here's what I here's what i want to do with you. Okay. Okay. I had a thought most I wonder if we have the exact same thought here and then we really think
Professor X: A Complex Figure in X-Men Lore
00:16:44
Speaker
about it for a second. I'll give you a few seconds.
00:16:46
Speaker
Which is the X-Man
00:16:51
Speaker
that almost certainly has played like out of any of these guys has actually played d and d before? Like Beast.
00:17:01
Speaker
Likely to canonically have played D&D. Beast. it Beast and he doesn't mention Bobby here, but Hank and Bobby play D&D together for sure. Wrong. It's Kitty Pryde. It's 100% Kitty Pryde. Kitty Pryde is always talking. Kitty Pryde also, yeah, yeah. She's always, like, I think Beast, it makes sense for him to have.
00:17:22
Speaker
um him and Him and Bobby, right? But I think they're a little, they they were in the 70s, right? So they were maybe a little too old by the time D&D came out. Kitty Pryde absolutely 100%, 1000% plays D&D
00:17:40
Speaker
in between the panels of the X-Men. Has she said it in the comics somewhere? No, but she reads comics. No. That's what I'm saying. She reads comics. she's so is always into She's always into nerd shit.
00:17:55
Speaker
So does Hank. She has her best friends. She has like best friends with like hackers. So does Hank. No, he's not. Who's his hacker best friend? ah the The Professor X. Okay. So...
00:18:11
Speaker
i okay so My main issue with this list is it seems like we're pairing and feel free to respond, but it seems like pairing characters with the class that their character is most like, like Cyclops as a paladin, Jean Grey as a cleric, Beast as an artificer. i think like Beast would probably be our bard. I think that ah Jean Grey would probably play like a like a tank character. I think that these are... i oh think she it's it's fantasy, right? She does have got bit of a a toughness to her.
00:18:50
Speaker
Right, but she doesn't have the... She's not like a big sword wielder. So in a fantasy game, I think she would be like, yeah, let me be the big strong guy.
00:19:01
Speaker
Because she has the toughness to her in her personality, but not in her physicality. that's why she would play like a tank yeah yeah yeah i see what you're saying yeah cyclops again i don't know what he would play i think he would just do something out of the box and i think maybe it ended up being like a wizard sure yeah yeah i think he would probably be a bard think wolverine would probably be a bard i think kurt would probably be our bard.
00:19:34
Speaker
You think Kurt would be the bard? Yeah. what I think Hank would probably be our bard. Because I feel like Kurt would be a polite D&D player, while Hank and Warren would both be obnoxious players.
00:19:52
Speaker
Thank you. his name was dusk Let us know what your name is now. Up next, Damie. It's been a little while, but we are hearing once again from Damie. I believe this is her second email, so not nickname-able just yet, but we should start thinking about it. Hey, Pat.
00:20:14
Speaker
Tell Matt that much like Daniel, I'm also catching up on episodes, and I'm really feeling that take on the professor. In the beginning, my opinion was shaped by the show and movies, and dare I say, fanfic?
00:20:25
Speaker
What? Then... Reading more of the comics and listening to podcasts, I'm pretty firmly in the Chucks and asshole camp. A manipulator who lusts after a young girl from the start, abandoning his charges at the drop of a hat.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yuck. And then she signs off. Also, Meg's is kind of right. Damie. ah I. Okay. A fan, a fanfic, an X-Men fan. So.
00:20:54
Speaker
I think this is a big thing that separates fanfic from textual works. It's like, There's the character you want to see, and then there's the character that is. And I think it would be, if you were reading X-Men fanfic, I bet you would see a lot of very kind and ah wise Professor Xavier, right? Right, yeah, yeah. But if you were writing X-Men and you were thinking about it on the level of like, what is what is this saying as a piece of art?
00:21:30
Speaker
And what am I adding to it? You're going to immediately pick up on like, oh, Professor Xavier fucking sucks. And he is a he is a ah barrier to the growth of the characters in every way.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yes. And really, yeah we've talked about this before, but at much more length, it seems like through the 60s, maybe the seventy s a lot of that.
00:21:58
Speaker
It wasn't intended to be ah to be portraying him as a prick. It was sort of like a combination of i where feminism was at the time, where masculinity was at the time, and just right the sort of hacky writing that you needed to to put together comic books.
00:22:19
Speaker
But it seems like Chris Claremont especially has sort of run with that. And he is realizing he fully understands it. Yeah, yeah. and he's So he's just, and we've known reading through his comics, one of his original missions was to make everything from the past years of X-Men make sense. So ah he read through that. He picked this out and said, no, this guy's a terrible person.
00:22:43
Speaker
But like I'm saying, even if you as the writer aren't like aren't like Professor X is a terrible person, you do You are, as the writer, going to be like, oh i need I need somebody to be the obstacle for the character to overcome. And the person who fits that role so often is Professor X. So even though I don't think they intended for him to be a paternalistic, misogynistic piece of shit...
00:23:13
Speaker
I think they did sow those seeds intentionally. They weren't like, and this is where he bees a dick, right? They were still like, this is where Bobby needs to argue with somebody.
00:23:27
Speaker
And they make it Professor Xavier. So it's not as if it's entirely accidental that that happened. Maybe I'm focusing too much on the i crush that he has on Jean Grey. I think that's established early on. But that one is, i think, a product of like, oh, yeah, this would be a natural thing. A teacher has a little crush on a student. I agree. yeah i think we don't.
00:23:54
Speaker
So I don't think we should ever ignore that. But i do I do think we should ah always acknowledge that that was two lines of dialogue ever. Yes, that was that was one panel. but it It was It's stuck up here. It's not going anywhere. There was a second panel, like Chris Claremont referenced it later. So technically short two panels. But yeah, so I do think we do need to, most of the time they wrote Charles Xavier, they weren't thinking he was lusting after Jean Grey.
00:24:25
Speaker
But we can't we can't forget that that happened. It's like ah it's like a canceled celebrity where now every time you see them, you can only think of the thing that got to canceled. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:39
Speaker
All right. And then we got, i i would say one more, Matt, but it's really three more. What? From Mikey, two males. He sent us his traditional two males. And in the second male, he mentioned that if he had time, he would attempt to make a pilk video for us. What? And then Matt.
00:24:59
Speaker
What?
Engagement Challenges and Patreon Incentives
00:25:00
Speaker
He did. There's no way. Let let me Pull this up. I think you have access to it as well if you want to watch it for a second.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, I do. Let's watch it. Hang on.
00:25:17
Speaker
Hi, Pat. Tell Matt that I regret this already.
00:25:25
Speaker
oh no. That is horrible. Oh no! that That looks like active suffering.
00:25:38
Speaker
He did it. And here's the thing is i for it anybody just listening right now. yeah he We know that this is Pilk because he dribbles some of it out at the end because it's not good.
00:25:53
Speaker
Now... He does that thing where
00:25:58
Speaker
There's no, it's clearly not a performative reaction because he does that thing where his mouth kind of freezes. Yes. He's in the middle of drinking and it's almost like swallows he swallows And then his mouth does not want to clean up the rest of the pilk that's in it. It like, it like goes, it like paralyzes. the pilk starts dribbling from it. And you, everybody recognizes that from a time that they drank or ate something horrible.
00:26:31
Speaker
You want to watch it again? going to watch it again. Hi, Pat. Tell Matt that I regret this already.
00:26:45
Speaker
That is horrible. oh Ugh. Wow, I cannot believe that you've done this by the two males. What a guy. Now, I hate
00:27:00
Speaker
to put a technicality on this. No! But the reason we were so curious about Pilk is because you and I, Matt, disagreed on the idea That it would curdle instantly.
00:27:17
Speaker
Agreed. Yeah, I think it will not. And the thing, the one thing that this video is missing.
00:27:24
Speaker
Is a perspective where we would see ah what's in the mug and whether or not it curdled. So yeah it's a if Mikey two males, you could please, if you have any leftover Pepsi and milk.
00:27:39
Speaker
Put it together. Give us a picture. Just take your camera and show whether or not it curdles before you drink it again. You would have to drink it again. You can. That's be the other requirement. We'd appreciate it if you drink it again.
00:27:54
Speaker
no please don't drink it again. All right. Yeah. How close are we? How close are we to Pilk? Well, Matt, I had a little... confused moment here because we we got a few big contributors, some people that really want us to drink pill, but they are outside of the US. So what if we were counting in Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, euros,
00:28:22
Speaker
probably not euros, but we would be over that $100 mark. in US dollars right now, we are at $75 per month. Oh my gosh. No, we are so close. All right. So come in close.
00:28:37
Speaker
And I don't recall putting a deadline on this. What Pat is talking about is if we get to a hundred. ah if we get to a hundred dollars a month in a Patreon subscribers, there's a link in our show notes, patreon.com slash mutant menace.
00:28:59
Speaker
We will drink pilk. Yeah, $100 for one full cycle. my God. We will drink Pilka. And we we might as well mention $150. We'll drink Pepsi, which is Pepsi with buffalo sauce in it. $500 for three consecutive months.
00:29:19
Speaker
Wait, no. Was it that? I thought if we hit $500 even once No, if we hit $500 once, we ah open a new monthly podcast. If we hit $500 for three consecutive months, we drink Pilk.
00:29:37
Speaker
We drink Pepsi. We drink Bilk, which is buffalo sauce and milk. And then we drink Bep Silk, which is just...
00:29:47
Speaker
The abhorrent combination of the three. This will never happen, but... And it shouldn't. But fuck, guys. why Why are you doing this? Oh, no. We might hit Pilk, honestly. We might have to do this. I feel like we might hit Pilk. i didn't think I didn't think our Patreon would bring in more than like $30 ever.
00:30:07
Speaker
well it was under $30 until we started making these offers, Matt.
00:30:15
Speaker
And that...
Basketball, Improv, and X-Men Comparisons
00:30:17
Speaker
is the end of Pat's email corner. Oh,
00:30:39
Speaker
All right, Matt, that is the end of Pat's email corner. Oh, I guess we got to start a new one. He's coming back. Okay.
00:30:50
Speaker
All right, I'm We've been recording for an hour. Do you want to talk about the X-Men? To be fair. We talked about X-Men already a little bit, but I do want to know Pat, did you do anything X-Men related this week?
00:31:09
Speaker
Did I do anything X-Men related this week? Matt, I went to a basketball game. I went to see the Philadelphia 76ers. And much like the X-Men, they are a team of five people who...
00:31:26
Speaker
Individually are very talented. They have some very unique and strange skills and physical assets. But yeah when you put them together, huh they form an elite team that is seemingly...
00:31:44
Speaker
To me, unstoppable. i So, yes, yes. I went and saw the 76ers play and the basketball, the configuration of a basketball team in my mind is a lot like. Well, are you going to tell me about this basketball game? Was it fun? Yeah, it was a pretty good time. Okay.
00:32:05
Speaker
Sounds very X-Men related. Thank you. Matt, did you do anything X-Men related this week? Well, ah much like the X-Men is a team of people who all on their own have unique skills and abilities. And yet when combined together, they create a sort of a team that is more than the sum of their parts. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:31
Speaker
I saw an improv show. Whoa. who How was it?
00:32:41
Speaker
are you Are you not allowed to say? it was ah it was all right. um You know, it was okay. There's some people that I know in the improv team that were very, very funny.
00:32:55
Speaker
Do they listen to this podcast? I don't know. don't know. I don't know. So that's where we'll leave it. No, there was some very good bits, much like a run of X-Men.
00:33:08
Speaker
There are some very good scenes. Really good bits. Very good scenes, very good stories, and some very questionable scenes and stories. Okay, yeah, yeah. There was...
00:33:20
Speaker
There was some Claremont era improv. There was some Roy Thomas era. Yeah. Roy Thomas era improv. and so Maybe even some ah Arnold Drake era improv.
00:33:36
Speaker
Oh, good stuff. Very X-Men. Very X-Men related. Look at us in our team activities. Watching team activities. Patrick. Yes. Now, at this point.
00:33:49
Speaker
I want you to shut the fuck up. Oh.
X-Men's Tokyo Adventure and Colossus's Role
00:33:53
Speaker
Because I'm going to tell you about Uncanny X-Men number 181, Tokyo Story.
00:34:00
Speaker
cokyo story You can actually talk. Okay. i was I was nodding if you didn't see. I was nodding and in a agreement. Chris Claremont is the writer. John Romita Jr. and Dan Green are the artists. Tom Orzakowski is the letterer. Glynnis Ween is the colorist. Louise Jones is the editor. And Schloppe is editor-in-chief. Release date, February 1984. Cover date, in May
00:34:30
Speaker
five Japanese teenagers look up in awe as a giant green dragon, like the size of a stadium, flies by overhead.
00:34:43
Speaker
as As they wonder where it could have come from, they see a group of people and one tiny purple dragon also in the sky plummeting to the ground. whoa Um, these kids have a little, this, I gotta ask. So these kids have a little book. It's called a book of monsters. They see ah a big green dragon flying overhead and they say, is this in our book of monsters? And they start paging through it. Uh,
00:35:13
Speaker
Godzilla. Yeah. Red Ronin. Okay. Astro Boy.
00:35:21
Speaker
And the Hulk. Well, Red Ronin is a Marvel character. As is the Hulk. Yes. So they've got two characters that exist in this universe, plus Godzilla, which I'm pretty sure Marvel put out some Godzilla comics, right? so Yes. Right. That could be – is Astro Boy – real in the 616 universe i know what's as this would imply i think what's so funny about this though is like if if there were a sort of a thing if if japan was a land of monsters the way that it is in certain cinema depictions and yeah yeah in marvel comics the hulk would be one of them
00:36:08
Speaker
Right. they would They would be like, thank God the Hulk is over in America. it would be. Yeah. There would be no differentiating between the guy, the Hulk and the guy Godzilla. You'd be like, those are two different types of monster, which is so crazy. Even even like Nightcrawler, you'd be like, oh, he's like a good dude, but he's he's he's also a monster. He's another monster, like Astro Boy.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah, ah well, he doesn't cause destruction on that mass scale. Yeah, but neither does Astro Boy, right? ah That's true, although he's nuclear-powered.
00:36:44
Speaker
He is nuclear-powered, and he has lasers in his butthole.
00:36:54
Speaker
The X-Men that appeared in Secret Wars land in a heap on the ground as the big green dragon flies off. As they gather themselves, they note a few things. They are clearly in Japan a week after they left New York.
00:37:08
Speaker
Scott is not with them. And that big green dragon is actually Lockheed's little chippy from Secret Wars. But giant now. Oh, no.
00:37:20
Speaker
Now, I don't know why they're surprised that they're it took, ah like, they're a week later. Because... That's about the amount of time that passed during Secret Wars. Yes, and Reed's device, but they weren't magically transported back like Doctor Doom offered.
00:37:40
Speaker
They were transported back through like a matter transporter that Reed Richards invented. So even that they're like, we were supposed to come back from where we left and we ended up somewhere else. Like, that's not that strange.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, I have to imagine. so the Maybe the rotation of the Earth is what landed them in Japan? Maybe. But that's the case... Like, they came back a week and 12 hours later?
00:38:05
Speaker
If that's the case, though, then they should have dropped in the middle of outer space. Because... That's fair. It would have different position in its orbit around the sun. and the galaxy would have turned as well. Like everything rotates. since That would be so funny if Reed didn't account for
00:38:30
Speaker
it. Just killed every superhero. All the superheroes on earth. he's like Fuck. Jim stupid finally gets his wish.
00:38:44
Speaker
All right. ex exactly There's a metaphor here, but I think maybe we can get to it later. Xavier orders Rogue to fly back to the mansion to check on the new mutants and get a status update on Kitty and Doug's trip to the Massachusetts Academy.
00:38:57
Speaker
Wolverine takes note of Charles trying to take command. The X-Men... Yeah, go ahead. i His reasoning is pretty thin here, where he's like...
00:39:10
Speaker
The first time somebody pushes back on him, like acting like he's in charge, he goes, well, I can walk now. So it makes me the most capable leader.
00:39:23
Speaker
but but ah um Rogue, to her credit, though, yeah yeah turned a storm and it's like, hey, you're the boss.
00:39:33
Speaker
Should I go? yes that is so cool that's no wonder she became a fan favorite so quick like she's immediately endearing herself to us and the other x-men yeah yeah also i missed a line a little bit ago where wolverine when they find they're in japan he goes can't seem to stay out of this flaming country even when want you very funny we're back baby yeah The X-Men start planning ah how the heck they're going to stop a dragon, as does the Japanese military from a command center across the country.
00:40:11
Speaker
Mariko is there for some reason. Yeah, what? well I thought this would play a bigger part in the story, but it doesn't. She's just... She's a high-ranking military official now. Yeah, she's a government.
00:40:25
Speaker
um And she's been a government for a while, I guess. Wasn't she the head of a criminal empire? Wasn't that the... ah
00:40:34
Speaker
In downtown Tokyo... The X-Men arrive to find the big green dragon wreaking havoc, literally tearing the tops off of skyscrapers. They immediately get to work protecting and rescuing civilians as the Japanese military and even Sunfire show up to try to beat the dragon.
00:40:52
Speaker
Whoa, Sunfire. He's not super helpful. No, not at all. and Oh my God. It's like, ah and there's a scene where he tries to like destroy some detritus falling from the sky and doesn't destroy it enough. And Xavier's like, God damn it. This guy, he's so reckless and careless. It's like, it's like seeing a guy you fired like an ex employee of yours as a boss. Right.
00:41:23
Speaker
And immediately being like, of course, this is why I let this guy go. just it Yeah, yeah.
00:41:30
Speaker
In a brief, actual interlude for once. He called it an interlude and it was an interlude. We see Scott drop from the sky in Tahiti, right next to Madeline, outside their honeymoon suite.
00:41:45
Speaker
problem solved problem solved he's back she forgives him all done they're both looking very sexy in very little clothing yeah it's very good of course i love that they they teleport cyclops back in skimpy honeymoon clothing yeah exactly it's just in his gym shorts probably not wearing underwear
00:42:10
Speaker
Back in Tokyo, things are looking a little bleak. There's a line that the Japanese military says. They're like, there's a giant dragon, so it's headed for Tokyo. And the other guy says, that can't be. This is the off season.
00:42:25
Speaker
All right. Very good. Chris Claremont.
00:42:30
Speaker
Missiles, tank fire, even sunfire having little to no effect on the dragon. Storm tries to control the disastrous wind created by its wings, but finds the power too much for even her to contain. if Xavier gets hit by some rubble and makes it everyone's problem. Oh my god, he just starts screaming psychically.
00:42:49
Speaker
Rubble, please somebody help me. and Everybody stop what you're doing and help me. And they're like, dude, you're fine. There's other people who actually need our help.
00:43:05
Speaker
Wolverine tracks down a mother and daughter rescuing from the rubble to discover that the mother's wounds are mortal. Oh no. As she draws her last breaths, Wolverine swears to protect and care for her daughter, Amiko. It's a really nice moment.
00:43:24
Speaker
it is It's very well done. like They give you just enough to feel a bit of an emotional connection to this dying woman. It does not make sense to me that Wolverine is like, yes, I will raise her as if she was my own daughter immediately.
00:43:42
Speaker
Right. Rather than being like, I will make sure somebody takes care of her. Yes. Yeah. Agreed. And it's it's it's clearly just a way to be like Wolverine has a daughter now.
00:43:54
Speaker
Where's this going to go? Yeah, I think it it makes sense for Wolverine to be like, I want to comfort this woman as she dies. Sure.
00:44:05
Speaker
Doesn't quite make sense for him to be like, let me. This is this is my daughter now. Yeah. But and that's not what she's asking for. you This is a dying woman just saying like, hey, can somebody take care of my daughter? and then this man in a spandex costume and pointy helmet with claws coming out of his hands is like,
00:44:25
Speaker
she's my daughter now. He says it There's, he says like, I'll keep her safe. good i'll see her raised as if she were my own not i will make sure she's okay as if she was one of my own would have been a better line and would have made a lot of sense see yeah yeah the fact that he says i so i'll see her raised i had to read that line like three times like why is he saying why is he saying that why are you using the passive voice here wolverine and uh yeah why are you saying why are you even talking about her being raised like they just get her safe is all yeah
00:45:02
Speaker
All right, anyway, just as things seem their most hopeless as the dragon appears to be closing in on the kids we saw opening the issue, it comes to a sudden stop.
Rogue's Identity Crisis and S.H.I.E.L.D. Conflict
00:45:14
Speaker
Lockheed floats before her yelling at her for her behavior and even booping her on the nose with some fire. these Lockheed is also regular size. This is a giant dragon facing off her one hundredth scale.
00:45:31
Speaker
And he's barking at her like um like ah like donkey in Shrek when he's yelling at that dragon member. Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe this is where they got that. This is probably where they got that. She reels away more from the shock of being yelled at by her lover than from the pain. Lockheed follows, and they both disappear somewhere over the ocean.
00:45:51
Speaker
Tokyo is saved, and the X-Men are heroes. But they don't feel like it, surrounded by all this destruction. This is... This is a fun moment where we get to see them being like, Jesus Christ, what happened? We couldn't contain this. Like, look at all this destruction. What a failure. And then we see the news, the Japanese news, not the American media, the Japanese news being like, these are the X-Men and they just saved us. They just saved this whole city. I watched, um,
00:46:24
Speaker
A documentary on Fukushima on HBO is ah about just like the the the tsunami obviously that came through but then the nuclear disaster that followed and how they had to prevent it from like destroying half of japan and yes it was very ah i watched it like the minute before i read this issue so it was very much like the same story where yeah all those but nuclear plant workers were like we've let everybody down. We've been here for like days trying to prevent nuclear disaster. everybody probably hates us. And then it took them a long time to realize that they were actually hailed as heroes like around the world because they did avert the incredible disaster.
00:47:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Later. The X-Men, reflecting on their hollow victory, wonder what made this once-friendly dragon turn so hostile.
00:47:28
Speaker
oh Lockheed has reappeared but offers no answers. Wolverine has a theory. Looking out over the hills, he points at all the tops of the buildings that the dragon stole have been fashioned into a giant nest in the distance.
00:47:45
Speaker
She was just in love. but She wanted to settle down.
00:47:50
Speaker
Oh, it is really cute. It's it's very it's a little corny, but this whole issue is a little corny and sweet. Yeah, I have a yeah.
00:48:02
Speaker
In an epilogue, we see President Phillips something in the office telling Senator Robert Kelly that he's insane and that he'll never support a bill that amounts to legalized slavery.
00:48:14
Speaker
Oh, Kelly throws the bill down on the president's desk. as he storms out, revealing its title, the Mutant Affairs Control Act.
00:48:25
Speaker
Whoa. This is fucked up. This panel fucks. this This final scene just being like, hey we just had a nice relaxing issue. the jaunted around Japan with a dragon.
00:48:44
Speaker
But just so you know, it's about to get really fucked up. And it's, it I mean, if you remember, this is the bill that they were trying to stop from coming into existence in days of future past.
00:48:58
Speaker
Right. It was, if we save Senator Kelly's life, then they will never pass the Mutant Affairs Control Act. Yes. And yet, this is Senator Kelly dropping it on the president's desk.
00:49:11
Speaker
So...
00:49:13
Speaker
So, man, Xavier fucking sucks at being an X-Man. He was horrible here. All he was was a liability. He's like, well, now that I walk, I can be a good X-Man.
00:49:25
Speaker
Man, he did a bad job. He keeps telling people to stop doing what they're doing. And then the moment he gets disturbed. Yeah.
00:49:37
Speaker
He summons everybody. He says, Hey, i know you guys are looking for civilians or keeping people safe from the falling buildings. I need you on me immediately. Yeah, yeah.
00:49:49
Speaker
Colossus, though. i don't know. Somehow this read, Colossus is becoming like ah ah a favorite of mine. um Yeah, he's a he's a sweet, wholesome boy. He's just so consistent. like They got back...
00:50:03
Speaker
Like they saw the dragon tearing up Tokyo. Right. And they flew in on the winds that storm conjured up. Then Colossus drops on the ground. And immediately I'm as a reader, I'm like, oh, everything's OK.
00:50:16
Speaker
Don't worry, everybody. Colossus is there. He's such a comforting sight. I don't know if you're starting to feel this way about Colossus. I've I've felt this most of i I think obviously Kurt is my favorite character for similar reasons, just different, I think, ends of those spectrums. But right.
00:50:35
Speaker
i Yeah. Peter is the easily the purest, nicest man on the team. Yeah, yeah. and he's just he's just a consistent warrior.
00:50:46
Speaker
He'll just show up and he'll fucking save the day and you don't have to worry about him and you don't have to worry about the people he's trying to save because he's got it Right. But you always need to give him the right command, right? It's not like he's just a perfect soldier. If you're telling him to do something that's unethical to him, he's going to say, yeah, yeah, I've got another way to do that.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So I don't know. Did you catch any kind of metaphor in reading this episode of reading this issue? I know, but I know you did. And I'm very excited to hear it. So.
00:51:23
Speaker
this is My feeling is, all right, so when they are on Battleworld, this dragon is very small. Right? Yeah. And it's just like, oh, Lockheed has a... It's clearly... Jim Stupid is like, well, what if Lockheed has a new girlfriend? i think this Why not two dragons? I think this Lockheed character is boring. What if... fire I think this Lockheed character's boring. What if we give him a little girlfriend, a little chippy, and she and and I'm going to make her come back with him? So, like, here's something that Chris Claremont has to deal with, right? And there's there's this thing that feels like what Jim Stupid is saying to everybody at every moment, right, is...
00:52:11
Speaker
It's just a little, like, it's not that big of a deal. I'm just giving you this. that i'm I'm giving you something to make your stories better. It's not that big of a deal. Yet, what Claremont is saying is this thing that wasn't a little that was ah ah was not a big deal on Battleworld in your fucking little miniseries. When we pull it back and put it in my comic, you don't understand it. You fucked things up so bad.
00:52:36
Speaker
This thing is a huge deal that can destroy the whole world I'm building.
00:52:44
Speaker
That is. Yeah. That's really smart. Because now you have created a monster, right? Yes. Literally created a monster. Lockheed. We don't know where Lockheed comes from, what his deal is. He is fully mysterious. There's clearly a thread to pull out there that that's coming.
00:53:06
Speaker
And so, yeah, this creates it also i one of the fun details considering this metaphor is that this dragon has a big old pot belly. like ah the It hangs lower than the rest of him when he's flying.
00:53:23
Speaker
I think um in Secret Wars 1, the X-Men don't get that fucked up, right? There's the leadership squabbles. There's yeah Magneto getting a somewhat of a hero arc.
00:53:36
Speaker
There is Colossus falling out of love with Kitty, Pride. And there's this little dragon thing, right? Like, that's it. Sure. And I guess Scott being pulled away from his honeymoon.
00:53:48
Speaker
But some other people, like whoever was writing Fantastic Four at this time, lost the thing. Yeah, they have to write in Jennifer Walters now. Yeah, exactly. Like some of these other, um the the Spider-Man writers have a brand new Spider-Man outfit that has some sort of secret alien properties, right? Yeah, yeah. Like for some of these people that Claremont maybe was writing in... In in defense of. In defense of...
00:54:18
Speaker
This was, there were huge fucking dragons that their their teams came back with. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And i think I think this whole, I think we're going to see that throughout these next few issues. um Is that a bunch of little things where it's like, this is what happened when you interrupted all my shit.
00:54:42
Speaker
Can't wait. Me neither. All right. Let's keep moving, Matt. I want to talk to you about Uncanny X-Men number 182, Madness. Uncanny X-Men Blink 182.
00:54:53
Speaker
madness
00:54:56
Speaker
ah and um uncanny ex men but blink when it Blink 180. Good. Good. You're getting there. Uncanny.
00:55:07
Speaker
Uncanny Blinks Men 182. Hey. No, I didn't do it. Chris Claremont, writer, John Romita Jr. and Dan Green, artists, Glynis Ween, colorist, Tom Orzikowski, letterer, Louise Jones, and Innocenti, editors. Ooh.
00:55:23
Speaker
John Sloppy, editor-in-chief. Release date March 1984. Cover date June
00:55:31
Speaker
Exhausted. Rogue arrives at the mansion after flying halfway across the world only to find it empty and silent. In the professor's office, she finds a beeping answering machine and plays the messages. She's the all of the alarms are going off in the house and she goes right for the answering machine.
00:55:53
Speaker
ah I also think it's she is. ah She has a lot of like funny thoughts here. One of them. One thing being that she even thinks in the if you don't know rogues the way rogue talks, it's this over the top southern accent.
00:56:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's very much written in to her dialogue. Yeah, ah and one of the ways that it's written in is every a or every I is A-H. So like, I've never felt so beat, is one of her lines here.
00:56:23
Speaker
And she thinks in she thinks in Oz. yeah But also when she's she's thinking about Secret Wars, and she's like, I got pulled into the i got pulled halfway across the universe along with every other top-notch hero.
00:56:41
Speaker
Oh, Grubb thinks of herself as a top-notch hero. She is. Sort of. Sort of. On the answering machine, Madeline Pryor is panicking about Scott vanishing. Beep!
00:56:54
Speaker
Colonel Mike Rossi is aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and says cryptically, our suspicions have been confirmed before being suddenly cut off. Rogue recognized the voice. In a panic, she takes off out the window while the next message plays.
00:57:11
Speaker
Beep! It's Ileana Rasputin calling from the Massachusetts Academy. oh yeah. Also, redundantly, a note flutters to the floor explaining where the new mutants went. Yeah, why? Why? and And ah like it falls under the desk like, oh, no, he now they won't see it. What?
00:57:30
Speaker
I think it's a character thing because the note is also written by Ileana. So it's just letting us know she's very thorough about like. her messaging. Why making it? It's something she learned in, in limbo all those years. Why make it fall under the desk? like Like a smoking gun. Like, Oh, now they'll never find out. Like anyway, on the detention deck of a shield helicarrier, Mike Rossi is getting his ass kicked during an interrogation by two shield agents. you Remember Mike Rossi, by the way, Matt? Yeah, that guy. He was, he died.
00:58:07
Speaker
in like X-Men 95 or something. Right. The first time we ever saw him. And then came back randomly at the beginning of new mutants is like, Hey, guess what? I'm not dead.
00:58:20
Speaker
really ah Okay. So if you haven't listened in a while, he's the new Fred Duncan. yeah um If you listened at the beginning, then a whole lot of episodes. Yeah.
00:58:36
Speaker
if you don't If you've never listened before, he's just an FBI agent that's friends with Charles Xavier. Yeah, yeah. And then Mike Rossi is his replacement. Mike Rossi doesn't work for the FBI.
00:58:48
Speaker
Wait, yes, he does. Oh, I thought he was just like, I thought he just worked for the government. Oh, maybe he does. I thought he was FBI and sometimes he uses, he's investigating other government agencies like Project Wide Awake and S.H.I.E.L.D. and stuff.
00:59:05
Speaker
Yeah. yeah so Well, so what's important is he is i an ally to the X-Men and also their sort of liaison to the government, sometimes in less than legal ways.
00:59:19
Speaker
Yeah. He seems like he's he seems like he's a government employee, but also kind of like a government outsider. Again, like he's always he's always investigating ah when we meet him. He's investigating Stephen Lang's Sentinel project.
00:59:34
Speaker
And he's like, I'm going to take this to our bosses and shut this thing down. And that's how that's. And then he he gets killed for it. Why Claremont was like, I'm going to bring that guy back. when yeah yeah It's so wild. Anyway, I'm telling you, it's his he's making some sort of money off of the use of and characters that he named. it
00:59:58
Speaker
i So this guy, Mike Rossi, is getting his ass kicked during a S.H.I.E.L.D. interrogation by two agents. Well, one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Agent Price, while the other, Agent Paul Garwood, reminds him that Nick Fury said not to hurt the guy.
01:00:14
Speaker
oh Seemingly disgusted, he leaves the room, but we find out it's to call the Hellfire Club. Apparently, Rossi was caught using S.H.I.E.L.D. computers to research Sebastian Shaw.
01:00:26
Speaker
Shaw's response? kill him ah also we get a quick visit from emma frost asking shaw to come to the massachusetts academy remember that remember that remember when she did that and then they did that rogue approaches the helicarrier and has a plan to get inside using her super strength she flicks a quarter through the hall knocking out the radar it's so cool so cool And rushes into the computer room in the confusion to knock out the security systems and lock all the bulkhead doors or whatever.
01:01:01
Speaker
This is fascinating and we don't need to get into too much detail right now, but it is worth noting here that Rogue flies into the ship, into the exact room she needs to be in, identifies these specific security systems and says, this is what I need to shut down disable things here.
01:01:25
Speaker
Now, eventually I will understand why she can do, how she can do all that. Yeah. What I do not understand is how she knew where this fucking helicarrier was.
01:01:38
Speaker
Like, doesn't it move around? Well, it's pretty big, Matt. Yeah. and She just flew around the whole sky.
01:01:49
Speaker
ah Cut to Garwood, our shield agent-cum-hellfire goon, who slips under a closing door just in time, coming to face-to-face with Price and the unconscious Colonel Rossi.
01:02:01
Speaker
He shoots Price and begins to stage a setup to kill and frame Rossi, but as he leans down to finish Price off, he hears a sound behind him. Rogue stands there holding the bulkhead open with one hand.
01:02:16
Speaker
Rossi's an old friend, she says. She knocks Garwood out and grabs Rossi, who recognizes her voice. She calls him lover and then punches through the hull, flying off with him.
01:02:27
Speaker
Pursued by two fighter jets, she flicks another quarter through one's engine. And as the pilot fails, the other loses her on his radar. She's gone. man good thing she just went to the arcade she had these quarters with her the entire time she was at secret wars apparently yeah ah she brought 50 cents ah she's like i might need this travel industry into strange realms i always bring some cash
01:03:02
Speaker
Cut to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Rogue is carrying Rossi, who she calls ace into what she says is her parents' house. What? She lays him in bed. Wait.
01:03:14
Speaker
I know. She lays him in bed, judging that he should be fine. Then we get one line of dialogue in her thoughts. This house. I don't belong.
01:03:26
Speaker
That reminds us, wait, Rogue hasn't been using her accent since the mansion before she remembers that her mom keeps the pantry fully stocked and rushes off to make some food.
01:03:37
Speaker
Wait, had you noticed that? Had you noticed that she hasn't been using her ass? I didn't. Somebody mentions it, I think, like a few pages later. OK. She's not that her accent or that she's like vacillating between accents. And then I went back and was like, holy shit.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was right. It was right here that I noticed because she says, ah, and then it's like, oh, my God. She. had Yeah. She's been saying a What the fuck?
01:04:07
Speaker
ah Later, Rossi wakes up trying to figure out where he is. Rogue comes in with a bowl of soup. He notes that this is Xavier's new charge, Rogue, but can't understand why she's speaking in a familiar Boston accent.
01:04:21
Speaker
Nor how Rogue knows how to make this soup, his friend's unique soup. This is a story that hinges on a soup.
01:04:39
Speaker
This is not your new unique soup. This is my friend's unique soup. Hey, I've tasted this soup before. This isn't your soup. Explain this soup to me.
01:04:49
Speaker
Rogue's confused. It's her soup. it Did he forget? Rossi says he's never met this woman, and yet Rogue is certain they've known each other for years.
01:05:03
Speaker
Rossi asks where she learned the nickname Ace, and Rogue tells him, i gave it to you. Just like I gave you the soup. That's another thing. Let's circle back around to the soup. When Rogue references the incident where he and Wolverine broke her out of the KGB's prison in Lubyanka, Rossi starts putting it together.
01:05:24
Speaker
Rogue starts to have doubts. Her thoughts aren't adding up. She enlisted in the Air Force at 18, but she's 18 now. She's slipping in and out of her accent rapidly as she recounts her memories of the house they're in. and her family and the scar on her hand, which isn't there.
01:05:42
Speaker
She's never had a family, none except Mystique. When she catches a look of her face in the mirror, she's even more panicked until Rossi grabs her by the shoulders. You're not Carol Danvers, he tells her.
01:05:55
Speaker
Rogue rushes out of the room, tripping and falling down a hill. Memories of Carol as a child running and playing with her brothers swirl in front of her eyes like ghosts, and she screams.
01:06:06
Speaker
She sees Carol's life flash before her, up to and including the moment where she Rogue, took Carol's powers and her memories. Rossi finds her on the bank of the bay crying.
01:06:19
Speaker
She tells him the story, how early on in her villain career she fought Captain Marvel and wanted to get back at her. Driven by vengeance and ignorance, she didn't know the extent of her powers and took too much.
01:06:31
Speaker
How it drove her crazy, how she may as well have put a bullet in Carol's brain for all that would have mattered because she took everything that was Carol from her. Carol Danvers may have her memories back, thanks to x Xavier, but her emotions, her sense of self, that all went into Rogue.
01:06:47
Speaker
Now when Rogue looks at Rossi, she sees him as Carol would. But when Carol looks at Rossi, she just remembers how she should feel about him. But now Rogue can't tell her own feelings apart from the Carol Danvers feelings in her head. She loves Michael, Ace. She is Carol Danvers.
01:07:07
Speaker
Colonel Michael Rossi slaps her across the face. And he walks away. While Rogue cries out apologies, Rossi tells her he wishes he had the power to kill her for what she's done.
01:07:20
Speaker
So do I, she whimpers.
01:07:25
Speaker
Epilogue.
01:07:28
Speaker
Nick Fury and Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine tend to Paul Garwood in a sickbed. A woman smashed in and killed Price despite his attempts to stop her and absconded with the unidentified prisoner.
01:07:41
Speaker
Fury holds up a picture of Rogue. That's her, Colonel, he says. Fury issues an all points alert for Rogue to be brought in dead or alive.
01:07:53
Speaker
Damn, this is a crazy issue. You're telling me... Nick Fury holds up a picture of Rogue in front Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
01:08:04
Speaker
And she says nothing about the stripe in her hair.
01:08:10
Speaker
Explain to listeners what the fuck you're talking about. They've both got white skunk stripes at this time exactly in the same place on their heads. Yeah. Like it is it is a very unique look.
01:08:23
Speaker
You would think.
01:08:26
Speaker
Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Nick Fury's girlfriend. And we will find out what we might not find out on this podcast, but you generally not a good person.
01:08:37
Speaker
Played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's right. ah She's sassy. She's like you would think she sees someone with the same hairstyle and would would at least just acknowledge it.
01:08:51
Speaker
Do you think that the original idea was that they were supposed to be mother and daughter? Oh. because like Because of the stripe in their hair?
01:09:03
Speaker
Well, why would you put the two next to each other? i i have a feeling that maybe... i mean... Marvel wasn't smart about this stuff. Just a skunk stripe in the hair is enough.
01:09:17
Speaker
That's true. It would be. That's a genetic condition. Yeah. Also in blue in this. um They call her La Contessa Valentina Allegro de Fontaine in this issue. Ah.
01:09:30
Speaker
and ro idiot moron um this issue was this issue is so good it was such like such strong characterization for rogue while still telling a story like you were also just as confused as she is and as michael rossi is trying to figure out what's going on as it goes on it was it was really well done We don't know even up to the end what Mike Rossi discovered on that.
01:10:01
Speaker
was it just that there're it Was it just that Paul Garwood worked for the Hellfire Club? i My guess is that he is digging into the Mutant Affairs Control Act because originally that was being pushed by Sebastian Shaw, which is who he was Googling on the S.H.I.E.L.D. computers.
01:10:25
Speaker
That is a good thought. The other thought that I just had was Professor X, when he left, had just sent Doug and Kitty to the Massachusetts Academy.
01:10:42
Speaker
And then immediately you have Mike Rossi calling him back and saying, hey, our suspicions were correct. After he had just searched.
01:10:53
Speaker
So did he use shield computers to research and be like, actually, it's not safe for her to be there. I mean, because this a week later, Mike Rossi. Come on. This is another issue where it's like in two different ways. Number one, by leaving Mike Rossi alone up there and by and number two, by leaving the the new mutants and Kitty and Doug and everybody alone for a like this is another thing that was get that got fucked up by the X-Men leaving for Secret Wars.
01:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. Also, there's a cool Tessa computer brain thing here. We don't see much of Tessa, but we do see her for a second. She's um Sebastian Shaw's, like, secretary. And she's got a her mutant powers computer brain. Oh. And so it shows Mike Rossi on the screen. And she's like, Colonel Mike Rossi, United States Air Force field operative with the Special Investigation Service reported somewhere missing. an action um Yeah. She's. a
01:11:56
Speaker
I just assumed that was his computer talking and there was a woman standing at it. No, no, that is that is that is Tessa's computer brain. That is her. We'll learn. much We'll learn a lot more about that in the. 2000s, but for now, yeah, she's just ai she's just a woman with a computer brain.
01:12:22
Speaker
ah One last detail for me here. huh We get a look.
Relationships and Emotional Fallout in the X-Men
01:12:27
Speaker
ah When Rogue enters, she enters through Storm's attic room because she flies just like Storm does. Yeah. And we get a look at Storm's new room, which is pretty sick. She's got like a ah low L-shaped couch. She's got some big tapestries on the walls. There's no plants in the room.
01:12:46
Speaker
She set her bed up on a loft. I love an L-shaped couch. I know. This looks very cozy. it's got It's got a low coffee table that has like ottomans that tuck into it. It's really, really sleek.
01:13:00
Speaker
Just got to say, update on Storm's bedroom. It's cool. Well, maybe we'll see more of it here in Uncanny X-Men number 183. eighty three We don't.
01:13:13
Speaker
Damn it. He'll never make me cry. oh Not Pat. Pat might make me cry by telling me that we won't see Storm's bedroom. The name of the issue is he'll never make me cry.
01:13:25
Speaker
Chris Claremont's the writer. John Romita Jr. and Dan Green of the artist. Tom Orzakowski's the letterer. Glynis Ween's the colorist. Anne Nesenti's the editor. And... idea Jav Jiveth. Jav Shiv.
01:13:37
Speaker
Jav Jav Jarsveth is the editor. should writing these down. Release date April 10th, 1984. Cover date July First, i just want to say before anything.
01:13:51
Speaker
This is what like one of my favorite issues of the X-Men ever. and Yes. So with dragon issue, good. Better than I expected it to to be when it opens with a giant dragon. Yeah. ah Rogue issue.
01:14:07
Speaker
Excellent. But focused on one character is really just for us to get to know rogue. This is a combination of those two things. it's Yeah, please. This is an all-timer. But actually, maybe... but i do want to set up some context here. So this is also about the... the the This is dealing with the fallout of Peter Rasputin falling in love with Azaji. And i I was wondering about that because...
01:14:36
Speaker
um What the fuck? Was this an editorial mandate? Was Jim Shooter like, I don't like Kitty and Peter being together and I'm going to get in the way of it?
01:14:47
Speaker
Because it doesn't make much sense. He falls in love with a person he doesn't know and never has talked to. And then she dies. And then he's like, now I don't love Kitty anymore because she's dead. Yeah. Like, with what a strange thing.
01:14:59
Speaker
um So I tried looking it up. What what do you think is going here? Yeah. I think Kitty Pryde was becoming a very popular character, especially among teen boys. And I think her relationship with Colossus got to a point Where editorial said, hey we can't have her in a relationship. Like there is too much appeal to teen boys thinking they could bag Kitty Pryde. If she has a boyfriend, we lose all of that.
01:15:38
Speaker
You don't think the age gap. relates So, OK. No, I think it was honestly, dude, in the 80s and the two of them both still being teenagers. I don't think that they're I don't think anybody saw an age gap issue.
01:15:51
Speaker
Okay, the other thing, the ah the only, Claremont loved to loves loves loves, loves, loves, has done this since like issue one, loves to imply that people are having sex.
01:16:05
Speaker
And i think he's done it with Kitty and Colossus twice. I think he has implied them having sex off panel two different times. Yeah, you could argue that. I think both times you could argue that it was just about them kissing because they're two fairly innocent young people well one time she was like she had what emma frost what was it who oh no she was possessed by yeah possessed by lilith right mythological uh that's right goddess and then the other time yeah they could have just been kissing and i think that is how chris claremont gets away with this and i think he does this with adults too he's like well technically all we saw them do was kiss but
01:16:47
Speaker
he's I'm choosing to read it that way. He's often implying sex. um But I'm wondering if the people at Marvel knew this about Claremont. And so we're reading into it. Okay. So I looked it up.
01:17:02
Speaker
There's an article on Slashfilm that says it was a Jim Shooter mandate. And I think... I also assume that's happening because... It took place in Secret Wars. Anything that takes place in Secret Wars is clearly it's a Jim Shooter mandate. it was Yeah, him trying to. yeah um That it was a Jim Shooter mandate because he didn't like the age gap is what the Slashfilm article said.
01:17:28
Speaker
That article refers to a comic book Herald article. That doesn't say that. So that was weird. Then i so i read a bunch of but there's a bunch of Redditors that say it was a shooter mandate because he didn't like the age gap. He had a teenage daughter at the time. he didn't like the idea of a 14 year old and an 18 year old dating.
01:17:51
Speaker
Or wasn't he 19 at the time? i don't know. 19. And they they all refer to that Claremont's X-Men documentary. Which I'd seen, and I don't remember that. So I like scrubbed through it. I didn't have time to watch the whole thing, so maybe listeners can correct me.
01:18:07
Speaker
But I couldn't find any evidence in the documentary at all of Jim Shooter saying that. So there's a lot of people online claiming that they read somewhere that Jim Shooter did not like age Said was an age gap thing.
01:18:24
Speaker
But... I cannot find any original sources of this. So, i don't know Well, you know me, Matt. I am not one to give him the benefit of the doubt. so All right. Anyway, now let's get into the issue. Peter and Kitty sit atop the cliffside on the x Xavier property, a tension between them that neither wants to address.
01:18:47
Speaker
Kitty awkwardly asked if anything fun happened in secret wars. And Peter responds, I met someone else. We fell in love. Jesus Christ, dude.
01:18:58
Speaker
It's so if we're not conveying this, the two of them are sitting there thinking something horrible is about to happen, right? Peter is thinking, I've got to break up with her right now. And she, Kitty is thinking,
01:19:14
Speaker
it seems a whole lot like he's about to break up with me. Yeah. And she just tries to open a conversation. Neither of them are saying anything. And the first thing he says to her is I met someone else. We fell in love. Like, dude, you could have been a little more sensitive. he,
01:19:33
Speaker
I mean, man, how many times have you had that conversation in your life where, you know, your partner's being weird and you don't know how to address it and you say so like, oh, hey, um anything interesting happened to you this weekend when you were...
01:19:50
Speaker
Hanging with, that you know, at your sister's house? We gotta talk. and Yeah, yeah. yeah yeah Oh, you were out with ah seven of your male friends last night. Anything fun happen?
01:20:06
Speaker
It's also very funny for Kitty trying to break the tension being like, so did anything fun happen yeah on that battle world? Yeah.
01:20:20
Speaker
They chat for another three beautiful, touching pages. Peter talks about how even though Zaji died his feelings for her have still replaced his feelings for Kitty. Kitty is outwardly supportive and understanding, but inwardly devastated.
01:20:34
Speaker
She heads back to a room where Ilyana and Lockheed offer her some emotional support. Again, it's just a really touching dialogue. Yeah, yeah. And her Kitty's internal monologue really nails it here. I know it's been a little while since we've talked about how good Chris Claremont is at writing out this teenage girl, but the contrast between what she's saying and what she's thinking is like... Again, I've...
01:21:04
Speaker
I've been broken up with. I've broken up with people. This is somebody just trying to be cool. Yeah. It is nailed here.
01:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. Something weird in that dialogue, though. He calls Zaji a native of the planet the Beyonder created. the fuck?
01:21:27
Speaker
Excuse me? ah like chris Does Chris Claremont not understand that this was a chunk of another planet that was removed to make the amalgam planet that was Battleworld? What is up with this guy? Unreadable! Unreadable issue!
01:21:43
Speaker
a few floors down, Storm finds Rogue going through combat exercises in the danger room, alone, set to a suicidal difficulty. She shuts down the exercises and stops a robot from pulverizing Rogue. But Rogue isn't grateful. She's w racked with guilt about what she's done to Carol Danvers. She can't find her own identity within herself and is clearly ready to die.
01:22:08
Speaker
Rogue leaves in a huff.
01:22:12
Speaker
I think there's something... These are really well-earned, these like emotional temper tantrums that Rogue has. Yeah. But also they do a good job of explaining why she was a villain. Right.
01:22:27
Speaker
She is a deeply emotional person who's only now learning to get a handle on those emotions. Yeah. Yeah. She was she's ready to die in the danger room. because Yeah. So just mixed up about what's going on inside of her.
01:22:41
Speaker
And so it makes sense if she was trying to prove herself to Mystique, if she felt unworthy of being Mystique's daughter, daughter that she would kill all the Avengers, try to kill all the Avengers just to prove herself. Right. she was mad at Captain Marvel because she fought her and lost, that she would...
01:22:58
Speaker
overdo it when she fought her again, it makes sense that she would obsessively chase down Dazzler and fight her for a full year, right? Like, watch oops. um Storm wanders off only to find Kitty in her room, packing a suitcase.
01:23:13
Speaker
She's off to visit her parents, who she hasn't seen in quite some time. She's also considering not coming back. Storm gives her a big hug and encourages her to fight through the pain.
01:23:28
Speaker
That's rough. to To be continued in the Kitty Pride and Wolverine miniseries. That evening, Peter is surprised when he enters his room to find Wolverine sitting in the dark, smoking cigs, and waiting for him just blasting darts.
01:23:46
Speaker
He's so fucking cool. They're going to the city for a little chat about his behavior, and Logan makes it clear that he's not giving Peter a choice. Kurt sees them leaving, and knowing what it's about, bamps in the car to join them and he see as they drive off. He's like, hey, guys, wait.
01:24:06
Speaker
Boys trip. he like guys wait boys trip like poofs on top of the car he's like hey you can't leave without me and then poofs inside he's like don't worry you don't have to open a door i'll just teleport inside it's also the subtext here is that he is worried that wolverine's actually going to kill colossus yes yeah it's very uh man wolverine's so fucking cool it's nice yeah First of all, he' he was like, okay, I got to talk to Peter. He's hurt my friend Kitty.
01:24:39
Speaker
let me approach this the right way. I'll sit in his bedroom in the dark, smoking and drinking until he shows up. Then I'll hand him, it and I'll hand him his jacket and say, we're going, we're going. You don't have a choice. He says, i don't recall giving you a choice. Also, he's dressed like a frontiersman. He's got like this yeah big, uh, duster on. He's wearing like a cowboy hat with feathers sticking out of it. God damn.
01:25:07
Speaker
He rolls. This is, yeah, this is the era where Wolverine becomes Wolverine and it's so good. Yeah, yeah. We got another brief, an actual interlude.
01:25:18
Speaker
Though he doesn't call it an interlude this time. um But it is one.
Government Strategies and Wolverine's Counsel
01:25:23
Speaker
In Dallas, where Val Cooper and Raven Darkholm, two high-ranking government officials, although the latter is secretly mystique, are discussing how Senator Kelly's anti-mutant bill, passable or not, stirred up the hornet's nest they needed. Their next was step to is to develop as many mutant assets as possible before anyone else does.
01:25:46
Speaker
Hopefully, a man named forge you We'll be able to help them. Wow. I did not know this is how Forge gets introduced. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:25:59
Speaker
In a dive bar in the West Village of Manhattan, a very fashionable Logan and Kurt try to help Peter understand where he fucked up. They're all so fucking fashionable. They are doing so well. Okay. Neither of us could pull off Wolverine's look here. Again, it's the frontiers. It turns out under the duster, he was just wearing a tight black V-neck T-shirt. Wow. Neither of us are are doing that. But.
01:26:25
Speaker
Kurt. I think I could pull that look off. And Peter, I think you could pull that look off. Kurt's wearing like Steve Zissou. Yeah, he's got like the the thick wool beanie. He's trying to obscure his look a little bit so that nobody in this dingy dive bar can tell that he's blue.
01:26:44
Speaker
This is me and you at a bar with who? Who's our third heat? Who's are bulkiest, hairiest friend? Probably Wolverine. Um... vision So is they're asking Peter, is he sure what he felt for Zaji was love?
01:27:01
Speaker
Right before they left, Peter was talking about marrying Kitty until he found he had some competition in Doug Ramsey. As soon as he saw some adversity in his commitment to Kitty, he dropped it for a woman he knew for five minutes.
01:27:13
Speaker
Before Logan can really drop the emotional hammer on Peter, though, he recognizes a familiar threatening scent in the bar. Without mentioning it, he grabs Peter by the arm and tells them it's time to leave now.
01:27:28
Speaker
Peter, a bit tipsy, objects and accidentally spills his drink on a large red-haired man having a very intimate conversation with a slender black-haired woman. He's clearly about to get lucky. Did you know who either of these people were?
01:27:43
Speaker
I knew who the red-haired man was because he's on the cover. Oh, yeah, I guess. Oh, right. I guess it does show. Okay. Yeah, good point. The redheaded man, enraged, pushes Peter straight through the bar's wall.
01:27:59
Speaker
And Peter marches back in, steeled up and swinging. Kurt runs in to stop Peter from killing someone, but Logan pulls him back, smiles, and lights a cigarette. Peter's about to learn the lesson that Logan was going to teach him anyway.
01:28:12
Speaker
He's so cool. Meanwhile, it seems that the slender dark haired woman has started chatting with another man only making the red haired man angrier. He and classics exchange a few punches before the other man cries that he's sick of being hassled by the X-Men and picks up the entire bar.
01:28:31
Speaker
Like the, the physical structure that is the bar. And he slams it down on top of Peter. o But after only a moment, Peter pops out from the rubble and the fight resumes. Kurt wants to at least step in before the bar collapses, but Logan knows there's no stopping this now.
01:28:52
Speaker
That's Juggernaut, he explains. ah And it's time for Peter to learn some humility. Logan will pay the damage himself if insurance doesn't cover it. Juggernaut gets the advantage on Peter, and to end the fight, pulls a load-bearing wall down on top of him. As he dusts himself off, he notices Logan and Kurt in the corner, markedly not looking for a fight.
01:29:15
Speaker
He tosses them a wad of cash for the damages he's done, and tells them to tell Colossus he's got guts, and throws a mean punch when he wakes up.
01:29:29
Speaker
Fucking cool. Fuck yeah, dude. Just... Just like, ah there's a, just the chat between like imagining the icy stare between Juggernaut and Wolverine across a collapsed bar and Juggernaut being like, you want some too? And Wolverine being like, oh man.
01:29:49
Speaker
Nope. Fuck. This thing that Wolverine has done, we've seen him do a couple of times now where somebody's like, you want to try me Wolverine? And he's like, nope. Because he knows when to fight.
01:30:02
Speaker
Yes, it's and you he's very much like Juggernaut's here, but he was just he was about to get lucky. He was picking up a girls at the bar. He wasn't here to start a fight.
01:30:13
Speaker
Matt, i I know you love the guy, but I'm going to need you to stop using that term.
01:30:23
Speaker
um Logan helps dig Peter out of the rubble as he explains the lesson. X-Men do anything for each other. And this is what happens when they don't. Peter didn't consider Kitty in his breakup. He just talked at her and had no interest in hearing her thoughts or feelings on it. Every reason he gave for falling in love with his Aji was a quality that Kitty also had, including, most importantly, saving his life. Kitty was ready to marry Caliban and spend the rest of her life with the Morlocks to save Peter, and he's never even acknowledged that.
01:30:55
Speaker
He just went off to space and, out of fear, found a reason to leave the complications of a relationship with Kitty behind. If he wants to end things, that's his choice. But he owes her way more than what he gave her.
01:31:09
Speaker
that's That's what I fucking love about this. It's not that he broke up with her. It's not like, I'm going to kick your ass because you broke up with Kitty. It's like, yeah you weren't... Look, if you're going to date somebody that's so much younger than you, fucking fine. Whatever.
01:31:26
Speaker
You have to be extra responsible about it. And you were not. You were thoughtless about it the whole way through.
01:31:37
Speaker
Yeah. Dan Savage has this thing called the campsite rule. Leave a partner ah leave a partner of the same or better condition than you met them.
01:31:50
Speaker
That's pretty good. um And that falls under a much bigger scrutiny when it's age gap relationships, even if it's not an illegal and immoral one like this one, right? Yeah, yeah. If if you're 40 and you're dating a 27-year-old, right, it's the same thing. Like, you have to be very careful that you are you have both eyes open and you're considering what this means to this person versus what it means to you. And I think what Colossus did is not that.
01:32:21
Speaker
what it meant to kitty was not what it meant to colossus from the very beginning yeah yeah there's in two very different phases of their lives and they are going to interpret a relationship differently because of that she was willing to give her life for him And he was only willing to give his life for her as much as he was at anybody, which is like... Yeah, yeah. He does for anybody.
01:32:49
Speaker
He would do for me and you, even as we are talking shit on him right now. Anyway, Kurt and Logan leave Peter to clean himself up among the rubble, and as they walk down the street, the panels dip into an alleyway they pass by, where the dark-haired woman from earlier is cradling the bearded man she found comfort in earlier.
01:33:13
Speaker
Only he's dead. The life force has been sucked out of him. and the woman reveals herself to be Selene. She's back. She's back.
01:33:24
Speaker
Whoa. ah Go now. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
01:33:33
Speaker
i this must have been cool being like a year removed from when she last appeared in the in the new mutants yeah uh rather than being like two months ago when we first met her could you imagine though like a lot of this stuff reading um reading the x-men and not new mutants or vice versa you just have no idea what the fuck is happening ever yeah yeah ah okay your name's selene So is my grandmother's.
01:34:06
Speaker
um I loved this. It was just an issue. Just an issue about being friends. Yeah. There's ah there's Kitty and Aurora strength in their relationship. Kitty and Ileana strength in their relationship. Yeah. Peter, Kurt and Logan all strength in their relationships. They even have a friendly fight with one of their enemies. Yeah.
01:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. Beautiful stuff. um The X-Men are friends. Apparently, Juggernaut just came from, and it's fun because we haven't seen Juggernaut in like three, four years, right? Yeah, yeah. And um maybe more.
01:34:44
Speaker
Holy shit. We haven't seen him since, um... Oh! Oh! Okay! Remember, Juggernaut and Black Tom, they didn't fight the X-Men. They hired Arcade to kill the X-Men. That's right. That's when we last saw him. That sucks! And that was 1979. Oh, jeez.
01:35:06
Speaker
oh geez And then, so then he was in two Spider-Woman issues and two Amazing Spider-Man issues. Right. We saw him in, it was like a team up or something where he kept getting released from the Sidorak dimension and then sucked back into it.
01:35:25
Speaker
That was in the Spider Woman. I think that was in Spider Woman. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. And then we didn't read this Spider Man.
01:35:35
Speaker
Who? He's...
01:35:39
Speaker
um Oh, and the Juggernaut, the Spider-Man issue is the famous one where he's just stomping through New York and no and Spider-Man can't stop him. Oh, yes.
01:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. Iconic. and then he just disappeared he does that in 19 all-timer issue and then just and then two years goes by and he's gone and now he's here and now he's just drinking at a bar trying to fuck yeah trying to fuck selene when's the last time he was actually up to something dastardly ah When he hired Arcade in 1979. I guess. The last time he started throwing punches at people to be a bad guy was in X-Men 103. So like 1977. Crazy stuff.
01:36:29
Speaker
Yeah. I'm glad he's back. Me too. i'm I'm interested to see some more Juggernaut.
01:36:37
Speaker
what if we yeah What if we just move right on to the next issue, Matt? Is Juggernaut in it? No, he's not. Fuck. But we're better for it. All right. That's fine. Uncanny X-Men number 184, the past of future...
01:36:50
Speaker
the cast of future days he's already jumping the shark no this it's gonna be good issue but what a bad title yeah yeah chris claremont writer john ramita jr and dan green artists glennis ween colorist tom orzakowski letterer and no centi editor and jason shit editor in chief release date may 8th 1984 cover date august 1984 dallas texas
01:37:21
Speaker
dallas texas Dr.
New Characters and Future Storylines
01:37:24
Speaker
Valerie Cooper and Raven Darkholm ascend to the top floors of Eagle Plaza, where a man named Forge lives and works. Oh,
01:37:34
Speaker
Just as they're walking into his five-story penthouse marveling at the holographic interior, a man named Naze is storming out of it. First, Naze is furious that Forge will not step up to fulfill his sacred duty to fix the ancient patterns of order, yet Forge simply denies that this is his destiny or his responsibility.
01:37:56
Speaker
Second, the penthouse itself is like a danger room style hologram that replicates environments like they were real. In this moment, just above the canopy of a beautiful forest with mountains looming overhead and a falcon flying around. ah Third, Forge himself appears, a fit Native American man with a small Clark Gable mustache, extremely short shorts, and a robotic right leg.
01:38:22
Speaker
He... is obviously obviously Chris Claremont's introducing a Native American character. So he is arguing with his former tribal leader, his former tribal leader about the spiritual matters of magic, which he is the only one and who can set them rain right. Right.
01:38:45
Speaker
Yeah. Right. He's the chosen one for a Native American race and is shirking his responsibilities because it's hooey. Yeah. Yeah.
01:38:55
Speaker
He is certainly fit. He is like fetish content fit. This is an absurdly jacked man. It is a horny, horny picture.
01:39:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Forge handwaves Naze's outburst as tribal business. and leads the two women to his lab. The Department of Defense apparently turned to Forge after Tony Stark gave up inventing weaponry for them.
01:39:22
Speaker
Hired to deal with some dire wraith stuff, Forge was unable to duplicate Rom's weapons, but nevertheless made two devices that work similarly. Rom Space Knight mentioned.
01:39:34
Speaker
Rom Space Knight. Come on. Well, okay. At this moment, there's a tie-in with the Wraith War. That's happening in in ROM, and i't it crosses over in a couple different... We're we're going to have to talk more about it in a in a later episode. Great.
01:39:57
Speaker
ah So he invents two ROM-like devices. The first is a gun that can neutralize the power of any super being, including mutants. Okay. You don't know that.
01:40:09
Speaker
Super powers come from all sorts of places. Yeah, yeah. Second, a detector that can distinguish baseline humans from aliens and mutants. So, Cerebro.
01:40:20
Speaker
So, yeah. It is Cerebro again. When he jokes about a mutant in the room, Raven tenses, thinking her identity as Mystique has been uncovered. But Forge reveals that the mutant is himself. ah What do you think Valerie Cooper is thinking at that moment?
01:40:41
Speaker
but I mean, she doesn't know Forge. So it's and it's I thought it was clear that he saw that Mystique also read as a mutant and was like, oh, this is information I'll keep to myself for now.
01:40:54
Speaker
OK, so he knows. He knows. And I think Val Cooper is just clueless. I think she's sitting there like, OK, this guy's got jokes, I guess. But before he laughs.
01:41:06
Speaker
When she's, is she oh is she like, wait, is Raven a mutant? Wait, am I a mutant? Like, what do you think she's thinking?
01:41:16
Speaker
Oh yeah. That's a good point. That's a panic moment for her, but yeah, I, i don't know. I don't know Val Cooper well enough yet. Like, yeah I know she's going to play a big part, but we've only seen her in passing and we also, mut so far, we also don't know what Forge's mutant power is.
01:41:35
Speaker
He just says he is one and he doesn't explain what his power is. There's, so at this moment, Mystique is like, was Before she realizes that Forge is joking, she's like, okay, I guess I have to kill everyone in this room if my secret is compromised. How many fucking problems would she have solved right there? How many future issues of X-Men? Val Cooper and Forge were dead?
01:42:03
Speaker
I like Forge, though, just to say. i like i i kind of like Val Cooper, but Val Cooper is a shit, and Forge fucks things up all the time, but by accident. I like Forge. I don't like this technology he's working on. i neither.
01:42:18
Speaker
Seems bad. Seems like it's going to have some consequences for somebody we know. In New York City. Ooh, the Windy City.
01:42:29
Speaker
A tired looking girl with short cropped red hair watches through a closed store window. The X-Men's battle with the dragon in Japan on the news. I thought I thought for a moment this was rain. I thought.
01:42:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Just because of the short, like sponge top red hair. And you were were you thinking like, oh, what's happened to Wolf? So what are you doing here? How'd she get here?
01:42:57
Speaker
The anchor touches on the recent anti mutant hysteria and the mutant affairs control act. The girl seems to recognize all the X-Men except for Storm's new look, but panics at the name of the bill when the TV suddenly turns off.
01:43:11
Speaker
She side scans the street to make sure it's deserted and one uses her telekinesis to turn the televisions back on. What? But she missed the end of the broadcast. You're telling me this is a red haired girl who has telepathy and telekinesis?
01:43:28
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Dark Phoenix 2, baby, it's time.
01:43:36
Speaker
ah She reveals that she's from the future and was surprised when Ileana answered the door at the X-Mansion yesterday. Ileana looked around 15, but Ileana was 15 when she died. What?
01:43:49
Speaker
In the future. a future where Robert Kelly was assassinated and the Mutant Control Act was passed. Huh. Sounds kind of familiar, but I'm still not following. Behind the girl following on the foggy street is Selene, who has never sensed a living being so powerful.
01:44:11
Speaker
Well, yeah, this is Jean Grey, the phoenix. Instead of draining her life, Selene hopes to make this girl her heir. Surprised by a speeding fire truck, the girl gets distracted and Selene attempts to grab her from a dark alley and but she sets off a telekinetic burst and sprints away into a disco.
01:44:29
Speaker
Soon, however, her scishields fail as all the thoughts of the crowd to disco invade her head. A bouncer picks her up to throw her out, but a handsome ass man named Nick Damiano steps in. Nick Damiano is here. He's a handsome ass.
01:44:46
Speaker
He's the owner of the club and he's sympathetic to the girl's fears that some kind of energy vampire tried to grab her in the alley. So... He takes her back to his penthouse apartment. lot of penthouse apartments in this episode. I think this guy has some ulterior motives.
01:45:03
Speaker
This girl tells him her name. Rachel. Jean Gret. What? Rachel. What? I know. Nick's kindness reminds Rachel of Franklin.
01:45:19
Speaker
Do we all realize who this is yet? I don't stop. And her mind scans reveal that the dude really has no ulterior motives. He gives her a glass of orange juice and sends her to his hot tub to relax.
01:45:31
Speaker
But no ulterior motives. She's jittery around him still because in her younger days, humans hunted mutants and threw them into concentration camps. Still, she allows herself to relax into the hot tub.
01:45:47
Speaker
ah Soon, though, she grows uneasy as she can't sense Nick's thoughts anymore. She throws on a robe and walks out only to see a candlelit dinner with Nick sitting in a chair. She goes up to touch him and finds a desiccated corpse in his seat.
01:46:03
Speaker
The rug on the floor suddenly lifts up and wraps around her and Selene steps out from the darkness. Nick Damiano is gone. There goes that handsome ass. Yeah.
01:46:17
Speaker
Rachel does her best to fight back, the apartment becoming destroyed and aflame in the process, but her psi shields give out once again. Selene begins sucking the energy from her, though she refuses to give in.
01:46:30
Speaker
At that moment, Charles x Xavier's voice pops into her head. Then his form appears in front of her. He sensed two incredibly powerful mutants on Cerebro and sent the X-Men to investigate. He hasn't done this in a while. We're doing this again? Yeah.
01:46:48
Speaker
i guess they I guess they're bored after Secret Wars. On cue, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Rogue burst through the door. The X-Men charge forward to stop Selene, but Nightcrawler gets there first, teleporting in front of the woman as she drags Rachel through the flames.
01:47:05
Speaker
Rogue tackles Selene and feels her hand on her throat, skin to skin, But instead of absorbing her powers, Selene is taking Rogue's life force. It's like that family guy bit where the guy's in jail and he stabs himself with his shiv and he's like, oh my god, is that what I've been doing to people? yeah right I belong. He's like, this felt awful. I'm sorry. it feels like I'm sorry to reference a family guy bit, but that's maybe yeah that's maybe like one of their four good jokes they ever had.
01:47:39
Speaker
That's your one. Never do it again. de Also, new Colossus costume. new colossus costume Oh, right. He's got like this red singlet.
01:47:50
Speaker
Yeah. just seemed Like a wrestling singlet. It's red. It's very strange. It's it's it's it's but it's new. Yeah. This is where we get back into like, oh, right. Selene has every power. So she's psychic. She's an and energy vampire. She can manipulate all inorganic matter around her. and Now she's also able to iy absorb somebody's powers.
01:48:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Xavier's astral form appears between the two of them and he mind blasts Selene, causing her to leap away into the flames. The X-Men grab Rachel and leap from the building while Storm rushes in to put out the flames.
01:48:36
Speaker
Shortly after, they gather on the street. Selene is gone, leaving no trace, psychic or otherwise. And Rachel is shocked to see that the woman she saw on TV earlier really was Storm.
01:48:47
Speaker
And that Professor X can walk. With this, she collapses on the ground. great another Just like Kitty, she sees Storm with a new haircut and fucking passes out.
01:49:00
Speaker
but
01:49:02
Speaker
No, she's... This can't be my Storm. My Storm never had a haircut. She collapses on the ground. She's clearly gone to the wrong past.
01:49:14
Speaker
Her world is doomed.
01:49:18
Speaker
Again, pretty dramatic response to Storm having a haircut. but yeah yeah yeah But Rachel Summers is here. Rachel Summers. She's here. why So I'll be honest. Rachel Summers is somebody that like the only comics I've read her in. Yeah.
01:49:38
Speaker
She's like, she's a regular. She's just connect a lot of dots to figure out who Rachel Summers is, where she comes from. And it seems like I'm about to get some of that story.
01:49:49
Speaker
This is, this is where this is the, this is the beginning of Rachel. One, very funny moment from this issue and this this gets me in every form every time when it happens in a comic but okay selene sees professor x xavier appear between her and rachel and goes a ghost it's so do you not you're psychic yourself do you not understand what's going on here that's so funny
01:50:25
Speaker
Wolfman. All right, Pat. We're going to hop back in time a little bit. Not far. oh Not very far. Okay. Just like seven months to September. Seven months?
01:50:41
Speaker
To September 27th, 1983. Huh. hu Don't worry. The cover date's December 1983. So that's only six months. Okay. Yeah. That's much closer. Wait, Matt, huh?
01:50:54
Speaker
Isn't that Assistant Editor's Month? I don't know. It is. Okay. then Yes. That's why this this one's so wacky. It is wacky, and I don't think I like it.
01:51:06
Speaker
But let's let's let's see. um Uncanny X-Men Annual No. 7 is what we're reading today. It's called Scavenger Hunt. Ooh. It's... Oh, God. This is going to be so much. All right Plot and script by Christopher Claremont. Pencils by Michael Golden. Except... That seems Pages 28 to 32, penciled by Brett f Blevins. Inks by...
01:51:29
Speaker
Pages one to two, Michael Golden. Pages three to seven, Tom Mandrake. Pages eight to 11, Bob Wyachek. Pages 12 and 13 and 16, Terry Austin. Page 14, 15, 17, 18, 19. Brett Breeding. Page 20 to 23, Tom Mandrake. Page 24, Wild Bill Anderson. Page 25 to 27, Joe the Rubenstein. 28, Steve Lealoha. Page 29, Sam De La Page
01:51:50
Speaker
30 and 31, The Rube again. ah Page 32, Big Al Milgram. Page 33 to 37, Brett Blevins. And page 38 and 39, Terry Austin.
01:52:02
Speaker
Fuck. And don't forget, you you're missing a couple of ah credits down at the bottom there. Yeah, okay. So ah Tom Marsakowski was the letterer. Mike Higgins did lettering on pages 31 and 32. Glynnis Ween did the coloring. And um that's all we get.
01:52:20
Speaker
So the X-Men are playing baseball. Hey. The end. So what did you think of this episode, Pat? No. All right. Great. i love baseball. The X-Men are playing baseball. It's Logan Curtin Rogue versus literally everyone else, including Lalandra, who is still, we're we're a little back in time. Lalandra, go home. There is a galactic war being waged in your name. Remember, we used to have to say that every episode. Yes. And now she's playing baseball.
01:52:52
Speaker
and She's got a ah New York Yankees shirt on. Jersey. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. She's a way. She's jumping on the bandwagon. Peter cracks a home run ball so high that everyone thinks it's gone to orbit until it starts crashing back down to the ground. Or does it?
01:53:12
Speaker
hu No, as it gets closer, it's clearly a spaceship. You would be, you can tell fucking. It takes them so long to realize. I know, yeah, you would be able to tell immediately. All right, ah it's a spaceship. It's crashing back down at them. Everyone flees for cover, but the ship stops its descent just above the mansion and outscrolls Galactus. Whoa.
01:53:37
Speaker
But he's ah purple and green for some reason, which nobody notices. Why is there this fucking thing in comic books? It happens all the time where there's a shapeshifter who cannot change the color.
01:53:49
Speaker
Their color palette? And nobody ever notices. Nobody ever. Like when a Plastic Man becomes a household object colored like with the exact scheme of Plastic Man.
01:54:05
Speaker
Nobody's ever like. with logo hiding somewhere. Yeah, nobody's ever like, oh, this is Plastic Man. It's clearly Plastic Man. I didn't pick up that this version of Galactus was green and purple for a reason.
01:54:17
Speaker
I just we've miscolored Galactus left and right. Oh, I get you. I come in peace, he says, claiming he only needs to take their house for an urgent matter.
01:54:28
Speaker
But as x Xavier tries to probe his mind, he senses another presence nearby, one that makes him go all funky when he tries to probe it. He does go all funky. He goes wildly funky. This sends the X-Men into attack mode despite Galactus' warning.
01:54:43
Speaker
Galactus, having no time for this, simply steals the entire mansion and disappears. And I'm going to say, Michael Golden is a good artist. But large chunks of this comic are, especially without the dialogue, are indecipherable.
01:55:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. It is hard to follow what's actually happening here. To be clear, the recounting of the events that Matt's reading through here are the best I could do to interpret what's happening panel to panel. When you are reading this comic, it is very scattershot. And it's like, I don't know what the fuck just ah occurred.
01:55:26
Speaker
And yeah there's a lot that's just implied by the dialogue that you don't see on page. The whole idea behind assistant editors month was that the actual editors were all off at comic book conventions. and there was like a month where it was up to the assistant editors to get things done. And for the most part, you're not going to notice it except for the fact that they're like cheekily plugging in yeah wackier things in their stories.
01:55:55
Speaker
In this case, yeah it seems like maybe they could have used a more experienced editor to say, what the fuck is going on here? Yeah, none of this is is legible.
01:56:09
Speaker
um Or intelligible. The X-Men looking for their home track the telepathic signatures all the way to a room on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Oh, we're back here. And it looks way different than it did. it does. Everybody's got a different interpretation.
01:56:24
Speaker
Kitty and Kurt burst in only to find Nick Fury making sweet, passionate love to La Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
01:56:36
Speaker
You okay? yeah oh they call her Allegro here too. They call her Allegro here too. Yeah. Ah. let me Let me make sure i know what the fuck I'm talking talking about. Yeah. Tessa Valentina. It's Allegra.
01:56:53
Speaker
It's Allegra. Okay. Yeah, it's Allegra. Again, we need a need some we need an editor. We need some real editors in this place. Maybe this is a different woman.
01:57:06
Speaker
ah Nick Fury just has a type.
01:57:15
Speaker
the awkward moment is interrupted when a green snake-like creature pops up and steals Nick Fury's eye patch, transforms into a mannequin and flies out the window. Again, you would not know that's what happened unless... Yes, it's my best guess. Unless... Also, there's like, he's like, didn't you have a rose?
01:57:34
Speaker
And she's like, that's not what's what matters here. And then all of sudden, yeah, again, all of a sudden, it just something off panel turns into a snake. Yeah.
01:57:45
Speaker
And Snake is a liberal interpretation of what it's supposed to be. Yeah. Yes. Anyway, embarrassed Curt and Kitty get the heck out of there. They next follow the energy signatures all the way to the Savage Land, where they're met by Kazar.
01:58:01
Speaker
Kazar. Kazar, who's going by Kevin now. Well, I think sha Shanna always called him Kevin, because his name. I don't know. I'm not following Kazar.
01:58:13
Speaker
but They're calling him Kevin here. It's very funny. Just Shanna is. I am Kevin.
01:58:22
Speaker
Zabu the saber-toothed tiger has been stolen. Rogue suggests what she knows is a silly idea. What if this is some sort of cosmic scavenger hunt? No time for that theory now, though. Next up is Avengers Mansion, where Colossus and Rogue fight She-Hulk.
01:58:38
Speaker
and Iron Man for a bit and discover that all the wasps costumes have been stolen again. what It cuts to like security footage of the fantastic car with a pile of stuff on it.
01:58:51
Speaker
And then they say Colossus and rogue are out there. and it's like, no, they're not. I don't, I don't. It's so. Yeah.
01:59:02
Speaker
And then somebody just says, that's all the wasps costumes. They're so they've been stolen.
01:59:10
Speaker
Then across town to Bleecker Street where the iconic window seal of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum is also stolen. Then over to the Hellfire Club where they find Emma Frost resting peacefully in a coma. This is... Yeah, remember. She was in a coma. Yeah, coma Emma Frost. sad.
01:59:28
Speaker
Wolverine is the first to notice that the green and purple flowers adorning her aren't real. And as soon as he says it out loud, the flowers morph into a green and purple squirt gun and then into a green and purple balloon.
01:59:39
Speaker
What? Sebastian Shaw appears to figure out what the heck is going on down here, and as he's distracted by the X-Men, this sentient balloon steals the Black Queen's outfit from a mannequin, morphs into a green and purple rocket, and takes off claiming he's sure he'll win the competition with all these great prizes.
01:59:57
Speaker
this This part gets needlessly serious where Sebastian Shaw is like, you haven't seen the last of me, you cursed X-Men. like he's Yeah.
02:00:08
Speaker
He's getting really mad. Still in Manhattan, we see Marvel editors Mark Grunewald, Elliot Brown, and Mike Carlin and receptionist Darlene Coyle going about their business in the Marvel offices when a green and purple creature rides in on a saber-toothed tiger and tackles them. The X-Men?
02:00:24
Speaker
Yes. The creature is... ghost It's like a miniature ghost rider. It's cute. the The X-Men follow soon after, and the Marvel bullpen is torn up in a whirlwind of mutant activity. The creature pops in and out of offices, looking for Stan Lee as the X-Men chase him, eventually tackling him and confronting him in the printing area.
02:00:45
Speaker
It's why everybody's like, Stan Lee's in Hollywood, man. Yeah, yeah. There's also a Jim Stupid that this character interrupts.
02:00:59
Speaker
And he is suspiciously handsome in in this rendering here. And I'm wondering if that was an editorial mandate. Can you actually, can you make me look like I'm 25? Big muscles and big muscles.
02:01:15
Speaker
Big muscles and make the person I'm talking to old.
02:01:21
Speaker
All right. yeah This guy introduces himself as the impossible man.
02:01:28
Speaker
From old Fantastic Four issues. He's the Mr. McSizzleplick of... zi Yeah, yeah. um He doesn't understand why everyone's so mad. He's just playing a game.
02:01:40
Speaker
See, his planet was consumed by Galactus and the survivors were looking to pick a new leader since they had always been a hive mind before. Everyone just voted for themselves. What? What?
02:01:51
Speaker
So they held an election. they've always been a hive mind. All the survivors of their planet being eaten were like, well, we got to pick a new leader. Let's all vote. And each one only voted for themselves because they're only used to be. economic life Yeah.
02:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. That's it's that's yeah, it's cute. It's not like a laugh out loud joke, but none of this is. sorry about it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Everyone just voted for themselves. So they decided that ah they would choose a leader by having a galactic scavenger hunt.
02:02:22
Speaker
huh Impy's chosen planet was Earth. And as an admirer of Earth, super people started collecting the most so iconic stuff he could.
02:02:34
Speaker
Just then, the inhabitants of hundreds of other planets, warriors arrive, all of whom have had valuable things stolen from their planets by other members of Impy's race, demanding justice.
02:02:48
Speaker
Lalandra has a solution. She'll judge the scavenger hunt. There's a war happening! go home! ah Then everybody's belongings will be returned. The end.
02:03:04
Speaker
Problem solved. In an epilogue, we see that the impossible man didn't win the contest as he's consoled by Kitty and Ileana poolside. He turns into Magnum P.I. to ask for a bite of their ice cream and then into Garfield to eat it.
02:03:19
Speaker
The end. and they are And they both do like dances. It's... Yeah, they're doing like go-go dance poses. It's very weird. It's super strange. I loved the end of this where... That last panel where they're all just like shrugging. It's like the end of... ah What was the Socket Toomey show? i i Socket Toomey. I know the phrase but I don't know what show is.
02:03:46
Speaker
It was that that sort of spirit. Oh, man. It's... Not very good. um This was not. i mean, it was a silly comic.
02:03:57
Speaker
It's very. so It's clearly supposed to be like a farce. And yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's just not. yeah i don't yeah I just don't care. it's it's like Exactly. It's not playful enough. And again, i know we've talked about this before. We have a bias towards comics with continuity in them because of what we do here. But...
02:04:22
Speaker
we do hear but if we're reading a comic just for it to be a comic, like I want it to be entertaining and funny and interesting and have concepts that are like, and this just didn't, it just, to me, it is the most basic interpretation of what it says on the box. yeah Like, Hey, what about a story where the impossible man is, uh, stealing a bunch of, ah Marvel,
02:04:55
Speaker
artifacts And the X-Men have to chase him around. And like that's... We don't get anything deeper or funnier or more interesting than that. So to me...
02:05:09
Speaker
This is Jim stupid synergy initiative, right? Where it's like, Hey, you're going to put out an annual. Can you please just stuff as many Marvel universe characters in there as possible? So they have a reason to. Okay. Chris Claremont, we know is just not a funny guy and that's okay. He does good work. This is him trying to yeah i put something in the pages of mad magazine. right and And it's just, it's not his strength.
02:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, they should have just gotten like a cartoon, like ah like the writer for a cartoon. Like whoever was writing for Hanna-Barbera at the time, just bring them here. I think guest writers should be a consistent across angles. I think annuals should always, and a lot of times they do. It's not like their regular monthly writer necessarily who's writing the annual. Yeah. but uh because even if it's even if it's bad but not claremont like that would be more fun i think yeah yes exactly somebody would be a little it would just be a little looser this was very very rigid for such a silly corny story yes yeah yeah yeah and even if it was rid this is what i'm saying even if it was rigid but it was like
02:06:28
Speaker
Steve Gerber who wrote it. Well, he wouldn't be rigid, but like Roy Thomas. I don't know. He wasn't in the company anymore. He sucks. um Also, we liked Roy Thomas by the end.
02:06:39
Speaker
That's true. ah If it was like, I don't know, Terry Austin who wrote this. At least we'd be able to be like, isn't it weird how Terry Austin writes? Yes. The way that we can with Bill Mantlo.
02:06:52
Speaker
But... But now we just have to be like, yeah, he also does this sometimes. but Yeah, so, i you know, I... And I think it also...
02:07:05
Speaker
We read two really bad comic books back to back. And then we read four fucking unbelievably good issues of X-Men.
02:07:17
Speaker
And then we had to read this. So. He's got eye out. Stuff that you could buy out. If you had time machine that you would like to try out.
02:07:29
Speaker
It can feel. Feel.
02:07:34
Speaker
Whoa. Here we are. Back up with Pat's steals and deals. Would you believe that for only a dollar ninety eight.
02:07:49
Speaker
That's less than two dollars.
02:07:53
Speaker
and In 1984 money. So it's actually ah probably around seven. Seven dollars. Still a great price okay for a. Sun powered airship.
02:08:08
Speaker
UFO solar. What? ah I'll read the copy in a second, Matt. But looking at this, I am almost sure that this is the same thing that created the balloon boy phenomenon. If you remember that.
02:08:25
Speaker
Sun. Yes, I remember balloon boy. This is that device. Sun-powered airship UFO solar.
02:08:37
Speaker
Okay. All right. All right. All right. I found it. It is a big condom looking.
02:08:44
Speaker
It's a trash bag. Yes, but one that flies. Yeah, it's a flying trash bag, I guess. it's So essentially, because of the like the reflective material around it, this the i my understanding is that it heats up the air inside, which causes it to rise, right? And then in 2009, somebody made their own just like this, sent it up, and then called the authorities and said, help, my son is trapped in there, even though he was not.
02:09:11
Speaker
Balloon boy. In a... year Uh, early social media universe was a, yeah just a a moment in time. I hope you folks are able to, uh, to remember that, but.
02:09:24
Speaker
All right. So I did find it. Ooh, you found it on eBay. h Um, here are the warnings. do Number one, do not play in strong wind. Okay.
02:09:38
Speaker
Number two, keep away from power constructions, trees, et cetera. no. Number three, if released, it could reach an ultimateness about 30,000 feet. Wow.
02:09:50
Speaker
Please put on gloves when playing, or it might hurt finger. Pretty hot, yeah. Keep away from fire. Flammable, okay. Do not put on head. You'll suffocate.
02:10:02
Speaker
Keep the string away from children. They could choke. In case of leaks, repair it with glued tape. that's That's not a safety thing. Do not release an air call news anchor and tell them your son is trapped in it. That one guy violated violated that very rule. um Yeah, UFO solar.
02:10:28
Speaker
Okay, let me read you some of this copy because it gets wild. Giant airship, 10 feet long, powered by the sun, nothing else to buy. ex Expose airship to the sun and it rises to tremendous altitudes. You control height with special flying cable included.
02:10:48
Speaker
if That's just the string on a... Okay. If cut loose, airship can reach 30,000 feet. So on the package, that's a warning. In the ad copy, it's an asset. Oh, yeah. Tested in Wisconsin.
02:11:03
Speaker
I watched an eagle attack the airship at 2000 feet while it was still climbing. Guaranteed. Fuck. Why is that? Say that in the ad. Who are you? Who are you?
02:11:17
Speaker
Is that Chris Claremont?
02:11:24
Speaker
You have the fun. Let the sun do the work. Return for refund in 30 days. If not pleased, only a dollar 98 plus 97 cents postage and handling. Oh, my goodness. ah Two for five, by the way. Five for ten. If you want to get... A fleet!
02:11:41
Speaker
You can buy a fleet of these! A fleet of balloon boys.
02:11:49
Speaker
ah Help! My ten sons are trapped in these things!
02:11:57
Speaker
Okay, so... Time ah inevitably marches on. The value of the American dollar continues to drop. So today, he a dollar in worth about and
02:12:17
Speaker
if we take that and multiply it by the dollar ninety eight that this costs we get six dollars and twenty cents
02:12:30
Speaker
For one. Now, could $31.30 have $10. Keep that in mind. Or you could buy eBay for $65. $65? Are you Well, there's two. found $25, it doesn't have string. Oh, no. That would interfere with traffic. Yeah.
02:12:43
Speaker
there's two though i found two one you can one has only twenty five dollars but it doesn't have the string know that would interfere with air traffic
02:12:59
Speaker
The other one is, and that one's made in Taiwan. that with The $65 one is ah is sealed and is made in Italy. Ooh, still sealed.
02:13:11
Speaker
Interesting. um I'm not going to buy this. Nope. No deal. You'll get them next time.
02:13:25
Speaker
He's got an eye out, stuff that could buy out. If you had time machine that you would like to try out. It can't steal. Steal.
02:13:36
Speaker
Oh, boy, Matt. Yeah. Wow. Is there anything left to do? Well, i you know what I want to do is I want to tell people to go to our Patreon.
02:13:49
Speaker
um You can follow the link in our show notes or you can go to patreon.com slash mutant menace. And, you know, if you have a couple bucks, kick them our way. Or you can subscribe for free and then you'll get a reading list. You can also, the other ways that you can support us if you don't want to do so with monies, um that's fine.
02:14:08
Speaker
That's totally fine. yeah We're happy you. We're happy for you to follow us on Instagram or join our Discord or just, you know, the thing that would help the most right now, even more than money, maybe.
02:14:22
Speaker
is just spreading the word, getting other people to learn about this podcast and check it out. Yeah. Tell people it it's, uh, we've been putting little video clips up online. So if you like those, if you react to those in any way, it's super helpful. Uh, share them more. That's the number one way again. Yeah. Yeah. But we don't, if you have a very curated feed, totally understand.
02:14:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah um if if Look, if we don't fit your aesthetic. No, I get it. i're a little embarrassed honest us that's fine You're a little embarrassed little embarrassed. It's whatever. who would don't who would want to Who would want to admit that they the and i don't listen to and i old Pat Reaver, you know?
02:15:09
Speaker
I don't care and I'll never care, in fact. But. I forget where we were going with that. I would like to ah remind folks. They can also email us mutant menace pod at gmail.com to be featured on Pat's email corner.
02:15:25
Speaker
And then I'd like to give a big thank you to Julia Selly for providing the voice of Trish Tilby and Krill's Wilson for providing the music. Yeah. And then ah I guess that only leaves us one thing to do. Truly Matt, let's close it out the way we close it out every week.
02:15:44
Speaker
So yeah, remember folks, you're on your own, Impy. That's right, folks. And as always, that sucker was my Sunday punch.