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40 - Wolverine #1-4 with PushingUpRoses
68 Plays1 day ago
Listen Bub, it's Christmas.... We're the best there is at what we do, and what we do is friggin precious! Matt and Pat welcome on YouTuber, podcaster, and friend PushingUpRoses to read the landmark 1983 WOLVERINE MINI-SERIES by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.
We get pretty goddamn deep on this one, so expect to laugh, cry, half-laugh/half-sob, and growl through this Christmas Day episode on WOLVERINE (Vol. 1) #1-4.
Topics Discussed:
Link climbing in the rain. Wolverine peaking between two knees. A rogue bear. One eye apart. Who is Wolverine's father? Unpackin' my costume. Undressing and redressing Logan. Professional assassins with terrible aim. YUKIO! THE HAND! A closet full of lamps. Not my Carmen Sandiego hat! "That is NOT a swimming position". One of the finest Kabuki troops Logan has ever seen. PICKING UP A SUMO WRESTLER!? Asan-ment. Bullet Train Chicken. An uncreative dream. Breaking the same window. Part-laugh/Part-sob. Spider-Man kicking through a box of cocaine. Can Wolverine get drunk? Weapon collecting.
Find PushingUpRoses at:
- PushingUpRoses on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@pushinguproses
- Save Your Game https://zencastr.com/Save-Your-Game
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeVInstagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the 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 Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm pushing up roses. and And say it with us, Pete. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:48
Speaker
I have it down 100%.
Podcasting and Creative Pursuits
00:00:51
Speaker
I don't know. i don't know. i feel suspicious of that, but I guess we'll find out when when I edit it and I move i've got track over i move your track over of
00:01:04
Speaker
second. It's like that challenge where people are trying to line up the drum hit with Whitney Houston's That song. Have you guys seen that? No. Oh, man. It's so it's so entertaining to me. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:01:17
Speaker
For I Will Always Love You. Yes. There is a ridiculous drum that comes in, ah a drum sting, that people are trying to line up with. So they bring up like drums and things to hit on to see who could line up with it, and nobody gets it. It's just super random.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's great. It's so- It's funny. it's particularly timed that nobody can actually get it. It's beautiful. That voice you hear folks introduced yourself earlier, but please you welcome Pushing Up Roses. Hi, thank you for having me yeah Of course. Thank you so much for being here. You are, of course, an internet personality. Do you want to do what ah tell us about yourself?
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Sure. I go by Pushing Up Roses on the internet. I have a YouTube channel where I do riff style reviews on things like Murder, She Wrote, Children's Horror, things like Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark? um I'm also an artist, which I will probably say at least five times. I don't think Matt actually knew that. Yeah, did you did you just start doing this or... ah You know what? All my life.
00:02:26
Speaker
I'm just now coming to terms with it. And so um this is actually my life this is my first admission. to be in an artist. So that, yeah. And now I'm doing ceramics about 95% of the time.
00:02:40
Speaker
I still do videos. I have a video of coming out soon. A ceramics video? um No. Oh, okay. Do you think you're ever going to do a ceramics video? It's so annoying, to be honest, to to film yourself doing art.
00:02:57
Speaker
Because you end up with so much footage, like hours of footage yourself doing art that you're going to cut down like two seconds. It's like making a documentary. Yeah.
00:03:23
Speaker
Pat, your piano playing is getting so much better. You're improving at a rapid rate.
00:03:29
Speaker
I do like that as the new lore, that it's me playing the piano with this. Just so I get bored of whatever you're saying. Well, I think, Pat,
00:03:43
Speaker
yeah and it just as it always interrupts us, interrupted us here, but I think that means it's time for a Christmas Pat's email corner. Christmas edition of Pat's email corner. I know I'll tell you nobody because they haven't heard this ah episode yet has written in.
00:04:04
Speaker
about Christmas. Oh, that's not true. Actually, let me say, you do have we do have one holiday email that I would like to share with us. This is ah Mikey Two Males' second email for episode 38. He says, hi, Pat. Tell Matt I wish you both happy holidays and hope everything is great for the holidays. The show is great and I have nothing else really to say other than your powers have nothing whatsoever to do with Satan.
00:04:27
Speaker
Mikey Two Males. Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker
Mikey Two Mails, you do not know that.
00:04:35
Speaker
Hail Satan. It's very it's very kind of him to think our powers have nothing to do with Satan. But yeah, thank you, Mikey Two Mails. That means a lot. Yeah, thank you. Pat, yeah that you're a master improviser.
00:04:48
Speaker
Oh, wait. Oh, congratulations. so Short form only. So as you read the next couple emails in Pat's email corner, I want you to Christmas them up like it's a who's line is it anyway game. Oh, I hate that. ive Yeah, yeah it's what you got to do. Wait, wait, i'll give you I'll give you a prompt. I'll give you a prompt. Things you can say about Christmas but not your girlfriend.
00:05:13
Speaker
There you go. There's your improv prompt. There's your prompt. Things you can say about Christmas... But not your girlfriend. ah It's all lit up. hi yeah I don't know if my girlfriend was under some bright lights or wearing a dress with lights on it or was on fire. I think I could say it.
00:05:35
Speaker
you could say You could say it. I wouldn't say that about my wife. would But would you say it about your girlfriend?
Cultural and Language Nuances
00:05:43
Speaker
Our next email comes from Pirate Gregor.
00:05:48
Speaker
Pirate Gregor. Yeah, he says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that binging doesn't have an E. We know that, right? You didn't know that. No, we're asking about the word binging.
00:06:01
Speaker
since Pat, he's saying binging.
00:06:10
Speaker
ah christmas it up binging Christmas this up, please. Doesn't have an E. And then he says, Jingle bells. I'm not going, I can't. i Well, now I have to stop and think.
00:06:22
Speaker
yeah No, you're the master improviser. You can just sneak it in. Well, usually I write it beforehand. You can just say snow. When you do an improv scene, you usually write it. I have a lot of ideas up top and then find a way to work them in. You keep it in your sleeve and slide it out.
00:06:42
Speaker
I pirate Gregor also mentions that whiskey, the word whiskey doesn't have an E, which it's that it's either or you can spell it with an E or without an e They're both correct.
00:06:56
Speaker
That's what I thought. He's I think it's i American spelling versus. Yeah. European spelling. But if nobody wants to start that war with me, that's fine. That snowball war. He says, Ken confirms Scotland is still about 500 years behind the rest of the world. And I, for one, am sick of these werewolves. The rest of the joy to the world. Onto my castle grounds on the moors.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, I've been to Scotland. I didn't see any werewolves. But maybe you need the magic of being Scottish to see the werewolves.
00:07:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, that could that could be it. they're ah They're more of a European phenomenon, right? I mean, that Warren Zavon famously said, wearables of London, so. And London, famously a Scottish town. Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
but he goes on, he says, one other thing. I thought this was interesting. I'm not familiar with spalline, but spallpeen can be an Irish or Scottish term for a poor laborer or a cheeky rascal. Is it possible that... You could have said chiy at a rat like cheeky elf rascal there. I'm not doing it you're ruining You're ruining my segment.
00:08:08
Speaker
It's Christmas, Pat! It's Christmas! All right. Weapon Jason writes in also about episode 38.
Representation in Comics: A Discussion
00:08:14
Speaker
He says, Hey, Pat, tell Matt a little surprised. You don't remember Bob McLeod from episode 32, where he was one of the pencilers for issues number one 51 and guest penciler for one 52. You remember where Kitty pride is sent to the Massachusetts Academy and storm body swaps with Emma Frost.
00:08:32
Speaker
He says, interestingly, the debuting in the graphic novel format for New Mutants put this out of my budget. So it wasn't until much later that I was able to read this one. Oh, wow.
00:08:42
Speaker
I dove in on the number one issue and this became an immediate favorite. I wasn't reading all the fanzines, interviews, et etc. So all I knew was this was another book about mutants written by Claremont that tied right into the events of the main book but was about new and pretty cool characters.
00:09:00
Speaker
they are pretty cool. And i bet I bet you hadn't, Weapon Jason, met Karma yet. Like, I bet you hadn't read Fantastic Four annual or Marvel Team Up annual number 150. What was it?
00:09:13
Speaker
Who knows? Maybe he did. It sounds like he had about $5 to spend every month on 50 cent comics.
00:09:22
Speaker
He goes on, I do remember liking Danny. I mean, you have to remember that the first people's or Native American representation in comics was very sparse and anything we got felt like progress.
00:09:33
Speaker
We're still like six years out from Pow Wow Highway and decades from things like reservation dogs to give a model of representation that isn't mired in the spiritual naturalist magic magic users tropes.
00:09:46
Speaker
Looking back, it's not great, but I think it was one of those baby steps from the representation in the Westerns of the earlier part of the 20th century. Well, I think that's... That's interesting stuff. Much like um Santa Claremont Claus we say about him, where he's trying his best, right? He's trying his best for the error era to be anti-Christmas racist, but he ends up...
00:10:13
Speaker
He ends up just like, yeah, employing tropes that for those people at that time were probably already very tired. Right. Yeah. Even if like, yeah, there's a ah poor portmanteau of Chris Claremont and Chris Kringle.
00:10:30
Speaker
But it's not. It's just not Chris Kringmont. yeah Yeah, that sucks. That ruined Christmas. Clare goal. Chris Clare goal. Chris Clare nog.
00:10:42
Speaker
i Okay, let's keep moving. We a lot of emails today. We have email. Michael says, hey Pat, tell Matt that the question of whether or not you spell it binging or binging, you're fine.
00:10:56
Speaker
Binging with an E is more popular these days, but in the early 80s, binging was also common. No, he's saying binging. He's saying it's not regional. He's saying it's ah it's about temporal. Yeah, it's temporal.
00:11:10
Speaker
yes ah So you're both right. Hooray, victory for friendship. And while my name isn't Hughes, I did study the nunchakus in my youth and would be happy to give either of you an intro lesson. However, Pat is 100% correct, thank you, that anyone who practices nunchakus will hurt themselves and probably very badly, so get a padded practice pair. They make those for that reason. While my name isn't Hughes...
00:11:36
Speaker
Do you have any idea what he's talking about? I do, actually. We asked for anyone named Hughes that teaches nunchaku lessons to write in. Why? Unclear.
00:11:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:50
Speaker
He also says, my time learning nunchakus was totally separate from my time living in Japan, so don't go looking for connections. With powers that may or may not come from Satan, email Michael.
00:12:03
Speaker
The mystery of email, Michael, is really growing from episode to episode. so
00:12:13
Speaker
One last email from Ambitious Eric. Ah, Ambitious Eric. Subject line, story so far. He says, throwing my hat in the ring, it's only right as Ambitious Eric. It's my Santa hat. My Santa hat. Damn it. Fuck. Shit. My Santa hat in the five golden rings. Yes!
00:12:34
Speaker
fun. I should have been doing this the whole time.
00:12:39
Speaker
He says, it's only right as Ambitious Eric for me to to do so. My memory is garbage, but I have been podcasting for over a decade and have good podcast presence and a decent mic. Ambitious Eric, I'm so sorry. Ambitious Eric, you are not quite ambitious enough. That's true.
00:12:57
Speaker
i But we'll put your name in the hat and the next time we draw it, along with everyone else that wrote in, ah you will... you will be in it. And Pat, this is not the first time you're hearing because you just heard this on the bonus episode.
00:13:12
Speaker
Right. Yeah. We're not breaking the news to you now. We're just here to rub salt in the wound. Right. But but after this thing that I'm about to say, you've already heard, Pat.
00:13:23
Speaker
And we've already you've ah I've already brought this idea up and you've already agreed to it. So as we said in the bonus episode, oh if you if you are a person who has in the past written into...
00:13:41
Speaker
ah Throw your hat in the ring for a story so far episode and a story so far episode came and went and you didn't get picked. From now forward, you are allowed to write in a second time and your hat will be thrown or your name will be thrown in twice. So, yes. So increase your chances. Everybody who's exciting and ambitious Eric counts for that. So if you want your name in twice,
00:14:06
Speaker
um you know who doesn't get that privilege? Hmm. Signwave Sean or best friend Christy? No, no. they You know what? They fucking forfeited it by being on the show. oh I'm a little sad I don't have my own my own ah nickname here. Why don't I have a nickname? You got to guys call me stuff behind my back? You gotta email in more than once.
00:14:31
Speaker
Alright.
00:14:34
Speaker
Ugh.
00:14:39
Speaker
It takes like three or four measures to even recognize this is a Christmas song. This is...
00:14:52
Speaker
I want to give credit where credit's due. stole that from YouTube ah user Parker Meek. It's jingle bells, but it made me fit. But it's so bad it made me fail music theory.
00:15:04
Speaker
I like the middle where he just falls on top of the piano. So, Rose, as you were saying something before Pat's email corner rudely interrupted you.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's probably true. I was probably saying something. What was it? Do you remember what it was? i It was probably something about X-Men. It was probably something really smart about X-Men. It was probably a really smart observation about the X-Men. But you were we were introducing you at the very least, and I think what we didn't say is you were also my co-host on the podcast
X-Men and Holiday Memories
00:15:36
Speaker
Save Your Game. Oh, that's true.
00:15:39
Speaker
Wow, you get to advertise both things on this podcast. This is the first time my podcast co-hosts are meeting. wow. It feels like we've known each other forever. For Christmas.
00:15:53
Speaker
It's great. It's very easy to find the common thread of making fun of Matt. It is. sight Wait, hold on. Maybe this wasn't a name. Isn't Matt the worst? The jingle worst.
00:16:07
Speaker
<unk>s ah It's a type of meat. It's a German... Yeah. Pat, are you going to ask your fucking question? ahw Yeah, Matt. yeah Yes. Have you done anything X-Men related this week? um Have I done anything X-Men related this week?
00:16:25
Speaker
Well, you know, Pat, I did something that the X-Men do a lot. What's that, Matt? I just laid around and recovered. Like after a big battle, they got to lay around and they got to recover. And another thing the X-Men don't do or do a lot, they don't decorate for Christmas.
00:16:44
Speaker
And I didn't decorate for Christmas. That's not When did they decorate for Christmas? It's just not true. They decorated for Christmas like two episodes ago when they had that Christmas issue. They also decorated for Christmas in the issue Twas the Night Before Christmas. They didn't decorate for Christmas in that issue. They did decorate for Christmas. No, they were just in...
00:17:05
Speaker
Times Square, which was already decorated for Christmas. They were not in Times Square. Remember, they threw a party for Banshee. Oh, yeah. And they decorated the whole place Christmas. Well, listen, Pat.
00:17:18
Speaker
Did you do anything X-Men related this week? I did. There's i an X-Men podcast I listen to just about every week called Mutant Menace. And one of their hosts, Matt Aucamp, has been drinking eggnog for it every episode in December.
00:17:38
Speaker
And so I've decided to join that trend and drink a little Christmas eggnog. Oh, geez. what Wait, it sounded like there was ice in that eggnog. Yeah, on the rocks. You ice your eggnog?
00:17:50
Speaker
but was there Is there alcohol in it? No. Oh. No, I don't really drink. What? You could make it, you could put it over ice. There's no rules yeah about how to drink eggnog.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's one rule. Don't put it over ice. Who said that? That's not the one. I think the one rule is don't pour lemon juice in it. It's a little curdle.
00:18:14
Speaker
yeah and I mean, would you ever drink when when you were a kid and you drank like big glasses of milk? Would you ever drink a glass of milk with ice in it? Yes. What?
00:18:25
Speaker
ah Almost exclusively. This is... unhinged both of you i could there's it's two to one matt i like my drinks really cold i like iced coffee i like iced milk i like i ice just makes it better at least he's not microwaving it the words i'm eating it up don't feel bad to you to say i just i just said it iced milk and that doesn't feel no i said it in the in the current video i'm editing i i actually refer to iced milk huh wow
00:18:57
Speaker
It's what they serve as a treat in Game of Thrones. hey What? Really? Ice milk. it I don't know if I follow this joke. but it's it's not just to it's a ah It's a true thing.
00:19:19
Speaker
They serve ice milk. ah It's like their version of ice cream. I can't believe you don't know this. And in the South, they have something called creamed snow or snow cream.
00:19:30
Speaker
Oh, I know that. yeah Yeah, where you just pour milk over the snow, over ice. It's iced milk. Yeah, it's like ah it's like a weird form of ice cream. Yeah. So there go.
00:19:42
Speaker
There's a guy by me that makes old world ice treats. Also, isn't ice cream just iced milk? Why is iced milk weird to you? No, ice cream is iced. We'll start him on making ice cream. Ice cream is iced custard. It's iced cream. It's literal iced cream and custard.
00:20:04
Speaker
more Ice cream is more egg than- Yeah, you're getting really flustered. It's like you're wrong or something. You think I'm wrong about making ice cream. Flustered custard over here.
00:20:17
Speaker
i You guys are never going on a podcast with together again. Hey, Pat, you want to ditch this guy and just start our own podcast? Start our own. We'll do exclusively X-Men
Art Style in Comics: Wolverine and More
00:20:28
Speaker
video games. Do your fucking host duties and ask Pushing Up Roses if you did anything X-Men related this week.
00:20:35
Speaker
Well, I wasn't finished mine. I just want to say I'm enjoying my eggnog. Okay. ah Roses, did you do anything X-Men related this week? I did. i i recorded ah a podcast with an X-Men related podcast host. I think it counts. Oh, Jesus ah Christ. i read Oh, because you recorded Save Your Game. Yeah. was going say, it's for this podcast, it doesn't count, but that does count.
00:21:03
Speaker
I think it counts. And also I read X-Men comics, which is weird for me. Yes, I did it for this podcast, but that but that's out of that's that's weird for me. that also That doesn't count.
00:21:14
Speaker
okay Okay, fine. But I did look up images of Wolverine's butt. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, it's very juicy. let me Let me look this up real quick. Let me see. Wolverine's butt? Yeah, do it. It's super juicy. go Google images. Oh, my God. The fourth image is him in ah him bottomless with that kind of thong where it doesn't it goes around your butt crack.
00:21:51
Speaker
what mean? The type of, oh, yeah. Like it's got the two, it's got the two straps on either side of the butt crack. But that leave your butt open. Yeah, leave your butt open for your access. i Is this from a comic?
00:22:08
Speaker
It's from the comic we read for the, well, I don't know if that's the one that Matt's looking at, but the one that I noticed was in this comic. In the comic we just read, there is not Wolverine wearing
00:22:22
Speaker
Wearing a a thong that's specifically designed for anal sex. That does not happen in the comic book that we are about to read. i also, I also, obviously the obvious thing I did that's very X-Men related was I sculpted a skunk.
00:22:36
Speaker
Which has a skunk stripe, which just like Rogue has skunk, famously has a skunk stripe in her hair. So skunks equal X-Men.
00:22:48
Speaker
That's pretty X-Men related. And you you sculpted a skunk like out of marble.
00:22:56
Speaker
um Do you know anybody in this century that sculpts out of marble? I'm just curious. Now out of clay. Somebody does. Out of clay. Out of clay, you fool. I'm a ceramist.
00:23:07
Speaker
um Well, that sounds like pretty ah X-Men related stuff there. But Pat. Yeah. Speaking of X-Men related, i want to know what the fuck we're talking about today.
00:23:21
Speaker
o Let's go, bub. That's right. Matt, today we are talking about one of the earliest miniseries from Marvel Comics. Yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
Wolverine. I. earmont and frank milleler I love Wolverine. Tell me about tell me about Frank Miller. ah Frank Miller, matt is an artist and a writer. He is a yeah a double threat for Marvel Comics. He ah made his name on Daredevil and really sort of left his ah his mark there. He's gone on to do a lot of other...
00:24:07
Speaker
famous things. He's done a ah lot of very creative things with Batman, like Year One or Dark Knight Returns. he has this incredible run. he's done a lot of his own ah his own line of Sin City. Yeah, and he did 300. Yeah, 300 Ronin
00:24:27
Speaker
He was part of this ah comic books is art comic books is literature. the The mainstream version of that movement in the 70s and 80s. And ah he he felt he created the character of Electra.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yes. If you don't. Yeah. Yeah. For people who don't know who he is. um and And this. Yes. Yes. he was also a huge name in the graphic novel market when ah Marvel got into him. So he's done graphic novels for Elektra, for Daredevil. He's also, i if you like his art Do not Google his politics because we do not talk about his politics. I just going to say. After 9-11. 2001 and 2022 or something, the man famously horrible politics. Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
between two thousand and one and what twenty twenty two or something the man had famously horrible politics yeah He has walked that stuff back, but also interesting the the work that he did in that state still exists. So, yeah. So, yeah. don't Just don't Google him.
00:25:35
Speaker
Well, so this this series actually came about when ah Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, they were driving... They were driving back from San Diego Comic-Con. and they apparently they didn't really know each other. And so they were just kind of like chatting about stuff. And Chris Claremont wanted to do a story with Frank Miller.
00:26:00
Speaker
And he brought up the idea of doing Wolverine. And Frank Miller was like, absolutely not. this um But... Yes. But... yeah Like, he...
00:26:13
Speaker
he was He thought of Wolverine as just... And I think this is interesting because I think this series is about how Wolverine debuts versus how wolverine how we come to know Wolverine. but Yeah. he like He was like, I'm not interested in Just like this one note, angry killer guy, like this badass psycho killer. He's a menace.
00:26:45
Speaker
But then Chris Claremont was talking about how this this whole idea of like Wolverine is a failed samurai and his connection to Japanese culture and the sense of honor that Wolverine holds and...
00:27:02
Speaker
ah They just they both together on the car ride started fleshing out. The character and backstory. Not backstory so much as like some some depth to Wolverine's character and by the end of the car ride they were like yep we're fucking doing this thing. And so they made i think this is the fact I know this is the second limited series that Marvel ever did.
00:27:26
Speaker
Oh. The first one was first contest of champions. Oh, of course. Which I don't think we're going to cover here because it's yes. ah The X-Men are in it, but also it doesn't fucking matter.
00:27:42
Speaker
yeah And they're barely in it. We're doing Secret Wars. What more do you want from us? Exactly. If we're to have to suffer through Secret Wars, we're not also going to read Contest of Champions.
00:27:54
Speaker
So. With all that said. ah let's let's Let's just and do some overall flyby thoughts, because this is a short little series, and we have Pushing Up Roses here. Just ah ah sort of your...
00:28:11
Speaker
Overall impressions, Roses. How did you feel about this series? It's interesting. ah It's very interesting. I was telling Pat earlier that one of the first ah styles of art I ever wanted to learn was comic book illustration. I took classes in it.
00:28:28
Speaker
and this And Frank Miller's art is is quite famous for his style and his block shading. So I got... It was actually kind of exciting and nice to read this series because I appreciated it on such an artistic level. i liked how the panels flowed and I like the block shading and the cross hatching. But overall, and and I know this is probably a very common thing that you hear about comics. I did find this story very corny. um particularly the end.
00:28:57
Speaker
um I don't know much about Wolverine, so I didn't know that he had ties to like to the samurai. I didn't know that this that he had a love interest. that i don't know I don't know anything about Wolverine except that he is played by hugh Jackman. That is my knowledge of Wolverine.
00:29:14
Speaker
So it's interesting to... He's played by a huge jacked man?
00:29:20
Speaker
is funny because actually Hugh Jackman is a short king. but um Is yeah he? They make him look so tall in the movies. Wolverine is a short king. Yeah, for no reason. They're like, we have a short actor playing a short character. Better make him look really tall.
00:29:41
Speaker
But yeah, was it was it was exciting to read through this. And i do i do regard comics as art in literature, and it comes across that way. um But overall, I found... like Okay, I could not stop thinking about...
00:29:56
Speaker
This is going to be blasphemous. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secret of the Ooze, like the foot. I couldn't stop thinking about the foot whenever the hand showed up in this. So. Yeah. And then it just got so corny in my my poor brain. um It's worth. it So the creators of the Ninja Turtles, Eastman and Laird, were heavily inspired by Daredevil and include like a little Daredevil shout out in their.
00:30:25
Speaker
In the incident that puts the ooze down into the sewers. Okay. It's the the truck that is trying to run over, or not trying to run over, that almost runs over a young Mac Murdock. It's ah essentially the same ooze that blinds him and gives him his powers. Also yeah turns the turtles into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And as a direct take on the hand, which was, i believe, invented for Daredevil? i think so.
00:30:54
Speaker
They you included the foot. So it's actually, ah interestingly enough, a direct parody. Oh, interesting. It's interesting that that came across then, like, as somebody who doesn't read XFEM comments, it still came across. I'm big a Ninja Turtles fan. So I connected that. Well, so the hand, yeah, they were in just a a handful of Daredevil issues um during Frank Miller's run. So like Frank Miller created the hand. it is kind of funny, though, that he's like, if I'm doing Wolverine, I'm putting those guys that I invented the hand. It's very Chris Claremont. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
And yeah, the the art, the story is fine. Like it's it's definitely a very tropey, like guy is kind of hitting rock bottom and his love interest doesn't, I mean, she does reciprocate, but she can't, he can't have her. So she he finds somebody else and she's not really good for him either. And it's kind of this whirlwind. It's just very fast paced little series of books. Yeah.
00:31:59
Speaker
And the art is wild. And I'm sure like beyond talking about the story, we'll talk about the art. Just seeing it from an artist's perspective yeah is wild to me. Some of this art is crazy looking, to be honest. Well, ah yeah, I mean, I think the things you're talking about, the idea of... ah Like the the tropes that are employed here. I think they're done on purpose, right? I think they are doing a samurai Western because Wolverine has such a simple is such a simple guy ah on the surface with such depth underneath that it feels like they intentionally chose this genre, a genre that has a lot of simplicity up top with a lot of depth underneath.
Exploring Wolverine's Character
00:32:45
Speaker
It has to go a little noir.
00:32:48
Speaker
yeah And I don't know if this is i don't know if this is Wolverine's character throughout his duration in comics, but he talks like a hard-boiled detective. like, I'm Wolverine. I'm the best at what I do. He's like, near you know, monologuing at nothing. Oh, yeah. ah Talking very hard-boiled. thought that was interesting.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yes, that is that is absolutely how he talks. And ah at least how he narrates his own life. and um But, I mean, even those two love interests you talk about, those are, you know, the femme fatale and the, ah like, the Madonna, right? Yeah. these are These are two...
00:33:29
Speaker
tropey female characters that are symbolic of, we'll talk about this as we get into it, but are like highly symbolic of two sides of Wolverine that are constantly at war with one another.
00:33:46
Speaker
Pat, do you have any thoughts before we start just jumping in? i A couple of things that, i like Rosa said, I'm sure we will get to as we go on, but...
00:34:00
Speaker
Frank Miller, brilliant artist. i The way that he draws people's faces just bugs me. Like, I think they all look really idiot ugly. And again, it's it it is great. I think that he does a great job at drawing faces. He conveys the emotion that you need. he's got ah They're very distinct. But at the same time, i just every face he draws, I say... Yeah. i yeah and And I think it's okay to have maybe not conventionally attractive looking characters. I think it's okay that their faces maybe look a little grittier or more masculine. even though Even the female, just for the sake of art and for the sake of description, even the female faces are a bit blocky. They're masculine. yeah But it still needs to be believable in in this universe, even if you're drawing that way. So yeah, there's a few portraits where I'm like, oh, her eyes are way too far apart. What is happening?
00:35:08
Speaker
that's the That is the other thing that bugs me about Frank Miller. i think particularly through the eighty s i he knows he's hailed as a genius at both Marvel and DC, that he can basically take the work that he wants. And he he lets himself get a little lazy about it. There's a lot of cut corners as he goes along. And I think that plays a big part like You can see which panels he spent hours just perfecting and which panels he put together in five minutes and told the anchor to fix. It's so fucking funny when you, like, you can see that he runs across things where just like, i don't feel like drawing Tokyo. And he just, eddie like, he just moves on.
00:35:56
Speaker
it's He does that with like the interior of rooms. he Characters change costumes suddenly because he just, it's either he doesn't care enough to ah ah like go back and reference what he had drawn before or he just doesn't care and he's just like whatever i don't i mean like he'll draw characters missing facial features completely like right in the beginning of the first issue wolverine doesn't have a lip don't worry he gets it back he gets back his top lip eventually And even like even the cover art on the first thing, his fingers are all wrong. Try to put your hand in the position that his hand is in. You cannot do it. yeah it's like It's like he has five fingers and his thumb is a finger. And like I'll i'll concede hands are very difficult to draw. And a lot of other comic book artists will usually just hide them, you know, hide them somewhere behind your back or something. but Come on, man. We'll do that. Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
You're absolutely, there's a lot of inexplicable hands. Yeah. He is. Yeah. If you ever read ah Dark Knight Strikes Again, he is at his peak of laziness there, of just like fully incomplete pictures. i know we've talked about, i think, Bill Sienkiewicz in the same light, where but in a way where like he seems like he's pushing the abstract. He's trying to expand boundaries, where with Frank Miller, it's clearly just...
00:37:32
Speaker
I just, i don't feel like it. i think i I honestly think, I think both are true. I think there is some element of Frank Miller wanting to,
00:37:48
Speaker
um Wanting to capture a moment or capture capture like the feeling, the cartoony feeling of superhero action, right? And then like it doesn't – reality doesn't matter in this moment. What matters is seeing movement or is seeing yeah something. Like this person is going to be larger than – is than makes sense.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. In this moment, because I want them to feel large. And so there, there, there are things like that in, in his art that I think are intentionally done that way. Yeah. Oh yeah. Very, really beautifully too.
00:38:32
Speaker
Mm hmm. It's almost weird looking, right? it's so It's almost kind of off looking. And i kind of I'm kind of a proponent of, quote, ugly art and and art that kind of looks like that. It's just interesting when it is when we're looking at humanoid figures, right? And there's something just a little bit off about them. yeah And then it's set to this very dramatic story that I think...
00:38:55
Speaker
Is trying to be grounded. i mean, obviously it's not grounded because Wolverine can heal himself in like two seconds. So that that's not grounded. But they're clearly trying to go for like a dramatic ah storytelling. And it's just set against this very strange art.
00:39:10
Speaker
And I think that's where maybe people have criticism. I think, I don't know. Yeah, I think that makes this. story even more interesting though. Yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
Again, because of that tropiness of it's the, it's the samurai Western and it is big and ridiculous and um flamboyant. And it it really expresses the character of Wolverine in an interesting way.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. Yeah. I was honestly a little i devastated when you said the story was corny until I realized, like, right, without the background, without the journey we've gone on with Wolverine, don't this is probably nothing special. Like even the the reveal of his Japanese background, we only ever got hints to the fact that it seems like he spent some time in Japan.
00:40:17
Speaker
um That's basically the extent that we knew up to this point. Yeah, and and I know fully well that – because I'm an artist myself, I like several comics, and I know that saying corny is not a good thing. I know that is an overused word to describe comics, and comic book fans don't like that. But – But what I'm reading is just like this small little vignette of Wolverine's life in this kind of hard-boiled way. So for me, it does read a little corny. i don't yeah I don't dislike it for that either. it just It's the dramatic way it's told. It's the you know dynamic scenes it has. It veers into, its ah especially the romance parts. Man, when men write romance, i don't know. They don't fucking know what they're doing. It's pretty weird. It's weird. It's pretty bad, yeah.
00:41:06
Speaker
it's it will It'll be puzzling for pretty much ever what Mariko sees in Wolverine. Yes, correct. It's been puzzling so far. It'll continue to be puzzling.
00:41:17
Speaker
i just wonder at some point, do you guys consider it a little bit of a male fantasy? You know, a male power fantasy where he can get this femme fatale as, and get this woman who almost doesn't, um god doesn't go for him. But in the end she does anyway. Like it's, it's very much written like that for me. i think it,
00:41:38
Speaker
I think it is, but I also think that his introduction of Mariko was... um And I also think this is problematic, but I think his introduction of Mariko in X-Men, like this is not Mariko's first um appearance. She appeared in an issue of X-Men. and she was, i think, fully introduced so that c Chris Claremont could tell people Wolverine has another side to him.
00:42:04
Speaker
Okay. And Mariko is the... expression of that side well let's get into it we we just paused to have a discussion about the listeners you might hear some saxophone in the background of Pat's audio track that's right it's a Christmas miracle something is this something that happens normally in your neighborhood Pat No, this is brand new. Just for the holidays. ah It's also, it's I'm glad you guys hear it because my wife cannot and that was worrying me for a little while.
00:42:44
Speaker
I thought you were the only one hearing it. Wow. ah Yeah, i wonder if I wonder if listeners can hear it. like I wonder if it's coming through. It must be because I can hear it in my headphones. Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Let us know if you hear a saxophone in the background of my audio.
00:43:00
Speaker
I wouldn't have been able to pick it up as a saxophone. It it sounded almost like somebody in the far distance whining really loud. Oh, that was me. Sorry. ah im Just having a tough day. Yeah, you know, it's tough over here. All right. um So let's get into ah Wolverine. What do you guys think?
00:43:23
Speaker
Yes, let's do it. Yes.
00:43:29
Speaker
We're going to say the credits up top because basically this whole thing has the same credits all the way through. So it is written by Chris Claremont, penciled by Frank Miller, finished or inked by Joseph Rubenstein and eventually Lynn Varley, lettered by Tom Orszakowski, colored by Glynis Ween and eventually Lynn Varley, edited by Louise Jones and supervised ah by Dumb Stupid.
00:43:57
Speaker
let's say Let's get into Wolverine number one I'm Wolverine. I'm Wolverine. Release date June 1st, 1982. Cover date September 1982.
00:44:11
Speaker
We open with Wolverine out of costume, dangling from the edge of a cliff. I gotta interrupt you already, though. Yeah, yeah. this is what a This is the sort of thing that I mean about, like...
00:44:23
Speaker
How did he get there? Right? Like, how does he get there? in In the way that this cliff juts out, you could not climb up to that. So, this is already Frank Miller...
00:44:38
Speaker
He doesn't care about the logic of it, right? He just thought it would look really cool to have Wolverine dangling from the very edge of a cliff that juts out into the air.
00:44:49
Speaker
I mean, have you played have you played Breath of the Wild, though? If Link can climb, like, vertical. Vertical and upside down. Yeah, I think Wolverine can, because he's super strong. Anything Link can do, Wolverine. And Link did it in rain. So I think this is perfectly believable. There's no way Breath of the Wild you could climb this ah this cliff in the rain.
00:45:11
Speaker
Challenge accepted. Famously, he couldn't do it in the rain. a Quiet! My
00:45:21
Speaker
this also This opening splash page, this is a little dirty, but it very much looks like Wolverine is peeking up from between two knees. d i Just with the rock formations that are in front of him.
00:45:33
Speaker
maybe He's just. photo Wow. he He's he's a really into it too. Like his, he's got, his teeth are gritted and he's like, he's got a flirty smile on and he's like. And why is he flirting with me? I'm Wolverine. He's hunting for some animal who's been killing humans in the Canadian wilderness.
00:45:59
Speaker
Realizing the creature senses him, he approaches its cave carefully, waiting for it to come to him. And come to him, it does. a giant grizzly bear roars its way out of the cave. The fight is over quickly, though, as Logan extends his adamantium claws, cuts the bear's arm off, slashes it across its chest, and leaps onto its head to deal the killing blow.
00:46:21
Speaker
When the fight is over, he notices an arrow sticking out of the grizzly's back, coated with an illegal poison. Apparently, some hunter gave up after sticking the bear, and the poison drove it insane.
00:46:33
Speaker
it's Yeah, it describes it as a like a rogue grizzly bear, which made me laugh, to be quite honest with you, because all I can think about is like this erratic bear just like hobbling around like on drugs. That's what all I can think about. The bear's gone rogue. Yeah, I want to meet i want to meet the the bears that fall in line. The cookie cutter bears, the the obedient bears. We're all the good bears, you know?
00:47:00
Speaker
You know, it all it takes is one bad bear to spoil the whole bunch. What do you guys think about this bear? I think that Frank Miller can't draw animals. No. That's what I think.
00:47:13
Speaker
So I forgot what the animal was ah when I started reading this. And i was like, is he, do they do they get open this up with Wolverine fighting a Wolverine? Yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. it that It does look like that, except like on steroids. This is the most buff animal I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, this thing jacked.
00:47:37
Speaker
To me, it looks like he's drawing a very large man wearing a bear suit. Human proportion no muscles yeah on a bear.
00:47:48
Speaker
Oh, that makes it not scary. 57 miles from the Bear's Den is Josie's Bar and Grill in Hell's Kitchen, New York.
00:48:00
Speaker
What? I'm just kidding. It's Kohlspur, Alberta. I literally, went and I was like, did I write? Kohlspur is a real place, by the way.
00:48:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It's a real town in Alberta. it's ah It was built along a railroad in 1911 and served as a transport hub between ah the east and west lines of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
00:48:26
Speaker
should go to their historical foundation website. It had a coal mine, an oil well, and a bunch of railroad industry stuff. All of it closed by the 50s. The post office closed in 1963, but 2001, there were still a few dozen residents.
00:48:40
Speaker
There's nothing there, and people were still living there. Kind of like, um what's that that town in ah in Pennsylvania where it's burning underground? but said Oh, yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
ah Centralia, where everything has moved out because it's like it's dangerous to be anywhere near there. And some people just won't move out and have been there for generations.
00:49:02
Speaker
Wow. Logan walks in to Josie's bar, following a trail from the arrow straight to a large man drinking at the bar and confronts him. The man cracks a beer mug across Logan's face, knocking him to the ground, and we cut away with the line, The bear lasted longer, but I let the man live. Yeah.
00:49:24
Speaker
In a whirlwind, mostly off-panel sequence, we get a huge expositional dump. Wolverine handed the man to the Canadian authorities, went back to New York to his home at the X-Men's mansion, and found a bunch of letters he'd sent to his sweetheart Mariko Yoshida Man...
00:49:43
Speaker
maricco is the daughter of a noble rich family in japan and was apparently called back to japan a few weeks ago when logan called her they hung up on him so he took a commercial flight to tokyo to find her man Problematic. Yeah. Can you imagine? imagine You're like, tell him i that you you have like this boy, like ex-boyfriend or like it's somebody that you're like trying to ghost and tell him I'm not home. And then they fly across the world.
00:50:16
Speaker
ah Instead, though, he was stopped at immigration by an old friend and a G-man, Asano Kimura, who is worried that Logan being in Japan is making powerful people nervous. he tries the Logan tries the Yoshida residence again, but once again gets hung up on.
00:50:35
Speaker
Asano says that Mariko's culture and class are both foreign to Logan and decides, even if something's wrong, he could do nothing about it. Then he drops the bomb. Mariko is married.
00:50:47
Speaker
Her father, once believed to be deceased, has returned and taken his place at the head of clan Yoshida and married her to someone to whom he owed a debt. Logan punches a lamp in anger. And it shatters into like a bajillion pieces.
00:51:05
Speaker
In a hotel room. That's not his lamp. Yeah, he's got to pay to replace that lamp. he He did this to Moira's table, too. yeah Oh, yeah. When we first meet him, he's just carving her table up with his claws. He's like, dude, stop it.
00:51:25
Speaker
um I want to note a few things here. First, um there's a there's ah a photo he has of Mariko. Yeah, they need to fire that photographer. That photo is horrible. Yeah, that is sort of... It almost feels like this is the first time Frank Miller's trying to draw a really good human face. He was trying for some he was trying for some realism there, which I appreciate the the change in style, right? I appreciate that it's kind of like...
00:51:54
Speaker
ah trying to show this photograph. Unfortunately, nobody's eyes are that far apart. When drawing people, your eyes should be one eye apart. You can actually like measure your eye, measure what's between it. It should be one eye.
00:52:10
Speaker
that is That's not one eye. Hang on a second. Do it, yeah. I gotta measure my eyes. yeah Are my eyes too close together? ah Don't, um... You're making everyone into a mirror.
00:52:23
Speaker
So, I... We also meet Mariko later, and she doesn't look like that! does not look like that! Just like, who who, what? Another thing to note here is that Wolverine says that she can trace her lineage back almost 2,000 years.
00:52:43
Speaker
And he says, I know my father. That's as far as it goes. Oh, yeah. What the fuck? He must be talking about Charles Xavier, his father figure. so it's So I would bet any sum of money that this referred. This is Claremont referring to Who?
00:53:10
Speaker
Oh, this is a Marvel character that was actually, Pat, you wouldn't know him and there's no reason you should. He's a Marvel character that was introduced in Iron Fist a few years ago by Chris Claremont, who has a lot of similarities to Wolverine.
00:53:25
Speaker
And we'll talk about it again later. Okay. But I would bet anything that that's who he's referring to. ah A plot line that he devised that never paid off.
00:53:37
Speaker
yeah Because too many, I think too many fans saw it coming. So he was like, all right, can't do that anymore. ah Well, Logan, I can't stress this enough, punches a lamp in anger and vows to see her and figure this out.
00:53:52
Speaker
Asano tries to convince him not to go. Mariko is doing this out of duty. Seeing Logan will only make it harder for her. But the mutant, now in full orange and brown Wolverine garb, won't listen.
00:54:05
Speaker
Even if Asano and his department need to hunt him down, Wolverine is going to get answers. he but He brought his costume. yeah That's adorable, Wolverine. just to Just so he didn't get too homesick. He's just like unpacking his stuff and he's like unpacking his like all his fur lined vests and is his big like leather coats and then he unpacks and he unpacks his pajamas which have a little a night crawler on them. I'm guessing all of them.
00:54:39
Speaker
And then he unpacks his cute little uniform. This doesn't actually happen in the comic. That's just how I imagine. At midnight, Wolverine arrives at the Yoshida Stronghold.
00:54:52
Speaker
He's greeted by a couple. Jesus, sorry. He's greeted by a couple. Hey, welcome to our stronghold.
00:55:01
Speaker
He's greeted by a couple brand new attack dogs. But after a brief growling contest, they back down. This is, I think, aside from him climbing the cliff, the start of this like bat shit idea of masculinity where Wolverine is just staring a dog in the eyes. Except like on the same page.
00:55:23
Speaker
That is the juiciest butt I've ever seen in my life. Yes. Yeah. Clearly Frank Miller's ideal man also has. Yes. A nice very muscular butt. Frank Miller's ideal man punches a lamp. Has growling contests with animals.
00:55:40
Speaker
Has a juicy butt and packs his uniform when goes on vacation. ah What a sweet summer child. i He climbs the wall and makes his way into the house. He finds Mariko in the estate's Zen garden beneath a giant Buddha statue.
00:56:00
Speaker
She tells him to leave. He's too late. She's married and nothing will change that. He continues to demand answers until she turns and he sees her face covered in bruises with a swollen black eye.
00:56:14
Speaker
Who did this? He demands. She won't say. So he then demands she leave with him. In response... It's very Travis Bickle, right? It's very... Yeah, yeah. like it He's right to be concerned, obviously, right? And it sucks that she is going through this, and i like any of us, upon seeing that image, want the person who did it to get their ass kicked, right? Right. But... And the same thing happens in Taxi Driver, right? like You want those...
00:56:49
Speaker
the people who abuse those girls in that movie to be, you know, beaten up and the girls to be saved from him. But it's, it's this idea, it's this idea of masculinity that is like, uh, no matter what you say, you need me to save you.
00:57:07
Speaker
oh it's like It's very nailed down, though, because of the because of the the culture that he's trying to write, saying that is it is duty-based, right? So it's not just even the damsel needs you. It's like, no, no, no, she really does, because she's kind of stuck by duty, and she just can't. She has no options, right?
00:57:26
Speaker
Right. Yeah, yeah. In her mind, she's leaving the situation would be worse than the abuse she's taking. In response, she shows him two ancestral family swords crafted 800 years prior by the legendary Masamune. Am I saying that right?
00:57:45
Speaker
I always say Masamune, but it might be Masamune. I mean, he's... ah He was a legendary swordsmith from like the 13th century in Japan. um Supposedly he was a real guy.
00:57:59
Speaker
Oh, okay. It's referenced in a in Chrono Trigger. ah it's yeah Yeah. of course, in Chrono Trigger. And since it's not voiced, I would just, and I was young, i would just be like, the mass immune. Yeah, there's, in a lot of RPGs, you find a sword called Masamune. Yeah, you do. And like, I think in in Final Fantasy, I think there's Masamune. Masamune. Yeah, because that's also square. Australian accent.
00:58:31
Speaker
They i yeah these signify the duty and honor that the Ishida family has upheld during all that time. And as part of that duty, Mariko must honor the commitments her father has made.
00:58:46
Speaker
If Logan cannot understand this, he doesn't understand her.
00:58:52
Speaker
At that moment, a man, Mariko's new husband, walks into the room. man! By the way, it's a room now, not a garden. Yeah, it suddenly turns into a room! Oh, it does! Mike Miller's just like just like, I don't want him to be outside anymore. He reprimands her for being out of their apartment and suggests he's going to hit her again, but Wolverine extends his claws and lifts the man into the air, vowing to kill him.
00:59:24
Speaker
but Mariko grabs his wrist and begs him to let it go. Regretful and confused, Logan walks away, only to be thunked in the arm by several shurukens.
00:59:36
Speaker
He wakes up sometime later in the presence of Lord Shinjin, Lord of Clan Yoshida. He's flanked by Mariko on one side and her husband on the other with two sumo standing guard.
00:59:48
Speaker
Shinjin tells Logan that he does not deserve Mariko and that his tone is disrespectful. As such, he challenges Logan to a duel with Bokan, wooden practice swords.
00:59:59
Speaker
When Logan questions it, Shinjin tells him that he's not worth the real thing. They begin facing off, Wolverine rusty with the sword and slowed by the poison in his system. Shinjin begins cheating, kicking Logan in the stomach and striking at nerve clusters in his neck and head, meant to cripple or kill him.
01:00:17
Speaker
But as Wolverine is Wolverine, they just make him mad. He pops his claws and tosses his sword aside. Wolverine knows he's fighting for his life, but to any casual observer, it would look like he was so embarrassed by losing a friendly duel that he dishonored himself and tried to kill his opponent.
01:00:35
Speaker
Even with his claws, Shinjin outmaneuvers him. He hits Logan in the spine, the neck, and several other pressure points, finally knocking him and unconscious. As he passes out, he hears Shinjin gloat to Mariko.
01:00:48
Speaker
The man she loves just showed his true nature. He's an animal, unworthy of her love, without honor. It's a fucking great sequence. Yeah, yeah. so It is. The action there is really incredible. it Chris Claremont for once like shuts up and lets it happen. And man, yeah, it's really good. And you you you feel that tension like Wolverine's you know He's poisoned.
01:01:16
Speaker
He's getting hit in these pressure points. He's like, I'm getting killed. And nobody in the room with me knows it. He's wild. He's very good.
01:01:28
Speaker
Logan wakes up on the streets of Tokyo back in street clothes. Guess Lord Shinjin undressed him out of his uniform. Found his clothes. on put him off Put them on him.
01:01:41
Speaker
And then tucked the yeah the uniform in the jacket of or the pocket of his jacket. Well, which we'll find out. Yeah. Yeah. he's miserable weak and ashamed thinking he'd rather be dead some street toughs happen across him thinking i'm drunk and angry that he's gajin so they raised their weapons to attack him Suddenly, they fall to the ground with knives in their backs.
01:02:05
Speaker
A woman lifts him off the ground by the face with one hand and tells him his luck's about to change. You're mine, Wolverine. Now and forever. That's obsessive and weird. Wolverine must weigh, like, so much.
01:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's got to be, like, 400 or 500 pounds, right? Even if that's a lightweight metal. and She lifts him up by his like cheeks. She squeezes his cheeks and lifts him up. And not his juicy butt cheeks, his face cheeks.
01:02:35
Speaker
It's about leverage. She'll do that later. It's okay. To be continued. to be continued Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah, it's a good start. um The action sequences, like you guys said, are very, very dynamic. Just the kind of the best thing about comic book art, I think, is dynamic posing and ah storytelling through visual. Yeah, I i liked where it went.
01:03:03
Speaker
And another thing that I think Frank Miller is really good at is conveying emotion through body language and through the face in battle. Like during a fight, you can see anything, Matt, you said it like you can really feel him losing this fight. You're you're right there along with him because of the way he's just so hopeless.
01:03:27
Speaker
Yeah. ah He any he like Frank Miller thinks through. the physics of the moment, right? Not just the movement, which is fluid and natural and really cool looking.
01:03:46
Speaker
There's also like there's a scene where Shingen. shoves the Bokan in Wolverine's stomach and it sort of Wolverine kind of doubles over over it and then like in between panels I guess falls backwards and Shingen steps forward with his other leg and slides it up to Wolverine's throat and kind of like pushes it in right so you can see the leverage happening there yeah yeah this is what he saved all that accuracy for laughter laughter
01:04:21
Speaker
I do think so again i think there's something to be said about this like but Frank Miller draws what he wants to and what he thinks is cool rather than what is accurate or the details that he thinks what he decides don't matter yeah which you know is a very weird nebulous decision like why does that not matter Frank and it's really sort of groundbreaking at this time But it will keep getting expanded and worse and worse and worse through the eighty s and especially the 90s. Not with Frank, just with Frank Miller's art. Like I think Frank Miller's art gets better over that time. yeah. yeah But with other artists like Rob Liefeld or, ah you know, any of his ilk, the the the the Marvel young guns of the ninety s Well, i think it's interesting, though, because Frank Miller and a lot of comic book artists want this to be regarded as art.
01:05:20
Speaker
um And as such, you know, you're not always accurately drawing things. You're drawing the idea of things, you know, the idea of emotion, the idea of things. It's a little abstract, right? Even though this is not abstract art. So I actually I ah kind of like the inconsistencies of it. it's It's weird, but we're in kind of a weird universe anyway, you know? Right.
01:05:43
Speaker
So now we have Wolverine number two, Debts and Obligations, ah released on June 29th, 1982. Cover date October 1982. cover date october nineteen eighty two
01:05:55
Speaker
Logan is being slapped awake out of a deep sleep on a bare mattress in an empty apartment. He's hurt and slow. He can't remember where he is or why, nor the woman who just woke him up and is standing behind him.
01:06:07
Speaker
What he does know however know, however, is that in front of him are a pack of sword and bow and arrow wielding ninjas. shouldb In a brilliant two-page spread, he tackles the few men in front of in front of him out of a window, only to face an army more of ninjas on the rooftops outside.
01:06:28
Speaker
Also, he's back in his costume. um i guess So guess what? Lord Shinjin undressed him from his costume, put him in street clothes, put him out on the street. Then Yukio...
01:06:42
Speaker
Undressed him from his street clothes and put him back in his costume. ah
01:06:49
Speaker
In the next panel, the woman clings to Wolverine in the shattered window as dozens of arrows fired by professional ninja assassins fail to hit either of them. That's just a very like comedic thing hear. It's like somebody shooting bullets and you're just not hitting anybody. Yeah, and these are...
01:07:09
Speaker
These are professional ninja assassins. And all of them are firing above their their their heads. I am sorry to bring up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles again, but it does remind me of, like, the foot and how they're all, there's, like, so many members in the foot, but and there's only four, you know, turtles, and they're just, like, yeah, they're just pushing them off like nothing at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You picture a dozen men on the roof across the street going, damn, damn, damn.
01:07:41
Speaker
Patting each other on the back. like It's okay, Frank. I missed two. ah The woman identifies herself as Yukio and the assassins as the hand, telling Logan, by name, that he owes her his life. How does she know his name?
01:07:57
Speaker
How does I would love to know that. How does she know who? Maybe she has intel on him. Yeah. Maybe. i guess I guess, but why doesn't he say, how do you know my name? Why isn't he weirded out? Yeah.
01:08:13
Speaker
He responds that he intends to return the favor and leap from the building to the rooftops. Yukio lands in a tactical role while Wolverine just barrels forward, throwing kicks and haymakers at the ninjas.
01:08:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. No claws out yet. Not even his claws out. He's just beating the fuck out of these guys. Well, doesn't it hurt to bring out his claws? So why do it if you don't have to right?
01:08:38
Speaker
Oh, he doesn't care about pain. Oh, he doesn't care about pain. And also, they've never addressed that in the series so far. Oh, i will say I didn't know that. I'm just going off of very ah random Wolverine trivia here. Yeah.
01:08:53
Speaker
In the fight, he notes that Yukio doesn't cry out when she's sliced by an assassin's sword, and he takes this as a cue to pop his claws. Oh, okay. Within seconds, the fight is over, and Wolverine is the last one standing.
01:09:06
Speaker
As the police pull up beyond behind an awestruck Yukio, he grabs her and takes off running. That night, they're back in Logan's whole hotel room while yeah Yukio attempts to dress his wounds. As fast as she can try to bandage them, they heal.
01:09:22
Speaker
yuki yuki uses lamps back together with the lamps back yeah no but we did back together do do you think like rooms or like the hotel service is like oh we got to replace another lamp but they just know by now like what wolverine comes to japan all the time so at this point they know that's stock yeah it's called like the logan the logan closet Yukio muses over his adamantium skeleton and claws and wishes she had some herself to protect her from the hand and their boss, a crime lord who wants to rule both the underworld and political world of Japan.
01:09:59
Speaker
Wolverine assures her that he will protect her, but she lashes out, almost sticking him with a small knife that suddenly appears in her hand. She transitioned this act of violence into an act of seduction, as you do, as one does. That's a very womanly thing to do. Very relatable.
01:10:14
Speaker
ah climbing on a shirtless Logan, but he pulls back, thinking of Mariko. As he walks off, Yukio rages. Does he not realize they are kindred spirits? He closes the door behind him to get some sleep, and she thinks to herself how Mariko is not worthy of Logan, and she will have him instead.
01:10:32
Speaker
Such a weird, like, catty thing to put in here. I assume that's on purpose. I assume she's written to be a little bit catty as she is ah a femme fatale type character. But still, just like, oh, man, she's going pick me. we we see We see this like trope – and we've we've called it out in a lot of the comics we've read so far is writers who aren't clever enough to think of character motivations for women besides jealousy. Yeah. But I i think in this –
01:11:07
Speaker
I think in this instance, I'm willing to forgive it simply because there is a it's a very core part of the story. Sure. And yeah it's a core part of the metaphor sure of the story. Yeah.
01:11:21
Speaker
In the Maguro district of Tokyo, Maruku and her new husband, Nabooru Hideki, are becoming impatient to see Lord Shinjin. Is it Shinjin? Is it Shinjin? Yes. I think it's Shinjin.
01:11:32
Speaker
so I might have said it's Shingen. Okay. Did I say Shingen earlier? ah yeah. shi is Shinjin. Shinjin. When a woman in a purple trunch coat and hat waltzes in, demands to see Shinjin and forces her way past his assistant.
01:11:48
Speaker
The woman turns out to be Yukio, who Shinjin called Wild One, and sticks a hand assassin on. Yukio gets the upper hand on the assassin, but stops, just short of killing him, earning herself a lecture from Shinjin. But she's amazed.
01:12:02
Speaker
Hmm. The assassin slices her hat. Slices her hat clean in half. she She walks in looking all Carmen Sandiego, like a purple Carmen Sandiego. And the assassin's like, i hate Carmen Sandiego, and slices her hat.
01:12:20
Speaker
like, bummer, I just bought that hat. She's here demanding answers from him. She works for him, and she was supposed to earn Wolverine's trust and sympathy with a fake attack from the hand, but she's angry that they were actually trying to kill her.
01:12:34
Speaker
Shinjin grabs her by the hand and then the throat, explaining that Wolverine would have recognized a fake attack for what it was, and plus, he needed to test her because her next target is a nearly impossible one.
01:12:46
Speaker
The plan to kill a man named Katsuyuri is that Shinjin will hold a, quote, peace conference with him and send Mariko and Nabooru to lull him into a sense of security. However, during the meeting, Yukio will attack.
01:12:59
Speaker
If she harms Mariko, she's dead. And when she's done, she's to kill Wolverine.
01:13:05
Speaker
The next day, Wolverine notices that Yukio is on edge, and she tells him that she met with the crime lord that's after her, a man named Katsuyori. I'm so sorry. I'm going to say that probably different every single time.
01:13:17
Speaker
Should we pause just for a second? Because I think i think you you stumbling over is making me realize like there's a lot of names that we get to see ah visually. Yes. bunch that ah when hearing out loud, listeners might be a little confused. So Mariko Yoshida is Wolverine's love interest.
01:13:38
Speaker
The woman who is getting ah who has just recently been married by her father, Lord Shinjin to Nabooru Hideki. And. ah Yukio is the wild assassin lady who saved Wolverine and hates Mariko.
01:13:56
Speaker
And then Katsuyori is the crime lord who Yukio is being sent to assassinate.
01:14:08
Speaker
And Yukio is also secretly supposed to ah ah kill Wolverine. Right. yes But she's somehow obsessively in love with him instead. It's that juicy butt.
01:14:21
Speaker
The next day, Wolverine notices that Yukio is on edge, and she tells him that she met with the crime lawyer lord that's after her, a man named Katsuyori, and tried to broker for peace, but he refused.
01:14:34
Speaker
She's lying. She's a liar! What? Her? No. Now Wolverine and Yukio are swimming through his moat. Is that what they're doing? Thank you for explaining that to me because I had no clue what was going on in that panel. There's a panel that it looks like they're both swimming and falling.
01:14:55
Speaker
at this I'm just going to say nobody swims in that position, okay? It's not a swimming position. Wolverine is like running on the ground. ground Yeah. water water I'm so glad. I'm so glad that this was explained to me. All they're swimming through his moat and climbing the walls of this estate. So Wolverine can try to scare the guy into leaving her alone.
01:15:16
Speaker
She notices that, as they encounter guards around the castle, Logan isn't killing them, and he notes how bloodthirsty she is. They find Katsuyari, to Logan's surprise, meeting with Moriko and Niburo, and they're about to sit down and watch a private Kabuki play.
01:15:31
Speaker
The play is called the Shishin-Gura, sorry, I tried, the 47 Ronin, and it's about a group of samurai who avenge their master's death on a suicide mission, putting honor above their own lives.
01:15:43
Speaker
Logan says, this is one of the finest Kabuki troops I've ever seen. That's nice of him. That's nice. You can see that coming. But when the lead actor pulls out his katana, Wolverine realizes this is a ruse to attack and kill Mariko and Naburo. So he leaps from the shadows and intercepts the assassin.
01:16:05
Speaker
As the false actor's body falls limp and bloody on Mariko, Wolverine hops onto the stage to fight the others. Is there an audience? like the Is does the audience thinking this is part of it?
01:16:15
Speaker
I think... The audience is just those few. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's a real power move is to put on a play for i see a group of like four people.
01:16:27
Speaker
I think it's funny that, uh, These are secretly assassins, but also the finest kabuki actors Wolverine's ever seen. right They ain't multitudes, you know, they're multi-talented.
01:16:44
Speaker
Katsuyori slaps Nabooru and turns to flee, only to find his bodyguards all dead with knives sticking out of them. He and his wife hop into their car and it instantly explodes with Yukio smiling behind the flames.
01:16:58
Speaker
The battle on the stage is savage and bloody, with Wolverine flying into a berserker rage, yet still leaving all of the men alive. However, when it's over, he looks past the stage lights to see Maruku staring up at him, horror and tears in her eyes.
01:17:12
Speaker
As she turns away from him, Yukio smiles. She's got him. So... this is one of those hilarious things where Wolverine claws out is just like slicing through guys.
01:17:27
Speaker
And then Chris Claremont puts a line that's like, but I left them all breathing. All right. Well, okay. Humanity, I guess. That sounds like it was a gym shooter.
01:17:39
Speaker
I only removed one kidney from each of them. I stopped to bandage them all up so that they
01:17:52
Speaker
Do you guys think that maybe Wolverine has to run like that underwater because his skeleton is coated in metal? No! The man just doesn't know how to swim. Well, he doesn't float. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't know how to swim. He just sinks right to the bottom.
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's like he's he's fighting for his life every time he tries to swim because he's he's like getting so tired trying to lift his metal body up.
01:18:21
Speaker
But he can't do that because he's underwater so can't breathe it. ah yeah yeah yeah yeah Whoops.
01:18:29
Speaker
Have you accidentally tried to breathe it? yeah Damn it! It drowned itself again. Oh!
01:18:40
Speaker
ah Yeah, no, this ending is pretty intense. Yeah, it's solid. Wolverine, he's trying to save Mariko, but she sees him.
01:18:53
Speaker
This is like her first time ever seeing him just be a savage. Well, I guess not killer. I don't. All right. Well, that kind of undercuts it, actually. I mean, he still went unhinged. And it's it seems like it's her first time at least seeing him ultra violent.
01:19:12
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And also, why is he there? i think this is the first time that she sees him like on some sort of mission, almost on like a hit or I guess as a bar bodyguard. But still, it's it's the business side of him that she wouldn't usually see. Mm And his business is not very nice.
01:19:32
Speaker
There's something really interesting in the early printing of this comic. It is on the last page of the first printing of this comic. And it is the the final panel ah where there's a caption that says, it's finished.
01:19:51
Speaker
Yeah. Where you can learn how they do captions in comic books at this era. Oh, interesting. It is. The corner of the caption is folded over. Yes, exactly. That is really. Paste it on top. Yeah.
01:20:09
Speaker
um All right. do you guys want to hear what happens with our buddy Wolverine? Nah, think I'm good. all right. Yeah. This was a good story so far. I don't want it to, i don't want to, I want to preserve my memory of it here. yeah I'd like to, to, to preempt everyone with the cover art for this third issue, which looks like,
01:20:30
Speaker
Have you seen that that image of like sad Keanu Reeves on a bench? or like sad Ben Affleck? This is the most emo I've ever seen like a comic book character look. He is just sad and sitting on a bench, I presume. I guess there's not really a chair, but yeah. Yeah.
01:20:47
Speaker
Which is a very funny juxtaposition to how he comes off in the beginning of this issue. yeah Yeah. You just open the cover and he's like... Leaping through the air. Just yay.
01:21:00
Speaker
Tonal whiplash. So this issue Wolverine number three is called loss. ah It's four panels long and sorry. ah Release date August 3rd, 1982 cover date November, 1982. We find a sharply dressed Wolverine participating in an illegal backroom sumo wrestling match.
Wolverine's Personal Journey and Struggles
01:21:24
Speaker
I'm Wolverine. I'm the best there is at what I do. I used to be a secret agent. I used to be a hero. Now I'm drunk and loving every minute of it. He narrates that this as he reverses a sumo wrestler's grapple, picks the wrestler up over his head. Fucking sumo wrestlers weigh between like 330 and 600 pounds.
01:21:51
Speaker
thirty and six hundred pounds But we've established that Wolverine weighs, what, 450 to 500? Of pure muscle, so maybe maybe? Well, not of pure muscle, of metal skeleton. Yeah, So he picks he picks the wrestler up over his head, does a little dance with a goofy, carefree smile on his face. Yeah.
01:22:16
Speaker
I like the jig. The jig is very, very wholesome. Yukio, who Logan refers to as my lady, cheers from the sidelines, also dressed up for going out.
01:22:28
Speaker
The sumo pulls a dirty move, just like c clonks him in the face. He throws a punch. You can't do that. And Wolverine tosses him out of the window.
01:22:40
Speaker
onto the Onto the street where Asano, Logan's friend in Japanese Secret Service contact. You remember that guy? From earlier? yeah He surprises them.
01:22:52
Speaker
He's looking for Logan's help as someone has taken over the entire Japanese underworld and is amassing enough power to take on the government himself. ah How long has it been since last issue?
01:23:05
Speaker
I don't know. i would love to know that. It struck me, they're they're both dressed up for going out dancing. So like they are at the stage in their relationship where together they went out dancing It seems like it's been weeks, right?
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Or even months. Because they're kind of implying that during this time, Wolverine is really starting to like hit rock bottom in a way. He's drunk. He's like wrestling. He's with his lady friend. And they have established a relationship. So there's got to be some...
01:23:42
Speaker
Time that's passed for him to even if you like look at one of the panels, his eyes, they're like super tired and dark underneath. So clearly he's been like through it. Wolverine in this moment expresses his disinterest in Asano's
01:24:02
Speaker
assondment.
01:24:04
Speaker
Oh boy. As he and Yu-Gi-Oh drunkenly stumble off while Asano expresses his disappointment at Wolverine hitting what appears to be rock bottom. I mean, Asano asks him for some what what sounds like, like, I don't know anything about this universe, but it sounded important. It sounded like this is is really important. And Wolverine's like, no, I gotta get drunk and bang this woman. This is way more important. Well, that does sound pretty important.
01:24:33
Speaker
Like, it's not it sounded like the world was, like, ending. Asano was like, I desperately need your help. I do love the stakes here that the criminal underworld, yeah essentially the Japanese mafia, is becoming powerful enough and threatening to overthrow the government. Yeah. that yeah Doesn't that sound a little more serious than like, i don't know. i don't know, man. i don't know, Wolverine. What are you doing? but Wolverine and Yukio stumble through a train station, failing to notice that at least a dozen ninjas are stalking them with bows and arrows from the rooftops. Did they not like look up even once? And what happened to Wolverine's enhanced senses?
01:25:14
Speaker
After a quick game of bullet train chicken. oof it's like ah it's like that scene from The Wire. Only the train moves 200 miles an hour. yeah yeah Logan curls up on the side of the tracks and falls asleep. Yes, you do.
01:25:31
Speaker
He dreams. A lone warrior, rude and of common stock, rides against an army to meet his love, a rich heiress named Mariko. the warrior is right of it They couldn't change her name in the dream? He doesn't dream very subtly. He's not the most creative guy. That's that's Colossus. he's He's the artist. Wolverine is just like a... Just some guy. There's a lone warrior and
01:26:02
Speaker
he's got a fight army. Yeah. And he's after a princess named Mariko. Yeah. The warrior is mortally wounded and gets gets quickly nude. Also nude. He's a on a horse and in armor, but then suddenly he's very nude. yeah He's mortally wounded when his love appears to tell him he's too common and ugly to have ever hoped to earn her love as she delivers the killing blow.
01:26:37
Speaker
you should kill someone just because they're ugly. That's mean. Yeah.
01:26:43
Speaker
What could this dream mean While he sleeps, though, Yukio is assaulted by five members of the hand, chastising her for failing to kill Wolverine and offering her the chance to make up for it by killing him now as he sleeps.
01:26:58
Speaker
She kills them all with ease, but when she tries to wake Wolverine and get him out of there, he calls her Mariko in his stupor. Ha! She kicks him square in the face and leaves him unconscious on the train platform. I laughed at that. Yeah, it's pretty good.
01:27:14
Speaker
Back at the hotel room, Yukio is pacing in the dark when the door begins to open. Fearing it's an assassin, she throws one of her spine knives right into the throat of Asano.
01:27:26
Speaker
Asano. No. When Wolverine returns, he finds Asano with Yukio's blade in his neck and mourns the death of one of his few friends. That actually really surprised me.
01:27:40
Speaker
like it in terms of like a shocking moment in a comic book. I'm like, oh that's that's pretty brutal. he was a cool dude. they don't They don't even show who it is right until Wolverine gets gets there. Yeah. Yeah, they kind of imply in the artwork. If you look at the shadow that's that's going around ah that Yukio's looking at, he has glasses and there's like only only so many. I don't think the hand are going around wearing like of Elvis Costello glasses, but... But yeah, yeah ah Japanese Secret Service agents...
01:28:15
Speaker
always wear. it's Costello glasses as part of the uniform. He starts to put some pieces together. Why is the hand still after Yukio after Katsuyori's death?
01:28:27
Speaker
And the familiar scent on all of her weapons finally clicks. It's the same nerve poison he was struck with when he first arrived. Oh, no. It was her. She was for Shingen.
01:28:39
Speaker
What? What? in Her? No. Just then she appears out of the dark, clearly wanting to plead, but Logan's ready to kill. She jumps out of the window. Wait.
01:28:51
Speaker
She jumps out of the window of Wolverine's hotel room. Didn't they already do that with this same window earlier? They had to add room service again. They had to come in and replace it. It's a thing. All right. Fix all the lamps and windows. We'll be back. We'll be back around 10 a.m.
01:29:09
Speaker
um She jumps out of the window and we watch him chase her across the rooftops and through ah the glass roof of a Zen garden where she can run no further. This is another place where Frank Miller's just like, I don't feel like drawing Tokyo.
01:29:25
Speaker
Well, there's something really interesting about the so. what There's no inks to the skyline, right? There are colors like the Glynis Ween is coming through and coloring in Skyline. Is this did Frank Miller just not draw it and Glynis Ween is drawing the Skyline? Did he draw it, but the inks don't get over it, but the colors still get put in?
01:29:52
Speaker
So I think he drew these things, especially because in the first panel, there's just like a couple random windows and some circles that's supposed to tell you it's Tokyo's skyline. Yeah, yeah. um So I think he drew it and they didn't ink it.
01:30:10
Speaker
that's relax or could ah It could also be ah an artistic decision. it It kind of reminds me of the ah the Leendecker comics, which famously have um just black color behind it to represent emotion and things like that. So it could be it could be an artistic choice.
01:30:27
Speaker
I think on that page it is an artistic choice. I just think when she jumps out of the window, ok that's just laziness. ah he is Also, his style becomes famous for the way yeah inks do or don't get applied, right? Yeah, yeah.
01:30:43
Speaker
so So now they're in the Zen garden, full of emotion. Logan's ready to kill Yukio and, at her convincing, seems ready to kill himself when he's done. But before he can bring his claws down, an arrow pierces his forearm.
01:31:00
Speaker
Suddenly... Ropes wrap around his arms and legs and start pulling him in every direction as another dozen hand ninjas start descending on him. He notes that Yukio appears scared despite the fact that she should be allied with them before taking any action.
01:31:16
Speaker
The next two pages are eight panoramic panels of Wolverine whipping absolute ass. he Pulls back on the ropes they've wrapped around his arms, using them for leverage to swing around and stab fucking everybody. When the carnage is done, he has a moment of clarity in the Zen garden.
01:31:34
Speaker
He's torn between Yukio and Mariko, one in love with the man he is and the other in love with the man he could be. But he's failed them both. And yet,
01:31:46
Speaker
Sorry. And yet, the patterns of life are as fluid as those of this gravel. it Would we really call gravel fluid? Okay. If a Zen garden could see all this violence and still be restored to its natural state of peace and beauty, maybe he can too.
01:32:04
Speaker
Like at the start of this issue, Logan smiles, but this time it's a sober, hopeful smile as he declares to himself that he's a man. A man!
01:32:14
Speaker
not a beast and vow im not a beast vows to teach Shinjin that lesson for taking his dreams from him. That was the most amount of growth I've ever seen someone go through in a single page.
01:32:31
Speaker
Like usually it takes years to change and become sober and a better person. He's there. He's just there. Well, I think it's really interesting the the way they you kind of take him on a journey through this where yeah he's clearly ah having a problem when it starts. He hits rock bottom close to the beginning. And then this is his moment of clarity. Like this is yeah yeah the steps to sobriety. And this is also him returning to the the journey he's been on for years, right? Like he's spent um his entire time with the X-Men.
01:33:08
Speaker
learning to be a better man yeah you know yeah he starts i'm not to jump too far into final thoughts but he starts when we first meet him he's just a psycho
01:33:23
Speaker
grumpy man right yeah he's just like you made me mad and i'm gonna stab you bub and over time, he starts to get this depth and he learns to be He learns to have friends and he learns to open up to people and he learns to show the other sides of him, the sides that know culture and understand humans. and this was a setback, right?
01:33:50
Speaker
This was a relapse into the previous person he was when he's rejected by Mariko. And Mariko is this... To him, she is a symbol of the man he's, he's growing to become, right? She is, I've been trying to be this better man.
01:34:12
Speaker
And if this woman loves me, maybe I am that better man. The X-Men have made me better. Being a hero has made me a better man. uh,
01:34:24
Speaker
ah Then seeing her reject him. As an animal. Was like a It was like a relapse. It set him all the way back to the beginning.
01:34:37
Speaker
Just briefly. And then Yukio. is a is a symbol of that right he's like well fine fuck it i guess i guess all i can be is this slovenly animalistic berserker fucking drunk idiot uh like this like this girl loves yeah he even says at some point when they're like together like on the like on the ground he's he's like oh she's a perfect fit you know just Not just physically, but this woman is a perfect fit for who am. She's perfectly fit. She's so fit. wish I was She is very fit. She would have to be. she lift She calls herself like a tigress and the way Wolverine describes her, she's moving very fluidly. and Yeah.
01:35:23
Speaker
Yeah. and So I think in this moment, what he's what he's trying to say here, he's he's like not only – um Not only was I wrong to doubt myself, not only am I worthy of... not And he's not even saying I'm worthy of Mariko. What he's saying is not only... I am... am the man that I wanted to be.
01:35:49
Speaker
and And... I'm kind of this other guy too. So I'm going to prove... I'm going to prove that I'm a hero and that I'm a man by saving Mariko, whether she wants me or not. It's actually, even though it's short, it's actually a pretty good representation of, of relapse. Uh, cause a lot of times people relapse because they want that familiar thing that they were, even if it's negative. Yeah. So, you know, Wolverine going for maybe someone that's not the best for him and going back to getting drunk and fighting and,
01:36:27
Speaker
that's familiar to him. So he feels like that's his identity. And that's what a lot of relapse does to someone. yeah So it actually is somewhat accurate in that way. Yeah, I think so. And then, and then like, I think his conclusion here is like, yeah, not only am I going to prove myself not worthy necessarily to Mariko, but worthy to myself. I'm going to prove to me that I am worth, I am a man yeah by saving her,
01:36:55
Speaker
But I am also this other guy. So I'm going to do it by fucking kicking some ass. Yeah. i believe Even when people relapse, they're still the person they are. Right. So Wolverine is still Wolverine. and Your personality doesn't change. You know? Yeah.
01:37:11
Speaker
but so he's interesting So this is this moment where he's like, you know what? I am both of these people. And that is that is good. That is okay. Just one fun thing before we move on to our final issue of this miniseries. There is a moment. So Wolverine has returned to the hotel room. He's figured Yukio out. Yukio pops back in. He asks her a question and the narration says that she responds with a sound that's part laugh Part sob.
01:37:43
Speaker
You want us all to try it? Yeah. Okay. um Okay, I'll go first, and then you, Roses, and then you, Pat. Okay. okay part Part laugh, part sob.
01:38:00
Speaker
was sobbing, Matt. I see where you're going. Okay. All right. Your turn. ah
01:38:13
Speaker
Okay. All right. All right. Oh, you had it like evolving. all right. I evolved it. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I saw it as a singular sound more of like a... I don't think that's possible.
01:38:27
Speaker
No,
01:38:33
Speaker
that's pretty good. thanks for ah Thanks for indulging me. It's got to be one of those. It's one of those. So people at home, picture picture one of those things. Also, I guess I want to complain about one more thing before we move on to the last issue. yeah Which is the fucking exposition is back so hard. Like, Chris Claremont has sort of moved away from the overly expositional explaining Everything that's happened up till now at the beginning of every issue. was going to ask about that. Is that normal in an X-Men comic that it is that is redundant in its exposition? Because it seems like every time I read one of these, it's like, I'm Wolverine. and I'm like, again, it's it's it was.
01:39:19
Speaker
And it's they've kind of drifted away from it. And then from here forward in comics, not just X-Men comics, but in comics, it it it it goes in and out of fashion.
01:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. there's I think it's in like the... ah aughts or maybe the 20 teens that they finally, I forget which editor did it, but they were like, that's enough. all We're putting one page in the front of the comic that just explains the character's background. yeah so now I think that's Bill Jameis, right? I
Comics Storytelling and Wolverine's Growth
01:39:52
Speaker
think you're right. yeah good Modern comics, you open them up and there's one like tile at the top that tells you who the hero is and what their powers are because every writer was sick of having to having to shoehorn in like, oh and by the way, i yeah heal really fast. I think...
01:40:11
Speaker
The other part of the problem here is that there's the lore is just so thick at this point. like This was huge in the 60s, and it was easy to work in because everybody had three stories under their belt.
01:40:23
Speaker
m But now everybody has dozens of stories under their belt. And with Wolverine, you have to explain his powers, that somebody else added an adamantium skeleton. It's not actually part of his powers. Also, he heals really fast. Also, he's in the middle of some story. and Yeah. And somehow it relates to his origins. So that's a good point. Yeah. Maybe, maybe Chris Claremont is in other places gotten more subtle with it. And this is just because it's Wolverine. It's a lot more, but it is.
01:40:53
Speaker
Yeah. It is so noticeable and so obnoxious in this book. Yeah. Let's talk about ah the conclusion here. Wolverine number four.
01:41:04
Speaker
Honor. Release date August 31st, 1982. Cover date December 1982. We see Wolverine in full costume, stalking a big heroin deal taking place under an archway in a park in the dead of night.
01:41:19
Speaker
As the two men exchange briefcases, Wolverine dashes through, claws out, slicing both cases open and spilling money and heroin everywhere. Oh, no. This fucking bugs me, by the way. It happens in movies and it happens in comics all the time. We're just like, oh, ah somebody burned our heroin supply or oh somebody sliced. yes somebody like threw our all our cocaine on the ground. Yeah. Spider-Man kicked through our box of cocaine. Yeah. And it's like, wouldn't everybody around get super fucked up right away? is
01:41:54
Speaker
This is heroin, and now it is and powdered, and now it is just like in the air as a dust. You gotta wonder, so I don't think it's come up yet, but Wolverine's Healing Factor...
01:42:09
Speaker
with a lot of writers doesn't allow him to actually get drunk. He can get like momentarily. I was just going to ask that actually. Cause when we were talking about relapse, I'm like, huh, he just, okay. All right. I guess he's over it. But I was going to ask if he had something about him that affects how he handles like alcohol and drugs.
01:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, it it does. And I think a lot of times, like in this one, it's sort of it's like he can get drunk. It takes a lot, but he can get drunk. Yeah. He'll just sober up really fast. And then sometimes in so in some versions of Wolverine, it's like he can't get drunk because he heals faster yeah than he can poison himself. So his liver is just like healing, essentially, as he drinks. is that what's going on?
01:42:58
Speaker
Yeah. And his blood is being detoxified. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So with the heroin, it's probably just a pretty solid buzz for him, right? Like. no but what about everybody else who's exposed yeah to this heroin these two guys just fall down dead from 10 kilos of heroin being tossed up around their heads but that is a good point wolverine can just like do heroin he probably needs to if he wants to feel something he's just like he's just like this
01:43:34
Speaker
this isn't for anybody else but it's fine for me yeah i Wolverine promises not to kill the drug dealers if they deliver a message to their boss, Shinjin.
01:43:50
Speaker
Wolverine is coming for him. Cut to a montage of Wolverine delivering this message to every corner of Shinjin's criminal empire. Shinjin spent years building his organization. i spent hours ripping it apart.
01:44:04
Speaker
So fucking cool! That's such a cool line!
01:44:11
Speaker
Meanwhile, on the Yoshida estate, Shinjin receives counsel that Wolverine is making him look foolish to his criminal empire when a package arrives for him. Inside is a collection of Shinjin's ninja's hoods and a note that simply says, tonight.
01:44:28
Speaker
He tells his aides he will face Wolverine himself. Back in the hotel room, Wolverine lights a cigar, wielding a crossbow as he looks over all the other ninja weapons he gathered in his busy night.
01:44:42
Speaker
yeah's it's it's It's part like... ah little kid who is out collecting a bunch of sticks and rocks and acorns and it's like, look at all the stuff I found. But it's also part like the really edgy guy on a forum in the early 2000s.
01:44:59
Speaker
Like, here's my stack of money. Here's my three guns and my samurai sword. Here's my PlayStation controller. ah a rock band guitar. Yeah.
01:45:10
Speaker
It is honestly what I saw here was a classic load up scene from action movies. Like every every good action movie before the final act has the hero ah reviewing all the weapons he'll bring with him for this like big final showdown. And it worked as that for me.
01:45:34
Speaker
that Yeah, i think that i think that it I think that's the feeling I got from it as well. I wasn't thinking about it, but that's definitely the feeling I got from him. And um I also want to point out, this is the first time in the whole series we see Wolverine standing up straight.
01:45:52
Speaker
Oh, I'm so proud of him. Right? He's got his mood that. He fixed his behavior and his posture. Yeah. but i Wolverine doesn't usually need weapons, he explains, but tonight he'll use all the help he can get. Does this come back, by the way? Does he use any of these weapons?
01:46:13
Speaker
I don't see him using any of I just I wanted to see him like throw some stars or use that that sharp hook thing. He does, but he does it all off panel, right? We see a bunch of yeah um hand ninjas, you know, disintegrating or whatever they do with weapons stuck through them. But we don't see him use them.
01:46:33
Speaker
He reflects on his new disposition. Both he and Shinjin thought him an animal, but now that Logan knows he's not, he's going to prove it. Back to the Yoshida estate where we see Wolverine's two loves.
01:46:45
Speaker
First, Mariko prays for guidance, feeling torn between her sense of duty and her love for Wolverine. Then, across the estate, we see Yukio take out a guard and infiltrate the castle.
01:46:57
Speaker
She's spotted by the hand to acknowledge that Shinjin wants her alive as they capture her with a net. For one weakness. Wow. She even says. Annette.
01:47:10
Speaker
Annette. Doing your best impression. Of Warren and Worthington the angel. yeah This is. um Speaking of. like Action movie tropes. This is a real.
01:47:26
Speaker
it A real good version. Of like the feeling. I got here was that. At the end of action movies. or thriller movies, like all the pieces move into place for the final scene.
01:47:40
Speaker
And you just see like, you ah you tend to see like a montage of sorts of like every, every, each of the, each of the players in the final yeah yeah battle or whatever, um doing the thing that is going to set them up for it. And that's what I felt here.
01:47:59
Speaker
Very good tension building. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:48:03
Speaker
Shinjin summons Mariko to his room, where she finds him lording over a tied-up Yukio. he promises both He promises them both that their love, Wolverine, will die tonight, and instructs Mariko to watch what happens when someone defies their duty and service of their love for Wolverine.
01:48:21
Speaker
He pulls out one of Yukio's spine knives, raises his arm, and brings it down Yukio's restraints. Come for me, if you dare, he challenges her before completely wrecking her shit. He beats her whole ass. He does. We don't even see her land a punch.
01:48:44
Speaker
Having proven himself, he prepares to kill her, but Mariko grabs his arm and pleads for her life. He turns to chastise her, but before he can, there's an urgent call on the radio from a security outpost. He answers, but it's too late.
01:48:58
Speaker
The ninjas on the other end, as well as at any other security posts on the property, are already dead. It looks like he's talking into an iPhone, by the way. Like giving himself a memo or something. Yeah. right It must be so annoying to be Lord Shinjin. And everybody around you keeps falling in love with Wolverine. And you have to you have to be like, look, i this is what happens when you fall in love with Wolverine. Everybody stop falling in love with Wolverine. What if he is secretly in love with Wolverine? And he's just yeah like you angry.
01:49:35
Speaker
What if he had to do this with five other hand members already?
01:49:43
Speaker
Noburu, Mariko's husband, remember that guy? I remember that guy He was grabs abuser. He was. Fuck that piece of shit. Yeah, he sucks. Grabs Mariko and starts dragging her away, not wanting to stick around for Wolverine's arrival. Oh, he is. Yeah, there he goes. So he's being heroic husband. He's saying, sure why I have to save you from this bad situation. I'm sure that's that'll that'll keep up.
01:50:10
Speaker
Mariko wants to stay, though, and when Noburu threatens her if she doesn't follow him, okay he's worried about her. Wolverine steps out of the shadows. Noburu pulls out a pistol, taking Mariko hostage. Oh, all right. Never mind.
01:50:27
Speaker
Before turning it on Wolverine when he puts his hands up. He gets one shot off before he's hit in the back with three of Yukio's spine knives and falls to the ground, dead. All right. Well, that's about yeah's about what he deserved. Yeah.
01:50:43
Speaker
Yukio cuts a sash off of Mariko and drapes it over Wolverine to help dress the gunshot wound. She leans in for a kiss and asks for Logan's permission to fight by his side, but he sends her away.
01:50:58
Speaker
I can't forgive her for Asano, and I can never repay her for Mariko, so I let her go.
01:51:05
Speaker
Wolverine finds Shinjin in his armor room, pulling the honor sword off the wall. Wolverine asks if he's worthy of the real sword now, and Shinshin asks him to answer that question now as the two rush at each other.
01:51:18
Speaker
We get another two-page, eight-panel spread of panoramic shots of the battle where Shinshin appears to have the technical edge, but Wolverine's endurance and adamantium skeleton keep him in it. It's another fucking badass scene. It's so good. He's using Wolverine's using his arms and his wrists to block the sword. Like it's cutting through his skin, meeting the adamantium. And that's like his his parry. Right. Yeah. He's like, you're like instead of allowing himself to get hit in the nerves, he just uses the fact that he is this indestructible fucking tank.
01:51:54
Speaker
Yeah. um And he cuts Shinjin's tie. He does. He just misses him.
01:52:03
Speaker
That's two pages. On the third page, Shinjin manages to stab Wolverine through the side, keeling him over. As Shinjin brings his sword down for the kill, though, Wolverine catches the blade with his left hand, smiles, and extends his right to Shinjin's throat.
01:52:20
Speaker
We see Logan's eyes turn red and suddenly solemn, though, as we hear a familiar snicked, and the fight is over. damn He's so, Wolverine's all bloody and torn up as he's holding the sword like up, like at, at his neck.
01:52:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He went to chop his head off and he caught it. Which gives me the squicks by the way. Cause like, yeah, putting your hand on a blade like that, yeah even, even though they didn't, it's not very graphic. It is. and it's not right. They do show. It's dangerous. Yeah. They do show some stuff like going through the arm and I'm like, ah, yeah. Yeah.
01:53:00
Speaker
Mariko enters, seeing Wolverine standing over the dead body of her father. Duty-bound to avenge her father, Mariko lifts the sword off the ground. But to Wolverine's surprise, instead of attacking, she gives the sword to him.
01:53:14
Speaker
The honor sword is not meant to be yielded by the leader of its clan, but rather by the samurai who best exemplifies its quality of perfection in form and function in body and spirit.
01:53:26
Speaker
Logan doesn't feel worthy, but Mariko assures him the sacrifices he made in the pursuit of good have earned him the honor. I don't love this metaphor, by the way.
01:53:38
Speaker
like i love i like i do like that Wolverine has earned the sword. No, I like Wolverine has earned... yeah okay yes, that Wolverine has earned the sword. Yes, I like that. Like, he's honorable. He's worthy.
01:53:54
Speaker
He's worthy of... His place by Mariko's side. i don't like that it starts with this description of why the sword is like a metaphor for this honor. She she talks about how it's it's perfection of form and function of reality and spirit to be worn not by the Lord of the Clan clan but by the samurai who best exemplifies those qualities. And that's not Wolverine.
01:54:23
Speaker
He's not perfect. Yeah, sure. I think there's another way to look at it, though, because it says, you know, Logan does not feel worthy of this sword, but it doesn't actually matter because somebody else does find him worthy. And it matters that somebody else, maybe he's not perfect, you know, perfection. He doesn't exemplify what this sword means, but somebody else feels that way. And so his own perception of himself doesn't matter because yeah somebody else does. And that's very that's very real life, right? We don't get to decide how worthy we are of something. you know um Like when somebody buys my art, for example, that's up to the person buying it, what it's worth.
01:55:05
Speaker
Does that make sense? I like that part of the metaphor, right? what i do just The part that I don't like is the perfection part because I think what makes Wolverine honorable, what makes him worthy, is that he's specifically that he's not perfect.
01:55:22
Speaker
But maybe that is... that is yeah He is a flawed person who is constantly struggling against his impulses. So he is not a perfect sword. He is a battered, broken, shitty sword that always gets the job done because because i don't know because it believes in itself the metaphor falls apart there but what what if what if Mariko but what if that is what she finds perfection to be Then that's... Then that is... Like she said earlier... in my opinion... like Like she said earlier... Like if you don't understand... Why i can't leave... Then you don't understand me... To me that's the same... Like she's not understanding... Wolverine... and that at that if If that's how she feels... Right? Because like... Trying to put... A label like perfection... On Wolverine... is
01:56:16
Speaker
ah yeah I think that's undervaluing him because you're taking away the thing that makes him so. Anyway, that's how it struck me when I read her read the like, say the thing about the perfection, like, man, the rest of this is so powerful.
01:56:36
Speaker
is And I think and I think exemplifies what you're talking about, roses. Like, yes, she it doesn't matter if he finds himself worthy. She finds him worthy. was just the perfection part where it's like, fuck, y you guys, you got right to the finish line.
01:56:52
Speaker
Honor and worthiness. Yeah. Yeah. Perfection. no No, That's the that's opposite. i By the way, if we're keeping count, ah roses, that was the fifth time that you've mentioned you're an artist, which is the exact number that you predicted at the top of the show. Well, you know,
01:57:16
Speaker
um talented like that. What can I say? i In a rare one page epilogue, only one page long, we see the X-Mansion as Logan explains through narration that if he had not finished the job against Shinjin, Mariko would have done it herself.
01:57:34
Speaker
And then, bound by honor, would have been forced to kill herself as well. We see Kitty, Peter, Aurora, Scott, and Kurt all gathered around a card as he narrates that Mariko had seen her father's corruption and dishonor after the actions he took against Wolverine and Yukio.
01:57:50
Speaker
We see the other side of the card the X-Men are looking at, sporting a photo of Logan and Mariko in traditional Japanese outfits and inviting them to their wedding. end! That was What a wild ending!
01:58:03
Speaker
It says in actually pretty be nice handwriting. i mean Hey, elf, don't forget the beer. W. That's cute.
01:58:15
Speaker
Personalize a wedding invitation. that's a it's You can't do that for everyone. Very sweet. Very cute ending. To be like, it's a meaningful, nice ending. And then to see the X-Men all just gathered around like, oh, it's our buddy Wolverine. What, are you getting married? Like, it's so funny, so cute. It's a very good last page, too. It's just like, it gives you, Wolverine, it's a lot of narration, but it boils just down to like, Mariko also knew that her father was a jerk, which is why she's not honor bound to like,
01:58:51
Speaker
try to kill me or anything. Like, this is why it's all still okay with her sense of honor. Right. And also we're seeing X-Men, Wolverine's friends, all being happy for him. Like, it's just a, it's such a breath of fresh air after such a moody story. And it's, yeah, moody is the word for it. Yep.
01:59:10
Speaker
And it's another reminder of, of Wolverine's humanity. Right? Like, it's not just Mariko. Right. He has friends and they are excited to hear from him.
01:59:24
Speaker
They are happy for what he transformation he's achieved here. Yeah, they're they're happy that their friend has found success. Like you he went off to take a vacation and it's it's working out for him.
01:59:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:59:43
Speaker
Who that's the Wolverine miniseries. Holy shit, you guys. Yeah. Yeah. I liked Extremely good. liked it too. The art is really exciting. We talk about it a lot, but just like at every level, the, the pencils, the inks, the colors, they're, uh, they're just beautiful. They come together. Each one has its moments.
02:00:07
Speaker
Um, The story is tight and tense and really well paced and relies as much on you reading the narration as it does on you interpreting characters, facial expressions, which.
02:00:22
Speaker
I would, I take a, ah well, yes, ah to, to an extent, but I think you could delete all the, all the narration all the dialogue from this and you would get the story almost perfectly.
02:00:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. If you like, if you like just look like I tried to do this at some point um when I, when I started to realize this, I tried to like flip through and just look at every panel.
02:00:49
Speaker
And i think i would understand there's a lot of these, you know, the, the, um complexities I wouldn't understand, but I think I would understand every moment. Yeah, I mean, I think that's yeah i think that's why comic book art is art. I mean, there's that there's really no argument to that in my mind. um It is a form of art ah But it is such a good form of visual storytelling. Just the way that... I find it really interesting that even though some of the panels are not you know strictly one after the other, they're kind of out of alignment. But you know exactly how to read these panels. And I think that's just a good a feat of the art and the artist.
02:01:32
Speaker
i I think the only... Sorry, I'm doing it again now. Me too, yeah, yeah. I think the only... situation where I would be confused if there was no dialogue and no captions is why did Wolverine and Yukio go to Katsuburi? Is that what his name was?
02:01:56
Speaker
Katsuyori. Katsuyori. Why did they go to Katsuyori's place? Yeah, sure. Like that's the only part where I think I would be at all confused. The rest of this is just... even Even his like revelatory revelation in the um Zen garden. I think you can just get by the. e Yeah. That's what I was just clicking through. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Yeah.
02:02:18
Speaker
It's just. It's it's just so. It's just so fucking well done. We also – we talked about this all the way through, but Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, to a lesser degree, but still Chris Claremont, have this kind of like warped Clint Eastwood-esque vision of masculinity. They do. And this is their ultimate man, right? Yeah. he's stoic. He never shows pain or weakness. He's gruff and ugly and unpleasant, but he's still sophisticated. He's worldly. It's very like –
02:02:50
Speaker
Hemingway, right? His idea right yeah you should be ah of how to be a man. i Your natural manliness just causes women of any background or social class to throw themselves at you. yet...
02:03:08
Speaker
but and yet We still have this like this really, i think, vulnerable, introspective, and emotionally driven guy. like It's a very important part is that the decisions he's making, whether they're right or wrong, are based out of emotion. It's him like doing what he wants to do based on just the way that he feels about the situation.
02:03:35
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So it's really, it's so, there's two wolves inside of these guys. ah Two wolferines.
02:03:48
Speaker
ah Rose's final thoughts. I think I have more of an appreciation for it now that we've like really gone over it. Like really scrutinized it. Like I, i liked it when I read it. um Your heart just grew three times this day.
02:04:03
Speaker
It did.
02:04:05
Speaker
But like no, like ah you know kind of going over like the the more emotional part of Wolverine and seeing him go through a relapse. so ah Even though, obviously, the universe is not relatable, but the the story, the emotions are relatable. yeah you know So think that's interesting. And i actually really like looking at all this art. it it it brings me back to when i tried really hard to be a comic book illustration person.
02:04:31
Speaker
And I still use these styles in my art today. I think it's really, really striking and really beautiful. So I'm i'm glad you guys asked me to read it. Actually, I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Thanks so much for reading it with us. On this Christmas day, this frosty Christmas day with the snow falling down and the claws through the tree and the weird mask on Santa Claus. The heroin snow. Yeah.
02:04:59
Speaker
If you had time machine that you'd like to try out, Pat Steals and Deals.
02:05:08
Speaker
Okay. Matt Roses, it is time for another Pat Steals and Deals. And I'll tell you, yeah this segment is getting pretty popular. seems like...
02:05:22
Speaker
it seems like A lot of people have been asking Santa for Steals and Deals. And so he's sent his little elves out to all the flea markets and comic book shops he can find to tear the ads out of the original issues. So as listeners know, I spent my vast fortune collecting every X-Men comic original printing so that I can read these ads to you. But when I have to go and find...
02:05:49
Speaker
another series like a Wolverine mini series. It's kind of last minute. I can only find the one, find the ones that, uh, Santa's little elves have already ripped the ads out of. So yeah man, in the interest of transparency, but still,
02:06:03
Speaker
ah bringing people joy with my weekly segment. i I have once again, grabbed an ad from another comic book. This is not from the Wolverine mini series.
02:06:18
Speaker
But it's a good one. It says super ring. Your super ring can control devices through objects with an invisible magnetic field demonstrated on ABC TV and featured in magazines and newspapers.
02:06:32
Speaker
Includes super ring, activator, and instructions. Requires 9 volt battery. Wait, hold on. Alright.
02:06:41
Speaker
It's a super ring. they It controls devices through objects. it controls devices through objects ah Yes. With an invisible magnetic field. invisible magnetic field.
02:06:53
Speaker
Demonstrated on ABC TV and featured it. So it's just a
02:06:58
Speaker
It's a powerful magnet. I think electromagnet because need 9-volt battery to operate it. It's the same normal size as a ring, but it needs to be powered by a 9-volt battery. Is the battery in the ring? like what Is that like the gem part of it? Look at the size of that rock. What? What?
02:07:21
Speaker
what here's another ah Here's another fun detail. Only $4.50 and $0.50 postage. Send $0.25 for postage. what What the fuck is this thing? How does it control devices? this like, oh my god, is this like when they didn't know...
02:07:43
Speaker
When the average person didn't know why you didn't want to put a magnet up against a screen. And they were just like, look what, look. Yeah, this look I can control. I think the idea is that like through a table, you can control a metal device by yeah activating the magic ring under the table.
02:08:02
Speaker
Meaning you could just like move it around. Yeah. Device. Think of a device as like more like a wrench and less like an iPhone. So how much is this? $4.50 plus 50 cents postage plus 25 cents postage. Why does it say that? Why does it say 50 cents and 25 cents Because that's how they get you.
02:08:29
Speaker
i 5.25 times about $3.25. Again, the US dollar is not great these days. Comes out to about $17.06, including postage. It's pretty good for like a ring, you know, something functional. Yeah, rings are expensive. i just Dude, I just paid like $90 for a ring. So so would you you would but so this would be ah a deal and a steal for you? For me, yeah. Yeah.
02:08:59
Speaker
I don't think I would spend $17 for a ring with a magnet in it. And a 9-volt battery on it. Well, you don't. That's the best part, is the 9-volt battery.
02:09:13
Speaker
No, a 9-volt battery. I just realized, that's fucking huge. Yeah, that's what I said earlier. im like why I was just still trying to... figure out what the hell this would be Yeah.
02:09:28
Speaker
This thing's giant. It's just the battery. All you see is this battery. The battery that powers your car is 12 volts. Yeah.
02:09:39
Speaker
It's taking two-thirds of that power on your finger. Wow. wow Well... He's got an eye out. He's got a spy out. If you had time machine that you'd like to out, he can't steal, steal.
02:09:56
Speaker
Oh, that's the episode, folks. few orders of business to take care of, but first, Roses, Pushing Up Roses. Where can people find you?
02:10:07
Speaker
You can find me on YouTube, youtube.com slash pushing up roses. You can find me on Instagram, pushing up roses. ah Basically, just Google Pushing Up Roses. There's only one, and it's me. You've got it on lock. You'll find it, yep.
Podcast Promotion and Conclusion
02:10:21
Speaker
Great. We'll put some links in the show notes as well. Please. keep like Keep on listening, most importantly, but tell your friends about us. Subscribe, like, share, rate, review, comment, anything you can do to interact. Rant, rave. You know, for Christmas, I want all of our listeners to just talk about us on social media. Just like just like share...
02:10:52
Speaker
Your favorite episode, this episode or any of your favorite episodes of the show. Just share them as as your Christmas present to your old pals, Matt and Pat. Just share on. So share an episode on social media and tell your tell your friends, um your followers, your whatevers. Yeah. Be big help.
02:11:12
Speaker
ah This is a podcast I like. This is a podcast that I think is funny or informative or silly and fun. And yeah, verbatim, please. If you like X-Men, you might like that.
02:11:24
Speaker
Don't do it verbatim. ah Anyway. ah You can follow us on Instagram at mutant menace pod. You can be featured on Pat's email corner, mutant menace pod at gmail.com. Join our discord. It's actually a discord for us and save your game who two other folks on this podcast with me host together. So ah if you like any of the three of us, you should be on that discord. So ah save your game um real, real shortly.
02:11:59
Speaker
Right, Roses? We will be doing our game of the year episode. So yes if you are to be tough, it's going to be a fuck. It's a fucking rough year for it, folks. It's not that there's not a there's too many. There's too many. good Yeah.
02:12:13
Speaker
um So it's going to be a wild one. And we're going to have a really cool guest on that. So ah even if you're not a what's that? Me? Yeah, come on down. he said a really cool guest. I'm in charge of this podcast and I say yes.
02:12:27
Speaker
Pat doesn't play um enough video. Pat, have you played a single video game that's been released in 2025? yeah ah when did Stardew Valley come out?
02:12:40
Speaker
Oh no! Oh no! no and So yeah you're disinvited, but you can come on some other time. ah Yeah, so even if you're not a regular listener, of the Year episodes are a fun time to, you know, just jump in and check in. yeah um I want to thank...
02:12:55
Speaker
Krils Wilson for the music in this episode. ah Most of the music in this episode. i also want to thank Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby. And of course, once more, we want to thank Pushing Up Roses for being on this episode. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I had a great time.
02:13:13
Speaker
And um Merry Christmas, everybody. That's sweet. was it No, we're still going to do our outro. Okay, I thought that was your sign-off. No, that's not my sign-off. That was just, Merry Christmas, everybody. We're going to do a sign-off, but also, Merry Christmas.
02:13:30
Speaker
mary If you're listening on Christmas, Merry Christmas. And if you're not, this isn't for you.
02:13:39
Speaker
wow All right, folks. As we say at the end of every single episode, I have claws. That's right, folks. Very special, Matt.
02:13:52
Speaker
And always remember, i am unworthy.
02:13:57
Speaker
But also, now's the time to balance the books. What the?