70 - Secret Wars II

Transcript

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.

Speaker: Hey everybody, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Ahrkamp. And say it with us, Brent. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace.

Speaker: Matt. Yes. I'm upset. I do, man. Can you believe what we have to do just for these listeners? Oh, if you haven't read the title, folks, today we're covering Secret Wars. No, not me. Not me. I'm i actually I'm going to cover season one of The Sopranos. All right. So so we. are Sorry, Matt. Tony, he's got ducks. Fuck. This sucks, man. um Pat.

Speaker: Yeah. What's Secret Wars 2? Secret 2 is a vanity project from editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time, Jim Jackass. I've got a couple questions. Yeah.

Speaker: Is there a secret in this book?

Speaker: I mean... You could argue that he's searching for the secret meaning of life o and finds it. So it's not a secret anymore. not since Jim stupid revealed it.

Speaker: Is there a war in this book?

Speaker: No, not whatsoever. Okay. And is that so there can't be a war that secret, let alone multiple of them. No, no, no. Of course not. So why would they call this Secret Wars 2?

Speaker: Well, Matt, it's a direct sequel to Secret Wars. Oh, God. All right. And that because that made so that made a ton of money because I featured every superhero fighting and battling and and whatnot on the whims of a godlike being from another dimension.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah. A phrase that I'm sure both you and I are sick of, Matt, is that ah he was in his own universe until pinhole formed in his universe and allowed him to see into ours. And he...

Speaker: Observed the quality of desire. So he created a planet to have all the heroes fight and then give them as a reward, whatever they desire. But it all kind of washed out in the wash in the laundry at the end. Came out in the wash. Yeah. So, yeah who okay.

Speaker: You say came out in the wash? It all kind of came out in the wash. It all washed out in the laundry. I don't know if anybody says it like that. So Secret Wars 12...

Speaker: Was released in December of 1984. The very last issue. Yes. And Secret Wars 2. Number one. Number one was in July 1985. Okay. So these were only seven months apart.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. It seems like i in the midst of Secret Wars 1 debuting, because of the money it was making, they gave Jack Shitbird the go-ahead for a Secret Wars 2.

Speaker: We're going to have to say his name because he is the writer of this whole thing. and Stupid. Jim stupid Jim Jim fucking Jim shooter was the editor-in-chief for for years at this point and this is the beginning of his downfall because he made so many enemies doing this yeah at the end of Secret Wars 1 in the midst of and after Secret Wars 1 he was yeah rewriting other people's comics

Speaker: He was, we talked we talked about this at length in the Secret Wars 1 episode, so i don't want to prattle on too much about that because there's plenty of shit to talk about Secret Wars 2 as well.

Speaker: It's even worse in this, which we will talk about at so some points. It's even worse in this one. And while writing Secret Wars 2, he required every title to tie into Secret Wars 2. The Beyonder, who's his main character, was supposed to appear in a story that or more than one issue of every single title in the Marvel universe. And he would get these pages back and be like, you guys don't understand. You don't understand the Beyonder. You have to rewrite this. And he'd send it back.

Speaker: Or somebody would draw out an entire issue and he'd send it back and say, ah the Beyonder changed costumes in issue four of Secret Wars 2. You have to redraw this with his other costume. And the person had no way of knowing that.

Speaker: Yeah. The artist had no way of knowing that. And then Jim should have just made him redraw the whole fucking thing. Yeah, it was all for issues that hadn't been written yet. yes He was saying, you have no idea what's going on here.

Speaker: Right. To the point where he was, there were a few issues that he took and rewrote himself. So the infamous one is an issue of Daredevil, where he sent but he sent it back to Denny O'Neill several times until Denny O'Neill just put the Beyonder in the very background of the comic. He was like, Okay, fine. yeah If I can't figure out this fucking guy, I would just have him be like a B-plot in the background of the comic. And then Jim Stupid took that took that issue away from Denny O'Neill, wrote an entire issue of Daredevil himself, and published it, where like, Denny O'Neill didn't get fucking paid that month.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. He left Marvel because of this, right? Is that true? I don't know that to be true. this It was, i mean, it's immediately after this that he leaves Marvel.

Speaker: Okay. and i But this wasn't the only conflict that caused it, but it's certainly one of them. It's the same thing about Gypshooter being... fired um It's not because of Secret Wars 2. And in fact, as we've said before, one of the reasons he got let go was actually a very noble reason. He was fighting for pay, better pay for his ah creative staff. But no one had his back.

Speaker: Because he was such a piece of shit as a as an editor in chief, um, yeah that even, even when he was doing something kind for them, people were like, like the, the quote from, ah Sean Howe's Marvel comics, the untold story is that when Chris Claremont learned about it, his response was ding dong, the witch is dead.

Speaker: it Um, So we'll see. Let's remember that. And we should say it when we've when we come to the switch over. um He didn't want to... So just some more background. um During a this is a... lot of this is from the Sean Howe book. Little bits of this are from interviews and stuff. But straight from the Sean Howe book, Carol Kalish, who was Marvel's, at the time, vice president in charge of sales, in front of like a meeting of retailers, she said, let's be honest, Secret Wars was crap, right? And the retailers...

Speaker: all agree like there's a yeah yeah of a scent in the room and then she said but did it sell yeah and they all cheered and she said we'll get ready for secret wars series two

Speaker: and then jim stupid was like i don't want to write it can why don't you give it to tom defalco my god But then for and there's no recorded reason for this.

Speaker: He just, I guess, had an idea and he was like, no, I'll I'll do it. Yeah, yeah. My guess just purely speculative, but given everything going on at Marvel at the time, is that he fired Tom DeFalco for the project. He was just like, no, this isn't what I was thinking at all.

Speaker: You're fired. Yeah. And then he he he put Bob Budiansky on as the editor for this book. And Bob Budiansky was not going to ever say no to anything Jim Stupid was doing. So he just kind of. So he was fully in charge of all of Marvel, everything that was happening.

Speaker: He just it was just like unfettered control. And we'll see what that fucking led to. Yeah. They put Sal Buscema on as the artist.

Speaker: And he fully drew the first issue, right? Yes. Yes. You can actually find it. You find it on the internet. There's a full issue there.

Speaker: On the internet. Pencils only. Yeah. Pencils only. You can read all of or you can see all of Secret Wars 1. And it's not bad when you're looking this. looks beautiful, honestly. It looks good. You know, to be honest, Al Milgram, who. Okay. So jumping ahead. um Sal Buscema gets fired. Yeah.

Speaker: ah Yeah, because Jim stupid was just like, i don't like this. This isn't you don't get it. This isn't it at all. Yeah, you don't get it. understand Sorry. And then fired him and put Al Milgram on and Al Milgram.

Speaker: His art gets worse and worse as the series goes on but it starts pretty good. i would say some of these Sal Buscema panels are better.

Speaker: than Milgram's, and some are worse, and some are about this and ah most are about the same. So I think, I don't think that Al Milgram's, and we don't hate Al Milgram here. Al Milgram's fine, serviceable artist, right? I don't think we have any nine particular... fine inker. I think he's a very good inker. I don't think he's good at...

Speaker: I don't think he's that good of an artist. And we've already we've already discovered he's a not a good writer at all. But his i his storytelling, just like it's not there. it's It's just like in Secret Wars 1, where it seems like they're there to draw characters and poses. And a big part of that is because there's not really a story going on. We'll dig into that. I'm not going to start ranting there yet. What I'm saying is Sal Bishema's art here tells a story. Like you can see what happens panel by panel, page by page, just looking at his art.

Speaker: And he's making strong decisions here. And not that Al Milgram isn't. Like if if you go all the way to, there's a scene in ah towards the the middle of Secret 2 issue one where Molecule Man is turning everything into apples.

Speaker: Or wait, no, this is the Beyonder as Molecule Man, and he's turning everything into apples. And Sal Buscema's idea is to put them all in like bushels, where I think Al Milgram's idea is a little better, where he just makes a giant pile of apples that's toppling over all over the place. But if you look at these panels,

Speaker: In this issue, you have like his ah the other character's bored girlfriend watching TV in the background, and Sal Busema makes the choice where she just picks up an apple and starts eating it as if she doesn't care where it came from or what's going on. like That's so good. That's very good...

Speaker: Storytelling choice so that's what I mean about how like some of these are about equal some of these are worse like the there's a scene where the Beyonder turns magic into the dark child and I think Al Milgram's is way better than Sal Buscema's.

Speaker: Okay. Yeah. I'll give you that. I don't like Al Milgram's work in this run. I think there is yeah one panel that I, that like, that caught my eye that made me say, Ooh, this is, this is fun and creative and artistic in any way, but there's just, there's no hard dynamism. Yeah. There's no, uh,

Speaker: There's nothing exciting to it. That's true. That's true. These are the most boring looking issues. There's not you would never pick up an issue of Secret Wars 2 and go, oh, I want to find out what's going on here.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. um There's a lot of errors and just before we get off Sal Buscema. There's a lot of errors in al Milgram's issue one.

Speaker: He puts Sunspot with the new mutants when ah in on Muir Island when he's not there. um Right. but And Sal Buscema. He draws Spider-Man in his original costume instead of the black costume that they forced on him through the first Secret Wars.

Speaker: He even makes a comment of it. um But yeah, Sal Buscement draws Magneto in his old villain costume. So yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: I think it wasn't going be good no matter what is, I guess, I think where I'm... I think what I'm dancing around, maybe. Yeah. So the the result here is that I don't think anybody enjoyed it, right? i I don't know for sure, but it seems like it wasn't very well received at the time. a lot of, i know, our listeners that were there when it happened at Ground Zero were turned off comics for a little bit. It's just... So, ah Matt, you and I read it and got just as upset, right?

Speaker: we It is a slog. It's only nine issues, but we're going approach this one a little differently today just because... um this This is useless. There's no story here. There's no consistent theme. There's no reason this story to have been told. There's a consistent theme, but that's all there is. And it's not that smart of a theme.

Speaker: Sure. Is what I would argue. I think there all there is is a theme. The idea of... ah story It's like there's just no story here.

Speaker: So I think the way that we're going to work through this is if it's X-Men related, hey, we're going to dig in. We're going to tell you what happened because we follow the X-Men here. If it's not X-Men related.

Speaker: It's not worth your time, I promise. If you want to go through and read it yourself to try to prove us wrong, you won't win that battle, but go ahead. ah We're going to cover. the broad strokes of any non X-Men stuff. And then, list of complaints. We'll, just we'll, we'll tell you what air our grievances. We'll tell you what's weird or bad or funny or stupid about it. Uh, cause that's what we do here. We're, yeah you know, ultimately kind of a comedy podcast. So, uh, yeah.

Speaker: All right. Anyway.

Speaker: Ooh, a little good news, Matt. We've got Pat's email corner. Oh, right now. Wow. i I didn't know we were still doing that. We got a handful to work through. Let's start right away. Now, these are going to cover a range. guess we're doing of episodes.

Speaker: Okay. Uh, first up Mikey two males, this is our last one, right? In reference to episode 69, it is worth noting this email came in before we had aired episode 69, but okay, sure.

Speaker: Uh, Mikey two males subject line episode 69 says, hi, Pat, tell Matt. I said, nice. All right. All right.

Speaker: And then another email from my YouTube emails, X-Men related email. Hi, Pat. Tell Matt I said that it was really fun to see Kurt get his own short run where he was featured and had adventures.

Speaker: Who would you all want to see have their own miniseries? At this point in time. Yeah. Hmm. We've seen Kurt Wolverine Iceman.

Speaker: Yeah, do you have? Oh, you know, I know. yeah i'd I'd like to see some Cyclops and Madeline. ah Yeah, I was going to say Cyclops like little mini adventure where he's not an X-Man, but he has to yeah do something to protect his family ah would be fun. Maybe he's like they oh they go to a small town that it turns out is being ruined by a big businessman like ah like Roadhouse.

Speaker: Are you sure that Scott wouldn't side with the big businessman though? He'd be like, that's capitalism and or and at at work, Madeline. No, no, no. like he's he For some reason, it brit it puts Madeline in danger. Or they're hurting. And that's what he's like, all right, I've got to get involved. Yeah, they're like hurting people and he's trying to ignore it, but then Madeline gets gets hurt.

Speaker: Yeah. Or almost hurt. you know I was thinking along the lines of like, Maybe Madeline had done some jobs for some less than reputable clients when she was a pilot.

Speaker: Right. OK. and And she didn't know she doesn't ask questions. Exactly. And then maybe Han Solo like she dumped her cargo one time because she was getting bored. And so she gets pulled in for one last job.

Speaker: Oh, shit. And then Scott is Scott has to horse by her side. Yes, he has to he has to protect her and things. So that's awry. That's the Scott and Madeline miniseries. Yes.

Speaker: Is like a yeah what would you call that? Like a thriller, like a chase thriller. Yes. And then we have the the Cyclops miniseries where he's more of like a ah ah modern Western gunslinger.

Speaker: Man, do we love Cyclops? We might. he's I mean, he's doing good things. just We followed him for so long and we've just constantly been thinking of him as just kind of like a drip, a nerd, a dork, but like who sometimes does cool things.

Speaker: He's consistent. Now that he hasn't been around for a while, I'm kind of like, I want to see him do some badass stuff.

Speaker: ah Good question. Folks, feel free. Mutant menace pod at Gmail dot com to answer Mikey's question here as well. i would love to hear some other or try to top it because we both had the same answer.

Speaker: Try and top him. See if you can you can you can ask a better question than Mikey to males. Good. Good luck. Gauntlet. Gauntlet has been thrown. Everyone that's not Mikey to males.

Speaker: I up next. ah That's strange, Matt. This one's just a name. It says Brent.

Speaker: Oh, pat ok I know. what I know why that's there. I'll i'll tell you off there. Oh, OK. All right. And maybe we'll go back and fix i in post whatever whatever this is for.

Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about. Thank you, Brent. Up next. Email Michael. Matt, you're ready for email my Michael's episode 68 responses? Please.

Speaker: He says, hey, Pat, could you please tell Matt that? No, I'm not completely sure what the phrase cream of the crown, which Pat used in episode 68, means exactly. It's pretty clearly him trying to say cream of the crop and make a mistake, but I but i can make something up if you'd like.

Speaker: For example, I love this. I got into rose gardening this year. The transition where a rose's roots transition to the above ground canes is called the crown. This crown is the core of the plant and must be protected at all costs. So if parasitic insects were to attack the crown, it would be important to remove them before they devoured the fluids within or the cream of the crown.

Speaker: In other words, Pat was saying that the comic was the cream of the in other words pat saying that the comic was the cream of the crown was of vital importance and needed to be protected from threats such as parasites or frost.

Speaker: Okay. Well, I think he was talking about King's, but that's also what your theory is also good. Both were extremely valuable. I leave it as an exercise to you to determine how much of what I just wrote was true. i'm i am in.

Speaker: i am fully bought in on this. Also, Pat said it's probably very few listeners who have seen the film Bullet Train. I guess I'm one of them. It's a good movie. I enjoyed it. Reminded me of my own time spent traveling via Bullet Train in Japan, except for the hitman part. Still not a ninja, email Michael.

Speaker: Huh. We're still not sure what email Michael is. i I mean, I'm not a ninja is something someone that's not a ninja would say, but it's also... Something that someone that someone who is a ninja would say.

Speaker: And he did not disagree with the undead part. I want to say said he was an undead ninja and he was like, not a ninja.

Speaker: i Up next, another episode 68 response from the Ink Master. Ooh. Hey, Pat, tell Matt that we know for a fact whether or not Hulk can have sex, as he actually has a biological son, Scar, who was born from his marriage to Kyra during the Planet Hulk storyline. Granted, Kyra isn't human, and her species is much more robust than humans. Yeah, I think the with just like a regular...

Speaker: Man or woman was. Was implied there. Well i you know. I think it's I think. Oh no because initially. he can even hold one right. Yeah exactly. Exactly because.

Speaker: we We would have seen it. Is the problem. So confirmed. It's just regular. It's regular human. It's regular human size. It doesn't scale up with the rest of them. We're so distracted.

Speaker: By his big old Hulk body. We don't notice a regular sized human penis. Erect in his little shorts. I mean the shorts got to expand to fin his massive waist at this point. and maybe Bruce Banner also.

Speaker: I don't want to cast aspersions or anything. But maybe Bruce Banner has a sort of. Maybe he's not. I'm not saying this is says anything bad about him. But maybe he has a smaller. Maybe he's on the smaller side.

Speaker: He doesn't – well, OK. We can – mutantmenispod at gmail.com. He doesn't strike me as that kind of guy, but that's – Every superhero can't have a massive hog, Pat. Like, there's you're not – you're going to – if I'm like – I don't know. You'd be surprised. I'm a –

Speaker: Because if it's based on just like swagger, you would have to be like, you would have to say any superhero name and be like, yeah, they probably have a massive hog. They can't all have massive hogs. A couple superheroes have to have a little tiny. Okay. Yeah. There's got to be a couple that are, that are ah undersized.

Speaker: Somehow didn't realize that I didn't send this after finishing it. Yeah. example So that's that drafts for a few days. and your like me Let me check on that penis email.

Speaker: did they get back to me

Speaker: Up next, Glib Grendel, Matt. You remember Glib? i love Glib Grendel. I love getting emails from all Glib Grendel. It responds to episode 65 where they ah signed off not a nickname, if you remember, and we kind of made a big deal about it. Hey, Matt, tell Pat.

Speaker: But that's not how you spell my name. I specified not a nickname because I do not want a nickname, and I think I have a cool, incredibly normal name. If it's my lot as an emailer to end up with one, guess I'll hopefully get stuck in the same holding pattern as Daniel.

Speaker: What is that? That's what I mean by that. what They said something about same holding pattern as Daniel.

Speaker: We just haven't thought of a nickname for Daniel yet. yeah i don't I don't get it I wouldn't call it a holding pattern. Maybe people are misunderstanding there. But listen, Glib, if you and you working you just want to go by first and last name, tell us.

Speaker: That's an easy nickname to remember. So hard on Daniel's nickname. We are pretty hard We spend three, four nights a week in calls trying to figure it out.

Speaker: We're going to get there.

Speaker: We've got yeah, we've got we've got seven letters already. We just don't know what order they go in. It's like a like a fuck.

Speaker: It's not Mona Lisa smile. What's the the Catholic ah puzzle box?

Speaker: It's like the Da Vinci code. Yeah. Mona Lisa's smile. All

Speaker: all right. one more email here, Matt, from his name was Dusk. What's his name now? Hi. He doesn't say in this one. So i the ah subject line here is to John Quinstantine phrase.

Speaker: so no Is this about the pronunciation of John Constantine? Or the use of to coin a phrase. Okay, let's find out. Hey, Pat, can you tell Matt that I was reading a John Constantine Hellblazer comic from 88 written by Jamie Delano and Constantine said something akin to mad as hell to coin a phrase. So I looked it up and it seems like the phrase is primarily used sarcastically to point out that an expression you used is corny or trite.

Speaker: I know you made fun of the usage before for being incorrect, but it seems like it was often used to show that you knew you weren't being original. Huh.

Speaker: Okay. I buy that. It's just, and you know, all the only sort of joke Chris Claremont acknowledges When, you know, one of his characters says something and we don't realize it's a joke and another character says, oh, so-and-so's grown a sense of humor, which happens every two issues.

Speaker: Sure, yeah, yeah. um It's always just somebody saying something sarcastically and usually very lightly sarcastically. like i mean, that fits into... Like, oh, you're in a good mood today.

Speaker: oh so somebody's grown a sense of humor because the person was grumpy. It's like, oh, yeah, I guess that's a joke. Yeah, yeah. i i I don't think his name was Dusk is wrong here. The issue that I have is if we didn't go to the trouble of looking it up, please don't look it up for us. yeah ah

Speaker: That, Pat, that cancels out ever like 99% of our emails. I just assume this is all things that people know that they're expressing their their general knowledge.

Speaker: Oh, Matt, that's the end. That's all the emails we got through it. Unless you want. Okay. Unless you want me to read this nice technical support email that we have in our inbox. not think um I think I'm good on that. Pat, I have to ask you a big question.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. What's up? Did you do anything secret this week? Not anything I would be comfortable talking about on Mike. I did. Come on. Come on.

Speaker: The listeners deserve it. Deserve to know. I do something X-Men related. Can I tell you about that? I don't know. I think you have to wait till next week. Did you join any wars this week?

Speaker: i No, no. All right. Tell me the X-Men related thing. I went to the beach, which the X-Men used to do all the time. they don't really anymore.

Speaker: But yeah, they spent like a whole month at the beach in the Savage Land. Oh, you're right. yes they Yeah. They loved it They loved every minute of it. And so did I. I got so much reading done. I read a bunch of comics, Matt. I read a bunch of real book.

Speaker: A bunch of real book? Yeah, the whole thing. Okay, wow. ate a bunch of great food. I got a high score in skeeball. Fucking 495, dude. Can you believe that? Wow. That is some expert spatial geometry. but Anyway, Matt, did you do anything X-Men related or anything secret? Or did you join any wars or anything in twos this week?

Speaker: Oh, okay. I didn't do anything X-Men related. I didn't join any wars. I probably did something in twos and I did do something secret. ooh Tell me, tell me. i

Speaker: can't.

Speaker: All right, well, let's get into it, Matt. Okay.

Speaker: Why don't we get into Secret Wars 2 number one, Earthfall. And these are all written and drawn by the same people. Right. And inked by the same person, but there's somebody else who joins occasionally. So we can just say those up top and basically we'll just we'll just tell you the letter, or colorist, and editor. or The letter and...

Speaker: Letter and colorist only because the editors Bob Budiansky always. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll do the and ski.

Speaker: i So, yeah, here is the the grand up top one time. We'll never do this again. Listing of the credits. ah Dumb Idiot, Scripter, Al Milgram, Penciler, Inker, Steve Lealoha, Letterer, Joe Rosen, Colorist, Christy Scheel, and Editor, Bob Budiansky. Steve, you're letting us down, man. We we were in your corner.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. we were We were counting on you. You were the chosen one! Release date April 1985. Cover date July

Speaker: Beyonder comes to Earth to seek understanding. Molecule Man tells him knowledge is gained through experience, so he gives superpowers to a grumpy TV writer who then starts destroying L.A. Iron Man, Captain America, the X-Men, and the New Mutants show up to stop him.

Speaker: When Wolverine stabs the Beyonder, he realizes experience must be firsthand, so he disappears, taking Thundersword's powers with him. Thundersword is the great bitter TV writer that he... yeah So at this point, the X-Men show up. we'll We'll get to that in a second. But this is our ah this is our opening, Matt. How do you feel?

Speaker: Man. So. OK.

Speaker: OK. here's Here's my first impression. OK. Bat. Pointless. Here's my second impression. I love...

Speaker: Owen Reese, the molecule man and Marsha Volkina. i their love, I love their love. They've got a very sweet, beautiful relationship. Clearly Jim idiot doesn't right. He feels that they are, uh, sappy and over romantic and wasting their time loving each other. But,

Speaker: They're just sitting around watching Hogan's heroes. They both have superpowers. They know that they're like kind of inclined to violence and that they're a little messy with them when they really try to use them. So they're like, you know what?

Speaker: We don't need to be villains. We don't need to be heroes. Right. We have these incredible powers, but the most incredible thing we have is each other. And it's yeah they're sitting around watching Hogan's heroes and Laverne and Shirley and stuff. It's just now.

Speaker: Is that supposed to be Jim Stupid making a like taking a shot at them? Like, oh, these guys are so powerful and all they do is sit around and watch these dumb TV shows. Like, is is he trying to, like we find that endearing, but does he find that shitty?

Speaker: Yes, he's trying to paint them as like lazy and consumerist. Like the dumb idiot consumers. Yeah, yeah. You could do all this, but instead you sit and watch TV. Yeah. You know what?

Speaker: I sit and watch TV with my wife and I fucking love it. You watch Family Feud.

Speaker: So the Beyonder. Okay, so let's zoom in on a couple concepts. First, the Beyonder. The Beyonder doesn't know how anything works. So he shows up. He's like um um a mishmash of ah superheroes that he pulled to Battleworld. He's got an Iron Man chest plate with a with a Fantastic Four 4 on his chest. He's got claws.

Speaker: Ray gun hand. He's got Dr. Doom's mask with Cyclops' his visor and Storm's hair and Captain America's leggings and boots and ah the Hulk shorts with an X-Men belt on.

Speaker: who So... He then, all he says is like, I desire to understand experience. i Like, he's talking like an adult baby.

Speaker: Yes. And he understands, the the idea is that he understands nothing. That he... He has language. He doesn't understand the concept of anything and he wants to know it. And then when he shows up to Stuart Caldwell, so he goes to the Molecule Man and he's this weird mishmash of superheroes because that's the only beings he knows in the universe.

Speaker: Yes. Then Molecule Man's like, you should try and look more normal. And so then when he shows up at Stuart Caldwell's apartment or office or whatever, he looks like the Molecule Man.

Speaker: Because he just copies Owen, who is his friend. Next concept, I guess, is Thundersword, who is a yes a bitter TV writer who's currently writing cartoons for nbc And hates consumerism, eats at McDonald's a lot, but complains about it, smokes cigarettes and drinks a lot of coffee, I guess. But complains about the health crisis. And yeah like yeah and so he's just. And Reagan complains about Ronald Reagan a lot. Reagan watch.

Speaker: There's a lot of Reagan in this. The front the for half. the frontout Unfortunately, there's that the Reagan watch will peter out. But Reagan watch, Stuart Caldwell hates Reaganomics. Hates Reaganomics. So he's a criticism of lazy liberalism.

Speaker: And I think it's hard to tell what Jim Stupid's politics are. But I think it is from a centrist or conservative point of view. Yeah, I think slightly right of center and fully behind Ronald Reagan, which a lot of people were in the 80s.

Speaker: So the whole thing is he's just a big hypocrite. Everything that he says is either self-serving or disproven by something else that he's doing. Right. um He's earning money from the like the the hypocrisy here is supposed to be. He's earning money from these companies, but he's complaining about how ah all they peddle is drivel. He's complaining about consumerism, but he's all he's doing is eating McDonald's. Right now.

Speaker: Who is Stuart Caldwell? Right. Matt, let me ask you this. Who is the ah writer that we have talked about the most on this podcast without ever having read? Oh, is it a writer who left Marvel right when Jim Stupid became editor in chief because he just had constant disagreements with him about creative stuff?

Speaker: And so went to do his own creator-owned shit that poked fun at Marvel constantly. He went... He was the writer. Well, okay. It's Steve Gerber. It's Steve Gerber. Yeah.

Speaker: Steve Gerber. So he was the writer. he was the super liberal writer of Howard the Duck. Right. He is the, he was like one of the true staples of the Mary Marvel pulpit era.

Speaker: Just like a fun, I don't know about fun loving, but like goofy writer who loved satire and he was Pretty biting and also was the sober one of that crowd.

Speaker: And when he left to do creative but creator own stuff, he did a comic called Destroyer Duck. That was just another Howard the Duck, but. A constant takedown of Marvel.

Speaker: Yeah. and it explained away yeah the entire Bill Mantlo era of Howard the Duck. ah Right. It's like a nightmare. a dream sequence.

Speaker: So this is Jim Stupid just kind of like taking his – taking pot shots at Steve Gerber. He had Al Milgram draw this character to look exactly like Steve Gerber too.

Speaker: Right. At at first I was like, oh, this is just, this is pure jealousy. Like Jim Stupid sees somebody in an industry that's thriving while the comic books industry doing well, but not doing nearly as well as cartoons. And it's like, oh, these cartoon writers are such brats, not like us cool comic book guys. they And so I was like, okay, this is like an ego thing. He feels a little threatened by people in maybe a higher station than him. But then I figured out that it's actually Steve Gerber. I did not figure out. I read that it's actually Steve Gerber.

Speaker: And so it makes it it's a little more consistent with his personality. It's not a broad ego thing. It's a very specific ego thing. Yes. And at the end, he breaks down. like So while he's on going, he turns into Thundersword. And by the way, Thundersword has a flying horse named Boromir.

Speaker: which is so valkyrie's horse is named aragorn what you can't do this jim's stupid just kind of like i don't know if he's making a joke about valkyrie's horse being named aragorn or if he's like oh the theme in marvel is that all valkyries have horses named after lord of the rings characters And one pterodactyl.

Speaker: But then out of anger, he, Thundersword, flies around with his big Thundersword and smashes all the TV studios that he was angry at. And at the end, he breaks down in like yucky, gross tears saying, oh, I destroyed all the places I worked. I have nowhere to go now. i have nowhere to. yeah And it is just crazy.

Speaker: Jim Stupid being like, well, you burn your bridge. This is what happens when you burn your bridges, Steve Gerber. One day you're going to be crying with nowhere to work. Which is fucking actually happened, unfortunately. Steve Gerber did have to come me like shit crying back to Marvel to get his job back.

Speaker: That it did happen. This is the debut of... the follow-up to the best-selling series you've ever done. Like, this is when you're choosing to take out your petty issues with a former employee.

Speaker: Yeah. incredible Unbelievable. So that's Thundersword. All right. Does ever come back? Does Thundersword ever come back? Oh, I'll look that up. Well, why don't you tell us what the X-Men are up there? Yeah. Let's talk about what the X-Men are doing here on your island. Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Professor x Xavier is startled awake when he senses the Beyonders arrival. In a panic, he demands Moira McTaggart round up Magneto, the X-Men and the New Mutants to face him. Already, already wrong, wrong, already wrong. Nope.

Speaker: He telepathically reaches out to warn Captain America. Then he passes back out. Oh, sorry. He telepathically reached out to Magneto. ah But already, like fucking he would never send the new mutants to fight a god. he doesn't even want the new mutants to be on missions.

Speaker: Also entirely true. Yeah, yeah. He wouldn't say, well, I mean, maybe if it's a world ending threat and he's like, this is the most powerful being ever. We need to send everybody because they're going to die regardless. Right. If to be on. Anyway, my issue Is that this isn't what happened. He called Magneto. He wasn't strong enough to call any of the X-Men or New Mutants.

Speaker: Magneto had to go gather them. Yes. a and Wrong. there's like It is fun to see Legion here just playing with blocks. Yeah. we we Is this... So is he just hanging out at the mansion now when we just don't know him? they are not...

Speaker: at the mail Oh, right. They're on Muir Island. This is immediately following the events of Legion. Right. Remember, so because remember, um the arena with Max Rocker and all of those guys, that happens at the same time as the Legion story. So even though we're talking about 10 issues back,

Speaker: They are still at the same, in the same time frame. They're still here, yeah. um Also, that's why, you know, Sunspot runs into the room. Sunspot shouldn't be there. So, an wrong. Eh, wrong.

Speaker: and Magneto shows up at the mansion to rally the X-Men, but a fight almost breaks out. They decide to trust him for now. For now. They all hop in the rolls and Magneto levitates it off the ground, flying them to LA. This is kind of funny. They just, the rolls just flying across the planet.

Speaker: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When they get there, he pulls the rest of the new mutants plus Lila, Shaney, and Dazzler out of the arena, but Magma magma and Sunspot refuse to come.

Speaker: We've seen all this. We know this happens. i Yeah, I know! and here's the thing. In order to properly read this, like i I think I remember the editing or the publishing timelines got messed up here, right? So I couldn't actually buy...

Speaker: the Dazzler issue or the new mutants issue that this is all happening in. i guess it was beauty and the beast. And also by this at the same time to read all the stories continually. Right.

Speaker: Right. But that's what's so frustrating here that, Mid-issue, I would have to go from one comic to another, read that chunk until I got to the part that Secret Wars 2 interferes with, go back to Secret Wars 2, read a chunk of it until I have to go back to the original comic to figure out how it was concluded or how we got into the situation we're in yeah and then go and finish my Secret Wars 2.

Speaker: Yeah, it's so frustrating. it's It sucked. Get used to it, man. Get used to it because we are about to enter the era of the crossover. Okay.

Speaker: Now 11 people packed into the Rolls Royce. Yeah, what the fuck? Don't know how to even start looking for the Beyonder. And 11 people with superhero proportions.

Speaker: The Rolls at one point is more of a stretch limo. Like it kind of changes depending on the angle we're looking at. Maybe Magneto could do that. Now the glass would shatter. Well,

Speaker: Glass is metal. well What?

Speaker: Excuse Just then, they see Thundersword destroying the TV studios, and they take him to be the Beyonder. But before they can attack, he attacks them, splitting their car in half with his Thundersword.

Speaker: It's just it's like a yeah it's a bolt of lightning on a stick. Thundersword has a thundersword. Is the thing. Their fight takes them into a Mac burger where Thundersword rants about mediocrity and mass media marketing and starts trashing the place. As the destruction spreads, Captain America and Iron Man arrive to help. couple lines here. ah We get invulnerable but while blasting number 13. Unfortunately,

Speaker: So, oh my God, Jim stupid is, he is familiar with the comics enough to know to include invulnerable while blasting. Right? Yeah. He knows it's a catchphrase, but we've found it 13 times, but he fucking changes it for no reason.

Speaker: He says, ah I'm almost invulnerable when I'm rocket blasting. Why change it? like This seems like the first ant wrong, but and seems like the stupidest little thing for us to complain about. But you have to put yourself into the psyche of Jim stupid at that moment.

Speaker: He understands why. what this catchphrase is. Yeah. And he says, no, I'm going to write it differently because I can think, I think it's better this way.

Speaker: People, people aren't going to understand. These the, The almost and the rocket are just implied. They're implied in his catchphrase. Well, because he says nigh invulnerable often. and Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And blasting, anyone's going to fucking understand what that means. You're watching him blast. Yeah, he's not coming. It's it's fucking rocket blasting.

Speaker: Other thing, has a Magneto call blast. he has ah magneto call Rogue Rachel. Oof.

Speaker: Oof. That's awkward. And why Lila Chaney here? She can't do anything. And she keeps running into battle. Like they're all fighting. Lila Chaney is running into like into the battle. Why?

Speaker: You can't do anything. Yeah. or Can't she? I thought she was like super strong or no shot lasers or something. Nope. She can teleport people can across the universe.

Speaker: That's it? that's That's her power. She can teleport people across the universe. So like you can also heist the whole earth, right? That was by teleporting. doing Yeah. By teleporting. at right So I mean, maybe she's good with like a gun or something, but she doesn't have one here. And maybe she has that like mutant, like she's yeah at the peak of human powers because she's a mutant, but she also, she's never trained with the X-Men or the new mutants.

Speaker: Yeah. So she doesn't have the ability to do this stuff. It's just, yeah. Yeah. She's a pop star. they You learn a lot of things, you know? Yeah, you're probably. You're right. You're right. riography And I have a feeling in her choreography out there. I have a feeling when she's part of when she ah shows up in X-Force in the 90s, we're going to have to just bite the bullet on this point.

Speaker: what's X-Force? You know, she's just going to show up and it's just going to be doing like, you know, triple spin kicks. And it's just like, okay, fine. I guess she can do this because that's what Rob fucking Liefeld wanted to draw.

Speaker: The fight continues, but Rachel senses some awesome power nearby and suddenly the Beyonder appears. Without a word, he jabs his hand into Illyana's chest and transforms her into the Dark Child.

Speaker: Remember? Remember that? from He senses evil in her. Remember we had to endure that for that like half of a New Mutants issue a little while back? Yes. It is where they just... yeah They just end up in limbo and resolve the situation and then get back to their new mutants business. And that's Chris Claremont, right? Responding to this because this is Jim stupid, which he'll do so many times throughout the series going.

Speaker: ah Chris Claremont, you're taking too long with this dark child story. Yes, it should happen right now. It should already be happening. And then Chris Claremont gets her back and he's like, nope, not yet. No, it shouldn't.

Speaker: Nope. Wolverine sees this happening and slashes right through him in a fury. The rest of the X-Men, confused, try to hold them back while Lila teleports them all away. Because they don't know.

Speaker: yeah So, okay. Lila has a purpose here. So they don't know that this guy is the Beyonder. Rachel does, right? Rachel senses it.

Speaker: maybe Maybe, but wolverine Wolverine senses it. And they're like, what are you doing? Why are you attacking a random man? Yeah, yeah. so i guess So I guess where we leave the X-Men here is that they all just had an encounter with the Beyonder. The new mutants are teleported to Limbo with Ileana being Darkchild and Dazzler's with them. And the X-Men, which we never get a resolution to get teleported away by Lila Shaney.

Speaker: Right. So like i she can only teleport over massively long distances. So they're just in another, you know, fucking star system. And we never remark on it in any X-Men. They know how to come back from that. It's all off-panel stuff. Okay, yeah, sure.

Speaker: She doesn't even know the X-Men. She's never met them before. All right. one One fun thing I thought we could do here, Matt, at the end of each recap. At the end of every issue, the final like little strip panel at the bottom tells us what to expect next, like like plenty of comic books do. Okay. Right? These...

Speaker: are absurd. Let me give you an example here with Secret Wars 2 number one, the very final panel here says next, The story continues, and how, in New Mutants number 30, Captain America number 308, X-Men number 195, and Iron Man 197, all on sale soon. Don't miss them.

Speaker: One month from now, jesus christ the threads of the epic saga of the Beyonder are picked up again in Secret Wars 2 number 2, which guest stars Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Power Man, and Iron Fist. Be sure to be here for I'll Take Manhattan. You can't say it, because then I don't get to say the title next.

Speaker: Oh, sorry. i quit. i'll ble I'll bleep that out.

Speaker: All right. Let's move on to Secret Wars 2, number two. I'll take Manhattan. I'll take Manhattan, Pat. Not you. So ah Joe Rubenstein helps with inks here. And then the letters are Parker and Rosen and colorist is M. Hands.

Speaker: My hands. Release date, May 1985. Cover date, No x-men in this one so X-Men free.

Speaker: The Beyonder stands atop one of the Twin Towers desperately wanting to experience humanity. Twin Towers jump scare. Whoops. Where, why are clothes?

Speaker: Why is food? What happens when you jump off a tall building? He asks his friend, Spider-Man, who doesn't really have answers for him, but teaches him to poop before pawning him off on Reed Richards. All right, let's slow down.

Speaker: Yeah, let's pause. Okay. So he tries to eat food and smashes a ah ah glass bottle into his face. and somebody's like And he's like, why are food? And somebody's like, go ask one of your friends.

Speaker: And he's like, my friends. Friend? Friend? Spider-Man. Best friend is Spider-Man. Such a funny. i think this is an adorable takeaway from Secret Wars 1 for him. he was like. He kidnapped a man and forced him to fight other people. And then just like, that's my friend.

Speaker: He kidnapped several men, though. He kidnapped all of these heroes. Just watched them go about their business. And at the end was like, that's Spider-Man. I think he and i really got along.

Speaker: um So, get yes, of course, we all knew it was coming. Spider-Man teaches the Beyonder to poop.

Speaker: Like you mentioned, Matt, earlier he visits a hot dog stand. He tries to understand eating. Somebody's like, just put it in your mouth and chew it. And he does that with a Coke bottle and then swallows the Coke bottle.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That's the only thing he eats before Spider-Man teaches him how to poop because he doesn't know what eating is before that. So he is just when Spider-Man teaches him how to poop, he is just pooping out glass.

Speaker: Nobody told me that part. ah Right. And that's what he thinks regular pooping is. And I mean, we're not kidding. He goes to Spider-Man and Spider-Man offers him food and he's like, will that relieve this strange pressure? ah The fullness I feel in my lower abdomen.

Speaker: And Spider-Man's like, oh boy, I think you got to go to the bathroom and leads him into the bathroom. And then time passes. So not only does he poop, then he comes out. He says, the experience is consummated.

Speaker: Then he says, I shall go to Reed Richards and then teleports away. I've done it. I'm going to Reed Richards now. Bye. To be fair, Spider-Man is like he's asking him all these questions like a toddler and Spider-Man's like, I don't know, man. Go ask Reed Richards. He's the smartest guy on Earth. Like he's just pawning him off. He's saying, please leave me alone.

Speaker: So another thing. I want to talk about here. He models his new body after Captain America, which is funny. Sure. Because he's like, people like that body. I don't have that body.

Speaker: And then he talks about how he is he is going to use his powers to limit himself to only three dimensions. Because humans exist in three dimensions.

Speaker: Okay. I was starting. i led that Let me just start. And I'll try to be as calm as possible. Humans can perceive three dimensions, right?

Speaker: Width, depth, length, right? We exist in as many dimensions as exist.

Speaker: As there are. Yeah, yeah. We still exist within the fourth dimension. We still exist in time and space. At the very least. And whatever the next dimension is, the fifth dimension...

Speaker: We don't stop existing. in that we exist in every dimension. We just only perceive three dimensions. So even like a dot exists in all dimensions. It can just only be perceived through the one direct one dimension, right?

Speaker: So I have a theory about this ah that I think gets validated as this goes on, which is the Beyonder doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. He is stupid.

Speaker: And may have been maybe an omnipotent being, but I don't think he has any idea where he actually comes from, and what he's actually able to do, what any of that means.

Speaker: he That's crazy, too, because he's supposed to be omnipotent. So granted, he's sequestered in his own little universe, right? And then there's the pinprick and then he gets goes through and whatever.

Speaker: When he gets here, if he can perceive every dimension and exists in all dimensions, whatever the fuck that means, yeah if he if he can experience and manipulate all dimensions, then he has seen and experienced all of time and at once. Already. If you are not in if you are not limited to Perception. linear time. Yeah, to linear time. You have in... If if even for one instant, which doesn't... which In one of our instances, right? Our perception of time. You can perceive all dimensions.

Speaker: Then you have seen all of time and all of space in that moment. You have the experience that you need. Yes. So when he's talking about... So at that point, now he you have always then done that.

Speaker: So you can't just start and You have already done it and already know what happened when you did it and already yeah have done everything and in existence.

Speaker: So we... Again, it feels like i am being nitpicky geeky about this, right? i ah but I have no problem with that.

Speaker: But remember, we didn't complain about this when, like, The Stranger was in the comic, right? Because ah Roy Thomas or whoever, Stan Lee maybe back then, I don't remember. yeah. yeah Wasn't asking us to.

Speaker: But Jim Stupid is asking us to think about these concepts. And they immediately don't make sense. Getting them mathematically wrong. Right. Like, immediately.

Speaker: ah All right. The FF are in the middle of fighting a rage monster or something. i don't know. I'm not following the Fantastic Four.

Speaker: But wrap all that up as they meet the Beyonder. But he wanders off before he can get any questions answered and instead asks a homeless person who gives him some answers and refers him to the heroes for hire. Now, that's like...

Speaker: Jim stupid sort of like commentary on like, Oh, the, the person, the unhoused person is the, is the wise one.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. The people on the streets are the ones that really know what's going on. Right. The one that like explains what danger is to him and explains how to get around town and act like a, a normal, normal guy. Right.

Speaker: And then she gives him, the The card of the Heroes for Hire. She has no idea where it came from. She says, where did this come from? did she not? How can you? How do you just get that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: So Luke and Danny then what he goes there and Luke and Danny explain that everything is about cash now and mentioned the gold standard. Which. It's racist. the it's It's the reason it's mentioned is racist.

Speaker: It's just racist. I mean, he makes Luke Cage so dumb here, right? Yes. He's like, and luke Cage jumps out a window to save the Beyonder because he doesn't know that that's like a god when he goes through the window. And he's like, maybe because I'm heavier than him, right? Like, it's it's all written in Jive.

Speaker: Oh, my God. And not even... Not even the typical Marvel jive. This is like dumbed down. it's It's offensive. And he's like, maybe because I'm heavier than him, I'll fall faster than him. Oh, shoot.

Speaker: I'm not gaining on him. So and then he's like, see, money is based on gold. And Iron Man's like, Luke, we haven't been on the gold standard for just for years.

Speaker: Like, right. Iron Fist is smart. Luke Cage is dumb is the point here. Yeah, yeah. To Jim stupid, Luke Cage is just like is angry, stupid,

Speaker: full of rage and only cares about money. Like those are the, yeah those are the only qualities that are, that are here. Yeah. Thank God a white woman didn't walk by or that would have become what this comic book was about in that moment. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: So the beyonder turns their entire building into gold as a thank you. The end. ah All right. ah can i Yeah. Can I? ah There's a thing, and this happened in Secret Wars 1 as well, where sie Storm Richards is just painted as a selfish, annoying, nagging wife. The only purpose she has is to distract Reed while the Beyonder is trying to talk to her. And the thing that she's distracting him with is like,

Speaker: We need to kill this man because she's she's very mad at somebody. Right. And then when the Beyonder disappears, she's like, why aren't you talking to me? Why aren't you listening to me? Like she's whining the entire time. That's that was her entire MO through Secret Wars one. It's just offensive.

Speaker: He also, this is also where whoever, I think it's the hate monger and ah some other character who I don't know. Some creation of his.

Speaker: Turn Sue Storm, not a creation of Jim Stupids, a creation of whoever's writing the Fantastic Four at this time. Because this is yeah yeah this is a Fantastic Four plot line that is just. Spilling over into Secret Wars 2, number two.

Speaker: um They turn Storm into malice. And like, shouldn't that happen in the fucking Fantastic Four comic? Again, is this Jim Stupid just saying, i want this to happen in your comic book, whoever it is, John Byrne or whoever's writing it at that point. Like, I want this to happen in your comic book. So it's happening now.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And they, it's not even, it doesn't even happen artfully. It's just just like the, the rage, rage master, rage monster, hate, man hate, hate, hate monger is like, ah, we've got to get Sue storm. She's the one that will, will be the key to our victory. And then they just get her. And then she's just in the next panel. She's malice. Yeah. Yeah. And,

Speaker: Then it's resolved. Like the first two – you read the first two-thirds of this issue and suddenly Sue's malice. And then two panels later, she's not. And the editor – the editor's note just says – this was all resolved in Fantastic Four. So you have to, you have to stop reading this comic, go to Fantastic Four to understand what happened there and then come back to get the story. And it seems like very much like Chris Claremont, John Byrne was just like, no, I don't want to do this. I'm fixing it immediately.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ah um And ah also, this is Mullet-era Sue Storm. That's pretty funny. That is funny. It's a very funny haircut. So, Beyonder gets beat up by some street toughs who are bullying this homeless woman.

Speaker: And the one guy's name is Charlie Car Crash. Excellent. Very good. I'm hoping that Jim Stupid didn't invent it. you' All right, let's look it up. Charlie Car Crash has two appearances. First, Marvel Fanfare number 20.

Speaker: and then Secret Wars 2, number 2. So this was from Heroes for Hire. This is a Heroes for Hire character. Yeah, who this is his second piece second and last appearance, Charlie Carr Crash. So whoever's writing Heroes for Hire at this point is like, nope, Charlie Carr Crash is sullied. I can never use Charlie Carr Crash again.

Speaker: All right, I will play your game, Pat, and I will... Read the next up. Yeah, please let me know. Next, what will seem like a bad dream for a while anyway to Luke and Danny is all too real to Spider-Man. The story continues in Web of Spider-Man number six. And from there into Amazing Spider-Man 268.

Speaker: Also, our epic saga spills into Fantastic Four number 282. All three of these are on sale soon. Don't miss them. One month from now, the threads of our tale are gathered again in Secret Wars number two, number three, which guest stars dozens of Marvel stars, including the Avengers. Stars twice in a fucking row. Anyway, including the Avengers. Be here for Secret Wars two, number three.

Speaker: This world is mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back to Aloha, Solo Inking, Joe Rosen, Solo Lettering, and Christy Shield, Solo Coloring. Release date June 18th, 1985. Cover date September 1985. No X-Men.

Speaker: No X-Men in this one. After the Beyonder is propositioned by a sex worker named Toots and makes her a bar of gold, he's accosted in a hotel room by some criminals who teach him about life in exchange for helping them with crimes.

Speaker: This evolves into him wanting more and more control until he subjugates the entire world down to the molecular level. That doesn't make any fucking sense. He's like, and now I'm even controlling the molecules. They listen to me. What?

Speaker: What are you? What are you controlling? what How are you yeah ruling the molecules? They worship Motherfucker. He finds himself unsatisfied, so he frees Toots to ask her why. He apparently inspired her to leave sex work and become a waitress, and her gratitude makes the Beyonder realize his mistake, so he frees everyone, erases their memories, and seeks out the Avengers to see why they do what they do.

Speaker: That was a really long sentence, Pat. Do you think you should have maybe broken that up into several sentences? No, I love challenging myself with longer and longer sentences. He comes back hours later depressed because he fucked it all up but with an idea and decides he must see Matt Murdock.

Speaker: Oh, OK. So this is like i need a lawyer. This leads to the issue that Jim stupid just stole from Denny O'Neill. Yes.

Speaker: Because Daredevil does not show up in Secret Wars 2 ever. Not at all. hey Just a mention of him here where the where the Beyonder is like, i I think I'm going to need a lawyer.

Speaker: No reason for needing one. He comes back. He ruins whatever the Avengers were doing. He ah comes back and says, boy, that got ugly. i should go find a lawyer. How about Matt Murdock? Yeah.

Speaker: And then we never see him. So this issue has some problematic stuff and some stupid stuff, right? Yes. But this is the first issue that's kind of enjoyable. Like there's a story here. There's a solid beginning, middle and end.

Speaker: and it's kind of fun. I mean, it gets absurd and stupid, but it's kind of fun to see yeah a simple concept spin out of control. Yeah, it's fairly self-contained. And I'll tell you, it's got very few Marvel superheroes in it. Mostly they're just mentioned by name and we get Jarvis for a while.

Speaker: ah Yeah, true, true. um ah Okay. Opens up with the Beyonder frying a cop's brain by showing him the existence, the entirety of the universe. Very funny. That is funny. But he's also, extreme the the the premise of this is that he's extremely tired.

Speaker: And he's going around asking people what he should do about that he's tired. Yeah, yeah. And... And of course he comes to a sex worker and says like I need to sleep and she's like hey I can how about we go to a hotel room and i help you relax right.

Speaker: Of course. the what The amount of being human is so variable in this series, right?

Speaker: Because he's like, oh, I made myself human because I want to experience what it's like to be a human. So I took away, so I like blocked off all my godly powers and made myself into a human to the point where I'm experiencing things. I made my body so human. I'm experiencing things that I don't understand. Right.

Speaker: Like I couldn't have made myself experience these because I don't get them. I just made a body so accurate that it's experiencing them. Like having to poop, having to eat, being tired.

Speaker: But he still like flies and walks through walls and shit.

Speaker: They explain part where we know he knows how to work a door, but then there's other parts where he's just walking through doors and walls. Yeah. So this explains Jim Stupid's view cities.

Speaker: He's like, oh, they're just dens of... crime and filth. Yeah. Everyone he talks to in this part of the city is some sort of criminal. Even the motel owner, when he checks into a motel to get some rest is like, yeah oh, I should rob this guy. He's like, I won't charge you anything because he looks rich and I'll go get a steal stuff from him in the night.

Speaker: And then Toots falls in love with him. Why? What is there to love? There's nothing. he this is Yeah. Yeah. He's just. to Yeah. Outwardly. Is a personality list being. He just doesn't. He doesn't understand anything. He hasn't had experiences. he there this is There's not a person there.

Speaker: This is back to the dazzler. Bullshit, right? Where Jim Stupid fucking thinks that women fall in love with men based on their looks and their money. and that's Or just not even that sometimes. Just because they're there. If a woman meets a man, she falls in love with him.

Speaker: Yeah, thinks he's a crummy geek, right? Like those are the only two things women can think about men. I love you or you're a you're a you're a friggin loser. ah It's so it's so frustrating.

Speaker: So these criminals teach him about life like this is where he learns how to be human. They teach him about clothes and eating and money and all sorts of stuff, right? They teach him about gadgets.

Speaker: And it turns out he really loves gadgets. The guy loves SkyMall. He loves vegetable processors. So he spends so much time. And this happens throughout the series. And it's very it's the only like funny running joke. It's a good bit.

Speaker: Which is that he just loves blending carrots in a Cuisinart. And heart so a lot of times it'll just cut to him. And he's just blending carrots. And people like, why are you doing that?

Speaker: ruthly I love gadgets. I'm a gadget guy. It's very funny that he's just like, he'll be driving along in a car and just in the passenger seat, blending care. Yeah. Yeah. ah So, yeah, he he falls in. He also starts picking up, like, mafia sensibilities from these guys, too. So his idea at this point is to... is The purpose of being mortal is to accumulate power.

Speaker: That's the lesson that he learned. And so he's like, oh, shit. read Over time, he's like, oh, well, i you I already have all that power. What if I just controlled everything and put...

Speaker: Everyone in the world under his spell. And including Molecule Man's popcorn. Yes. Molecule Man is sitting there and he's like, wait, somebody's controlling my popcorn. Because he can see on the molecular level that it's being controlled. And so then he frees Volcana from. ah From his mind control. His mind control. Molecular mind control. You know who else is worshipping Beyondermat?

Speaker: Reagan Watch! Reagan Watch, Ronald Reagan, twice. Yeah, there's a scene where he's like twitchy and hunched over, and he's like but bending at the knee to the beyonder.

Speaker: And there's another scene where he's like, all the beings all the powerful beings on Earth are humbling themselves in front before me, and it's all these superheroes and supervillains, and... Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, who of course is a superhero to Jim Stupid.

Speaker: um So this is where Beyonder settles on his his look, which is, um you know, he's got the body of Captain America, kind of the face of Captain America, but black, a black jerry curl, a black jerry curl, like if you will, he says he he blames it. He says he he modeled it after Michael Jackson and he wears like, ah I don't know, like a disco suit.

Speaker: Yeah, they they call it a mod suit and then they compare it to what Duran Duran wears. I think that's that's pretty good. Like a big sort of puffy parachute pants, windbreaker and a trench coat or something over it.

Speaker: Yeah, something. And the the last ah concept that I want to explain here is Jim stupid's take on sex workers, which, um, you know, when he first meets her, she seems very humanistic, right? Like it doesn't like, it's not complimentary, but it's also not very insulting until the end when he meets her again. And she's like, you taught me to be a good person.

Speaker: And stop hating myself so I don't have to be a, quote, sleaze anymore. So Jim Stupid's take on sex workers is that they're not good people.

Speaker: They hate themselves. And they're sleazy. Right. They don't have worth until they're no longer a sex worker.

Speaker: Gross. The one other concept I want to touch on is a character from Transformers. Oh, right. Yes. Her first appearance. What?

Speaker: So, okay. Bob Budiansky demanded that this character Circuit Breaker makes her first appearance in Secret Wars 3 a month before Transformers 9 so that Marvel can claim the ownership of the character.

Speaker: So... ah Okay. Oh, so it was a licensing thing. Yes. So now they, Marvel owns Circuit Breaker.

Speaker: Who this was her only appearance like they've now decided like you can look her up in the um like Transformers wiki. And it's like this is a different character.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. These she is now because eventually they move Transformers to an alternate universe. Yes. But Circuit Breaker because of this comic is just somebody that exists in this universe. Yeah.

Speaker: Yes. And talks about Transformers, even though they're not something that exists here. Yes. So, yeah, it's it's like when um when somebody else had this concept for She-Hulk and Stan Lee was like, actually, I'm going to write the first issue just so he could get the credit for the creation of She-Hulk. Right. she Yeah. yeah That's that's what's happening here with Circuit Breaker. It sucks. Yeah.

Speaker: Not a bad issue, though. it's with kind of Like you said, a story from start to finish, which we can't really say about most of these. ah in In between two panels, he also ah transports to an Avengers story and ruins it and then comes back.

Speaker: Next, Matt, this story continues in Daredevil number 223, where in the services of Nelson and Murdoch, attorneys at law are retained by the one from beyond. And in Hulk number 312, where in the one from beyond learns of the many other dimensions and hidden realms which are part of our many layered universe, Asgard, the Dark Dimension, and Mephisto's realm, to name a few. And also learns the length and breadth of a man's soul trapped in the body of a savage green Goliath. How's that for a long sentence? God damn it.

Speaker: In Avengers number 260, find out just what happened in the Skrull galaxy. It's not a pretty sight. One month from now, the threads of the epic saga of the Beyonder are gathered again in Secret Wars 2 number 4, which guest stars the Avengers, sort of Alpha Flight, and the cast of Rom briefly, and the Dazzler.

Speaker: Do not miss. Oh, boy. ah Secret Wars 2, number four. Love is the answer. Rubenstein comes back for inks. Joe Rosen and Friends are the letterers. And Max Scheel is the colorist. Released 8 July 16th, 1985.

Speaker: Cover date October,

Speaker: right The Beyonder is hooking up with some Nepo baby movie star who thinks she loves him, but he doesn't care. He says goodbye to her forever and then goes off to undo some things that happened to Thor while he flies through the air in a Ferrari.

Speaker: Boy, he's flying Ferrari again. Just it Jim stupid. This is a woman falls in love with a man just because he's there. Just because he's in here. He's there. He's rich.

Speaker: And yet another fucking Thor thing or another fucking storyline that Jim stupid's like, I don't like where that's going. I changed it. Oh my God. He fucking, what is it? The, the giant elf of Algrim, the elf, Algrim, the elf. The beyonder is just like, Oh, he look, this character is dead. He was killed by Thor. Wouldn't it be interesting if i brought him back to life and sent him to attack Thor? Walter. Wouldn't it be interesting if I did that? Walter walt Simonson.

Speaker: And then I do love, not to spoil anything, but I don't think we cover it and in our updates here. The conclusion of this is that Algrim never finds Thor. He just finds Beta Ray Bill because Beta Ray Bill is dressed as Thor at the time and they fight.

Speaker: because Because Thor's off doing something else. He's got a different story to tell right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So ah Beyonder's iss intercepted by the Air Force. He steals one of the jets in midair and flies to Denver to visit Owen to see if he can find more answers about the meaning of life. Seeing Owen and Marsha so happy in their relationship, the Beyonder decides to go find some love of his own. He returns to that heiress, Sharon Ng, who has killed herself at the thought of never seeing him again. Yeah, great. Fucking great.

Speaker: So he brings her back to life just to reject her again and tell her that love isn't real. He needs somebody that will love him for real. And he chooses fucking obsession.

Speaker: Dazzler. Of course. yeah He tells her he tells Sharon that her love's not real, that she just loves him for shallow reasons. And then is like, I'm going to go for my own crush and make her love me.

Speaker: yes Yeah, exactly. It's just very yeah Jim stupid. Also, he restores her to life, but makes her still have a headache. She's like, oh, my head. if you just restored her on a molecular level. Yeah, he just decided she would have a headache. Would you go like 95%?

Speaker: Dazzler's in the custody of a bounty hunter. Man, it is a weird Dazzler story. It's the Archie Goodwin Dazzler story. Yeah, are she's in ah a truck with a man named O.Z.

Speaker: and his dog. And his dog who eats cigars. It's a very weird story. So she's in the custody of a bounty hunter when she disappears and is suddenly teleported to space to meet the Beyonder.

Speaker: She attacks him, right? But then he explains his whole deal. He shows her the most beautiful parts of the galaxy while telling her that he's chosen her to love. But she rejects him and demands to be taken back to Earth. Normal. Normal. normal Yes. This all makes sense. She attacks him.

Speaker: He talks. And she's like, no, thank you. please Please take me home. Yes. This is just, again, Jim's stupid having a crush on Dazzler. it's just He already did this in the original graphic novel. And he's like, I want to do it again. And he even, he takes, this we'll get to it at the end. Sorry. Go ahead.

Speaker: He takes her back but continues to try to woo her, taking her to Central Park, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and finally a secluded mountaintop where somehow she's swayed by him. This is exactly like the fucking guy from, I can't remember his name, but the guy from Dazzler, the movie, The Knob. Yeah, yeah, the like aging movie star. Yeah, it's exactly. The Ronald Reagan type.

Speaker: ah So they kiss. She wakes up to breakfast next morning in his mansion where... Thankfully, doesn't appear. they appears that they slept separately.

Speaker: Fucking thankfully. Oh, I assumed they boned down. ah Yeah, I mean, also... Because the Beyonder already knows what that is. In issue three, he's, like, he's throwing orgies. That's true.

Speaker: Well, no, so she asks how she got here, and his all his, like, housemaids are like, we ah we took you in, and we we undressed you, and we put you to bed in your own room.

Speaker: the master yeah like the master brought you here we put you to bed so i think it is but also they kiss on top of a butt oh yeah there is just a secluded lonely butt just jim stupid being like i can do a better kiss on a romantic kiss on top of a butt story than you chris claremont no you can't no um So he leaves her at the mansion, promising he'll be back that night. He has to go re retrieve a gift for her. Retrieve a gift.

Speaker: In the next moment, he's at the West Edmonton Mall. Remember this? He's helping to resolve Alpha Flight number 27. He spars with Alpha Flight and then grabs Shaman's medicine pouch. He expands it to get Talisman out. We saw all this in Alpha Flight.

Speaker: And then reaches in to pull out a ring for Dazzler. That you can see. This is maddening. Yeah. This, like... If we go back to Alpha Flight number 27 and remembering that it would be impossible to get Talisman out like this was going to be their next big thing that they had to do was rescue her.

Speaker: The Beyonder shows up and he's just like, oh, let me just expand the size of the pouch. Now it's big enough for her to get out of. it's There's not even like a struggle in to to solve this. he just He just makes it bigger, pulls her out and makes it smaller.

Speaker: It's him responding to- point of a crossover? There's no point for a crossover there. It's him responding to John Byrne's line of dialogue from Shaman where he's like, I can't pull anything out of the pouch that's bigger than its mouth.

Speaker: And so Jim Stupid's like, I can make it bigger. Okay, I made it bigger. Done. Done. It's almost like he thinks that these comic books are all just series of things for him to solve, not stories people are telling. Yes. Yeah, yeah. He's, yeah.

Speaker: When he returns with it, Dazzler's storming out of the mansion. She has a life to live, a career. She's not ready to give that up just to be his wife or whatever. Pause. Pause. He brings back a ring like he reaches into shaman's pouch, which contains mystical items as well as its own like pocket universe. He pulls out what must be some sort of magic relic, right? a ring. He's he had it on his mind. He was like, I know a gift that I'm going to get her that is more special than any any mortal on Earth could provide to her.

Speaker: And then she's like, I don't want it. And he just tosses it aside. There's no, what was that ring? What was that? Yeah. Why, why do we see? Why not even just give it a name? Just tell me what the ring is. Why do it at all? Yes. Yeah. Like, is it a special ring? Is it not a special ring? Is it anything? Is this, is any of this anything?

Speaker: There was no reason for any of this to happen. He could have just continued with the destroy the Dazzler storyline. He counters by teleporting to her, to her own sold out show.

Speaker: Like, oh, you want a career? Here. Here it is. But she explains this is not what she wants. She wants to earn it. He just doesn't understand... Then the Avengers show up announcing he's too powerful to be allowed to roam the earth. They start fighting and Star Fox of all people takes him out by stimulating his pleasure centers, leaving him dazed.

Speaker: Weirdest fucking era of the Avengers. It's Star Fox. It is Monica Rambeau, Captain Marvel, Hercules, Black Knight, and Black Knight.

Speaker: That's right. The techno Black Knight, the one who can do all like who rides like a mechanical horse. As this is, as somebody that started reading comics in the 90s, a cast of characters that I am entirely unfamiliar with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I knew Black Knight and Captain America. And I mean, Hercules, but only because like... that's Because i knew the mythical character. yeah exactly. Um...

Speaker: So before they can strike a killing blow, because like at this point, since he is in a human body, he's just in bliss. So he is helpless. Yeah, it's just kind of a funny power.

Speaker: oh I can just make him come. yeah yeah Dazzler steps back in to protect him, dazing all the Avengers and the two escape together.

Speaker: yeah Beyonder reveals, though, that those were fake Avengers he created to test her love. And she's okay with it. just She's okay with it. That's exactly what that fucking guy did when he faked the heart attack.

Speaker: would Beat for beat. Just it wasn't the Avengers. Now Dazzler's worried that she's not good enough for the Beyonder. Being just a regular human. so he takes So he gives her half of his power.

Speaker: They soar through the universe together and make out as gods until suddenly Dazzler rejects him again and flies off. He gives chase and she explains she doesn't truly love him. She's swayed by all the experiences and power, but ultimately it's not real love. She rejects his power, but being so high up in the air plummets to her death.

Speaker: Did I got did this happen to Jim dumb shit? Like, did somebody did he woo somebody with a lot of money and gifts? And then ultimately they were like, it's very nice, but I don't love you.

Speaker: I'm sure this seems to happen a lot in his stories. Jim dipshit 20 times in his life. Because who would love that man for his shining personality and ah brains? Whoa. Beyonder rages out. Shooter catching strays. Beyonder rages out destroying an entire galaxy before taking a deep breath and reanimating Dazzler to life.

Speaker: This time she loves him truly, explaining that she realized this while she was dead. But the Beyonder knows the truth. He's bending her will to love him, which is not the true love he's looking for. He releases her and wipes her memory and most of the experience heartbroken.

Speaker: The end. Fucking. Okay, Reagan watch. Right. He's talking about desire and ah and he's like talking about all the characters who have desires. So like the Silver Surfer has a desire to um to leave the earth, to be free from earth. And um some girl named Cindy Adams has a desire to get the dire wraith out of her brain.

Speaker: And he equates um spacelight he equates those two things to Ronald Reagan desires to do tax reform.

Speaker: These are all good things. These are all a equal things. You want to be equally important. Yes. so Life. um There's some brief, vague homophobia when he's talking to Shannon Ng about all the different people he could love. and she's like, but susans this is a some of those are and He's they even they flirt a little bit with concepts of sexuality and gender here where we're the beyonders response is like, yeah, well, I'm not actually a man or a woman. And so I can appear as either and I can love either.

Speaker: i What about a straight woman? that i he's like But I like to be a man and there's a straight woman, so I'm going to do her. Yeah, yeah. Just.

Speaker: ah Jim stupid thinking he's being pretty ah righteous and taking a stand of some sort by being like, he could be gay, but he's not. say I'm not such a bad guy. oh my God. Also, ah he says at some point that he loves Dazzler because he can see into her soul and he's a God. So,

Speaker: ah Once again, souls exist. Souls exist. Marvel canons confirmed. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few monologues here that give you some real insight into his dipshit thought process. Right. Which, i which is the beyonder just being like, I love this woman and I can make her love me. And I love when she loves me. I can essentially just,

Speaker: like a character in a story, make her love me with all of her heart. But I know that love's not real. And it's great when she loves me. It's amazing. And it makes me feel whole and complete, but it's not real. It's not real.

Speaker: Like he is. He just has to, this is him reflecting on the problematic relationship he has with this character. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Pat, I think we have five whole issues to go.

Speaker: yeah yeah. So why don't we skip the big next boxes? so We've got to. It's so long. Just read it fast. The story continues in Dazzler number 40 as Allison Blair discovers that her involvement with the one from beyond is far from over in an action-packed thriller. There are major ramifications from the Beyonders encounter with Alpha Flight, which are explored in Alpha Flight number 28. You're halfway through.

Speaker: You'll have to see the starting kind of... One month from now, the threads of our epic saga are gathered again in the se Secret Wars 2, number five. because of Featuring X-Men, the New Mutants, the Avengers, more. Be sure to be here for Secret Wars 2, number five.

Speaker: Despair. Lealoha and Rubenstein inkers, Rosen and Parker letters, and my hands, colorists. ah Release date, August 13th, 1985. Cover date, November 1985. This is a fun one, actually. After Beyonder deconstructs a train that almost hits him. This is the first appearance of somebody.

Speaker: One 13-year-old girl who was riding the train to Westchester, New York, chases him down because he must be a mutant like her. Her name is Tabitha.

Speaker: But she calls herself Boom Boom. Boom Boom is here! And she ran away from an abusive father back home. She demonstrates her power, the ability to create tiny balls of energy that explode on a delay like time bombs. She's like, I call myself Time Bomb. No, you call yourself Boom Boom. Remember, you just told us that.

Speaker: You don't call yourself Time Bomb. You yourself Boom Boom. Shut up!

Speaker: Over a campfire, Beyonder tells Boom Boom about what happened with Dazzler, and she tries to tell him that he's looking at life all wrong. He's clearly trying to make himself miserable, and his desire to give up is kind of pathetic.

Speaker: You can't unlive what you've already lived. Regardless, he disappears, leaving her alone once more. I just realized what this issue's about, and we'll talk about it at the end. Okay.

Speaker: He retreats to his dimension and finds himself unsatisfied with his ability to make or do or be anything now that he's tasted humanity. And then suddenly a bomb goes off in his back pocket. Yes! That cursed little... That's so good. That's very funny. how Did he give writing writing responsibilities over to somebody else? Why is this issue good? Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Why is this story within this issue? There's other things that happen here that are very bad. but Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, why is this Boom Boom stuff so good? Boom Boom is hitching on I-95 when a fancy car pulls up and the Beyonder offers her a ride.

Speaker: When they get to x Xavier's mansion, Boom Boom knocks on the door and tries to explain to Peter why she's there. But they see the Beyonder in the car beyond her and charge past to fight him.

Speaker: They're a little confused because as we find out, they were psionically coerced into attacking him by Rachel. Jesus Christ. But Boom Boom doesn't know that. So she runs off crying, feeling rejected once again.

Speaker: That's so I. Yeah. Important X-Men moment. Right. Rachel. Control. and Controls. Just everybody. Because. Yeah. Yeah. Scared of the Beyonder and she wants everyone to attack them.

Speaker: Attack him. And an important moment where Boom Boom is rejected, feels rejected by the X-Men immediately upon trying to join them.

Speaker: And he that's going to inform Boom Boom's relationship with the X-Men for like a long time. Sure. And i'll I'll grant that Rachel manipulated them, which is why they kind of like...

Speaker: ran past her, but she was in the middle of trying to explain to Colossus who answered the door that she was a mutant. And he was just kind of like, uh, fuck off.

Speaker: um Before they notice the beyonder, she comes to the door. She knocks Colossus answers. It's very like rogue. And he's just like, i I'm not sure what you're talking about. He's like, are you sure have the right house? And then Rachel's like, it's him. It's beyonder. And then she forces everyone to run past.

Speaker: Boom, boom. But like the the first thing she does is explain her mutant powers and be like, I think I found the place I'm supposed to be. Yeah. Why is he not like, why is he not like, Hey, um why don't you come inside? I will. I i mean,

Speaker: Even if he wants to keep the secret because he doesn't know who she is, right? He'd say, ah why don't you come inside and sit down? but he might maybe even like, I think you're confused. Why don't you come inside and sit down? i will talk to the professor of the school and we'll see if we can straighten you out. And then go talk to the professor and say, hey, a mutant is here.

Speaker: You know? Yeah, yeah. There was a time when they were desperate to get any fucking mutant to join. Right? They were hunting them.

Speaker: Boom Boom Rejected runs into the woods calling for the Beyonder. She makes the biggest bomb she can and sets it for 30 seconds. If he doesn't show up, she's going to take the easy way out.

Speaker: She calls. He doesn't show up. So tears in her eyes, she hugs the bomb close to her chest. It explodes. Actually moving scene. Boom. Boom's dead. That's it. That's yes. So if you the eventually they'll create another character called boom, boom, and she'll join X force. And no, ah what happens next? When the smoke clears, boom, boom is standing there unharmed. The beyonder in front of her.

Speaker: Giving up on Xavier's school, they hop in a car and Beyonder flies them to the headquarters of the Celestials. Boring. When he threatens to destroy the universe and beats up all the Celestials for entertainment, Boom Boom gets pissed. He tries to make her pretty, then older than a human, and she's even more pissed.

Speaker: I think it's cool that canonically Boom Boom is kind of weird looking. Yeah, yeah. And proud of it. Yes. Yeah. Like, no, I like being a little ugly. She demands he return her to Earth and leave her alone. So he does.

Speaker: She calls the Avengers, telling them that the universe is in danger because he you legitimately was like, oh, I can beat up the Celestials. No problem. I could destroy the universe. Yeah. Hey, watch me. Isn't this cool? Isn't this cool? Little girl.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. ah So she goes back to their camp and calls him when he shows up. She hugs him. but slips a bomb into his back pocket and runs away, signaling an army of Marvel heroes to attack. During the fight, she slips away into the woods.

Speaker: The end. Wow. Yeah. yeah Okay. I think I know what this issue is about. Okay, yeah, yeah. This is where Jim Stupid is starting to have doubts.

Speaker: He's writing this comic and he's like, I think this sucks and I should stop writing it. And so he creates a character to talk him into continuing to write it.

Speaker: Oh my God, you're absolutely right. The entire time. Yeah. The Beyonder is our analog for Jim Stupid. And he's just the entire time he's saying, i should just give up. There's no reason. There's no reason I have to finish this weird quest I'm on. it was kind of vain. i really miss just my regular old gig.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And she's and she's just kind of like. No, mister. No, you've got to keep going. there's it You should never give up on anything, which is not true. You should never give up on anything. and ah And she has really good reasons for it. In her life, that this is the fucking weird thing. It is like this other character is talking through his fucking brain because her reasons for keeping going are cool and informed by this like character backstory that's cool and good make her an interesting person.

Speaker: And yet the way the Beyonder interprets them is dumb and ridiculous. And then the Avengers just let him go at the end. They fight him. Everybody keeps fucking letting him go. Like, oh, we could not that they could stop him. But at this point, like, he's just dejected. This happens in Secret Wars 1, 2, where.

Speaker: They beat him sort of, but he's just like, oh, this sucks. And so Captain America is like, oh, that's a broken man there. We should just we should leave him go. Let him be He's had enough.

Speaker: And it's it's it's it's so, so dumb. And so much time passes in these nine issues, right?

Speaker: That right there are superheroes who are just going about their daily business knowing that this thing is happening. This, like, threat to all of all of existence is just wandering around with the brain of a baby.

Speaker: and they're just like, I'm going to do other stuff. Absurd. He also expounds ah more and more about how... He can't rely on Dazzler's love because it's not real.

Speaker: Over and over again. i can write it as much as I want. I can make her love me as much as I want. But there's not. Remember, idiot. That's not real love. Yeah, his his he's just it's just his fucking therapist. Right. Yeah. Which is like Dazzler's not real. Jim, Jim, Dazzler's not real.

Speaker: Did you see ah the um The pickup artist guy is now in love with an AI chatbot. but

Speaker: Oh, wow. That is the perfect end to that story. Speaking of. Next, the story continues in powerful fashion in The Thing No. 30, wherein Ben Grimm battles the Beyonder one-on-one in a death match in Doctor Strange No. 74 and in the Fantastic Four 285.

Speaker: One month from now, the threads of our cosmic saga are gathered again in Secret Wars number six, which guest stars Cloak and Dagger, Power Pack, Thor, Beta Ray Bill, and virtually all of Marvel's ultra comic entities. Eon, the Inbetweener, the Living Tribunal, Chaos Order, Galactus Death, and many more.

Speaker: That is the abbreviated version. I skipped a lot.

Speaker: Don't miss, Matt. Yes. Don't miss...

Speaker: Oh, am I? Oh. Secret Wars 2, number 6, Life Rules. Life Rules. Rick Parker does the letters and Mini Hands. oh oh Mini Hands.

Speaker: Mini Hands does the colors. Release date September 17th, 1985. Cover date December 1985. The Beyonder builds a huge complex in rural Indiana, which captures the attention of a newspaper...

Speaker: what is He's like a reporter, but also he's the editor and and I think the owner of the paper. His name's Dave. He joins forces with the Beyonder trying to run PR for him as an omniscient being after being shown the hierarchy of Marvel's cosmic gods.

Speaker: So... Just to, it's a little unclear, Matt. I think you could, you could make that a little more cohesive. Essentially, dave sees this giant complex built on what used to be a farm. And he says, I got to go check this out. This will be a great story. And the beyonder is like, you have no idea what life is. You have the the things that you can't perceive are unfathomable. Like they are infinite. Uh, here is the structure of the gods of this universe and shows them like eternity and death and Mephisto and all that.

Speaker: Uh, the hierarchy of gods yes in the, in the Marvel universe. And Dave is just like, Oh shit. Uh, can I work for you? ah And so he yeah his whole drive, because in Jim stupid's mind, this is all the press does. His drive is like, hey, we can make you look real good. it doesn't matter what you've done. We'll we'll make sure everybody thinks you're a hero.

Speaker: Beyonder explains these gods as the eternal struggle between life and death and persuades the Beyonder to join the battle on the side of life He starts saving the world left and right. There's a power pack.

Speaker: He saves power pack. And he saves power pack. And he's like, these kids are wise beyond their years, especially that young Alex. Julie's the wise one, you sexist piece of shit. fucking idiot.

Speaker: I love i love that he flies off like, so long, kids. ah It's like for the the three panels that the power packer involved, it's a kid's comic.

Speaker: uh meanwhile what that's the fucking thing so much of this comic it talks to you like you're a child and yet it's a comic with like sex work and like these heavy well or attempting to be heavy philosophical com con like who is this for

Speaker: meanwhile what are you trying to say Meanwhile, Uatu the Watcher shows up at Owen and Marsha's apartment telling them they must stop the Beyonder. He's on a dangerous course.

Speaker: The Avengers show up at the Beyonder's door to tell him the same thing but end up accelerating the inevitable endpoint of all this. The Beyonder is going to eliminate death. And then they just kind of shrug and fucking leave.

Speaker: It's like, what is it? Mr. Fantastic and Captain America. And they're like, all right, well, If he's not going to listen, i'm quite I'm not going to keep talking. And then they walk away.

Speaker: They visit him twice to be like, hey, i we know you're saving a lot of lives, but with the amount of power that you have, you're probably going to turn evil at some point. So keep us posted. Yeah.

Speaker: He invites death to dinner, strikes a deal with her to drink some sort of death poison, and also ah completely unclear why she agrees to this. She's just like, oh, yeah you want me to stop existing? Okay.

Speaker: We struck a deal. But before she can consume it, Mephisto attacks, and the rest of the gods show up to try to convince him this is a bad idea. But Dave has gone a little crazy, gives death the cocktail, she drinks it, and is gone. Death is over.

Speaker: As soon as Owen notices because a flower won't die, ah he shows up and convinces the Beyonder that this was the wrong decision. To solve the problem, they turn Dave into death and everything's back to normal. But now the Beyonder is mad. What the heck is he even going to do now? What?

Speaker: He is at the end. He's just like, well, now I've got nothing to do. Yeah, I thought we were eliminating death, but apparently that's a bad idea. Jim Stupid's just flailing at this point.

Speaker: Also, if you don't know what to do, you just eliminated death. There are thousands of story possibilities that could blossom out of that and actually make this into a whole story if you needed something to to explore for the rest of this issue.

Speaker: the Whatever the fuck this is This is when it's so clear That whatever Jim Stupid was trying to do He has lost control He has lost track of it He has no clue what to do He even has the Beyonder say it as we just said he has no clue What his plans are for this fucking comic book And I don't even know what this one was What is the point of this thing?

Speaker: i Media bad It's about the media. i thought, what is it? What's this whole point about death? i think this is a rant about media. I think the death stuff is to set us up for the ultimate message at the end here.

Speaker: But he's trying to say death is important also. Like that's, there's a reason that it is death that he's talking about, but like, yeah is it that simple of a message? He's just, he's saying something that philosophically dumb, which is just, I think death is important. Yes.

Speaker: You think you want to get rid of death, but wouldn't it be? Wouldn't it be bad? Huh?

Speaker: We could have avoided all of this if Jim fucking shooter would have just bought an intro to philosophy textbook.

Speaker: And that would have gotten it all out of his system.

Speaker: It is. There are a couple funny moments with Dave here. He never gets a last name. His name is just Dave. Dave. And Dave, the death. He gets really into the i idea of killing death. Like at first he's like, I don't know, man. I'm just, I'm just a Dave town news reporter. I'm just a small town Dave. Yeah.

Speaker: and But the the Beyonder convinces him, and then the gods show up, convince Beyonder not to kill death. But Dave's like, don't listen to a man. I'll set this off right here. And he's wielding this cocktail that will kill death like it's a Molotov cocktail, and he's about to throw it at her. He becomes the fucking Lester the Unlikely. heat's like He's like, I'm the hero now.

Speaker: yeah And then he they just turn him into death. e Yeah. Fucking. Was this that this might have been the dumbest issue so far?

Speaker: This was this is pretty pointless. It's the image that we see of all the the collection of the Marvel God beings. must be directly ripped off the walls of at the Marvel editorial office, right? This is just, this is their chart of who everybody is. Yes. Then he pops in. This was just to say there's more stuff here.

Speaker: And this is where Al Milgram's art really takes a nosedive. Every, the way he draws each of these like godlike characters sucks ass. Which is a shame. I will say issue Well, let's say ah this issue and the issue before it.

Speaker: I think the boom boom issue was well drawn. it was okay. I think. Yeah. Okay. There's one panel in the Dazzler issue where they're kissing as gods that I thought was interesting. It's like cosmic. It's creative. Their faces kind of merge together, but they're actually collections of light and stars. It's weird's it's neat. yeah And then yeah in the last issue, when they visit the celestial planet, there's a bunch of weird little guys, a bunch of just like.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. There's a little alien who's Star Wars cantina style with aliens. There's an alien whose mouth is a trash can. gibbs Yes. and they throw he just a little weird guy who loves eating trash. He eats trash. He's like the human carpet in ah New York.

Speaker: But then, yeah, clearly by what is it? ah November or September, they're getting rushed on this and everything has to be. Or Jim stupid. just suck Make it bad.

Speaker: You don't get it. I want this to be bad. it Draw it again. Again. It's so ridiculous also that you have superheroes.

Speaker: You have the genius level intellect of Reed Richards and the immortal wisdom of Captain America. And nobody can make a good enough argument i can These like literal gods talking to him and and nobody can make a good enough argument to him for why death should exist.

Speaker: It's the molecule man does. The molecule man is somehow smarter and more charismatic than all of the people I just named. Hey, you you be nice to the molecule man. And he's my favorite guy. Was this whole thing just fucking Jim stupid was like, I don't like that death is a lady in the Marvel universe. It should be a man. Oh, maybe.

Speaker: Or maybe it's an extension of his metaphor here that the media is destroying this country. The mainstream media Oh, so of course a media man is, is, is death. Ultimately he's death.

Speaker: He's going to be the one that kills us all. I hate this comic book. Well, if you hate, if you hated that book, Matt, you're going to hate this book. Yeah. It was to number seven charge of the dark brigade, man.

Speaker: There's a, there's a plot line in this issue that I like in concept. Yeah. Sort of. But not an execution. but not an execution at all. No, no, no, no, no. no le aloha inking by himself rosen and his friends are lettering juliana ferritor it just calls his neighbor release date october 15th 1985 speaking of lettering i am so sorry we have to go back one because fucking in the last issue there was so much text on a couple of these pages oh my god he ditched the lettering entirely and used a typewriter

Speaker: This is Rick Parker who lettered the last one. had i cannot imagine the back and forth argument that this must have been of him being like, it can't fit. There's not enough space. Do you see these ornate borders you made me put on every panel to make these? They're taking up all the space. Yeah. There's no way. It's impossible for me to letter that small.

Speaker: You wrote way too much for this issue. And Jim Stupid's like, you know what I'm going fucking prove you wrong. And he uses like size six font.

Speaker: He takes fucking Al Milgram's original art and sticks it into his own typewriter. It's so stupid. And it's so jarring, the jump. And he does it again, I believe, in issue. In this issue, yeah.

Speaker: Mephisto. is scared that the Beyonder will kill death again, so he gathers a bunch of villains to fight him, along with a machine he powered with energy he stole from the Beyonder himself. Okay.

Speaker: Keep up. He convinces Juggernaut to join his quest by promising to get Cassidy Keep back for his best buddy, Black Tom. Aw, Juggernaut. Some Juggernaut Black Tom shit.

Speaker: Signing contracts with the demon to get is his best friend a gift. Yeah. He also somehow gets Emma Frost to join him. Yeah. Meanwhile. She's just in the background. It's like, oh, Emma Frost is there. What? On what? In what way would she?

Speaker: Fuck it. So in this era, Mephisto and Death are an item, by the way. They're dating. And so this at the beginning of this issue, Mephisto is like, oh, death, my love. I'm so happy to have you back. But we have to deal with the Beyonder because he might kill you again. And I couldn't love live with that. I love you so much. Does he know that's Dave now?

Speaker: ah This isn't isn't the same person. That's ah that's illegal in Marvel. Mephisto.

Speaker: Meanwhile, Beyonder is just sitting on an island thinking, and it's inspiring a weird movement they call the think system. Rachel Summers wants to take him down, but Magneto says they should leave him alone because he's doing literally nothing.

Speaker: He's just thinking. I think this is like a wellness shot at wellness gurus, which I like. ah Hey, yeah. Take take those. Take them down, man. Wellness gurus are so so they're ridiculous. And they do do shit this dumb.

Speaker: They're scammy. But also, if if that's the message you're trying to send, why make thinking the thing that they're doing they're doing to better themselves? I think just to be just to like be like stupid, like like as they're doing it literally nothing. Right.

Speaker: um Which most wellness stuff does to your body. Literally nothing. But it comes across as like isn't introspection dumb. But it's also just funny.

Speaker: Like this would be a good, ah in anybody else's hands, it's a good plot line to have the main villain, the godlike villain, spend the whole thing, like the plot revolve, but the plot builds around him as he just sits on the corner of an island and thinks.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah. I mean, that did kind of happen at the start of Secret Wars one, two, right? Where Galactus was just up on a hill.

Speaker: And then it turned out he was doing something stupid. He was building and he was super building a spaceship or whatever. Yeah, yeah. but But this continues our metaphor, right? Jim Stupid spent all time.

Speaker: Spent months probably between last issue and this issue going, don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with this fucking comic book. I don't know what to do next. I guess i guess the character can do this. Yeah, exactly. I guess he can just think for a while. he just He's me. He's me.

Speaker: He is me. So he spent this time. Fuck. He spent he also spent this time thinking. Yes. Got it. So because of some stuff, the thing is there to protect Beyonder from Mephisto's army with enhanced strength. His strength disappears as Juggernaut is the last one standing. Juggernaut beats the thing's whole ass.

Speaker: Mephisto's plan fails. The Beyonder decides his new role is to teach others about their purpose in life. Okay. He just it's pretty tenuous how he gets there. But yeah, now his purpose is to help others discover their own purpose. Jim stupid. Really? One thing that really comes across in Secret Wars 2 is this guy thinks human beings. Every human besides himself is so stupid.

Speaker: Yeah. He thinks he is the smartest man on Earth and everybody else on the planet is so fucking stupid. And so what he's saying here is, thank God i use that power to help others.

Speaker: I made all of you my writing and and artistic staff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and we know what he he would say out loud in this era that he was better at writing comic books than anybody else on staff. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: This is very... So we're not even like reflective of him. We're not even like reaching to come to this conclusion. We're just stating facts about him. He thinks he's smarter than everyone else on earth. And this comic is and this is what this comic is about.

Speaker: So. couple of things. The thing. Can swim. He's rocks. I think that's canon, though. i I'm pretty sure he can swim. And yeah, they made him swim across a lake or whatever.

Speaker: one i want somebody... Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com....to show me an example of the thing swimming in another comic book. Yeah, yeah. That's curious.

Speaker: Number two... I have some physics questions as well when you're... Okay. Number two. So the whole army of villains, right? Their whole point was they attack to get his essence to put it in the machine.

Speaker: But then i am also. Yes. Every time they touch him, it sucks a bit of him off of it sucks him off so they can take it, it take it and put it in the machine. no You're wrong, but continue. I'm right. ah I am. now I'm not going to continue.

Speaker: it's So he special magic on their fists and stuff so that when they touch him, it siphons more power into the Beyonders Bane.

Speaker: No, wrong. he has a store of energy from when the Beyonder threw a tantrum. And what he needs is to close the circuit to have one of his heroes,

Speaker: connect like physically touch or have to be under use his powers, which will activate the machine that already siphoned all his energy into it. So they're just acting as like a, a light switch, essentially. im printed If he uses any of his awesome power against him, or if one of them, but touches him, a mystical circuit will be closed. And all these, that doesn't make sense. I would, that's not what I'm arguing.

Speaker: ah Mine made more sense. Mine made sense. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's a better idea. So, okay. But then, so then he's like, the Beyonder's Bane isn't ready or whatever. So I'm going to send the thing there as a diversion.

Speaker: Right. Go i attack him for now. Right. But then the moment the thing gets there, he sends his fucking army at the exact same moment. So why do you need it? What was the diversion for? What kind of a diversion is that?

Speaker: Here's one for you, Matt. Yeah. The juggernaut. Can't be stopped, right? He picks up momentum. That momentum can't be slowed. Sure, yes. The Thing manages to stop him, eventually gets his ass beat by Juggernaut, but manages to stop him from attacking the Beyonder by grabbing his ankle as he's running.

Speaker: And this is after the juggernaut, the juggernaut falls on his face. And this is after he's gotten all that magical extra strength taken away from it. Yes, I believe so. i And it's not even about his strength. Can you stop the juggernaut that way?

Speaker: No, he's continually moving forward. Can you create, I guess, like a pivot point for him? So his momentum is technically still there. Oh, I see. Redirected. You wouldn't be able to what you couldn't do.

Speaker: is like pull his ankle out from under him, right? you Which is what it looks like. point Which is what it looks like is happening. But what you're saying is that's what was intended, but did it instead create create a lever?

Speaker: Yes. A but at that point fulcrum or whatever. Could you create a fulcrum there? like Or is that stopping the momentum of his leg? Which is, I don't think this works either. way I don't think you can do this to the juggernaut. But again, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.

Speaker: Could you? Could you? Could you? The Fulcrum. Also, Owen and Marsha, my favorite couple, are playing Trivial Pursuit with their friends during this issue. Very good.

Speaker: Very good. All right. Secret Wars 2, number 8. be Betrayal! Rosen and Parker the letters. Christy Shields, the colorist, release date November 12th, 1985. Cover date February 1986. We're so close to done. Two more issues.

Speaker: Stay tuned. Despite being thrilled with his new purpose at the end of the last issue, the Beyonder is super mad and throwing moon destroying tantrums in Owen and Marsha's apartment as Owen tries to give him some amateur therapy.

Speaker: It doesn't really help. And Owen suggests that maybe what he's missing is the experience of being mortal. He has no reason to treasure the moments of life if he'll never die.

Speaker: okay This, for all the ambling we did to get here... is at least a point. It's, it's extremely simple philosophy, right? the the reason we enjoy being alive is because it's finite, but imagine, imagine this is like a four issue mini series. And this is the conclusion that he comes to at some point in that shorter, much, much, much shorter series.

Speaker: he's He can't figure out why he's not understanding how to be human. And it's because the thing he's actually missing is mortality. The mortality is what makes being human enjoyable. Right.

Speaker: you can't and You can't enjoy a thing if you have that thing forever. Right. And I think that that's like, that's the nugget.

Speaker: That Jim dumbass started with, right? It was, oh he's got to learn how to be human. And this is probably the ultimate lesson that he learns that that it's about being mortal.

Speaker: And then he took fucking a year to actually explain it. And... I think this is the most lines of ruin several stories doing it. I think this is the most boring issue so far, by the way. Yes. Oh, yeah. Bored me so, so much. I like had to keep pausing because I was just like falling asleep while reading it Yeah, he's with this is him. So the other thing about this issue is it's kind of him just like pulling the threads together for his finale.

Speaker: All of this shit that he kind of made up on the spot to yeah stretch this to nine issues. He's he's saying, OK, let's kind of let's make that make sense ah enough so that I can get to a conclusion.

Speaker: I wish Jim Stupid was still with us so that somebody could play this episode for him. You can hear how mad he made us and how right we are and how wrong he was.

Speaker: When are we going to get more X-Men, Pat? Oh, as soon as you tell us about him, Matt. He wanders around san San Francisco wondering if he should destroy all of existence when the X-Men attack. He defeats them easily, but we do get a good look at Rachel going nuts with her Phoenix powers. What? The new mutants also show up and get their ass kicked after Beyonder fights Hulk and talks to Spidey.

Speaker: What? Beyonder returns to Owen to tell him he won't destroy all of existence, but Owen was ready for a fight and attacks. This pisses the Beyonder off, so he threatens to kill Owen until Marsha falls down at the Beyonder's feet, begging him to love her. She rejects Owen and begs for her life, which breaks Owen's heart, which causes the Beyonder to take pity on him and not kill him, which was Marsha's plan the whole time! Whoa. The Beyonders decides again that he's going to destroy the whole universe, but it's taking one day to look around at everything. First, he wrecks the Avengers one more time.

Speaker: They're still just like... They just... They had to squeeze a fight in at the end because they were like, oh, this is all just talking. They're still just like as throwaway gags. Like he goes out to eat dinner and then brings the waitress... like psychically compels the waitress to want to come home and sleep with him. This is how fucking Jim stupid thinks of women as commodities, right? Like he doesn't yeah think there's anything disturbing about this. He thinks it's kind of funny that he made the beyonder go come have sex with me. And then the beyonder goes, Oh, that didn't help me.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Like, it's very, yeah it's, it's one of those things that's happened in Dazzler as well, which he also wrote, where it happens and you're like, Jesus Christ.

Speaker: Yeah. But it's not, it's never touched on again because... Because to him, it's just a gag. i do yeah It's just like, oh, this is just a small point. And we don't he doesn't give, he doesn't fucking care. He doesn't even know he's done something wrong to that woman. He learned literally nothing. Like, okay, even think about the entire Dazzler issue. He learned literally nothing from the Avengers Annual 10 fiasco.

Speaker: fis yes Yeah, yeah. a Okay, a couple of things. Number one, you just a talking about disrespecting women. He has, after the New Mutants get their ass kicked, Danny says to Cannonball, what do we do now?

Speaker: Cannonball is not the leader. Danny's the leader. Cannonball should be asking Danny what we do now. Yeah, and that's just out of character for them, right? dan Like, even yeah even if Danny wasn't the leader, she wouldn't ask him.

Speaker: She would go, what do we do? No, she would go, we should do this. Like, that's just her character. He doesn't understand that women are people. He like literally doesn't. Like, I don't even know. I'm not even trying to be like woke here. I'm just trying to state that like the at yeah and at the most basic level, he doesn't understand women are people.

Speaker: I did, i will say, heartbroken. but Having followed the relationship of Owen and Marsha through this entire series and fallen in love with the two of them, i am torn apart at the way that this this progressed.

Speaker: It's a brilliant plan on Marsha's part, but Beyonder's pissed. He's like, i' I'm going to kill you, dude. You just attacked me to to Owen. Marsha... end marcia breaks up with him on the spot just so that he will shrink down to a pathetic man because he knows that she's like the key to his self-confidence.

Speaker: And then the Beyonder is like, oh, you would pathetic little goofball. Why would I kill you? but But I am going to destroy the universe because you pissed me off.

Speaker: Marsha, her gambit works. But she's also wrong about the reasons. She thinks that the reason the Beyonder is doing any of this is because he's jealous of their relationship, which there's no evidence of that.

Speaker: And there's actually like evidence to the contrary. Yes. But the ultimate goal of just right having him not vaporize Molecule Man in front of her we achieved right I'm just saying it's interesting that and and maybe more of Jim stupid being like if I have a woman save the day she has to be wrong while she does it okay yeah um anyway glad to know it was all a ruse the beyonder knew it was all a ruse the whole time too apparently apparently because he knows everything that was it's a funny moment where he falls for it and then because Jim fucking idiot forgot that he's omniscient

Speaker: He had to be like, oh yeah, I knew that already. And i knew it. And I just went along with it. And I knew it and I'm smart and you can't trick me.

Speaker: Matt. h Can i end it all for us, please? Oh my God, please. Or should I read the last issue of this? All right. Secret Wars 2, number nine. God in man, man in God.

Speaker: Rosen and Parker letters, my hands colorist. Release date December 17th, 1985. Cover date March 1986. The Beyonder wants to destroy all of existence. Me too.

Speaker: but Frustrated, the Beyonder decides instead to become mortal. He's finally listening. Okay. To test the birthing machine. There's scene here where he's Goku, by the way.

Speaker: There's a scene where he looks exactly like Goku. Maybe that's where they got that.

Speaker: To test the birthing machine he intends to use on himself, he rebirths the dead new mutants from the bits of their essence he can scramble together. The new mutants are dead, Matt?

Speaker: Yeah, so the new he killed the new mutants. I'm sorry. They make it clear that he not just killed them, he wiped them from existence. it It was so hard to figure out when to read Secret Wars because Secret Wars was going to spoil some things in this, but some things in the comics were going to spoil Secret Wars.

Speaker: It was so hard to figure out when to put Secret Wars in our reading order. Yeah. And like we could have done half then and half half now and half later. But that we I we fucking. But yeah, would you want to listen to this shit more than once? So so yeah, ah in a new mutants issue, he literally kills them and wipes them from existence and everybody's memories and everything.

Speaker: ah Yeah. And now he rebirths them. It works, but they lack any kind of consciousness. Meanwhile, Phoenix teleports basically all the heroes in the Marvel Universe to the Colorado Rockies, and Molecule Man and Volcana join them.

Speaker: Beyonder sends the New Mutants up to fight them. Since he erased them from existence, no one knows who they are, and the only thing they know is defending the Beyonder. After a successful first salvo, turns out the New Mutants can't beat the entire roster of Marvel heroes. Really?

Speaker: Yeah. it's There's a thing in baseball, Matt. Listen to me. When a pitcher, you know you know what a pitcher is in baseball? Like ah like a pitcher of a pitcher of water. Or no, oh, are you saying like it's your Philly accent. It's like like ah like a pitcher. No, you're actually not far off with the pitcher of water thing. Just imagine the spout is a man's hand and the water is a ball that he throws to the batter.

Speaker: Okay. Okay? And so a pitcher... Oftentimes his first time through the batting order, because you have nine people that bat and then the the number one guy gets back in the line. Right. So.

Speaker: You go through those nine people the first time and you're probably going to do pretty well because they haven't seen your pitches that day like they're they're still but come around through the lineup the second time. They know what pitches you're going to throw. They have a better feel for you. The third time is when they're probably going to get a lot of hits. Statistically, that's when a lot of pitchers kind of like fall off is their third time through the lineup. Okay. ah I was mentioning that for a reason because the new mutants actually kick some Marvel superhero ass at first.

Speaker: Yes, you understood my metaphor. Thank you, Matt. They beat this sports metaphor in the first page of the fight. They do beat fucking ass. Yeah, because everybody's like, who the fuck are these kids? What are they going to do? And then they rock it in and they terrify everybody. It's them versus the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight and the Heroes for Hire all at once. Yes.

Speaker: And the West Coast Avengers. No no defenders, no daredevil, no Ghost Rider, but everyone else.

Speaker: Rachel probes their minds, the new mutants, and learns who they are. And in response, the heroes go and attack the Beyonder. How dare you fucking do this to our the the kids that all of us knew and cared for?

Speaker: The Beyonder is still trying to make himself mortal, and now he's a baby in a tank filled with the totality of his own power. Reed Richards tells them that they can't destroy it or the energy inside will destroy the universe.

Speaker: There's a whole debate about, like, should we kill a baby? ah Yeah, that's true. Molecule Man does it anyway. Yeah, get him Cut to the empty Beyonder dimension.

Speaker: A pinpoint opens and all the energy from the beyonder floods in, creating a new Big Bang. We see billions of years pass from Big Bang to the birth of humankind.

Speaker: The end. Thank fucking fuck. My God. It's over. Fuck. It's shit. Fuck. talking that there's we're gonna There's one final note here. oh Next, it's not quite over yet.

Speaker: The astounding epilogue to this and the most cosmic saga of all time takes place in Avengers number 266 on sale January. Do not miss End the War's Desolation.

Speaker: Do you think this last issue kind of happened because it was just like they were like, you have to have a war, man. You cannot call it secret wars if there's not a war. there was You haven't had a fight in three issues. ah ah There's so.

Speaker: Despite it all. I liked it. Yeah. What'd you, what'd you think? I liked it. I liked it. We should read it again. i think this is in apt ending.

Speaker: So I'll say like, imagine this is a much shorter series, right? The beyonder comes to, and imagine there's no superheroes in it either. This is me rewriting this, this story. i no superheroes, just a guy who's kind of a God comes to earth and,

Speaker: tries to figure out what humanity is about, ah goes through some sort of ups and downs. You can even have the ah the mafia issue that he was in almost in full, right? Where he learns a lot of the truths of the world through crime guys.

Speaker: And then he real he's realizes he's not satisfied because mortality is what makes every moment interesting, the the possibility that it's finite and that you might die.

Speaker: And then... The conclusion to it is that instead of being like the only existence in this other universe, he takes all that power and creates many existences out of it.

Speaker: And that's like the, the wrap up of the story here. Three, maybe four issues. Right. So I think this, it was like kind of beautiful,

Speaker: being so attached to this character, forcefully attached to this character to see him and like have this kind of beautiful cosmic ending.

Speaker: So, so A couple things. Okay. So there's the omnipotence paradox here, right? Like because the Beyonder exists, all reality would have to be created by the Beyonder because Beyonder can control all things that includes things that happened before he was created. Thus, anything that happens is because of him.

Speaker: Right. He's responsible for his own creation, but how could he have created himself if he didn't exist? Right. And how could he create the conditions for his creation? But he did because by the time because ah but by virtue of him being created, he created the conditions for his creation, etc., etc. If you can create all, if you can do everything, you have done everything.

Speaker: Religious types will tell us. Like, oh, it's just beyond our perception, our ability to perceive it. But Jim Stupid disagrees. He can perceive it.

Speaker: um At some point. So when the new mutants are fighting the X-Men, Danny pulls Phoenix's greatest fear out of her head. And what is Phoenix's greatest fear, Pat?

Speaker: becoming a hound. Yeah, that is what she talks about constantly as being her biggest fear, is the future, being a hound, the future that she lived through, all the things she saw, all of it happening again. Yeah.

Speaker: It's not the Phoenix Force, which is what Jim Stupid tells us it is. That made me mad. Alpha Flight is here, and they do literally nothing. They don't have a line of dialogue. That made me mad. Here's something that's fun.

Speaker: The Beyonder calls all the Marvel heroes buttheads. Though I believe what he's trying to say is not your head is a butt.

Speaker: Rather, you buttheads with everything and everything. anything Oh, and these buttheaders. And I am wondering if we, if before...

Speaker: our age like before the you know 90s right when people were always using the word butt to mean butt and calling each other like butthead and butt muncher and butt but yeah yeah whatever dick butt When we first heard the word butthead, we just assumed butthead means a person with a butt for a head. With a butt for a head. And no one ever contradicted us because our entire generation believed it.

Speaker: But every generation before the 80s knew that butthead meant somebody who's stubborn and reactive. This is this is a butter of heads. Yes. And...

Speaker: Because that was funnier. Because a person with a butt for a head was funnier. Like like there was a there was a generational miscommunication. Because then people ah like boomers and Gen Xers who are making cartoons or ah you know ah Mad Magazine as a pun would call somebody a butthead and then make their head into a butt.

Speaker: But they were doing it as a pun. And so we just never – And then we absorbed that without seeing the satire. and And it was what we – It was confirmation bias. We just – it confirmed what we assumed anyway is that it meant your head as a butt. And so there was never any communication between the two generations that they were defining butt head separately. Huh.

Speaker: This is really you rocking me, Matt. i gotta to I got to think about that one for a while ah

Speaker: while. is we were getting back to the i the omnipotence paradox you were talking about. we could spend more time on butthead if you want. I don't think, and I'm sure if we ever see the Beyonder again, I know he appears in in other comics, that yeah will this will be immediately contradicted. But I really don't think the Beyonder is as all-powerful as he thinks. He is explaining himself. So he's constantly in this world referring to

Speaker: this as its own multiverse that he comes from a different multiverse which yeah isn't a concept there's not multiple multiverses that's what the the the term multiverse means right so right and and i don't know if jim stupid understands that or if this is supposed to be the beyonders understanding but

Speaker: He doesn't come from another multiverse. He's part of our multiverse. He comes from another universe or another dimension, depending on exactly how you want to look at it. Right. Because there's those can mean two different things in in Marvel Comics ah situationally.

Speaker: The other thing he keeps mentioning is he doesn't remember anything before existing. And the only thing he remembers about existing is that pinhole that popped through his universe and allowed him to see into our universe.

Speaker: Okay. And then at the end, he expands, he turns into the Big Bang and creates a new universe. I think that Beyonder is just a universe that was waiting to be born and that he didn't exist before...

Speaker: A hole was poked because ah of the murder of Molecule Man to precipitate the events of Secret Wars 1. hole was poked into the border between our two universes. it was such a powerful okay outburst. We've seen this happen before, that the wall between universes gets... um gets opened so he doesn't perceive time differently he doesn't perceive all of time he just everything that he understands as time because he didn't exist before that and nothing else existed around him is what he thinks all of time is

Speaker: So what I'm saying is he's just sort of an idiot and he's got more power than like you and I could fathom. but he has no fucking clue where he came from or what he was. Yeah. He's just like he's making a lot of assumptions, a lot of egoistic assumptions, just like the man he's based on would that he invented everything. He's this is this is I'm i'm bringing it home here. Please, please. Jim stupid shares this view of like, oh, nothing really existed here without me, even though I wasn't here the whole time. As soon as I got a view right universe, it became mine.

Speaker: created this. I created the Marvel universe of this. Yeah, exactly. He is. and and he he writes it out for us here. He says, like,

Speaker: And listen, i know i I'm not actually your creator, but considering my power, considering my position, considering what I've observed of all of you.

Speaker: I essentially made this company. This is all or this universe, if you want to say. Okay. This is all because of me. And I don't see how it could have existed before before my time here. Wow.

Speaker: Yeah. It's really. yeah That's it. I think annoying. to be written out for us Yes. Annoying is a good way to put it. Imagine that imagine that being your boss is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker: Not for much longer. Imagine that guy giving you a quarterly review. um All right. Hold on. So, butt has meant... the buttocks since like the 1600s when they would call it like the butt end of a person. And they would mostly just say butt ends. Right.

Speaker: Nice. um But however, sorry. Butt end. However, 1908 word list from East Alabama, but headed adjective, headstrong, obstinate, bullheaded. He's as butt headed as an old mule.

Speaker: Interesting. M.G. Hayden's Terms of Disparagement from 1915. We also call... Butt-headed obstinate. We also call a mule an ass. What? Huh?

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. So... so Fuck, I grew up my whole life thinking butthead was a person with a butt for a head. i know, this is really yeah and yet we were wrong though kind of upsetting. i And I swear, maybe I'm wrong about this, I swear everyone in our generation agreed with me. no like Everybody i knew that's around our age or younger thinks butthead means person with a butt for a head.

Speaker: Yeah, I would not believe you if you told me this. You're telling me right now and I don't believe you. Sorry. Yeah, I looked it up in the the history of sla this dictionary of slang. That's fucking crazy. Sure.

Speaker: um Alright Do we need to do final thoughts on Or did we just did it i thought we just did This sucks this sucks don't read It sucks Do not read this please For your own fucking sanity It's so bad And I know there's some like There's some like revivalist People like there's some revivalist Opinions on the internet about it like Why do people think Secret Wars 2 was bad it was fine No, it's not.

Speaker: This is like people who said the Phantom Menace was actually kind of good. No, it wasn't. No, no, you're misremembering. You, it is, you do it it is. Sit down and try to watch it. I don't want to make this about the Phantom Menace again, but I can explain to you piece by piece why the Phantom Menace does not ah not only is stupid, even compared to Star Wars, which wasn't that good. it was just fun.

Speaker: And why it doesn't work as a piece of entertainment. Why every moment it fails to entertain. This is the same thing. Everything everything about it technically is bad.

Speaker: And as an entertainment product, it's worse. And also canonically just inconsistent. Yeah. Sucks.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: He's got an eye out, stuff that could buy out, if you had time machine that you would like to try out, it can steal, steal.

Speaker: Cheer me up. Oh, Matt, we did it. I'm going to cheer you. Here's something whimsical for you. Please. This is a small ad. It's one of the little classified style ads, but Matt. Star Rocks.

Speaker: Real meteors from the moon are passing comets? Question mark? Question mark. Studied by NASA. Struck Earth at 25,000 miles per hour over 750,000 years ago. Awesome.

Speaker: Factbook, authenticity certificate, and viewing case included. Send $5 for one, $9 for two. We pay shipping. These are just rocks.

Speaker: Just rocks, but they're from space, man. Yeah, all rocks are from space. mean

Speaker: Are all rocks from space over 750,000 years ago

Speaker: I guess not all rocks struck the earth at 25,000 miles per hour. So they did have to do a little bit of research on the rocks that they were selling, if this is honest, which it probably isn't. This is them just like collecting rubble from Crater Lake or something, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real meteor from the moon studied by NASA. So they say from the moon or passing comets, question mark. and then Yeah, they don't they don't state it. They ask it. And then they say studied by NASA.

Speaker: We brought it to NASA. They told us these aren't meteors. But it was studied by NASA.

Speaker: It does, Matt, come with an authenticity certificate and a viewing case. And here's the thing that we don't usually get in these ads. Does the authenticity certificate have question marks on it?

Speaker: Wait, here's a deal we don't usually get. They pay for the shipping. Yeah, because there's also there's a drawing dollars, a drawing of what appears to be a chocolate chip cookie. yeah with Stink lines. It looks like a lump of cookie dough, maybe it it says actual meteor one to three inches long black.

Speaker: Wow. New World Expressions from San Rafael, California. Yeah. What do you say, Matt?

Speaker: How much does it cost? $5. No, one I need to know in today's money. Okay. So this is your segment. What are we at? This is like, I think we said three 11 times five equals and cents. You want me to pay

Speaker: For something that probably isn't a moon rock. For a star rock. It probably isn't a star rock. It is a star rock. It's just up to you to determine what that means.

Speaker: Alright. If I was at like Crater Lake. you And they were selling this in the gift shop. I might fucking do it. Yes. We did it. You don't have to pay shipping if you buy it direct from the gift shop.

Speaker: So you're not really saving anything.

Speaker: so tired. I'm so tired. Folks, that's the episode. well mean Matt, we made it. We made it to the end. We'll never have to read Secret Wars 2 again.

Speaker: yeah If you enjoyed yourself or if you didn't enjoy yourself, honestly, we did this for you. So I don't care if you had a good time. You should be right out on Patreon.

Speaker: i Patreon.com slash mutant menace on YouTube. We're ah at mutant menace podcast on Instagram. We're at mutant menace pod.

Speaker: Mutant menace pod at gmail.com is our email address. You could be on Pat's email corner. Big, big, big thank you to Krils Wilson for all of our great music and to Julius Ellie for the voice of Trish Tilby.

Speaker: Of course. And that leaves us with just one thing, Matt, our famous catchphrase that we say at the end of every episode. As always, even a small fraction of my power is enough to blow your horde back to the depths, batter you into helpless submission, and free Dave.

Speaker: And remember, it's a warm, calm, quiet.

Speaker: There was no end of the sentence. It just... never It's a warm, calm, quiet, and no one finished the sentence. Bye. Bye.