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24 - Uncanny X-Men #120-124 - Alpha Flight/Arcade
71 Plays4 days ago
PLUS: Power Man & Iron Fist #56-57
After an unbelievably long journey, the X-Men FINALLY MAKE it home! But first, they have to stop in Calgary, Alberta and fight a brand new super-team named ALPHA FLIGHT. And THEN they make it home... BUT FIRST AGAIN they have to visit Iron Fist, obviously, and meet up with the worst cameo villain ever. And THEN they make it home. And INSTANTLY have to deal with a new dork who puts them in a big pinball machine.
Topics Include:
Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Jeryn Hogarth, Lawyerboss. "I LIKE the X-Men." Cyclops is gonna kill ALPHA FLIGHT. Burt. Major Mapleleaf. Darice Duck. Is Mutant Menace going to read Alpha Flight? "That stinks, mister!" Cyclops hates Canada. The Living Monolith crouching in an empty apartment. The traditional X-Men visit to Iron Fist. Why do Misty Knight and Scott Summers not talk!? Misty scolds Scott... Twice! Iron Fist and Havok really get into it. A big bag of Cheops. Three Archaeologists = One Mutant. Who is Jason Wyngarde? Nightcrawlers greatest fear: Bumper cars with buzzsaws! Proletarian? Arcade's permits. Cracklin' Rosa. What's the point of a Robot Magneto? Betsy is DONE. Cyclaugh! Pat admits to a Federal Crime!
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction and Mutant Menace Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aukamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Pete. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace. me hey All right, Pete, you were a little fast that time. Yeah, you've you sped it up maybe too much. Pete, thank you so much for sending us new audio of your, sorry, thank you so much for rushing in all the way from Australia to record with us here in our studio. Yeah, but you so you spoke a little too fast. No, please don't respond. um You can fly home now.
00:01:07
Speaker
We'll see you next week.
Listener Emails and Illustrations
00:01:08
Speaker
Thanks, Pete. See ya.
00:01:11
Speaker
Matt! How are you doing, man? I'm doing pretty good. um'm ah It's late. We're starting off late tonight. so yeah You know, i'm a I'm putting off my dessert until the last day.
00:01:26
Speaker
What kind of dessert were you hoping to have? I have a pack of graham crackers covered in chocolate and covered in fudge. Sorry, you're talking over the... Right. The music. Well, i appreciate you asking, Matt.
00:01:42
Speaker
It is time for Pat's email corner. we actually have a bunch of emails from us. We actually have a bunch.
00:01:54
Speaker
We emailed ourselves a whole lot this week. I have stuffed the Pat's email corner inbox. First up, we did get an email from listener Pete, who is the Pete that we reference at the beginning of every episode.
00:02:06
Speaker
ah He did send us a new clip. He also offered to be part of our street team in Brisbane, Australia. Thank you, Holy I'm, yes, we will have ah as ah some flyers out to you. ASAP. Thank you, Pete.
00:02:25
Speaker
What i He also requested a drawing of Bishop. So now Matt, you or i will be drawing a picture of Bishop. I say since this is our first one, let's both draw a picture of Bishop and see which one. Okay.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We'll make it to his. It's actually he sent us a pretty sick picture of his Bishop collection. it's Just a shelf of bishops. I don't think I knew anyone was this into Bishop, but I really, really appreciate that Pete is.
00:02:54
Speaker
I speaking of our street team, listener Simon wrote in. He says, hello, guys. I can't really distribute flyers for you in my neck of the world, but I do have an offer for you. You jokingly said you draw your helpers. That wasn't a joke, ah but we did say you draw your helpers, their favorite X-Men characters. Well, I draw a bit.
00:03:14
Speaker
I've attached a drawing of made my own favorite to prove my chops so I could offer a custom illustration to anyone who pledges to help distribute your flyers. If that's something that would interest you. I'm available.
00:03:25
Speaker
Simon, so kind of you. He draws a adorable picture of everybody's favorite Nightcrawler. It is very good. It is a great picture. Thank you, Simon.
00:03:36
Speaker
Very kind of you. we're not going to make you draw for us, but what? in wonder if It would require, Simon, you to draw... the picture then mail it to us and then we would mail it to it's like very a very kind but i think them getting like a something bad and and but personal and something that is physical rather than digital i think would be special but damn simon you draw good if you ever want to draw a picture of like our loser league we will put it up on our instagram like mad quick
00:04:12
Speaker
And you are now on our roster of artists. So the next time we need next time we need art for something instead of doing it ourselves, you are on our shortlist. ah What corner of the world do you think he's from, Matt? He says, can't really distribute s flyers in my neck of the world.
00:04:31
Speaker
ah Hell. So like he, yeah, like if he puts a flyer out, it burns up right away. but And he also burns his little tootsies if he goes outside.
00:04:42
Speaker
Simon from hell. Very cool. ah We also have an email
Music and Movie Recommendations
00:04:47
Speaker
from listener. James says, Hey, Pat, tell Matt that I'm doing fine. I've been enjoying the show since the first episode. And you can thank pushing up roses for directing me to you.
00:04:56
Speaker
Keep on keeping on Jim. i will I will thank Roses for you, Jim. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for checking us out, man. And thanks for ah yeah thanks for being a fan of my co-host on Save Your Game, ah my video game podcast, Pushing Up Roses.
00:05:12
Speaker
And thank you for giving us a shot and and and emailing. guys I should explain that we're... We're back on like a what about a two week delay between recording and release, which means i once again have no idea what the fuck these people are talking about. This is great. All right. Did we ask people just to tell us how they're doing? Because we have a couple like that.
00:05:40
Speaker
i We really must have because, yeah, everybody's like, hey, tell. it Well, okay I don't know that. i i can't I can't view the emails. I'm locked out. ah they when you keep them in a fault.
00:05:51
Speaker
Well, here comes email Michael and he says verbatim the same thing that listener Jim said. Hey, Pat, tell Matt that I'm doing fine. He also, he says, don't worry about email Mike.
00:06:05
Speaker
Email Michael. Email Mike. He says, it isn't my place. Of course it is. But he says, it isn't my place. But I did look up a couple of things after listening to the episode. Apparently, Eddie Munster being a werewolf was possibly explained in an episode that showed that the brother of Eddie's mother, that is Eddie's uncle.
00:06:23
Speaker
is also a werewolf. So maybe the werewolf genes popped up in Eddie, but not his mother. It's best not to examine movie monster movie monster genetics too closely. You don't tell me what I get to examine too closely, but that is very that is a very good observation.
00:06:40
Speaker
He also says magnets do work better in the cold. i had no idea, and I'm just assuming that he's right about this. But it's a bell curve where they eventually get worse, too.
00:06:51
Speaker
This is also true of electronics. So I do. So I wonder if that's because there's magnets in electronics. Maybe we've discovered something, Matt.
00:07:03
Speaker
I don't know. I can't tell, but I'm pointing at my brain. He goes on to say they fail permanently in volcanic temperatures, though, when they melt. So the question of why Magneto has a layer in a volcano is a very good one.
00:07:15
Speaker
Maybe ask the writers of the issue. And then feel free. All right, we'll reach out. We'll reach out. Here's my favorite part. Feel free to give me weird music recommendations or movies or whatever. It's your show after all.
00:07:30
Speaker
Nobody expects a Mr. Mike. Email Mike. hi yeah I have a music recommendation because I just went to see a punk show in Philly ah this past week. I saw the band Dillinger 4.
00:07:43
Speaker
They're a really sort of noisy ah aggressive pop punk band that rules and their show was one of the most energetic live shows I've ever seen Dillinger for he did ask for weird music recommendations I think this is a reference to something we said but they're weird Okay. I don't know. know some Here. Okay. what's Here's some weird artists I listen to.
00:08:12
Speaker
What are your some of your weirdest artists you listen to, Pat? You know, i it's not somebody that I prefer, but I think ah if you're looking for weird, Momus is pretty good.
00:08:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Four years worth of albums. I dug him for a very short amount of time and he got on my nerves so quick. Yeah. It's, you can't, it's not sustainable, but if you want something weird, that's a good experience.
00:08:38
Speaker
ah Same with James could shock a superstar. Like you, you'll really dig him and his comics are good too, but you really, you'll really dig him at first and then he'll just get on your ah nerves. So, okay, here's some weird music. I have like a playlist, my weird music playlist, ah Tally Hall.
00:08:59
Speaker
Tom Carty. Okay. Bear Ghost. That's enough for now. Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon's a weird one, right? Dan Deacon's pretty weird. Yeah. Oh, Neil Cicerega. Neil Cicerega, who I was a guest on Save Your Game once. He... Ooh.
00:09:16
Speaker
His music is great. It's not on Spotify. Um... But if you can go find his mashups, holy shit, they're good. Unbelievable stuff. They will. They will. say He will somehow he'll make you just laugh out loud at music, which is hard to do um without without just like not with weird lyrics, with mashups of songs you recognize you'll laugh out loud.
00:09:41
Speaker
And then. yeah At one point, he made me almost cry by mashing up a Beethoven song with a Britney Spears song. That's interesting.
00:09:55
Speaker
i I just read um The Will to Change by Bell Hooks. So you have to allow me to express my emotions, Pat. Don't patriarchy on me. I want to talk about your other podcast on Pat's email corner. I feel like I should have more control over this.
00:10:11
Speaker
Okay. Well, you talk about your other podcast then. One more email. from I'm on it right now. It's called Pat's Email Corner. and One more email to read from Weapon jason Subject line, remember, you asked for it. So I'll trust that he did. It seems, it appears to be a list of everybody that appeared in that one Defenders Hero Mania issue.
00:10:35
Speaker
Oh my goodness. ah His association with him. So. Okay. Okay. ah Hercules, familiar thanks to his The Avengers and Champions appearances, enjoyed the Bob Layton miniseries, Hercules, Prince of Power from the mid 80s.
00:10:48
Speaker
Falcon, familiar thanks to The Avengers and Captain America. Prowler, aware of him from his appearances in Amazing Spider-Man in the late 80s, but
Comic Character Insights and Analysis
00:10:55
Speaker
clueless when I was first reading these Defender issues. Jack of Hearts, knew him from his Iron Man appearances the year before these Defender issues, loved Oliver Koypel's version in The Avengers. Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:11:07
Speaker
Ms. Marvel read her comic and of course the Avengers Captain Marvel read his comics son of Satan he'd been popping up in the defenders before this so familiar Black Goliath he'd shown up in champions just before this so familiar I guess huh champions I wonder I wonder if we'll learn anything about that anytime soon Polaris had seen her in X-Men Havoc had seen him in X-Men and loved his costume great costume Tagak, at the time, no clue who he was. He turned up in the Contest of Champions comic and doing a read-through of Daredevil recently. I found him there. Yeah, that's pretty interesting.
00:11:42
Speaker
Wow. Iron Fist, of course, along with Power Man, who wisely avoided the silliness. Stingray, no clue who he was when appeared here, but fell in love with his look. I love the idea of Iron Fist saying to Power Man, hey, let's go join the Defenders.
00:11:56
Speaker
And Power Man being like, leave me out of this. oh Yeah. No. Yeah. Just no.
00:12:05
Speaker
ah Nova was reading his comic at the time. Since you're talking about even comics, since you're talking about event comics, I highly recommend Annihilation, which was the cosmic event happening at the same time as Civil War, but was far more interesting.
00:12:18
Speaker
I like Civil didn't know that.
00:12:22
Speaker
Marvel Man, no clue at the time, but of course this guy does go on to become Quasar and also shows up in Annihilation. I didn't know Marvel Man became Quasar. Okay, I know Quasar.
00:12:33
Speaker
Captain Ultra. Captain Ultra. Vaguely remember seeing him in a Fantastic Four comic, but he was a joke there and is here. Torpedo, no clue at the time, but he'd later be a big part of the ROM Space Knight story and turned up in my Daredevil read-through.
00:12:48
Speaker
Hmm. Paladin, another one who popped up in the Daredevil read through. i mostly know him for briefly dating Janet Van Dyne in the mid 80s. The Avengers comics. She does not have good taste in men.
00:13:01
Speaker
And then White Tiger. Don't think I knew him at the time, but he'd pop up in Spectacular Spider-Man soon after this. and okay And then Matt, he goes on to tell us about the villains and what he knows about them.
00:13:14
Speaker
Oh, boy. Okay. I'm going to read through this. This is all really this is fascinating to me. i Sagittarius and Libra were from Zodiac, who fought the Avengers. Pretty sure at that point, their life model decoys. What?
00:13:28
Speaker
Wow. Interesting. Porcupine had seen him in Captain America. we saw him in the X-Men. Yeah, yeah. Beetle and Electro, Spider-Man comics. Yes. Looter, no clue at the time, but eventually becomes Meteor Man after this, which is where I remember him from because of the cover fighting Black Goliath alongside Spider-Man.
00:13:47
Speaker
Oh boy, okay. Boomerang, no clue at the time, but later familiar with him as a Spider-Man opponent. to I knew him as a Heroclick. Toad, X-Men reprints had introduced me to him.
00:13:59
Speaker
melter knew of him from iron man leapfrog no clue at the time but another one who turned up in the daredevil read through shocker spider-man foe of course joe the gorilla pecos captain scrag no clue at the time and despite having done a recent read through of the avengers did not register them as appearing there though apparently they did as part of the split second squad oh okay all right interesting i goes on to say Defenders was one of my favorite comics at this time. was just so off the wall and had a real who freaking cares attitude that that made me want to read each issue just to see what wacky stuff would happen to blow my 10 year old mind. Of course, the idea of consistent characterization was a new one. So it's not only now that you bring up.
00:14:42
Speaker
that you bring it up that the appearance of Havoc and Polaris in this comic makes no sense. I've always just kind of accepted they were there because they looked like they had cool costumes, which seemed
X-Men Anecdotes and Connections
00:14:52
Speaker
to be the motivation for about three quarters of the inclusion. I think that's true.
00:14:57
Speaker
On the Marvel team upside, it didn't feel a lot like John Bernhardt, but it definitely felt like someone had read those old Neil Adams issues and were trying to replicate them. Nothing against our inkers here. um i I don't know if I believe that weapon, Jason, but he says nothing against our inkers here, but they were definitely trying to force the art in a specific direction.
00:15:16
Speaker
This is not his first email where he criticizes inkers. This guy hates inkers. And then finally, he says, I think there's some revelations about the origins of the living monolith in the graphic novel Revenge of the Living Monolith, which I'm sure you'll be covering when you get to the mid 80s as you try to uncover the truth about this fascinating and iconic X-Men opponent.
00:15:38
Speaker
Oh, my God. OK, Pat, I have to admit to you, I did ah figure out how to pick the lock on your vault. So you might need to get a new lock. But I did get into there earlier. Read this. Read Weapon Jason's email.
00:15:48
Speaker
And I added... so The Revenge of the Living Monolith graphic novel to mid-80s... Oh, God....episode. We're going to get so angry all over again. Yeah, I mean, hopefully we don't run into the Living Monolith between last yeah between that episode and, you know, I think it's going to be episode, like, 52. Yeah, that would be...
00:16:17
Speaker
pointless what yeah yeah okay do you have anything so what do you how do you feel about weapon jason's email did did you you're reading it so you didn't get to comment uh it was good i think he yeah i always enjoy hearing from weapon jason thank you okay i wasn't the pat's email corner was over i wasn't sure where else to go with that geez okay well we run a plate the tight podcast over at pat's email corner at least our music cues do okay so Pat.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. i have have a question. I've been thinking about this for the past 20 minutes. Oh, yeah. yeah Have you done anything X-Men related this week? Matt. In fact, I have.
00:16:59
Speaker
Oh, OK. OK. What is it? This one's real. This is actual X-Men related. So okay earlier in the week, my uncle texted me and was like, hey, have I have tickets to the Phillies game and can't use them.
00:17:15
Speaker
OK. So would you guys like we live like a mile from the stadium. So he was like, would you guys like and we were like, Oh my God, yes, sure. well We'll happily go and he was like, Okay, they're actually really good seats. i Includes some some cash for concessions and merch. So we were I got a cool Philly fanatic hat he's a weird little freak like a lot of the X-Men, but that's not how this is X-Men related, Matt.
00:17:41
Speaker
You know what section I sat in when I went to the Phillies game? I invited you, by the way. You declined. Oh, I had to work on my other podcast, Save Your Game. Okay, stop stop talking about your other podcast. i You know what section I sat in ah the Phillies game, Matt?
00:17:58
Speaker
ah WXXXX. No, the CP Rankin roofing section. The local roofing company owned by X-Men villain Cal Rankin.
00:18:12
Speaker
Wow. Did he show up? Did he was or was his name on the benches or anything? Oh, he's dead, right? ah As far as we know, he's dead now. Yeah, he wasn't. So he wasn't there. hi Very. um ah see I don't look.
00:18:30
Speaker
I'm not. endorsing this roofing company i'm not saying anything bad about this roofing company aside from the fact that it's owned by a somewhat reformed x-men villain
00:18:45
Speaker
matt did you do anything x-men related this week Indeed, I did, Patrick. um I actually, we both know, and listeners know, I've been a little movie boy lately.
00:18:56
Speaker
That's right. You've been catching up. And you know what movie I watched? the One of the favorite movies of co-host of a very popular X-Men podcast, Mutant Menace.
00:19:11
Speaker
I watched one of his they favorite movies. Did you just watch one of your own favorite movies, Matt? I watched a movie. I watched the movie Tar, which I know you not only do you love this movie, you love Lydia tar You endorse so all of her actions in this movie and all the actions that she performs before the movie that they reference in the movie.
00:19:34
Speaker
um It's it was good. It was a fun movie. It's so good. It wasn't fun, but it's good. It's long. It is long. Yeah. But it is a it is such a fascinating and fucking hilarious character study. Like, it's a very i' it's not like laugh out loud funny. Yeah, was going to say, don't think I laughed during the movie. but It is still incredibly funny. Did you know that the guy that made that movie also invented Big League Chew? There's no way.
00:20:08
Speaker
He invented Big League Chew like back in the 90s and since then has used his fortune to make a movie like every 10 years. Are his other movies good? i know he's made other movies. I haven't seen any of them.
00:20:22
Speaker
Cate Blanchett's performance was fucking incredible. Yeah, yeah. She should have won the Oscar for that. It was really like she was that person. Yeah, I that the movie was very good. Her performance blew my mind.
00:20:37
Speaker
Rachel got me a Lydia Tarr Innocent t-shirt for my birthday. Yeah, which is how I know you fully endorse everything she does in that movie.
00:20:47
Speaker
So good. That's good, Beth. This is way more X-Men related than you've been... recently so i'm happy well i was gonna
X-Men Comics and Wolverine Story Arc
00:20:54
Speaker
talk about how i went and saw a punk band but ah i got to say that earlier when it wasn't when no one asked for it so pat yeah would you like to with me your friend matt yeah dive into some x-men comics today with you matt i would absolutely love to should i start with uncanny x-men number 120 wanted wolverine dead or alive
00:21:23
Speaker
Sure, go ahead. it was my vocal warm-up before the show. Wanted Wolverine. Wanted Wolverine. Wanted Wolverine. Chris Claremont and John Byrne, author, co-plotters, penciler, Terry Austin, inker, Tom Orzachowski, letterer, Glynnis Ween, colorist, Roger Stern, editor, and Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief.
00:21:43
Speaker
Who's that? I don't care. Release date, January 16th, 1979. Cover date, April 1979. James Hudson, aka Weapon Alpha, aka Vindicator, is hanging out in a secret military base with... Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah! That's actually a character in this comic book, Pierre Trudeau. It is not a friendly caricature. He looks like Clint Howard. and He's so conniving and angry. And together they were in bald. He makes him so way more bald than he is in any pictures. i' Yeah, I looked up. but I didn't know what Pierre Trudeau looked like. And I looked it up and i was like, oh, wait, this guy is not that bald. This is pure John Byrne Canadian politics.
00:22:30
Speaker
I Pierre Trudeau and weapon alpha reviewing footage of the X-Men fighting mandroids from last issue. Trudeau is demanding that the vindicator retrieve Wolverine since the Canadian government spent so much goddamn money on developing and training him.
00:22:47
Speaker
To help him, Vindicator calls the members of his super team and Alpha Flight at their respective civilian jobs. These are Northstar, a.k.a. Jean-Paul Beubier, a professional skier.
00:23:02
Speaker
Shaman, Dr. Michael Tu-Youngman, a physician in a Sarsi reserve. Snowbird, Corporal Annie McKenzie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
00:23:13
Speaker
Sasquatch, Dr. Walter lung Langowski, a professor of biophysics and former professional American footballer. And Aurora, Jeannie Marie. Ah, fuck.
00:23:26
Speaker
And Aurora, Jeannie Marie Beublie, a teacher in Quebec.
00:23:32
Speaker
Cut to me. Dude, hold on. I love Alpha Flight. Okay, maybe we should talk about them more when we see them here in costume. But man, like, I've always won Alpha Flight to be better because they're so cool. Okay, go ahead. go It's so funny that they're all doctors, that two-thirds of them are doctors. One of them is a president professor of biophysics and was a former all-pro linebacker.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, they also... um This also does not speak... to the very interesting things about their characters at all because John Byrne hadn't thought of them yet. Yeah, sure. They they all just have jobs right now. That's that's all their personalities are.
X-Men vs. Alpha Flight
00:24:20
Speaker
He said um in interviews, especially when he had to, when he, well, again, we'll talk about a little more. When he started the Alpha Flight series, he said that
00:24:35
Speaker
They were just meant to be some guys who lose a fight to the X-Men.
00:24:42
Speaker
There's some debate about that because there were sketches of these guys in notebooks that he had from back like when he was a teenager. But his conception of them and their powers was just like, what would be fun to see the X-Men fight and lose to? yeah Nice.
00:25:01
Speaker
ah Cut to the X-Men saying goodbye to Sunfire and boarding a plane out of Japan, courtesy of Colleen Wing's lawyer. Do you know whose plane that is, Matt? They'll say it later in this issue.
00:25:14
Speaker
That's right. But they mentioned his name right here. It's Jaron Hogarth. Uh-huh. Jaron Hogarth, Matt. Jaron Hogarth. Danny Rand's lawyer. I don't know him from like anything else. I know that it's a woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's right, Pete. And it's man in the Marvel Universe. Carrie Ann Moss.
00:25:33
Speaker
in Marvel TV universe. But in the comics, it's basically Iron Fist's lawyer. they They refer to him as a lawyer boss at one point in these comics. But he is like a lawyer and a money man for Danny Rand, who is a billionaire, so that he can spend his time being Iron Fist. He's also sort of like the the Happy Hogan to Iron Man or the Foggy Nelson to Daredevil.
00:26:01
Speaker
Oh, just a friend. Oh, okay. and A friend who lends you, like an any true friend, lends you his private jet. So that, and of course, assuming you'll take good care of it. Right.
00:26:14
Speaker
Love Jaren Hobarth. Before they leave, however, Wolverine finds Mariko Yoshida and offers her a white chrysanthemum and his real name, Logan. It's great when he finds Mariko...
00:26:28
Speaker
when When he happens upon Mariko, we see her just by herself a second earlier, and she's just sitting in her car thinking, like the X-Men. Like is bolded. I like the X-Men.
00:26:42
Speaker
I do that a lot. Damn, girl. Damn, girl. Same. Yo, that's what I do all the time. Just sit in my car and think, I like the X-Men. i In the air, the pilots discover a freak blizzard forming around them as they pass over Calgary, Alberta.
00:27:00
Speaker
When Storm can't dispel it, they are forced to land and standing on the runway in his white and red Canadian flag outfit and helmet is Vindicator. He's he is demanding that Wolverine come with them.
00:27:16
Speaker
He's like shouting over the sounds of a massive snowstorm and a plane engine to people that are inside the plane. what He's like, they're all in the plane. He's just like,
00:27:38
Speaker
we used to The plane attempts to take off again, but it's held where it is by the big hairy orange arm of Sweetums from the Muppets.
00:27:49
Speaker
So sorry, I mean Sasquatch from Alpha Flight, who accidentally throws the plane, destroying both an empty hangar and the plane that Jared Hogarth loaned the X-Men.
00:28:02
Speaker
Oh boy, he must be so mad. He's gotta be so pissed. Does he not? How did you destroy my plane? Well, I would say, it might be his fault for loaning a plane to the X-Men.
00:28:14
Speaker
Angus McWhirter was right. Yeah. Justice for Angus McWhirter. Who's currently dead. He's not trying to burn down Muir Island, but still like. Vindicator quickly flies down and cuts through the hull of the plane with his energy suit.
00:28:31
Speaker
But finds the plane empty. What? The X-Men were in there. Well, meanwhile, Matt, the X-Men have snuck in through an empty part of the airport and are attempting to blend in with the crowd and lose those nerds in Alpha Flight.
00:28:45
Speaker
Wolverine tells them briefly about James Hudson and an Alpha Flight. They are, apparently, a team of superheroes who work as agents for the Canadian government, and Hudson is their leader. Wolverine describes himself as Hudson's first guinea pig.
00:28:58
Speaker
The X-Men decide to split up and meet at Calgary Tower to keep Alpha Flight off their trail. However... Moments later, Nightcrawler is ambushed by two mostly off-panel mutants dressed in black and white starburst patterns.
00:29:11
Speaker
They fly in, shine super bright, and then punch him out. Kurt Rupert! um Nightcrawler tells us he made it seven miles in three jumps.
00:29:22
Speaker
That's 2.3 miles per jump, Pat. That's huge. He was struggling with like 100 yards. So I looked it up. Apparently, because he follows Earth's magnetic lines of force, sure he can teleport north and south three miles each. Okay.
00:29:42
Speaker
East and west two miles each and two miles vertically if he exerts himself. Two miles um vertically? When I first read this, I was thinking, yeah, wait two miles vertically. Like, does that that means he can teleport from the ground onto an airplane?
00:30:00
Speaker
No, airplanes are a little higher than that, right? How high?
00:30:07
Speaker
um All right. A mile is 5,280 feet. I know. A commercial airplane typically flies between 30,000 and 42,000 feet.
00:30:19
Speaker
So that's like seven miles. Yes. So we can't teleport right up onto an airplane. Maybe onto a helicopter, though. Okay. Okay. That'd be cool. Maybe we'll see that you were flying in a helicopter, Nightcrawler is just next to you all of a sudden.
00:30:35
Speaker
Anyway, he's getting super powerful, which is so I'm just so happy for him. I do have to say I was confused when I first read this because i still my still my baby idiot brain still when he sees north and south thinks that they're up and down.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, north. north is that Like, up in the sky. Up. Scotty, Misty Knight, Peter, and I guess the pilot and co-pilot, Annie and Jill. We meet them.
00:31:08
Speaker
i I don't know. I don't know. They must be so confused about all of them. All meet at the town. Good for them with an all-female flight crew 1979, though.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, they all meet at the tower and find the rest of the team missing. We cut to Sean, Aurora and Colleen Wing at a store in the mall buying clothes. They're just shopping. They're not missing. Vindicator finds them there, though, and Banshee immediately tries to attack him with sonic screen, but doubles over in pain as he strained his vocal cords last issue in Japan.
00:31:42
Speaker
Vindicator walks forward to see if he's all right when Storm comes out of the dressing room and just blasts him through the wall with a gust of wind. and Like he does, Vindicator runs away. That's all he does. That's all he does is he starts fights and then he's like, oh they're too strong for me and then runs away. yeah
00:32:01
Speaker
Outside in an alleyway, Wolverine is grabbed by the same furry orange arm of Sasquatch. and slammed back and forth into two walls until he's unconscious and then carted off.
00:32:12
Speaker
Meanwhile, Sean and Aurora both meet up with Peter and Scott and infer that Wolverine and Nightcrawler have been captured. Cyclops vows that, though he didn't start this fight, he will finish it even if he has to kill Alpha Flight.
00:32:27
Speaker
He's gonna kill Alpha Flight? He would, dude. This is family. Yeah, you fuck with the X-Men. ah Do you think that this is... Do you think that is from the sense of, like, these are my family? Do you think he's there yet? Or do you think at this point it's just like, this is my team that i Like, this is an insult to me as a team leader.
00:32:50
Speaker
I think that he's taking it personally. but i think that he has... i think that he cares. I think that he really okay cares about the safety of his team. I don't know if he's at the family level yet, but...
00:33:04
Speaker
Right. I mean, he's getting there. And I think, spoilers, he'll get there this episode. But I don't, it feels like he's not quite there yet. Yeah, yeah. It feels like this is like an insult.
00:33:15
Speaker
um Okay, couple things. Yeah. In one of the last pages in the foreground, there's just a guy with a name tag that says Bert.
00:33:27
Speaker
yeah but I was wondering why you wrote a note here that was just Bert.
00:33:35
Speaker
There's one guy in this issue who's got a name tag on his shirt and it just says Bert. Damn. They love naming characters. Man. And it gets so much more ridiculous in some of the upcoming issues. It might be, man, I can't find it. So it might be next issue that Bert appears, but, um, well,
00:33:54
Speaker
it gets so much more ridiculous and a couple upcoming issues. But Chris Claremont has people speak out of ah in unnatural ways to name each other, like ways that you wouldn't speak.
00:34:10
Speaker
Like I get wanting to being like, okay, well this person has to have a name because this, even though it's ah just a random extra, you would naturally say their name yeah in this sentence.
00:34:21
Speaker
But he has people go, Come over here, Tom, Amy, and Mike. And then Tom, Amy, and Mike are like, oh, thanks, Jeff. We will be right over.
00:34:34
Speaker
And like, why? that No one talks like that. just to Just say run.
00:34:43
Speaker
ah is it bit is it like a joke with himself or is this does he think is this an editorial edict or is this like uh if they made an x-men movie and put a guy named bert in it chris claremont would be like ah i created that guy i created that guy you owe me royalties it feels like that would be too easy to work around ah exactly yeah you would not pay his name's butt
00:35:16
Speaker
ah Next thing, fucking more Claremont airplane stuff. oh my god, he loves this shit. What like a nerd. The X-Men have to fly an airplane sometimes, but you don't have to have like four panels where they're talking to the air traffic controllers and they're like, up we got a pigeon on the runway. up they're where They're coming in on a hairy approach.
00:35:39
Speaker
like You don't have to do that. What is that adding What does pigeon mean? What's the pew what is the what does that mean? I know what hairy approach means. I don't fucking know. man I don't know.
00:35:52
Speaker
I don't know He just says something about pigeons. ah There's an interesting. So Shaman is the one that created the winter storm that forces the plane to land in Calgary. There's an interesting detail when the storm dissipates. He's like someone must be controlling it.
00:36:10
Speaker
He must be very powerful. ah Just just an interesting there's another way when i Captain Alpha is running away.
00:36:22
Speaker
He says ah so much for my macho approach to this. Like there's there's a couple of strange subtle shots at the idea of masculinity here that i don't understand, but I support. it
00:36:38
Speaker
That's interesting. I think that is something that John Byrne seemingly is interested in. He describes himself as a feminist many times. um And Chris Claremont, right? Like, Chris Claremont is not a great feminist, but he is a feminist. ya Yeah, yeah.
00:36:51
Speaker
There is a really good storm moment when, ah we described it, he bursts into the dressing room to attack. Banshee tries to stop him, doubles over,
00:37:04
Speaker
He goes in and says, are you all right, man? And Storm comes in and says, James Hudson, this is the second time that you've attacked us unprompted.
00:37:16
Speaker
And then next panel says, there will not be a third. And she is yeah blowing him out of the store with a huge gust of wind. It is intimidating.
00:37:29
Speaker
Like, i will I will kill you for this. Like, do not. you You have to stop hurting my friends. I will. Yeah, she's like, you once spoke of power. Little man, you do not know the meaning of the word. yes It is a badass sequence.
00:37:44
Speaker
I think this it issue is really interesting. The way that they introduce Alpha Flight by showing us their civilian personas. And then all of them are basically either in shadow or off panel for the rest of the issue.
00:37:56
Speaker
And on top of that, it's like they just keep fucking up, right? Like they just keep making mistakes. They, you know, Vindicator just means to stop them and kidnap Wolverine.
00:38:09
Speaker
But Sasquatch quote quote unquote accidentally throws their plane through a hangar. And he's like, oh my God, we almost killed them. I've got to go save them, make sure that they're unhurt. And then you try they're missing.
00:38:22
Speaker
And then he runs back and then he's like, the storm is getting so bad. Shaman, why are you doing this? And Shaman's like, oh, it's not me. It's not me. And then they go to find them and Banshee doubles over. He's like, oh no, I didn't. What did I do? I didn't mean to hurt you. And then Storm just walks out and sees Banshee doubled over. And she's like, motherfucker, I will kill you for this. Like, it is just this series of...
00:38:45
Speaker
mistakes that this super team is making they're just so clearly in over their heads even though they incapacitated nightcrawler and wolverine they're still way in over their heads yeah yeah it's which is how we were introduced to him a year ago too which is how we were introduced to captain alpha who major maple leaf you noted this yeah they keep referring to him mockingly as major maple leaf Which is, according to John Byrne, one of the names that Chris Claremont floated.
00:39:17
Speaker
so John Byrne originally called him Guardian, and they wouldn't let him be called Guardian because the Guardians of the Galaxy, as we talked about before. So one they were tossing names back and forth, and Chris Claremont was like, apparently multiple times suggested Major Maple Leaf. Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
ah but then settled on Vindicator, which pissed John Byrne off because he's like, what does Canada have to vindicate? This doesn't make sense. Do you think he's do think he's just making fun of John Byrne there to be like, oh, well why don't we call him Major Maple Leaf?
00:39:51
Speaker
but Have you seen his costume?
00:39:56
Speaker
All right, Pat, do you... Want me to tell you yes about the stunning conclusion to the story in Uncanny X-Men 121 Shootout at the Stampede? Yes, definitely.
00:40:08
Speaker
Okay, I will then. It's by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Inked by Terry Austin. Lettered by Diana Albers. Colored by Glynis Ween. Edited by Roger Stern. And editor-in-chief did it by Jim Shooter.
00:40:24
Speaker
Release date February 13th, 1979. Cover date May 1979. The X-Men are at the Calgary Stampede. i was reading an essay about this. There's a really cool book that refers to this essay a lot. It's called True North by Daryl Richard Lawrence.
00:40:42
Speaker
And it's a complete reference guide and analysis of Alpha Flight's first volume. And he references What? Yes. what yes Yeah.
00:40:54
Speaker
That's a book? yeah Yeah, it just came out this year. Incredible. It randomly popped up in my blue sky as somebody's like, I just released my first book.
00:41:05
Speaker
then And I immediately went and ordered How is there enough of a market for that? It's i I can't imagine there is, but they are releasing the second Alpha Flight Omnibus early next year. so maybe they are maybe I don't know. Maybe they're betting on this is more of a ah marketing investment than anything.
00:41:28
Speaker
I have no idea, man. Incredible. I'm glad that it exists. Also, I'll say so far I'm enjoying it more for the other resources that it cites.
00:41:41
Speaker
Like, it's citing me to more interesting, thoughtful critiques of ah Alpha Flight than it is offering. okay um But anyway, one of these is by Anna Pippard. It's called Canada's Mutant Body, Nationalism, and they super and Super Multiculturalism in Alpha Flight vs. X-Men. And she notes that it is interesting...
00:42:02
Speaker
Not only does she talk about how this depiction of Pierre Trudeau is wild and and there's clearly some deep-seated rivalry going on between Canada and the U.S. s here. Yeah, yeah. um She also notes that it is it is interesting that the first time they meet Alpha Flight, Canada's premier superhero team,
00:42:27
Speaker
In Canada, they do it at an American-themed... You're right. Exhibition. It's at the rodeo. Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know I don't know what we can infer from that, but it's interesting. yeah So, X-Men are at the Calgary Stampede. It's one of the world's biggest rodeos. Yeehaw!
00:42:48
Speaker
Cyclops reflects on how they got there. After their last encounter with Vindigator, he left a faint trail of energy behind that Storm was able to track, leading them here. Storm, Cyclops, and Colossus are knowingly walking into a trap, entering the stadium to see Wolverine and Nightcrawler tied up at center stage.
00:43:07
Speaker
As they approach, the full team of Alpha Flight appears! Finally! Before we can see the big fight we've all been waiting for, Cyclops wants to take these dorks down a pack. As he verbally belittles them, and Colossus notices that Northstar appears to be sneaking around to flank the X-Men. His suspicions lead him to attack, and the fight begins.
00:43:29
Speaker
Before we get into the fight, let's talk about who these guys are a little bit. Yes. you think? Do you want to describe our new new heroes? ah Yeah, we have Sasquatch, the big, hairy, orange man.
00:43:42
Speaker
We've seen him. He looks exactly like Wendigo, only orange. Yes, yeah, yeah. ah We see Shaman, who it gets a little problematic as the issue goes on, maybe, but ah definitely better treated than John Proudstar.
00:43:58
Speaker
He's a member of the Sarsi Nation, which is better referred to as the Tsutsina... Tsutina? Okay. Nation? It's a first nation of ah Alberta. Just the fact that they named him Shaman is a little questionable. I... I agree, and...
00:44:15
Speaker
it goes His depictions in comics go back and forth between being wildly offensive, a little offensive, fairly respectful, and really good. Okay. We see North Star, who is a ah tall and physically fit man wearing a onesie that has like a black and white star burst on it.
00:44:35
Speaker
I think it's so good. i We see Aurora, who is dressed in the same thing, a little shorter and standing next to North Star. Their brother and sister will find out. They're both Quebecois and they seem to have elf ears. Yes, that's ah that's a quality of Quebec, I think.
00:44:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Snowbird is like, it's hard. Yeah, a little hard to describe. She looks like Dove from the Teen Titans, if you know her. Sure. yeah. yeah She's, she's, her costume reminds me a lot of the Shi'ar, like they're, like what they wear when they're not in battle.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, and it's ah like a light blue and a white. She's got a tiara. Yeah, it's like a favorite it's very regal, and she's got a big cape. It's like white fur lined. i think what's interesting to note is she's got a very inhuman face.
00:45:29
Speaker
It's like yeah beautiful in a non non-human way, and her eyes are just like a bright white. Kind of a birdie way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. like the Shi'ar.
00:45:40
Speaker
e And then we got Vindicator. And of course, Vindicator, yeah. Big red and white Canadian flag onesie.
00:45:49
Speaker
So we finally see Alpha Flight's powers on full display. Sasquatch punches real hard. Shaman uses herbs and incantations to produce little totem pole characters to attack.
00:46:02
Speaker
He can do all sorts of spells with his little stuff, but that's what he does first. Northstar speeds around the court. Aurora, ah actually, Pat says he hasn't really figured this one out, but I think she can fly. Yeah, that's where I got when I was writing this recap. i' I'm still unclear on what her actual powers are.
00:46:22
Speaker
I think without spoiling, I can clear this up because she does display some of them. It's just not entirely clear that she's doing it. Is it the bright light? She produces a bright light? When her and Northstar touch, they can produce a bright light. Okay.
00:46:36
Speaker
Northstar, I think, is faster, but they're both – they both can fly, and they're both fast. Oh, okay. They're both speedsters. Yes. Shit. I believe so, but I think Northstar is, like, super speed while Aurora is just very fast. I might be wrong about that, but I know she – at least – Where I'm at in my personal alpha flight read, she comments on how fast North Star is a lot. okay But her powers do change over time, so I don't know at this point.
00:47:06
Speaker
Anyway, Snowbird not only flies, but she can turn into a giant Arctic owl. That was pretty sick. Shaman can also summon wind, storms, something like that, but he's not stormed.
00:47:21
Speaker
Shamans, he also at some point sprinkles some dust around that causes a barrier right that other people can't enter. enter There's an invisible force field around. his He's a wizard, right? that's the He's like a lot of Dr. Strange. yeah yeah Yeah, he can kind of do any magic, but he has to reach into his pouch and pull out herbs and little things it.
00:47:44
Speaker
with things to do it
00:47:48
Speaker
Shaman's use of his ability to summon a storm is not without its consequences, though. His attempts to control it have built its potential energy up into a ball, ready to spring forth at any moment, and it does!
00:48:01
Speaker
Suddenly, a violent blizzard erupts, creating a beautiful and fucking rad setting for the rest of the fight. It also affects the city and some citizens we get to know. There's some very good ones.
00:48:14
Speaker
Paul, Jim, Corey... Darice? Darice? What is Darice? It's French, maybe? French-Canadian?
00:48:26
Speaker
yeah i then at some point, so somebody who we probably get a name for, but I don't i didn't catch it, yells Darice! Because I think it's supposed to be John Byrne.
00:48:38
Speaker
Oh, and he says, Darice Duck! And it made me think of a character named Darice Duck. Darice Duck. Donald Duck's ugly cousin.
00:48:52
Speaker
Why does he do this? Anyway, ah the fight goes back and forth until it becomes clear that the storm is too powerful for any of them. Storm catches Snowbird in a net made out of her cape.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yes. Smart and classic flies off. Classic net trap. And flies off to try to tame the blizzard, knowing that using that much power could kill her.
00:49:16
Speaker
Arms outstretched, she soars past the clouds into air so thin and cold that a normal human would perish in seconds. Her perceptions widen until she sees and feels the storm, not as clouds and wind and snow, but as patterns of energy.
00:49:30
Speaker
She reaches out with mind and body and soul, becoming one with the tempest, and then, gently at first, she draws it to her, channeling it through her body. into the upper atmosphere, spreading its fury across an entire continent, creating surprise snowfalls from the Rockies to the Atlantic coast.
00:49:48
Speaker
A misery, to be sure, as she slowly diffuses the storm's core, but far better than what might have been.
Chris Claremont's Writing Style
00:49:54
Speaker
Wow, do you write that, Matt? That's odd. That's odd direct quote. I almost kind of wanted to read it again in my Claremont voice, but I won't.
00:50:05
Speaker
He's getting hornier and hornier for Storm. Oh my god. Her costume is getting skimpier and skimpier too. I don't think it's just Claremont. And she's taking it off like every issue. Yeah, yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
We're not quite to the point where every character remarks on how ah attractive she is. But now he's like, like this, so many chunks of this could be taken out and read as sex.
00:50:30
Speaker
Like he is describing like a sexual sort of experience here as she dispels the story yeah yeah And I don't think i don't think that's accidental. It feels a little strange to watch somebody else ogle a fictional character that they're creating as they do it.
00:50:55
Speaker
Right? ah ah it's it's It's like drawing two boobs on a piece of paper and then masturbating to those. you see Yes. Yes. yes
00:51:07
Speaker
It's, you know, there's a thing. Have you ever read Wheel of Time? No. So Robert Jordan is like a Mormon. I think he's very devout or he's a Catholic. He's a very devout religious man is what I'm trying to say.
00:51:21
Speaker
um And he in Wheel of Time is always writing characters that are female characters just constantly get nude throughout that book.
00:51:32
Speaker
Okay. All those books. And They can't just cross their arms. They always cross their arms beneath their breasts. Okay. He says every single time. and And every single time it's like, hey, fucking Robert Jordan.
00:51:46
Speaker
I get that you're sexually repressed or whatever. But like jerk off before you sit down to write. Like can get rid of this and then write.
00:51:57
Speaker
Anyway. It's uncomfortable. It creates a very uncomfortable situation.
00:52:05
Speaker
And it'll only get worse. Once nature has calmed, Storm pauses to take a breath, and Northstar sees his opportunity to punch her in the back of the head. yeah what a creep. Scott gives him a quick blast to the face in a fucking amazing panel where he doubles over backwards. Yeah, yeah.
00:52:23
Speaker
With the force of Scott's blast. And then Scott yells at him for being an idiot. He promises to beat the fuck out Northstar, but... But Wolverine, of all people, holds him back, declaring that this is his fight, and he won't have his friends dying for him. o He'll just turn himself in.
00:52:44
Speaker
Chills when he alpha when he called the X-Men his friends. Just goosebumps. Alpha Flight locks Wolverine in an inescapable truck. A man named, he names him, a man named Garson is taunting him about it.
00:52:59
Speaker
They offer the X-Men a military escort back to the U.S. Once they cross the border and lose the tail, Cyclops then immediately starts calculating a plan to rescue Wolverine. It's so good.
00:53:10
Speaker
But they're quickly interrupted by the scamp himself. Wolverine's already there sitting in the cockpit, that little scamp. That little scamp.
00:53:21
Speaker
It's it's it's a very really good. Yeah, yeah. What a good fucking issue, man. All right. I love Alpha Flight. I love Alpha Flight as a team. They're big dorks.
00:53:32
Speaker
They fuck up all the time. Their costumes are so rad that I just wish there was more good Alpha Flight comics. is there So many of them are bad. Oh, really?
00:53:45
Speaker
That's unfortunate. John Byrne writes and draws Alpha Flight again it under duress. I don't remember which editor it is. It might be Jim Shooter who keeps pressuring him to do an Alpha Flight series after he leaves the X-Men eventually.
00:54:00
Speaker
And he keeps saying he doesn't want to. eat That these this was not something he didn't plan on fleshing these characters out. but eventually gives into the pressure and does, i think like 30 issues of alpha flight.
00:54:16
Speaker
And they're good. They focus really strongly on like the personalities of these people rather than just super heroics. um And they're really smart and fun.
00:54:29
Speaker
And then Bill Mantlo takes over for like 50 issues. And Okay. but We've got to figure this out now. Right now. Right now, Patrick. Okay.
Debate on Including Alpha Flight Series
00:54:40
Speaker
Are we going to read Alpha Flight as part of this podcast or not?
00:54:42
Speaker
I think we... At least the burn run. Yeah. That's my feeling is that we should read the burn run because it's good. And let them then then let them go off on their own little Bill Mantlo adventures.
00:54:55
Speaker
Well, then I think we should read about the next 10 issues because number one, I need to rant to you about some of the terrible, terrible things Bill Mantlo does to the characters. But number two. Why do you do this to me?
00:55:07
Speaker
Number two, a very.
00:55:12
Speaker
It'll make you so mad. Like the first, the you know, in the first two issues after John Byrne leaves, you, it'll make you so mad. It's not a selling point, Matt. And.
00:55:22
Speaker
but Okay, then there's an X-Men appearance, and a very long-term Wolverine villain makes their first appearance. Okay. So, I say we go...
00:55:36
Speaker
The first 40 issues and then we reevaluate. What do you think? 40 issues. My goodness. Is it going to run in tandem with the X-Men or are we taking an Alpha Flight sabbatical?
00:55:50
Speaker
ah You tell me. We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll read it We'll read Alpha Flight. Okay, we're going to read Alpha Flight. You heard it here first, folks. i Before? Where else would do you have heard it?
00:56:00
Speaker
What a stupid thing to say. maybe those Maybe they'll advertise it in an upcoming Marvel comic. I just love that they're the fuck-ups of the Marvel Universe. And when Cyclops confronts him in this issue, he just lists all the things they just they yeah they've done wrong.
00:56:23
Speaker
and Vindicator's like, those were accidents. And Cyclops is like, you seem to have a lot of them. Yeah. So oh good. Pretty cold line. A panel later, he just says...
00:56:34
Speaker
That stinks, Mr. <unk> and To his credit, Vindicator comes back and says, well, you better get used to the stench. These two just trading barbs for it for like a day would be, it's like, well, I have a pretty good sense of smell.
00:56:53
Speaker
ah Well, you're going to need it for all the garbage you're shoveling out of your mouth. Well, like just like back and forth for. Well, luckily I own the shovel store. yeah Good thing I have credit there.
00:57:10
Speaker
It just stops making any sense. There's a few other lines gotta highlight here. i Wolverine, aside from calling the X-Men his friends, he also says...
00:57:26
Speaker
To James Hudson, you never gave me a choice about being changed, which is interesting. so Again, it starts building on what we eventually know to be Wolverine's backstory.
00:57:39
Speaker
ah But yeah, this program was doing something to change him. Yeah, they are. Some of this contradicts what we eventually learn a little bit.
00:57:52
Speaker
like how much James Hudson was involved and how conscious Wolverine was yeah about how, how the way that he was changed and how much the Canadian government was involved, but at least indicates that these things are elements.
00:58:07
Speaker
Cyclops calls Canada a misbegotten country.
00:58:12
Speaker
He hates Canada. That is fun. And at this point, this guy also must hate speedsters, right? Oh my god. The contempt he has for North Star mirrors the contempt he has for Quicksilver, but without any of the mutual respect. Yeah, yeah. it just He switches right into that mode of like, oh, this fucking guy.
00:58:37
Speaker
I wanted to go back and look. Does this amazing panel where he knocks North Star over, does that mirror ah fight he had with Quicksilver in the early comics? No, I think that or what it reminded me of was a couple issues or a couple episodes back when Wolverine goes feral and tries to attack Cyclops. You're right. He finally gets to to blast off on him.
00:59:03
Speaker
And he does this exact same thing. He like bends over backwards. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Banshee says when they come upon the, they're outside of the force field that shaman is placed over the whole thing. He says, if I add me sonic powers back, I bet it could vibrate through this barrier.
00:59:23
Speaker
What?
00:59:26
Speaker
Why do you bet that? would Does he do that? Does he? it never has. ah walls. Didn't he, wait, didn't he when we first met him back in the Factor 3 days? I don't remember that, no. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Was there a force field around the tobacco shop?
00:59:46
Speaker
felt he like went through a wall or something it's banshee is also dressed like a partridge family character in this sky yes like he's got big uh fluffy uh feathered out hair he's got like a green patterned bell bottoms and he's got this like lime green jacket that it's yeah he just looks like billy partridge or i don't know any of those characters billy partridge frank partridge whatever they're called All of them. um
01:00:18
Speaker
Finally, and Matt, you are going to feel like an idiot for not catching this one. Okay. Colossus punches Sasquatch. It has no impact. And Sasquatch, being a former football player, professional football player, says, I've taken worse from the Steelers front four.
01:00:37
Speaker
Oh, damn it. I'm such a dog. I can't believe it. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly you missed that front four is typically referring to the defensive line in football. So if he was an all pro linebacker, he's on the defense. He's not going up against other defense. That's what I said.
01:00:56
Speaker
What an idiot. That's what I said. How does that, yeah how does that make sense? Claremont. That. Yeah. Remember? And I said this all to you before the episode started. Um,
01:01:08
Speaker
There's a really good... Oh, Kurt Rupert. Nightcrawler and Aurora barely seem to be fighting. They just seem to be playing. He does give her in a non-consensual kiss, but so like that's a little eh. But they just seem to be chasing each other around and like in and smiling and enjoying themselves. and after he gives her the non-consensual kiss, he teleports away and says, Tally-ho! Tally-ho!
01:01:39
Speaker
It's very funny. They're flirting. It's cute. It's very cute. This ruled. This was so good. And we didn't even talk about it. It starts with a badass cover where Cyclops is blasting. Oh, yeah.
01:01:54
Speaker
Blasting Vindicator point blank. And it's an angry Cyclops, which is my fucking favorite. All right, Matt. Should we move on to? Oh, no. I want to talk. I want to talk about one more thing. Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:02:06
Speaker
Which is when Snowboard transforms. there's a There's one panel where she's in between the two. yeah, between human and bird form. Yeah, looking like a fucking animorph. This is good. Really good characterizations. of Alpha Flight rule and...
01:02:27
Speaker
This was a great issue. And they clearly are becoming a family. There's even a point. Oh, where you said so Colossus punches Sasquatch and it doesn't do anything. ah Cyclops yells to him across the battlefield. Like, you're not going to win this on strength alone. And then so Colossus is like, he's right. I got to think of my the moves that Cyclops got to remember the judo that I learned.
01:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, like very again, very familial. It it's so good, which is Cyclops is big thing, right? Judo.
01:02:57
Speaker
Is it? I thought that was him. and I might be making this up, but i for some reason I thought he was like highly trained in judo and that's what makes him such an effective hand-hand fighter. Have we read that before?
01:03:08
Speaker
I thought so. I could be wrong. I know judo was huge in like the late 60s, early 70s. All right. Yeah, Pat, I think I'm ready for you to move on to X-Men 122. Let's get into... wait. What's this?
01:03:26
Speaker
What? Power Man and Iron Fist, number 56 and 57? What's that doing here? The Scarab Sting and Pharaohs on Broadway.
01:03:37
Speaker
Oh, no, Pat. No. No, it can't be. It can't be. Oh, goodness. All right. Let's find out why we're reading Power Man and Iron Fist and...
01:03:50
Speaker
why it has something to do with pharaohs oh jesus christ mary joe duffy writer uh joe duffy she'll eventually write some x-men stuff but she was ah the an assistant editor for years and she's the one who put frank miller on daredevil when another a penciler suddenly moved to mexico okay i trevor von eden penciler you know trevor von eden matt Trevor Von Eden was DC Comics first black artist. He is the co-creator of Black Lightning.
01:04:27
Speaker
He also oh ah he got Lynn Varley her first comic job coloring on Batman Annual number eight, which he drew at the time was his girlfriend, but eventually married Frank Miller and became his colorist.
01:04:43
Speaker
And then he was also offered the job to pencil Batman year one, but turned it down. Interesting. It turned it down for David Mazzuccelli. That's right.
01:04:55
Speaker
Wow. That's wild. Okay. All right. Frank Springer, Inker, Tom Orzachowski, letterer, George Roussos, colorist, Alan Milgram, editor, and Jim Shooter, editor-in-chief.
01:05:07
Speaker
On the second issue here, we also have Iwatoneby as our letterer. Luke Cage and Danny Rand, a.k.a. Power Man and Iron Fist, are sparring in Danny's gym and he's as he's trying to teach Luke a new move.
01:05:20
Speaker
After taking jabs at Danny for his privileged life, Luke goes home to his derelict block and crummy apartment above a movie theater. The next day, with the help of their lawyer, Jaron Hogarth, who... Appears...
01:05:33
Speaker
yearss Yeah. Jaron Hogarth appearance. They open their new office for business heroes for hire in Manhattan. Though Luke worries that his old clients will be too nervous to leave the slums to visit a ritzy high rise.
01:05:49
Speaker
No time for that now, though, for their first clients are waiting. Professor Mary do of the Metropolitan Museum and a visiting doctor of archaeology from the Egyptian government. No, a man named Dr. Abdo.
01:06:06
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no. No. ah You can't. We can't.
01:06:17
Speaker
Thanks for doing that. my headphones Look, it's fine. Pat. This isn't OK. This isn't in the X-Men. This is a completely different writer who was an editor.
01:06:31
Speaker
We're not the X-Men. Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's some logic to this one. Maybe we're going to get some sort of origin story, some sort of motivation. Maybe we're not setting up the same bit we did last time we read about this guy.
01:06:46
Speaker
Power Man and Iron Fist's job is to guard the Tutankhamen exhibit at the Metro Museum. And on their first night, a bunch of henchmen-ass henchmen break in and try to steal the exhibit.
01:06:57
Speaker
After clobbering them, Professor Meridoux shows up and discovers that all the artifacts have been switched with fakes. So the two hit the pavement, investigating what the hell could have happened.
01:07:10
Speaker
After following some leads, they find themselves kicking in the door of Dr. Abdul's apartment, only to find a crouching living monolith inside, sitting all by himself in an empty apartment. What the hell is this?
01:07:24
Speaker
How long was he waiting for them to figure it out? Just... put In giant form, alone, in a just a huge apartment. huge empty apartment?
01:07:35
Speaker
What? but How big is this apartment that it can fit the living monolith? Why is he just crouching all alone there? Completely unfurnished, too. Yeah, he's just like, aha, you finally found me. Like, he's playing hide and What the fuck?
01:07:55
Speaker
The monolith tells him that he had already switched out the artifacts when he hired them and sent his men to fail so Power Man and Iron Fist would be the suspects when the fakes were discovered.
01:08:07
Speaker
That's what. you this What is this plan? I know we've been frustrated with his plans before, Matt, but... yeah it how if he has the artifacts why does he he has the artifacts or if he's already hiring people to rob the place you've got your alibi there they those people stole all the stuff yeah you don't why hire iron fist and power man why don't just have them break in and if they get caught a well and if they don't get caught then they stole the that's what's gonna be the assumption you already have the artifacts
01:08:49
Speaker
Confused. and And all this does is gives him the opportunity to get discovered, which he does. Yeah. But in monolith form.
01:09:01
Speaker
hate this guy. Confused, but not for all the reasons he should be. Danny pulls Cage aside to explain that he recently met Havoc in a stint with the Defenders and knows that this shouldn't be able to happen unless Havoc is dead or in some weird crystal cage.
01:09:18
Speaker
He told him that? Oh, hey, my name's Alex. i If you keep me in a crystal coffin, there's a man that grows really big.
01:09:31
Speaker
Is that your power? No. They're just sitting, drinking Hulk's bad coffee, talking about this time that Havoc got kidnapped by the living Pharaoh.
01:09:46
Speaker
Monoliths. gloats that he's already taken care of Mary do and that they'll never know where he's hiding the artifacts or how he can wield the power cosmic. Sorry. i mean, cosmic power without involving havoc.
01:09:59
Speaker
It's like a toddler. Ha ha. You'll never know where I hid them. I've been crouching here for three weeks waiting for you. So Power Man and Iron Fist charge him.
01:10:12
Speaker
Monolith easily slaps them aside and then stands up to his full height, shattering the apartment complex and burying the boys under rubble. That is also a great moment because he's like, you'll never find where I've hidden the artifacts. No, ah or...
01:10:28
Speaker
figure out how I wielded the cosmic power without involving the X-Men. And it's like, they immediately charge him as if to say, nobody tells us we'll never know where the artifacts are or how to wield the power cosmic without involving the X-Men. Come on, Luke, let's go get him.
01:10:44
Speaker
I read it and ah you truthfully, this is what I love about this era of Iron Fist or Power Man and Iron Fist is yeah I'm pretty sure it's just a, we don't care.
01:10:56
Speaker
he's like, ah but how did I, how did I learn to wield this power without Alex Summers? And they're just like, I don't give a fuck, man. Yeah.
01:11:12
Speaker
ah At that very moment as their apartment crumbles or as the apartment crumbles around them, Cyclops, Storm and Nightcrawler are walking with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight on their way to the new Heroes for Hire offices when they see the monolith explode from the building.
01:11:30
Speaker
Ah, the age old X-Men tradition to go visit Iron Fist after a giant adventure. Well, so it seems to me like they yeah first stopped in New York to to drop Colleen and Misty off.
01:11:46
Speaker
But this begs the question, like, I guess Misty was here before and was just kind of in the background. She wasn't really involved in the Alpha Flight story. but Sure. and Have she and Scott still not spoken about the fact that Gene, the love of his life, is still alive?
01:12:05
Speaker
Yeah. They got that you got through that whole plane. where Misty notices
01:12:14
Speaker
that Scott and Colleen, or sorry, somebody notices that Scott and Colleen get close. Misty's on that same flight. She's on the plane. sees him flirting with her and knows that is still alive. She sees Colleen.
01:12:26
Speaker
She sees Colleen falling asleep on his shoulder in the plane. Why wouldn't she something? They're cuddling on the couch. Oh, Scott. what Yeah. what happened with the What happened with Gina? just saw her at the airport like a month ago.
01:12:39
Speaker
Yeah. du Maybe she just feels awkward. Maybe she thinks they broke up and she's like, oh, I shouldn't ask Gina about Scott at the airport. Such a tragic and mistake to make to try to be polite.
01:12:52
Speaker
Yeah. Cyclops has to have mentioned like, I'm still getting over Jesus. He has to have said, how did he not say to Misty, hey, one of your closest friends.
01:13:04
Speaker
uh your roommate is dead right they're in did they not stop by her apartment he doesn't that would prompt scott to say oh by the way um you're gonna be even if he's being fucking scott summers and cold about it at least he'd be like oh so oh yeah by the way you have to figure out some other rent arrangement because uh yeah well maybe your roommate is dead maybe that's just it maybe he was like hey misty uh ah
01:13:32
Speaker
I know Jean was a friend. I'm sorry that she's gone. And the last time Misty saw her was her saying, I'm out of here. I'm leaving New York. This is all too much for me. I got to go back home for a little while.
01:13:43
Speaker
And so if Scott's not actually using the words dead, she's like, wow, he's he must be really be broken up about this. But Scott has, but how would Misty know unless Scott tells her?
01:13:57
Speaker
So why is he not telling her about this? Yeah. Yeah. boys Why? yeah They just need to talk to each other. It's ridiculous. It it would not have. It would not have not happened is the thing.
01:14:10
Speaker
Anyway. Anyway. cyclops thinking of havoc immediately orders the x-men to attack when misty scolds him that their first priority should be to look for survivors so scott sends aurorroov to follow the monolith while the others scour the rubble cyclops tries to blast through the rubble in the doorway only to be lectured by misty again about potentially harming any survivors however before they can find a solution the doorway blasts open from the inside power man and ironf f emerge
01:14:41
Speaker
unharmed. After some hugging and kissing and introductions cage comfort Scott by telling him what Abdul said about not involving havoc. The X-Men decided to go after monolith while the heroes for hire begrudgingly decide to hit the streets again and track down the artifacts.
01:14:59
Speaker
The boys started the embassy after iron fist remembered havoc, told him he was held hostage there. They really got into it. It's like, tell me more.
01:15:09
Speaker
Yeah. Which embassy did they hold you at? Inside, they find a bunch of bunkies and kick their asses.
01:15:18
Speaker
The first one, the first one they run, it just opens the like, ah what do you call that? The hole in the door that you can talk through? yeah, yeah, yeah. The little slot. You can just see his face. He looks just like Ed Asner.
01:15:34
Speaker
and he just says, you're not allowed in here. And that's enough for Power Man and Iron Fist at a foreign embassy. To say we're breaking in and taking everybody out of this place.
01:15:50
Speaker
It's an international incident. Anyway, inside, they do find a bunch of bunkies, kick their asses, then find a room with a bunch of artifacts and some new crystal pyramid thing that glows when they turn the lights off.
01:16:03
Speaker
There's a great shot of a great paddle of Iron Fist just flicking the light switch on and off and stroking his chin like he's in the orange.
01:16:15
Speaker
They grab the pyramid, head out to find the other artifacts and missing archaeologists. Meanwhile, the X-Men seem to be doing little more than slightly annoying the monolith when he suddenly feels a disturbance as Iron Fist touches the crystal pyramid.
01:16:27
Speaker
Also, Storm saves some character we haven't mentioned because who cares? They're really concerned about this character that doesn't play any part in the story. Doesn't, has no, it's like, oh, she can expose him. He's a giant towering monster. Pretty sure he's exposed.
01:16:45
Speaker
As Power Man and Iron Fist are searching the city, they see a bunkie dressed in their usual spirit Halloween ancient Egyptian costume driving an armored car and obviously know that's where the stuff is.
01:16:57
Speaker
Oh, it's right there. Oh, it's right there. This is the second time they have gotten caught this way. By just refusing to take off their Egyptian headdresses loud as they drive a modern truck through the streets of New York.
01:17:12
Speaker
ah they They have to have said, oh, remember when Ahmed got caught by driving that ambulance and Spider-Man was just like, oh, there he is. So we probably shouldn't do that anymore. And then this guy is like,
01:17:28
Speaker
I'm going fucking do it. Nobody tells me not to wear my headdress. They can't tell me to take the headdress off. They kick the truck driver's ass and break open the cab to find Professor Meridue stuffed into King Tut's sarcophagus.
01:17:41
Speaker
Gross. Meridue tells them that they they brought Abdel in to consult on the Crystal Pyramid, which okay I guess is called the Cheops Crystal. Okay.
01:17:53
Speaker
I love a good bag of Cheops. And he is using it to draw the power of himself and the two other archaeologists who are also stuffed in coffins somewhere.
01:18:04
Speaker
He doesn't need Alex Summers anymore. He could just pull power from guys. Yeah, if you get three archaeologists, it equals one mutant. And if you put them yeah far enough away in the city of New York from each other. Inside an ancient sarcophagi.
01:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. Iron Fist calls the police and tells them to find the other guys while he and Cage heads to fight the monolith. Another thing I love about Power Man and Iron Fist is they just they get most of the way to wrapping things up. And then they say, you know, we're not actually getting paid for the rest of this. The police will take care of it. This was because luke Cage wanted to fight monolith.
01:18:43
Speaker
yeah He was like, ah, they're going to beat him up before we get there. Just have the police do it. They wander off to find and fight the monolith just as the monolith has grabbed Storm and the MacGuffin character.
01:18:56
Speaker
He's about to squeeze them to death when he suddenly falls. Luke Cage had grabbed him by the foot and just flopped him onto the ground. And saying, I'll do it again.
Mission Conclusion and Comic History
01:19:08
Speaker
At that moment, his strength suddenly leaves him and he's back to little Professor Abdole. The X-Men and the Hero for Hires wrap it all up as Iron Fist destroys the Priceless Chop's Crystal. No. And Luke Cage invites the mutants to come party.
01:19:24
Speaker
no The end. and No, Pat. They did it again. This is the third time. Talk through it, This is... This is the third time they've done this to this. No, Pat, what is his plan? He's just walking around. just becomes a big guy and walks around. That's all he ever does. He's just walking down Fifth Avenue.
01:19:47
Speaker
He doesn't do anything. Who is this guy? He's appeared history in 56 years, Pat. He's appeared in 27 comics.
01:20:02
Speaker
We've read nearly half of them and we know fuck all about. I'm fucking fed up with this. That he is, you remember earlier in the episode when you added the ah Living Pharaoh graphic novel to our collection?
01:20:19
Speaker
I'm so fucking mad. I fucking, Pat, no, this can't, I need a fucking break. That sucks. That
01:20:32
Speaker
Did you mean to hit the soundboard when you threw your headphones down? Because it went, the Cyclops. Oh, it hit the mouse.
01:20:47
Speaker
Oh, it's just, I can't. He's so, he loves shoving people in coffins. We know that's one of his interests. Okay. I'm sweating. I'm drenched with sweat. It really seems like he just wants to get big.
01:21:03
Speaker
Like that is his end game for him. Cause he was perfectly happy walking around New York as a giant. He didn't say anything. Like, he didn't even state a goal.
01:21:16
Speaker
He was just walking and around. I'll say, okay, he doesn't appear in anything again until 1985. You keep saying stuff like this, and it keeps not being true. Okay, I'm reading.
01:21:32
Speaker
There's a really good website called the Complete Marvel Reading Order, and you can look up any character and see all the appearances they have. in six one In 616.
01:21:43
Speaker
for Professor Abdul, the living monolith, it is, yeah Power Man and Iron Fist, 1979. And then Marvel Graphic Novel, 1985. And then, apparently that wasn't inspiring to anybody because he doesn't appear again until 1997.
01:22:04
Speaker
Wild that they would pull him back out. 12 later in a spider-man comic uh well we're not reading that oh boy all right jesus christ it makes me so he also just he loves shoving people in cost uh coffins it's just the same story over and over again it really is just he gets big and then he gets smaller and he can't do anything when he gets smaller
01:22:36
Speaker
It seems like the whole point of this was, hey, we have to divorce that guy from Havoc because we can't have this hanging over us. And we have to bring him back.
01:22:48
Speaker
ah Well, again, like we said last time, like we do have to bring him back if he is that tied to a main or like a B-list Marvel character. Yeah, yeah.
01:23:01
Speaker
But now that he's not, now yeah we can forget about him back for six years. Six years doesn't seem long enough, but that's fine. there's all right There's a really good moment the beginning when Danny is trying to teach Luke a few karate moves.
01:23:17
Speaker
And ah Luke loses the fight very quickly. He's very cocky about it because he's big and strong. But ah Iron Fist is a good enough martial artist to just take him down.
01:23:28
Speaker
and Then says like, hey, Luke, we're training here for a reason. Like, you should be able to handle this move. And he says, oh you just ah caught me off guard is all you caught me with me your guard down. And Iron Fist says, Luke, you attacked me.
01:23:44
Speaker
very funny. very They also have a friend in this ah comic called Lieutenant Scarf. towards Anyway. and Also, before we move on, it bears repeating.
01:23:56
Speaker
It is really just a special, special thing that the X-Men, every time they get home from a long, painful journey, immediately go visit Iron Man. He's family to these guys.
01:24:12
Speaker
All right. Matt. Anyway. Yeah. Let's move on.
X-Men's Return and Personal Growth
01:24:16
Speaker
I want to. Can we get back to the X-Men? i I would really love to. I'm going to go. ah i'm gonna you know what I'm going to do? I'm going sit here. I'm to tell you about Uncanny X-Men number 122. Cry for the Children.
01:24:32
Speaker
Chris Claremont and John Byrne are the creators. Terry Austin is the inker. Tom Morsekowski is the letterer. Glynis Ween, colors. Roger Stern, editor.
01:24:43
Speaker
Jim Shooter, editor. ver for Released March 20th, 1979. The X-Men are home! And it seems as if it's been abandoned.
01:24:56
Speaker
Banshee and Nightcrawler work on the Blackbird, trying to get it running after it's been sitting and gathering dust for months. Professor X and Lalandra are gone, and the mansion has fallen into disrepair.
01:25:09
Speaker
Cyclops talks to Colleen Wing, his apparent new girlfriend. Yeah, guess he's moved on. And I guess she's staying at the mansion um about the situation, and he worries about Professor X. But first...
01:25:24
Speaker
do you think the Do you think the rest of the X-Men are like, dude, she's got to start paying rent if she's going to be living here. Like if she's just over three nights a week, that's one thing.
01:25:36
Speaker
one But first, Pat. The issue opens with Colossus testing his strength in the danger room by standing in the middle of a giant hydraulic press and complaining about he how he can't do it.
01:25:50
Speaker
After a short talk with Cyclops about Colossus' insecurities, Wolverine turns up the pressure, destroys the controls, and hops into the hydraulic press himself. The motivation of not wanting to see his little buddy squished inspires Colossus to push himself to his limits and utterly destroy this presumably overwhelmingly expensive machine.
01:26:15
Speaker
Cyclops hands Wolverine a toolkit and sends him off to repair the control panel.
01:26:21
Speaker
Out in space, believing the X-Men to be dead, Charles x Xavier looks with anxiety as his girlfriend, Lalandra, is finally crowned empress. In Scotland, Jean has just finished shopping in town when a handsome Englishman named Jason want Wingard bumps into her and offers her a hand.
01:26:42
Speaker
She declines and meets Moira and the gang, including a return to Alex and Lorna. Hey, yeah. For a boat ride back to Muir Island. As they sail away, she locks eyes over the water with Wingard, whose shadow doesn't quite match his shape.
01:27:00
Speaker
Hmm. That's weird. That is weird. I actually didn't pick up on that. Huh. Interesting. It's interesting. In Salem Center, New York, Scott and Colleen grab lunch. Scott worries about money and whether or not he's too stuffy of a dude for her.
01:27:17
Speaker
But as he sees her off on the train, she leaves him and with her apartment key. This is not a healthy conversation. Scott is pouring his damn heart out. He's like, look, this is these are the complaints that the team has about me. Is this something I need to address? And she's just like, you should smile more, sweetheart.
01:27:40
Speaker
That is the sole piece of advice she has for him. Just be happy. he asks if He asks her if she's if he's stuffy. And she's like like, King Tut's tomb.
01:27:52
Speaker
you That's in bad taste after what you just went through. It is. this is So King Tut is all the rage at this time. Yeah, I know. he like They just discovered him. he They just moved him to New York. Yeah, yes yeah.
01:28:06
Speaker
But yeah, they haven't even left New York City yet. And she's making references. Yeah. I love Colleen Wynn. She's not good for his consulners. No, definitely not. He needs somebody who's a little more nurturing, a little more mothering. Maybe that's unfortunate.
01:28:22
Speaker
or But at this point in his life, I'd say anyway.
01:28:28
Speaker
In the city, Wolverine drops Aurora off in a rough part of town and then glimpses Mariko Yoshida in the side view mirror of the X-Men's Rolls Royce.
01:28:40
Speaker
Following her to a hotel and leaving his car just in the middle of the fucking road. ah He is shut out of the of the hotel and denied entry. There's no time for that now.
01:28:53
Speaker
Storm, meanwhile, walks the streets of Harlem, depressed about how it doesn't live up to her memory and her father's stories. Chasing her memories of childhood, she wanders into her parents' old apartment, only to find that it has become a flop house for heroin addicts.
01:29:08
Speaker
One kid named Bluey, not that Bluey. No, not that one. Tries to mug her and she breaks his wrist. She does something that hurts him a lot with his wrist, which sets everyone else off.
01:29:21
Speaker
They all come at her with knives and cut her hand to the bone. So she whips up a windstorm and flings them all backwards. There's such a strange... but I think you pointed this out, that but...
01:29:34
Speaker
where one of them is like, everybody, knives! And they're all, all these, these folks who were in the peak high of a heroin experience stand up, whip out their knives, and start fighting like trained crew.
01:29:52
Speaker
Yeah, but this is Plan k um While she's distracted ah whipping up a windstorm, Bluey sneaks up behind her and is about to drive a knife into her back. No.
01:30:05
Speaker
When Luke Cage appears and slams the kid into a wall. He and Misty Knight were walking by when they heard about a woman of Aurora's description wandering around and saw her storm through the windows.
01:30:19
Speaker
So they ran up to lend a hand. Aurora despairs about how young these kids are. And Luke tells her about how these kids are raised with no advantages in life, no schooling or money or job prospects.
01:30:31
Speaker
And so heroin and crime are their only recourse. And then the state puts more funds into prisons and social programs, which deepens the cycle. It ends on a dour note as Cage tells Aurora that as superheroes, there's nothing they can do.
01:30:48
Speaker
It is. yeah So she's walking through Harlem and this is i not a great time for Harlem. Right. it Right. you It went through what the all the way up through the 60s. It was the the Harlem that gets romanticized a lot. Obviously, it still had its issues, but it was a cultural center.
01:31:12
Speaker
In the seventy s thanks to a few different issues, it really plummeted. And right around this time is when they started the revitalization efforts. But in about two years, Ronald Reagan will take office and put a stop to all of that and keep Harlem as a slum for another 20 twenty years Yeah, he didn't read this comic where Luke Cage pretty succinctly lays out what economic disadvantage does and lays out how we can't blame individuals for their behavior as much as the systems that put them in these predicaments. Yeah, yeah and
01:31:50
Speaker
And how important it is to have social programs to help people. In 1979. Yeah. Yeah, really good shit. Really, really good shit. Before the issue ends, however, we get a story prologue where aboard a fancy private jet, the world's most expensive assassin is taking a meeting with Juggernaut and Black Tom.
Arcade's Elaborate Death Traps
01:32:13
Speaker
The two friends bicker as a a Miss Locke assures them and her employer will be with them in a second. turns out the two are hiring an assassin to kill the x-men that's so funny okay sorry i didn't i hadn't in my head recognized how funny it is that these two they're still in full costume and that they're like they're like those those x-men we can't beat them up let's hire an assassin to beat them up for us
01:32:45
Speaker
Go kill him for us. ah Anyway, it turns out they're hiring a sat an assassin to kill the X-Men, and the assassin's name is Arcade. I've heard this name. oh because you were reading um Marvel Team-Up back when Peter Parker was roommates with Captain Britain.
01:33:03
Speaker
No, but it is wild to me to learn that Arcade is originally Spider-Man villain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ah He shows up a lot in Excalibur later because it's he hates Captain Britain.
01:33:18
Speaker
Okay. For being, I guess, the first person to ever escape his trap. in Yeah. This is just kind of like a catch-up issue. Yeah, sure. This like, here's what everybody's up to. Here's a fight in a heroin den just to give you some action. But really, just want to let you know where everybody's at.
01:33:38
Speaker
Also, love a whiny Wolverine. Where he doesn't... Scott's like, you're going to be fixing that console you broke. And Wolverine's like, oh, but I was going to plan on going the Tosche station to pick up some power converters. I'm just going to go out and have some fun.
01:34:00
Speaker
It is whiny. I love just the... Again, this is what I love about X-Men comics. There's no stakes here. It's just them getting home. Agreed.
01:34:11
Speaker
And it's good. Good Wolverine cruising around in a Rolls Royce. Pretty cool. Yeah, definitely. It's weird. They never really follow up on that Wolverine being shut out of the like that doesn't.
01:34:25
Speaker
Yeah. Next time we see him, he's just on a date with her. Right. Yeah, exactly. There's just no. yeah this doesn't This doesn't really go anywhere. Also, we couldn't get through the issue without chris Chris Claremont jerking off about airplanes. Like, it's in the it's in the very last two pages. Suddenly...
01:34:45
Speaker
Arcade, of course, has to be on top of like on board an airplane. A very specific type of airplane. what is Exactly. That is doing some very specific things across the ah the seaboard.
01:34:58
Speaker
It's airplane stuff. i don't I don't remember what it actually is because we let the pilots deal with that. So apparently, so Arcade was first, first appeared about two years earlier in Marvel team up again with Spider-Man Captain Britain, um but was created by Claremont and Byrne.
01:35:17
Speaker
um And okay Claremont wanted him based on Malcolm McDowell in a Clockwork Orange. Okay. But for some reason gave him a Texas accent.
01:35:29
Speaker
He's got a Texas accent? Yeah, he's like Foghorn Leghorn. Oh, I was like, I say, you play, you play satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. I was reading him as like British, like Welsh maybe or Scottish. Oh, no, he's, he's, well, he says in the next issue that he was born in Beverly Hills, but in some other.
01:35:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah. he He changes his origin story all the time. So no one knows what's true about him. No one knows anything about this guy. No one even knows his real name. and Yeah. Well, should we ah should we find out what happens with this guy Or maybe that's not even where we're going. so Let's just bullshit for a little longer. Yeah, yeah.
01:36:10
Speaker
what no okay What are you getting up to this weekend? All right. Yeah, tell me about X-Men 123. Uncanny X-Men 123, Matt. Listen. That's not what I asked for. Listen.
01:36:22
Speaker
Stop me if you've heard it. But this one will kill you.
01:36:27
Speaker
What dumb name. Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin production aided and abetted by Tom Orr's letterer, Glynis Ween colorist, Roger Stern editor, and Jim Schroeder editor. and drew You know who Tom Orrzakowski is. You don't have to say Tom Orrz. They list it as Tom Orrz. I'm reading the credits in the comic book. Like we should be doing every time we recap an issue.
01:36:50
Speaker
yeah cap an issue When did this come out? If you were listening to me, Matt, you would have caught that I said crap instead of recap and you could have capitalized on it. um Release date, April 17th, 1979. Cover date, July 1979.
01:37:05
Speaker
Spider-Man is swinging across Manhattan, fretting that he's too broke for the date he's already on his way to. On his way, he says a quick hello to Colleen and Scott, who are out on a date.
01:37:16
Speaker
As he heads A lot of dating. As he heads out, though, he hears a familiar sflang. And determines it could only be Arcade the Assassin using a rigged garbage truck to capture and gas Colleen and Scott.
01:37:32
Speaker
Oh, that's what that slang was. He runs off to warn the X-Men. I know the sound of a rigged garbage truck ah which captures and gases people that is run by Arcade the Assassin.
01:37:45
Speaker
it Sounds like I forgot how the sentence started.
01:37:51
Speaker
Peter and Kurt are on a double date to the opera. They're offered special box seats, which turns out to actually just be a box, a steel one that quickly fills with knockout gas.
01:38:02
Speaker
ah How disappointed is Colossus that this didn't turn into the foursome of his dreams? I know. He's like, oh cut to as he's passing out. Cut to Wolverine, leaving an enjoyable date with Mary Co., thinking about love as a menacing garbage truck creeps up behind It's in the shadows.
01:38:26
Speaker
Cut to Xavier Mansion. The phone rings and Sean Cassidy goes to answer, but is shot in the back with a tranquilizer gun. Storm, annoyed that the phone is still ringing, goes to answer, but it meets the same fate.
01:38:39
Speaker
We see a gloved hand answer the phone. It's Spider-Man calling from a phone booth, and we see Arcade tease Spidey from the X-Men's phone and promise him the X-Men will die. Spider-Man destroys the phone booth in anger.
01:38:54
Speaker
Oh, Spider-Man! That was their only phone booth. It's going to take the city forever to replace that thing. Dang it. It is very. This is the extent of Spider-Man's appearance in the comic.
01:39:06
Speaker
Extremely funny that the cover brags featuring Spider-Man. and Why doesn't he do it? He's this is one of his things that now these days where he's just like, oh, that sounds boring. I'm not going to. All he does is call the X-Men.
01:39:25
Speaker
It's like I've already fought arcade. i'm i'm i'm fine I'm good. We find Scott Summers coming to you in the dark. He's in some sort of lucite sphere and suddenly in costume.
01:39:36
Speaker
The lights come on and we see all of the X-Men contained in these plasticine orbs in full gear. Oh, great. somebody Somebody undressed the X-Men again.
01:39:48
Speaker
And then put them in little plastic orbs. Okay. No, don't think that's happened. In the control room, Miss Locke informs Arcade that the X-Men are awake and the fun can begin.
01:40:01
Speaker
Suddenly, the X-Men are shot by a spring into a giant pinball machine, ricocheting back and forth between bumpers so quickly and violently that they can't get their bearings to use their powers.
01:40:14
Speaker
Each orb eventually rolls into a separate hole, plunging each X-Man into their own private nightmare. Scott is shown three doors and has to choose one before moving the moving walls close in on him.
01:40:28
Speaker
Peter is interrogated by a KGB agent, accusing him of being a traitor while hypnotic lights dance behind his head. Wolverine finds himself in a hall of distorted mirrors and all his distorted reflections are turned into androids ready to fight him.
01:40:43
Speaker
Kurt finds himself locked in a room with bumper cars with buzz saws attached to them. Banshee is put in a World War II battle simulator, and then they try to drown Storm.
01:40:54
Speaker
in this is how does arcade know so much about the x-men's inner lives like like this is this is based on the x-men's like right first it's cyclops being paralyzed by choice like his choice to leave the x-men or stay with the x-men and to be with colleen or gene right like his he he keeps coming across these choices and being paralyzed by them peter is terrified that he's betraying his home and his family by staying with the X-Men and developing this new family. yeah
01:41:29
Speaker
Wolverine is terrified of his own sense of self-identity. Who is he? Is he an animal? Is he a man? Banshee is worried that he's too old and too slow to keep up with like the younger his younger days where he was a man of action.
01:41:45
Speaker
Storm is both powerless and claustrophobic at the same time. And Nightcrawler is afraid ah of cars with buzz saws.
01:41:58
Speaker
Why does Nightcrawler just get stuck in a room with a bunch of bumper cars? It's like Arcade was like, yeah, I don't know this. guy I don't know what this guy's. But how does Arcade know any of this? This is all stuff that's like deeply inside their brains and they often don't talk about. Yeah. You know? Well, man does his research.
01:42:19
Speaker
in In their brains. So in instead of choosing a door, Cyclops discovers that he can just shoot through the walls and he ends up inan Wolverine's nightmare.
01:42:30
Speaker
They beat up the androids together. But before they can move on, Wolverine gets decked by Colossus in bright red overalls bearing... They really wanted to send a clear message here.
01:42:41
Speaker
Bright red overalls bearing the letters CCCP, a hammer and sickle, and Lennon's head. He's calling himself the Proletarian, and his mission is to smash the X-Men.
01:42:54
Speaker
Arcade watches from his control room and laughs. To be continued. Proletarian's an adjective. It's not a fucking... It's not a It's proletariat. Proletarian is something that is of or like the proletariat.
01:43:08
Speaker
That's very true. This is like my my football fact from earlier. I talk about, you talk about sports and I talk about the social sciences and we bore each other. Arcade, how do you feel about him?
01:43:19
Speaker
He, so here, he seems really creepy at first. He's like an eccentric, almost like a traveling salesman type assassin.
01:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then he puts them in a giant pinball machine.
01:43:39
Speaker
Why did he have to do he's an assassin? Why didn't he? i i guess these are his motivations. But like, you would think that Juggernaut and Black Tom are probably pretty pissed. They paid a lot of money.
01:43:55
Speaker
Yeah, I and when how does he have space for this stuff? Who builds it for him? That then like keeps a secret forever? This would take a crew of, like, several dozen workers months to build, and then it would take a dozen engineers to run, and it appears to be just be three people.
01:44:14
Speaker
and i One guy who's just laughing. Yeah. I think they explain that he, like, inherited an amusement park or something.
01:44:25
Speaker
yeah I think he just made ah inherited a lot of money, and then he built it. Okay. But he... I mean we'll talk about it next issue, but yeah, he just like, he built this thing with his vast fortune, but still, how does nobody notice it?
01:44:39
Speaker
How did nobody, none of the... Where did he get these permits? Yeah, how none of the, like, the workers go like, yeah, I had to build, like, a big spiked ball that drops out of the ceiling? I don't...
01:44:52
Speaker
The thing about Arcade, and granted, this is our first time seeing him, but the thing about Arcade is it's just the same plot every single time. Oh, i captured you and maybe some hostages, and now you gotta survive my death traps!
01:45:05
Speaker
And it's like, okay, and this is what comic books have been doing to superheroes, and it was it was boring in the nineteen free Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And apparently...
01:45:17
Speaker
Captain Britain and Spider-Man have already escaped this man. Exact one. Like, right? Is he, is he successful? Is there, are there comics where he does kill someone?
01:45:31
Speaker
No. yeah I mean, I think every now and then, like, he'll kill non-superpowered people every now and then. i haven't seen sometimes, like, the beginning of an issue, it'll be like, ah this guy's dead All right.
01:45:45
Speaker
Got to clean up real quick to to make room for the X-Men. And then they escape every time. So he's just putting regular people through this stuff, too? Like, he's just putting... in is if he If somebody put a hit out on me, he would put me in this giant pinball machine.
01:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, what well, yeah, what would your nightmare scenario be? You'd be attacked by birds. Attacked by birds, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What would mine be? No one likes you. would just be a bunch of people telling you that they don't like you.
01:46:16
Speaker
I don't want that. But then you would come out in a pair of bright red overalls and kick ass. So... when Wolverine's walking down the street and he's talking about how he's in love with Mariko. And ah he mentions this is the second time in three issues that he's mentioned Cracklin Rosa. Okay.
01:46:41
Speaker
Who when he was in Alberta, he was like he mentioned, oh, maybe I should go see Cracklin Rosa or maybe I've put those days behind me. Right, right, right. And it's clear that she's a sex worker. Oh.
01:46:52
Speaker
So I looked into it. was like, why the fuck do we ever meet Cracklin' Rosa in a Marvel comic? or like This is the second time he's mentioned her. So there's a Neil Diamond song called Cracklin' Rosie, which is a song about being in love with a sex worker.
01:47:12
Speaker
And... The song is named after a type of Canadian wine, and it was inspired by ah ah a story that Neil Diamond apparently heard about a native tribe in the Toronto area. So it's got all these fucking...
01:47:28
Speaker
fucking connections yeah but this moment exactly to the moment where wolverine was walking down the street and then yeah it's just very it's weird that is weird yeah i will say for as kind of stupid as the villain plot is here john burn nails the pinball machine art like I don't know how i I know how he probably found some pictures, but like for him to see the detail of a pinball machine this way in the way that he draws it out is just it's cool. It's psychedelic. It's very carnival fun house.
01:48:08
Speaker
And he's the right guy to handle it. Yeah, though he does draw circuit boards on like everything, which is a thing that comics do a lot. And it made me, as a kid, think that electronics were a lot more complicated than they actually are. Like where the plunger is. it's a simple like The plunger of a pin pinball a a machine is as simple of a machine as you think it is.
01:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But John Byrne draws it with ah circuit boards just all over Yeah, several circuit boards to to get this screen to go. um Honestly, i kind of like this look for Peter.
01:48:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. The bright red overalls. I think it's his current costume just doesn't do justice to how like how jacked his lower half is. He is like this is showing off his hips, it's showing off his thighs.
01:49:10
Speaker
Yeah, he's got a nice butt popping out. And hey, he's a Marxist. what that That's fine. why why why Why be ashamed of it? Yeah, it is, again, it's it's a little performative to have the hammer and sickle and CCCP and Lenin's head all there at once, but... Yeah, I mean, it's not like a Lenin... It's not like a Leninism, but hey...
01:49:36
Speaker
I, you know, him calling himself the pro. I don't like and that he's the proletarian. i wish he was the proletariat. I think that would be a better name. and And then I'd be like, yeah, I'm on board. Hey, Marxism's pretty cool. He's having his moment.
01:49:52
Speaker
All right, Pat, do you want to hear about the last issue that we're talking about today? It's called the Uncanny X-Men 124. He only laughs when I hurt or do you not want to hear about it? I want to hear about it.
01:50:04
Speaker
Chris Claremont and John Byrne are co-plotters. Terry Austin is the inker. Tom Morzikowski is the letterer. Glynis Ween is the colorist. Roger Stern is the editor. in decision Release date, May 15th, 979.
01:50:17
Speaker
What? Did you notice that in the last issue, just for one issue, it was Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin collaborating?
01:50:29
Speaker
And he must have done something wrong because now in this issue, we're back to Chris Claremont and John Byrne collaborating, Terry Austin doing inks. ah Yeah, man. i don't Look, I don't know the politics between these guys. May 1979. Cover date, August 1979. Arcade is laughing. Wolverine and Cyclops are facing their potential dooms at the hand of a brainwashed Colossus and Arcade is laughing?
01:50:57
Speaker
Great. Colleen wing trapped with Amanda Sefton and Betsy something in big, weird present boxes with just their heads poking out yells at arcade. Such a strange scene.
01:51:10
Speaker
Like, I guess that's just his punishment for them is wrapping them up like gifts. Right. And then like, it doesn't really make sense why he needs hostages here. Yeah, he doesn't. Right.
01:51:25
Speaker
He doesn't know. ah In response, he kisses her and tells her his life story. He was a spoiled rich kid. Which one would ah upset you more?
01:51:37
Speaker
If you're ah wrapped up in a present and somebody's like, I'm going to kiss you ah without your consent and I'm going to tell you my life story. Kiss me. Kiss me twice. Kiss me three times. Please, please don't tell me your I hear about your spoiled childhood.
01:51:52
Speaker
He was a spoiled rich kid, 21 years old in Beverly Hills. so Why does he have a Texas accent? When his dad cut off his allowance, so he blew him up with a car bomb, after which he became a renowned hitman and used his fortune to build Murder World.
01:52:09
Speaker
That's clever. A massive amusement park made for killing anyone who enters it. He pivoted to hunting superheroes when he was hired to kill Spider-Man and Captain Britain, and they beat him. And now he's getting all horned up watching the X-Men try to do the same. Idiot.
01:52:26
Speaker
Colossus, who is now calling himself the proletarian, an adjective, is accusing the X-Men of turning him against the USSR and threatening to kill them. Wolverine leaps at him recklessly, forgetting Peter's speed, and gets thrown through a revolving door.
01:52:42
Speaker
The proletarian then grabs Cyclops and does the same, but feels overwhelmed with regret. He almost shakes off his brainwashing, but it kicks back in and he goes stomping off looking for the X-Men.
01:52:56
Speaker
Cyclops is now barreling down a fun slide when he skids into Nightcrawler's giant fishball chamber and saves him from a buzzsaw car. He runs to pick Kurt up off the ground when a half dozen other buzzsaw cars pop out.
01:53:10
Speaker
They begin to run, but then Cyclops decides to flip from defensive to offensive and using his super geometry brain, which seems to be a superpower, I guess. So cool.
01:53:22
Speaker
They talk about it like it's a superpower. They call it a unique inborn talent for spatial geometry. Yeah. Very. He takes every single car out with a single ricocheting blast.
01:53:34
Speaker
Sometimes I think I have that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A ah unique inborn talent for spatial geometry.
01:53:43
Speaker
Like I can. Okay. Can I can bounce a Super Bowl into the accurate nine buzzsaw cars? I think I could. Okay. All right. Well, we'll set it up. Yeah. yeah yeah We also what was the other thing we needed to do? Try and catch a ping pong ball in a peach basket or something? Oh, yeah. We got to see that's actually hard or not.
01:54:02
Speaker
Maybe it's a grape. Anyway, then he bursts Cyclops burst through the side of the fishbowl into the mechanisms of murder world. And he and Kurt decide to split up. Meanwhile, Wolverine has ended up in Banshee's room and they're both fighting futuristic Star Wars ripoff spaceships.
01:54:21
Speaker
Wolverine, however, can use his senses to tell which threats are real and which are illusions. So having the same idea as Cyclops, which is kind of cool, like they are separate and they make the same choice. Yeah, yeah.
01:54:34
Speaker
Yeah. um Having the same idea as Cyclops, he rushes to the wall and tears it open with his claws. However, carving into the maintenance tunnel, they find themselves immediately faced with robot duplicates of Magneto and the Hulk.
01:54:48
Speaker
Now, what's the point of a robot Magneto?
01:54:54
Speaker
It's the sick same thing we keep running. Are they duplicating the powers of these heroes? And then it in if so... What's unique about the heroes?
01:55:05
Speaker
Yeah, they're just fighting hand-to-hand with Magneto. Yeah, yeah. Karate fight. Wolverine is stoked to fight the Hulk, but Banshee is fucked as he can no longer use his sonic scream, a fact that Wolverine only just learns.
01:55:20
Speaker
But he's saved when a ruby red beam comes piercing through the room and Cyclops blasts the Magneto robot apart. Seconds later, though, the room begins filling with a deluge water.
01:55:33
Speaker
Uh-oh. oh As Arcade watches this chaos unfold, he is watched in turn by a partially invisible nightcrawler. Instead of hiding, though, he bamps into the control room, knocking Arcade off of his chair and stealing Miss Locke's laser rifle.
01:55:49
Speaker
He blasts the monitors apart with the rifle, only to be incapacitated when Mr. Chambers turns on a jet of knockout gas from the floor. Now, this time it makes sense that knockout gas is built in.
01:56:04
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. Storm, meanwhile, has been fighting for her life under her in her own chamber. She has been forced by a jet of air into the water, and when she kind came up for air, found the water level to have risen almost to the ceiling.
01:56:20
Speaker
Stripping off most of her clothing again, she dives underwater and follows the source of the flow, locating a pipe sealed with a grate. She then gets to work on creating a sustained arc of lightning that will loose the welding on the grate and allow her to escape before she runs out of air.
01:56:41
Speaker
Cut back to Cyclops, Banshee, and Wolverine who are being swept away in a torrent of water that leads them to a large chamber with an unconscious storm lying on the floor. Scott runs and makes out with her dead body. Sorry. Scott gives her CPR and she awakens just to see the proletarian barging into the room. and He slams Banshee in the face, punches Wolverine in the head, and then grabs Cyclops and Storm by their throats.
01:57:09
Speaker
Scott and Aurora begin pleading to him and telling him the X-Men are family, which snaps him out of it. And he's Colossus again.
X-Men's Escape and Ongoing Threats
01:57:19
Speaker
Seeing this, Arcade decides he's lost this game and wraps the X-Men up in a big pinball and shoots them out into a river in the Bronx ah aside an abandoned amusement park.
01:57:31
Speaker
He sends Colleen, Amanda, Betsy, and Kurt down in their little present boxes with parachutes attached and a note that says, Round one to you, X-Men. Till next time. Arcade.
01:57:42
Speaker
That's my Texas accent. Sure it is. They all decide that there's nothing they can do about it now. So they walk off into the sunset. the end.
01:57:52
Speaker
huh huh yeah this is also the last time we ever see betsy so presumably she goes home from this and it's like i'm not fucking hanging out with that guy anymore yeah yeah i'm not fucking hanging and amanda's like come on we're i'm going out with kurt again and she's like i'm not fucking going out anymore i'm not i'm not leaving my house period thank yeah we were that man tried to kill us
01:58:17
Speaker
He was major at making us watch all of our friends as he tried to kill them. Have you noticed since Christmas, our lives have gotten real fucked up? We were supposed to be at the opera.
01:58:33
Speaker
This is the like the fourth time we've gone out with these guys. And remember, we didn't hear from them for three months. And this is the fourth time we've gone out with them.
01:58:44
Speaker
And the second time we've almost been killed.
01:58:49
Speaker
No, the third time, because remember when they met them, they got attacked by sentinels. Right. It just, it's been since day one. So maybe. I'm not going out with that guy again.
01:59:01
Speaker
Come on, you survived the sentinels.
01:59:05
Speaker
I'm moving out of New York. I'm going back home to Minnesota. Okay. Oh, goodness. Just over the course of this episode.
01:59:18
Speaker
hu we see storm in her full costume and we now see that the sides like right around the hips up to where her ribs would start are gone that is just an empty circle now they justify it by saying like oh she hates all this stuffy clothing she would prefer to be as close to naked as possible i guess Yeah. Next issue, we see her take off her cape to capture Snowbird, like use it as a net.
01:59:52
Speaker
And yes, the same holes are there, but they're a bit bigger now. She's got a little less and it looks more like a yeah almost like a dominatrix outfit. She's got her black chest piece, her bra top or whatever you want to call it.
02:00:05
Speaker
And then there's a metal ring that connects it to a bottom piece of fabric that covers her bottom half. And yeah, so now it's not one piece anymore. It's two pieces joined by a metal ring to make it look a little more.
02:00:21
Speaker
So anyway, by the end of this, she's taken off her cape. She's taken off her boots so that she didn't drown. She's just wearing a bikini now.
02:00:32
Speaker
This is a new outfit.
02:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and she's so often just nude. like ah Like, we can't stress that enough. like it Yeah, not today, Matt. She wasn't nude in any of these comics. they were so They're so horny for her.
02:00:50
Speaker
There's a very funny moment after Cyclops brings her back with CPR. She goes, Cycloth.
02:01:03
Speaker
Cycloff. Arcade, man. So this issue was pretty dynamic. Like ah the way that all of their stories kind of collide is interesting. And I, for the sake of time, and um shuffled things around.
02:01:21
Speaker
So we weren't jumping back and forth so much. But this issue jumps back and forth a lot. And when they finally all come together, like it is pretty cool.
02:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, they stay we get some good character moments here. ah We get the discussion, the full official discussion about them feeling like they're a family.
02:01:42
Speaker
I also i think I don't know for a fact, but I think that this was the conclusion of Colossus's insecurities around not being good enough for the team.
02:01:56
Speaker
We'll find out. We'll find out, I guess. But it starts with Wolverine helping him conquer that fear. I think it's the because Arcade points out like, boy, this guy was actually pretty easy to brainwash for a hero.
02:02:09
Speaker
It seems like that is tied into his just lack of self-confidence right now. So hopefully him and as well as him missing his family and just being very homesick. So hopefully him recognizing the X-Men as the family that they are.
02:02:24
Speaker
is what's going to kind of snap him out of this and make him feel more a part of the team. Sure. That's my hope. I'm just going to leap into it before we get into Pat Steeles and Steeles. How do you feel about this whole chunk of issues?
02:02:40
Speaker
The first half of 1979. I think it's it's just fine, right? The Alpha Flight stuff is interesting. It's opening the world up a little more. I like that stuff a lot. i it's It's... a different use of the X-Men than we're kind of used to, right? There's big battle, but there's also big chatter.
02:03:02
Speaker
There's a lot of talking and a lot of like... Yeah. They're not fighting a villain. They're fighting a group of bumbling heroes. And then... Arcade is sort of the same. It's not like the traditional use of the X-Men until they start bursting through walls. They love doing that, but yeah they gets they're they they are in a death trap. It's been a long time since we've seen some sort of like classic villain death trap for the X-Men. And I think they sure they detail it really well. it's It's a very pretty issue to look at. And we haven't seen Arcade before, so we're not tired of him at this point.
02:03:38
Speaker
I think... This whole little, if we consider this an arc, again, the first half of 1979, this is just them pulling together as a family, right? It is, they have just been through hell together, right? They went, they were they were kidnapped and made to perform in a circus.
02:04:00
Speaker
And then upon being freed, were immediately kidnapped and thrown into a volcano. Right. And then thought think that Beast and Jean are dead.
02:04:14
Speaker
Journey to the Savage Land. On their way home, they got into a big fucking thing in Japan. Right. ah they got like They got like waylaid all the way to Japan.
02:04:26
Speaker
And then had to go through a big thing in Japan. Then on their way home again, they got grounded in ah and attacked in Alberta. Right. And then they finally make it home.
02:04:41
Speaker
who And they get attacked by, kidnapped by Arcade. But it's still like... As soon as, before they even get to the mansion, they across the living monolith. Exactly.
02:04:52
Speaker
So they these these six, these six have been through fucking hell together. And it's been it's been so long. It's been months since they've been home. Yeah. and Even longer than we've seen because we don't know how long they were. Remember when Beast got there, there was a pile of mail sitting on the floor. Right.
02:05:14
Speaker
They'd been in the circus for weeks. Yes, so they've been gone for maybe half a year. And they return to find everything gone.
02:05:26
Speaker
Yes. So this... each other as cliche as it is is all they have right everything else they've kind of lost um and or been separated from for a long time yeah yeah so no matter how much they hated each other going into this which i don't think was that much i think they were already starting to warm to each other yeah they were forming the bonds but you can't not love each other by now right Yeah, you've gone through hell together more than once in yeah the calendar the course of a calendar year.
02:06:03
Speaker
you yeah You formed a bond. Absolutely. It's like um they're like summer camp friends now.
02:06:13
Speaker
And in addition, i think another thing about this arc that is worth noting is just it's just the Wolverine show. Just back to front, up and down. Yes, very much so.
02:06:28
Speaker
i We love Wolverine.
02:06:33
Speaker
But yet. Yes. His claws are solving a lot of problems. And he's just front and center constantly, right? Like he's he's taking charge or he's the...
02:06:45
Speaker
catalyst of the conflict or, you know, yeah, he's just, he is the, he's the main character of the X-Men right now. Right. cyclop payment Cyclops. Cyclops is still yeah the clear leader, but Wolverine is clearly the fan favorite.
02:07:01
Speaker
And I would say, you know, like this is still a story about, I think like i heard, so I read somebody the other day say that X-Men is the story of Cyclops.
02:07:14
Speaker
And there's a lot. I don't think that's entirely true, but there is a lot of truth to it. And I think especially that's true at this part. But like at this point, it's the story of Cyclops and Wolverine.
02:07:25
Speaker
He's just I think he's the consistent piece through the X-Men, right? It's yeah. And the X-Men is. Right. And the X-Men is often centered around what what Cyclops is going through.
02:07:40
Speaker
Whatever Cyclops is going through mirrors with the X-Men are going through and vice versa. Yeah, sure. what are any any other Any other thoughts on this run, Matt? No, I don't think so. Maybe it's just because we're over two hours in, but I'm i'm feeling like I got it all out of me. I think we we probably talked enough.
02:08:00
Speaker
So i'm I'm thinking that maybe yeah that's all there is to it. But wait. you got eyeh out of the you buy out time you like try out a you e
02:08:18
Speaker
Wow. Wow. Big thanks to Krils Wilson for the new and shiny Pat's Steals and Deals theme in which he calls it Deals and Steals.
02:08:33
Speaker
So maybe we're changing the name. Yeah, maybe it's Deals and Steals now. Did we used to call it Deals and Steals and then slowly changed it? I have to listen to early episodes. I don't remember. why don't Why don't we have listeners go back and listen to early episodes and tell us? That's organic marketing.
02:08:50
Speaker
You're right. Do it. Yeah, somebody let us know. Pat's email quarter, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. able well So do we have a deal and steal today? Yeah, right. Yes, we do, Matt.
02:09:01
Speaker
What we have today is a deluxe quality movie viewer. Plays 8mm and Super 8 color or black and white.
02:09:12
Speaker
Handles 200 foot reels of 8mm and Super 8. Fully portable, battery operated, adjust portable adjustable speed, fast to stop action. For single frame viewing and editing, precision lens lifelike viewing.
02:09:28
Speaker
This sounds like a good investment. This is sounds like I'll be able to watch all my eight millimeters and super eight. That's right. This is, this is honestly a very early, i don't even want to call it a VCR. It looks like a clock radio, but like a giant clock radio with a screen on it. And then the screen is tiny.
02:09:48
Speaker
It's it's if this thing is two feet wide, the screen must be nine inches wide. Exactly. So watching it eight millimeter on an eight inch screen is exactly how ah ah Stanley Kubrick intended us to watch this film. Exactly. Yeah. This is the 1979 version of watching a movie on your phone. Yeah.
02:10:19
Speaker
i But it's portable. It's fully portable. It's battery operated. It is only... all right. Matt, dig this. $29.95. Whoa, I can afford that. That's something I can afford without even thinking about, pretty much. Now, in 1979, the dollar...
02:10:38
Speaker
ah the dollar was worth about 4.5 of today's dollars, meaning okay that $29.95 is going
02:10:53
Speaker
go to come out to ah around $135. Okay, no, thank you. i think I mean, at the time, this is a miracle, Matt. they know be They don't have VCR. It's a miracle, you said. Yes, this is, you can watch a movie, not at the movie theater.
02:11:13
Speaker
Think about it You can gather all your friends on a rooftop to sit around watching a movie. Remember those Nintendo Switch advertise advertisements? Oh, yeah. So we'll gather all your friends on a rooftop and sit around and we'll watch 8mm together. You could watch... 8mm of the birds.
02:11:32
Speaker
The movie 8mm on an 8mm reel on an Yeah.
02:11:43
Speaker
Uh, I think I'm going to pass on this Pat Steele and deal. It's also two 50 for postage, which at that's how they get you for 50 a dollar comes out to over $10 postage. That's crazy.
02:11:56
Speaker
And battery is not included. I mean, for a movie, if you were to buy a ah DVD player, Blu-ray player, what are we on now? If you were to buy that today,
02:12:08
Speaker
It would be more than $10 shipping. If you were to buy a Netflix player today, it would be more than $10 shipping. there's Not if you got it from, like, Amazon, but if you got it from if you bought it on the eBay.
02:12:24
Speaker
There's one other little interesting detail here, Matt, because I don't think we've gone long enough. Okay. For CODs, send a goodwill $5 and pay the postman the balance plus COD charges.
02:12:36
Speaker
COD is cash on demand. You used to be able to order products like this through the mail off of TV or out of ah comic books, not pay for it, and just pay the postman cash when he showed up at your door.
02:12:53
Speaker
Otherwise, what, he just sends it back? I guess. that's got That's such a strange concept to me. But it's the thing that used to still happen in our lifetimes as old men. mug the mug the post exactly how did that not happen all the time i mean it's a federal offense you cannot attack a postman i i yeah yeah exactly you're not yeah you're not just you're going to prison for a long time um when i was a kid a friend of mine and i put a tomato in a mailbox and then thought we were gonna go to prison for it somebody was like that's a felony
02:13:33
Speaker
how long ah How long, how many nights did you think about that? It was probably about a week.
02:13:40
Speaker
And I couldn't tell my parents. Yeah, I just committed a federal crime. oh That's a pretty good deal. And it's a pretty good steal.
02:13:53
Speaker
Do we play them? I don't. Do we play the theme on our way out to? No, let's do it this time. No, let's do it this time because it's our first time. That's true. It's a sick song. And yeah, in the end the future, maybe not. but got eye out of buy out has time machines you like to try out and you you
02:14:16
Speaker
That's really good. Well, Patrick, it's been another fine week. Matt, this was a long one and a late night recording. It was so later now than it was when we started to That's that's yeah, that's weird.
02:14:33
Speaker
Strange just keeps happening. Before you wrap up, Matt, though, I do want to say a quick thanks to Krils Wilson for all the themes he provided for the show, as well as to Julia Selle for her voicing of Trish Tilby in the intro.
02:14:47
Speaker
I want to let people know that you can still email in and join our street team. We'll send you ah a badly drawn picture of an X-Man that you love. Just send us your address and...
02:15:02
Speaker
your favorite X-Man. Yeah. And also we're asking you to give out some flyers to your local. Yeah. Give out the flyers when you, yeah yeah. I mean, that's how you, you listened to the thing already, uh, or right into Pat's email corner and it's mutant menace pod at gmail.com.
02:15:17
Speaker
Uh, also go around, leave us reviews everywhere that a review is able to be left, uh, or, you know, comment, comment, like, subscribe, leave reviews on YouTube.
02:15:31
Speaker
Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Instagram. Even Instagram. Instagram too. Follow us on Instagram. instagram Instagram. Instagram. Mutant Menace. Add Instagram.
02:15:44
Speaker
Instagram and Instagram. dot Instagram. No, um Mutant Menace Pod on Instagram. And shit, Pat. what What else do we got to tell them?
02:15:55
Speaker
why I think just... Just this last bit, Matt, which is ah like we always say, we can save humanity from Doc Doom or Galactus, but not from itself.
02:16:07
Speaker
And as we leave you with at the end of every episode, who you calling a heathen? you think