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30 - Uncanny X-Men #143-147 - Kitty Pryde & Dr. Doom
96 Plays10 days ago
Goodbye, John Byrne; we hardly knew ye! It's time to move on to bigger, fresher things like... Dave Cockrum?
The infamous Claremont/Byrne run ends with a Kitty Pryde solo story that whips ass, followed by a Cyclops soio story that's... you know... it's fine. Then the X-Men get wrapped up in a big ol' Arcade/Dr. Doom catastrophe and we get... Dark Storm!?
Topics discussed:
Stealing a Christmas Tree. Home Alone/Alien. Brent Anderson! A demon era. MAN THING!? Paolo for Loser League. Reverse pool-hustling. Do you smell bad? Dave Cockrum returns! Iceman’s dorm room. Wolverine’s bare butt. Storm and Doom’s love story. Al or Lee? Reusing Arcade’s rooms. “EAT HOT LEAD SUCKER!” Doom’s sex robot. Havok pulls a Bugs Bunny. Claremont embellishing. Rogue & Storm! Oh, wait… Why not catch an updraft? “I don’t engage in fisticuffs” Covering a planet in Skin.
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction and Listener Emails
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:36
Speaker
Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And say it with us, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Menace. All right.
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. i think we got it. I think we nailed it. How's it going, Pat? ahreeds you know, pretty good. im I'm living my life. How are you? I'm bad. Uh, oh.
00:00:58
Speaker
Oh. Okay. All right. We'll get to that, I'm sure. I'm sure we will. you care, if you care me, guess we'll get to that. It is time for Pat's email corner. All right.
00:01:10
Speaker
Uh, we got a handful of emails to get through today. I'm going to start with... James, listener James, he's emailed us twice now. So this is exciting. The first one was just to tell us that he was doing okay. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that your collective favorite phrase turned up in an unexpected place.
00:01:29
Speaker
What he's referring to, of course, is the phrase, holy Hannah. Whoa. I appreciate him going out of his way not to say in this email. Thank you, James. Because you don't read emails that say that phrase. he said, have you ever seen the ad for the 1982 Atari 2600 Spider-Man game?
00:01:47
Speaker
If not, here he is, and he links to it on YouTube. All right, let's go. Indeed, Spider-Man says, holy Hannah. and Hold on, I'm going to play it in the podcast and let's me and you watch it.
00:01:58
Speaker
yeah Ready? Yeah, queued up. All right, three, two, one, click. I'll blow this town with memories.
00:02:09
Speaker
Time bombs. Try to get up there in time, Spider-Man. Watch me clean my webs, goblin. Watch yourself, fucker. Oh, have you ever played this game? It's horrible. No, it's like Donkey Kong. Turn it off.
00:02:22
Speaker
There's more action than even Spider-Man can handle. Whoa! That's a pretty good Green Goblin, I'll say. That is, yeah, that guy is committing.
00:02:35
Speaker
to to to for listeners So the listeners know this is a guy fully in a Green Goblin costume, exactly as it looks in the comics. Even, like, his eyes are painted green under the mask, so it, like, really pops.
00:02:50
Speaker
And he leaps up onto a building where Spider-Man is on top of a building playing the Spider-Man Atari game, the one where it's just a bunch of scaffolding. And you web up.
00:03:01
Speaker
when And you web up. Yeah, and there's, it it'll so if you get the exact right spot, it'll stick. And then you can go up or swing side to side. But if you miss even a little bit, you fall.
00:03:16
Speaker
And you can web as you fall and grab something, but it's really, really hard. Yeah, some of those Atari games are impossibly hard, right?
00:03:27
Speaker
Thank you, James, for your email. Yeah, thanks. That's my line. Signwave Sean also wrote in he says, referring back to the issue where Doctor Strange pops in, says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that it really does look like Doctor Strange has got the Book of Kells in his library.
00:03:46
Speaker
This makes sense, though. As it exists now, the book has been split into four volumes with only one being on display in Trinity College at any given time. Maybe he's just got one of the other volumes.
00:03:57
Speaker
So wait, one only one being on display in Trinity College, meaning they the other three are lost or meaning they rotate them? That would be a a great i or actually would probably be a terrible movie, but.
00:04:10
Speaker
Because I know the lost books of Kells. yeah because it'd just be like calling around to collectors being like, hey, what do you have in your collection? And scanning through databases and being like, oh, this Bible actually, I think might be the lost book of Kells. And then looking at it and being like, oh, no, it's just some other illuminated manuscript.
00:04:27
Speaker
So yeah maybe it's at the bottom of the ocean or right. You're right. ah you're right hidden Nazi treasure. It's just always so boring when you find out like archaeologists discovered this long lost document and it's almost always in a collection already and it had been cataloged some dozens of years ago but cataloged wrong.
00:04:51
Speaker
But I do know that oftentimes with ancient texts like that, like really rare, really fragile ancient texts, people will display them in like a glass case and once every few days or something like on a schedule, turn the page.
00:05:08
Speaker
So if you're a scholar or even just like a fan, you can come and look at that week's page or whatever. Hmm. So maybe they do rotate the four volumes. Oh, would they just read through like that ah account that tweets each line of Moby Dick.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yes, yeah. and when ah And when they're not, any volume they're not displaying, they give to Doctor Strange. Sinewave Sean also goes on to say,
00:05:36
Speaker
Gotta agree with Pat on X-Men The Last Stand. Huh. As much as that movie is a bit of a mess, it's at least trying and sometimes succeeding in doing something interesting, certainly more
Debates and Humorous Arguments
00:05:48
Speaker
than Dark Phoenix does.
00:05:49
Speaker
and We cut out like six minutes of discussion about that movie. Yeah, yeah, sure did. But I did call out Sinewaves specifically as somebody that would support my argument. So I just knew it. I felt it.
00:06:04
Speaker
I email Michael wrote in another old regular. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that this is regarding a discussion in episode 29 about whether or not Wolverine the superhero could defeat a Wolverine the forest dwelling animal.
00:06:19
Speaker
I saw this today and I'm angry. This was based on the idea that a woman transformed into a Wolverine defeated Wendigo defeated Wolverine, just in case we don't remember, which is helpful. Thank you. You know, Michael.
00:06:31
Speaker
My personal belief is that despite his powers and skills giving him all the tools needed to, Wolverine the Man could not defeat a regular Wolverine. Keep in mind that Wolverine the man's idea of hunting is to creep up on animals, touch their butts, and then presumably giggle and scamper away.
00:06:48
Speaker
i think that were he faced with hostile wildlife of any kind, he wouldn't know what to do and would be mauled severely until the animal had devoured enough of his infinitely regenerating meat to get full, sleepy, and wander away.
00:07:03
Speaker
But what do you think? Do you agree with me that the superhero Wolverine is extremely stupid?
00:07:11
Speaker
That he signs off would also lose to a regular Wolverine. you No! No, I don't agree! He would just beat up the Wolverine! This is ridiculous! This is Okay.
00:07:25
Speaker
When he is out hunting, he goes up and touches their butts. If something's hunting him, he taught he just told this to Nightcrawler. Something's hunting him, he has no problem killing it.
00:07:37
Speaker
ah That was a good question. Do you think, Matt, that you could fight a Wolverine? Could I fight a Wolverine? Absolutely. Could I beat a Wolverine? I don't know. Yeah, no, i could I could beat up any animal.
00:07:52
Speaker
I think the problem, or maybe just the counter argument here, Matt, is that there is this like... There's this tough guy mentality of like, oh yeah, I could beat up a dog or like I would win against a dog in a fight. Or I had a friend who thought that if a buck was charging at him, what he would do is he would fall to the ground on his back and then grab the antlers as he was going and just, I guess, like kind of judo style redistribute.
00:08:22
Speaker
ah the deer's weight so that it he just flips it. Here's what I think people aren't thinking about in that moment. It's like in a video game. you If you fuck up, you try it again.
00:08:32
Speaker
and real life, you die. I think with that about this all the time, right? Like if somebody pulls a gun on you, just run in close to them, right? They're not going to turn the gun around and point it to themselves. But in real life, if I'm even ah second too slow,
00:08:49
Speaker
Or they do something unexpected and I don't know what to do. I'm shot to death and I'm dead. I don't get to try again. So I might as well just like give them your wallet or get out of the way of a charging buck.
00:09:03
Speaker
<unk>t But that said, I could beat up any animal. No contest. I'm a man. a human worry about your your tough guy persona that now. i've I have a human brain and human arms and legs and stuff.
00:09:17
Speaker
I have opposable thumbs. I'm a man. i would just outsmart the bear. I could beat up any animal. Bring them on. ah We also got our other faithful Mike...
00:09:30
Speaker
Mikey two males writing in. Now, Mike is churning through episodes. So he has number one, not heard his nickname yet. I hope he likes it when he hears it.
00:09:43
Speaker
ah Number two has been sending us a lot of emails. So I pulled a few. I hope he doesn't. I hope he doesn't like it too much because i ah we've got to change Mikey 2 males to Mikey 12 males or Mikey 10 males or Mikey 20 males.
00:09:58
Speaker
He's going to catch up and he's not going to have episodes to respond to as frequently. Okay, then he might be back to Mikey 2 males, but for now he's Mikey 10 males. Okay. i What he says, he he did...
00:10:12
Speaker
So you ruined my thing where I put them in pairs so that it was. Okay. Okay. no micy two male Sure. He can be Mikey two males for now. i could Just change someone's name. i so I pulled some highlights here. He says, hi Pat, tell Matt that I have a list of X-Men characters. I think I could take in a fight.
00:10:32
Speaker
None of them. That's the list. Let me know what you think. I don't remember asking about this, but I haven't. Yeah, I do not remember asking that. Seems like common sense question.
00:10:45
Speaker
Maybe. I don't know. Did you see the way he wielded that bat? I think I could beat up Artie. Artie.
00:10:57
Speaker
Here's a fun set of emails he sent. Hi, Pat. Tell Matt I can't find my pencil and it's bothering me. I'm really sorry. Followed quickly by, hi Pat. Tell Matt I found my pencil. It was under my desk calendar.
00:11:08
Speaker
Oh, really good work. Really good work, Mikey. Thanks. ah He did let us know he's on episode 22 now, and it's such a great listen. I've been recommending the show to a lot of friends. Aw, Mikey 10, males. Thank you so much.
00:11:21
Speaker
Thank you, Mikey 2, males. That, my friend, is the end of Pat's email corner.
Sports and Comics Fandoms
00:11:30
Speaker
All right. So now I guess I can tell you what's been going on with me. um Well, we got to we got to get the theme song. Oh, I have to tell you after the theme song.
00:11:41
Speaker
Well, I just i don't need you to get cut off by the theme song. Oh, right. Always happens. And.
00:11:48
Speaker
All right. It's not going to come. You can you can just you can try to start. now Well, now you've got me freaked out about it. Yeah. Yeah. um Is there something like quick we can talk about? or Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
00:12:05
Speaker
Nope. There it is. Damn it.
00:12:11
Speaker
All right. Hey, Pat, I got a question for you. you do anything X-Men related this week? You know what, Matt? I sort of. Okay. There's just a thing I was thinking about, and i wanted to talk about it somewhere.
00:12:25
Speaker
Sure. And this seems like the best best medium for it. I was thinking about my love of sports. I had a miserable week as a Philadelphia sports fan.
00:12:36
Speaker
I don't know if any listeners can relate, but If you can, give us a quick go birds. You'd been a pod at gmail.com. It'll make us no upset. But i I was thinking about my love of sports and I was thinking about la i my love of comic books and where this all came from. And I think what I really in enjoy is following something with a deep history, following something with like.
00:13:02
Speaker
multiple eras, right? and If we look at sports, you can track a team's progress. You can track their sort of like their emotional arcs over time when it comes to the players on the team, when it comes to the rivalries in the league, when, i was when you remember like very specific moments, right?
00:13:29
Speaker
in the history of that of that team, it tells a story. Like, you can watch... I mean, there's so many sports documentaries out there, so obviously there's stories to be told, but it's just... It's fascinating, and it's something... Like, the Philadelphia Eagles, I know a good bit of history around, right? Or the Philadelphia Phillies, or...
00:13:48
Speaker
ah you know, the Philadelphia 76ers. There's mostly Philadelphia teams for me, but it's the same with X-Men, right? Or Daredevil. I've read, with I don't know, 70% of Daredevil comics.
00:14:02
Speaker
And I know so many details about him, so many little things about his past. I remember these specific moments of his career. I've seen him develop and like understand Not just why he is the way that he is, but why the people around him are the way they are. The way that you understand why the fans react the way that they do okay in their individual cities. Those are each like little subcultures that mirror sort of the peanut gallery of any superhero.
00:14:34
Speaker
So it's just something I was philosophizing philosophphi an on wanted to share that and i don't know that there's actually anybody in my life that shares my passion for the two things equally so maybe someone here wants to be my friend i please don't write in asking to be my friend i don't i mean I can get it conceptually.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah. But it just does not hit me the same. I don't understand watching a sports game. Even if I have somebody nearby telling me the stories of people. And like the significance of a thing. Of a rivalry. Or of a person's career. Oh, you tune out.
00:15:20
Speaker
i Yeah, I... Well... I don't get any more satisfaction of watching the sports game than somebody just telling me that story. Like if I like if I am not watching the sports game and somebody says somebody tells me the story of some guy who was had a horrible season and then he was traded to some other team and then had the best season of his life and brought that team to the playoffs or something.
00:15:43
Speaker
And then he's facing the person who fired him or whatever. I'm like, yeah. That is interesting. And then when they tell me how that game got game went, it's like, that's interesting. But if I'm watching that game, I'm just so, I just, I don't, the story does not hit me at, like, the story is not informing my watching of that game at all.
00:16:03
Speaker
I would rather the game be over and then somebody tell me the story beginning to end. but That's fair. You have your little corners, though. You you usually run podcasts about them i I will say there's a video game podcast I listen to called Triple Click on Maximum Fun Network. And this the a video game journalist, Jason Schreier, is a big ah sports fan. And he will often tell sports stories during big sports moments.
00:16:36
Speaker
And I am enthralled. But it's never, ever going to make me watch one of these sports games.
00:16:44
Speaker
It's okay. Do you watch the Super Bowl when it's on? No. not Interesting. Everybody watches the Super Bowl. Even if they they just want to do like the go sports shtick.
00:16:56
Speaker
Not everybody, Pat. I also don't like the go sports shtick. I also don't like the sports ball joke. i don't I don't enjoy sports or the mocking of sports.
00:17:07
Speaker
I just don't like it. i just find it... i find it uninteresting on every level. You think platforming it in general is wrong?
00:17:19
Speaker
I don't think it's wrong.
00:17:21
Speaker
um ah I don't have a moral objection to it. I have a attention span objection to it. Well, if you want to talk sports, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
00:17:32
Speaker
You guys might have to start your own yeah yeah you might have to start your own thread in the Discord. Sports. we'll see we'll do a sports chat um What about you, Matt? do you Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
00:17:45
Speaker
Oh, fuck. Okay, so, all right. This seems like the only chance I'll get all week to tell you the difficult things that are happening in my life that are kind of serious and like really, really affecting and I could really use a friend to help me through it.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, so try to tie him to X-Men and we can leave him in the final cut. Shit, okay. Okay.
Kitty Pryde's Christmas Eve Battle
00:18:10
Speaker
Okay, Pat, we just cut out like seven minutes of silence. I i cannot think way to tie this to X-Men. So I guess... say yeah that's That's a shame.
00:18:21
Speaker
Maybe if there's time after... I know we're recording at a weird time today, so I might not be able to, but if there's time after, we can talk about it. Guys, he's lying.
00:18:31
Speaker
He doesn't talk to me about... He doesn't talk to me off the podcast. If there's time... I'll talk to you. You say that every time. Is there anything X-Men related?
00:18:44
Speaker
ate a lot of donuts this week. Oh, me too. So that's X-Men related because both hosts of the Mutant Menace podcast.
00:18:54
Speaker
I can't think of a single time an X-Men ate a donut. I'm sure in the 60 years of X-Men history, somebody ate a donut. I cannot think of a single so single time. Well, now we got to keep an eye out for it. got keep an eye out for the donuts. Well, all right.
00:19:09
Speaker
Now we're done with that business. Who starts this week? I'll take it. All right. Do you want to read me the story of one Uncanny X-Men 143? Uncanny X-Men number 143, Demon. Yes.
00:19:20
Speaker
uncanny x-men number one forty three demon yes Chris Claremont and John Byrne, writer, co-plotters, and penciler. Pat, this is John Byrne's last issue.
00:19:32
Speaker
so shit. Yeah. Yeah. Remember because of the stump thing? Yeah. Yeah. That's just it's it was so fast. Yeah. I mean, I think it was like the way John Byrne talks about it. It is the switching of editors to Louise Jones. Yeah.
00:19:48
Speaker
And Louise started siding with Chris Claremont on conflicts. He doesn't like women. yeah Yeah, yeah, that's what he says. ah Terry Austin, anchor, Tom Orzakowski, letterer, Glynis Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor and jump shooter editor in chief.
00:20:06
Speaker
Release date December 16th, 1980. Cover date March 1981. Do you Matt?
00:20:12
Speaker
do you matt um Yeah, I'm remember way back in issue 96 when Cyclops fired a big blast in the woods and it hid an ancient cairn and released a bunch of demons?
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, but surely they would never go back to that story because it was so ridiculous. Well. Oh. We're back there. Okay. Back in time.
00:20:34
Speaker
ah Watching Storm, she's blasting the Cairn apart, banishing the Ngarai. If you remember, that's how they eventually got that demon to disappear. That's the name of demons, Ngarai.
00:20:46
Speaker
It's a year later on Christmas Eve. And what's this? One of the demons is climbing out of the rubble. What? And he kills a nice couple in the woods.
00:20:58
Speaker
What are they doing there? They were chopping down a Christmas tree, which the lady asked Matt, this is so interesting to me because you and I were not part of the era where I guess you just went out, found a pine tree in the wild or hoped it wasn't on someone's property and then chopped it down as your Christmas tree.
00:21:24
Speaker
Is that how people used to do it? i I know that was like a cliche when I was a kid. Like... I think that's like how the Simpsons did it or whatever, the first Simpsons Christmas episode.
00:21:35
Speaker
And i assumed that's how you got Christmas trees, but then we always went to a Christmas tree farm. I've seen someone do that. I've seen someone do that once and it was a group of drunk 20-year-olds.
00:21:47
Speaker
Right, middle of the night. For their first apartment, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, this is the thing that people used to do. I know you can go to a tree farm now and cut your own tree, which I think that's cool.
00:21:57
Speaker
ah We do plastic trees because... As a child, we had both a Christmas tree that had spiders nesting, like spiders eggs nesting in it, and a Christmas tree that had yeah praying mantis.
00:22:13
Speaker
Whoa! Nesting in it. We had our our apartment, our little apartment was covered in tiny praying mantises that our cats just kept eating. Jesus! Wow.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I might switch to plastic trees if that happened to me. Yeah.
00:22:32
Speaker
Anyway, it's Christmas Eve. Let's cut to the mansion. Professor X is teaching Kitty Pryde how the Blackbird controls work when Angel interrupts. It's time for the X-Men to go ah somewhere.
00:22:45
Speaker
makes his kids study on christmas eve like he's just like you're just like kitty you have it's christmas eve at night and he's like we have to keep drilling this blackbird computer program well i do think it's it sucks that it's christmas eve and that's shitty for him to do he even mentions it's christmas eve it's like i know it's christmas we're still doing this uh but A theme of this issue is, i think, taking a closer look at like, hey, he doesn't just make them fly in circles in the danger room. He is
00:23:23
Speaker
handling their education start to finish and training them to be these like elite right soldiers where everybody on the team needs to be able to not just fly ah in s r seventy one Blackbird, but Even a 13 and a half year old girl.
00:23:42
Speaker
But repair it too. Oh wait, well, it's she's been there for months, it says in this issue, right? So she might be close to 14 now. Logan introduces the gang to Mariko and Nightcrawler sneaks in a kiss on the cheek with some mistletoe, causing Logan to lash out.
00:23:58
Speaker
He's Back to trying to kill his friends. To trying to murder him. Yeah, like full claws. I don't fuck around, elf. I will stab you.
00:24:11
Speaker
um But he regains his calm very quickly and Kitty lightens the mood by doing the same mistletoe kiss to Peter. He blushes. Yeah, she calls him sexy.
00:24:21
Speaker
She does. She's 14. We're going to have to learn how to move past that. The X-Men then all take off in the roles, leaving Kitty all alone in the mansion on Christmas Eve.
00:24:32
Speaker
So what does she do? She trains in the danger room.
00:24:38
Speaker
What dork. What a nerd. First, though, she does take a quick call from Scott Summers, who called the Wishes Pals a Merry Christmas. He's in Florida looking for work as a ship hand.
00:24:53
Speaker
pause yeah sure he just walks up to a boat finds the captain and is like he's he's doing the the vagrant sailor life he's just he's looking to escape do you think that's how you used to get work as a sailor you would just walk up to a boat and be like hey yes this is me ah maybe romanticizing the late 70s early 80s a bit but i think there were a lot of cash only walk up and It's like your parents always say, go in, shake their hand, them you're looking for work and that you're a good dude.
00:25:27
Speaker
Right. And tell me, tell me a push a broom and they will look around there. They'll look around their storefront and say, is dusty in here. Here you go, kid. And hand your broom. Hey, 12 coppers.
00:25:43
Speaker
And someday you might own that store. boat. So. at boat
00:25:50
Speaker
so Yeah, Scott Summers went to Florida looking for work as a ship hand. He finds it by talking to the captain of the Arcadia, though he's taken aback when the captain turns out to be a woman. What?
00:26:03
Speaker
Named Elitis Lee Forrester. i I assume it's Elitis since her nickname is Lee. Yeah, and that's fair. and we But yeah, man, Scott Summers. I'll eat us.
00:26:16
Speaker
Is this foreshadowing? Oh my God. I don't know. ah in New York. She's threatening herself though in that case.
00:26:28
Speaker
Watch out. I'll eat us. Back in New York, Kitty hears a burglar alarm go off and goes up to Roros Loft to check it out. The skylights are busted in and her plants are suddenly all dead.
00:26:41
Speaker
Kitty sees some weird goop on the floor and then suddenly the Angari demon attacks. She dodges his claws and runs through the walls of the house. No. But the demon pursues her, easily smashing through each wall.
00:26:55
Speaker
She decides to see if she can outsmart it by phasing through the stairs and hiding. But the moment she pops out to call Xavier's car phone, the demon is right there and its claws slice through her.
00:27:07
Speaker
Oh, it's okay because she's phasing, right? She's phasing at the time, but for some reason, it still hurts and paralyzes her right arm entirely. Whoa. She realizes not only is the demon smart, it can hurt her when she's phasing.
00:27:23
Speaker
So she decides to lead it to the danger room and air walks up to the control booth to program the most dangerous possible scenarios as a trap. But it doesn't show up in the danger room.
00:27:34
Speaker
It bursts the door behind her, but her trap still works as she phases through the ground. Clever girl. And the demon dives through the observation window after She notices that the only thing that seems to harm it is fire, but it's still after her, so she escapes into the tunnels below the mansion.
00:27:53
Speaker
Thinking quickly, she leads it to the Blackbird that she just learned how to control and fix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hops in the cockpit and fires on the engines just as it closes in on the jet.
00:28:06
Speaker
And it works. The heat of the rockets burns the demon to ashes, but as she approaches the blaze, a hand springs out at her.
00:28:17
Speaker
Midnight. The X-Men return home. They sense an evil presence in the house, and it's cold inside. Following the noise of the television, they approach the living room, and Kitty is there, warming herself by the fire in a big pink robe.
00:28:32
Speaker
ah Turns out, where
Cyclops and the Demon Despair
00:28:35
Speaker
they all went was to pick up Kitty's parents as a Hanukkah present. And they all drink punch as Kitty explains to Aurora what happened while they were away.
00:28:44
Speaker
So it's literally just alien. It's just alien. It's Matt. I got a ah real home alone vibe from this because she sets traps in the danger room. Yeah, she sets traps in the danger room. And then the whole family comes back. She at one point, she literally says, I'm home alone.
00:29:02
Speaker
Like to kick the whole thing off. And then yeah the whole family comes back and they're like, oh, Kitty, so glad that you're okay, even though we left you at home. Wait, what's all this damage?
00:29:15
Speaker
Kevin! Exactly. i you know' um I see your point, but but I've got to go back to the alien thing a second because ah alien had just come out like what?
00:29:30
Speaker
Three years, two years earlier. And it was huge. Yeah, yeah. and they even have the scene in here. I've never seen alien, but I know this scene what where the thing is where there's goop dripping from the ceiling.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah. And she looks down and then looks up and the alien is there, right? Or the alien jumps down on her or something like that. They even have that scene in this comic book. It is very alien. I'm not arguing with you there. It is like a single terrifying creature stalking single woman around a vast technological complex.
00:30:05
Speaker
And if I am I right that in Alien, the woman destroys the alien at the end by this exact same thing, turning on a turning on some sort of jet that burns the alien behind it? No, sure. It's been a little little while since I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure she you sucks him out of the airlock.
00:30:24
Speaker
Like tricks him. is It is a series of tricks to get him to a specific place so that she can kill him. All right. I got the wiki open and it seems like we're both right. It seems like we're both right. She, she, she ejects it from the space station And then fires the engines and burns it up.
00:30:45
Speaker
Okay. So both. Although if we're steeped in alien lore, that doesn't necessarily kill it. So I think... I just wanted to figure that out because I thought this was like a direct reference.
00:30:59
Speaker
And I guess it is. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. See Alien. that It's masterful. I just talking to somebody. I've talked about this on podcast before. I think I might have even talked about on this podcast.
00:31:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It's like most action movies I haven't seen. ah Alien is more of a like science fiction horror than action movie. I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that. But often when I say like, oh, I never saw Predator. I never saw Terminator. People are like, how about Alien?
00:31:25
Speaker
So I guess that's why that's why that springs to mind that way. Yeah, just the big it's the big movies of the time. But anyway. Yeah, yeah. says This issue fucking ruled.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it did. whys what's your ah Why do you think it ruled? I think because it it balances really well, this idea of Kitty being a superhero and Kitty being a teenager, right? Yeah. um ah She...
00:31:51
Speaker
ah like a superhero immediately goes to start training when her friends leave. But like a teenager, she starts complaining and she's like, i shouldn't have to train like this. I'm already in good shape. And plus I have superpowers. So what?
00:32:04
Speaker
And then like mid sentence, she sprains her ankle or sprains her not sprains. He pulls a muscle in her thigh and she's like, ah and like, uh, kitty. i She doesn't even, I don't think realize it at the time. She doesn't realize it till the end.
00:32:21
Speaker
why she needs her training. But at the moment, she pulls her the thigh muscle and we, the reader, are like, yeah, see, kitty. And she, as a teenager, doesn't even realize she just proved herself wrong.
00:32:34
Speaker
And then, then again, she like fights This fucking demon and wins, but barely because she's just a teenager.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's just like this amazing encapsulation of how vulnerable and how skillful Kitty Pryde is at the exact same time. Yeah, yeah. What did you love about it? think the the characterization here and just there's so many yeah lines that she has that are just her...
00:33:05
Speaker
being brave. It's the same as that like Cyclops told me it's okay to be afraid as long as I don't let it, as long as I don't let it stop me. Yep. Um, there's like so much of that. It's very, it's a peek into what young Kitty's head because we learned, we saw the adult she grows up to be potentially, um,
00:33:24
Speaker
But it's such it's such a peek into like she's just she's got the juice. You know, she's got the superhero spirit. She's destined to be a superhero even though now she's a kid.
00:33:37
Speaker
The other thing i love about this is the pacing here, because for the bulk of the issue, aside from like the intro and the when the X-Men return at midnight. Right. Only about five, maybe 10 minutes pass for 16 pages of this comic.
00:33:55
Speaker
Right, right. It is so artful. Like it slows it down. It really helps you feel the sort of the sense of dread and the sense of being stalked.
00:34:07
Speaker
Right. It's so cool. So even though Kitty only appears in, really only appears in this one of these five issues, pretty much. Like she's got little cameos in the other ones. This is why this episode is called Kitty Pride. It's because this issue is where you get to know this is Kitty Pride. This is who she is.
00:34:25
Speaker
This is her spot in X-Men and the Marvel Universe entirely. Like you so you read this issue and you go, yeah, Kitty Pride is a Marvel superhero and she is forever. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
It also, it's I know I said this earlier, but it does a great job of reinforcing. And I think this is something claremont and maybe Byrne as well felt the need to pop in. But there is a lot of work that goes into being an X-Man because you're not just like super fast and super strong and super invulnerable. yeah you have one very unique skill, if you're lucky, maybe maybe a few unique skills but Right. You have to attune the rest of your body and mind to be able to compete on the level of like a Spider-Man, the Captain America, somebody that does have every tool in their kit.
00:35:17
Speaker
That's interesting. Yeah. Like that's what Professor X is doing. He's saying and he's he's he's not always even training people to be superheroes. Right. Like it's a ah he's training them. He's like this world is going to be dangerous for you as a mutant.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You have to be on the level of a Spider-Man if you want to survive. And you have this power. Cool. Great.
00:35:43
Speaker
That's not enough, which is really interesting. A good example of that is how Wolverine had to learn electronics. And Nightcrawler had to learn to be a mechanic.
00:35:54
Speaker
And Wolverine had to learn, like, how to read medical charts and shit. Yeah. gene Yeah. like They all have to be these like, yeah, um and you all have to learn to pilot a jet. So.
00:36:09
Speaker
Patrick. Yeah. Do you want me to just keep rolling? Yeah, let's put some through, Matt. Uncanny X-Men number 144, Even in Death.
X-Men's Encounter with Doctor Doom
00:36:21
Speaker
Written by Chris Claremont. Guest penciler, Brent Anderson. Whoa. Inker Joseph Rubenstein, Glynis Weenis the colorist, Tom Orzakowski letterer, Louise Jones editor, Jompshooper, editor-in-chief.
00:36:38
Speaker
Matt. I didn't mean to say Jompshooper, but it's Jompshooper.
00:36:44
Speaker
Matt, who the fuck is Brent Anderson? ah He's a guy who have like an in he doesn't have that interesting a career. He started in indie comics, moved to Marvel.
00:36:57
Speaker
Later on, he'll create Astro City with Kurt Busiek. That is probably his second biggest work. His biggest work is something very important to X-Men history. He's the one who draws God Loves Man Kills, the graphic novel.
00:37:14
Speaker
Oh, we're getting to that before too long. Yeah. Yeah. Not that very soon. And ah he's still drawing today. Oh, nice. Even though this is 100 million years old. I think he's like 71 or something.
00:37:27
Speaker
I hope when I'm 71, I'm still podcasting. We'll be doing this podcast because we will be in like 2007. Yeah, yeah. We'll finally that right. Release date, January 1981. Cover date, April 1981. We're in 1981, Patrick.
00:37:38
Speaker
We're in the Matt. There's more than one april nineteen eighty one or nineteen eighty one patrick we're in we're in the eighty s matt there's more than one of them now Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
We open in the woods where an old man named Jock Forrester. Huh. Where have I heard that name before? Forrester? don't know. Not Jock, but Forrester.
00:38:03
Speaker
He's dying of cancer and he thinks about his daughter? As he contemplates ending his life, he's being watched by the creature Man-Thing! Whoa! Who is empathically drawn to Jock's suffering, but Man-Thing is interrupted.
00:38:21
Speaker
As an evil black mass appears between them. The demon called despair goads Jock into picking up his gun and shooting himself in the head.
00:38:32
Speaker
Jesus. Feeding on his pain as Man-Thing tries and fails to stop it. We're really in a yeah demon era for the X-Men ah right now.
00:38:45
Speaker
it like... Yeah. Is this... Do you know... I don't remember exactly when Marvel dropped the Comics Code stuff. It was not yet. No, no, no.
00:38:56
Speaker
Because this but should be... Or I guess this these are like their workaround demons. No, no. I think this is about when the Comics Code started shifting its rules.
00:39:08
Speaker
Right? There's a time in the 80s where the Comics Code kind of started being like a little looser. And that might be now. Yeah. Because this is two in a row where they they are literally, they're they are calling them literal demons.
00:39:23
Speaker
Right, right, right. Also, man thing is here, Matt. Who the fuck is Man-Thing? No, I only vaguely know who he is, to be honest.
00:39:35
Speaker
Man-Thing is interesting. So at first glance, you would think he is just Marvel's Swamp Thing, right? He was invented by Stan Lee and Jerry Conway right around the same time that Swamp Thing came out.
00:39:48
Speaker
uh eventually he thrived under steve gerber the man that we continue to talk about without ever reading the writing of i don't know if he'll ever come up in this podcast to be honest and i don't think so and like unless the x-men appear in a steve gerber book Well, so Steve Gerber gets really upset about the things that get done with Howard the Duck. And I think that he has left Marvel by this time, or if not, he's at the end of his Marvel run.
00:40:16
Speaker
So Jerry Conway actually lived with Len Wein in the same apartment. And separately, they invented Man-Thing and Swamp-Thing, again, right around the same time.
00:40:27
Speaker
Marvel published first. Jerry Conway apparently yeah had to speak, like the brass at Marvel was like, you need to speak to Len Wein. And Len was like, I don't see the similarities.
00:40:40
Speaker
Ted Salas.
00:40:43
Speaker
ted salis Yeah. The fictional character is trying to reinvent super soldier serum. AIM shows up, AOL instant messenger, and he injects the serum into himself to prevent them from getting it. But as he's getting away, crashes into a swamp, merges with the swamp, and this turns him into a powerful empath.
00:41:06
Speaker
ah That is something the story of fucking Swamp Thing. Yes. Swamp Thing turned out to be a good bit more popular at the time. okay so ah eventually they gave Man Thing to Gerber.
00:41:20
Speaker
He, of course, started transcending space and time with him. He introduced him and teamed him up with Howard the Duck briefly. Eventually Claremont took over the book. So, of course, he's showing up in an X-Men comic.
00:41:33
Speaker
Oh, right, right, right. At one point, Claremont wrote himself into the comic, which Steve Gerber had done at the end of his run. Okay. Unlike Gerber, had himself turn into Man-Thing. So in the Marvel Comics universe, for a brief time, Chris Claremont is the Man-Thing.
00:41:54
Speaker
What a weird ego move. Yes. I'm leaving the book. I'm leaving the book. So it and so the the book is me now. Okay.
00:42:05
Speaker
That is so bizarre. But yeah, fucking man thing. He's a very cool character because they didn't know what to do with him and gave him to the nuttiest writer in Marvel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
Okay. In a quick interlude, the X-Men are training in the danger room. Kitty brings them off some sandwiches, but the gang start poking fun at her for ruining the mansion on Christmas Eve.
00:42:30
Speaker
She doesn't take it well. She storms off ah crying. Nightcrawler. Yeah, exactly. Nightcrawler follows and tries to cheer her up, but it doesn't quite work.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, she hates Nightcrawler. She's ugly. Yeah, she's like Nightcrawler because she thinks he's ugly. She's like legitimately scared of him. She thinks like he looks like a demon.
00:42:55
Speaker
That's scary. I want him away from me. We also learned that Professor X is running into financial trouble. No worries. Warren Worthington, the third, is here to help out with his fortune.
00:43:07
Speaker
buts like the Professor X is so... passive aggressive about this he calls Warren to his office when he has the richest X-Man in his room he's like oh until you wouldn't believe the money troubles I'm going through just imagine him groaning for like 10 minutes as Warren stands there until Warren's like what's wrong professor he's like my god I'm glad you asked laughter
00:43:40
Speaker
It's just, you know, i mean, you might not be able to relate to this with all your money, but we need money. Things can be expensive, you know? i mean, not for you, but for for me, they are.
00:43:53
Speaker
i mean, is also, Xavier's got, like, limitless generational wealth. i He's just not... yeah He doesn't want to tap into the trust fund. Right, right. Both of these guys will continue funding, like, businesses and in crazy levels of technology and...
00:44:10
Speaker
like organizations and their own lifestyle for the next 60 years. I think he's, I think professor X is doing okay. All right. In Florida on the fishing vessel, Arcadia, Scott Summers and Lee Forrester ah are unloading some nets full of fish.
00:44:30
Speaker
One of the crew starts giving Scott shit about his glasses and they almost get into a fist fight. Okay. His name is Paolo, and he's an immediate loser league candidate.
00:44:45
Speaker
He loses a fight by not even doing the fight. yeah They're like squaring off, and Lee's like, hey, no fighting on my boat. And he's like, aw, shucks, I was just giving him heck.
00:44:58
Speaker
Why is he going to hit me?
00:45:03
Speaker
So afterwards they head to a bar for some drinks and some pool, which Scott cheats at with his optic blasts when everyone's back are turned. He's cheating. cheating. He uses his crazy geometry brain.
00:45:15
Speaker
yeah Like this is this thing that Scott Summers can do, but only with his eye beams is he can like look at a situation and be like, I can bounce off 18 surfaces.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yes. That is canon. It's been his spatial geometry brain is very advanced. Yeah, he does this all the time. and And it's not like... It's not like we are it's just inserting that as canon. Like, it is always him, like, plotting out how his beams are going to go. And I think this proves that, right? That it is some praetor-natural...
00:45:54
Speaker
yeah yeah like mental power in scott's head whether i think this is one of the reasons honestly that people often ah place him on the spectrum in the x-men fandom oh but like his you know um hyper focus on one area of study and yeah ah easy mastery of it it's also okay this is a small but petty detail number one Having an advanced spatial geometry brain is not cheating.
00:46:26
Speaker
Using your eye blasts to play pool when nobody's looking is cheating. But also, he's not technically cheating. What he's trying to do is hustle. He's trying to... He's like, everybody's back is turned.
00:46:37
Speaker
I'll use my eye beams, knock all the balls in at once so they're all impressed. Yeah. And then they'll... want to play pool against like he's it's the opposite of hustling he's like he just doesn't know how to do it because he doesn't he's never met people before he doesn't he doesn't have really good people skills good leadership skills not good like uh he can't he doesn't know how to play a prank real world personal skills all right lee at the bar gets a call from her dad it's so funny this dad her dad knows to call her at the bar
00:47:16
Speaker
Something is wrong. She doesn't know what. So she asks Scott if ah he'll accompany her back home. When she gets there, her dad greets them and then just suddenly admits that he shot himself in the head.
00:47:33
Speaker
And morphs back into despair. This is so fucked up, Matt. Yeah. Like... Not only you ah is she finding out that her father is dead by suicide, but the evil force...
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah. it's There's a lot of, I'm just, there's so many things that are my living nightmare. Right. This run that we read, and this is just one of them. a demon wearing your parents' face, telling you the worst thing your parents ever did to you that you didn't know about.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yes. Which is kill themselves without your knowledge. And then. Terrifying. They're gone. Like, your parents are gone. And then he throws her off a staircase. yeah So despair, like this is the thing he does. He's feeding on her shock and grief and then reality starts warping around them.
00:48:25
Speaker
And Scott is reliving a moment from his childhood. He's 10 years old in a plane piloted by his dad when it's struck by some unknowable force.
00:48:36
Speaker
There's only one working parachute. So his mother sends him out of the plane grasping his six-year-old brother, Alex. Alex Summers. Yeah, Alex.
00:48:47
Speaker
You're right. As they fall, holding each other, the plane explodes above them. Jesus Christ. Now, he's in costume in Larry Tresk's Mountain Fortress.
00:49:00
Speaker
The original X-Men are all dead except Havoc, who is cradling Lorna's body. They stand side by side as the Sentinels burst in, but they look just like the new X-Men.
00:49:13
Speaker
Wait a second. They kill Alex and Scott pulverizes them with his optic blasts. And just as Scott begins to realize that someone's playing with his mind, the X-Men then rise up like rotten corpses from the ground and literally tear him to pieces. Off panel, but that's what the narration says.
00:49:31
Speaker
we'll have to We're going to have to talk about that, by the way.
00:49:36
Speaker
Suddenly, he's on a mesa in New Mexico holding Jean Grey in his arms.
00:49:42
Speaker
Now they're in an empty chapel ah about to be married. oh As they walk up the aisle, her wardrobe changes from her underwear to Marvel Girl to Phoenix to Black Queen to Dark Phoenix and then to a wedding dress. And they're standing in front of all their friends and family to deliver their vows.
00:50:02
Speaker
Jean, like she did on the mesa, lifts Scott's visor. And his I-beams cut through her body instantly. Yeesh. Despair is there feeding on his suffering. And Scott, now in the Forrester home suddenly, leaps out the window, attempting to end his life to stop despair.
00:50:21
Speaker
This was... This one was... yeah Another hard one to read through where yeah he is – you know this is his greatest fear is that at some point he won't be able to control his eyes and he'll kill the people that he loves.
00:50:37
Speaker
Jean is doing that same thing that she successfully did before saying like take off your glasses. I'm strong enough to control your eyes. This one time he felt safety and comfort. Yes.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah. And then he actually just tears her apart. It is – Jesus Christ. So he runs, he leaps out the window, falls to the ground. He's hoping it ends his life, but he doesn't. He lives.
00:51:01
Speaker
And Man-Thing is there. I'm not sure why Man-Thing has to be here, but he's here. He's been he's been following D-Spare. Yeah, i
00:51:15
Speaker
Again, it's just because Claremont's writing Man-Thing at the time, right? Like, it's not... Man-Thing doesn't add anything to this story. He's just there. He cannot talk.
00:51:29
Speaker
Right? And, like, they could have just... Like, okay. So I'll tell the rest of the story. The two ah burst back into the house together, finding Lee on the floor unconscious. They attack despair, but does no good until Scott conjures up memories of the Dark Phoenix in his head.
00:51:47
Speaker
Intentionally. Yes. Despair tries to feed on him, but finds he can't because Scott is choosing to no longer let fear or sadness rule him.
00:52:00
Speaker
Somebody's been to therapy. Man, well but that was his therapy. Just we just watched it. Man thing bolstered by Scott's courage because he feeds on emotion, takes despair by the throat.
00:52:13
Speaker
Scott runs with Lee in his arm as the mansion burns behind them. As the fire dies down, Man-Thing, all alone, wanders back into the swamps.
00:52:26
Speaker
ah could have had Scott win that fight, right? Yeah, but I think it makes sense that he doesn't. i So I have a soft spot for empaths in the Marvel Universe because I think they get really... You're kind of an empath empath.
00:52:40
Speaker
I don't know. Because, like you know, I'm a bit of a... No, I think they get used really creatively. and I think this is one of those creative uses. Sure. Or maybe not creative as much as just like... Feels inspiring. Scott's like, you know what? Fuck you and your fear based. Like, I'm I'm brave. I've been through this shit. It's not the first time Marvel has employed this. Like the will, the indomitable will of of of yeah this, this person's strength of character is what overcomes the bad guy.
00:53:11
Speaker
Right. as Specifically through with them trying to feed on their thoughts and getting like a... But regardless, it's still, it's very Scott Summer. You're like, oh man, this guy is still hero at heart.
00:53:26
Speaker
So without Man-Thing, you wouldn't have gotten that moment where it's like Scott's courage. is so strong that man thing now can beat despair.
00:53:37
Speaker
But yes, you could have been like, Oh, Scott's courage was so strong and pure. It made despair, despair explode or something. Right? Like you could have done something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It would have, it would have stood alone successfully for sure. Yeah.
00:53:50
Speaker
I mean, like it was cute to see man thing. I just don't know if he was, he needed to be there now. I don't want to talk about it now. I just want to note how in this issue,
00:54:01
Speaker
Claremont a few times mentions things that are happening that like physical actions that are occurring that are not shown in panel. Yeah, we don't get to see. Right. He's like, you know, this person is ah is doing this thing. you And in the panel, they're just like standing there, so you know, ah unmoving or doing something entirely else.
00:54:25
Speaker
Right.
00:54:27
Speaker
They're sitting in a chair and he writes, they stand up and walk across the room. So I just want to note that i I think it'll be more interesting to talk about later, but just...
00:54:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I want to note something that will continue to be a theme in this run, but I think we should talk about now. Okay. Because it is another one of my ah personal hells.
00:54:54
Speaker
Storm. In the past, Logan has done this a number of times, but in this issue, Aurora like, boy, I hate that brimstone smell that Nightcrawler makes when he teleports. Which, first of all, brimstone isn't that bad. It's like a...
00:55:09
Speaker
like a burning coal. I don't know that I've ever smelled brimstone. Sulfur smells like methane. Yeah, it smells like butt. But hey, that's the end.
00:55:20
Speaker
Okay, fine. But my in my mortal fear is that I smell bad and no one will tell me.
00:55:33
Speaker
i like Everyone is. They only tell you when you leave the room. Yes, they only mention it when I walk out. Everybody's like, boy, i love that guy, so I'll never say this to his face, but he fucking stinks.
00:55:47
Speaker
it That is a funny fear to manifest in Nightcrawler because specifically you only and smell it when he either enters a room or exits room. and so you're not going So you're either going to be greeting Nightcrawler and it's going to be hard to be like, hey, you smell. Hey, nice to see you. that You smell.
00:56:07
Speaker
ah Or he's just left. And so you're talking to an empty space. So there's no time where in like in the middle of the conversation, you can be like, hey, man, you kind of smell bad because he doesn't anymore.
00:56:19
Speaker
Right. And also, he doesn't get exposure to a lot of other people. Like you spend so much time with your close friends. And if they don't want to mention it, like it just it becomes part of their lives. Right. At at some point, they barely notice it.
00:56:35
Speaker
He doesn't meet enough strangers to, by law of averages, come across somebody who's rude enough to just be like, the fuck is that smell, man? Well, that's how people learn they're smelly, right? It's not because people come up to them and say, hey, you're smelly. They go, oh, what is that smell?
00:56:52
Speaker
You smell that? And they turn to you and you go, oh, I don't smell it. it's It must be me. I, it's and this is probably where this fear came from, learned in sixth grade that I needed to start wearing deodorant because a kid walked up to me and was like, you smell, man.
00:57:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah I need to wear deodorant. I think all of us have that experience, Pat. Yeah. He told all my bullies, too. That's the exact same reason I started wearing deodorant. Somebody's told me it smelled like ham.
00:57:24
Speaker
Oh, really? That's rough. Like really bad, right? Yeah. All right. Let's move off of. What do I smell like now? Give me legitimate anxiety. I smell good. I i work very hard at it.
00:57:37
Speaker
I hate scents. Yeah. I know. I hate fragrances and scents, so I don't like wear scents. But thankfully, I'm not a smelly. I'm not that smelly of a guy just generally. As far as you know.
00:57:48
Speaker
As far as I know. Hey, Pat, am I a smelly guy? No, no, no.
00:57:54
Speaker
That. Why don't you tell me to tell you? Pat, tell me about Uncanny X-Men number 145. Uncanny X-Men number 145. Uncanny X-Men number 145? Kidnapped.
00:58:05
Speaker
kidna Chris Claremont, writer, Dave Cockrum, and Joe Rubenstein artists. He's back! He's back! Joe Rosen, letterer, Glynis Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor, Jim Jomp-Shooper, editor-in-chief.
00:58:21
Speaker
Release date February 17th, 1981. Cover date May 1981. We see Aurora and Stevie Hunter taking in the opera together. Aww. And fucking Aurora is rude again.
00:58:35
Speaker
She does her rude Aurora thing where Stevie's like, hey, thanks for inviting me. And she's like, ah that was Kitty's doing, not mine.
00:58:44
Speaker
Storm still distrusts Stevie. Yeah. But Kitty got sick and offered her the extra ticket. How could she say no? Yeah. ah As she reflects on this, a dark haired woman enters their private theater box and touches them both on the shoulder.
00:58:59
Speaker
Storm reacts immediately with an awesome gust of wind. What? Why? Somebody just touched her on the shoulder. Everybody chill out. This shadowy figure introduces herself as Ms. Locke, a representative for Arcade, and her touch has already poisoned the two.
00:59:17
Speaker
Okay. I'm sorry, Aurora. I was wrong. Locke needs the X-Men's help and wants Storm to hear her offer before administering the antidote. Damn. Arcade threw some goofy plan with Toad. Hold on.
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah. This is also, Stevie did not know that her new friends, the X-Men. Or the X-Men. Yeah, yeah. the X-Men. She did not know this. And so when Storm uses her power, Stevie's like, what the hell?
00:59:44
Speaker
And Storm's like, I will tell you about it later. I'll explain this. later There's no time for that now. Yeah. i Arcade in a ah Marvel 2 and 1 comic threw some goofy plan with Toad, Matt, who continues to appear. He's not appearing. He's not here.
01:00:03
Speaker
He's referenced. He's the cause of all this. He's not here. He's not here. momentarily see Toad land his arcade style murder world. But notably, they do not show Toad.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah. that's Chris Claremont hates Toad. And Iceman, who appears in this issue. Through this goofy plan with Toad, he has angered Dr. Doom and been kidnapped by him.
01:00:29
Speaker
Locke has kidnapped the friends of the X-Men. But it's like an adult kidnapping, like a bratty little kid, right? Like it is like, yeah. Moira, the Greys, Jean Grey's parents.
01:00:43
Speaker
Candy and Amanda and even Peter's little sister, Ileana. They went all the way to Russia. Miss Locke traveled all the way to Russia to kidnap Ileana. To kidnap a child, yeah. And all the way to Ireland to kidnap Moira. Like, what? Come on.
01:01:00
Speaker
And she's keeping them all in Murder World until the X-Men rescue Arcade from Doom. If they fail, everyone dies. Yeah. Storm feels the poison coursing through her and loses consciousness.
01:01:14
Speaker
When she awakens, Stevie is gone. Storm immediately informs the X-Men, who contact Hank McCoy for some intel on Doom. This, yeah not until after we see some fucking airplane stuff again for no reason.
01:01:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, he goes on about several different airplanes in this issue. Ha ha ha ha ha! She just like flies and they cut to some airplane. What what is it? Oh, she yeah.
01:01:38
Speaker
An airplane is like using airplane lingo to talk about how her wind was surprising. i Hank offers to bring the Avengers in, but for some reason, Xavier says no.
01:01:51
Speaker
Instead, he brings in his own reinforcements. Lorna and Alex off in the desert. Bobby Drake at school on the East Coast. Yeah, what the hell? Why is he in the East Coast?
01:02:03
Speaker
I guess he transferred. and They show Iceman's dorm room and there's a Kiss album. Yeah. A Star Wars, I guess, soundtrack because it's with his records and it says Star Wars. ah Nude woman on the wall.
01:02:22
Speaker
He's such a dork. A poster that says Space Cruise Yamato, which apparently is just like some anime from the time. So he's like an anime dork. And then Pat... That's even worse.
01:02:33
Speaker
Who is that? Any anime fans listening, but that's worse. Who is that guy on the wall with the darts in his face? i i did not put a name to this face.
01:02:47
Speaker
It's clearly like a um It's like an angry looking guy wearing a turban. Or, man, I know there's different words for the for different head wraps.
01:03:00
Speaker
ah Like a head wrap of some sort? A head wrap of some sort. And he's got like a beard. And he looks like, you know, your sort of... Political caricature? Political caricature of like a Middle Eastern terrorist from somewhere between 1980 2010. Who did it? They hated...
01:03:16
Speaker
and two thousand ten who they they all hate and die the ayatollah at the time right maybe it wasn't that the big uh i only know that from the simpsons but it very well could be the ayatollah he's got a beard he wears a head wrap he's got big eyebrows but this guy is black hair and ayatollah pretty much it seems like the entire time was famous had white hair yeah yeah i use i have no idea maybe it's uh
01:03:47
Speaker
generic racist terrorism stuff. That was another big thing in the early 80s, right? Was terrorists hijacking planes. That was not that they were doing it, just that it was like everybody's fear.
01:04:02
Speaker
Right, right, right. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So ah Bobby Drake, racist. So Bobby Drake's at school, Banshee, Is our final reinforcement who's already in a plane trying to get to the bottom of Moira's disappearance.
01:04:17
Speaker
oh The professor isn't able to contact Scott and reveals that there's been a subtle shift in the Earth's magnetic field that's making it difficult. Okay. All right. Sure.
01:04:27
Speaker
He says this could only be the work of Magneto. Huh. That's interesting. Yeah, we don't follow up on that. We also don't follow up do you think we will ever follow up on it?
01:04:39
Speaker
No, probably not. We cut to Scott and Al. What? Elitist Forester. She also goes by Al. Yeah, when did it suddenly become Al instead of Lee?
01:04:50
Speaker
Right here. As they wash up on the shore of a remote island. What the fuck? And Scott's lost his glasses. What? But now we're cutting. I'm sure we'll come back to this as well. Why? Yeah. Why are they? They're just like suddenly just like an island.
01:05:08
Speaker
They got shipwrapped, Matt. ah Would have kind of cool to see the shipwreck, but whatever, man, whatever fucking Chris Claremont. We got to trust our narrator on this one.
01:05:20
Speaker
The X-Men back in X-Men land have no intention of giving in to ransom demands. Instead, They send half of the expanded team to Murder World to rescue the hostages, and the other half to break Arcade out of Doom's dungeon, including Storm, who is to keep Doom distracted by non-violently negotiating for Arcade's release.
01:05:41
Speaker
Hmm. But... Despite Doom's reputation and villainous activity, he's a very accommodating host. He and Storm sit down to a royal feast and flirt back and forth, acknowledging each acknowledging to themselves that the other's power is attractive.
01:05:58
Speaker
She is a horny for Doctor Doom. Yeah, she really finds him attractive. Doctor Doom is such a ridiculous character. Like, he introduces himself. He's like, am Doom! And it's like...
01:06:13
Speaker
Settle down, man. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. And ah don't talk like that. There's no reason for it. I do love this shit, though. I think that's the price you pay for his like his weird sense of nobility and yeah i sitting down to a large feast with Storm.
01:06:33
Speaker
and like even as an internal monologue is like, I respect her power, even though I'm going to crush that power. He does say, he does refer to himself in his thoughts as i even though out loud he always refers to himself as Doom.
01:06:47
Speaker
is he see He goes back and forth. This dinner provides cover for Logan, Kurt, Peter, and Warren to break in several floors below and discover that Arcade Cell is actually empty.
01:07:01
Speaker
What the fuck? It's a trap. Ian burst a bunch of goons in mech armor, bragging that they're equipped to defeat the Fantastic Four. But these are the X-Men, not the Fantastic Four, as Wolverine eloquently points out.
01:07:17
Speaker
And through teamwork, they make very light work of these dorks. Wolverine's costume is the only major casualty. And we see from a side view, but we see Wolverine's nude butt.
01:07:28
Speaker
His bare butt. His bare butt. It's so We always to point out when someone's missing an article of glue. It's so funny as they're fighting these robots. Warren is like, let's get him, folks.
01:07:40
Speaker
It like charges. Warren. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You're going fly above them and tell people where to hit? they've They've got armor on.
01:07:52
Speaker
i think he distracts one of them. And then when they kill these guys, literally kill, like Wolverine tears entirely through one.
01:08:03
Speaker
And Nightcrawler, Nightcrawler causes two to blast each other by accident. And you see their like hollow sh charred armor on the ground. And Chris Claremont writes, the suits are ruined. The men inside stunned unconscious.
01:08:22
Speaker
Okay, Chris. Okay. Yeah. They're unconscious, Chris. Yeah. Yeah, buddy. Yeah. i Up above, Storm seems to be doing just as well in establishing a rapport with Doom until he reveals the surprise dinner guest.
01:08:42
Speaker
Huh? Arcade. No. Thanks.
01:08:53
Speaker
Doom, of course, planned all of this and has been aware of the other X-Men's presence the entire time. He uses some magic orb to turn Storm into a living statue just moments before the X-Men burst in the room and meet the same fate.
01:09:08
Speaker
Peter is unaffected because he's already a living statue, but a neural disruptor knocks him unconscious and the X-Men are defeated. Oh, no.
01:09:20
Speaker
Come on. Give me a little enthusiasm. Sorry. It's just it's exciting, i guess. But here's here's my problem. After all these Byrne Claremont issues, I don't know if you feel the same way, but I feel like the story, the storytelling just like immediately has taken a step backward without Byrne.
01:09:38
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's, it seems like there is, it's just a little lighter. It's a little, little more unaffected by the events that are taking place. It's just, it's, it's immediately like there's still the very character based writing and stuff, but the, the, the story itself feels a little more plot based and i don't know. It's, um, like Cockrum's back and it immediately feels like we hopped back to the Cockrum era.
01:10:02
Speaker
yeah It's almost formulaic. It's like, ah here's, a former X-Men villain. He's back. He's teaming up with this very popular Fantastic Four villain.
01:10:14
Speaker
And now we just get to see how we get to see who's stronger. Right. Like something that would have even been in, like, say the Roy Thomas era where it's like, oh, let's bring a bunch of, oh, and we're going to find all the ah other X-Men and bring them back in so that we can team up against the bad guys. Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:32
Speaker
It's like a little more sophisticated than that. And in the writing, and like the writing specifically, like the moment to moment character dialogue and thoughts and whatnot, ah more so it's a lot more sophisticated. But in the moment to moment, it it feels like we're just like jumping back a few years.
01:10:50
Speaker
The sort of overarching plot of the thing. Yes. Series of events. Like we're in 1981 now and it felt like we were in the 80s with Burn. But even though we're in 1981, it feels like we're back in the 1970s.
01:11:05
Speaker
So I think that's it. I think it's it's not bad. It's enjoyable. And there's some good moments, but. It's also Doom at this point. i And I could be wrong about this. I'm sort of, I'm estimating timelines here, but this is around the time that Doom starts becoming like.
01:11:24
Speaker
a more powerful villain across the Marvel universe, right? i Like stepping out of the fantastic four spotlight. Yeah. think Like Magneto has been, ah for so many years at this point, right? He's always, he's, he's a major Avengers of villain at this point, as much as he is a major X-Men villain.
01:11:43
Speaker
And you're talking, you mean at the point of this story, not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Right. Yeah. He's been the villain in several big Avengers stories at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Doom is starting to gain that same notoriety.
01:11:56
Speaker
he hasn't meted met the X-Men before. It's time to hit those wills against each other. Sure. and I get it from that angle. But again, that's like, again, that is 1970s storytelling. but yeah It's fine. It's fine. It's not bad. i don't hate it. i don't I don't even dislike it. I'm just, I'm not enamored by it the way I i was with the Claremont Byrne stuff.
01:12:23
Speaker
I will say, yes speaking of hopping back to the 60s,
01:12:30
Speaker
we get a we get a couple of gadgets here. a neural disruptor, which I think still gets used today, but that's very yeah just a very vague... Knock out the good guy weapon.
01:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. i And then we also get asbestos nets. They capture Nightcrawler in an an asbestos net, which he easily escapes. He can teleport.
01:12:52
Speaker
But I understand, being that this is 1981, that the understanding of asbestos at the time was that it's fireproof, so you can't burn your way out of this net.
01:13:04
Speaker
It really seems with modern context that they're just throwing a net of cancer at him. Yeah, it's like, um, see it's like splashing some radiation on somebody. right yeahll Yeah, it's like, yeah, like dipping somebody in mercury at the time. It felt like a harmless thing. Or ah the way my mom used to tell stories about how when she was a kid, she used to run behind ah planes doing, um, ah we dropping, about before yeah, the pesticide planes. Yeah, yeah, and how much fun it was to try to catch it in your mouth. Yeah.
01:13:39
Speaker
did that. i think that was a bit that we did, but
01:13:45
Speaker
I only know your parents through bits we do about them. So, Pat, so um pat
01:13:55
Speaker
Are you willing yes to sit here on these microphones and listen to me tell you about x Uncanny X-Men number 146? Matt, I have never been readier.
01:14:06
Speaker
Let's go. Murder World! Murder World! Chris Claremont, writer, Dave Cockrum, and Joseph Rubenstein, artist, Tom Morzikowski, letterer, Clintus Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor, jump, super editor in chief. at The release date is March 17th, 1981. The cover date is June We open.
01:14:27
Speaker
un do on his castle balcony, standing with one leg up on a ledge with Aurora standing docilely behind him. He is in awe of the power of the unexpected tempest hitting his castle.
01:14:42
Speaker
Could this be Storm's doing? Impossible, he thinks. He turns back from the balcony and commands Storm to pour him and his guests some mulled wine, which she does with a polite curtsy.
01:14:53
Speaker
Mulled wine? That's Doom's drink of choice. He's a big Renaissance Fair fan. His his victory drink. He spends a lot of time at the Renaissance Fair, so he's just like developed a taste for it He also eats a big turkey. but actually That would track.
01:15:12
Speaker
It's my one hobby.
01:15:17
Speaker
Arcade enters and reveals that despite the plot twists, he is indeed Doom's prisoner. Doom shows off his death traps for each X-Man to Arcade. He hasn't killed any of them, but instead wants to study them, devising individual tests for each of them with a complex solution based on their unique skills.
01:15:36
Speaker
Huh. That's... Okay, that's familiar. Is he just doing an arcade?
01:15:44
Speaker
He's just like, i'm you now. Yeah, which is honestly a pretty good move. That's a power move for sure. ah Kurt is trapped in a white room. No idea where he is.
01:15:57
Speaker
can't teleport out he has no there's no conception of how he could be deep underground and teleport two miles up and be in rock right um peter is stranded on a rock in the middle of a body of water his one weakness rocks and water yeah
01:16:16
Speaker
We'll find out. There's laser guns on the bottom too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll find out why this is specifically attuned to Peter later. But at this point, it seems kind of silly. It's like when um like when Arcade put them all in different like things that had to do with their personalities and they put Nightcrawler in an arena with a bunch of buzzsaw cars. Oh, yeah. The pumper cars.
01:16:36
Speaker
Yeah.
Challenges in Murder World
01:16:37
Speaker
Wolverine is in a zero gravity chamber with headaches and psychedelic perspective altering checkered walls to fuck with his ah his senses. yeah Warren is in a birdcage with laser guns instead of walls.
01:16:52
Speaker
Doom also reveals that the storm serving them drinks is a robot. The actual storm is still statue. A weird sort of sign of respect in Doom's twisted perspective is like, look, i made or I made a sex robot of you. Hey, I respected you so much. I made you into a little toy.
01:17:11
Speaker
He says she'll never – he says something to the effect of like she'll never age out of her beauty. Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's up. But it's also – again, this is the doom shit that I eat up where he's like this is what he thinks is the honorable thing to do in this situation.
01:17:29
Speaker
And, you know, he's also like he – later he calls her – he does refer to this as a toy. I like, i yeah yeah I won't say what happens before that. I don't spoil anything, but he does say like, that was a toy.
01:17:44
Speaker
Like, ah okay. So you admit it. As they laugh though, we slowly zoom in on Aurora's chromed eyes as the narrator reveals she is indeed creating this powerful storm outside paralyzed by claustrophobia and being a statue, her primal subconscious is lashing out and creating a storm that will either free or kill her.
01:18:10
Speaker
Both options better than this fate. The storm even reaches a nearby island where we briefly check in on Scott Summers and Lee, she's back to Lee, Forrester.
01:18:24
Speaker
Now he's lost his blindfold. But they find it. That's all that happens. Flashback. To find them affected by the storm.
01:18:35
Speaker
Flashback to about six hours earlier. Lorna. hours earlier. Lorna. Thank you. Alex, Sean, and Bobby are able to locate Murder World and infiltrate. But once again, it's a trap.
01:18:49
Speaker
They all just fall into their own specifically designed murder world rooms. Alex is on a rocket ship roller coaster, but other ships are shooting at him and some of them are real. It's literally Banshee's room from last time, only there's a roller coaster in it.
01:19:05
Speaker
Bobby finds himself in an ice rink that's slowly heating up with a bunch of hockey players charging at him. Oh, also under the ice, I forgot, it's acid. Yeah.
01:19:15
Speaker
Hockey players. How could they have known Iceman was coming and designed a room specifically for him? Like Havoc's room just feels like it doesn't feel like anything to do with Havoc, right? It's just a room they have at Murder World. Yeah, yeah. But Iceman's room is clearly designed for him. How did they know he was coming?
01:19:34
Speaker
i yeah Maybe it's just leftover. well it's and it's also very clearly by its design, the Nightcrawler buzzsaw car room.
01:19:45
Speaker
Oh, right. Filled with ice. Just with ice and hockey players. Hockey players. But where the yeah where the the cars came out, hockey players come out.
01:19:56
Speaker
ah Lorna rides a carousel, but the horses are alive and evil. Also, Ileana is there, but turns out to be a robot and shoots her with a gun. Sean.
01:20:07
Speaker
Yeah. Sorry. There's such a paradox in this. It's single frame where you see the reveal because Lorna is chasing after Ilyana being like, hey, we can get out of here.
01:20:18
Speaker
We'll be okay. Recognizes Ilyana as Peter's younger sister. And then... This child turns around with this demonic look on his face. It's actually pretty good. good and It's a pretty, that's a pretty good face.
01:20:33
Speaker
It's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. And then the dialogue to go along with it is eat hot lead sucker.
01:20:42
Speaker
Sean is on an old West movie set and wins in a duel, but then finds Moira tied to rollercoaster tracks by ah Snidely Whiplash. I presume. Yeah. He's he's literally saying. Yeah,
01:20:58
Speaker
and it yeah it's the same. It turns out it's the same tracks that Alex is on. ah There's a moment here where somebody calls somebody else a yobbo. Oh, yeah, that's Banshee.
01:21:11
Speaker
Banshee calls these guys Yabos. He's like, I'm going to throw my micro bombs at these Yabos. Yeah, yeah. Yabos, buddy. Alex manages to escape near death, leaving Locke and her assistant, Mr. Chambers, to assume he's dead and escapes out an access tunnel.
01:21:28
Speaker
Lorna, Bobby and Sean all escape their trap rooms without harm. And Alex sneaks into the control room and the bad guys get busted. oh yeah. They call the cops. On their way out, they notice the weather has turned.
01:21:42
Speaker
a tempest, as far as the eye can see. Across the Atlantic, Doom surmises that this powerful a storm must be the work of Storm herself and expresses that concern to Arcade.
01:21:54
Speaker
Arcade's gleeful, though, and he reveals why as he lights a match on Doom's chestplate. So disrespectful. Nightcrawler's no longer in that cell.
01:22:06
Speaker
To be continued, I want to back up just one second. When Havoc gets to inhabit gets a jump on the bad guys, he pulls a straight up Bugs Bunny. They turn around and he's leaning over their like computer console with his butt in the air and his hand his head, like his chin on his fingers laced together. and he's like His back is arched so that his butt is pointing at like 45 degrees. He's doing a, hey, what's up, doc? He's doing exactly that.
01:22:39
Speaker
right Yeah, yeah. And then zaps her gun with his with his two fingers. Yeah. ze Oh, boy.
01:22:49
Speaker
Here's some other notes I have. do you have any big Do you have any big thoughts before I just start tearing this thing to fucking shreds, man? if the You sound off first. I'll pick up the scraps.
01:23:04
Speaker
Number one, Iceman's room doesn't do anything.
01:23:10
Speaker
He's like, oh, there's acid beneath. and i'm and I'm on thin ice and there's acid beneath and there's heaters above. ah I'll just make an ice slide and escape. And it works.
01:23:21
Speaker
like to It's only starting to heat up. ah night Like it's another one of these things where Claremont is, keep keeps describing things that aren't in the art. And he's like, Iceman is like, oh man, these, is the heat is really affecting my ice slide. It's making it really hard. The ice slide looks normal and fine.
01:23:40
Speaker
Everything looks fine. He looks like Iceman. His slide looks like Iceman's slide.
01:23:46
Speaker
Ridiculous. And, uh, it was simple. And when he catches Lorna, He mentions he's still in love with her. oh Oh, my God. No, you're not. You're not. You don't know her.
01:23:58
Speaker
it's been It's been six years at this point. And I mean, at in there, he talks about being in his second year of college. So in their world, it's at least been two, maybe three, because he spent all that time on the champions.
01:24:14
Speaker
yeah And that time on crack crackola. Come on, dude. It's been, it's been a long time. Like it's been 10 years of, you gotta stop setting up. And it's been, you gotta stop doing it. It's been 10 years.
01:24:32
Speaker
also That fucking Fantasticar ripoff comes back. Oh, yeah. They just cruise around in that thing now. At least, like, here's the one thing I'll say about, like, even though there's a bunch of dumb shit, like, we're talking about a bunch of dumb shit. At least they're consistent, right? Like, as we're following this, it's like, wow even the even the ships are consistent. Even the dumb ships they have are like, oh, the X-Men get the Blackbird and the dorks, the leftover dorks get the little Fantasticar that the X-Men don't use anymore.
01:25:02
Speaker
So like, it's a really funny thought. And I don't even know if it's on purpose, but it is very funny. It's also, it's their second Fantasticar, if I recall correctly. i think I think they've only blown one up so far.
01:25:15
Speaker
But that means they, so yeah, they still keep one just in case some dorks come along and need to use it. All right, Matt. Yeah. Why don't we move on to Uncanny X-Men number 147? can't think of a reason why not.
01:25:30
Speaker
Rogue and Storm. but No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Just rogue storm. it is. It is interesting sometimes how you see like words Claremont likes and how they come back and over and over again. Like you'll see him just like use the word Jubilee and you're like, yeah, I know.
01:25:47
Speaker
i know you will. yeah you know thinking about that You'll see him use the word Gambit a lot and then just like, yeah, okay. Chris Claremont writer, Dave Cockrum and Joseph Rubenstein artists. Cool. Glynis color ors letterer.
01:26:00
Speaker
Louise Jones editor, jump super editor in chief release date, April 14th, 1981 cover date, July, 1981. Nightcrawler is in midair in pain as he just teleported two miles upwards into the raging storm around doom's theme park castle.
01:26:21
Speaker
Whoa. He can't bamf to the ground because he's already falling super fast. So he spreads his body out yeah and looks for an updraft to slow him down.
01:26:32
Speaker
What is this whole thing? It's not the first time this episode. I don't think we mentioned the first time, but that someone has found an updraft and managed to stop themselves from falling to their death.
01:26:47
Speaker
it's good Okay. Dart shows him spreading his body out. Yeah. Starfish. Right. Right. Which. You could ah create some wind resistance, not enough to stop you from dying. Well.
01:26:59
Speaker
But, like, if you're Spider-Man and you've got those little webs under your armpits, you can use those to glide. So I guess my question is, why don't people who, like, fall out of buildings or planes or whatever...
01:27:11
Speaker
Why don't they find the updraft? Find an updraft. Yeah, i spread yourself out. Aim for an updraft. It actually makes me angry that everyone who's ever died from a fall is just stupid because they didn't do this. Jeez, Matt.
01:27:25
Speaker
It's like Chris Claremont. Somebody's talking to Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum. And they're like, oh, yeah, that that guy died from an 80 foot fall. And both of them are like, why?
01:27:36
Speaker
How? How? What? should have just found the updraft. He should have found the updraft. would have gone down different. its Exactly. Yeah. if i Dude, if I fell from an airplane, here's what I would do. I would just spread myself out.
01:27:50
Speaker
And then I'd look for an updraft and I'd just hit the updraft and I'd be fine. It's there fighting a bear. ah Right, exactly. Well, he does. Nightcrawler finds an updraft that makes me so mad. It made me so mad reading this. Shoots him up into the air and then teleports over the water and swims to the shore.
01:28:12
Speaker
Back in Doom's castle. is with The physics of it. You know what? Never mind. but's like do He's like, because he's like, I got to slow down.
01:28:23
Speaker
because if I teleport again – so he says, I'm going to find an updraft to help me slow down. Right. Like my descent. And then – And then Dave Cockrum draws him flying upwards in the air.
01:28:36
Speaker
ah Yeah. So, he well, he he goes down. He hits the updraft. He's spread out enough that he starts – ride it back up into the air but Chris Claremont Chris Claremont notes that he was waiting for the moment that he was almost at like perfect zero falling speed right before he starts to ah incline and teleports then so that the momentum is at its lowest point when he appears so it's just another moment of Claremont contradicting what's in the art directly
01:29:10
Speaker
No, I think he's, he is. Because in the art, and he's flying starts to lift. he's I think that's supposed to be him starting to lift. And Claremont was like, this is the perfect moment for him to teleport because now his momentum is at its slowest. Oh my God. It makes sense.
01:29:30
Speaker
No one thought it through.
01:29:33
Speaker
do It is cool to see Nightcrawler with wet hair, though, because it looks like he has long hair instead of just curly hair. And he looks like the Nightcrawler from ah that cartoon show. He looks so handsome.
01:29:44
Speaker
Yeah. to Like just popping his head out of the water, waving his hair. yeah Back in Doom's Castle, um Arcade is laughing at the fact that Nightcrawler escaped. But Doom tells him this was all part of the plan.
01:29:57
Speaker
and sends some men to recapture the X-Men. Meanwhile, Doom is becoming worried about the growing storm outside. So, apparently, is NORAD. Oh my god.
01:30:08
Speaker
It's just a fucking excuse to cut to other Air Force stuff. Stop it! Anyway. Nightcrawler reaches the castle and takes out a few henchmen before going searching for his friends.
01:30:21
Speaker
Colossus, still clinging to the rocks above the whirlpool, has noticed that the lasers at the bottom only seem to be pulverizing the larger rocks that sink into their path. He reasons that, as Colossus, he might be vaporized, but as Peter, he could probably slip by, but he'd risk drowning.
01:30:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Taking the chance, he switches to human form and sinks below the water, and just before he runs out of air, he steals up and punches through the wall. This unleashes a deluge of water into Angel, who had just worked out of the laser system and made his way out of his cage. They just left.
01:30:58
Speaker
he's Angel is just like... we So he ah he first tried to escape because it's just a birdcage with no walls, and he found all the laser guns there. And he's like, okay, here on this perch seems to be the one place I'm allowed to stand.
01:31:15
Speaker
And then conceivably just sits there for a while until he's like, oh, wait, I've done this in the danger room. These are laser guns, but... and I can fly around laser guns.
01:31:28
Speaker
He's the worst superhero of all time. He's just sitting there. And he's like, sad about it. And he says, he's like, i but I have to do it at top speed. Why? What could possibly be reason but you have to do this at top speed?
01:31:46
Speaker
Well, the lasers are fast.
01:31:49
Speaker
He's not outrunning the lasers. He's dodging them. Why does he have to do it at top speed? Does this make any sense? um Also, by the way, the guns blow off blow up the rocks and scorch Peter's arm off panel.
01:32:06
Speaker
Yes, we see Peter just swimming unharmed down. This is the most egregious one because the logic of how this works is that The lasers aren't going to hit Peter.
01:32:18
Speaker
Yeah. They're only going to hit him in his metal form. So Dave Cockrum draws a scene of Peter unharmed swimming through the water. But very close to drowning. Like it's still tense, but he makes it past the lasers. And then, yeah, the narration says, clearly, as you can see, ah Peter takes a shot to the arm from one of the lasers.
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, like, a oh, the lasers blew up one of the rocks behind him and it singes Peter's arm. it didn't. I'm looking at him. Yeah, this seems this seems intentional. It seems like he wanted to i alpha Dave Cockrum here. Just remember who's boss around here. It really feels like it. It really feels like he is be like on purpose being a dick to the artist.
01:33:08
Speaker
Wolverine, meanwhile, struggling with sensory overload is flashing back to a time when his uncontrollable berserker rage popped out and made him attack his pal James Hudson.
01:33:18
Speaker
James Hudson, Vindicator from Alpha Flight. Or Captain Alpha. He thinks about how recently he's been losing his grip on that side of himself once again, but maybe if he harnesses it rather than letting it control him, it could be useful.
01:33:34
Speaker
um Somebody's been to therapy. Yeah. So he pops his balls. This was his therapy. We watched it. It feels like this is Claremont rationalizing all the times that Wolverine almost killed Nightcrawler.
01:33:48
Speaker
Like he was reading backwards and being like, oh, I almost had Wolverine kill Nightcrawler twice. So, what okay. Very petty. Here's what I'll do. I'll do it again. And then I'll just say, I'll have Wolverine go, oh man, it's been, my berserker rages have been slipping lately, pub.
01:34:07
Speaker
I got to get control on it. Right? Like, so that, yeah yeah so that it's like, he's just trying to make sense of something dumb he wrote. Because i that time ago, yeah. 50 issues ago, as far as anybody knew, that was Wolverine. He was just like a maniac, right?
01:34:25
Speaker
Exactly. and so now And so now he's like, okay, now that I know who Wolverine is, I have to explain why I did that. He's got to go back and fix everything.
01:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. So he pops his claws and lashes out at every wall he bounces off of until the mechanism breaks and drops him to the floor. Then he claws his way through the walls and doors until he reaches Doom's sanctuary.
01:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. When he ruthlessly carves through the Storm robot, Dr. Doom is taken aback, but manages to blast Wolverine at the last second. This is when he's like, that was just a toy. Kurt ports in behind Doom and wraps him in a curtain.
01:35:04
Speaker
Best move anybody's had against him so far. Yeah. Giving Wolverine the advantage to get the drop on Doom. Beaten and threatened with death, Doom releases Storm from her living chrome prison.
01:35:16
Speaker
Storm, seething with power, He's not happy. She's not happy. She's kind of upset, actually. I don't know. It doesn't get mentioned a lot, but she's actually claustrophobic.
Resolution and Aftermath
01:35:28
Speaker
Oh, you know, I never read that into this. She begins. Doom punches. it what is he Who's he punch? He punches Wolverine. i thought last issue you said you ah didn't engage in fisticuffs.
01:35:42
Speaker
Hmm. Interesting. He does when he has to. I don't think that's a gotcha as much as it's what else was he going to do? i don't engage in fisticuffs. Punch.
01:35:57
Speaker
Storm begins unleashing a massive torrent of lightning and wind on both Doom and her friends indiscriminately. Wolverine and Kurt begin to fear another Dark Phoenix scenario, but are powerless to stop it But Colossus bursts in and collapses the floor, dropping everyone out of the castle and out of harm's way, betting on their agility and resiliency to survive the fall.
01:36:22
Speaker
He tries to reason with Storm, but she blasts him out of the castle, too. Angel appears, and all he does is yell at Dr. Doof. He says something like almost to the effect of, I'm here, too.
01:36:35
Speaker
like he's I don't remember what he says, but it is like almost exactly that sentiment. I think the characterization of Doom here is really good because he is just like... He knows he fucked up. he ah walked Storm up and then he lost a battle that forced him to release Storm. And now Storm is an uncontrollable force. Yeah.
01:36:57
Speaker
So he is feeling bad, but trying to yeah get things under control. And Warren is standing behind him going like, this is your fault.
01:37:07
Speaker
Why would I help you, Dr. Doom? He's just trying to make him, just trying to belittle him. Here's the line. He says, phew, nothing like being in time for the main event.
01:37:18
Speaker
Okay, man. It is, he's the saying, and I'm here now. Old school expert. As Aurora begins yelling to the world that she is a goddess... Peter, from the ground, continues trying to reason with her.
01:37:33
Speaker
He reminds her of her humanity, of her strength, and of the phoenix. The thought of Jean Grey snaps Storm out of her rage, and she flies up into the upper atmosphere, finally dispels the raging storm, knocking herself unconscious and falling to the ground in the process.
01:37:52
Speaker
Angel catches her. His favorite thing.
01:37:58
Speaker
That's one reason why he's here. She wakes as she reaches the ground and confronts Doom and Arcade, forcing Arcade to apologize to Doom. In return, he allows them to take Arcade with them and apologizes himself to Aurora.
01:38:15
Speaker
He perceived them as threats, but he didn't mean to harm her and wants to be friends. She forgives him and tells him that the slate is clean between them.
01:38:26
Speaker
Essentially, the next time they meet, they can forget that this all happened. They're neither enemies friends. They got horny for each other. Yeah, they're neither enemies nor friends, but they're both very horny.
01:38:37
Speaker
It is very much. They are both like just clearing a path so they can they can bone. Yeah. That's what that's what this is all about. Do you think they ever will? Not the writers.
01:38:47
Speaker
The characters are like, look, yeah this was going pretty well until I had to attack you and all of your friends or family. um Can we just go back to that?
01:38:58
Speaker
Do you think they ever will, Bone? i The implications here are pretty strong. I legitimately don't know if they ever do. but Meanwhile, on a remote island in the Bermuda Triangle, Scott Summers is waking up next to Lee Forrester.
01:39:14
Speaker
She kisses him. And he sleepy and blind, calls her Jean.
01:39:23
Speaker
Lee is upset, but not angry. And besides, she's distracted by something offshore. A giant city towers over them that wasn't there when they went to sleep.
01:39:35
Speaker
To be continued. Next episode. That's the last issue. how'd you feel about this little arc? I honestly, I think more than you, it seems like I really enjoyed this. This is very, i know I said this last issue, but like,
01:39:53
Speaker
The villains just don't matter here, especially with those first couple of stories. The despair. Kitty's demon. The thing popping in and then the demon chasing Kitty. like This is about establishing who these characters are, where they're at right now, and sort of... like We talked about Dark Phoenix being being a clean slate for them to move forward.
01:40:17
Speaker
This is them setting that all up. We need to know... why they are where they are, where they are, and why they're about to do whatever they're about to do. I think that was a lot more true in the last episode um because I feel like those were those still felt, to me anyway, like character-driven stories that were happening like in the midst of superhero-supervillain stories. These feel to me like supervillain-superhero stories that
01:40:48
Speaker
That have character driven moments throughout them. If that makes sense. Like yeah the dialogue and narration is still written in a very character driven kind of way.
01:41:00
Speaker
But it feels this arc felt like the villains were supposed to matter. Right? Like this felt like it was as about as much about the villains as it was about the characters. The way it was again back in the nineteen seventy s I think by the time we get to the end of this Doom arc, yes, they kind of, they definitely get back to more plot-driven stuff and just seeing what happens. It does become sort of a plug and play of, oh, what villains are, or what heroes are getting caught in Dr. Doom's death traps. But the solutions to those problems are unique enough
01:41:37
Speaker
to make it feel like the arcade stuff that we got that felt like old X-Men, just generic villain. There's no real reason for them to be there or to accomplish their goals other than they're the heroes. They're the good guys. So yeah they're going they're going to make it.
01:41:54
Speaker
I think the, the main team though, that we're following is still really doing some powerful character stuff and, adapting old comic tropes without sort of falling into the trap of being formulaic.
01:42:13
Speaker
So I think the other thing to mention is that that there's a lot of things that are happening here that feel kind of, um, As we are reading this in the way that we are, become a little more transparent than if you're just kind of reading for fun.
01:42:31
Speaker
And I think a couple of them, number one, super clear. that the focus has shifted back from Wolverine to Nightcrawler again. Cockrum's back.
01:42:42
Speaker
We're seeing a lot of Nightcrawler. Most of the action centers around Nightcrawler. Most of the scenes of it, like when the team's all together, Nightcrawler's the guy you're looking at. animals we're We're back, like, again, with Burn, it's Wolverine.
01:42:58
Speaker
With Cockrum, it's Nightcrawler. It's immediately apparent. Except yeah we do get Wolverine's bare butt. We get Wolverine's bare butt. And he get he has a really badass moment when he fights Doom.
01:43:11
Speaker
And he's like, I'm going to keep coming at you until I'm dead. Yeah, yeah. He gets a good speech. The other thing I think that's very apparent is that Chris Claremont is trying to fix some trying to fix and build some rules here.
01:43:26
Speaker
Yes. Right? Number one, he's trying to fix the Wolverine trying to kill Nightcrawler thing. And just generally his attitude through his first like 10 appearances in X-Men, right?
01:43:38
Speaker
Right. Yeah. i He's just a guy who has trouble controlling this thing inside him called a berserker rage. And that's why sometimes he acts completely out of character for a minute.
01:43:49
Speaker
That's what it's trying to say. But he's moved past all that now. Right. And well, that's what we had observed as readers is we had observed that Wolverine's primary characteristic was not his rages or his violence. His primary characteristic was his ability to control it.
01:44:09
Speaker
And I think Claremont has a good handle on that and decides decided, oh, I'm going to let him let it slip a few times just so I can point out how this was has been.
01:44:20
Speaker
like I can retroactively make this a consistent characterization, which is interesting and smart. Yeah. And he does that with Scott too, right? He goes back and starts adding to Scott's backstory, which I'm sure we'll start exploring more and more as time goes. But he kind of he goes back to what we already know, the sort of brief flashes we saw from ah Corsair.
01:44:45
Speaker
And now we're getting this... this expansion of that story. Yeah. To, to even overshadow the origin story that's already written for him, which is pretty cheesy.
01:45:02
Speaker
And, uh, from 1966 or whatever. Yeah. We didn't mention, but this is the first time that Scott remembers this too. Yeah.
01:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. it he This happens to him. like that That scene pops in um that he was on an airplane with his parents. He and Alex were thrown out and there was only one parachute and his parents exploded above him.
01:45:30
Speaker
All we had known but to up to that point was he grew up in an orphanage. I think we knew that his parents died in a plane crash, right? Yes, we knew that they died in a plane crash and there was some force after them.
01:45:41
Speaker
We didn't know that it was that he was in the plane. yeah Or Alex was in the plane. and We didn't know the one parachute thing. This is also how he likely got his brain damage, right?
01:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, bonked his head on the way down. so On the way down to the ground from an airplane. He's always doing this. So ah that's another thing.
01:46:04
Speaker
A third thing is Claremont's trying to set up something that I don't think really ever comes to fruition in the X-Men. yeah Which is... I think he's trying to set up... Me and you had a bit of a disagreement, I think, a couple like on the Dark Phoenix episode about what what they were trying to say.
01:46:23
Speaker
um Were they trying to say Phoenix was... Or Jean Grey was taken over by an entity called the Phoenix? Or were they trying to say that mutants have this power inside them and they all can access more power in sort of ah life-threatening situation? they could potentially...
01:46:42
Speaker
They can access so much power inside them and that it is overwhelming. Yeah. Anyone can be a dark Phoenix. Right. And yet all mutants have a mental limit in their head to protect them from that.
01:46:57
Speaker
And what he's showing us here with Storm is like, yeah, this is all mutants. Storm could, it can happen to Storm too. Storm can be a Phoenix. And... I think I'm not i' I'm not sure about this, but I feel like that's what he was trying to set up with Wolverine. Maybe interesting Wolverine, like a dark Wolverine.
01:47:19
Speaker
Yes, that there's a dark Wolverine inside him. And that's what his berserker rages are. That's when his real power. comes out and he becomes the most fierce and the most fighty and clawgy and yes.
01:47:32
Speaker
um And again, it never really pans out. This doesn't end up how it is. Keep an eye out for more of that as we go. Cause yeah, it clearly doesn't, I don't know how i feel about that, about like the dark Phoenix and they wouldn't know this at the time, but becomes such an iconic character.
01:47:49
Speaker
thing that happened to a specific character it would be weird to see like oh anybody can be a dark phoenix let's do it to nightcrawler he can super teleport he can teleport a whole island he's teleporting entire cities yeah as he's being impish and mischievous with his yeah he like loses unlimited power Right, like instead of him, like Nightcrawler's ultimate form, when he loses his sanity, he doesn't think he's a god. He doesn't try to destroy worlds.
01:48:25
Speaker
He just thinks it's, he just like, he becomes a a funny little imp. Yeah, even more of a little scamp. Big scamp now. Yeah, big scamp.
01:48:35
Speaker
I think, yeah, it lets this is this will be interesting to like pay really close attention to and see in what ways Claremont leans into this or pulls away from it.
01:48:46
Speaker
Yeah. Though, like you're saying, like, yeah, I don't, you don't know how it would feel. Like, the way the our timeline, the way our timeline went was Phoenix became and iconic character.
01:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, in our universe. This is about Jean Grey, the Phoenix thing. But in perhaps the universe that Claremont intended, this is this is the way the X-Men exist from now on.
01:49:12
Speaker
And this is just something about mutants, is that All mutants can, if they're not careful, go insane and turn into these ultra powerful gods. Is that more interesting? Because that sounds pretty fucking interesting.
01:49:26
Speaker
I think that sounds interesting as like a what if. Like a... i i don't know that I would want to... that well At that point, it becomes like there are just gods fighting each other and it becomes like a...
01:49:41
Speaker
I'm saying think about it as a tension, a tension that like this is something that all mutants are fighting internally against and mutants are trying to help each other through every now and then. Right. Like not that all of them become gods and now they're just gods and there's gods running everywhere.
01:49:57
Speaker
But the X-Men are X-Men, but they're always trying to resist this temptation to become gods. Right. Yeah. i' I don't know if I would like that. I would i don't know if I would like like the the way that it would get you. I think it's an interesting idea. I think the way that it would get employed is just like every time they've run out of options, one of them turns into right their dark version and then we have to go through it. in our Who's the worst mutant that could become the dark version of themselves? I have one. I have one immediately.
01:50:31
Speaker
but I want to hear one from you. We've met Professor X's. He was pretty bad. i think maybe the blob or toad. Dark toad.
01:50:42
Speaker
Dark toad is pretty good. What would his powers look like? he Probably the, you know, that thing he does in the movie where he spits on people and it wraps them in phlegm.
01:50:54
Speaker
Yeah. That. ah So here's, here's mine. It's guy we haven't met yet, but he's from generation X and it's skin. Ew. His thing is he can grow skin.
01:51:06
Speaker
He can grow extra skin and he like uses it like spider webs sometimes. Like Spider-Man. Like he swings from trees with it or whatever. you Imagine skin where he's got an it enhanced version of his growing extra skin power. He's just like, he covers an entire city.
01:51:26
Speaker
Yes, suffocating planets. Ha ha ha!
01:51:31
Speaker
It was just like flop. and So gross. All right.
01:51:48
Speaker
right, folks. It's time for Pat's deals and steals. We got a simple one today. just says free adventure game.
01:51:59
Speaker
Send 45 cents in US stamps to cover postage and handling to SPI department 1277 to six seven Park Avenue, South New York, New York, one zero is k one zero zero.
01:52:11
Speaker
What could free adventure game be? This is pre this is pre computer games. This pre video games almost entirely. This is like Artaria just started to come out.
01:52:24
Speaker
I did some digging. I e could not find what this specific game was. Would have been very cool to know exactly what game this was. But SPI in New York was a tabletop game company. Whoa. They were famous for their war games. It's almost... i think they're like...
01:52:47
Speaker
It's almost an RPG, but it's kind of... They they haven't quite gotten there yet. Okay. But they have all these, like, historic war battles that you can... playthrough as if you are managing the battle or they have these like they delved into hero stories or science fiction stories where you're a character sort of role playing your way through a world uh eventually you a bid to stay alive and compete with the more popular tabletop role-playing game that was coming out they invented dragon quest which is
01:53:24
Speaker
An infamously goofy ripoff of Dungeons & Dragons. right Trying to be sensitive about this. Sure, sure. i But um that was among their their game count. They did pretty well for a while. They go out of business about a year after this. So it does make sense that they're trying to give away some free games.
01:53:47
Speaker
Do you think this is Dragon Quest they're sending? Yeah. I don't know. it's So it's it's late 1980 that they would have put out this ad, which is right around, i think, maybe a year after they came out with Dragon Quest.
01:54:01
Speaker
Okay. It looks pretty much like most of what they published was Dragon Quest. I think that was their most famous one. they you They took over the war games industry, the tabletop war games industry in the 70s. There were other companies that were very successful at it that they...
01:54:21
Speaker
managed to be now in 1981 they published oh no this is another supplement interesting they made dragon quest and it just focused all their resources on supplementing dragon quest yeah yeah it appears it appears that way business a year later yeah yeah it appears some of their some of the things that they made eventually became like were purchased and adapted to be dnd modules by tsr oh interesting But yeah, that's that's very funny. So you could just... today's steel Today's deal, it was free, but you did have to send them 45 cents of postage, which comes out to about $1.75 in
01:55:04
Speaker
today's money Worth it. Yeah, hard thing I would say so. I'd do it. I'd do it. i This is a good Pat's Steals and Deals. That's all I'm asking.
01:55:19
Speaker
and feel e
01:55:25
Speaker
Well, i thank you guys, everybody, for listening. It's been a fun time. Make sure that you follow us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. ah Email us at mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
01:55:41
Speaker
Join our Discord. You'll find a link in the show notes. I know that I accidentally posted some expired Discord links. I don't know. I guess I don't know how to do Discord links. We're still learning. We're still learning Discord. We're old men, but please bear with us and well please join the Discord. We'll figure it out and I'll ah replace those expired links as soon as I figure out. um Well, as usual, big thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Tristilby. Big thanks to Krils Wilson for providing all our theme music.
01:56:11
Speaker
Oh, and next episode, we will be stepping away from X-Men for a second to see where they appear elsewhere in the Marvel Universe. Yeah, they're making some friends.
01:56:22
Speaker
We also will get to one issue of Uncanny X-Men. That's true. That's true. But what happens between 147 and 148 that we will dig into? Apparently.
01:56:33
Speaker
So I guess that's it, Matt. That just leaves us with the line we always close the show out with. What's that line, Pat? Well, as always, folks, please remember, dear Lord, no, she exploded. And as always, enough with the mopes already.