Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
7 – X-Men #33–37 - Spider-Man and Factor Three
49 Plays15 days ago
This episode starts with a conversation about trash hoarding and ends with a conversation about the etymology of the term “69”… So…. Buckle up?
Werner Roth’s reign of terror continues as Ross Andru and Don Heck join the art team. Matt and Pat ponder over the trials of our intrepid team of mutants and plea to our future robot overlords.
We talk about:
Where are Juggernaut’s beautiful thighs? Mansplaining to Jean Grey. The most disappointing Dr. Strange cameo in history. Two losers living in their basement dragging the X-Men into their petty bickering. Still sculpting robot muscles, huh? A MAJOR SPIDER-MAN CAMEO! Mekano is boring as hell. A real tear-jerker of an issue. “Jean makes the robot suck its own dick until it dies.” The Mutants Return!
Email us: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tilby with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey everybody, it's me, Matt Aukamp, your host. And with me is my friend, Pat Reber. Hi, I'm Pat Reber, also host of Mutant Menace.
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome. We're a podcast where we talk about the X-Men, and that's pretty much all we do.
Humorous Anecdotes and Banter
00:00:53
Speaker
How are you doing, Pat? I can't keep this up, man. I am brimming with energy. Oh, really? what's What's got you so energized today?
00:01:01
Speaker
ah just happy to you see you, pal. Aw, hey, me too. raise Raise a glass. Cheers. What's in your glass? This is water. I just finished some iced coffee. Yeah, it's not very exciting, I guess.
00:01:16
Speaker
I finished some decaf chai, and now I have some water, ah which is what the fans are clamoring to know about. What are these guys drinking?
00:01:27
Speaker
What do they always say? I always hear sips and straws clinking on glasses during the which i recording. Which, may I say, I love... But i wonder what these guys are drinking.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. We got to leave a little something to the imagination. i will let you on and in on a secret. I did have a paper bag full of empty aluminum cans ah next to my chair for a while. I still don't understand why that happened. What caused you to have a paper bag of empty aluminum cans?
00:01:58
Speaker
I drink a lot of plain seltzers, so I was downing them pretty quick, ah creating a little recycling pile next to me in a paper bag. And what I've learned since is ah that's a bad practice for podcasting.
00:02:17
Speaker
You are a bit of a, who how do I say this without totally dragging you? Trash hoarder. I'm not a trash. It's not trash hoarder. A bunch of aluminum cans is trash. It's recycling, Matt. Do you remember there was a time that you were emptying, you you were cleaning out your car, just taking the trash out of your car at a Wawa, and somebody came out and yelled at you because they thought you were bringing trash bags from home.
00:02:46
Speaker
All right. This is embarrassing.
00:02:51
Speaker
You've grown. You've grown since then. You've grown much since then. I've grown up. I got married. I wouldn't be able to sustain a relationship if I was filling every room with
Pop Culture and X-Men References
00:03:00
Speaker
trash. Now it shrugged from entire rooms to one small bag by your feet, which is good. Which is good. We're all we're proud of you.
00:03:07
Speaker
One small bag of recyclables at my feet. Yeah. All right. Did you have an X-Men week at all? Let's see. What can i compare to the X-Men? I did a lot of driving this weekend.
00:03:20
Speaker
Which um the X-Men are always go to different locations. Were you driving around in a Rolls Royce? No. Okay. It's a Subaru.
00:03:31
Speaker
Do they still make a Rolls Royce? Yeah, they still make Rolls Royces. They are like $750,000. Oh my god. Yeah,
00:03:42
Speaker
they're status cars. Who drives them? ah Ringo Starr, famously at the time of these X-Men comics. not Not very ah working class Liverpudlian of him, but... ah said Well, I know. Ringo, usually known for his subtlety, his spices. Peace and love, peace and He did paint it, too. It was, like, covered in psychedelic art.
00:04:09
Speaker
ah Which I bet Hank and Bobby want to do to their Rolls Royce. I'll bet they would love it. I think it would be a fun twist, too. Because right now it's just it's just a limousine, basically.
00:04:20
Speaker
I just this feeling that Hank and Bobby are they're into the psychedelic thing. They just kind of don't want to admit it because their roommates are such squares. Right. like Oh, yeah. Warren and Cyclops are such squares they'd be made fun of if they fell all the way into it. So they're just kind of like, oh, yeah, we don't like this. We just go to this ah poetry coffee house every single week.
00:04:44
Speaker
Whenever we go home, we go straight to the coffee shops of Greenwich Village in the late 60s. but we we But ironically, we think it's ah we think it's actually kind of lame. let's Do you want to go right now?
00:04:57
Speaker
Matt, I got to ask you something. Yeah, sure. Here's a question that's been on my mind. We've done handful of podcasts together now where I am ingesting as much content as possible
00:05:14
Speaker
of something that you are borderline
Media Consumption and Preferences
00:05:18
Speaker
obsessed with. Okay, yeah. If the tables were turned, I was sorry, we've done Pokemon. Yeah. We're doing X-Men.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yes. We did that podcast together where you made me listen to all those folk songs.
00:05:33
Speaker
yeah i Yeah, man, you've never listened to that, have you? ah z I cut out all your parts. What? Ah, sorry. Oh, all right. Well, I'm going to start listening to this one to make sure you're not cutting me out of it.
00:05:45
Speaker
Let's say the tables were turned and you can't just say sports. yeah If there is ah topic, was when we finish this up, 40, 50 years in the future.
00:05:56
Speaker
And i get to choose the topic that dominates my life that we ingest all the content from. What is, what you, what do you think that is? twitter trolling no um no that's a ri recent obsession i mean simpsons right the simpsons oh what if we watched through late seasons of the simpsons together it would be something it would be something tv right it would on tv my life since a child has revolved around the television schedule
00:06:28
Speaker
you You are a big TV guy. i am not a TV guy at all. Yeah, yeah. I have to... there Even stuff that I want to watch takes me months to actually get around to it. I did watch White Lotus o only... i find i watched the last two episodes only a week after the finale.
00:06:55
Speaker
So that's pretty good of me. You only watched the last two episodes? No, I watched the whole thing. But what I'm saying is the last two episodes I finally watched just yesterday. Which at time of recording is like a week after finale.
00:07:10
Speaker
That is progress. Yeah, right? And then I probably won't watch a TV show again for several months. Have you been watching the new Daredevil? No. o You know what? That's it, Matt. It is the Netflix Marvel universe of television shows.
00:07:27
Speaker
It really is. But if we did that, we would also have to watch all the tie in shows that aren't on Netflix, like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yes. Or Cloak and Dagger.
00:07:38
Speaker
Do they made a very short-lived, just offensive i cloak and dagger television series for Hulu? Is it known for being very, very offensive?
00:07:52
Speaker
No, no, no. It's not known.
00:07:57
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, having read very many Cloak and Dagger comics, not that there are very many Cloak and Dagger comics. So basically, I've read almost all of them. um Against you, or I guess not against your will, but under protest of yourself.
00:08:14
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, this is how I live my life. You know this. ah is i it's I'm in an an adversarial relationship with my own media consumption, right? um if i If I like something, half of me says, oh, I like this.
00:08:28
Speaker
And the other half says, oh, if you like it so fucking much, why don't you start at the very beginning, consume all of it, including the shit that's tangentially involved that you hate. You're good at it. i've I've played...
00:08:40
Speaker
Because I like adventure games, I've played like six Leisure Suit Larry games. What is wrong with me? that's so That's not a joke, which is what hurts.
00:08:53
Speaker
We can make this commitment right now. It is the marvel netflix the short-lived Marvel Netflix universe because no one else has seen Iron Fist Season 2, which is something I need to talk about.
00:09:05
Speaker
it'd be hard to have what's ah What's a good name for that? canceled
Podcast Growth and Audience Engagement
00:09:12
Speaker
so that's the problem with this these universe is there's no actual unified theme yeah exactly you can't say netflix because it's not all on netflix and it would imply something different i'm thinking like you could maybe say something to do with defenders yeah defending the defenders when i was thinking all right yeah look out for defending the defenders in 2045 Perfect.
00:09:35
Speaker
That or it's going to be the 2024 Eagles Super Bowl. We'll do a bonus episode. Yeah. If we get any listeners to this podcast, we'll start a Patreon and we'll do bonus episodes where you force me to do to watch shit that.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man. This is a magic formula. You'll have to. That incentivizes you to go out and find us listeners.
X-Men Issues 33-37 Overview
00:09:58
Speaker
All we need is an audience. ah An audience who wants to pay us.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah. Pat, do you want to talk about ah with me today on this podcast? Issues 33 through 37 of the X-Men. Yeah. The original run.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Volume one. Perfect. Let me start with issue 33, Into the Crimson Cosmos. Ooh. going to read the credits here as written. Never has Stan Lee edited a more senses shattering saga.
00:10:29
Speaker
Never have Roy Thomas and Werner Roth co-produced a more mind staggering masterpiece. Never has John Tartaglione delineated more earth shaking epic. Never has Sam Rosen learned to spell Sidorak.
00:10:42
Speaker
Now do you agree with these? i I think no. Yeah, of course not. i I heard you in our pre-show discussion pronounce it as Sitorak.
00:10:57
Speaker
and yeah And to you it's Sitorak. I just want to know your thoughts on it. There's a Y there. Yeah. Can you think of another word that starts with CY that is pronounced CY instead of Cy?
00:11:09
Speaker
Oh, cynical. Cynical. Okay. i I see you're cynical. I raise you cycle. Cyclops. Cyber. Cypher. Oh, shit. I was just going to say that one, but you're right.
00:11:22
Speaker
All right. i was really just curious. It's your opinion. You're entitled to it.
00:11:28
Speaker
But let's get into it. The cover date here is June 1967. hit the stands on
00:11:36
Speaker
Following the moments after the events of the last issue, we find Juggernaut climbing some trees. ah This infuriates the US Army who launches a bazooka at him, but he is unharmed. We know from the last issue that Juggernaut has absorbed Professor X's tele telepathy.
00:11:52
Speaker
You call it telepathy, huh? He's telepathy, leaving him comatos. We know from last issue that Juggernaut has absorbed Professor X's telepathy.
00:12:05
Speaker
Telepathy, leaving him comatose and is on his way to steal an airplane to fly to factor three. Back at the mansion, Jean Grey picks up the mental wave amplifier to read the professor's unconscious mind, discovering that the ancient one from Dr. Strange lore long ago stumbled upon the ruby gem of Sidorak in ancient Korea, only to be attacked by Zorak, the outcast.
00:12:28
Speaker
Ancient One triumphs and captures the demon monster thing in the ruby where we know he dwells dormant until Cain Marcos stumbles upon it in the Korean War and becomes Juggernaut.
00:12:39
Speaker
Learning this, the X-Men use Cerebro to try and find the Ancient One, but instead summon Doctor Strange's astral form. He sends Scott and Jean to the Temple of Sidorak to learn about Juggernaut, I guess. It's unclear, but they arrive, fight some Korean soldiers, and then use an incantation to enter the Crimson Cosmos and find themselves face-to-face with Zorak the Outcast. So I think that is, it ends up being very beneficial.
00:13:09
Speaker
Right, that they go to the Crimson Cosmos. But you agree here, they don't know why they're going at this moment. They don't know what they're doing or yeah, what the ah what the actual plan is.
00:13:22
Speaker
they Dr. Strange shows up and they say, what can you tell us about Sidorak? And he says, I think I can help. You have to go to the Crimson Cosmos. you are go here's ah Here's an incantation to get to the Crimson Cosmos.
00:13:34
Speaker
You have one hour. You'll be stuck there forever. Have fun. And they're just like, yeah, okay. i See, I got the impression that he gave them like a mental idea and they didn't know how to actually verbalize it. But when the moments came up, they were like, oh, okay, this is what he was trying to tell us with his weird mentalism.
00:13:56
Speaker
Well, they do. Yeah, because Cyclops does say that Doctor Strange gave them the ah incantation mentally. But there is a point out loud where he says he's going to get... he says where you must repeat the incantation, which even now courses through your brains.
00:14:13
Speaker
So we were, we, we see the moment where he gives them the incantation. We don't see a moment where he says, and I'll tell you exactly. that's true. He just says, get in the Ruby and then get out in an hour or else you're dead forever.
00:14:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And they're like, yeah, okay, we'll do that. And at this point, all they know is like, they just want to know information. So it doesn't seem worth it.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, they're going through with it, though. Or Gene and Scott are, at least. Yes. Which rules. And we'll talk about that. But meanwhile, ah Angel, Beast, and Iceman are tasked with slowing the juggernaut down, which they do by dropping a helicopter on him and fleeing into a wind tunnel.
00:14:58
Speaker
Scott and Jean in the Crimson Cosmos are fighting Zorak by throwing his weird red circles that wrap around people back at him. This is ah very hard to pronounce, even just reading off of notes. Scott and Jean in the crisman Crimson Cosmos are fighting Zorak.
00:15:17
Speaker
ah Scott and Gene in the Crimson Cosmos are fighting Zorak. Anyway, they're fighting Zorak by throwing his weird, they look like little red cinnamon buns that wrap around people back at him, then getting sucked into his mouth as he grows super huge, and then finding themselves back at the beginning of the encounter.
00:15:36
Speaker
ah The Crimson Cosmos,
Critique of X-Men Storylines
00:15:38
Speaker
as it turns out, is a time loop, so they just throw Gene's pocket watch at Zorak, and he ages Raiders of the Lost Ark style into a pile of dust, and they escape with the ruby.
00:15:49
Speaker
What a lucky turn of events. is They get so close to an interesting science fiction concept here and are just afraid to really scratch at what being ah being out of time means.
00:16:04
Speaker
Right. Roy Thomas is like, how would somebody get out of this? I guess a pocket watch. Well, so the idea is he's he doesn't understand time, but he is exposed to time. And once he understands it, he's like, oh, no, this means I have to age. I've been doing it wrong this whole time?
00:16:25
Speaker
i We get back to Earth. They immediately fly to the juggernaut who has already beaten up Warren, Bobby, and Hank's wind tunnel trap and is now in a knockdown drag out fight with the boys.
00:16:38
Speaker
Gene and Scott arrive and try to sap Juggernaut's powers into the ruby, but he grabs it and disappears in a ball of heatless flame. Oh, yeah, that's right. Cold light.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yes, cold, cold, fire cold, red fire. The X-Men, a little conflicted about what just happened, head back to the mansion only to find that Professor X is missing. No way. Zorak.
00:17:03
Speaker
Zorak. instant loser league candidate just yeah immediately just the moment he shows up you're like this guy's loser league and the more he talks the more you're like yes this man is loser league yeah i i feel for him too he's not the bad guy in this situation they have to they have to battle him uh he's extremely powerful but really this is i a temple That was meant to hold an artifact that would be too powerful for people to get their hands on.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah. And Zorak is... A construct of some sort or a demon figure that was created. He looks like a the demon from DC Comics.
00:17:52
Speaker
Oh, Etrigan. Etrigan. He looks like a like a frumpy green Etrigan. Like if Etrigan was one of the new gods. Right. But also, like, had the, you know, Dilbert's boss's Yeah.
00:18:08
Speaker
He looks like it's the silhouette of Dilbert's boss with that they drew a lot more wrinkles in because Scott Adams a fucking hack. He's just doing his job. He's here to protect yeah the ruby. And for some reason, he gets trapped inside the prototype of the ruby, which is different from the actual this is ruby.
00:18:28
Speaker
This whole thing's confusing. there's Yeah, the ancient one discovers the ruby. which Zorak is the guardian of. We later find out that Zorak, after he was sucked into the ruby, is no longer Zorak. He is the outcast.
00:18:43
Speaker
And the Zorak was a demon created by Siderak to protect the ruby. But this is the outcast who protects the prototype of the ruby.
00:18:59
Speaker
i don't I don't even think... okay Roy Thomas doesn't know what this means. Yeah, that's very true. um He is, so he's goofy looking. and He doesn't, his existence in this comic doesn't quite make sense.
00:19:13
Speaker
He is immediately defeated by the Ancient One despite his overconfidence and then outsmarted by two teenagers. 100% loser league Canada. loser leak can I really like that little adventure, though. This is the first time we see Scott and Gene like go off together, like be yes be a team. And they in immediately, they crush it. like Immediately, their chemistry is palpable.
00:19:40
Speaker
yeah Immediately, they have like a great sense of teamwork. They're holding hands a lot. like There's a scene where they have to hold hands to do their incantation. And then the next panel, they're just still holding hands. It's very cute.
00:19:54
Speaker
I do. I love, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but sort of the implied trust between them two that's, ah that exists because of their infatuation for each other. i would say that this is a purely positive representation of the two of them as a couple. If Cyclops wasn't constantly referring to her as girl, I would that.
00:20:16
Speaker
And the narrator referring to her as girl. Just like constantly. Everyone's doing it in this issue. This astonishing girl mutant sends the discs careening backwards. Why did he use the girl mutant?
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah. There's a scene earlier where she's explaining how to use the mental the mental wave amplifier. Right. And...
00:20:41
Speaker
She brings it out and explains to the X-Men exactly why she's bringing it out and exactly what it'll do to help them get into Professor X's head.
00:20:52
Speaker
She details the plan from start to finish and everybody says, Atta girl. And then Warren says, wait, what if we use this to try to tap into the unconscious professor professor's subconscious mind like he explains the plan right back to gene it's just mansplained immediately it's amazing she's not respected and even you're right even by the writers Yeah, it's it's not great.
00:21:22
Speaker
I guess we should talk about Juggernaut. First of all, yeah this doesn this isn't Juggernaut, right? This is just a generic Roy Thomas villain. he is He's constantly monologuing. He's speaking in that sort of overblown, like, I have defeated the accursed X-Men.
00:21:38
Speaker
No one shall stand up to me, the Juggernaut, a towering, you know, like ah a towering monolith of power. It's not fucking Juggernaut. He's too poetic. He's supposed to be like a ah ah kid raised a kid raised mean.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, he's just a bull he's just a bully that becomes a big, strong man. Speaking of becoming a big, strong man, Matt, where are his beautiful calves? ah Well, they're there.
00:22:08
Speaker
I think this is about the colorist rather than the... um Yeah, you might be right. The muscles are there. They're just colored the color of his suit now instead of his skin.
00:22:18
Speaker
Right. And there's a line between his like boxers and his boots that could easily have been flesh colored. And we would have seen those beautiful hairless calves. All right. Werner Roth off the hook.
00:22:30
Speaker
Still batting a thousand. Rod, horny as hell for this juggernaut. Lots of butts. But that damn prude colorist. i Iceman and Bobby and Warren, they get there, ah like tasked with stopping juggernaut, and their very first idea is, let's chop him up with the blades of our... Oh my god. How gruesome.
00:22:56
Speaker
how gruesome yeah Like, it doesn't work, thank fucking god because they don't know it's not going to work. They try to chop him up with the helicopter blades.
00:23:08
Speaker
That is so extreme. While we're bitching about stuff here. Okay. On the cover, we're promised a Doctor Strange appearance. How exciting. Doctor Strange, the X-Men, the weirdest little team of superheroes, and Doctor Strange, the strangest superhero,
00:23:27
Speaker
right meeting up for what must be this colorful, psychedelic explosion of mysticism and and science. Instead, we get a fully colorless Doctor Strange popping in for a few panels. It's his astral form. So instead of the...
00:23:48
Speaker
grand outfit with all sorts of colors and patterns we just see a blue silhouette of him we barely even get a glimpse at his fucking sick mustache and then yeah he's in four panels just to be clear and he's just against like the the plain orange background and the uh gray supercomputer that they're all working off of yeah It's boring. This Doctor Strange. If Doctor Strange has one thing going for him because nothing else about him makes sense.
00:24:19
Speaker
It's that he's colorful and eye catching and everything around him is mystic. Yeah, it is a little disappointing. They really do ah chunk up Cyclops's visor, though.
00:24:31
Speaker
He looks bizarre. They do. He looks so big. Ski goggles. All right. Are you ready? Let's move to issue 34. Matt? thirty four matt I'm going to stop you right there. i have one more thing I need to mention because it's happened hidden i I think every Werder Roth penned Juggernaut issue so far.
00:24:55
Speaker
He loves including one panel where the X-Men are framed by yeah Juggernaut's legs on either side and his butt right up at the top. We're going start counting if he comes back.
00:25:12
Speaker
uh issue 34 world war in a world of darkness uh edited by stan lee scripted by roy thomas drawn by dan atkins adkins and uh lettered by jay feldman we don't have an inker here so i imagine dan adkins is doing his own inks yeah which isn't uncommon at the time they were kind of stretched and letting especially a guest artist come in and do whatever they wanted released on may 9th 1967 the x-men reeling from professor x's kidnapping are trying to repair cerebro and finding themselves snapping at each other gene after threatening to spank bobby and warren heads back to college uh where ted roberts who uh thankfully has a head wound
00:26:06
Speaker
calls her to say his brother's been captured and he needs the X-Men's help. Cyclops and Beast stay behind to try and locate the professor while Angel, Iceman, and Marvel Girl head to Robert's Research to see what's up with stupid Ted Roberts.
00:26:22
Speaker
Ted tells them that he and his brother were playing with Cobalt again when a weird villain named Tyrannus emerges from below the earth, barges in, punches Ted, and kidnaps Ralph back into his big earth hole, saying he needs he needs him to defeat his arch-foe Mole Man.
00:26:40
Speaker
Ugh. Ted gives the gang
Villains and Conflict in X-Men Issues
00:26:43
Speaker
a car made of, quote, super Cobalt to fly into the hole, and ah everyone keeps calling Angel Scott, but I think that's an accident.
00:26:51
Speaker
Using the car's laser, they bore into a giant underground cavern where they're attacked by the Mole Man. They fight some moloids and then chase after Mole Man who lures them ah into the river Laith from Greek mythology.
00:27:07
Speaker
And ah they breathe in its vapors and they all get ah like complete amnesia. i I can't believe he found that.
00:27:16
Speaker
It's just laying around. They're river lath. Meanwhile, Ralph is making a giant man out of super cobalt. It's a big robot.
00:27:28
Speaker
It's made to look like a Roman centurion. and The robot comes to life and Ralph refuses to make any more, getting himself sent to Tyrannus's dungeon. Meanwhile, Scott and Hank are here now.
00:27:41
Speaker
Meanwhile, Mole Man is showing off his diamond android, his giant diamond android, to the amnesiac X-Men, who are now his slaves. Meanwhile, Tyrannus is drinking from the Fountain of Youth, which apparently sustains him. Meanwhile, diamond android is attacking Tyrannus' underground castle.
00:28:02
Speaker
The narrator has to step in here at one point and say... Look, we know we're switching locations a lot. Please try to follow along. for I mean, like, this narrator seems very, very confused by switching scenes, which is... Not confident.
00:28:23
Speaker
But it is a little it is a little excessive, right? Like, we cut to two panels of Cyclops and Beast arriving and climbing down, like, a rope.
00:28:33
Speaker
like a rope and And another point we cut to, what is it? Again, two panels of Tyrannus just explaining how he stays young by drinking from the Fountain of Youth. Like, why did we need that?
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like they drew squares around somebody's sketch pad. ah just Everybody's doing poses and pointless things.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. ah So Tyrannus sends out his Cobalt robot to fight the Diamond Android that's destroying his castle. And the Cobalt robot, Cobalt robot wins, but like off panel.
00:29:08
Speaker
Like the narrator needs to step in. Cobalt robot. Cobalt robot. ah The narrator needs to step in and tell us that um even though we don't see it, the Diamond Android has fallen down a cavern and...
00:29:21
Speaker
It's gone. Still missing their memories and believing Mole Man is their master, Angel, Marvel Girl, and Iceman helped to destroy the Cobalt robot and knock it into a... and Knock it into lava, right?
00:29:33
Speaker
We find out that apparently it was destroyed that easily because Ralph Roberts sabotaged it. Hmm. He then takes advantage of Tyrannus' surprise to sucker punch him, which, you know, accomplishes absolutely nothing.
00:29:48
Speaker
um He was a boxer in high school.
00:29:53
Speaker
ah The amnesiac X-Men then burst in to fight Tyrannus themselves. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Beast arrive at Mole Man's house and Cyclops karate chops him.
00:30:06
Speaker
ah The three of them, they they force him into ah their cobalt car and they all drive to Tyrannus's house. And Angel attacks them. But Cyclops has an antidote gun that he found at Mole Man's house. Again, off panel.
00:30:21
Speaker
And the X-Men get their memories back. They make Tyrannus and Mole Man breathe the River Lathe vapors. And then they leave them there with no memories.
00:30:33
Speaker
And that's the end of the issue. What the fuck, man? This is so depraved, Matt. This issue...
00:30:43
Speaker
Okay. i They just handed Dan Adkins. They were just like, I don't know. Do whatever, man. Do whatever, man. We'll figure it out. Yeah. keep I think. yeah Okay. we Away from from Dan Adkins. He's a guest writer. So this story is going to be a little.
00:31:02
Speaker
Guest artist. in Or yeah, sorry, guest artist. Story's going to be a little nutty. We're going to... I'm not interested in this, but what we're getting is the petty squabbles of two dorks who don't leave their basements.
00:31:15
Speaker
It is...
00:31:18
Speaker
it doesn't need to involve the X-Men in any way. you Mole Man, anytime I see him appear in any comic, I am and upset. i I am viscerally...
00:31:32
Speaker
angry about it because he is a terrible villain and should have just stuck with the fantastic four he doesn't deserve to remain how does he survive like he doesn't have powers he's he can't survive on the surface world like he's just a guy who controls a bunch of weird like putty monsters He's a guy who didn't want to step outside again.
00:31:55
Speaker
He is just like, he's awful. He's the villain. villain who should have been killed but in the 1960s, right? like Like the Moloids should have continued to exist, right? That whole... Reed Richards should have shot him in the head. but I just mean that whole subject. He seems like one of those villains who comes out, makes a big splash, creates a set of lore for the book...
00:32:19
Speaker
but then like dies really early on. Yeah. Doesn't he? He feels like one of those villains, ah but he should stick around and he just still popping up in comics.
00:32:31
Speaker
On top of that, last time we saw cobalt used upon its activation, it turned into a giant cobalt bomb. like They kept calling it a C bomb. It should be something else.
00:32:47
Speaker
But yeah, No one even asks if this cobalt car will turn into a bomb like that cobalt suit did. No, they just get into it and drive around. And Frank's not there to say it won't.
00:32:59
Speaker
They just say, oh a cobalt car. Awesome. Now we can drive to the center of the earth. Above all of that, Ralph Roberts... You are as despicable and cowardly as your brother.
00:33:12
Speaker
Your choice here is to die yourself. You die. Or you build a robot to conquer the entire human race. Yeah. And you're choosing the latter. You say, oh well, I had you. He says over and over again, i have no choice.
00:33:30
Speaker
He'll kill me if I don't design a super weapon that will destroy the entire human race. Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah. he what I love about that sequence is that Tyrannus is like hurt, like hurry up. You have to work faster. But like, he doesn't just design like a big cobalt robot. He design he makes it like look like a Roman centurion with muscles, with with' ah pectoral muscles and calf muscles and like chiseled jaw.
00:34:02
Speaker
Like he still is like... He's got a full outfit on. Yeah, Tyrannus is... I don't know which one. I don't know if it's Ralph Roberts. It's like, I can't do this that fast if you want. And Tyrannus is like, no, he must look sexy.
00:34:15
Speaker
Or Tyrannus is like, you have to hurry up. And Ralph Roberts is like... carving out one of his triceps and is like, this is my art. If you want this done right.
00:34:28
Speaker
but I still just don't know why everybody who makes a robot in the Marvel universe has to spend time making its boobs and butts and pectorals and techctorals and ah swim lines on it and its pelvis. Like, I do not know why this happens every single time there's a robot.
00:34:48
Speaker
They're beautiful, though. yeah every Yeah, every robot is beautiful. That's what we have to say here. In case the robot uprising comes and we are placed before the robot judges, we here at Mutant Menace feel that every robot is beautiful.
00:35:03
Speaker
I'm going to take a stand here, Matt, and let you know that there's a robot in a couple issues that is not beautiful. Hey, man, it's it's it's your trial. All right. Well, before we get there...
00:35:15
Speaker
Let me ask you, you, Matt. Yes. A couple of questions about Tyrannus. Sure. Or Tyrannus. think it's Tyrannus.
00:35:27
Speaker
Tyrannus. Okay. i How tall is Tyrannus.
00:35:33
Speaker
Hold on. Let me flip through a little bit. Yeah, check a few panels and see how he sizes up compared to the Mole Man, compared to Slim Summers.
00:35:45
Speaker
Okay, yeah, he's taller than Ralph. he's ah Oh, now he's the same height as Ralph. Yeah, he's also shorter than Ralph at one point. um The Mole Man actually is the same size as Iceman, Angel, and Jean Grey.
00:36:02
Speaker
I always thought the mall man was supposed to be tiny. He's not. There's a lack of perspective in this. There's actually, ah it's there were a few panels that really frustrated me because I had to sit and stare at them to figure out who was in the background and who was in the foreground.
00:36:15
Speaker
Let me ask you another question about. Yeah, no, I want to hear your question, but i I want to say panel where Mo Man is the same size as Iceman, Angel, and Gene is not perspective related.
00:36:27
Speaker
They're just standing a line. They are standing in a line. Yeah, very strange. Okay, let so. That happens. Can you please describe his outfit? okay Okay, yeah. He's wearing... think cover is your best look. I've i' really poured over this.
00:36:42
Speaker
and Okay, yeah. He's wearing like a little skirt, like a little Roman skirt with a big wrestling belt on. Okay. That wrestling belt has suspenders.
00:36:56
Speaker
But not suspenders to hold his skirt up. No, to hold his cape. On. On to his bare chest and shoulders. His bare chest and shoulders. He's got gauntlets and Roman boots.
00:37:09
Speaker
There's a chain between the two fasteners of his cape, and his cape has a very big collar. Yeah, I mean, that's about to stretch it. He's mostly nude. i e For a lot of the issue, I'm looking at the cover and I see the wrestling belt you're describing.
00:37:23
Speaker
What I saw in most of the issue was a man with a cape that had ah bolo tie coming off of it and a... Fleva Fleave watch sized pendant.
00:37:38
Speaker
I think that's his belt, but I could see how you would have thought that that was part of some, like, necklace. I've also, I've never met this man outside of this X-Men comic. This isn't his first appearance, right?
00:37:48
Speaker
It is not. I don't know if he's just supposed to be the Tyrannus from Greek mythology. You know how they loved to do that back then. Yeah, yeah. Right, like Warlock was, Warlock said he was Merlin. Yeah.
00:38:03
Speaker
but there's no, uh, there's no copyright on this, so you can use them as much as you want. Yeah, Tyrannus, also known as Casper Clayton, is a Marvel Comics villain and an enemy of the Hulk.
00:38:14
Speaker
Okay. He's also named Romulus Augustulus. That's not a name! Augustulus. Okay, why in one wiki is he called Casper Clayton?
00:38:26
Speaker
Casper Clayton, there we go. And in another wiki, his name is Romulus Augustulus. He first appeared in Incredible Hulk number five, ah which is five years before this issue.
00:38:37
Speaker
i feel like the hulk would squash him yeah he's i mean he's still fountain of youth his his most recent appearance appears to have been 2025 he's still he's still fucking going on some some writers still look at tyrannous and go i'm inspired what a fucking dork what a jork there's him there's jerk and dork There's a picture on the on his wiki of him fighting Black Knight, which I think would be a pretty good. I would be cool with that.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds like an appropriate matchup of relevance. i I'm not done with the moral depravity. Please. the existential horror of the state that they leave Mole Man and Tyrannus in.
00:39:29
Speaker
Just all of your memories fully erased, left in a park to see what happens. Put these men in prison. like yes that's this is This is called cruel and unusual punishment. This is so much worse. sir i have two lines from this issue that I want to express. Number one, Warren at one point tells somebody that they look like the night shift from the ugly factory.
00:39:56
Speaker
I thought that was great. I'm going to start using that. a And then Bobby, he said it once last issue, and now he says it twice this issue. He says, holy Hannah.
00:40:09
Speaker
I hate this. Someone needs to tell him to stop. How would you react if you heard somebody say that in real life? If you were on the i don't know subway, right?
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. And saying it? Like a three-year-old? yeah this is this is a this is a college-aged man then it's ridiculous do you fight them do you say what the fuck no i don't fight you who am i the what do you do so what do you what do you what do you do
00:40:44
Speaker
do i know this person let's try Let's try both scenarios. In the first scenario, you don't. You're standing next to them. You're at the at the subway. Somebody does something wild, and somebody says, Holy Hannah!
00:40:55
Speaker
Did you guys see that? I turn to the person next to me and say, This guy just said, a Holy Hannah.
00:41:06
Speaker
All right, now it's somebody you know. It's you. It's me. It's me. You. We're riding best friend the bus together, and you say, yeah Holy Hannah! Yeah, ah there's a car crash outside the bus as we're driving past.
00:41:20
Speaker
We're both shocked. We're both a little like, is I don't want it to just be like you're perfectly in your right mind. Yeah, sure. And somebody else is. We're both shocked.
00:41:31
Speaker
And you're like, oh my God. And I i say, holy Hannah. Probably after we're like decompressing. Once the situation is taken care of, I would roast you.
00:41:46
Speaker
That's bring ourselves back a little levity talking about how stupid it was that as a knee-jerk reaction you kept playing Hannah. Also, yeah, I have an ex-girlfriend named Hannah, so it would be even more creepy oh yeah that was my expression. Oh, yeah, that would be really um must just shouted all my ex-girlfriend's names whenever something bad happened.
00:42:13
Speaker
I kept picturing Hannah Horvath from Girls. yeah All right. So. Issued 35. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate you. Let me take this one. The title is long came a spider.
00:42:29
Speaker
have been waiting for this moment since we started this podcast. Stanley presents a Roy Thomas, Werner Roth, towering triumph of titanic talent and tumultuous toil inked by Dan Adkins, lettered by Jared Feldman.
00:42:42
Speaker
They're really yeah turning over letterers these days. Not important. Okay. wouldn't like that job no these are the worst words in the world and fucking roy thomas has so many of them too many Cover date, August 1967. Release date, June 8th, 1967. The Banshee is back, baby. He's flying around Central Europe looking for Factor 3. He flies past a guy up on a mountain with one of those giant horns who looks just like Professor X's Beardman disguise.
00:43:21
Speaker
ah He does find Factor 3 base in a mountain where a weird mechanical spider zaps him. He manages to escape and fly back to his rented chalet where he has some crazy high tech machinery, sends a coded message to the X-Men, but he passes out before he sends the whole thing. So all the X-Men get in this message is beware the spider.
00:43:43
Speaker
Pat, I am always be wearing spiders. I don't know. i don't know about you. I don't need a message to beware the spider. I am always be wearing them. I'm not going to like start a friendship with the spider, but they're useful.
00:43:55
Speaker
They're great creatures to coexist with. Yes, but I am be wearing them. Don't come near me. If you're a spider, you're never more than three feet from a spider, Matt.
00:44:07
Speaker
That can't be true. The X-Men. Still searching for any sign of the professor after his kidnapping, received Banshee's message just as Cerebro shows them that trouble approaches just off the mansion's property.
00:44:20
Speaker
Meanwhile, Peter Parker, needing a break from his bustling New York City lifestyle, takes his moped out to Westchester and decides to stop by a stream and channel his inner Thoreau, he says.
00:44:30
Speaker
Pat. Yes. You are a huge Spider-Man fan. Yes. Biggest I know. And Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
00:44:40
Speaker
That's true. Does Peter Parker generally ride around on a moped? I haven't seen this before. he just calls it his bike, so it seems like he's familiar with it. but So you've never seen Peter Parker ride a motorcycle in your 22 years life?
00:44:57
Speaker
twenty two years of life Right. I don't think I've ever seen Spider-Man just like cruising on a moped. I'm sure there's a spider cycle somewhere in that long history across several mediums. But yeah, I have never seen him just driving like a plain old moped through the streets of Westchester, New York.
00:45:22
Speaker
i'm I'm almost positive that there are times that he as like as ah a Spider-Man bit, he tells people he doesn't even have a driver's license.
00:45:36
Speaker
Right. I am positive I've read dialogue multiple times. Spider-Man saying, i don't even have a driver's license. Well, he's been stranded outside of the city before because he he just doesn't have a way to get back. He couldn't rent a car. Yeah.
00:45:49
Speaker
He had to hitchhike. Fun little lore drop from, i I'm going to say Werner Roth here, ah decided that Peter Parker rides a moped. Peter Parker loves to ride his motorcycle.
00:46:00
Speaker
What's the... um The Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda movie that everybody loved in the 60s and 70s, where they're just riding motorcycles across America. It's like a... Is this one of these made-for-TV movies? No, it's like a foundation midnight of American cinema.
00:46:21
Speaker
easy ridder Easy Rider. This actually predates Easy Rider by ah couple of years. So so what you're saying is Easy Rider took inspiration. Easy Rider was like, look at Peter Parker. Let's upgrade his clothing and turn the moped into a motorcycle.
00:46:37
Speaker
he He pulls over, he stops by a stream. But as he's walking down to the stream, a flying saucer appears and drops off a spider like robot. Peter is curious. He ducks into the nearby mill to change into a Spider-Man outfit. And as soon as he pops back out, the robot attacks him.
00:46:57
Speaker
Of course, it's Spider-Man. So he managed to wrestle and defeat the robot just before the X-Men without Gene arrived to investigate. As this is the spot that Cerebro directed them to.
00:47:08
Speaker
Seeing only Spider-Man as they pull up with the spider robot having disintegrated, ah they assume that he is the spider threat that Banshee warned about. Scott immediately pleads with the rest of the team to hang back until they can assess if Spider-Man is the threat, but Hank and Warren insist that there's no time for that now and they attack.
00:47:28
Speaker
No individual X-Man at this time is capable of defeating Spider-Man on their own, so as they recklessly attack, Spidey is able to defensively avoid them each without causing them much harm. This is an interesting moment because I think in this scene, Beast is written as not just superficially smart like he normally is, right?
00:47:49
Speaker
Normally he's just being a guy, but he uses big words. yeah But in this moment, it's Beast who recognizes, oh Spider-Man hasn't made any overt moves towards us.
00:48:01
Speaker
He's the only one that's noticed that Spider-Man is only being defensive and has not attacked. That doesn't stop him, though. No, he still jumps at him. Still continue to attack Spider-Man.
00:48:13
Speaker
Back the mansion, Gene continues to try to contact Banshee and monitors Cerebro for any updates. But back by the stream, once each of the X-Men is disposed with individually, Scott's pleas to try to reason with Spider-Man are finally recognized But at this point, Spider-Man is being rude to them.
00:48:32
Speaker
Very reasonable, all things considered, but we know how the X-Men react to an unpleasant disposition. They attack in full force. They manage to get the upper hand on Spidey, who escapes to the creek, giving everyone a moment to breathe.
00:48:45
Speaker
Cyclops receives a message from Gene on his watch that the threat Cerebro alerted them to disappeared as soon as they left the mansion. A soggy Spider-Man emerges from the creek ready for round three, but the X-Men tell him there's no time for that now as they explain what they just learned. This couldn't possibly have been Spider-Man the threat.
00:49:04
Speaker
Spider-Man mentions that the alert and message they're describing from Banshee were probably about the spider robot he just fought. The X-Men and Spider-Man part ways full of resentment for each other and Spider-Man comments on the fact that they drive away in a Rolls Royce.
00:49:19
Speaker
As the X-Men arrive back at the mansion in that Rolls Royce, Gene has solved the mystery of Banshee's message. The X-Men are heading to Europe. Woo!
00:49:29
Speaker
So this is another thing about Spider-Man that I was not aware of. It's that Spider-Man has a short temper and once it's aroused, he just wants to fight.
00:49:41
Speaker
I've never seen that from Spider-Man before, but twice in this issue, something... Like, he has been avoiding conflict until somebody pissed him off, and now he's like, all right, I'm going fuck you up.
00:49:53
Speaker
Yeah, is that's actually true to character for Spider-Man. Okay. He does... i don't think he's got a short temper as much as he is like a... He's very principled, right? So in this case, he's saying...
00:50:05
Speaker
I'm trying to reason with you. I don't think we should be fighting this entire time. And he's trying to hold himself back. Uh, and when it doesn't get respected, that's when he loses his temper. Right.
00:50:16
Speaker
Sort of like if, like if you will kidnap his wife. I mean, yeah, I get if you kidnap his wife, he's going to want to kill you. I mean, both, both are very frustrating.
00:50:27
Speaker
I think it is clever. The way that Spider-Man kills the spider robot by making it blow itself up. It's, Yeah, bending its head over so that it directs its laser beams to its own body.
00:50:41
Speaker
Usually you got to get a rib removed for that. Sorry. Sorry. I mean, that is the moment that it that never. that It evoked that for you, Matt.
00:50:53
Speaker
It evoked that. for Did it not evoke that for you? I know. that's strictly you okay all right we me and you just have different saturday nights i guess here's another thing gene discovers that the cerebro stopped going off as soon as spider-man defeated the spider robot right so the robot was a mutant yeah i i've thought this through okay And I think this is consistent in what we've read so far. Cerebro doesn't only track mutants. It can also recognize robotic dangers to mutants.
00:51:35
Speaker
Okay, but Roy Thomas just also describes everything as a mutant. Remember when he Warlock, the ancient magician Merlin, as a mutant? as And yeah had Merlin then say, yeah these Pegasi, I made them.
00:51:49
Speaker
They're mutants. write his horses for pupils. I just don't think Roy Thomas knows what a mutant is. And yet he knows Spider-Man is not, despite his mutations.
00:52:01
Speaker
Right. it's There's some real editorial interference there to make sure that that gets cleaned up. This is around the time that Stan Lee is leaving a lot of books and having other people take over.
00:52:16
Speaker
X-Men being one example. Do you think this is Roy Thomas trying to audition for? For the the the job of Spider-Man writer?
00:52:26
Speaker
i i have I have two theories because Spider-Man is really well written here. I think he's very true to character. He's got a great mix of quips and dialogue that actually moves the story along.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He's either doing his best Stan Lee impression or there was just a heavy rewrite by Stan Lee here because and some of the Roy Thomas flowery language is cleaned up. They speak a little more directly to each other instead of dancing around points like Roy Thomas likes to do, especially in the narration.
00:53:01
Speaker
And there's even a line here where the X-Men asks Spider-Man if he's heard of Factor 3, and he says, never heard of it.
00:53:12
Speaker
What is that some kind of secret ingredient? So Stan Lee's very distinct joke last episode was, what is that? Some kind of toothpaste.
00:53:23
Speaker
I think this is either just, yeah, maybe a very careful study of Stan Lee and what he wants out of an X-Men Spider-Man meetup or Stan himself as editor in chief. Just,
00:53:37
Speaker
went through two of his most valuable, or I guess the X-Men weren't that great, but two of his favorite creations and made sure that they stayed true to character.
00:53:49
Speaker
We should note, Roy Thomas is the first person other than Stan Lee to ever write Spider-Man. He only does it for like three issues, three or four issues. Yeah. And it's not for a while too, right?
00:54:01
Speaker
Yes, it's not till 1971. um And then Stanley takes back over. um So, so I don't know. i don't know what. We really are setting the impression that yeah Roy Thomas, and it's very well maybe true, was just Stanley's sort of lackey that Stanley did not respect at all.
00:54:26
Speaker
He's just eternally looking for the approval that he's not going to get. I don't know if Stanley respected him or not. I do know that he is often described as Stanley's lackey in histories of Marvel.
00:54:40
Speaker
Okay. So that is maybe where I'm getting this from, but I think... I there's a good chance that we are misreading some of these editors notes, but these that like if we are to interpret these editors notes as coming directly from Stan Lee, they seem pretty passive aggressive.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:04
Speaker
i you on the other hand though i do like to throw out wild assumptions as fact so yeah true true yeah i mean well that's what's that's what's fun that's what a podcast is um ice man keeps hitting people with a pole
00:55:22
Speaker
yeah he does he also used a pole to lift that helicopter in the last issue Yeah, he's just using this pole every issue now. It's like, that's his main thing. He just makes a pole out of ice and hits a guy with it or he tries to charge a guy with It's pretty effective.
00:55:37
Speaker
you just Is it? When is it effective? It's effective in theory, but has it ever worked? Spider-Man knocks it apart. Yeah.
00:55:48
Speaker
No, it I don't think it's worked. I'm i'm saying if I'm thinking about... How to take down a bad guy with ice powers, just putting my hand forward and shooting a pole straight out that grows until it hits him in the head is pretty good.
00:56:02
Speaker
Anton Chigurh style. Yes. Lobotomize him. Vernon Roth. Let me say this. Incredible, right? He's done incredible things and he's still doing that here. Really dynamic action. He's taking on a whole new hero that has a whole new set of moves and he really understands how to make those two mix.
00:56:22
Speaker
I don't think he knows how to draw Spider-Man's head.
00:56:27
Speaker
It is an inconsistent scale. He's doing the tiny eyes too, which I know was in animated series in fashion for Spider-Man at the time, but he's doing really tiny eyes and his head is just like, it doesn't fit anywhere.
00:56:43
Speaker
Every, every panel, he keeps trying to draw like a jaw line in there when, and when it, it just shouldn't be. Yeah. ah Let's move on to issue 36. X-Men 36. Meccano lives.
00:56:58
Speaker
Meccano? You don't say Meccano? i I don't know when you're trolling and when it's how you actually pronounce something. It's best that way. Keep going. ah Stan Lee presents a Roy Thomas, Ross Andrew panorama of pandemonium packed panels.
00:57:14
Speaker
Ross Andrew. Inked by George Bell, lettered by Sam Rose, and yeah, it's a Ross Andrew Release July 1967. We open on Hank.
00:57:25
Speaker
we open on hank getting the jump on two burglars in the Xavier, the two unluckiest burglars on earth um who did probably not properly case the, the place that they chose to rob.
00:57:37
Speaker
ah Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men are in front of a supercomputer planning out their trip to Europe, realizing their biggest obstacle is that without the professor, they have no money.
00:57:49
Speaker
Hank finishes off the burglars after toying with them, and then the X-Men strap them into some rebro and erase their memories. i I'm sorry. Yeah. Now, any old X-Man can erase memories.
00:58:04
Speaker
And they're all the protégés of Charles like Xavier, who already erases memories pretty recklessly. Loves doing it, and he's like, hey, I know. we like This must have been a Christmas present, right?
00:58:16
Speaker
I know you guys love when I erase people's memories and someday I might not be around. So I made this ah little device that gives people brain damage, minor brain damage, but it will rob them of their memories. So you guys can do it to your heart's content. and to really he says He says, don't do anything I wouldn't do. And they're like, okay, you mean we should erase everyone's memory? Yes.
00:58:42
Speaker
The reason they have to do it too is... Hank decided to put on his costume to confront these burglars. He was like, oh, I just heard something going on Let me go check it out.
00:58:54
Speaker
You know, it would be fun. let me put on my superhero costume first. And then because he shows up as a superhero in this mansion, they're like, ah, now they know this is the X-Men's headquarters.
00:59:06
Speaker
We got to erase their memories.
00:59:09
Speaker
The X-Men then brainstorm ways to get money to travel to Europe. um Warren calls his obscenely rich parents who have just left on a cruise ah so he can't get a hold of them. The X-Men secret jet doesn't have Warren and Gene tries to try to they go to the bank to try and charm them into giving them a loan, but it does not work. That's not how banks work.
00:59:40
Speaker
uh finally they all decide that their best move this is their this is part of their superheroing jobs their superheroing uh responsibilities they decide it's time to go get jobs and earn money so that they can buy plane tickets to go rescue professor x warren scott and gene uh pull up to an active construction site to ask for work while hank and bobby head down to granite's Greenwich Village with their own money making schemes.
01:00:06
Speaker
now Scott, Gene. This was back when you could just walk up to a job site and hey say, hey, can I have a job? i yeah I'm sure. Yeah. This is why our parents are always like, have you just gone down to the office and shook somebody's hand?
01:00:21
Speaker
when you're looking for a job. yeah That's all it took back in the 1960s. ah You did a firm enough handshake. you are like You didn't even need to sign anything. You already had job. You look him in the eye.
01:00:32
Speaker
You shake his hand. You call him Mr. They always he also assumed it would be a man. And he gives you $50,000 year. yeah Which, at that time, bought you two houses.
01:00:46
Speaker
um Scott, Gene, and Warren, all in costume, break every OSHA regulation to trick the foreman into thinking they're capable of constructing a building in just minutes. ah But they're denied employment because they're non-union. Womp womp.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yep. Also, it turns out Warren parked the Rolls illegally and got towed. So a stranger named Tom Regal offers them a ride downtown in his brand new VW Beetle.
01:01:14
Speaker
To find Hank and Bobby. They make a point of explaining that it is a brand new Volkswagen Beetle. And that his name is Tom Regal. Along the way, Tom reveals two things. Number one, he's got a secret science project in his backseat.
01:01:30
Speaker
Number two, his dad is rich, but Warren, for some reason, feels he can't relate.
01:01:38
Speaker
ah look get right i don't know what that's like, man.
01:01:43
Speaker
ah We find Bobby and Hank in Washington Square Park balancing on 10 foot ice pillars and juggling. Hank is using his feet, of course. They've drawn quite a crowd, but before they can ask for money, a costumed man calling himself Meccano appears on top of the Washington Square arch, promising to destroy the nearby memorial library.
01:02:04
Speaker
He falsely credits Beast and Iceman for helping him. People love to do this to the X-Men. It works every time. Just be like, hey, I'm with them. And everyone everyone's like, oh, those X-Men. The police, at as soon as he says it, the police are like, well, that guy's up on the arch and he's he's jumping really far.
01:02:21
Speaker
But we can get these guys that are right in front of us. Right. It gives the police something to focus on. As Meccano tries to flee for the library, the police arrest Bobby and Meccano punches Hank real hard in the solar plexus and run straight through the library window.
01:02:39
Speaker
ah The rest of the X-Men arrive at the scene to find Meccano destroying books and declaring the written word useless. But before they can take action, the police show up pointing guns at them. and Gene manages to use telekinesis to remove their guns.
01:02:55
Speaker
Meccano proves too strong and fast for the X-Men to catch. He jumps out a high window hoping to land on the roof of the building across the street, but he doesn't make the jump. On the ground, a well-dressed man is getting out of a limousine just in time to see Gene telekinetically catch Meccano and lower him for a soft landing.
01:03:13
Speaker
The well-dressed man reveals that this is his library and that he is pretty sure he knows who Meccano is. That's right. It's his son, Tom Regal, and this is the rich father he resents.
01:03:26
Speaker
Tom explains that he was tired of just being known as a rich man's son and was really just acting out to get his dad's attention. The dad takes full responsibility and offers to cover the cost of the X-Men's playing tickets to Europe. $1,500. Which is $15,000 in that era's money.
01:03:41
Speaker
which is fifteen thousand dollars in that era's money And it's not a, it isn't a drop in the bucket for him. He does it as thanks for keeping Tom out of trouble. The X-Men board the plane and we see they're being watched by the mysterious factor three.
01:03:59
Speaker
Meccano, he's just a guy who's just like, yeah, I just wanted to be a super villain. He's not it's not just that he wanted to be a supervillain. It's that he wanted to get his dad's attention.
01:04:12
Speaker
That's where it gets into like what the Marvel bullpen apparently considers is tearjerker territory. This whiny rich kid causing chaos, crying about it afterwards and having to face absolutely no consequences for it.
01:04:27
Speaker
His dad is $15,000 less rich. Yeah. Moral depravity, Matt. That's the here. Rich kid daddy issues. Yeah.
01:04:38
Speaker
It's a really fun idea, though, that the impetus for this issue is the X-Men are like, we need to get jobs. We can't go save the world. We can't go save the professor.
01:04:50
Speaker
we We don't know how to get across the Atlantic Ocean. That is... So relatable. but yeah This is what would happen to us if we became superheroes.
01:05:03
Speaker
and be like How do we get there? yeah we would We would really struggle, Matt. We would be like, all right. If I work for a month, I'll have enough money for the plane tickets and rent.
01:05:15
Speaker
And i do have that concert I have to go to. It would be... It would be like getting engaged. In what way would it be like getting engaged?
01:05:26
Speaker
expense and the amount of planning you should put into it. i i do i do, again, really like this idea. I like the idea of we have to raise money. it would, like you're saying, we would see something happening.
01:05:40
Speaker
Even if we had superpowers, we would see something happening a couple of towns away and be like, okay, what do we do? We got to, we got to drive there. I guess what times the bus get here. Yeah.
01:05:51
Speaker
yeah What are your thoughts on this issue? I didn't like it. I do like them getting jobs. I love that. ah Continuing in that spirit of them being absolute goofy hippies Yeah.
01:06:08
Speaker
Hank and Bobby are just down at Washington Square Park busking. Hmm. What really bugs me, Matt, is that this was supposed to hit us hard emotionally. that moment That's you just keep coming back to. his Yeah, I'm sorry.
01:06:23
Speaker
But even though the narration explains that the the entire writer's room had to pull out some tissues over this passionate speech that Tom Regal gives his dad. And it's really just like, I'm i'm bored.
01:06:40
Speaker
Yeah. i I've been kicking around in my head. Why does, why does Meccano not feel like loser league material? And it's probably that, right?
01:06:50
Speaker
That most of these loser league guys are just thoughtlessly developed and included. Yes. Right? Zorak, nobody put a lot of thought into Zorak. Nobody put a lot of thought into what Porter Mack, right?
01:07:04
Speaker
And yet somehow they're so well developed. ah But somebody put a lot of thought into Meccano. And he's still kind of safe. And he's still underbaked, yeah.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And so I think that's what like, even though he is a loser, you'd think he would be loser league material. He's just not. Also, but sorry, I'm going to I'm going to go back to my list of things that bug me.
01:07:30
Speaker
Please. i the very beginning of the issue, he just shows up. He introduces himself with first and last name and a few other identifying qualities. This is going to be your villain.
01:07:42
Speaker
This is the person yeah that you're going to have to deal with. And his name is Tom Regal.
01:07:50
Speaker
ah He's a rich kid named Regal. Yeah. Yeah. Can I mention a thing that I hate that's not about Tom Regal? Please. And this is why I told Bobby he needs to stop it in the last issue. Now so Scott is saying, holy Hannah.
01:08:10
Speaker
Okay. All right, Pat. I think you need to move on to recap the next issue.
01:08:17
Speaker
Okay. Issue number 37. We, the jury. Stan Lee presents a Roy Thomas, Ross Andrew, apex of atomic age accomplishment delineated by Don Heck, Matt.
01:08:30
Speaker
Lettered by Artie Symec. Jury stacking by Honest Irv. Don Heck. Okay, yeah. Co-creator of Iron Man. Yeah. Artist of the Avengers immediately following Jack Kirby leaving.
01:08:45
Speaker
He created Wonder Man, who is another character I think is terrible, but is still... is such a monumental secondary figure in the Marvel Universe.
01:08:56
Speaker
This guy is... Yeah. Questionable quality, but Marvel royalty. You know who else he created? Count Nefaria? Ah, shit. We open...
01:09:08
Speaker
it
01:09:12
Speaker
we we open on a mysterious figure in an incredible helmet, watching the X-Men's past triumphs, studying their moves in order to defeat them from Factor 3 headquarters.
01:09:24
Speaker
The X-Men, meanwhile, are flying commercial to Europe when they find their plane under attack by a mysterious flying saucer. Whoa! Understanding that they are the targets, the X-Men run to the back and jump out of the plane with half a plan.
01:09:39
Speaker
As suspected, the saucer disengages with the commercial airliner and starts following the X-Men in their descent from the plane. Scott pulls some fucking rad moves and manages to shoot the saucer out of the air while he's in midair, but he does lose his glasses in the process and has to do the rest of the fall with his eyes closed.
01:10:00
Speaker
ah really cool A really cool sequence, but I do want to see, I do want to, and there's more to the sequence that you'll explain, I'm sure. um But I do want to point out from the rest of that airplane's perspective, right?
01:10:15
Speaker
they like They don't know what caused the airplane to shake, right? So from their perspective, they're just flying on their flight to Europe. The plane experiences some pretty extreme turbulence.
01:10:27
Speaker
And five teenagers from the door of the plane, rip it open, and jump out. And then the plane is back. And then everything's back to normal. The plane stops getting turbulence.
01:10:43
Speaker
That had to make the news, right? yeah yeah They had to be like five teenagers leapt out of a plane today. ah like ah ah International authorities are still searching for the bodies.
01:10:58
Speaker
um So we get this brilliant, it's like four, four and a half page sequence of the X-Men falling out of the plane. We're getting a ton of different perspectives. We're getting some really, like I said, sick moves.
01:11:13
Speaker
ah The team works together to avoid hitting the ground at a high speed through a combination of Warren's wings and Jean's telekinesis slowing them down and Bobby creating an ice slide to help kind of readjust their descent so that they hit the ground at an angle instead of straight on.
01:11:33
Speaker
Upon landing, they're immediately confronted with a spider robot. Jean easily dispatches of it by making it suck its own dick like Spider-Man did. But. They quickly find themselves ah surrounded by you um spider robots and two hooded figures that are declaring them prisoners of factor three.
01:11:52
Speaker
The X-Men try to escape. They run away, but even that is a trap. They run into a cloud of knockout gas and come to in a giant snow globe. As they look up, they are greeted by four separate video monitors, each of them containing a separate...
01:12:08
Speaker
early X-Men villain, ah the Vanisher, Unis, the Blob, and Mastermind, all revealing they've been working together to take down the X-Men and help Back to Three.
01:12:20
Speaker
Still saying Unis, huh? That's right. We're all over the place on this episode. This is shocking to the X-Men, but before they can process it, a platform approaches from behind with a costumed character shouting at them as a shadowy figure hovers above on a higher platform.
01:12:37
Speaker
The costume character introduces himself as the changeling and reveals that this is a trial for the X-Men's crimes against mutant kind. The changeling is their prosecutor. The shadowy figure is known as the mutant master and he is their judge.
01:12:51
Speaker
And the four early X-Men villains are witnesses to and victims of their alleged crimes. The four villains recount how they were poised to destroy humanity until the X-Men interfered.
01:13:04
Speaker
And given no due process, the X-Men are quickly found guilty and sentenced to... Oblivion. Before they're destroyed, though, the mutant master reveals Factor 3's master plan, which is nuclear war. Factor 3 has already planted a bomb at a meeting of the USSR...
01:13:23
Speaker
that will implicate the U.S. starting a nuclear World War III and destroying all humans. The X-Men are hooked up to an Oblivio Rey, but they're able to destroy it by having Bobby create a bunch of ice crystals over the machine where they melt and short-circuit it.
01:13:41
Speaker
They fight a robot guard, go looking for Mutant Master, but he reveals via video monitor that they are still trapped in this complex and helpless to stop Factor 3's plan.
01:13:52
Speaker
To be continued. I like that we're getting somewhere with the Factor 3 plot. yeah And I like that Roy Thomas is like getting back to the X-Men comic deals with mutant matters.
01:14:05
Speaker
Yes. This is not just a parade of weird rich kids in mechanical outfits. That just seems to be Roy Thomas's like, that's the thing he likes.
01:14:16
Speaker
He likes guys. He likes guys in suits. Also, you mentioned this idea that now the X-Men are having to face some of their mutant foes and answer for mutant crimes. Brings us back to this theme of what is the role of mutants in the world.
01:14:33
Speaker
Are they a separate species ah and a separate nation? Are they a separate people? Or are they members of the human race, which is the ideological split here?
01:14:44
Speaker
What we have here... mastermind who somehow is no longer somehow he returned uh yeah he's not entirely he mentions that it was only temporary the the being turned oh good for him how lucky for him that the stranger was like i should put a timer on this thing also that implies that the x-men lost track of his stone body Oh, right. they were They had him in safe holding.
01:15:16
Speaker
They had him. Yeah. Keeping him as a statue on the property. Yeah, I wonder what they were doing with him. um ah But then you got Eunice, the blob, who they did very specifically wrong.
01:15:31
Speaker
Innocent. Blob, innocent. blob innocent but yeah they did specifically raw ah wrong the blob um and then ah master yeah mastermind uh unis who am i missing the vanisher oh and then the vanisher back with his funky hood I don't know what they did wrong with the like the Vanisher wasn't trying to score one for mutants. He was just robbing a bank.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah. And stealing national defense plans. Oh, that's right. You're right. yeah I guess that if if what's being said here is that the X-Men are getting in the way of mutant terrorism, then that's true. That's true with the Vanisher. So then, OK, yep. Vanisher belongs here.
01:16:10
Speaker
Yeah. I again, I like this. How do you feel? are you I did enjoy it. I think, well, Scott says Holy Hannah again. i think it's a joke at this point. They're too upset me but they're doing it for for your benefit, or for you that lack your lack of benefit.
01:16:28
Speaker
That aside, I i am fascinated ba hey yeah The, uh, as I know I've already said it, but the jumping out of a plane sequence, they, I think it is, i mean, it's drawn extremely well. It's very exciting. The, they're getting a lot of different a angles. They're not over explaining the action, ah to Roy Thomas's credit. They're just kind of like, they're giving you just enough to understand how we got from panel A to panel B, uh,
01:17:01
Speaker
And they're figuring it out as they fall to the ground. They're having a conversation. It's like i when Satan's ah buddies, see say Satan's saints came in last episode and they just kind of sprung into that teamwork mentality and figured it out as they went. They're doing that again here.
01:17:22
Speaker
i really love that this is becoming more and more of a trend. Right, they are just perfect. Well, and they needed that after they so royally fucked up the Spider-Man fight.
01:17:37
Speaker
Yeah, they needed a win because the last issue, last couple of issues were them just kind of bumbling. and we' We haven't been getting nearly as much ah evolution of the X-Men as we were in the Stanley era, so it's nice to see that kind of coming back too.
01:17:53
Speaker
And then, yeah, I was legitimately surprised when I saw that it was the vanisher, Unis, the blob and mastermind being behind this. And there's not ultimately behind this, but, but serving a purpose here. I was like, oh shit. They got the mutants back together. They pulled one from each, uh, one from each weird little sticky situation. the X-Men found themselves in. Yeah.
01:18:23
Speaker
Is the metaphor here? Nationalism. uh, see And maybe I'm reading too much into it again, but because they're jumping back into mutant stuff, I immediately want to find a political parallel. And yeah, all I can really read into it is, yeah there's one group in power that is persecuting people without any sort of due process.
01:18:49
Speaker
i And then there is the group being persecuted, which represents sort of a ah countercultural view, not as i think mutant kind is sort of a stand in for patriotism. And the fact that these terrible people just see being a mutant as its own virtue and can kind of do whatever they want from there yeah I see what you're saying honestly I don't think and this this isn't to say that we shouldn't talk about it in those respects but I honestly don't think Roy Thomas has any of that in his head
01:19:26
Speaker
Like, where I think... He was just, oh, look at these jorks. Yeah, it's a bunch of jorks. um Yeah, I think, ah like, for Roy Thomas, um hes he just like fight he just likes But i i think...
01:19:41
Speaker
If anything, I think this is some sort of World War Two metaphor, right? I think this is some sort of the Nazis would have done this. Okay, yeah, yeah. It's not a it's not a comment on modern nationalism at the time. It's a comment on Nazism and the regime that's 20 years past now.
01:20:01
Speaker
Exactly. I think ah if if I were to guess, i would I would imagine that is where Roy Thomas is coming from here. and maybe And maybe there's a communism thing to it, too.
01:20:14
Speaker
Well, he's no J.R.R. Tolkien, I'll tell you that much. like I do not think that he is thinking in terms of American civil rights struggles.
01:20:25
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. um I think he is thinking in terms of what drives a person to be evil. And the trial, like you're saying, suggests some kind of politics.
01:20:38
Speaker
and if i yeah agree And if I had to guess, I would say that the politics here is... how evil men justify their actions. They also call what they're doing the great Western process of jurisprudence.
01:20:52
Speaker
Well, there's another thing, ah Marvel comics thing is like, Oh, even the villains, somehow really believe in democracy yeah they really respect uh the american culture and government yeah yeah exactly a couple of shallower things number one i'm gonna ask you the same question can you describe the changeling's outfit to me oh my god yeah he's got what were those toys called oh like the balls with the little plateaus that popped up on every side
01:21:24
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um What were those called? Something? Donkey balls. Look that up. I want to say donk it, but that's definitely not what they're called.
01:21:37
Speaker
don it is donk it. Donk it. Yes, it looks. His helmet looks like a donk it. That one is safe to Google for for the listeners out there. And it it constantly changes between... Orange and purple and purple and blue.
01:21:53
Speaker
Exactly. It's a dress.
01:21:58
Speaker
The colors of his outfit change. um and So it's a very weird hat. He's also got... So I guess factor threes, um, logo is three screws.
Nostalgia and Comic Style Discussion
01:22:10
Speaker
Oh, those are on Banshee's helmet or Banshee's headband. They're on the doink it. They're on, um, changeling's chest. Um, Also, he's he's wearing like a so futuristic spaceman kind of like a Flash Gordon villain might have been wearing this.
01:22:28
Speaker
Yes. It's like a one piece vest and pants combo with big bulky boots, big bulky gloves and like rims around his shoulders.
01:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. And on his chest for some. Oh, he's wearing a he's wearing like a satchel. Real weirdo. You know who does look good, though, is every one of the X-Men as they're flying. People used to get dressed up to fly, Matt. They used to wear their best.
01:22:55
Speaker
And the X-Men are all doing it here. The good old days, right? Yeah. You could also smoke cigs on a plane. You missed that? Yes, I never knew it, but as a... As a former smoker. As a former smoker.
01:23:09
Speaker
Yeah. This robot, here's my last esoteric is... Am I using that word right? This is not a beautiful robot. Which respect. I respect that so much more is when you just make a robot that's a robot.
01:23:25
Speaker
Right. It has ah one arm. It's a flamethrower. One arm, that's a wrecking ball, and a mouth, that's a machine gun. And that's all. Can I save us from our future robot overlords here? What we're both saying is that robots shouldn't have to conform to the standards of human beauty, right? It it is ridiculous to constantly make robots rep like resemble the beauty standards of humanity.
01:23:54
Speaker
You are kissing ass, Matt. you Yes, don't want to be fucking destroyed You're going to roll over on me when the robots come? No, helping you.
01:24:06
Speaker
ahead, continue what you were saying. My last thing is Ross Andrew does bring back juggernaut's legs. hi They are crazy muscular in when he's going and it, it fits the cannon because he's going back and looking at their first encounter with juggernaut.
01:24:26
Speaker
i So he wasn't wearing pants at that time, but, Ross Andrew really like really gives them some legs. Now, do you think, okay, where do you stand on X-Men's X-Men traitors to mutant kind or not?
01:24:44
Speaker
At this, at this point, right? but Trying to erase everything else, you know, about the X-Men and all the future ideological arguments that, I'm going to say no in the sense that their witnesses here are just trying to selfishly hurt people.
01:25:04
Speaker
Yes, I would agree. I don't think the X-Men are always on the right side of the conflicts. Right. Yeah. The blob, of of course, being the exception here. ah Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. No, I absolutely agree with that.
01:25:17
Speaker
No, I don't think the X-Men are always on the right side of the politics of mutant hood but at this stage there there is not like a cohesive magnetoian theory right yeah at this stage it's just a bunch of guys being villains and magneto's goal at this stage is just human slavery like he wants to dominate the world and turn non-mutants into his slaves and Yeah, and he wants to do it because he's more powerful than them, not because he thinks that it'll make the world safer from you, yeah which is one of his later goals.
01:25:55
Speaker
um So, yeah, I agree with you. I think at this stage, the X-Men are entirely innocent. Is that going to change? Are we going to get ah compelling case for them being guilty in the next issue?
01:26:10
Speaker
and No, no, no, no, no. I think we might get a compelling case for them being guilty in 20 years or something. yeah um Spoilers, Matt. ah But do do you have any other thoughts about issue 30, whatever, 37?
01:26:24
Speaker
thirty seven I don't think so. I have ah some thoughts on this run that we're covering in general. Okay. Yeah. It was weird.
01:26:34
Speaker
What a weird run of issues. The the settings they're in are strange. The villains they're fighting are strange. Even the the mild progress we see in their social lives is kind of strange.
01:26:48
Speaker
um In what way? Well, mean, like we see Scott and Jean yeah go on a mission together and strengthen their bond. And I don't think that's necessarily bad, but like they still haven't confessed their feelings to each other. I would love to see them work through that a bit more.
01:27:08
Speaker
Yeah. And then I think that's it. There's not really any other social stuff. There's a, there's a point. No, no Vera and no, um, Zelda, no Zelda, no candy.
01:27:21
Speaker
No candy. There's a point where they mentioned that they haven't Southern for, if you don't, If you don't know who Candy Southern is, that was a really weird sentence that you just heard me say. They don't have any candy.
01:27:35
Speaker
there's a There's a point in one of... I forget if it's 36 or 37, but they're on a plane and talking about how they haven't slept for two days. Like they've been... up nonstop dealing with the juggernaut dealing with the mole man and yeah tiered tyrannous and uh meccano like they're just they're they're going non-stop they don't have chance to live their lives that's a good point and good and that's an interesting point you're right huh also just kind of boring it's fucking roy thomas uses so many words you're not liking this roy thomas run at all huh
01:28:13
Speaker
i It has ups and downs for me. The Spider-Man appearance was top notch. I think that was a really fun, stupid issue. yeah ah But yeah, generally, where's the story? it's We know they're capable of it because Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were sort of pushing a story forward.
01:28:34
Speaker
We know Roy Thomas can do it. like It's not like this is not something that happens in comics in this era. What, story? Yeah. Yeah, just a little more continuity. And they try to do it with the Factor 3 stuff. I think that works kind of well, but it's spread out over the course of like, like, yeah.
01:28:52
Speaker
Which might inspire some future X-Men stuff. And I do think inspires, again, not to keep jumping towards the future, um but I think that does inspire actually Roy Thomas's second X-Men run.
01:29:06
Speaker
Okay. but we' I'll take your word for it. But, yeah, in this first Roy Thomas run, it's just clear nobody's very inspired by the X-Men, I think.
01:29:19
Speaker
Yes. and I think maybe Stan Lee came in with some big ideas and ran out of them very quickly. And then Roy Thomas doesn't have many at all, right?
01:29:30
Speaker
I don't think he likes them. I don't think he likes the X-Men. He feels like he's trapped on the book. is Exactly. And I do think Spider-Man was sort of his self-insert here of being a guy who is just frustrated with a room full of ah inferiors
01:29:51
Speaker
somehow being in a better position than he is. just Oh, because they had Rolls Royce. Massive talent, the Rolls Royce. And also just like it being a frustrating battle for Spider-Man in the first place.
01:30:03
Speaker
Yeah. So you're so you're seeing Roy Thomas as being frustrated. What at like Stanley for not for having all these for not giving him the credit he deserves and not putting him on a book that is more popular.
01:30:17
Speaker
i I think maybe not even that. I think he's just he like I said, he sees himself as a real writer. And you I think he thinks he should be writing novels and is right stuck here. And while he's stuck here, he's also stuck on the project that he doesn't want to be on at Marvel.
01:30:41
Speaker
That's yeah, I could see that. I really like the progress made with Scott and Jean. I like that we're getting a broader arc, at least starting here.
01:30:53
Speaker
I liked Werner Roth more than I like Don Heck. I know you're very excited about Don Heck. And we're going to do in the inks. ah Wait, Ross Andrew is doing the actual drawings in this last one.
01:31:11
Speaker
oh okay yeah don heck becomes the x-men artist for the next i don't know whatever 10 12 issues okay and and i just i just yeah okay you're right we we don't we aren't seeing him as fully yet because it is ross andrew um but yeah i i just i liked verner roth better is he is he done like we saw his last issue for the time being Well, pretty soon, X-Men splits into two stories per issue. There's like the main story, and then there's a backup story about the X-Men's origins.
01:31:47
Speaker
And I believe Werner Roth draws at least some of those, if not all of them. Okay, good. He is really like... He just understood it. Yes.
01:31:59
Speaker
You want to ask me about
Marvel Parodies and Ads
01:32:00
Speaker
Pat's Steals and Deals? Yeah. Do we have a Pat's Steals and Deals today? We do, Matt. But before we get there, I want to be kidding. I hate this. A couple of cool things that I discovered in the ads of these comics from the time. Number one, a new...
01:32:17
Speaker
merry marvel marching society membership kit uh just feast your baby blues on what all new members are going to get an all new membership pin an official recording of the merry marvel marching society song swing and stickers of eight marvel heroes a nutty new notepad an assortment of magnificent mini books a mind snapping marvel pencil a majestic merry marvel marching society certificate and your own munificent membership card Now, this is the part that will really knock you for a loop. You get all these groovy goodies for the paltry sum of 69 cents.
01:32:54
Speaker
Hell yeah, brother. That's right. yeah i That's a really good price. Did they have 69 back then? Yes. I don't know if they were calling it that, though. i meannna While you tell us your next deal and deal, I'm going to look up the etymology of 69. 69 and 67.
01:33:10
Speaker
sixty nine and sixty seven i That's number one. That was just very cool. They're still refreshing the Merry Marvel Marching Society. There's a few discounts we've seen on some of their cool products.
01:33:22
Speaker
The other, in this era, the the five to six months that we've covered... Sorry, go ahead. We also get the Not Brand Eck line of Marvel Comics, which is their...
01:33:38
Speaker
Mad Magazine takes aim DC. believe was either... takes aim at dc i believe dc was either They either owned Mad Magazine by this point or they were making some contributions to Mad Magazine. i forget exactly what, but this is branded as the comic magazine for non-believers who hate comics.
01:34:05
Speaker
It is the is the creation of Forbush Man, the wacky Alfred E. Newman ripoff Irving Forbush getting his own...
01:34:16
Speaker
costume and set of superpowers ah features heroes like Spidey man, Nat man and rotten ironed man versus Magnet. The robot robot biter knock furious and agents of sheesh.
01:34:34
Speaker
gotta like Agents of Sheesh. Yeah, yeah. It is very ripped from the pages of Mad Magazine and ah because of their raging popularity, and I imagine they took a few shots at Marvel.
01:34:48
Speaker
Pat, can I tell you about the origins of 69? Yes. yes This is all part of Pat's Steals and Deals. Yes. was first coined in 1888. Yeah. it was first coined in ninety or eighteen eighty eight
01:35:03
Speaker
Those fucking perverts. As a translation of the French forcicine. I can't pronounce French. I know you have to like kind of like slur it all together. So it's like fair. Soysante.
01:35:19
Speaker
You sound like you're speaking Gaelic. So it's like, faster science hidden knife ah cant to do from the resemblance of persons fitted together in the arrangement of the two numerals is what Edamon says.
01:35:34
Speaker
Then yeah, the Marvel copywriters knew what they were doing here. You can keep going with Pat's deals and deals. We just needed to get to the really important stuff. yeah. yeah No, thank you for that digression.
01:35:47
Speaker
Our actual steal and deal here, though, is going to be... We haven't even gotten to it. Okay. No, no, no. This is just fun stuff that was happening. but The product that we're highlighting today is the 48-inch, quote, talking, end quote, monster from outer space.
01:36:06
Speaker
full of shivers of delight. Imagine the amazement and shock of your friends when they hear him, quote, talk, end quote. This is a lovable monster for you to command, to make him, quote, talk, end quote.
01:36:18
Speaker
Just use the special design instrument. He bounces on his big feet, Wobbling, teetering, bending in every direction. Colorful one-piece quality latex. Order several sets now.
01:36:31
Speaker
Guaranteed to delight or your money back. One dollar each. Okay, so it's just going to be a big balloon that you put, like a big, like inflatable thing with this printed on the front.
01:36:42
Speaker
Yes. Like one big but like yeah bubble. ah Where the wild things are-esque. Yeah. monster that, yeah, I guess grows to 48 inches. But here's my thing that and I tried to research. I couldn't really find much information about this.
01:36:56
Speaker
But if it if it's just 48 inch inflatable piece of latex, And they keep putting talk in quotes because they are clearly required to not say it actually talks.
01:37:12
Speaker
What do you think that noise is? I mean, it's just letting the air out. It's like it's a whoopee cushion. This is a four foot whoopee cushion. Yeah. hated As a monster. As far as I can tell for only me one dollar.
01:37:25
Speaker
All right. I've got to admit to you. I've kept looking up 69 as you were talking.
01:37:32
Speaker
yeah Do you have more information or you just wanted share that? Yeah. In 1883, story called Boudoir from London. um They uses the phrase ready to make the beast with two do backs to play the game of 69. Oh, OK. Do the lollipop trick with her right.
01:37:52
Speaker
Yeah. So your first explanation of the origin of the term was it came from the French term for to do 69. So I'm glad we got a little deeper into. that Well, I like the I love that the phrase the plate to play the game of 69.
01:38:11
Speaker
Yes. What's better? Email us ah mutant menace at mut meisce pod at gmail.com. What is better? Referring to it as the game of 69 or using the French phrase him ro to sixty to make 69. Yeah.
01:38:28
Speaker
yeah I think both are equally romantic. Little treat for listeners that make it all the way to the end of the episode. We talk for a while about 69ing. In the academic sense.
01:38:42
Speaker
Pat, those are great steals and deals. ah how much How much is this giant whoopee cushion? One dollar. So 10 bucks. Yes, generally. Although i the US dollar is tanking even more than it is since the last time I said it on this podcast. So who knows? That could be $5 soon enough.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:39:02
Speaker
Yeah. Pat, thank you for talking about the X-Men with me. Thank you for doing his deals and deals. Thank you for being my friend. You're welcome. i want to thank the listeners for tuning in. it's Are you quitting?
01:39:16
Speaker
I want to thank them for being here and listening. Guys, if you get a chance, you find us on Instagram, mutant menace pod, right? Yes, mutant menace pod. And you can email us at that same address. But at Gmail. At gmail.com.
01:39:31
Speaker
Leave us reviews everywhere. Everywhere you can find to leave us reviews. Anywhere you can find to share it. We really, really could use your help, especially, again, we're still getting off the ground. this i hope we're still getting off the ground or or we're just talking to ourselves forever yeah maybe we're driving
01:39:53
Speaker
pat do you have anything you want to talk about before we get out of here i am i'm making an effort matt to post on blue sky a little more recently it's mostly been about reacher but yeah i could use some engagement just for my own endorphins Is it just Pat Reber? Yeah. I think I'm Fat Reber on Blue Sky.
01:40:14
Speaker
Okay. it I don't know. Find Pat Reber. it's i don't There's not many of you. Also, you can find us on YouTube where we do post clips of each episode. The clips usually are accompanied by video of us and, you know, like images that we are talking about in said clips.
01:40:29
Speaker
Anyway, thank you to Krils Wilson for our intro and Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby. What do we say here at the end of every episode?
01:40:41
Speaker
Well, Matt, as always, you better believe it, Clyde. And remember, stop John, mister, and load that Zooka.