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69 - Iceman #1-4
112 Plays12 days ago
We're back with another cooooool episode for everyone! Not only cool because it's a sex number, but also cool because cold. This week, Matt and Pat talk about ICEMAN! Specifically the Iceman mini-series from 1984... It's CHOCK FULL of metaphors, but are they the ones that were intended? Listen and (maybe) find out!
Topics Discussed:
Scrubbing Gargoyle. A very muscular Iceman statue. Hiding in a shoebox. Telling a cop they'll be hearing from you a lot from now on. J.M DEMATTEIS! That's the Silver Surfer! "If he's nude, that's not the ice dude..." Red-faced Ralph Rachitt. Deferred trauma. DA IDIOT! HOT-CHA-CHA! Cousin Joel... Blaming it all on Commie Agents. "Please don't kill your father." GET CLOTHES, DAMMIT. Iceman no longer exists. A little ice baby. "We'll never be accountants either!" Bobby Drake's perfect town. Everything is love! My daughter/sister/mate.
TIMESTAMPS:
3:11 - Iceman Background
11:00 - Pat's Email Corner
18:15 - Did We Do Anything X-Men Related This Week?
22:15 - Bizarre Adventures #27 (Iceman Story)
34:15 - Iceman #1
57:00 - Iceman #2
1:09:35 - Iceman #3
1:23:20 - Iceman #4
1:36:30 - Final Thoughts
1:45:17 - Pat's Steals n' Deals
1:52:55 - What's Next and Goodbye!
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Recommended
Transcript
Live Report from Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aukamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Aurora. What? Welcome to Mutant Menace. Did somebody named Aurora right into us? No, I said it. I said to everybody, if you don't start sending me your names, I'm just going to start saying X-Men names.
00:00:53
Speaker
All right. and they And there you go. He's done it, folks. I've done it. You didn't believe Don't call my bluff! Oh, Patrick. Matt, how are you, buddy? What are we talking about today? Today, Matt,
Episode 69 Significance
00:01:09
Speaker
we're talking about episode 69. Patrick! Hey! Don't do this to me! I'd do that better. Hey!
00:01:20
Speaker
hey There's a – you ever watch like a sitcom from the 80s or 90s that has a laugh track and there's always one guy in the audience that's going, hey! ah Well, because somebody just pointed a thing at the audience and said, now everybody do your best laugh. Yeah. And so, you know, there's definitely somebody who's like, oh, I think this is how I laugh. This guy said oh, my best – I do a normal laugh, but if you want my best laugh – Hey,
00:01:54
Speaker
ah um I was the best 69 you ever did, Pat. We didn't make a big deal out of episode 50. We didn't make a big deal out of our one year yeah anniversary. We're going to make a big deal out of episode 69.
00:02:08
Speaker
Okay, well, so then we're we'll talk about it. Yeah, what's the best 69 you ever did? Stop asking me that. This is not that kind of podcast. Tell me what the best 69 you ever did in your whole life was. You
Iceman and X-Men Humor
00:02:21
Speaker
go first. What's your best 69?
00:02:24
Speaker
ah You kind of lay sideways. See, I don't like a 69. You kind of lay sideways. Because if you go straight on you're just like stuffing your nose into places that your nose doesn't want to be.
00:02:36
Speaker
So you kind of go off to the side. You kind of lay side by side and like lean into them the things. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. so So I guess when i i guess when i whenever I did that was the ah I guess for me, that is always a milestone number to hit.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's great when you hit the 69th of anything, like the like episode of your podcast, for example. It's great. It is great when somebody lets you hit that 69. Exactly. Exactly what I said. I guess we're also talking about Iceman today. Bobby Drake.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, who does he 69 with? Opal Tanaka. Oh, you haven't met her yet. Who? Well, Iceman... God, Pat, when did we see him last? I don't know. at the beginning of the Claremont run, right? He was around for an issue or two before they... No, literally half an issue. Half of one issue before they booted him. Yeah, because they rescued him at the end of Giant-Sized.
Iceman's Comic Appearances
00:03:43
Speaker
Right.
00:03:44
Speaker
and then east And then the first issue, he was like, I hate this. I'm leaving. Who's with me? And... ah they were mad that Scott wouldn't come. but Yeah, yeah. All the old X-Men are like are out, though, right? that's And yeah is that when Bobby and Warren form the Defenders? Or form the Champions?
00:04:05
Speaker
it's a I think it's a little later. Bobby goes to UCLA. And then over the course of that, they form the champions. It must not have been that long, though. He also appeared. Remember, he showed up for like a fucking second in that one issue where Arcade kidnapped everybody. Yes. ah It was the Arcade Doctor Doom thing. And they were like, OK, we're going to send one team after Doctor Doom. Right. They called in in all of the X-Men backups they could think of.
00:04:36
Speaker
And we'll send a bunch of backups after Arcade. And Bobby Drake was one of those backups. And it's just so abundantly clear that Chris Claremont's like, I hate this guy.
00:04:49
Speaker
I hate this guy. i don't want to write anything about this guy. It really was. Okay, so I'm looking it up. It really was five months after Giant Size X-Men that Bobby and Warren went off and founded the Champions. Five months of our real lifetime.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yes. That's not very long at all. So then I think Bobby attended Scott's wedding to Madeline, but I'm not even sure we got one line of dialogue. Claremont was like, no i Fine. He'll be here. He does not speak.
00:05:19
Speaker
Why does he hate Bobby Drake so much? I don't know. He's so actually I do know. And I think it's the same thing that's going to be reflected throughout the Iceman miniseries that we're reading today, which is that he's just like,
00:05:34
Speaker
There's not much to him. he's He's got everything out on the surface. And that is just, a you know, a nice a nice boy. He's a nice boy. He's just some kind of nice boy. And I think J.M.D. Matthias does it. So J.M.D. Matthias writes this at the same this time. So, OK, a little more background. um He's been in the Defender. he For almost four years, he was in almost he was in almost no comic books. He disappeared. After the Champions. was in And then he's been in the, what what they call the new defenders.
00:06:10
Speaker
with Hank and Warren for the last year and a half, written by JMD Matias, who writes the miniseries that we're reading today.
Exploring Iceman's Personality
00:06:17
Speaker
and ok what happened was a a Beast was in the Defenders, but they weren't really a team at that point.
00:06:26
Speaker
For a whole series of issues, the Defenders was just like a jumble of people that were moving from situation to situation. And then a little like Alpha Flight. Well, Alpha Flight considered themselves a team. The Defenders, I don't think, did.
00:06:41
Speaker
okay And then a bunch of them left. Like, the son of Satan stopped being Satan's son. you do that? yeah I don't know. I i barely read any of this stuff. Got illegal emancipation from Satan. He married Hellcat, and then beast was like...
00:07:03
Speaker
well i guess i gotta to go join a real team now and then somebody said to him well why don't you make this your real team and then he spent like two issues going make this my real team but like the way that you would make fun of a character having an epiphany in this podcast yeah yeah he he did exactly that in thought books yeah And Iceman was like visiting from college. And then they called Warren and and they were like, hey, let's do a ah new Defenders. Let's do a team.
00:07:37
Speaker
valkyrie and moon dragon and gargoyle gargoyle as i was flipping through these just to get some context there was a scene where bobby and hank were hanging out with gargoyle in the bathtub he was at but gargoyle was taking a bath bobby and hank were sitting bobby was sitting at the side of the bathtub hank was sitting the toilet and at some point bobby takes a scrub brush and stirs scrubbing gargoyle who's just like a man just bros hanging out just dudes being dudes
00:08:13
Speaker
And after this, after this miniseries that we' we'll read, he's soon going to be in an X-Book again. And then as far as I can tell, he never, ever leaves an X-Book ever again.
Listener Emails and Reactions
00:08:25
Speaker
oh my God. So we will never be without Bobby Drake again for the history of this podcast. Look, we love the guy. He's a good boy. He's a nice boy.
00:08:37
Speaker
he is... he is truly leaning to the goofball side of lovable goofball. This guy, he's always a little bit selfish. He's always i a little.
00:08:54
Speaker
and Try to remember. We have to try to remember our assessments of him before we read this. Yeah. Where are we at with him? So, yeah, a little bit selfish. I think self-obsessed is maybe a better word. It's a lot of like, well, nobody's thinking about me in this world ending situation.
00:09:11
Speaker
Right. And a little like, well, when am I going to get the credit for what he's like, like sunspot in that way? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He also, he tends to like ah internalize a lot about his relationships. And once he kind of externalizes it the other the people on the other side of that relationship are like what right like when he was in love with lorna dane and he was like we're boyfriend and girlfriend and she's like
00:09:41
Speaker
um but yeah ah He did the same thing to Darkstar. And I don't think it's just romantic interests, right? He's also, sometimes he'll say something to, back in the golden X-Men days, he would say something and people would be like, Bobby, have you been thinking this all along?
00:09:59
Speaker
And no one would take him seriously. I also remember that. like Yeah, he's the baby boy. He would run into a supervillain and he'd run back and he'd be like, hey, guys, there there's a supervillain outside. And they'd be like, Bobby, where's your clothes? Yeah. Yes, that he also loved getting nude. That was. Yeah. i That was just one of his qualities. Loves ice cream, loves taking his clothes off. His his costume is basically just underpants and booties. So I am familiar with the Iceman X-Men costume that is just blue and gold underwear and blue and gold booties.
00:10:39
Speaker
In this series that we're, I mean, he's not in the X-Men right now. In this series, he's just wearing white underwear. He's still wearing his X-Belt. So it looks like when he ices down, it's like he's wearing his old X-Men X-Belt.
00:10:54
Speaker
And tighty-whities. Tighty-whities and socks. Like white socks. All right. Well, that's what we remember about Bobby Drake. Let's read some E-Mails.
00:11:14
Speaker
Ooh, Matt. Yes. It's time. How professional is that of me? For Pat's email corner. That was good. That was a smooth transition. Less smooth after you asked if it was good.
00:11:26
Speaker
Fuck. But. I knew I was going to fuck this up. edit I knew it. No, edit that out and we're still good. I can't. I can't. It's dishonest. Remember to edit it out. No, it'll be so dishonest. It's not fair to the listener.
00:11:40
Speaker
That's why we never edit. Okay, Matt, it is time for Pat's email corner. We got a few. We got a few here today. right. You want to get into them? I'd love to. I don't know why I'm vamping. Let's let's let's get right to it. there's that Well, there's a length requirement for Pat's email corner, and you're afraid you're not going to hit it.
00:11:59
Speaker
If it's under 15 minutes, we haven't done our job right. Yes, our sponsors pull there. say We're being sponsored by gmail.com, and they'll pull their sponsors in.
00:12:11
Speaker
They love that we just pull in random listeners and read their thoughts on the air, too. A lot of people think that random partnerships love that. lot of people think that Gmail ah is ah is just Google. The Gmail company is Google. No, it's a different guy.
00:12:26
Speaker
It is. Yeah. Mike Gmail. Yeah. me But he's not writing to us today, Matt. You know who is? Vio da Gama. Vio da Gama. She says, Dear Pat, please tell Matt I was delighted to be part of your intro. I went to put the boys on while I did some weightlifting and was thrilled to hear my name repeated several times. But I don't believe you summoned me So if you remember, I think we said her name last week or the week before and couldn't remember if she had actually contributed her name. And she doesn't confirm here. Yeah, she does not. But it seems just from context clues, I can I can guess that she did not. Too late. You're on the list. V.O. V.O.
00:13:10
Speaker
I am extremely excited to hear you boys get to X Factor and also to hear the Secret Wars 2 episode for the high volume of Jimmy Shitheel name variants. Jimmy Shitheel is a good one. Who's that? My own X-Men reading has finally arrived at the first issues of Excalibur and X Terminators following the ultimate X-Men reading order dot com sequence. OK, there's so much garbage stories and really good stuff to come.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, we follow that loosely. ah When we put together this podcast, it's like it's sort of a combination. We use Ultimate X-Men Rating Order. We use the... um how do i How do I say this without incriminating us?
00:13:48
Speaker
There's a series of ah digital files called the Complete X-Men. I went out and bought every existing original copy. We don't read them. We read them from our actual copies.
00:14:03
Speaker
But we use that to help us figure it out. As reference. As reference. And then Ultimate X-Men reading order. And then the way that it's collected in the epic collections. Because I i honestly have everything in trade. Except for today's. I actually am reading real issues for this Iceman miniseries. Why'd you stipulate honestly there?
00:14:27
Speaker
Sometimes in this podcast, just random words come out of my mouth that don't make sense. Weird. Up next. Do you ever notice on the cover of Ultimate X-Men Raiding Order, there's two Nightcrawlers?
00:14:43
Speaker
No. Okay. Up next, Matt, we have, if you remember this one, X-Man Sam. X-Man Sam. X-Man Sam. We'll get to who that is in a moment. Hey, Pat, ask Matt if he remembers when Professor X faked his death and hid in the basement for months.
00:15:01
Speaker
Scott Summers is right not to trust death rumors anymore. Yeah, that's exactly right. Like the fact that Moira was like, Xavier's dying. And Cyclops is like, you're lying. something everything is so good No, no, no.
00:15:19
Speaker
I sincerely X-Man Sam, the Canadian guy whose power was can't smell farts and was demoted to alpha fight level. I will tell you so many Canadian listeners. see Yeah. Another Canadian on the list.
00:15:32
Speaker
Also, X-Man Sam, I think is this was one of our first ever emailers, Matt, if you remember. We were so excited to get this email and then we kind of tore them apart. i Speaking of tearing them apart, your power is not can't smell farts. Please go see a doctor.
00:15:54
Speaker
Finally, we have email Michael. Hey, Pat, could you please tell Matt that while I'm not a lawyer, one of my best friends is. So I texted him this question based on what you said in episode 67.
00:16:08
Speaker
Let's say someone sets up a crime like a money laundering scheme or tax evasion scheme, and then they die. And then it goes into motion. Is the dead person still considered the perpetrator of the crime? Or is it a perpetratorless crime?
00:16:20
Speaker
The response? Death is the ultimate defense. If dead, can't be convicted at all. I've won two to three cases that way. In the law, such issues are called moot.
00:16:31
Speaker
Nothing would be done about the crime in criminal justice if the guy who did it is dead. It's moot. A criminal case will never exist. Huh? Now ah he goes on. It's worth keeping in mind that this lawyer friend of mine is not your lawyer or even my lawyer.
Humorous Legal Takes with Magneto
00:16:46
Speaker
And he is not giving actual legal advice to anyone by answering this question. You don't know he's not my lawyer.
00:16:53
Speaker
That's true. Email Michael. you don't You don't know, Matt, because we don't know who this guy is. Unless it's my lawyer, and they said to me, hey, is this you?
00:17:04
Speaker
Somebody sent me this question, and it sounds like a question you would ask me. this is What are you planning?
00:17:16
Speaker
I hope that helps with whatever it was you were hoping to figure out with your question about Magneto being turned into a baby after committing a crime. Wishing you luck in your criminal endeavors. Email Michael. Being a baby. So again, being a baby is like being it's like having just just been dead. Yeah.
00:17:33
Speaker
Imagine if I had a lawyer. I had a lawyer how quickly they would be like Matt you really like I you know I charge you money when you send me these
00:17:59
Speaker
Whoa, that was a quick Patsy. hope Mike Gmail pays us for that. That was pretty quick, yeah. right But we got some we got some good comments in, so I think we still get our commission.
00:18:10
Speaker
Pat. Matt. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Did I do anything X-Men related this week? I ask it that that way because before you even ask me, I did not.
00:18:24
Speaker
I did not, and mea culpa. so i So I ask humbly. God. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Well, then I can't say i did not.
00:18:39
Speaker
Okay. All right. Well, then I did. I read some. I've been reading um Peter David and Larry Stroman's X-Factor. em But that's like, that's nothing. I've read that already. like i it's kind of a Yeah, that seems like cheating. I...
00:18:53
Speaker
I've still been playing Marvel Rivals, Matt, and they just put Jubilee out there. Okay. That's a thing. Is she a good one? Is she a good one to play?
00:19:04
Speaker
She is good. I have a lot of fun playing her. I am in a situation, so you know me, I don't know if people know this, but you know this about me. I'm very bad at video games, especially ones that are based on like reacting in real time with your hand-eye coordination. That is right just... So I am not good at this game and it's strictly an online team play and...
00:19:28
Speaker
end I'm there's a ranking system. And for some reason, i keep being placed on really good teams and just failing upwards where my numbers are radically lower than everybody else's on the team in every category, every round. But we're winning.
00:19:51
Speaker
interesting so then i get to a rank where inevitably i get discovered as a fraud because do people yell at you like are the other people yelling yes people online these teenagers online so there's no voice chat it's all it all has to be typed out on a playstation controller so these people are going to the trouble taking the time to be like hey These are bad stats, man. Oh, they say they tell you. They're not even mean about it. Yeah, they're just for the most part. They're just disappointed. I can be I can deal with people being mean. But when they're like, come on, man. But they don't do this in the middle of a match. They're not like you're fucking everything. No, they do. Somebody said somebody said what are we doing? Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
So yeah, that's my X-Men related thing. All right. That's a pretty good one. um Again, I don't have one this week.
Hosts' X-Men Activities
00:20:50
Speaker
I'm sorry. I've been playing a lot of Pokemon. Scarlet and Violet doesn't is good.
00:20:56
Speaker
but Pokemon Scarlet, it got a lot of shit when it came out because it ran so poorly on the Nintendo Switch 1, but now I'm playing it on the Nintendo Switch 2. God damn, it's a good Pokemon game. like It's a really good Pokemon game.
00:21:11
Speaker
I haven't played a Pokemon video game since I was a child, I think. No, that's that's not true. I played the the one on Nintendo where you took pictures of them.
00:21:22
Speaker
Pokemon Snap. Pokemon Snap? Well, ah try and grow up a little bit and you can get yourself a new Pokemon game. Sun and Moon. Sun and Moon is a... If you have a Nintendo DS... Well, 3DS, I think.
00:21:36
Speaker
No, I've only got the i've got the big boy Nintendos. Go get to a Nintendo 3DS and then go buy a copy of Sun and Moon. Together, these two things are going to cost you somewhere around $500 at this point. Okay. And then play Sun and Moon.
00:21:50
Speaker
Consider it spent.
00:21:55
Speaker
this is the That's the thing about Pokemon games. They never really go down in price. I mean, a lot of Nintendo games are like this. It's like they're never on sale, but even if you buy the cartridges secondhand, Pokemon games only go up in price when they stop being printed.
00:22:09
Speaker
ah is that Is this incentive for me to buy one or just adding adding facts? Do you want to talk about, Pat? Matt, I think you want to talk about Bizarre Adventures number 27.
00:22:24
Speaker
I forgot. forgot I wanted about this. You forgot how much you wanted to talk about this. I've been telling you about it for days. Wait till I tell you about Bizarre Adventures number 27. I read it.
00:22:36
Speaker
ah Last episode, I told you if you, I'm going to be so upset if you don't let me read another story from Bizarre Adventures number 27 today. You literally did. do you remember? That's in the podcast from last week. I do remember. Because you would say that even if I hadn't said last week. That's true.
00:22:53
Speaker
And you did. You let me read another story from Bizarre Adventures number 27. It's called Winter Carnival. Can you guess who what this is about?
00:23:04
Speaker
Terrifying. ah in the In the credits, it's called Iceman Winter Carnival. So maybe that'll give you a pretty easy guess. Script, Mary Jo Duffy, art, George Perez.
00:23:15
Speaker
Whoa. And Alfredo Alcala. Nice. And it's still that same black and white and like. Magazine style. Shaded and grayscale. So again, looks a little bit like a porn comic. It looks like any moment somebody's going to whip out ah a boobie.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Release date, June 16th. They don't. In the previous one, they almost do. the the The first story is a Phoenix story, and somebody's wearing only metal cones over their breasts. Maybe we'll get to that someday.
00:23:50
Speaker
There's not enough boobs in comics. I keep saying this. ah Release date, June 16th, 1981. Cover date, July We're take trip back in time. Robert Bobby Drake is at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire visiting for their winter carnival.
00:24:10
Speaker
The theme this year is superheroes and he's admiring a particularly good one of his buddy Angel. Annoyed that Angel is the only ex-man he sees, Bobby quickly uses his powers to whip up an especially muscular Iceman step. This is...
00:24:28
Speaker
We'll get to it, but there's a scene later where they're standing side by side, him and and the statue of himself, just to confirm that this one, this ice statue that he built is definitely more muscular. ah that's This is very Bobby Drake. Just to start out, this is somebody who understands Bobby Drake very well.
00:24:49
Speaker
Why aren't I in this statue garden? Yeah. And then while he's doing these like bigger muscles, um some ah some coed show up and start making fun of the statue and Bobby when Bobby throws a snowball at one of them.
00:25:06
Speaker
Fucking get him, dude. It turns into a massive snowball fight across the quad. joe Mary Jo Duffy says that ah there are no friends in snowball fights. the Only adversaries.
00:25:18
Speaker
It's very it's so poetic. It's so funny. at At one point, like his friend comes over to shake his hand and he's like, all right, that's enough. And we can all admit that you lost. Everybody ganged up on you and you lost. And Bobby refuses to admit he lost. Yeah, yeah. Like a page and a half. His friend's got to be like, OK, let's move on.
00:25:41
Speaker
Suddenly there's a scream for help because some masked men are robbing the computer lab. The robbers are shooting everyone with laser guns. Set a stun. Are are they I didn't. I must have missed that because I thought these robbers shot three people with pistols. Get ready to blast them. Set
Comic Story Analysis: Iceman
00:26:00
Speaker
the guns to stun, he says. And then. OK.
00:26:03
Speaker
And then the co-ed say far out. I must have missed that. I really thought these three students were dead and nobody was was doing it. Everybody was like, ah they stole a computer. Yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
The robbers are shooting everyone. Yeah. Bobby hides behind a tree turning into Iceman. He quickly beats the hell out of the robbers and returns the stolen computer parts and everyone is stoked about it.
00:26:28
Speaker
They ask him to stick around and party for the winter carnival. Oh, of course he says yes. He's Bobby Drake. But it being yeah, here's the thing they're not going to address. These guys don't particularly like Bobby Drake. They love Iceman.
00:26:43
Speaker
That's true. they don't And they seem familiar with Bobby Drake. They're kind of like... and do I also want to note here... Yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
When they hand the computer parts back over to the the the cops, it's a small it's like a shoebox. there's like they were They were carrying like a, almost like a coffin sized thing.
00:27:07
Speaker
you're thinking think there's You're thinking of later. You're thinking of later because here ah they are running. They have nothing. They have seemingly nothing in their hands. And then ah the one guy has like a shoe box.
00:27:21
Speaker
And Bobby takes it and hands it to the cop. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something to note. Um, it being a snowstorm and everything being covered in snow and ice, Iceman is in his element. He starts making slides and doing tricks and showing off and everyone is loving it. He specifically notes how he's, everyone's cheering for him.
00:27:41
Speaker
Later at the dining hall, where still Iceman, a cop shows up investigating the robbery. The thieves were trying to steal a computer designed by Hank Pym, the Yellow Jacket. o They ask who sounded the alarm, and it was a professor who works in the computer lab, but no one knows who he is.
00:28:01
Speaker
yeah they're all just like yeah i assume he's a teacher because he's an old man that i see around all the time he's always um he's always at the computer lab or the math department cut to that evening as someone is robbing the computer lab again oh no this is where they're carrying giant boxes well they are working with pym technology Okay. All right. Yeah, sure. ah The first robbery was a fake and the box that was returned actually contained another robber who was hidden inside to sneak out and turn off the alarm when the place was closed up.
00:28:36
Speaker
Good plan. Okay. What box? What box? The little shoe box that Bobby handed over? What? This didn't happen. Yeah, this a i man there's this tiny man. The thing we don't mention in this recap is that this man is only six inches tall.
00:28:55
Speaker
It didn't seem important to the plot. There's a whole thing where he couldn't reach the doorknob. and think he had to gather up a bunch of stuff and pile All right. So also, please.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah. So they're revealing the plan that they had to stage a fake robbery in order to pull this off. And yeah in my head, I still think they have shot and killed three people.
00:29:19
Speaker
ah It's more fucked up than like a Tarantino movie. This was the fake robbery. Yeah. The professor had come out to New Hampshire where there was no superheroes to steal the computer. And he's bragging about it out loud when Iceman disguised it as an ice statue.
00:29:42
Speaker
He's standing at the ice statue garden. ah Somebody's like, wait, why are there two statues of Iceman? Because he strikes. He easily fights off all the thieves with the laser guns, but the professor zaps him with a special laser in his cane.
00:30:00
Speaker
No one's ever expecting that. These canes are causing all sorts of trouble in these miniseries. He tries to run away with some blue prints he stole. Iceman recovers and chases him until the professor runs into some students who block his way. Iceman uses his ice beams to toss the cameup cane up into the air and it explodes for some reason.
00:30:19
Speaker
he was So he armed his cane to explode. right before Iceman was able to steal it. says this? He was like, all right, I'll just take everybody out. inside He says, like, inside my cane is more powerful, and then he manipulates it, and suddenly it's about to explode. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Iceman throws it up into the air with an ice beam and explodes. The cop shows up, figures it all out, but just one thing, this cop has never heard of Iceman.
00:30:48
Speaker
Iceman, who is considering transferring to Dartmouth, says that the cop will be hearing from him a lot from now on and walks away into the night.
00:31:00
Speaker
He's a sweet young boy, but a lesson he needs to learn is you never tell a cop, you'll be hearing from me a lot from now on. This is such an the Iceman-ass story.
00:31:14
Speaker
yeah He solves the mystery because the bad guys are openly talking about it in front of him. Yeah, he spends the entire time just thinking about how no one appreciates him. This whole thing to him is created as a lesson to show him he should go solo as a superhero. Right.
00:31:31
Speaker
It's such a like it it is a bunch of goofy robbers. He's got to get into two fights. He has to save the day, of course, but also he doesn't have to like.
00:31:45
Speaker
go anywhere to do it. He doesn't have to solve any mysteries. He just has to let things happen around him, make it about himself, and then everything will turn out okay. It's the easiest superhero job in the world, and and he's still like bragging about that he did it.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. And wondering if people are appreciating him enough. I hit one old man. You'll be hearing from me a lot from now on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will give ah George Perez some credit here. I know you hate giving George Perez credit, Matt. I love to give George Perez credit. he i do it every day. he does a fun thing with Iceman's powers here, which is, I think, one of the highlights of a new artist getting their hand on Iceman is just seeing how they use ah his powers in fun, creative ways. What George Perez does is this cane's about to explode, so Iceman covers it in like a huge layer of ice, and the guy and he's got it in his hands here.
00:32:47
Speaker
holding just this big block of ice. And the guy's like, that's not enough ice to stop this bomb this to to kill all of us. So he just starts like growing more ice. He's like holding it up in the air as high as he can. And he's like, ah this still isn't quite far enough away because it's literally my arms length. So he just starts shooting like two poles of ice up into the air with the thing i until it's high up enough that the explosion doesn't impact anybody.
00:33:18
Speaker
Just a neat new, with the two pole hand extension. Like, go-go gadget hands. ah Okay, yeah, sure.
00:33:29
Speaker
Sure. He also makes ah skis and ice poles out of his ice at one point. That's Yes, he does. Yeah. Well, that was that was Iceman 1981. This was, i think... ah before he joined the Champions, right? No, no, no, no This would have been post-Champions. I think he even talks about his time. Oh, you're right. You're right. Yes, you're right.
Iceman's Family Background
00:33:48
Speaker
it is This is when he's just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Yeah, he hasn't been... It's three years after the Champions. You're right. And it's um two years before he joins the Defenders. so
00:34:00
Speaker
This is in that just, like, yeah long gap in his career. So, Pat, I'm just sitting here wondering... What happens four years after this story? Matt, I am so glad you asked.
00:34:15
Speaker
Because I am ready to read you Iceman number one, The Fuse. oh okay. ah This is another miniseries, so these credits will extend to the entire miniseries.
00:34:30
Speaker
That's right, Matt. And those credits are as follows. JMD Mateus, writer. We've seen JMD Mateus. Have we? i still don't know if we have. i Yes, not too long ago we talked about him.
00:34:44
Speaker
Do you want to give us a little refresher? um The only thing I can say about JMD Matias, he's one one of his biggest... The things that a thing that I knew him for... he was i mean, he wrote a fucking fucked lot of comics. Yes. But one of the things that I know him for is his... um collaborations with keith giffen and kevin mcguire on the the like silly justice league justice league international justice league europe justice league america in the in the with a booster gold and blue beetle and black canary and martian manhunter the one where batman punches guy gardner in the face did you ever read these
00:35:28
Speaker
Uh, have not. Elongated man is in him I know him more for his work with Spider-Man. He did a long run in the seventies. I think he comes back for a few in like the eighties and some of the,
00:35:42
Speaker
Iconic, but actually exhausting to read big Spider-Man stories from that era. Okay. Yeah, we won't see him too much in this podcast. He will come back and write some X Factor in the 90s, but he he doesn't really write a lot of X-Men. Yeah, he writes this Iceman miniseries, and he has been writing the Defenders, the the new Defenders with Beast and Angel and Iceman for the past like year or two. Yeah, yeah. solid this Before this comes out. That's, I guess, why he is put on the Iceman miniseries.
00:36:17
Speaker
And then Alan Kupferberg, Penciler, Matt, we know Alan Kupferberg. Because he did Obnoxio the Clown. That's right. He, I don't know how it's possible that we're coming across him again because he has like ah Outside of the Mad Magazine ripoff that he used to run for Marvel, he has like 10 comic credits to his name and we're catching five of them.
00:36:45
Speaker
But yeah, Obnoxio the Clown and now Iceman. Okay. Mike Gustavich Inker or Gustavich maybe? Hmm. Janice Chiang, letterer, Bob Sharon, colorist, Bob Budiansky, editor, and James Shitheel, editor-in-chief.
00:37:02
Speaker
Oh, oh, okay. That's all right. Theo mentioned that person. I've never heard of him. That's right. Release date, August 7th, 1984. Cover date December
00:37:13
Speaker
prologue oo In an alien city ravaged by war, slaves march through a smog-filled labor camp below a large fortress. Inside the fortress, a shadowy figure demands his henchmen, a stout little bulldog-faced alien and a tall, thin pink alien, retrieve someone.
00:37:35
Speaker
And they disappear. Classic setup. You got to tall, skinny guy and a short, fat guy. And he's like, you got to go get them for me. And they're like, OK, we'll get them.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah. Get that person. You know, we've got we got like two huge establishing shots of this miserable war torn place. Right. I am sure it comes into play in this story. Yes. Yeah. This seems like a fascinating, mystical land that we'll get to spend some time in here. We're going to spend some time in it. Maybe he liberates these slave people. Maybe. Yeah. We're going to learn a lot about this place.
Time Travel and Character Development
00:38:11
Speaker
I'm sure of it.
00:38:13
Speaker
In Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York. Oh. Iceman races above the city streets on his ice slides late for something and worried about his dad's reaction. On the way, he spots his cousin Mary and scoops her up. He confides in her about how his parents aren't super happy with him joining the Defenders.
00:38:31
Speaker
And he's not even sure why he did it. Yeah. who When he picks up the girl, people are like, that monster is kidnapping a girl. And somebody's like, no, it's the stone. I know who that is. that's the That's the silver surfer. It is. I mean, if you if you make the silver surfer a lot blockier. Yeah.
00:38:50
Speaker
yeah You've got Iceman. There's so many times when if you see either Iceman or Silver Surfer, you're just like looking at the crotch area like, is he wearing underwear? If he is, it's Iceman. If he's not, it's Silver Surfer. we need a good We need a good rhyme for that.
00:39:07
Speaker
if it if If it's nude, that's not the Ice Dude.
00:39:15
Speaker
if ah If he's got undies... he's uh bobby bundy no if he's got if he's nude he's not the ice dude if he's got undies your
00:39:39
Speaker
if he's got brief if he's got briefs got briefs Bobby's the chief. It's Bobby that weeps.
00:39:50
Speaker
Because he's always crying.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's... If he's got... I think he
00:40:03
Speaker
Then... He gets distracted again when he sees a family walking down the street and decides he's in love with a redheaded girl in the group. Instantly. I'm in love. He sees this woman. He says, oh I've got to start planning the wedding. And then you think he's saying that is the like ah in a ah hyperbole. But then he starts listing who his groomsmen party will be.
00:40:31
Speaker
He's like, okay, geez, I got to choose between Hank and Warren for best man. how Where's Gargoyle going to fit in? She also, she looks 15 in these panels. Like, she doesn't later in the series, and she's not. But, like, man. Yeah, it looks like a like an early teenage girl. Yes, and because she's she's walking with her adult parents and her grandfather and her little brother, who's barely shorter than her. Yes.
00:41:00
Speaker
And you're like, also, they're making her carry the groceries. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense as things go on, but and maybe it doesn't. i don't know and And yeah, just it it very much looks like he's flying past like a 15 year old girl and like, I'm in love. Which even so just on so many fucking levels, not even if we admit that she's an adult and she looks like an adult, it's still like, buddy.
00:41:30
Speaker
Slow down. This is just um friend so many times laura a You're going to, you're breaking your own heart at this point. I, so he sees the girl, he drops Mary off. And in, in trying to impress the redheaded girl falls directly onto his head.
00:41:50
Speaker
ah The girl panics and runs off and he picks himself up to explain, but they've suddenly vanished entirely. Just run the hell away. The monster. ah
00:42:04
Speaker
Next, he's accosted by a racist police officer who yells himself red in the face and Iceman freezes him in a block of ice. This guy, his name is, ah we find out later his name is fucking Ralph Ratchet. Ralph Ratchet. Officer Ralph Ratchet. And he's just this fat little ah police officer who's just... he shows up everywhere and his face is so red as he's screaming racist stuff at Bobby. Yeah, yeah. The the the thing about getting...
00:42:37
Speaker
uh a spoof magazine editor and artist to draw here is that you're gonna get some fucking good faces especially close-ups and there's the the close-up of ralph ratchet shouting himself silly about how much he hates mutants is so good also i i want to add here i don't think you can safely freeze somebody in a block of ice You can. They they they've did it in Batman.
00:43:08
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. guys I just didn't i didn't think the science was, and Batman's a scientist, so he wouldn't do it if... Right, if it was unsafe, he would have said something about it by now. Yeah, sorry. Sorry!
00:43:25
Speaker
Very funny to just freeze a policeman in a block of ice, though, to be like, I'm tired of you yelling at me. <unk> And then walk away. Yeah.
00:43:37
Speaker
So he drops himself over a fence in someone's backyard and ice is down. But while he's trying to get dressed, he's practically nude. He's just nude now. Yeah. A neighbor takes him to be a pervert and six her dog on him. yeah as As Bobby Drake run runs, he dresses the rest of the way and then runs directly into the redheaded girl from earlier, knocking her to the ground.
00:44:01
Speaker
He finds out her name, Marge, and that her family, the Smiths, live right next door to his parents, but he's too flustered to say anything to her. God, he's such a fucking dingus. God damn it.
00:44:14
Speaker
Like, this is so Bobby Drake. He's just fucking up left and right. Yeah, yeah. he So he's immediately afterwards, he's walking to his parents' house. He is terrified of going to his parents' house. He's got this inner monologue that is so...
00:44:35
Speaker
Weird and sad and kind of relatable, but also kind of like, do you do you know this character comes out as gay in 30 years? like Right.
00:44:49
Speaker
He's going. he just got chased by a dog. He said that dog was a nasty little sucker. Makes me glad I never had a pooch of my own when I was a kid. Well, there there was that stray I found, though mom said it dirty up the house and she made me give it away after I told all my friends I was going to keep it.
00:45:06
Speaker
I was so embarrassed. I didn't go out to play for a week. Sometimes I look back on childhood as one long string of embarrassments.
00:45:16
Speaker
It's so like he goes on to explain his parents are super overprotective and he wonders if that's why he's neurotic. Yes. All while all while tying a pink sweater around his neck. i yes But yeah I mean it is again like you said it's semi relatable.
00:45:33
Speaker
I think about every embarrassing thing I've ever done. i ever did when I was a kid and they those memories really really stick out. But I can't think of a time that I did. I was so embarrassed by something so kind of like silly and tragic and not my fault that I was like, I can't go outside for a week.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yes. That and also that he is like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to him. This is his big childhood tragedy.
Family Challenges and Identity
00:46:03
Speaker
is he brought a stray dog home and his mom said he couldn't keep it and he was really embarrassed by it like yeah it's it's very it's deferred he's upset about something else exactly and and there's clearly trauma here and he's focusing it on these like these little moments that annoyed him rather than the bigger disappointment that he's also fretting but not not focusing on as much Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
Right. ah So Bobby walks into his parents' house and they immediately start nagging him for his clothes and his superhero lifestyle. Yeah. So if, yeah, if the metaphor wasn't was it wasn't clear enough, yeah, his parents, he walks inside and his parents are like, why are you wearing those clothes?
00:46:50
Speaker
No son of mine wears clothes like that. And let's talk about your lifestyle that we don't agree with. You're living that flamboyant superhero lifestyle with your flashy clothes and your late night clubs.
00:47:04
Speaker
He also, so the first thing he says in this comic is that he's going to be late. Or that he is so late. My dad's going to be so mad.
00:47:15
Speaker
And he gets here and nothing is happening. His mom's still vacuuming. Yeah, and his dad is like... but His dad is laying on the or sitting on a on a chair and he's like playing with pillows. It looks like he's not fluffing them. They're like falling to the ground next to him.
00:47:36
Speaker
Maybe it's his newspaper. i not clear. He's doing that thing. Like the wife is vacuuming. He's like, I got to do something, but I don't want to do it too good because I don't I don't want to get assigned to this task every week. But yeah, it he is clearly more there's still theres they're still cleaning the house for his arrival. He's clearly hours away from whatever the thing is. What I guess is his dad's retirement party.
00:48:07
Speaker
He's still hours away from it And he's like, oh, I'm late. Just neurosis. It's neurosis. Yeah, yeah. He's neurotic because of the way his parents raised him.
00:48:18
Speaker
Meanwhile, the two alien henchmen from the prologue appear in an alleyway. We find out that the pink alien is named White Light and can glow and mesmerize people like the cops they appear in front of.
00:48:30
Speaker
His little partner, the idiot, ta is super strong and says, ha-cha-cha lot. so He talks like he's from space, Brooklyn.
00:48:42
Speaker
What are we going to do with this guy? White light. Hey, I got to take these ah cop coppers out. They go. look Let me kill them now. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.
00:48:56
Speaker
They go looking for their prey breaking into random houses. When they get close, white light fixes a device to the idiot's head, apparently amplifying his natural tracking powers.
00:49:08
Speaker
It's like a, uh, a little, uh, Emma Frost, just, uh, mesmerizing people psychically and then and inventing things on the spot to enhance other people's powers.
00:49:22
Speaker
At the Drake household, Bobby's dad's retirement party is underway. He and Mary wander off to continue talk to continue their talk about his future plans. But when cousin Joel shows up to try and give him advice on accounting school, Bobby lashes out and storms off. Loser league. Cousin Joel. Cousin Joel. He's so cousin. Joel seems like a shithead.
00:49:46
Speaker
I hate this guy. He just comes out and he's like, I heard you're thinking of leaving accounting school. He's so disappointed. May I give you some advice? Fuck off. Don't.
00:50:00
Speaker
So Bobby, Bobby lashes out. This is sort of where um you and I talked about this a little before. This whole thing tracks as ah a coming out story, right? Coming out to your parents. It's extremely coded that way. And we were trying to figure out if that was intentional or Not because as far as we know, JMD Mateus has never come out to his parents because he's straight.
00:50:26
Speaker
So we were. But he's also he's written some powerful queer queer characters even yeah during the gym shithead. Don't say gay era Yeah.
00:50:38
Speaker
He openly challenged the gym shithead. Don't say gay era by introducing an openly gay man and his live in partner in Captain America. Right. um Arnie, Arnie, Arnie Roth. And Alan Kupferberg also introduced the first openly gay character in Archie comics. So it is an interest of their storytelling wise. Yeah. Yeah. It's something they clearly at least have some understanding of.
00:51:07
Speaker
but But yeah. Yeah. When cousin Joel is like, are you sure you don't want to go to a accounting school anymore? It's that is extremely ah I'm going to go to New York and be an artist. Right. Conversation.
00:51:22
Speaker
Right. And when he's like, I don't want to hear it from you, cousin Joel. The dad just appears in the doorway. He's like, you're ruining my retirement party. How dare you embarrass me? Yes. Which is, ah again, sort of sort of crossing that line back into, okay, yeah, this could just be you being a weirdo and being at a parent's function, but it seems a little deeper. Right, right.
00:51:49
Speaker
Lost in thought, Bobby ends up bumping into Marge Smith again, knocking her tray of brownies to the sidewalk, literally it running into her again. Yeah. They settle on the Smith's stoop and Bobby starts ranting at her about his Irish Catholic slash Jewish upbringing. He keeps doing this to people. He keeps, he did it to Mary. He's doing it to Marge. He just approaches people and he's like, let me tell you about all my problems. Okay, so I was born in And he's like, he's talking about how strict his parents were and like some of the specific incidents that that aren't that traumatic, but that he considers true...
00:52:27
Speaker
don't go this into this much detail about your parents on a first date i feel like we always have to give this guy dating advice she's just like sitting on his stoop and he's leaning over her just panels and panels and panels of dialogue of him just explaining his life to her yeah dads are the worst ease up man ask her about herself exactly The one time she talks, he's like, anyway, the Catholic kids used to ride me for being Jewish. he just like keeps going.
00:53:02
Speaker
Despite him not letting her talk at all, though, March decides she likes Bobby. How could you? At that moment, though, the aliens crash through the roof. Oh, OK.
00:53:13
Speaker
Bobby ices up. While they can't tell which one is their quarry, Iceman assumes they're here for him and starts fighting. and they're like Which one is it? It's one of these two. I don't i can't tell with my senses who which one it is. hat cha cha cha I can't tell which one of these ha-cha-chas is the ha-cha-cha.
00:53:28
Speaker
Exactly.
00:53:32
Speaker
They also assume their fear for him and fight back. Iceman seems resistant to white lights, mesmerizing powers and uses a big ice fist to punch them through the house. Another, like you said, cool. Yeah.
00:53:47
Speaker
Upstairs, Marge and her family rush into a closet, which starts glowing with a colorful psychedelic light. Huh? Bobby's family rushes out to see the Iceman wrapping up his fight with the aliens. In one final clash, the entire Smith house comes crashing down on all three of them.
00:54:07
Speaker
His parents panic and yell his name, but when the smoke clears, Iceman's intact with White Light and the idiot encased in a big dome of ice. However, at that moment, they teleport away, leaving Iceman alone with his superhero identity blown in front of his extended family and that racist police officer from earlier rushing in to arrest him.
00:54:28
Speaker
to be continued. ral ratchet Ralph Ralph Ratchett rushes in in a pink bathrobe, police hat and nightstick as Billy Clubb.
00:54:40
Speaker
Oh, man, which is im and he's also got his police badge on the robe. i think. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible work by Alan Kupferberg here, right? To to tell a story about this guy, because these are the three things he's like, all right, I don't need the uniform.
00:54:57
Speaker
But if I'm going to try to project some authority, I got to wear the hat. I got to wear the badge. I got to carry a billy club. yeah so i guess mary and the bobby's mom and dad already knew he was ice man but cousin joel didn't and he's like that thing is bobby yeah it it's let me give it some accounting advice it's very just like he's disgusted he's he sees bobby as ice man and he's just like you like that's who i was just speaking to yeah
00:55:34
Speaker
um in the At the retirement party, there is a moment where the dad, somebody asks the dad about retirement and he's like, it's really boring. It's boring and I don't feel like I have a purpose in life anymore. It's like, oh, okay, well, maybe this runs in the family a little bit. Like that's exactly what Iceman was talking about earlier.
00:55:53
Speaker
Cute, clearly setting us up for some some big events. There's also several ice fights. I think that the amount of this setup before Bobby gets home, it was a fun issue to read.
00:56:05
Speaker
yeah And there's some smart stuff happening here. But the ah structure of the story is very, it's like very dumb. It's very like talking down to you Saturday morning cartoon.
00:56:17
Speaker
Where somebody's like, wait, he's late, but he's doing all this stuff. and All this stuff happens to him on the way home. And like every, and... the writer being like, I don't worry about it. They'll just, it's just a comic book.
00:56:29
Speaker
Right. Right. More of this comic than you would expect is just him finding different ways to get back to home in Long Island. And bumping into women.
00:56:40
Speaker
And bumping into women. Yeah. Physically, physically. You just can't see them. Which ah explains why he's, radar explains why he just rants at them whenever he gets the, yeah.
00:56:53
Speaker
um Pat, do you want me to move on and tell you about Iceman? No, stop. Stop right now. Oh, yes. Yeah, it's your turn. Patrick, I'm going to tell you about Iceman number two, Instant Karma.
00:57:05
Speaker
Release date October 2nd, 1984. Cover date February 1985. White light.
00:57:10
Speaker
And to idiot hatchchacha cow the in the corner of a stone room as that dark hooded figure that sent them to Earth punishes them for their failure.
00:57:22
Speaker
I think he just demakes them. I think he makes that he just makes them exist anymore. it just like suggests that they scream and then says, Oblivion. He sends his servant Kali, a golden woman with giant hair and four arms, each of them holding a weapon.
00:57:39
Speaker
Not she ride just the arms holding the weapon. She rides off with an army of giant winged spiders. I mean, this is clearly based on the Hindu goddess, right? Oh, who's also called Kali.
00:57:53
Speaker
Oh, I didn't realize that. I have a friend of alarms. Yeah, I have a friend named Kali that spells it this exact way. Oh, so I just I just assumed this was a common name.
00:58:04
Speaker
Meanwhile, Bobby clears everything up from issue one with the police to Ralph Ratchet's dismay and heads back to take another look at the wreckage of Marge's house for any sign of her family at the police station. He he tells them it's it's commie spies. It was communist agents. He's fighting communist agents. He's like, I was sorry to tell him that. But, you know, what am I supposed to say? Aliens? They think I was crazy.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's secret communists that live in our community. Right. And Ralph Ratchet is there. Still in feeling his robe. He doesn't even, to go downtown, he doesn't even change into, dr put on some sweatpants, man. Yeah. ah
Marge's Identity Revelation
00:58:49
Speaker
So Bobby is searching the wreckage of Marge's house and yeah he doesn't find them. He finds a weird little gizmo that no one noticed and takes it back to his parents' house to investigate.
00:58:59
Speaker
Hmm. But his parents have been waiting for him. They were humiliated by the incident next door and by cousin Joel finding out that he's a mutant. Yo, this is so visceral, this conversation.
00:59:14
Speaker
He calls his son stupid. He does. And he's like, he says, hey, yeah cousin Joel's pretty upset because he didn't know that you were, you know, a mutant.
00:59:26
Speaker
And I didn't really want people to find out that you were, you know, a mutant. And you had to bring this all up at my party. You're going to make your being, you know, a mutant all about you at my party.
00:59:42
Speaker
i will never forgive you for this. Like it's remember in the I think it's the second X-Men movie. they have this exact conversation with Bobby's parents. Yes, I did't i did not mean to make that reference, but but it it's one-to-one, right? Yeah, exactly. That's the... what is it She's like, did you just try and not being a mutant?
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. No son of mine is going to be a mutant. Yeah, yeah he says, you're just a stupid kid. Could you imagine saying that to your own fucking child?
01:00:19
Speaker
Stop trying to be so independent. And then just to cap it off, like his dad rages. He's just raging. cause Says he's embarrassing them. He's breaking their hearts. And then his mother warns him that his father's health hasn't been great lately and begs him not to kill his father.
01:00:38
Speaker
like Couldn't you just tune down all the you know mutant mutant stuff how about if Just to be just to you know not kill your father. Please. If you're be a Just don't.
01:00:50
Speaker
Why don't you just not do it in front of your father? You know what his heart is. Yeah. Like how many says yeah as she leaves the room, please don't kill your father. Right. How many gay kids, right, have been told by their parents, why don't we just not tell grandma? She doesn't have that much along left. And I'm afraid it's going to enter hearts. or her I don't know that her heart can take it. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
Also, he's still in his fucking underwear. Get clothes. Damn it. Get a costume. You can't just be in your underwear all the time, dude. Yeah, you need you need de-iced clothes. Yes.
01:01:31
Speaker
All right. Bobby starts stewing over this. When the gizmo he picked up starts buzzing and suddenly he disappears. Also done well. They don't make like a big bright light, like a big flash. It's just a panel with him there and a panel with him gone. Yeah.
01:01:45
Speaker
Cut to England, 1892, where where Marge, now going by Margaret and donning a British accent, watches Bobby get sent through time on a monitor with her family. They say hello to Mrs. Bronte. I feel i think they're trying to say... Is that supposed to be... Emily or Charlotte or... My God. Ugh. So the family and Margarit know exactly what's going on and urge her to save him, but she shuts them up by threatening to make them not exist. What?
01:02:20
Speaker
What? Is that abnormal? Is it possible, Matt? I yell that at my family all the time. Is it possible that this Marge... Is the one that the aliens might have been sent for? That she's some sort of more powerful being than we understand? She's a pretty lady. She's a pretty lady next door. But, yeah.
01:02:40
Speaker
Could pretty lady next door be? no what you're you're right. What you're saying is awfully crazy here, Pat. And I love it. Bobby, meanwhile, finds himself in downtown Manhattan in 1942. He gets sh- he gets a Yes. This is a little confusing.
01:02:58
Speaker
It's really well done when they have him disappear, right? The device kind of starts buzzing and suddenly he's not in the room. And then we cut to England, 1892, where yeah he is not. It's just we have to watch other people.
01:03:14
Speaker
just Just a strange choice not to immediately show him. yeah Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It takes you a second to be like, wait, what? he's um what He's not here.
01:03:26
Speaker
They're watching him on a TV in 1892 England. he He gets shot by a cop for absolutely no reason and passes out by in an alley only to be saved by a young couple.
01:03:39
Speaker
His parents! What?! He's still in his fucking underwear. He's still. That's why the cop shoots at him. He's like, son, you can't be out here like this. ah Oh, also that officer is Hunts Ratchet.
01:03:54
Speaker
Ralph Ratchet's dad. Or grandfather. Dad? Probably dad. One of the two. They found him in the alley and his father, Willie, had a sense that this was a good guy and they shouldn't bring him to the police or the hospital, but instead fix him up themselves.
01:04:10
Speaker
Besides, Bobby reminds him of his late baby brother, George. Another scene where a man just starts immediately ranting about the deepest parts of his his life. Yes, he goes into detail about what Georgie meant to him and who he was.
01:04:27
Speaker
people just yeah if you're trying to help somebody that you find shot on the street what kind of man are you that you're saying the best thing for him would be if we don't take him to the hospital because the police will get to him there we should take him back home and just sew him like is he just assuming this for her yeah shock victims is will yeah is willie drake in organized crime?
01:04:52
Speaker
Maybe. Because if he's sort of in shock, he's like, oh, this guy is probably on the lam. Everyone in this series talks like a completely insane person. He just starts ranting about his dead brother, like just like immediately to a stranger who's like dying in his bed. Well, he's just wounded, but hey. ah Shot the arm.
01:05:15
Speaker
They spend the night talking, Bobby making up all the details of his life, only to be interrupted by Kali and her army of flying spiders. Oh no But she seems to be looking for Marge, not Bobby.
01:05:28
Speaker
Wait, Pat. You just told me that couldn't that's not possible. Did you read ahead? No, I'm reading this and recapping it as we as we broadcast. No matter, Bobby is already fighting her and he's not about to stop now. He gets soundly defeated while Marge watches from 1892 England, clearly feeling guilty for all the pain Bobby's going through.
01:05:49
Speaker
But Willie... comes running in with the gizmo, hoping it can do something. It's like, I found your radio. Kali wants it, but Willie won't give it up, so she fucking kills him. Iceman's dad, William Drake, is dead. holy shit.
01:06:07
Speaker
Suddenly, Marge's face appears in the sky, taunting Kali and opening a portal that Kali flies through to go fight her, but Iceman's dad is fucking dead 15 years before Bobby was born.
01:06:21
Speaker
oh As he starts to realize this, Bobby starts fading out of existence until he's gone. To be continued. who Thank God there's a to be continued there. What if this was the moment you found out your mom cheated on your dad? Like you get tossed back through time and you get your own father killed in front of you.
01:06:42
Speaker
And then you're like, why am I still exist? You're like, why am I not disappearing? Mom.
01:06:53
Speaker
That wouldn't necessarily be cheating. I mean, if the man's dead and she moves on 15 years later. Yeah. Well, no, what I'm saying is in his reality, obviously, his dad wasn't dead. Right. In his reality, his dad's not dead.
01:07:08
Speaker
Right. So he is still alive, yeah meaning his dad wasn't his dad. i was i realized how stupid what I said was, but was trying to make it sound like I was learning something. ah So, yeah, I don't know. i mean, there's obviously something here about, you know, learning that your parents aren't mythical figures, like you seeing them as just people. um where you know like their opinions mattered to him so much they were like weighing down upon him like the the edicts of gods and now all of a sudden they're just they're just two folks um that he talks to all night long and lies to all night long. Yeah, yeah.
01:07:45
Speaker
um But then ah Any meaning that we can glean from that is immediately subverted because his dad does something heroic, right? And sacrifices himself for his life. So I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of, it's almost like what they're trying to say is ah Bobby's dad just said something unforgivable to him. How do we work our way back from that so that they can resolve this at the end?
01:08:16
Speaker
They should have just had him call like seven other people in
Iceman vs. Mirage Showdown
01:08:19
Speaker
the past. ah Just a stupid kid. so you're like, oh, that's just what he says to people. That's just what he says everybody. He wasn't.
01:08:27
Speaker
Bobby Drake gets teleported. Yes. Back to what when his parents were just teenagers. And ends up accidentally engineering himself out of existence.
01:08:43
Speaker
Right. This is a year before Back to the Future comes out. Well, probably like five or six months before Back to the Future comes out. But they did it first. this is They did it first. just Maybe they got that from this. How long before Futurama?
01:08:58
Speaker
i I guess another 15 years. Oh, the exact time that Bobby was born. whoa whoa right All right, why don't you read Iceman number three? wait How old is Bobby supposed to be? don't know. I mean, we also will meet Bobby's dad in the comic books later after this miniseries, and his dad will be like half this age.
01:09:25
Speaker
Oh, weirder. Yeah. All right. Iceman number three, Quicksand. Ooh. I love, look, a lot of things I love about Chris Claremont, but...
01:09:38
Speaker
He takes the titles of his stories extremely seriously. i love when we take little sabbaticals from the Claremont run and get people just putting exclamation points at the end of every title for no reason. Or like doing these goofy titles, doing the goofy credits. We're back. We're here. We're back.
01:10:01
Speaker
We're back, baby. We're back to comic books. Release date April
01:10:08
Speaker
So now Iceman no longer exists. The end. Oh, well, so it's been a good episode. Why don't we put on? hot No, stop, stop, stop. I was kidding. Oh, OK, sorry.
01:10:22
Speaker
Sorry, I had to turn the page. It turns out there's there's more to this book. Two yellow eyes stare on him while he tumbles into a black oblivion. He lands in a crib with his mom and dad fawning over him. His mom spins him around and around, transforming him into a little baby until she turns to ice and shatters.
01:10:41
Speaker
He's a little ice baby. He's a little ice baby. They draw a little toddler, but with like the weird ice cube form to him. It's adorable. And he's wearing the, he's still wearing Bobby's ice shorts and they've just gotten so big on him and they're all like, yeah.
01:10:56
Speaker
His dad, angry, sends him off to school where he topples into Professor x Xavier. x Xavier rides on his back, telling him all about mutants until he's shot in the chest. Now, is there any sort of metaphor there, do you think?
01:11:12
Speaker
Xavier's like, why don't you carry me your back? Can you carry me to the Xavier Institute? Yeah, it's such a... What a what a deluded sense of self-confidence he has. Yeah, I was the one carrying the X-Men all those years. Bobby turns into his original ice cream Iceman form and begins running with the X-Men until Gene dies and he falls back into his parents arms scared.
01:11:40
Speaker
We get we get fun little things out of ah all of the X-Men in this little there's like one panel of them running and it's it's chunky Iceman from the original issues. And he's i everybody's saying they're like just something that their character would say. yeah And Hank is just listing big words that don't have anything to do with each other because Bobby doesn't ever actually know what they mean.
01:12:08
Speaker
Yeah. Hank's just saying exigency, parabolic, impeccious. And Cyclops is like, don't mind him. he's so He's just trying to impress people with this vocabulary. yeah And then Cyclops says, we're the X-Men. We'll never be accountants either. Yes. So good. So he falls back into his parents' arms, scared.
01:12:33
Speaker
But he's plucked away again by Hercules and the champions. He tells Darkstar he loves her, but she rejects him because he's an accountant. So he sits at his school desk crying.
01:12:46
Speaker
Valkyrie scoops him up and throws him into the new defenders, but Beast kicks him out for being pathetic and never making up his mind. Then he tumbles into a black oblivion while two yellow eyes stare on.
01:12:58
Speaker
one thing that I absolutely love about what we just read, this is like the first few pages, right? And it's got, the X-Men, the, champions, the defenders, all in this like weird sort of,
01:13:13
Speaker
oblivion dream sequence thing that's going on because of this the front cover says featuring the x-men the defenders the champion so he picks up this issue like oh ah my favorite guys oh i guess the new defenders thing is insulting bobby drake so bobby finally lands in a front of a large shadowed figure in purple and pink robes with a belt made of skulls The figure welcomes him to the war-torn alien world from the prologue of issue number one. The two recap the first two issues together. oh and then And the figure introduces himself as Oblivion, oh a primal force who lives in between all things.
01:13:58
Speaker
He created this realm and all things in it. And now he hungers. Okay, so now we're going to get to know all about this war and what's going on with these enslaved people and all this world, the strange world and all the suffering and the big tower in the middle. And yeah, I got to say some really good art in this run here in this miniseries. Yes. This attempt to i put Bobby through a weird nightmare is missing the mark.
01:14:30
Speaker
Well, because it's it's just on a black void, right? like Yeah. And they're trying to do things with it that make it a little weirder. Like sometimes Bobby's dad is standing ah upside down at the top of the panel, like on the side of the panel. That was very stupid. It's just like, what do you do Just, yeah. Go with the nothingness or go full absurd. Like don't, it's kind of a half measure here, but yeah, whatever. The rest of it's, the rest of it's fine.
01:14:59
Speaker
This figure tells Bobby that he recreated his form from non-existence because of Marge. Marge is apparently Oblivion's child. She grew self-awareness and fled into the time stream where she grows more powerful.
01:15:12
Speaker
She utterly destroyed Kali, which Oblivion shows Bobby. Oblivion can't enter the time stream without undoing the universe, so he asks Bobby to find her for him, promising to restore his father to life.
01:15:25
Speaker
Bobby can't believe that she is Oblivion's daughter. Because he's like, we shared so much. We shared so much, Bobby. You had a conversation with this woman. And you you did all of the talking.
01:15:43
Speaker
Suddenly, he's back in some town where everything seems a bit too normal. He walks down the street in his underwear and everyone waves hello to him until Marge's younger brother finds him.
01:15:57
Speaker
Excited, he brings Bobby to the Smith's house where Marge and her family are waiting around the dinner table. They invite Bobby to dinner and in his underwear and booties, he sits down to eat with them. They he's like they're talking about how all of this this place, it's like paradise. There's there's no prejudice. There's no hatred. This is exactly the sort of place I've always wanted to live. Everybody here is white.
01:16:24
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. there's It's pretty easy to have no racial prejudice when it everybody is Everybody is white. The only way that they have shown no prejudice is that they didn't they weren't mean to a man in his underwear. Yeah.
01:16:41
Speaker
Also, Bobby walking through town is in his underwear, that's on him. At this point, you should have donned some clothes. Bobby sitting down to dinner in in his ah in his underwear, that's on the family. Somebody should offer him some clothes. That's all right. Good point.
01:16:57
Speaker
After dinner, Bobby tries to press Marge on everything Oblivion told him. Marge tells him not to worry. She made this town out of the image of a perfect world in Bobby's head.
01:17:09
Speaker
oh all white. Plus, she loves him. but She's pulling a Bobby here. Remember that one time we bumped into each other? I love you. You knocked over all my brownies and then ran ranted at me about your religion.
01:17:27
Speaker
I love you. Bobby is confused and scared and wants Marge to come back to Oblivion with him. And she's furious. Her family agrees with Bobby and she immediately deletes them from existence.
01:17:42
Speaker
She shows Bobby that she can do the same with the town if he doesn't just shut up and settle down here with her. Oblivion is evil and he wouldn't ask that if he knew what Oblivion has done to her.
01:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, so she's actually making a pretty sympathetic argument here. She's like, my father was terrible to me. You don't know the sort of hell he put me through. Yeah, which I think and after having read the whole miniseries, we have reason to like kind of doubt.
01:18:12
Speaker
but yeah Yes, it seems it seems to go a bit deeper than that. But ah but for for him now, he should just say, oh I'm so sorry. Yeah, you're right. I'll i'll help you fight him.
01:18:27
Speaker
But, but Bobby is still confused and now he's tired. So he ices up and threatens to fight her instead. Fuck you. know She grows to 10 times her size and tells him and tells him her name is actually Mirage, not Marge. Oh, Marge Mirage. And she'll unmake him like she did her family.
01:18:52
Speaker
But Iceman resists. She shrinks back down and falls, telling him her power is growing too fast and she can't control it. She struggles back and forth between Marge, who just wants to be normal, and Mirage, who wants to grow more powerful and kill Iceman.
Bobby's Identity Crisis
01:19:09
Speaker
Huh. They should called her Margie. It would be a perfect anagram for Mirage. This fight scene is so weird. So bizarre. It's she just she grows and then two panels later she shrinks back down and falls over.
01:19:24
Speaker
She also. Yeah. There's supposed to be something here. There's like this really light theme that I think they just kept forgetting about or not finding a way to work in where Bobby is like unsure if he really exists or not. And because of that, he's shaken by the idea that he could be unmade. But he's not yeah a creature that that Marge or Oblivion just created. That's...
01:19:51
Speaker
Well, or is he is he is. Yes, I think we have we have to talk about that. And it comes up next issue. But I think he is. i think I think Bobby made himself not exist.
01:20:05
Speaker
And Oblivion create like created him. I created him from the essence of what used to exist. Or something. Like, I don't know if he used some of Bobby to make Bobby. It seems it because Bobby seems to have like a like a continuous stream of thought through the process. But they also briefly mentioned that all his memories of his past life were erased. But then that doesn't that doesn't actually happen. He remembers everything. They say that?
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, there's a point when Oblivion remakes him and he's like, now you're my perfect servant. You won't remember anything from your past life. And the next thing he says is like, Oh, my dad's dead.
01:20:47
Speaker
ah but It's like, fuck. ah Yeah, this this whole sequence is is very, very odd. It's yeah so strange. I think it's supposed to be like a frenetic, like, I love you. I hate you. I want to run away with you. I'm going to kill you. But it does not come off that way at all. It comes off like, you know what? It comes off kind of like the way Anosenti writes.
01:21:11
Speaker
Well, you hate Anne Nocenti. I'm saying I don't it's not that I hate her. I'm saying this is a good example of that disconnected
Insecurities and Family Dynamics
01:21:19
Speaker
like stream of consciousness way that she writes that I always find confusing. Yeah. Where you have to kind of assume what they're thinking between panels that makes them react this way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
01:21:31
Speaker
We'll try to dumb it down for you a little more going forward, Matt. Iceman tries to her. Yeah, that's the problem. It's too smart for me. Iceman tries to tell her he understands. He's also going through an identity crisis due to his father's influence. Dude, this pales in comparison. yeah My dad yelled at me.
01:21:50
Speaker
but dad My dad wants me to be an accountant. So I totally know what you mean about being a fragment of your father's being who's created to help him rule oblivion.
01:22:04
Speaker
She knows. She's like, I i know. yes yeah It was the first thing you ever said to me. She knows. And that's why she thought they could be happy together. But now she must destroy him.
01:22:19
Speaker
They fight and Mirage defeats Iceman, who collapses on the ground. She's distraught, lamenting what she just did, when suddenly Oblivion appears behind her.
01:22:32
Speaker
To be concluded. She does the thing where she's like down on her knees, screaming at the sky with both fists raised. No. No. it's Oh, man. it's it This is not.
01:22:46
Speaker
This issue is not the high point of this comic book. no And it gets so weird. It's like until we get back to. bobby talking to his parents which sorry to spoil it but bobby will speak with his parents again bobby talks to his parents spoiler until we get back to that point it felt like this was a different series they were they were like i'm tired of writing about ice man can't we write about this strange god that i'm thinking of instead
01:23:20
Speaker
ah issue number four is called the price you pay Release date February 5th, 1985. Cover date June 1985. yeah Wild visual. Each of these pages is like a one panel page. ah And the first two parts of this issue are just recaps backed back to back.
01:23:38
Speaker
Yes. So the issue opens with Oblivion recapping all we know, that he's an infinite being that exists between life and death. And we know the realm he's in was created entirely by him, as was everything in it. No, he grew lonely and created a daughter. Mirage. Oh, my God. She rejects him because she doesn't want to be like him. And she is part of him. And she can't blame either of them for what they are. Well, that's actually new information.
01:24:05
Speaker
She is part of him. Iceman wakes up and recaps the events of the last few issues, reasoning that Oblivion's guilt trip is similar to the one his own parents lay on him.
01:24:18
Speaker
He attacks Oblivion, stating that all his life, Oblivion is the one. Now Bobby is making some wild emotional leaps. Bobby is like, i' am in a comic that's a metaphor.
Themes of Self-Realization
01:24:29
Speaker
And I'm going to tell you it.
01:24:30
Speaker
All his life, Oblivion is the one he's been fighting. He was coddled by his parents, outcast for being a mutant, and looked down upon as the weakest, youngest X-Man. And it's made him deeply insecure, but he's ready to overcome that.
01:24:43
Speaker
To just just to be clear, he says to Oblivion, first of all, he's like, you know, you're a lot like my dad, God. which is its own set of issues he's got yeah he's got he's gonna talk to dr melfi about that one but then he's like i finally understand everything that's wrong that wasn't my parents fault that was your fault oblivion i mean my parents yelling at me my parents being overprotective about me my parents not accepting that i'm a mutant that's
01:25:19
Speaker
You're just looking for somebody to take it out on at this point. Yeah. He's like, my dad's dead. He can't be in the problem. He was as a saint. Also, Iceman has faced less oppression for being a mutant than any other mutant we've ever met.
01:25:37
Speaker
Yes. he i Maybe Warren. but But yeah, he is not big because he can just walk around as a normal man. And then when he ices up, it's adorable. think somebody threw something at him one time. And then he's just been in like superhero teams and considered a superhero, not really a mutant.
01:25:58
Speaker
Right. The most we've ever seen him face anti-mutant prejudice is in this comic. And it's one cop and his cousin. ah His cousin, Joel. Cousin. joel All right.
01:26:13
Speaker
So Oblivion tells Iceman that since he fucked up the time stream, this is what i was talking about, he's now just another one of Oblivion's creations. So Iceman can't defeat him.
01:26:27
Speaker
But Bobby remembers having hopes and dreams and fighting for things as a superhero. Those must be real. And they come from values instilled into him by his parents and all the love they gave him and a hard work they put in to give him comfort.
01:26:44
Speaker
I read this as, Bobby's existed all along. He thinks he got blinked out of existence, but it was just because ob oblivion I mean, he was blinked out of existence, but you can't actually be like you're still going to exist. You can't just cease to exist. So ob Oblivion was trying to convince him that, ha ye I created you. I'm the one that made Bobby Drake out of the thing that was popped out of existence. Whereas Bobby's saying, like, no, my parents made me. Exactly. Yes. You're not my dad. also dad's my dad.
01:27:23
Speaker
Some of this had to have been written under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms. Like there is no question in my mind when they're like, actually nothing is real except for love, which is what makes us all real.
Mirage's Reconciliation
01:27:37
Speaker
That's some, that's some circular thinking that you only get to with a ah level of yeah psychedelia. Yeah, it is, it is, and it is like um the most,
01:27:52
Speaker
base level the dumbest level of epiphany a person can have yes yeah yeah you know what actually it's all love if yeah like the first time a person ever thinks they're smart is when they're like you know what it's all love and it is the dumbest that they've ever been yeah yeah congratulations you've reached john lennon level of philosopher you've got a long way to go to even even reach ringo
01:28:23
Speaker
All the while, Iceman is making ice axes and ice beams and ice shields and ice pillars and stuff and fighting both Oblivion and all his henchmen from earlier in the series. There is some cool fight stuff here. Yeah, yeah. They're having fun.
01:28:36
Speaker
Iceman swinging his axe, Iceman blocking stuff with two shields on either side of him. Like, that's pretty cool. The backgrounds, like the Oblivion area is suddenly cool now, right? Like, there's it's being framed by a hallway of disembodied heads and, like...
01:28:54
Speaker
uh, weird portals and stuff. Right, right. Um, this, this actually is a little psychedelic. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is where they really like figure it out.
01:29:05
Speaker
Right. At this point, oblivion collapses, but Mirage has decided to take up her true calling. She is now ready to make peace with oblivion and accept who she is. Again, this is, again, this is that between the panels. She was just off panel,
01:29:22
Speaker
having her own comic and then she comes back in and you're like, wait, hold on. What? Okay. be Listen, we, ah I've forgiven him. He is my father. He's also sort of my husband. I am also him.
01:29:38
Speaker
We're the same person. work We'll get to that. She, ah she loves oblivion and he loves her. Marge never loved Bobby. That was only a reflection of the love she felt for oblivion. Again, you've taken half of a psychology course in community college. Yeah. And learned the words reflection in a psychological context. This is somebody who who's just like, oh, yeah, women just love their dads. What? That? that I hadn't thought about that. but I was just thinking of like when somebody gives that sort of it like
Oblivion's Perspective Shift
01:30:14
Speaker
psychological advice to you, that sort of dumb like, well, are you looking for a partner or are you really just looking to love yourself? Yes, yes. Okay, sure, but that is functionally meaningless and grow up.
01:30:32
Speaker
see It's so, yes, i mean I'm going to add one more layer onto this. Yeah. Mirage. ah gives up her rebellion and says, yes, finally, I will listen to my father. She literally becomes him. She, because can't, I don't know if we're, if we've gotten quite there yet, but they are,
01:30:57
Speaker
the same being they're not father and daughter they're actually father broke off a piece of himself and called it his daughter well and you might notice at the beginning of this issue that the torn parts of his cloak are her cloak that she is now yes yeah yeah so he tore off part of his cloak too so that's you know some more symbolism all right So so yeah Bobby this whole time has been fighting yeah the the urge from external forces to become his father. Meanwhile, Mirage literally becomes her father and is pure evil.
01:31:33
Speaker
Right, right. If the metaphor wasn't in your face enough. Bobby should surrender because he doesn't exist anymore. And as such, his entire existence was a dream.
01:31:44
Speaker
Oblivion lifts him up and eats him. but Bobby won't give up. He fulfilled his end of the bargain. He brought the two of them back together. ah Again, loses the metaphor entirely at this point, yeah but whatever. ah Hey, you made a promise to me. was Like, I thought we were that beyond literal. Yeah. i thought We were beyond. Um,
01:32:06
Speaker
um Oblivion promised to restore his father and thus restore his existence. And now he realizes he'll never stop fighting because of love. He literally bursts out of ah Oblivion's face yelling for love. Yeah.
01:32:25
Speaker
This is a joke that I had. I used to make with an ex-girlfriend is everything I would do. I would say it was for love. Like everything, like everything, every stupid thing I would do or anything I was asking. And just like you something as stupid as like, hey, I got to go to the bathroom for love.
01:32:44
Speaker
For love. For love. I'm doing this. I'm doing this for our love. I'm going to start doing that to my wife until she yells at me. You could also do that when you're asking for any sort of favor. Like, hey, can you get me blah, blah, blah.
01:33:01
Speaker
For love? For our love that we have with each other?
Bobby's Reconciliation and Future Plans
01:33:04
Speaker
Can you fill up my water? For love? For love. Oblivion is suddenly grateful to Bobby.
01:33:12
Speaker
For he'd never seen love before. And he thinks it rules. No. He shows him that his father's death created a branching path of reality and Bobby still exists in his own time stream. So it's all fine. Oblivion calls Mirage his daughter slash sister slash mate and they begin to fuck as the universe unravels around them and suddenly Bobby wakes up in his own bed moments after he disappeared.
01:33:39
Speaker
i this part I had a little trouble with, but again, I'm i'm pretty sure this was a line written on mushrooms. She's my daughter and my sister, my mate. It's like, okay, if your mind is fully functioning, you're going to realize what a bad sentence that is. but When you're above it all, when you're when you're just firing on those like yeah those direct one one path thought drugs. Yeah, this is brilliant.
01:34:17
Speaker
She's. well, my God. What if? OK, and he's he's her dad, but also he's her brother and her lover. It's all the same. It's all love, man.
01:34:30
Speaker
ah it's Yeah, it it almost feels like the dumbest guy you know read Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and was like, I get it. That's an incredible description of the experience of tripping.
01:34:46
Speaker
So Bobby's home now. He runs downstairs in his underwear and booties and hugs and kisses his parents, telling them that he loves them. If you're a kid running, well, i don' know. Your adult, muscular adult son runs up to you in his underwear and starts hugging and kissing you. you Hey, all right. I appreciate it. Go put some clothes on, please.
01:35:05
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. ah um He says their arguments don't matter because they all love each other. They tell him that they feel guilty for all the suffering. but Oh, hey, and a real sentiment, Pat. Wait, we're about to get to a real sentiment. Okay.
01:35:22
Speaker
They tell him they feel guilty for all the suffering Bobby's endured from being a mutant. But pop Bobby tells him that his powers are good. He's not insecure about them anymore. He's going to be a superhero and he's going to go to college. But maybe not for accounting after he's seen the architecture of the universe or whatever. Now that is J.M.D. Matias writing about how once he took drugs he realized he wanted to be an artist, right?
01:35:49
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah. He's like, okay, we can we can all move past like this is the time that J.M. Demetrius went to his parents house and instead of being like, yeah, I told you I'm trying to be a writer. He he walks in and he's like, I'm a writer.
01:36:06
Speaker
And his parents were like, okay, we're tired of arguing with you. Suddenly Hank and Warren show up. They need Bobby because the new defenders have a mission.
01:36:17
Speaker
Iceman takes off with Beast and Angel and his parents tell him they're proud of him. The end.
01:36:27
Speaker
who Okay. There is, okay. yeah As dumb as it is, there is a lot to think about about the character of Bobby Drake in the series. There's a lot of cool scenes, a lot of cool art.
01:36:40
Speaker
Yeah. yeah There's a lot of good here. It's just not the story. No, it's...
Character Development and Metaphors
01:36:46
Speaker
Yes, it is. It's just equal parts good and dumb.
01:36:53
Speaker
I think... So I think the the real highlight here, like you're saying, is the character and the maybe not the development, but the exploration of the character of Bobby Drake in a way that when we did the Nightcrawler miniseries, that was about having fun. That was like, I know who this character is. i just want to put him in fun things and do those fun things with him. Yes. This is somebody saying, like, hey I don't necessarily like Bobby Drake.
01:37:23
Speaker
But there's something there like we can dig in and and figure out there's substance here for us to work with. So I thought that was i thought that was really cool. And I think they do an incredible job of keeping him consistently in character through the whole series.
01:37:41
Speaker
I think so, too. And I think like this also speaks to Bobby, right? He hangs out with smart, thoughtful people. He does drugs with Hank, right? Right.
01:37:52
Speaker
And he's the dumb one. And so that creates a sort of insecurity that is warranted. But also... needs to be overcome because you can't live with that level of insecurity. Right. Even if you are the dumb one, you can't go around thinking you're the dumb one because what does that accomplish? Right.
01:38:11
Speaker
Right. This is sort of one of the things that I came to realize very recently as I was, as I was, ah you know, learning and reading about the idea of self-compassion, right. It's not the same necessarily as self-love or self, um, gross.
01:38:28
Speaker
Yeah. Or even even necessarily self-acceptance, right? It's understanding that almost like you are who you are and that's not necessarily your fault. And if you want to move forward in the world and also you want to treat other people well, you have to sort of just accept. You have to understand a You have to be compassionate about these things about yourself. If you met the dumbest guy you ever met, you wouldn't be constantly putting them down about how dumb they are. So why are you constantly putting yourself down about how dumb you are? What's that going to help?
01:39:06
Speaker
Right? So Bobby here is under, so is starting to get that. He's starting to understand I'm the dumb one. It's not necessarily, it's not entirely my fault, but it's also not entirely not my fault.
01:39:22
Speaker
And i'm gaining nothing by just whining and whimpering about it. I need to become a self-actualized person. A thing that he doesn't quite realize here, which is a shame because he really needed to realize that it is that sort of insecurity is born out of ego, right? It is born out of you having either high expectations, either high expectations for yourself that you're not living up to.
01:39:48
Speaker
Because you're like you just assume you should be smarter or better or cooler than this. Because you're that cool or smart or good in your own head. Or it's ego in the other direction. Which is like a self-obsession about comparing yourself to other people. I'm not as smart as all these other people, right? Yeah, yeah. um So, while this, I think, does solve Bobby's insecurities.
01:40:13
Speaker
Which definitely needed to be addressed. It does not solve Bobby's ego. Doesn't address the root. Yeah, yeah. It's a shame neither of us can relate to this, Matt.
01:40:29
Speaker
Neither of us vacillate back and forth between thinking we are the smartest human on Earth and the dumbest human on Earth. Just like within 10 seconds time. Or constantly feeling like we're the dumbest smart person everybody knows. Yeah.
01:40:44
Speaker
ah Okay, and then also there's the lla these the the element to this that is the gay metaphor. Right. This is again, except for issue number three and a chunk of issue number four, this is this is a coming out story. They have to remove any reference to homosexuality and also at this point unclear if bobby drake was considered gay behind the scenes or not right but but you can see this is where if if somebody hasn't already started like we some level all the gay bobby drake stuff we've seen so far is us grasping a little bit like we are noticing these themes that get picked up on later but they're clearly weren't intended at the time this is where it starts to be like oh
01:41:37
Speaker
Yes. And there's, I think, so I think the downfall of this comic is this mirrors that experience, except Bobby just tells Oblivion everything he wanted to tell his dad and then goes home and hugs his dad. And it's like, thank you. It's fine. Thank dad, for listening to me. The conclusion they come to is also very, i you can say it's it's queer coded, but it's also just sort of like,
01:42:08
Speaker
dealing with family in that yeah these are the people you love no matter their opinions and they love you no matter their opinions and i know that that's not always the case right too frequently that's not the case that that a parent can't move past their homophobia or transphobia or whatever it whatever it is i But here's the sort of the ideal case for Bobby, which is consistent with the rest of his life, where he he goes to his parents and he's like, I know you don't accept who I am, but I'm confident about it. And I still love you. And I think you still love me too. So why don't we just go forward with that?
01:42:57
Speaker
i But like I said, he skips all of the actual confrontation of it, the part of it where he's like, why Why can't I be myself? Why can't I make my own path? Like, why do I have to be you? Or why can't you accept that I'm going to make some of these decisions for myself? He says all that to oblivion for absolutely no reason. God, it's so funny to imagine a superhero just pounding on a supervillain, just like, wa like like just like...
01:43:30
Speaker
two fists just back and forth beating the shit but crying and being like dad yeah why didn't you come to my play yeah exactly um That's what most superheroes are doing. They just don't say it out loud. Yeah.
01:43:48
Speaker
This also, I think, really speaks well to the, that we can read so much queer coding in the story, I think speaks really well to the mutant metaphor, right? Is yeah you can, this story can be read as just, as Bobby Drake wanting to be a superhero rather than wanting to be a accountant. Yeah. This can also be read as a queer person coming out to their parents and wanting to live an honest life. This can also be read as just as a creative person having to tell their parents that they're not going to become a lawyer or whatever. This can also be read as just a weird person who's like, I'm going to stop trying to blend in with society. I know I'm weird. Yeah.
01:44:36
Speaker
You could say the same thing about a person who's neuroatypical, right? Yeah. And even discusses the, d I think, self-diagnosed neuroses. Right. That's true. Good point. So I think that speaks to, um and we've talked before about the weaknesses of the mutant metaphor, but I think this story really illustrates the power of the mutant metaphor.
01:45:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, that it? Yeah, you know what? Play the song. we don't It doesn't always have
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01:45:11
Speaker
to be on a joke. 69.
01:45:13
Speaker
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01:45:29
Speaker
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01:45:46
Speaker
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01:45:57
Speaker
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01:46:22
Speaker
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01:46:51
Speaker
You fucking idiots. Nice, nice state you got there. Matt, so much of our audience is in the Midwest. I love Iowa. I'm sorry. Sorry for your loss.
01:47:03
Speaker
We'll send you three cents if you ever need to mail anything. um Let me tell you what I think, please. Number one, always a sucker for some sort of web shooting device. They have never invented one that makes you feel in any way like Spider-Man ah because they have to put these like big ass cans that run down your forearm. In this case, it's water, not silly string. But if I see these at like a Kmart or whatever, I'm buying them.
01:47:36
Speaker
Every time. i How many do you have in your house? Because they're always there. I know my wife makes me get rid of them pretty quickly. i cause a lot of trouble around the house with them.
01:47:47
Speaker
i So I'm already sold on this. Under $5, even in 1985 money, pretty good deal. But to top it off, Matt, whoever invented this thing took their own whack at drawing Spider-Man and drawing his hands and clearly got tired of inking it some way through.
01:48:08
Speaker
The hands are the worst. Okay. The hands are terrible. You cannot tell if you're looking at the front of the hand or the back of the hand. And the picture of Spider-Man swinging in the corner of the ad is that nobody told this guy, you draw it big and then you use your technology to shrink it down.
01:48:30
Speaker
Right. Yeah. He just, he drew it so tiny that it's just all jumbled up and his face just looks like scribbles. And then they clearly had to blow it up too and then color it. And and it's just, again, i think this is probably a problem every artist runs into when they first draw Spider-Man. You're like, oh yeah, I can draw Spider-Man. It's a man's body, but he's barely got a face. And then...
01:48:57
Speaker
You get to the webbing on a suit and you just have to do that over and over and over again. And this graphic artist clearly got very tired of doing There's just errant lines places. There's webbing missing in places where it should be.
01:49:16
Speaker
Action water glove. Action water glove. 375 we haven't broken out the calculator in a little bit matt does yeah do should we calculate the christ i was gonna say you were you said you committed a sin uh of pat's deals and steals where you just said in 1985 money you're the guy who's supposed to tell us what that is that's why i offered to look it up don't tell me how to run my segment you should have done it before you said it Okay, $1 in 1985 was worth approximately if we take that
01:49:53
Speaker
three dollars and seventy five cents and multiply it by dollars a little eleven cents it's not ten dollars exactly matt it's eleven dollars and sixty six and one quarter cents what do you think about that That's about the amount that you would pay at a Target for one of these water shooting web shooters. It is, Matt, but we don't shop at Target anymore.
01:50:15
Speaker
Walmart for one of these water shooting web shooters. Isn't that wild? I fucking I used to boycott Walmart because of I don't remember what bad political thing they did decades ago. But now I have to shop there because.
01:50:29
Speaker
targets to an evil more evil unquestionably more evil things i think the evil things of walmart is just its business practices right like it was running it was intentionally running smaller businesses ah out of their respective towns yes it was taking over a large swaths of land the way that amazon is like that's why you shouldn't have a prime account because amazon is just stealing land from everybody and writing it um they also and they very deliberately
01:51:00
Speaker
were paying women less for the same work than men. Yes, they used to... their their Their treatment of their workers used to be really terrible. Though, in recent years, I believe if I'm... an Look, I'm not going to fact check this right now.
01:51:16
Speaker
And we're not going to edit it out. I think Walmart has shown up on like best places to work lists a ton of times in the past. Here goes Matt making excuses for...
01:51:28
Speaker
I am not people in businesses. again Here's the only problem. Here's why I have to shop at Walmart sometimes. Yeah, yeah. No, that's what I'm saying. is i They get these limited edition cereals sometimes that are that like nowhere else gets. They're only at Walmart, and you're like, damn, I gotta go to Walmart to get these melon-flavored whatevers. What? A melon-flavored cereal? Yeah, the most recent K-pop Demon Hunter cereal is like a melon-flavored
01:52:02
Speaker
Matt, you're buying K-pop Demon Hunter cereal? If it's melon flavored, where are you going to get that? Yeah, yeah. No, look, it's a good movie. um It actually was pretty good. I liked K-pop. Yeah, it's fine. And what's brilliant is they didn't even tell you that the voices behind it are already fucking...
01:52:20
Speaker
pop stars right like they were ready to be real life stars they just made a cartoon first what a yeah sorry i could i i could do an hour on k-pop demon hunters so and don't have kids deals is k-pop demon hunters yeah i'm into it i buy it i'm buying your 12 dollars in for all 1985 money k-pop if you know Patrick.
01:52:54
Speaker
patrick Yes. Yeah. but I don't want to end this episode. What? You were the one that said we got wrap it up. I know, but I don't want to end this episode and I'll tell you some reasons why. Number one, give me one.
01:53:07
Speaker
Number one, I'm just having so much fun with my best friend, Pat. all Oh, but number two. Yeah. Give me another one. and this is maybe the bigger one is the next episode that we record after this no secret horse no fuck no fuck no we have nine issues between now and the next time we record we're gonna be different people everybody say goodbye to the matt and pat the happy-go-lucky matt pat that you know Because next time you next time you talk to us, we are going to have just read nine issues of Jim Stupid's opus. not ah Secret Wars 2, where Spider-Man teaches the Beyonder how to take a shit.
01:54:02
Speaker
Yeah. Just remember, as we read through it, the first time around, he was like, oh, yeah, I i can write a comic book. Anybody can write a comic book. Yeah. Bad enough. The second time around, he said, God gave me the gift to write everyone else's comic book.
01:54:21
Speaker
And that's what we're about to read. And he said to himself, you know what? My political beliefs. My beliefs about I'm looking at the world and I'm seeing the world and I'm saying, hey,
01:54:32
Speaker
Somebody needs to comment on this thing. Somebody needs to set everybody straight. And me, James stupid, am the one to do it.
01:54:44
Speaker
And I'm going to do it by making myself God and have the world teach me about being a human. And I will just walk around saying how dumb all the stuff that humans do is.
01:54:58
Speaker
Are there bad guys? Are there bad guys in Secret Wars 2 or is it just like getting to be human? It has been a while since I've read it. and when I read it, I barely read it. I was like, fuck, this sucks so bad. Like anything else that was happening in the room was suddenly the most interesting thing on earth.
01:55:22
Speaker
Well, so this time I'm going to have to really read it because we have to write recaps and make jokes and stuff. So, God damn. So, yeah, so that's that's that's the next episode. But so what I'm saying here is that we're going to need some moral support, folks.
01:55:42
Speaker
ah And, Pat, what ways can people help prop us up while we take on this this difficult undertaking for them? Give us money. yeah ah i' know You can follow us on Patreon for free if you want. I think we just put an updated reading list up there as did well as ah being able to pay us if you want to pay us some money, get some extra bonus content. I think we also have a really cool bonus episode coming up soon. Yes. If you're on Patreon, you'll get a week early. If you're on Patreon, you're going to get in like a couple. You probably I think if you're on the Patreon, you've already gotten it right. Whoa.
01:56:22
Speaker
And if you are not for everybody else, you will get it in between this in the next episode. So actually, you will hear from us one more time before we are absolutely miserable.
01:56:33
Speaker
Oh, thank God. With a special guest, too. But outside of Patreon, there's plenty of options. You can follow us on Instagram at MutantMenacePod.
Future Podcast Plans and Audience Appreciation
01:56:42
Speaker
You can follow us on YouTube at MutantMenacePodcast. Some content up there on both channels that you'll probably enjoy. You can find us in person and kiss us.
01:56:54
Speaker
You can find us in person and kiss us. Try to. It's not as easy as you think. Finding us, not kissing us. but Both. both we are We are both very difficult kissers.
01:57:07
Speaker
lot of teeth. We dodge. We bob and weave. what but Ah, gotcha. That's why we've never kissed. We always try to. because We outsmart each other each time.
01:57:21
Speaker
I want to say a big thank you to Krils Wilson for the music in this episode and every episode. I want to thank ah Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby that you hear at the at the top of every episode. And Pat, I think...
01:57:36
Speaker
I'm so nervous that we have the same outro this week. ah But Pat, why don't you why don't you tell everybody the year the outro that we say at the end of every single episode of this podcast that keeps them coming back. Yeah. Yeah. Matt, as always, help, help. There's a godless communist undressing in my backyard.
01:57:56
Speaker
And remember, folks, help, help. There's a godless communist undressing in my backyard. Yeah.