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26 - The Champions #1-10
88 Plays1 month ago
Matt and Pat are depriving themselves of sleep so that they can bring you a marathon episode of TEN ISSUES of THE CHAMPIONS in a row! It's gonna be a wild ride, as we catch up with former and future X-Men Angel and Iceman in Los Angeles.
New Russian teacher Black Widow, guest lecturer Hercules, delivery boy Ghost Rider, and students Angel and Iceman all meet up on the campus of UCLA and the absurdity just continues from there. Strap in and get yourself a pizza because this is gonna get weird.
Topics discussed:
JENNY ISABELLA! Dadfriend. Questionable mythology (in the book, and from the podcast). WHY ARE THEY ALL THERE? A trustworthy cadre of devils. Huntsman is maybe the worst character we've ever met. The Warren Commission. Making a deal with the Devil sucks. Diva Ghost Rider. An Instrument of Peace. There's gonna be a murder in Malibu! "Friend...?" Whoops, Warren's parents are dead. Everybody is Charles Bronson. Iceman's big pouty lips. You can't push lawyers. An AI summary of Spider-Man's core value. ICEMAN COMETH COUNT: 4. Vince Colletta inking over backgrounds. Bullying someone into hiring a lawyer. DARKSTAR! Angel gets his gas bombs back! Three people spying on the Champions all at once. "The Heroes for the Common Man." Ripping out a wall to chase a child. The TITANIUM man? BOB HALL. He survives but he explodes to death. Ghost Rider would make a terrible EMT. A device that tracks pearls that look like each other. "Lenin's Comrade, comrade!" Dick Fenster: Boy Public Relations Man. Black Widow pulls a Ferris Beuller. THE SPOILERS! How is Johnny Blaze's identity secret!?? Darkstar has every power. The Champions abandon a plane in midair.
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
W.A.R.C. Report: Mutant Menace in Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey, welcome to Mutant Menace. I'm Pat Reber. Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Arkamp. And say it with us, Pete. Say it with me, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Menace. You're a little slow on that, Matt. I was slow?
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. I said it right with him. I don't know. I think ah Pete was slow. We'll see when it comes to... If there's one thing that didn't happen, it's that Pete was slow. I'm pretty sure Pete was slow.
00:01:04
Speaker
Pete, email in to mutantmenicepod at gmail.com and let us know if you were slow or if I was slow. Let's just get everyone
Listener Engagement: Intro Critique and Emails
00:01:14
Speaker
at this point. Call to action, mutantmenicepod at gmail.com. Let us know who's winning the race.
00:01:20
Speaker
Oh, must have heard you talking about it. Speaking of Pat's email corner, Matt, we have so many emails. We do? There's no way. There's no way we have so many emails. Yes. The mailbag's full. Let me, uh, there can't be a full mailbag. Kick one off the top here.
00:01:39
Speaker
from our good friend and faithful listener, Weapon Jason. He says, tell Matt that you're right, that the Colossus stuff is good characterization. That's a point for me. He's wrong because all of a sudden he's like, oh, I'm not good at this. And then it just goes away.
00:01:57
Speaker
Well, I think it comes out of the ah series of moments that happened before that. But if you're not really connecting those together, then... I don't necessarily think it does, but hey, i Jason, it is okay. We like our fans even when they're wrong.
00:02:12
Speaker
Weapon Jason says not much to fill you in on this time out because y'all just hit a homer right out of the park with this one. I learned some stuff, appreciated your easy banter and ability to highlight both the best and most home moments of this issue.
00:02:25
Speaker
I kind of wonder how much of these issues was Byrne's story and how much was Claremont's, given how in later years Byrne will be pretty obsessed with mining the old true stories and how much these do feel like Thomas issue with Claremont bits bolted on.
00:02:40
Speaker
Keep doing my best to convince folks I know to listen and look forward to next week when we delve more into the evil that is the Canadian government. Maybe I'm confused. What does he mean by mining the old true story? Oh, like the old...
00:02:52
Speaker
Like tried and true, like ra the old true stories. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Okay. This is also referring to an episode that at this point was a long time ago. So I'm not 100% sure.
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, thank you, Weapon Chasen. We love your email. Weapon Chasen, as always, appreciate each one. i love them more than Pat does. Our next one you hear what he is from Signwave Sean, friend of the show, Signwave Sean.
00:03:21
Speaker
If you recall, last time we called him out for using his podcast email to yeah email us, i he's actually provided us with his personal email now.
00:03:33
Speaker
need to do way we yeah Oh, man, I hope everybody knows that we're just ribbing them. We're just ribbing you. This is a next level. This is the next level of podcast friendship. So really appreciate it. For anyone curious, his email is He
X-Men 'What-If' Scenarios and Critiques
00:03:53
Speaker
says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that having read all 14 appearances of Garak, the petrified man in Marvel. Why?
00:04:00
Speaker
I think he kind of sucks, actually. At this point, he's just doing it to upset you. Also, Moses Magnum's whole scheme to s sink Japan got me thinking. If you guys got the opportunity to write a what-if story based on any of the X-Men stories so far, what would you choose?
00:04:17
Speaker
I think a story where moon Moses Magnum succeeded could be something. Cheers. Sign with Sean. What? Yeah. Okay. So what's a what-if based on the X-Men we've read that you would... Yeah. What's a moment that we can... A choice they made where...
00:04:33
Speaker
Well, I talked about it before. i can't remember what the thing was. I can't remember what the exact issue was. But there was a moment that I talked about where it's like, what if Wolverine?
00:04:46
Speaker
Wolverine wanted to kill somebody. And i was like, what if he just lopped off this guy's head? X-Men annual number three. And that was Archon. Archon, yeah. What he just killed Archon and ended things there?
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a bad example because like almost nothing would happen, right? I think what if we had seen evil Professor X earlier on in the X-Men?
00:05:09
Speaker
Like, okay, Bill Mantlo's evil Professor X. What if that was like a real thing? Yeah, just this grumpy ah green Professor X who can walk and uses his powers for evil instead of good.
00:05:24
Speaker
Well, maybe not good, but instead of what he considers to be good. Right. If the X-Men sometimes had to fight. What if? Oh, my God. Okay. So then what if the when Professor X died, he never died. But when they pretended he died, he pretended he died.
00:05:38
Speaker
ah He loves to do that. um What if that the X-Men had killed him because they had to because he had gone evil? Oh, don't know that that's that good of a story.
00:05:51
Speaker
think in the right place, though. It should revolve around Charles Xavier's death. We have so much to do this episode. And yet here we are talking. seaun Come on, man. All right, let's move on i would yeah I just I wish I let's think this through. Let's think this through and maybe we can address it on a future episode.
00:06:09
Speaker
I email Michael another favorite on Pat's email corner writes in and says, hey Pat, tell Matt that Pat's an idiot. Then. wait a second.
00:06:27
Speaker
Oh, very good. Did we ask that? um I hope so. Otherwise, right Michael, you're banned. Then tell Matt that I didn't much care for that particular call to action, but it wouldn't be me if i only followed instructions I liked.
00:06:45
Speaker
says, I have never lived in Hangaroa, so I can't say if I was offended by any jokes about it or not. I have lived on the Honshu Island of Japan, though, and will helpfully point out that it's pronounced like Honshu and not like Honshu.
00:06:58
Speaker
You have the pronunciation right there, Pat, and you literally just... Email Michael burning me left and right here. i Remember that as a general rule, any O in a Japanese word should be pronounced like the O's in Tokyo or Kyoto.
00:07:14
Speaker
It's interesting. i couldn't have remembered that because I i absolutely didn't know that. And before, Matt, you point out Honda, the car company, I'll cut you off and say that we absolutely pronounce it wrong in America. It should be Honda if you want to pronounce the Japanese way instead of the American. I'm always telling Pat that.
00:07:34
Speaker
Honda. You're not putting any context around it. You're just shouting Honda at me. Yeah, I guess I should have been clearer about it. I thought you were talking about the lady from the Today Show. we've I know we me and you have had that we've worked together for a long time, and we've had a lot of talks about this Honda thing, ah me shouting it at you, and don't know. And now I finally understand you, so thank you.
00:08:01
Speaker
emailil michael He goes on to say, this does mean that you can say, but doesn't that mean we can pronounce Honshu the American way instead of the Japanese way? You sure can. Nobody can stop you. It's up to you.
00:08:13
Speaker
Lastly. Pat asked for a no prize for pointing out that the comic Twas the Night Before Christmas skipped from the 15th to the 25th. But I would say that in skipping over the 24th, any character could accurately say on the 25th that it was the night before Christmas and isn't any. Because it was. Because it was. Because it was before now.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that sucks. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, E-mail Michael. That sucks. We got him back. All right. Now you could say, but that means you could say any story like that takes place after the first of Christmas could say the same thing.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yes, that's true. Every story after the first Christmas could be called was the night before Christmas and isn't anymore. So while the bad news is I won't offer Pat a no prize, the good news is that he gets no prize. So functionally the same thing.
00:09:06
Speaker
Don't ask me about my time living in Japan. Email Michael. I... I never would. I never
Comic Details and Corrections
00:09:13
Speaker
would. I'm not that kind of guy.
00:09:16
Speaker
Thank you, email Michael. I have one more for us revolving around episode 23 from first time emailer Inc. Excuse me?
00:09:28
Speaker
They say not my real name, but what I go by pretty much everywhere online. Hey, Inc. So Ink says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that Sauron having hypnosis powers is probably a holdover from when he was going to be a regular vampire and not just an energy vampire. Yeah, that's probably true. That's a really good point.
00:09:44
Speaker
As for what the in-universe justification is, i have no idea.
00:09:50
Speaker
If you're open to suggestions for what to call the Wolverine equivalent of the Kurt Rippert, may I suggest the Logan Lowdown? Also... Do you think Logan Lowdown might be too good, though?
00:10:04
Speaker
Logan Lowdown. Logan Lowdown. The Logan Lowdown. Here's the thing is, it should also serve as a vocal warm-up for us. The thing about Kurt Rupert is it's the stupidest part.
00:10:16
Speaker
It's the stupidest thing. weve we This show is full of really stupid things, and Kurt Rupert is probably top five. Thank you. ha by Also...
00:10:30
Speaker
Inc. goes on to say the Godzilla and son show from the Hanna-Barbera ad is called the Godzilla Power Hour. So that is actually the yeah name of the show. The tiny dragon with Godzilla is called Godzuki, who Godzilla's nephew within the context of the show.
00:10:45
Speaker
Godzuki! He was created for the show and does not show up in any other Godzilla media. Okay, I understand. I thought Godzilla Power Hour referred to like, oh there's two cartoons that we show during the Godzilla Power Hour, you know. But no, it's just a show.
00:11:01
Speaker
A show called Godzilla Power Hour. but notzilla power With Godzuki. Godzuki. Godzuki. Sounds like something that one
Champions Series Deep Dive
00:11:13
Speaker
of the aliens in one of the Star Wars prequels would would say.
00:11:17
Speaker
yeah nazookki obo walk kazuki
00:11:24
Speaker
We do have a few more emails in the box, but that's the theme song. So I think we should save them for next episode, which is not too far away, is it, Matt?
00:11:35
Speaker
No, okay, so we're doing something fucked up here. we You know, we said we wanted to check ah in with what Angel and Iceman were doing ah this whole time that we've been reading the X-Men.
00:11:47
Speaker
And i that is true. That is what we want to do. So we are reading all of the champions, all 17 issues the 1976 series. of the ah nineteen seventy six but nineteen 1975 series. seventy five yeah The Champions.
00:12:07
Speaker
ah Plus a couple other issues with Iceman and Angel in them um that happened after that. And we didn't really want to do it. you guys We had to.
00:12:18
Speaker
We were forced to by you. The listeners. Oh, I thought you were saying by me, which is also true. We were forced to by the premise of the show. So...
00:12:31
Speaker
um So we said, why stretch this across two weeks when we can just read all of these, recap them and record yeah two podcast episodes of about them over one day?
00:12:47
Speaker
Yes. Pat, what time is it right now? It is currently 9.30 p.m. Eastern. And what, how long does it normally take us to record an episode? About three hours. So we are going to be fucking loopy by the next, by the end of this episode, first of all, because we're starting late and by, and, and these comics are insane, but by next episode, hopefully um it's a fun kind of loopy. Hopefully you guys find the insanity entertaining I hope we're not just half asleep.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah. i if If that's what happens, if it's just a terrible, boring episode, just keep in mind that ah the week after we're covering a huge, important storyline, probably the most famous storyline in all of X-Men.
00:13:37
Speaker
don't Also, keep it keep in mind if next episode is boring, so are these comics.
00:13:44
Speaker
We're doing our best here, folks. And if nothing else, we know tune in next week for the delirium. What we're doing is we're giving you, yeah, we're giving you the real experience. Hey, Pat, speaking of. Yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
Did you do anything champions related this week? Did I do anything champions related this week? My goodness, I wasn't expecting this. i Let's see Well, as is true in most weeks of my life, I was an absolute fucking loser.
00:14:18
Speaker
Much like our friend Warren Worthington. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. And then I would say yeah one exciting thing that I did that I think we can tie to champions actually is ah playing Dungeons and Dragons last night and we got ah TPK, Total Party Kill.
00:14:39
Speaker
Jesus, that has never happened to me. Everyone did. I think it was by design. Okay. I did it to one... i did it to a campaign I was running sort of by half design, half have not.
00:14:55
Speaker
Them missing all the signs. ah They missed all the signs of, yes, a very... What I thought was a very obvious trap, but I had a way out of it.
00:15:06
Speaker
It's just i ended the... And they were very mad at me. It actually caused some friendship drama. And I got mad at them for getting mad at me. Tell me about this TPK.
00:15:18
Speaker
i So we were, oh boy, we got into a room. There was a shambling mound there. We beat it up and did pretty well. But, you know, I was a little ah beat up. My cousin, who I'm a fighter. My cousin, who's a barbarian, was a little beat up.
00:15:36
Speaker
You mean this as you don't mean real cousin? No, in my character's cousin. Okay. So it's the two of us on the front lines and then we have a wizard and a warlock and we defeat the shambling mound. We go out the door. Good job.
00:15:54
Speaker
came in and there are five ah shadow spirits in. that would just ah wreck us. they you They cursed us. They removed our strength, which is both of our ah tanks strong suit. a chewed through us pretty quickly and then went after the mages. And what are the mages going to do?
00:16:16
Speaker
So we all died. I think it was by design. I think we're going to wake up on coming regaining consciousness. ah
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, because I was going to say, like, what? When your whole party gets killed, is that, like, that can feel like, ah, fuck my DM. and how How could they do this to me? Or it can feel like, ah, we fucked up. And I was going to say, which one does it feel like?
00:16:45
Speaker
But if it's by design, if it's just like a story thing, then I think probably it's neither of those. It was the the DM is very good. It's Krils Wilson, the guy that writes our ah what for theme music. But he's he's doing a great job with it.
00:17:01
Speaker
He just killed all of us. But it really, you could feel the stakes. We all felt very in the moment. It was ah it was well-run combat. That's fun.
00:17:12
Speaker
I mean, I don't know. I guess it's fun. And I would relate that just because the number of times the champions all lose in this run that we read is shocking.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty champions related. Matt, did you do anything champions related this week? do You know, much like the tone of this series of issues, I have attention defit deficit hyperactivity disorder.
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah. ah Otherwise known as ADHD. And I was unmedicated for it for a very long time. Is this the first episode, Pat, where I've been medicated for it again? It it is, actually. i'm very curious to. yeah To riff with me. How this works. Yeah. So now I'm on Adderall.
00:17:59
Speaker
And here's the thing. Pat, fucking. All right. They upped my dose of Adderall the week that fucking Silk Song came out. ye The week that Hollow Knight Silksong came out. so ah So, like, how am I supposed to stop playing Hollow Knight Silksong when my focus has improved?
00:18:20
Speaker
Oh, man. was do the Did the doctor know about this? Did you tell him that you're also on Hollow Knight Silksong? Interesting that you said him. Okay. ah she did not did not know. She probably doesn't even know what Hollow Knight Silksong is.
00:18:38
Speaker
Well, you will should tell your doctor if you're mixing medications, man. So, don't know. I'm playing a lot of holiday silk song rules. That's so that. Yeah. Again.
00:18:52
Speaker
ADHD. like Just like these these comics. All right. Just like let's do the medication, just like Warren should have. Yeah. ah All right, let's get into this. And here's the thing I'm going to do, Pat.
00:19:06
Speaker
Oh, OK. OK. Here's the thing I'm going to do. Yeah. We're going to be at this for a while. I'm going to door dash myself a pizza. Right now. wow And it'll be delivered live on air to tape.
00:19:20
Speaker
Oh, that'll be that'll be very exciting. I think so. I think so. Episode one or episode two. Yeah. Who knows? You guys could take your bets. Is this going to happen? Episode one or is it going to happen? Episode two. You know what I'll do?
00:19:33
Speaker
Never make them now, though. Make. what Oh, yeah. Make your bets now. Email us now. Immediately. Don't wait till the end of the episode and then email us at mutant menace pod at Gmail dot com.
00:19:45
Speaker
We'll know. Yeah. We're watching times. Pat always knows. If you dive into the analytics of a podcast, you can see exactly who's listening and exactly when they pause, stop, fast forward.
00:19:58
Speaker
know you guys, you non-podcasters knew that. Pat's a hacker. ah He's got, he's a real lead hacker. And so a thing that he's always doing is telling me all the IP addresses of everybody who not only listens, but emails.
00:20:13
Speaker
yeah In case anybody doesn't, that's not, none that's true. None of that's true. You guys are anonymous to us. Yeah. they Totally, totally fake. We're making it up.
00:20:24
Speaker
Pat, don't say it like that. don't What? The way you're saying it's making them think that you're, that. I'm not threatening anyone. and Pat, that really, really sounds like you're threatening somebody. Do you realize?
00:20:38
Speaker
No, it's, how could I be threatening someone if all of that was fake?
00:20:49
Speaker
Matt, why don't I start by telling you about Champions Number One. The world still needs the champions. so how do All right. I don't understand how it still needs them if it's ah number one, but I'm willing to go on ah with them on this journey.
00:21:10
Speaker
Series conceived and written by jenny Isabella. Matt, you want to tell me about Jenny Isabella? Yeah, so Jenny Isabella, um I think we should mention this.
00:21:21
Speaker
Jenny was writing under the name ah Tony at the time. She came out as transgen transgender this year. She still writes under the name Tony. Names Tony and Jenny, but we're going to refer to her as Jenny throughout this episode.
00:21:33
Speaker
Okay. She came up with this book as a team-up book between Iceman and Angel. That was her original idea. okay She was like Iceman and Angel. They just left the X-Men or they're about to leave the X-Men, I guess, when she came up with it.
00:21:51
Speaker
And with young studs had this idea. These yeah two young studs ah on a on the road fighting bad guys. And fucking Len Wein.
00:22:03
Speaker
We thought he was a good one. But Len Wein was like, no. ah This is Marvel. We don't do that. If you're going to write a team book, which this is, you have to have at least five members.
00:22:19
Speaker
One has to be super strong. One has to be a woman. And one has to have their own comic book series. yeah Len Wein did get in trouble over this.
00:22:31
Speaker
I don't know if it's over this specifically, but he got in trouble um from his manager. The editor man. i I don't know how fucking the was editor in chief at this time?
00:22:43
Speaker
No, he was just an editor. he was like, I guess, an overseeing editor. But Marv Wolfman was the editor in chief and they were good pals. um But I think one of the corporate guys or one of, you know,
00:22:57
Speaker
I can't remember the name. It was, it this was in Marvel, the untold story. I can't remember the name, but, um, then we got in trouble. They were like, look, if a book's not losing money, stop fucking with it.
00:23:08
Speaker
Like let creative people be creative. And so he stopped doing this, but after this book, anyway, on the champions, So not only did this happen to Jenny Isabella, at the same time she was writing Ghost Rider, and she had this long-running plot where there was this voice in Ghost Rider's head that was telling – because, you know, Ghost Rider made a deal with a demon or something to be – I don't know the story of Ghost Rider too you well. Do you?
00:23:38
Speaker
I think it's the devil. Okay, so he made a deal with the devil, and now he's got a demon in his head. And he had this other, or in his soul or something. So now he's got this other voice in his head.
00:23:48
Speaker
and Jenny Isabella was building this up so it was going to be Jesus. And then Ghost Rider was going to turn Christian.
00:23:57
Speaker
That's fucking crazy. Yeah, that would have been a famous arc for sure. That's, yeah, so that's that's absolutely unhinged. But the reasoning here is also fucking poor. They were like, we can't confirm. We can confirm the Christian devil in the Marvel universe, but we cannot confirm the Christian God in the Marvel universe, which is pretty wild reasoning.
00:24:23
Speaker
um And they changed her script after she turned it in before it went to print without telling her and made it just some other demon in his head. Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
um So she quits Marvel around that time because of these two things. And that is mid-champions run. and Yeah, that is ah issue seven. After seven issues, ah including one she skips, she leaves this title.
00:24:53
Speaker
so We'll get there. So that that's fun. That's fun. And then she leaves Marvel for, I think, like seven years. All right, we haven't even we have 10 issues to get through. We haven't passed the credit. so yeah Yeah, We're just scratching the surface here. This was Penciled by Don Heck.
00:25:11
Speaker
Your boy. believe God damn it. Inked by Mike Esposito, lettered by Dave Hunt, colored by Petra G, edited by Marv Wolfman.
00:25:21
Speaker
Release date July 15th, 1975. Cover date October 1975. Just for context, giant sized X-Men was April 1975. X-Men number where Angel and Iceman left, was June so this is a month after angel and ice man Left with the X-Men.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Bobby Drake and Warren Worthington III are walking the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. but Yeah. Okay.
00:25:55
Speaker
The actual UCLA. The real UCLA. Discussing how they'd rather be superheroing. But the X-Men are all different now and Beast is in the Avengers and they wouldn't fit in with that group. Quote.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah. Suddenly... A hole opens in midair and a bunch of harpies fly out looking for someone named Venus. har like Like a bunch of nagging wives.
00:26:20
Speaker
uh no they're like little they're like gargoyles but they have long oh the actual mythological harpies so yeah the harpies uh of mythology they quick change into iceman and angel warren without a mask and start fighting bad guys and bobby destroys his clothes again he's back to this he just freezes them and shatters them off his body he's nude yeah yeah Inside the college, Natasha Romanoff is talking to her erstwhile father, Ivan, about getting a job here teaching Russian ah when but a bunch of Wonder Woman looking Amazons hop out of a portal looking for someone named Venus.
00:27:00
Speaker
Ivan gets knocked out, but Natasha changes into the Black Widow and begins to fight them. I remember Ivan from when ah that issue when X-Men crossed over with the Avengers.
00:27:11
Speaker
Right. It's like her her dad friend. It's like her dad slash friend. Friend, but also her dad. Yeah, like her dad, but kind of her friend. we're not It's not clear who knows that right now.
00:27:24
Speaker
Dad friend. They identify, the Amazons identify a humanities professor named Victoria Star as Venus. So Black Widow grabs her and they jump out the window. On the quad, stunt writer Johnny Blaze is riding his motorcycle.
00:27:40
Speaker
Why is he here? When someone throws a hammer at him, he changes into the Ghost Rider and starts fighting a Jack Kirby god-looking thing calling itself Cerberus with his Hellfire.
00:27:51
Speaker
Cerberus changes into a big, white one-headed purple dog. ah Wait. Cerberus is a three-headed purple guard dog that guy guards the gates to Hades, not like a weird man thing and not like a purple one-headed dog.
00:28:05
Speaker
So the concept here seems to be that Cerberus has three forms and one of them is a dog, which has one, you know, much more about Greek mythology than I do, but I don't think that that was the.
00:28:22
Speaker
No, that's he's interpreting it like you would interpret the Bible. Hey, look, as far as as far as I know, that's not true. But there are so many That's stories about there's a lot of them.
00:28:37
Speaker
I anyway service changes into a big purple one headed dog and starts chasing him as he bikes off in the auditorium still on UCLA campus.
00:28:49
Speaker
Hercules is preparing a guest lecture on mythology. What? yeah Yeah.
00:28:59
Speaker
he starts battling them off with a podium when they tackle him through the wall ghost rider catches sight of this and swings past to pull hercules up onto his skull cycle where they ride off to find angel iceman black widow and venus running from the harpies and Amazon.
00:29:14
Speaker
All switching enemies, they begin to gain the upper hand on their foes when Venus fully reveals herself and makes everyone pass out with the power of love. She's the actual, you i guess, Roman god Venus?
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's the Roman god Venus. And a Hercules is a Roman god too, but he's a Greek and a Roman god. He's both. Oh, he's Hercules in both places, right? and we're about to meet some people who are using their They're kind of going back and forth.
00:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, they're going back and forth. We'll see in a second. Suddenly, the Roman god Pluto comes out of another hole in the air and demands that Hercules wed Hippolyta of the Amazons and Venus wed Ares, or he'll destroy the whole universe.
00:30:03
Speaker
To be continued. Marry my friends or I'll blow up the universe!
00:30:09
Speaker
So, are you... Yeah, buddy. What's up? Okay. Hercules keeps referring to Venus as his cousin. is that in any way true?
00:30:22
Speaker
We've all known people who just call for people their cousins. I guess so, yeah. Where it's like, oh, my cousin. And you're like, you can't have that many cousins. That all... you know, go and yeah go to the same school. It's like a like a family friend.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah. They just don't draw the distinction. one But it might be true because, well, Venus was born. Is Venus the one that was born when God jizzed, when Zeus jizzed into the ocean?
00:30:53
Speaker
I don't know. This isn't what I'm angry about, by the Okay. Okay. Please. What I am angry about is Matt. Yes. We went so long, so long without having to hear anyone say the phrase, holy Hannah.
00:31:13
Speaker
Page one. Page one issue one of the champions is setting the tone for me here. This is not good news. Yeah.
00:31:24
Speaker
Okay. Let me tell you. Okay. Venus is a yeah ah combination, but she is sort of a counterpart to Aphrodite in Greek mythology, who is the one who was born when Zeus jizzed into the ocean.
00:31:40
Speaker
Okay. And Hercules is the half son of Zeus. So they're actually, so technically they might be half siblings. They're half siblings. Yeah. But because maybe because they're Hercules.
00:31:51
Speaker
Hercules mom is a human and Venus's mom is the ocean.
00:31:59
Speaker
Right. But so and Venus doesn't actually have a solid origin story in Roman mythology. So anyway, but did I don't know. They're cousins, whatever. It doesn't matter.
00:32:10
Speaker
Why are they all there? Why? What is that? Why? I told you. Black Widow wants to be ah a Russian teacher. Of course she would. She goes from being a super spy and a superhero.
00:32:26
Speaker
Hercules is doing a lecture there. He was invited. i Okay, that's one I do believe. i Like, I don't believe that... but but we We also didn't... I didn't put this in the recap and because I didn't realize this guy would keep coming back.
00:32:41
Speaker
But it was Professor Richard Fenster. Yeah. and Is he named in this issue? Yes, he is. So Professor Richard Fenster, who's like an old guy with white hair, which is will be important, I guess. Maybe he's a lecture coordinator.
00:32:57
Speaker
OK, all right. So he's not a professor. He's a lecture coordinator. he doesn't actually get named as a professor at all.
00:33:05
Speaker
And ah he also takes swipes at Roy Thomas. Oh, does he? In this. Yeah, yeah. um He calls him a scrawny, mop-haired New York writer who spends all his time writing about some bloodthirsty barbarian and said that his lecture was boring.
00:33:24
Speaker
he came and lectured here and it was bad. That's great. It's hard to imagine anyone would bring Hercules to lecture at their college, but it's not hard to believe Hercules would be like, yes, I will do it. Yes, he's not' he's not a great person to invite to a party, but he'll show up at that party if you do.
00:33:44
Speaker
Hard to imagine that Angel would enroll in college, but throughout the series, it seems like he straight up drops out. Yeah, this is, so Bobby has clearly had enough of college. he He's ready to go.
00:33:58
Speaker
Warren is, seems to be doing fine with it, but then they never go back to college. Well, Bobby does. So, like, Bobby stays in LA after Champions, and he actually gets his degree in accounting.
00:34:13
Speaker
Okay. Angel seems to just stop going. Yeah. does What does he need a college degree for? He's the richest man on earth.
00:34:23
Speaker
well What do you think of issue one, Pat?
00:34:28
Speaker
Rough. Rough. the Here's the thing. i don't understand why. yeah me neither.
00:34:40
Speaker
it's exceptional It's exceptionally dumb. What I'll say is that it moves fast, which is nice. yeah That's true. it was over pretty quick. I
00:34:51
Speaker
i think that's the exact words I used, but yeah. oh I do. so with Don Heck, gets your boy very tired of drawing Ghost Rider very quickly.
00:35:06
Speaker
So the first time we see him, it is this like detailed... It's not the best Ghost Rider drawing I've ever seen, but it's at least like the classic leather jacket, flaming skull, creepy-looking dude. yeah And then by page like three, he looks like an Undertale character. He's just...
00:35:27
Speaker
He's just like this goofy, wanky skeleton that's got two white eyeballs in his skull. I do not like Ghost Rider with eyeballs. Like, all right. Yeah. And the first, when he first shows up, it's like glowing yellow eyeballs.
00:35:43
Speaker
But as it goes on, he just starts to have like real human round eyeballs. Yeah. but I guess not in this, as I'm looking through, not really in this issue, but that's, that's how it's going to happen. And,
00:35:56
Speaker
I think so few people working on this book care about it, right? Yeah, it's very clearly so. I think... i almost wonder if as this is so stupid as a protest.
00:36:11
Speaker
If Jenny Isabella's like, I wanted to write Bobby and Warren on the road having adventures and it was going to be fucking cool and you made me do this.
00:36:23
Speaker
So, okay... hi Black Widow's trying to be a Russian teacher. Just let's ruin the reputations of these characters.
00:36:34
Speaker
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just do the worst thing can possibly think of. Johnny Blaze hanging out with the hippies on campus. and Granted, this is a time where Steve Gerber was doing shit like that, right? Like he was intentionally writing bad comics as jokes.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But um and I guess Steve Englehart was, too, as you've pointed out. This is not Steve Gerber. all right. I'm going to tell you about that. Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to tell you about champions number two, where it's probably going to get better. So Jenny Isabella was the writer. Don Heck, your boy, is the artist. John Tartaglione is the inker. Colorist Phil Reich.
00:37:15
Speaker
letterer Irv Watanabe, editor Marv Wolfman, released September 16th, 1975. We open on back-to-back splash pages where everyone stands around and recaps the stakes of the first issue.
00:37:33
Speaker
Hercules throws a punch, but some magic prevents him from being able to hurt Pluto. Hercules is rendered unconscious and pulled through a portal by Pluto and the gang. Not Mickey and Goofy, but like...
00:37:46
Speaker
I think it's Ares and Hippolyta, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The rest of the champions want to help, but ah Greek gods will kill them without any effort.
00:37:58
Speaker
The only thing that the rest of the team can do is rescue him from the portal he's pulled through and cover that portal with ice to slow down the return of the gods. On the other side, though, Pluto announces that he doesn't need a portal.
00:38:12
Speaker
His new plan takes him them through Olympus. He appears before Zeus, reminding him that Pluto formed an alliance with all the other Satans of the world.
00:38:24
Speaker
he talk Yeah, he talks about like the leaders of hell, right? It's like, I got Satan, I got Lucifer, I got... Mephisto and Beelzebub and...
00:38:36
Speaker
ah ah It's just, there's all these Satans in the Marvel Universe. There's so many Satans. um All he wants is these what royal marriages to go through to assure both sides that there's no animosity worth going to war over.
00:38:54
Speaker
Once Zeus agrees, Pluto privately reveals that this will actually allow him to attack Olympus. Yeah. Who could have thought all the leaders of hell together are planning to double cross somebody? they' Planning to double cross God. yes Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
And God's like, all right, I think I can trust you. Yeah, this makes sense. This this squares. It's I'm sorry. Are they writing do Greek and Roman history right now? but see Remember, and and once upon a time, Pluto gathered all the lords of hell from Christian mythology. This is crazy.
00:39:37
Speaker
What is how audacious? Yeah. Back on Earth, the champions have recovered just in time for Huntsman. The Huntsman. Although he's super heed the way he looks, he sounds like the Huntsman.
00:39:51
Speaker
The Huntsman, the narrator literally. The Huntsman is here. Ah, you never prepared for the Huntsman. He looks like alfalfa grown up.
00:40:04
Speaker
He's got like a mushroom style bowl cut. Yeah. he yeah hes He's like wearing ah a pink and purple costume. He's learning like a Magneto costume without the helmet.
00:40:16
Speaker
He rides in on like a plume of fire. The way that Iceman rides on ice only like it makes less fucking sense. Yeah. It's not solid.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah. but ah Again, the narrator calls him shrill. It's like like he's his powers are... he He has a stick and when he holds it and says a poem, he can like summon guys.
00:40:44
Speaker
Not a good poem. No. it He's the worst... Is he the worst character we've ever met? i i mean, Blastar wasn't original to the X-Men, but he was pretty bad.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah, he was bad. Well, I guess Huntsman's also not original to the X-Men. Oh, yeah. Okay. then Then, yeah. i I'd put him in at an easy number two. Okay.
00:41:11
Speaker
But Blastar is still, I think Blastar is the low point of this podcast. So, as as pat so as Pat describes it, he's a weird little flying dork, but he's pretty powerful. Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
and takes all the champions out with his opening blast. All the champions, that is, except Ghost Rider, whose satanic power protects him and blasts the Huntsman from the sky.
00:41:39
Speaker
Huntsman answers by summoning the Titan Menno... Menno... Mennoitis. Mennoitius. Mennoitius. Mennoitius. Menno and no no it's mino atus manoa is represented here by a giant glowing catman he seems scary but he slips on bobby's ice and is taken out pretty easily As a last ditch effort, Huntsman creates an illusion that leads Ghost Rider to attack the whole rest of the team, mistaking them for Pluto and friends. Again, not like Mickey and the gang.
00:42:10
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. ah This gives Huntsman the opportunity to kidnap Hercules and Venus. that And there's only one thing the champions can do now. Enter Olympus and fight the gods.
00:42:26
Speaker
To be continued. Oh boy. What? What? You didn't love this one? You didn't love that no one cares about this? That fucking but fucking Don Heck puts three splash pages in this issue?
00:42:42
Speaker
Because that's how little he cares about drawing this fucking comic? There's... there's so many problems there's like there's little editorial errors because nobody's paying attention and yet there's there's so many splash pages two of them are back to back and they're just used to recap the plot of issue one it's clear that like even though this comes out every two months they are struggling to hit deadlines and have to start rushing through work to get this out the door
00:43:14
Speaker
It's, it's, a yeah, it is, it is wild. And like, it it almost feels like a lot of times you get the sense, yeah especially in these early days of Marvel, right? That team books were written as on like a formula.
00:43:27
Speaker
And yeah There's a thing here where it's like, this is a brand new team. It's brand new team. Literally just met each other. Right. And they're already speaking familiar. They're already speaking like their team. Like they, like they're not, they're not going through any sort of thing that sets them up as like, you know, they isn't just getting to know each other. They're calling each other friend.
00:43:51
Speaker
They're calling each other. They're like, they're, they're acting like old pals. It, they didn't have They didn't even have a discussion about becoming a team. They haven't even finished their first mission as a team.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah. And they're already referring to themselves as a team. Yes. They're like, oh, this is this is great. This is the new team. And then from here on out, it turns out that Warren's whole motivation was to form a new team.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah, he wanted to do this. It's like he planned this. He was also... Can we talk about how... He called Pluto and he was like... Hey, did you hear Hercules going to be doing a lecture at my school? You know what would be a nice thing? you know who would be nice for you to kidnap?
00:44:31
Speaker
Uh... Can we talk about Ghost Rider for a second? How much he sucks? How this is like the worst fucking period? and is it Now, I don't read a ton of Ghost Rider.
00:44:44
Speaker
I've read my share. We just talked about how we don't really know much about his origin. I know that he made a deal with the devil. I know that it took his... Sucked. it's Yeah, it sucked.
00:44:57
Speaker
It turned him into... the ghost writer who does, venge but I believe that the devil is his enemy and he's okay vanquishing sinners, hate that guy which is a general good for the world. Right. But all of that aside, yeah.
00:45:14
Speaker
Whoever, who gives a shit about it? Because right now this is a form of ghost writer where Johnny blaze just has ghost writers powers. Yeah.
00:45:26
Speaker
It's not ghost. It's not like this terrifying demon that is fulfilling some biblical mission. This is a man, a stunt man. Yeah.
00:45:36
Speaker
Who just has the power to shoot hellfire. i want to say this. he He mentions being a spirit of vengeance. And he mentions that and like kind of needing to be one of his motivations, but then it doesn't that never comes up again.
00:45:50
Speaker
he also ah we learned something else about him is that he can only turn into Ghost Rider when there's danger. When he senses danger or when danger is near.
00:46:01
Speaker
Yes, yes. Like a spider sense. yeah he uses it like one where I don't know what that means, but sure. At some point he turns into the ghost rider and he's like, Oh, that must mean this guy is lying.
00:46:17
Speaker
ah so least so anyway, he does a couple of things here that are super annoying. Number one, somebody calls him ghost rider and he says, Hey, my friends call me Johnny blaze.
00:46:31
Speaker
Please call me Johnny Blaze every time you speak with speak to me. Yeah, yeah. i The other thing is he he gets illusioned or whatever and ends up attacking and knocking out Warren, Bobby, and Natasha. Okay, yeah. And he spends the next 15 issues wondering why everyone hates him.
00:46:56
Speaker
Yeah, because you attacked everybody. Yeah. And because he's a jerk, like throughout this whole series, as we'll see, he's just mean to everybody. Yeah, he's got an attitude.
00:47:07
Speaker
He's got an attitude. He's just nonstop angry and nonstop mean. There's some... He's a diva. And that's... Who wants to see diva Ghost Rider? There's another line that is just baffling where I believe it's Iceman who's like, to quote another leader that we recently had let's go!
00:47:31
Speaker
Cyclops is, you know, Cyclops is number one catchphrase. Let's go. go. Let's go, That's so but you're You're not quoting anybody when you say let's go.
00:47:46
Speaker
is i guarantee whoever you're attributing it is to didn't invent that.
00:47:55
Speaker
i ah Okay. Quick. Also, Pluto looks like Jack Nicholson crossed with Danny DeVito.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yes, he does. He's got Jack Nicholson eyes and Danny DeVito everything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just before we move on to the next issue, I want to do a little check in on Warren. I think we should call this the Warren Commission. i
00:48:24
Speaker
Where'd you come up with such a clever name? The Warren Commission. It's just just there's a ring to it. it is Yeah, it sounds nice, doesn't it? Yeah. is Issue one and issue two. He's done literally nothing so far.
00:48:36
Speaker
He has not participated in these fights. presumably is just flying around ah surveying the scene. and He talks a little bit. He puts up, ah or no, he doesn't even put up his money yet.
00:48:51
Speaker
He's just, he does nothing. He's ineffective right in driving the plot forward or helping his team. Yeah. It's pretty bad.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah. Well, hey, Pat, I'm sure it's going to get better. Yeah. It surely must. This is only that was only issue two.
00:49:13
Speaker
OK, yeah. And we got to keep rolling through these motherfuckers. That's right. We got a long session here. Let's move on to champions. Number three, assault on Olympus. I'd love to plot. Jenny Isabella script. Bill Mantlo.
00:49:29
Speaker
It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's not going to be okay. Sorry. Pencils George Tuska inks Vince Coletta. God damn it.
00:49:39
Speaker
Letters Karen Mantlo colors George Roussos editor Marv Wolfman. Release date November 25th, 1975. Cover date February 1976. The champions minus Hercules are chilling out at some beachside villa recapping last issue.
00:49:56
Speaker
While in Olympus, Zeus is getting mad about how helpless he is in this whole situation. Hercules, getting randomly poked by mutates with spears, finds out that his father signed a decree ordering the marriages and rages out.
00:50:09
Speaker
But Zeus stands firm. Meanwhile. wonder why he's doing that. wonder why anybody's doing anything, I guess. Yeah, yeah. There's, I think searching for motivation here is a fool's errand, man.
00:50:25
Speaker
You know, like Zeus could just say, hey, I'm being blackmailed. Sorry, buddy. Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
Meanwhile, the champions remember that portal to Olympus that Iceman sealed with ice and dramatically burst through it. he Okay. i mean so They just suddenly remembered it, huh? Yeah. They are racking their brains for half of this issue, trying to figure out how they could possibly get into Olympus until somebody's like, oh, yeah, what about the portal to Olympus?
00:50:55
Speaker
ha ha! Yeah. They fight their way through the mutates who are now calling themselves mutants and that dork, the huntsman to a podium where all the gods are just standing around, still arguing about the wedding.
00:51:11
Speaker
Hercules is heartened that while Olympus has turned on him, the mortals have not. Angel beats the. Yeah, that's room that's a nice little line. I liked that. I liked that moment. There's a moment that I like. Yeah, that was a sweet moment. Hercules was like, oh, I have friends.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah, they. Hey, while the gods turned on me. These mortals, they they're here. They're here to help me and save me. That's cool. Angel, Warren Commission, Angel beats the ever-loving fuck out of Huntsman and Hercules knocks Ares the fuck out with one punch while Venus turns Hippolyta's sword into...
00:51:47
Speaker
What the fuck is that, Pat? It's an instrument of peace, Matt. She calls it an instrument of peace? Not only, okay, she calls it an instrument of peace. have no idea what it is. It kind of looks like a weird wheelbarrow with a blade on it.
00:52:01
Speaker
eight it But it's huge. It's the size of her. Yeah, it's giant. And it's got, ah and even if it's a wheelbarrow, even if it is a wheelbarrow with a blade on it, it has random features that all still don't make any sense. Yeah, it would prevent it from being an effective wheelbarrow. It's like an abstract sculpture.
00:52:22
Speaker
And here's the other thing. If it is a instrument an instrument of peace... The first thing, the only thing she does with it is drop it on somebody's head.
00:52:34
Speaker
Well, I can still hurt somebody with this.
00:52:40
Speaker
You know, the thing about doves, ah the thing the reason we use doves as our symbol of peace is because they attack people. I'm just kidding.
00:52:51
Speaker
You can really fuck somebody up with these things. You can really. You should see it when a dove goes for your eye. Holy shit, man. Unbelievable. Ghost Rider, then, i guess, is the first person to tell Zeus he thinks Pluto is lying and tricking him.
00:53:08
Speaker
And Zeus immediately calls off the wedding and banishes Pluto. Venus demands they forgive the bad guys and the champions go home. Okay, the end. There's so much we learn here.
00:53:20
Speaker
We know that Zeus hasn't even thought of the vague possibility that Pluto might be lying to him. And we know that because, again, the moment anybody says it to him, the moment one person says, and this guy might be lying to you, he calls off the whole thing.
00:53:40
Speaker
Pat, i have I have a question. Before we start riffing on this issue, i have a question about this about the contents of this issue. I have a question here. A creative team that just keeps constantly changing ah every single issue. Do you think that's a good sign?
00:53:59
Speaker
isn't it? I'm trying to remember if that was a good sign for the X-Men 1968. Do you think the fact that not one not two issues in a row have had the exact same creative team on them, do you think that's a good thing?
00:54:15
Speaker
It's probably, what they're probably doing is saying... Let's make sure we get all the best people. are Our Bill Mantloes, our Don Hex.
00:54:27
Speaker
Let's put them on. Our Vinnie Colettas. Yeah. Not just the people who legitimately are famous for doing this stuff the fastest.
00:54:37
Speaker
It is It's going to get so much worse. There is. And yeah there's typos in this thing. Like even the editors aren't. At one point, somebodys what somebody says memes and it says memes, which was funny. M-E-A-M-S.
00:54:52
Speaker
Memes. Even the letterer doesn't care. That's not like a mistyped keystroke. They are no writing that with their hand. Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, my God. ah There's so this this issue opens on like a beach scene.
00:55:08
Speaker
We're never told where these people are. Like, obviously, beach. Obviously, they're in L.A., right? That that that's fine with me. Right. What house is this?
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, they've just they're at a beach house presumably Warren's Beach House. presumably but we don't know no and black widow is sitting there talking shit on ice man for she says taking his defeats in stride like oh he's being too cavalier about this she's sitting there in a bikini drinking a cocktail is they kicking back talking to shirtless warren worthington and she's like i don't know i think your friend isn't taking this seriously enough Yeah, these so the last time we saw them, because that's the very beginning of the issue, the last time we saw them at the end of issue two, they're like, all right, I guess it's time for us to storm Mount Olympus.
00:56:00
Speaker
And then I guess they were like, all right, first thing we should do is come up with a plan. have this really nice beach house. Yeah. so there is a line here that drove me absolutely crazy.
00:56:16
Speaker
this This happens sometimes, and I know this is fucking pedantic. Pedantic, yeah, sure. But it drives me absolutely insane.
00:56:27
Speaker
When somebody fills in something, something, or yada, yada, yada, or blah, blah, blah, or et cetera, for a word or a phrase that is shorter than the fill-in.
00:56:39
Speaker
And here, ah somebody says, your wish is my et cetera. Etc is longer word than command. takes longer to say e etc. That says the same command. That's so annoying.
00:56:53
Speaker
it It's like, it is, again, I know that's pedantic, but it's such a pet peeve that I have. It's also, I mean, if you want to get pedantic, He just says ETC according to word. can't say that.
00:57:08
Speaker
and Your wish is my ets. Yeah, you can't say it. and You can't say it. That's another, that's a pet peeve of mine a quote.
00:57:20
Speaker
It needs to be spelled out. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Because it's like, this is what they said. This is what they said. This is the, it has to be what they said. Listen, Pat.
00:57:31
Speaker
No. Okay. But you can listen to me, Bobby. No, I won't.
00:57:38
Speaker
Oh, wait, you have something more I do really have something to say. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I apologize. Bobby has lost his damn mind. We're only three issues in. And number one, he tells everybody that he's in love with Lorna Dane.
00:57:57
Speaker
has been years... years Yeah, she's been with another guy for so long. The last time you spoke with her, outside of maybe the occasional Dark Era one-off comic, was yeah was her very clearly being like, Bobby, please, we've we've never been in a relationship.
00:58:18
Speaker
I've never been into you like that. Yeah, he's still on about it. This will happen to him like two more times in these two episodes. The other thing for as long as it takes for them to remember that there's a portal to Olympus open, Bobby's covered it in ice. Right.
00:58:38
Speaker
And so yeah they're trying to explain the play. Everybody's on board with this plan and they're trying to explain it to him. And they say, yeah you know, remember that portal. And he's like, yeah, the one that I covered in ice. Okay. And they're like, well, if the ice wasn't there, that's a portal to Olympus. And he's like,
00:58:55
Speaker
Okay, big deal. There's a portal covered in ice that can get us to Olympus. What are you guys on about? well, do you want a fucking prize? what it what What's your point?
00:59:11
Speaker
Fucking Hercules has to spell it out for him. and Hercules, i should we should mention... Because we're not covering a lot of the dialogue here. ah Hercules is the dumb guy of the team.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah. Which is saying a lot because they're all so dumb. Also, nobody on this staff knows how to write old-timey English.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah, he's jumping between Shakespearean like modern academic speak nonsense words that I don't think have ever been used in any language. Yeah, he does that thing. and this is another pet peeve where he's using like thou and dost, but not in the right places. Like he's replacing the wrong tense.
01:00:03
Speaker
trick out yeah And while we're on pet peeves, this is my last one. We get a narrator. Can't be. Can't be your last one. We get a narrator for this comic two thirds of the way through.
01:00:17
Speaker
There is no narrator until we only have about a third of the comic left. We're transitioning into the third act and suddenly someone needs to explain what's going on.
01:00:29
Speaker
I honestly didn't even notice. Drives me insane. That is wild. That is wild. Where did this guy? Where did this voice come from? It's just like, there's a voice in my head. Who are Get out here.
01:00:44
Speaker
Oh, shit. Okay. That's enough. Pat. Get on to another. What? so No. Garbage writer and some bunch of junk, whatever is coming in number four.
01:00:56
Speaker
ah Okay, well, this one's written by Chris Claremont. What? ah But before I tell you about this one, Pat, actually, everybody get to your cards and you can mark down 1027. My pizza's here. Whoa.
01:01:14
Speaker
Don't leave your mic on. We're going to hear. Okay. all right. Be right. Talk to him as loudly as he can.
01:01:30
Speaker
hu All right. Now he's got the pizza folks. Yeah. Did you, did you talk to the delivery guy at all? Or did you just have him leave him on your door?
01:01:43
Speaker
How to leave him. I had him leave it. Why do you think I should have invited him in and been like, Hey, we're on a podcast. Yeah. Do you like the X-Men? Perfect opportunity to promote the show. Should have at least gave him a flyer.
01:01:58
Speaker
I'm sorry. You're right.
01:02:01
Speaker
It's literally legitimately rude of me. OK, well, that was really fast. That was the one surprise we had planned for this episode, folks. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. so It's all downhill from here. And if yeah if this is started at the bottom of a hill, then I'm, you know, even more sorry.
01:02:20
Speaker
ah All right. Let's get to it, Matt. I'd love to. I've been trying to. Well, don't let me stop you. Chris Claremont is the guest writer, they say. George Tuska is the artist. Vinnie Coletta is the inkerer. Iwatanae is the letterer. P. Rosh is the colorist. ah race um Marv Wolfman is the editor. It was released on December 23rd, 1975. It's champions number four.
01:02:47
Speaker
murderer at
01:02:55
Speaker
What do you think of that? There's going to be a murder in Malibu. Hercules and Black Widow are enjoying a nice walk along the beach, minding their own damn business. When they're attacked by a shadowy figure, he's fast, strong, and survives blows that would kill a normal man. and They beat him up, only to discover that he's actually a scared old man named Billy, who doesn't even understand where he is. o Before...
01:03:23
Speaker
They can figure out what's going on, though. They're accosted by a small army of men in scuba suits and laser guns. Pat, I i just need to stop here. Yeah. And just tell you, I don't remember this.
01:03:36
Speaker
You don't remember reading and this? No, i i and I did because i there's I took notes on it here. And this is what happened.
01:03:47
Speaker
I read all of it. I don't remember any of this. Well, keep on reading, Matt. let's see if it ah Let's see if it rings up any memories.
01:03:59
Speaker
Okay, before they figure out what's going on they're caused by a small army of men in scuba suits with laser guns. Billy is in their charge, and they'll be taking it from here. They shoot Widow and Herc, and next we see they're both restrained at San Marino State Hospital.
01:04:14
Speaker
Ooh. Dr. Edward Lansing introduces himself as a visionary madman and and brags about his efforts to recreate the super soldier serum.
01:04:28
Speaker
His experiments have been a physical success, but every sub subject has been unable to handle the mental strain. Just before we cut back to champions HQ, Lansing lets Hercules and but why is there an HQ now?
01:04:40
Speaker
They, uh, it's it's the beach It's just a beach house. Um...
01:04:48
Speaker
um Okay, just before we come back to Champions HQ, Lansing lets Hercules and Black Widow know he'll be reprogramming um reprogramming them to see the rest of their team as enemies.
01:05:01
Speaker
Champions HQ, Ivan, Bobby, and Warren all talk about how Hercules and Widow have been gone for a while, but they're probably okay. Just then, Hercules and Widow burst through the wall demanding that all within these walls must die. Uh-oh.
01:05:15
Speaker
They've been turned evil and brought some... of these failed prototype super soldiers with them. We see Dr. Lansing outside laughing as he controls their thoughts with his mechanical control box.
01:05:28
Speaker
Just a little. This is ridiculous. He is commanding five people with what looks like a, a mixer, a microphone mixer.
01:05:40
Speaker
It is his. He's got a bunch of knobs on it. And as he turns them, they make different moves. Yeah. so Good thing Johnny Blaze is returning from wherever the hell he's been. Finally.
01:05:54
Speaker
He sees all the chaos and jumps right into action, but it's not really a big help. We only see the fight turn when Natasha fighting Ivan sarcastically refers to him as my friend.
01:06:06
Speaker
i remember this moment. Sweet. Friend? She says in a moment of clarity. All somebody has to say to break this spell is the word friend. She's the one that says it.
01:06:20
Speaker
How does she even know the word if she doesn't? Yeah, she's like, today's today is not your day, my friend. Wait, wait, friend, friend.
01:06:32
Speaker
This breaks her conditioning. She immediately finds Lansing, who shoots at her with a shotgun he calls a neural disruptor. It's just a shotgun. It's just a shotgun. I guess that would disrupt your neurons, getting shot with a shotgun.
01:06:46
Speaker
She dances around the blasts, knocks him down, and destroys his control box. Without it, he no longer has control over his super soldiers, who are happy to do the rest of the work.
01:06:58
Speaker
Somewhere along the line, one of the super soldier experiments died on the beach, which is the murder the title refers to. Sorry, I laughed too much. Which is the murder the title refers to?
01:07:13
Speaker
That's maybe the part I'm maddest about. They get through the entire issue. Nobody gets murdered and they're like, oh shit, we called this murder at Malibu. I guess one of these guys died. are we?
01:07:27
Speaker
ah Yeah. um Okay. yeah That guy's dead.
01:07:33
Speaker
I honestly, Pat. I don't I do not remember this. I don't remember like at all. I remember the scene of them walking along the beach. I remember the friend thing. I remember this guy's dopey face. He's got like two massive bucked teeth.
01:07:51
Speaker
it's i It's pretty forgettable. it is Even for Claremont piece. It's Claremont. Without a doubt, Chris Claremont says, Time, part of it in darkness, the rest shrouded in gray, fog-like images as elusive as wood sprites.
01:08:10
Speaker
That does not belong in this comic book. No, come on, man. There's no other phrase like that the rest of the rest of this reading. Grow up. But the narrator is fairly consistent this time is now at least acknowledging that they are a team and that that team is called the champions.
01:08:29
Speaker
Where did they decide that? That drives, just like in the first issue, that's driving me fucking crazy here. It's just like all of a sudden, oh, they're a team. They have a name. You have to sit down and talk about this.
01:08:41
Speaker
Me and you weren't just suddenly, like we weren't just talking one day and like microphones happened to like appear in front of our faces and we had an Instagram page and we were just like, oh, I guess we're a podcast now.
01:08:55
Speaker
And that didn't happen. And we already knew each other and had worked together before. And look, the last time you're going to catch either of us is on a college campus.
01:09:07
Speaker
I took a couple notes here, but since I don't remember this, I'm reacting along with you guys, the reader, and just kind of also reading some notes I took in the past that I don't remember.
01:09:18
Speaker
This is like a comic. this This plot is like something that we would have read in the nineteen sixty s Right. or No, no. Even before that. Yeah, no, this is like a Batman. like This is like a ah ah a Bob Kane, Bill Finger Batman story. Right. Yes.
01:09:38
Speaker
Just this is strange, nerdy, ah old mad professor. Yeah, it was like, I've captured you and I'm turning you against your friends. Like got a little box with knobs and switches that that does all his villainy for him.
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that. I mean, like, literally, that's the plot of so many early Batman comics. The other thing is that there there's a moment early on where the super soldiers.
01:10:09
Speaker
Hold on. No, Billy. Billy comes out of the ocean and they're like, They they've just fought him. They know he's super fast. They know he's super strong. And yet when the scuba suit guys come out, they're like, fired it hard to believe they would need six men to bring bring this old guy in You just fought him.
01:10:31
Speaker
he just fought the God Hercules. Demigod, but. Well, OK, fine. And yeah, punched him out.
01:10:41
Speaker
Ah, stupid. Yeah, it's pretty big. with Although imagine you're Dr. Lansing in this situation and one of your super soldiers gets loose.
01:10:53
Speaker
Happens a lot. You can probably cover it up. and Except this time they ran into a super team. He's probably like, oh, what are the odds?
01:11:04
Speaker
Damn it. The one thing, the one thing I told Margaret I didn't want to happen today. she told She told me I should be prepared, and I said, no, there's no way. And now I'm going to have to go home and eat crow.
01:11:23
Speaker
Also, it's been a couple issues now. I think it's time we talk about how, why is why does Angel wear this costume? What is this costume? Oh, yeah. He wants to show off his chest.
01:11:34
Speaker
Will you describe it to the people? Yeah. ah So it's sort of like a like if you imagine someone playing Peter Pan, but it's the costume is red and yellow and he's got wings. It's red and yellow. It's got a big open V neck and he's got a headband on.
01:11:55
Speaker
It's wild. It's like a but like ah i support bright red headband. It's OK. Yeah, it's very like it. Very colorful. I think it fits his character pretty well because it's pretty ugly. Yeah, I mean, I think it looks like he's dressed for some kind of school play. he's You know how, like, there's a level of rich people get where they just believe anything that they wear is fashion?
01:12:21
Speaker
And you see them with these, like, ridiculously loud shirts. This feels like that. Yeah. I mean, I believe you that that's true. I'm not sure that I... um I'm not sure that I've experienced that, but I absolutely believe that's a thing. oh man Oh, man.
01:12:35
Speaker
Go to brunch on the main line someday. All right. I'm ready to hear you talk about Champions number five while I eat my pizza. Yeah. You start dining. Let me know when you're done tapping on your microphone cord and I'll get started.
01:12:50
Speaker
i champions number five the economy is so bad that back to thrill marveled um anew jenny isabella writer don heck and john tartag artists i'm guessing that's john tartaglione jay costanza letterer jay cohen colorist marv wolfman editor release date january 1976 cover date april
01:13:13
Speaker
We open on Angel and Iceman talking to Warren's lawyer and finding out that with both his parents dead, he's super mega fucking rich. His parents are dead?
01:13:24
Speaker
ah Yeah. Okay, Pat. I fucked up a little bit here. There was a backup issue in Kazar that was like an Angel story. And I was like, I think we could skip this one early on.
01:13:39
Speaker
Okay. In it. Warren Worthington's dad dies. That's insane. Why would you put that back of a Kesar issue? He's killed by a supervillain named the Dazzler.
01:13:54
Speaker
Dazzler? And then Warren goes, he becomes like the avenging angel again. He like goes on ah a a venge like a vengeance mission against the Dazzler.
01:14:04
Speaker
Not Dazzler. The Dazzler. Different guy. And so his mom doesn't die in that one. She just. No, his mom dies off panel. Okay. His mom is just dead. And it's not like we even see him be like, yeah, and my mom just passed.
01:14:20
Speaker
It's just, it's literally just like. Cut to the wheel reading. yeah exactly. And him being so stoked that his parents are dead. Well, across town, a dude named Stuart Clark, who looks exactly like Charles Bronson, is yelling at his lawyer for insisting he declare bankruptcy.
01:14:41
Speaker
His tech company, Clark Futuristics, has completely run out of money due to the recession, and he's super mad. Okay. Meanwhile, that professor who brought Hercules into UCLA for a lecture has been fired. And he asked to tell Hercules and Black Widow, who, by the way, are hanging out on the football field while Hercules beats up the football team.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. That they've been fired too. Angel kidnaps the professor whose name is Dick Fenster, I guess. And forces him to become the champion's business manager.
01:15:13
Speaker
When I wrote that, I had not made the connection. Yes, this is the same guy that booked Hercules for a lecture. And Warren kidnaps him, like picks him up off the ground. And he's like, you're our business manager. He doesn't even just say you're our business man. He's like, looks like shows over for you, pal. You have to be our business owner or
01:15:42
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely bonkers. Stuart Clark. Also. Yeah. Yes. Sorry. One more thing. He's got blonde hair now. He like dyed his hair. Oh yeah.
01:15:54
Speaker
They de-aged him.
01:15:57
Speaker
Stuart Clark stomps his way across town to his lab where he made a worse version of Iron Man's armor. It's largely an ex exoskeleton over some skin tight red and yellow suit with a yellow half helmet and goggles.
01:16:11
Speaker
Remember when we met the ogre? and yeah you were like he's like iron man only the lower half of his face is exposed yes so somebody can punch him in the jaw that is that is this again the they fix this in later issues but the early version has his throat fully exposed too one swift punch to the adam's apple he's done He puts it on, he puts the suit on and flies off to a bank and starts robbing it by throwing some folks around and ripping out the vault.
01:16:46
Speaker
Angel has convinced all the champions to formally join a team, finally. But Iceman has doubts, so he takes a brooding walk when he sees the robbery taking place. He intervenes, but is getting his ass kicked when the rest of the champions suddenly show up and start beating this guy up.
01:17:04
Speaker
He gets the upper hand, however, swatting Angel unconscious like a fly, of course, cracking Ivan in the head and threatening to literally punch through Angel's skull if the champions don't back down.
01:17:16
Speaker
To be continued. Matt, what's a recession?
01:17:23
Speaker
I don't I don't know. It's so it's bad. It's bad. It's bad. And it's like yeah there's less money around for everybody. Now, this was the thick of the oil crisis, right? This is when people had to ration the fuel in their cars. And like you had specific days where you were allowed to go to the gas station based on your last name.
01:17:45
Speaker
Oh, really? I didn't know about that. So, I mean, this is a recession that happened from 1973 to 1975. That's what it's called, the 1903 to 1975 recession. And yeah, and that was the oil crisis and Vietnam and um i guess, you know, just like Richard Nixon being himself yeah are like the three main causes of this and it was it was the uh longest and deepest recession until hey we beat them we got them we got them folks everybody best generation just so many stupid this was things
01:18:28
Speaker
and This was the most exciting issue.
Character and Art Analysis in Comics
01:18:31
Speaker
Sure. Like the most fun issue so far, but it was just mind numbingly stupid. Okay. ah Point number one.
01:18:40
Speaker
Yes, please. Don Hex Iceman this time around, because this isn't the first time he's drawn Iceman, but this time around has big old pouty lips. He looks like he's he looks like he's going to kiss somebody all the time.
01:18:54
Speaker
How'd he forget to draw? He drew Iceman for so long, how'd he forget how? He was just like, what's this guy go like? He's also like, not just the big pouty lips, it's also like,
01:19:07
Speaker
He's so blocky. He's so much blockier than anybody's ever drawn Iceman. He is. He's got so many angles, so many sharp angles. He also draws Angel with a huge, huge bulge in his pants.
01:19:19
Speaker
Which is, look. Massive. Every artist we've seen so far works some things out when they're drawing Warren, it seems like. Right? George Tuska is drawing him extremely sculpted. Half the time, he's yeah half nude.
01:19:34
Speaker
It's the sort of thing when their wives walk into the room when they're drawing Lauren. They're like, nothing! This is work. I'm working. um mean these You'd find this all boring.
01:19:46
Speaker
Stuart Clark pushes his lawyer. You can't do that. You can't push lawyers. yeah You're not allowed to kidnap a lecture coordinator from school and force them to be your business manager. Yeah. What does he know about business management?
01:20:02
Speaker
He doesn't know. Yeah. No. The rest of his appearances, we just have to remember he's doing it under duress. He's a hostage. His name's Dick Fenster.
01:20:15
Speaker
since They keep calling him Dickie boy. The next issue, I still had a, I also had this problem where I didn't recognize the name Dick Fenster the until like issue seven. And through all of it, they're calling him Dickie boy. And I'm going, who is this guy?
01:20:33
Speaker
Who's Dickie Boy? Who's Dickie? Like, that's his name. First name Dickie, last name Boy. um Black Widow gives a speech early on in this issue where she's kind of, like, psychoanalyzing the whole team.
01:20:49
Speaker
And it's kind of good. Like, in these issues that that are so... poorly done she like really starts breaking down and she's like angel and ice man i don't believe they were truly comfortable in the x-men uh because like a group based around identity basically didn't allow for them to be individuals um yeah johnny blaze belongs to a west that doesn't exist anymore and hercules uh
01:21:22
Speaker
What could it be like to belong nowhere? he In Olympus, he's a man among gods on earth. He's a god among men. That's like a fairly good speech, yeah at least compared to the rest of the writing we've seen.
01:21:32
Speaker
It's really it's comforting to know that Jenny Isabella has a good grasp on the character she's working with here. Yes. Because we have not seen another sign of that.
01:21:43
Speaker
No. yeah hope To be fair, Bill Mantlo scripted one issue and Chris Claremont wrote one issue. So Jenny Isabella has only scripted two issues of this.
01:21:54
Speaker
And we ah had an i had had a feeling that she was angry when she was writing them. Right. Like she was writing them because like as a protest. One out of two of them is also the best issue of this comic that we've read so far. So I think we got to...
01:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, it appears as if she's like starting to find reason for this comic, even though this comic doesn't really it. It never feels like it has a reason to exist. A few more notes.
01:22:22
Speaker
Number one, i think this is your note, Matt, but Iceman and Angel go to a business meeting in costume. Bobby, you don't have to ice up to meet your lawyer. It makes a little sense with Iceman because he's got a secret identity.
01:22:38
Speaker
Although we could have just been, oh this is my friend. This is my friend, Bobby. This is, uh, I work with him. But Angel is like a business owner. Yeah. Oh, the boss keeps coming to work dressed like a, like he's in a, like he's in a fifth grade play.
01:22:55
Speaker
Like an angel. Like he thinks he's an angel. Yeah.
01:23:01
Speaker
Warren also with this drove me nuts. He says, we've got power, mister. And that equals heavy responsibility in my book. You prick.
01:23:13
Speaker
That is not yours. That's a AI. Yeah. Stealing spider rising spider man's core core value. Yeah. It's hard to remember because Iceman's been out of the show for a while. But i think this is our fourth Iceman Cometh. Number four. Yeah. He says, yeah i guess it's time for the Iceman to Cometh once again.
01:23:35
Speaker
Ew. It's a little gross. Ew. And then Warren Commission, he ah tries to punch this costumed man in the helmet, the back of the helmet.
01:23:49
Speaker
It's unsuccessful and he gets knocked unconscious and held held hostage. Gets knocked out right away. Again. Not having a great run. Five. So that's ten months. That's for about ten months. We haven't seen him do anything.
01:24:04
Speaker
But maybe we will. In champions number six, Mad Dogs and Businessmen. Jenny Isabella, author. George Tuska and Vinny Coletta are artists.
01:24:17
Speaker
They're artists who worked on this book, in fact. Irv Watanabe is the letterer, Petra Goldberg is the colorist, and Marv Wolfman is the editor. Hey, Matt. Release date. Yeah. Is it a good sign when your inker gets the artist credit because he did so much work?
01:24:32
Speaker
Especially when it's about Vince Coletta, we know just puts big old black blocks over things. I guess we'll find out. ah Release date, March 16th, 1976. Rampage!
01:24:44
Speaker
rampage That's what the guy that was so the guy from last issue was called. they he doesn't He doesn't name himself Rampage. The like the news names him Rampage. Yeah.
01:24:54
Speaker
it's It begs a lot of questions that I don't know why we're asking in this comic. why Right. This is the one time I would have been perfectly fine with somebody saying, and my name now is Rampage.
01:25:09
Speaker
Exactly. yeah Perfect. It be perfect. Rampage is still screaming about how he will put his fist through Rachel's skull. After a brief spat among the champions about what to do.
01:25:21
Speaker
do we let him put his fist through Rachel's skull? Do it as one of us in his will? What options do you have here? Yeah. They decide to pretend, they decide to pretend to give up and slowly walk away. The old pretend to walk away trick. Yes, you got us.
01:25:41
Speaker
As soon as Rampage drops his guard, though, Bobby turns around and super freezes him. Much colder than before. Much colder than before. Just so much colder than before. They all fight. Ivan gets hurt pretty badly, but everyone else is okay.
01:25:57
Speaker
but They let the the human get hurt now. Rampage, fairly damaged, runs away while the medics show up and Black Widow yells at a doctor. They take a few minutes to cool off and regroup, then determine that the team needs a leader to survive attacks like that in the future.
01:26:13
Speaker
Black Widow is the unanimous choice. um was easy. The news picks up the rampage story and Clark's old lawyer, Amos Crowley, I guess his name is, recognizes the suit.
01:26:24
Speaker
He immediately calls the police who show up at Clark's front door. Clark pops out in his rampage suit, now with a jetpack, and bowls over the police. See, this is why you shouldn't push your lawyer.
01:26:37
Speaker
He reflects on the destruction he's causing as he zooms through the city. This was all only supposed to be a bank robbery. Just as he's starting to convince the police to leave him alone, though, the champions show up to beat him senseless.
01:26:52
Speaker
Warren even gets in on the action, clubbing him in the head with a Hephaestus-made mace. he's got he's I didn't realize this is just Hercules' golden mace.
01:27:04
Speaker
Because he doesn't use Hercules just has this sometimes. I guess this is just a thing Hercules has sometimes when he let Angel borrow it. And he knocks somebody in the head with it. The fight is mostly just that if somebody who's trying to give up.
01:27:17
Speaker
and Same spot that he punched him unsuccessfully, too. The fight is mostly just the champions hitting him over and over until Rampage, having lost all hope, tries to blow himself up.
01:27:28
Speaker
He and everyone else all survive thanks to Bobby's quick ice thinking. Amos Crowley watches on, realizing that Clark Neville never actually removed his power of attorney, and will he, Amos Crowley, will be selling the company. The end.
01:27:46
Speaker
a There's an interesting concept here. Like, as as as much as this is stupid, this is the best issue. I think not only just so far, but, like, in this whole thing. And there's an interesting concept. First, that it's a villain who realizes immediately, is like, I'm in over my head.
01:28:03
Speaker
This was stupid. i give up. I'm giving up. I'm not going to be a villain anymore. And then is, like, immediately drawn back into it. And that's kind of also a parable about ah life in ah financial hardship or life in poverty, right? The way that one bad decision can lead to another, it can lead to another. And then you're sort of trapped in a system that won't let you escape.
01:28:26
Speaker
Even if you decide, I'm done with these bad decisions. I realized what was bad about this and I want to be better. You're just trapped and you can't get out, right? Angel will come hit you with a mace.
01:28:36
Speaker
<unk> No matter what you do, the worst team of superheroes will come. Right. The richest man on Earth will come in the head with a mace made by gods.
01:28:51
Speaker
Sorry, poor. And that the real villain here was the attorney who like he was just hoping to make a profit and was like, yeah, he's not going to get away this easily. Yeah, it was all vengeance based. And then he turns around and makes a quick dollar off of it, which.
01:29:08
Speaker
Yeah, they I will. I'll give them the credit here. they actually. uh tack that on to the end pretty tactfully i think it's really it's a nice little three panel sequence to end the entire arc where i agree oh and the lawyer uh makes money he gets his i think this is a competent story right yeah it's it's really hard coming from chris claremont chris claremont's x-men where things are so advanced
01:29:40
Speaker
and and sort of going backwards to this style of comics that we haven't been reading for the past whatever years. 10 episodes of this podcast or or whatever.
01:29:52
Speaker
But as far as that kind of comic goes, this is a really, this is a really competent story, I think. Yeah, it's, it's definitely, you we're we're moving in the right direction.
01:30:04
Speaker
And right, right. Compared to Chris Claremont's X-Men running simultaneously, this is how you can do something effective without being overcomplicated.
01:30:19
Speaker
Right. Still very, ah a very simple story, some pretty simple motivations, but like you can still make interesting choices. You can still keep things simple and pop comics and also tell a good story.
01:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, if you're still doing these plot-based Marvel-style stories rather than the character-based stories that Chris Claremont is starting to introduce into this world. Right. But of course, there's stupid stuff like Hercules making an entire Shakespearean speech while a car is flying at him. Yeah. In the time that a car is flying through the air towards him.
01:30:54
Speaker
My last thought here, I know we mentioned it up top, but Vince Coletta... Getting an artist credit for literally just inking over background details. there's This happens, too.
01:31:07
Speaker
There's so many places you can see it in this issue where it's just like, okay, that was the city skyline and now it's just black. Yes, there were humans there and now there they're just black. there was like Somebody drew a car and he just...
01:31:21
Speaker
Like a car that isn't even in the background, like a car in the foreground that is part of the action. And he just colors the whole, he just inks the whole thing in black. He's like, ah, blobby silhouette.
01:31:33
Speaker
I don't want to draw these fucking lines. It's well, as as much as we make fun of it, it is Vince Coletta is the guy you go to when things aren't meeting and deadline because you can't get your creative staff together because it doesn't take very long to just smear ink all over a page.
01:31:50
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. And like, is this is well documented that this is what he did. This isn't just something that me and Pat are looking at and being like, I bet that's what's happening. Like, this is this is a thing that artists complained about at the time. and That's all I want to say about this issue, Matt. It was.
01:32:08
Speaker
Fine. Maybe the peak. Well, like you said, this is moving in the right direction. So look, as long as nothing happens to disturb this creative team and their momentum in the future, I think, you know, this is going to just get better and better.
01:32:24
Speaker
Yeah. As long as we stick with, you know, consistent writers, consistent artists, a consistent editor, i think we'll be ah we'll be fine. It seems like they're finally figuring it out. Let's move on.
01:32:35
Speaker
To Champions number seven, the man who created the Black Widow. And here we go. Tony Isabella writer, George Tuska artist. Okay. Vince Coletta anchor, Kay Mantlo letterer, Phil Raich colorist, M. Wolfman editor.
01:32:49
Speaker
Okay. so Pretty close to the same team. Same team. Yeah. Release date, 18th, 1976. Cover date, 1976.
01:32:58
Speaker
The champs are chilling in their office with a de-aged dick fenster when a weird device flies through the window and bops around for three pages until they catch it. Outside on a roof, a mean man who also looks like Charles Bronson watches them on a little TV.
01:33:15
Speaker
Johnny Blaze and Warren are at the hospital trying to get their lawyer to represent the other Charles Bronson, Stuart Clark. he decides He declines... it seems like a major conflict of interest.
01:33:28
Speaker
So probably smart that Stuart Clark declines. So Johnny please turns into ghost writer to bully him. Yeah. He's like, uh, he said, no, he said, he doesn't want you to be his lawyer. I'll take care of it.
01:33:43
Speaker
These are mafia tactics. Yeah. That's true. But as he's in the hospital room, he sees the Griffin,
01:33:54
Speaker
Hold on. Remember that guy? Oh. ah Oh, yeah. From ah he was the beast's enemy. That's right. In Amazing Tales, where Beast turns into Blue Furry Beast, I believe is the world's introduction to the griffin, right?
01:34:11
Speaker
That was. And then he was in like one other issue of comics before this. I just realized, how the fuck does Johnny Blaze turn into Ghost Rider if he can only do it when there's a threat around? And like has specifically told us that.
01:34:25
Speaker
What's the threat here? yeah That a guy won't get a lawyer? He's just going in to intimidate. yeah He's lying about his powers is the only conclusion I can come to.
01:34:37
Speaker
But he sees the griffin and a tall blonde lady named Darkstar seemingly kidnapping him. Darkstar! Darkstar!
01:34:48
Speaker
This is Darkstar's first appearance. This is Darkstar's first appearance? Yes, this is Darkstar's first appearance. That blows my mind for a couple reasons. Number one, i haven't read much Darkstar, but I know she's an important character in the Marvel Universe.
01:35:04
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, like, third tier, but yeah. To introduce her in The Champion seems underwhelming, I guess. The other reason this shocks me is at no point does anybody say, Darkstar. Yeah.
01:35:25
Speaker
it's just like everyone knows her already. introduces her. She's just there and everybody's calling her by her. and Even the heroes are like, oh, it's Darkstar. Oh, hey, so hey, Darkstar. Darkstar. ah i Angel, reverting to his old ways, rips his shirt off and throws a gas bomb at them, thinking he's saving Clark.
01:35:45
Speaker
He's got his gas bombs back. He's got his gas bombs back. He's like, I took this from a nurse. This was the peak for me. Him using his gas him using gas bombs again. Just fly in and drop in little ping pong balls filled with but filled with knockout gas on people.
01:36:04
Speaker
Oh my goodness. So he thinks he's saving Clark by doing this, but Clark suddenly has a glove from his rampage armor and socks Angel in the stomach. dark so Dark Star uses dark energy like Green Lantern to ensnare Warren and create a rad obstacle course for Ghost Rider's motorcycle, which he fucks up and it explodes.
01:36:25
Speaker
The bad guys escape. no Back at HQ, another new bad guy has snuck into the building. is This is the guy that's just hiding behind a filing cabinet in their office, right? Yeah.
01:36:37
Speaker
How many bad guys are all, like... Like, there's so many conspiracies happening here all at once. It's just some other bad... So, there's another bad guy. He's hiding.
01:36:50
Speaker
But... he's Or he's just about to... create a distraction when Finster spots a kid running down the hallway.
01:37:00
Speaker
So Hercules rips out a wall and he and Iceman heroically attack the child.
01:37:10
Speaker
The child cries into Hercules chest. We absolutely never follow up on this ever. And it allows the other intruder to escape who tells us he's Ivan's son and he's out for revenge.
01:37:21
Speaker
Who is this kid, Pat? He's... Is this... Was this supposed to be a... The distraction? No. Or they just had a child trying to break into their office. Yeah.
01:37:33
Speaker
So there are three people spying on the champions all at once. The guy across the street that looks like Charles Bronson. Yeah. The guy behind the filing cabinet who's Ivan's son.
01:37:44
Speaker
Looks little like Charles Bronson. And a little child...
01:37:50
Speaker
Who just happened to be somewhere in the in their office and then is like, I heard you're the superhero for the common man and I'm common and I need your help.
01:38:01
Speaker
Okay, let's talk about another thing that's bothering the shit out of me. Yeah. When did they become the hero for the common man? Roman god. Yeah. a roman god yeah And i a man who is down on his luck financially.
Villains and Narrative Dynamics
01:38:21
Speaker
And here's here's what they are. The richest man of all time. Seemingly. Yeah. a Greek god. Demi-con.
01:38:38
Speaker
Russian super spy. No.
01:38:43
Speaker
a celebrity stunt man and bobby drake okay let's say he's a ah mutant and the common man also hates mutants that's fair at this time so you could not be further from the heroes of the common man at this moment yeah and then you uh chase a child down the hallway
01:39:08
Speaker
child so please help me and you never do and you never do there they're in their new h q which is a skyscraper that warren bought and had built this is the hero for the common man what's the kid so that child is getting away i must rip a fucking wall ah The other thing I want to say, we passed it a little bit ago, but we also just took a sneaky break, so it's a good time to talk about it.
01:39:46
Speaker
It appears as if Warren Worthington has been listening to the Mutant Menace podcast. Ooh, he's one of the 12? twelve Because he says... Because when he quote-unquote saves...
01:40:03
Speaker
Mr. Clark, after he throws the gas bomb, he's like, I probably disappointed Griffin by not going in there slugging, but Warren Worthington has grown up a lot during these past few months. Has he?
01:40:16
Speaker
ah No, hasn't. We'll find out. He hasn't. He basically just keeps doing the same shit. But he's at least he's at least trying to listen to oh old Matt and Pat's advice.
01:40:32
Speaker
Okay. i Getting back to the story, Ivan, remember that guy? Yeah. Meanwhile. For me and you, he's been we haven't talked about him in 10 minutes, but for the audience, they what they heard about him a minute ago.
01:40:46
Speaker
He is, i I'm glad he's on the team, and he's he might be my favorite member, even though he's not officially a champion. Yeah, he's just a guy with a mustache who punches people.
01:40:58
Speaker
And it works. Sometimes he's there and punches a lot. And he wins every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the God God loses fights constantly.
01:41:11
Speaker
Ivan wins them. That's right. i Ivan, meanwhile, breaks into the device from the beginning of the issue and finds a black pearl, which means something to him and Widow.
01:41:23
Speaker
the The device starts talking to them and taunting them. And Widow sees it's the mean man on the roof from earlier. And he not. Not the mean man that was hidden behind the filing cabinet. The other one different mean man. that was so The mean man that was on the roof.
01:41:38
Speaker
This one looks like Charles Bronson with a ah pencil mustache. Yes. Well, the guy behind the filing cabinet looks like Charles Bronson with long hair. Right. Like a young Charles Bronson.
01:41:49
Speaker
And Stuart Clark just looks like Charles Bronson normal. This is an older Charles Bronson. So she sees the mean man on the roof from earlier and she leaps out the window, disarms him. And it turns out it's her old teacher, Bruskin.
01:42:03
Speaker
Black Pearl was his nickname for her. And he's here to warn her about something. But before he can, he's shot by the titanium man. The okay so i knowium Man.
01:42:17
Speaker
i know Iron. The Iron Man. Iron Man. I know the Cobalt Man. This one's got titanium, huh? Who's the Titanium Man? Who's the Titanium Man, Pat? I i don't know. i was This one gave me a choice. This one's got me stumped. This one's got me stumped.
01:42:37
Speaker
i i could I can figure out Cobalt Man, but Titanium Man? what do you think he's What do you think he's packing? I'm plumb stumped. it It feels like they're trying to build a champions rogues gallery. Is that how you feel here? It does. Yeah, they're like, who are the villains that nobody else really wants to use anymore? and they're like, Griffin. Nobody likes Griffin. That guy hates his job.
01:43:02
Speaker
titanium man i guess uh and then i guess we'll just have to make some up yeah rampage and dark star i gotta like dark star to be honest i gotta like rampage
01:43:19
Speaker
they're definitely filling gaps right it's they're not the point of the stories that they're in yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. i I am not a fan of Griffin. I think he fucking sucks. And the other characters in this comic book think he sucks.
01:43:32
Speaker
Like, the other villains are like, this guy sucks. I think Griffin's funny because the last time we saw him, he was like, this sucks. I wish you guys never turned me into the Griffin. And now he's just like, i love murder. Yeah, he's...
01:43:50
Speaker
He's a murderer. He's also like the odd man out in this group. He's the, uh, well, we'll get there. He's the only non-Russian. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
01:44:01
Speaker
Titanium man. The only thing I'll say about him. the Only thing really the only things I know about him. Uh, rush. He's a Russian superhero, but an American super villain. And he's mostly like an iron man villain.
01:44:14
Speaker
Interesting. That's the wrong word for it. Uh, yeah.
01:44:21
Speaker
This, I will say, i this or this issue was annoying me up until like the last quarter of it where we do get that Black Widow drama unfolding. And i they they got me with the twist. I thought Mustache Charles Bronson was going was a villain that we were going to have to deal with. Yeah.
01:44:41
Speaker
And then he's like, I'm actually here to issue a warning and then gets shot in the back. Right. And the action sequence where she looks across, she sees the pearl, hears the message, looks across the street, and then just without a second's thought leaps out the window.
01:44:59
Speaker
Yeah. Is... Really cool. You can feel how fast it is just the width the way the paneling's paced out. it's It's really cool. I mean, then she gets there and she's sneaking around and there's one of those like film noir guy with a gun in shadow behind her. It's the shadow on the wall of him.
01:45:22
Speaker
at an angle a man fucking it's and then sticks the gun to her head she's not bothered she just starts doing some chops disarms him and he's like haha you've done good like it's so good it's good it's legitimately good it is it's a good sequence about three or four pages of these seven issues all right pat i want to keep rolling yeah we gotta we gotta go champions number eight divide and conquer o Written by, as always, Oh, shit.
01:45:58
Speaker
It's Bill Mantlo. Hmm. Okay. i Well, ah Jenny Isabella left Marvel for seven years because they didn't let her make Ghost Rider a Christian.
01:46:15
Speaker
This is the thing. Like, I agree with her that it sucks to do that, right? That it sucks to take creative person's work and change it. But also... Between if you're being given it and publishing it, making your own editorial decisions.
01:46:32
Speaker
Agreed. Yes, absolutely. I think that sucks. And i think editors are there to make suggestions. I mean, they should be. They're there to ring you but not limit you.
01:46:43
Speaker
And in a real creative enterprise, not like Marvel or whatever, that's more of a brand enterprise where creativity can happen. um An editor is, again, there to make suggestions, not to change your work, not to force you into decisions.
01:47:01
Speaker
um But we understand reading comic books, editors are a little more tyrannical. So in this and scenario, though, I think Had they done this the right way, they were correct.
01:47:13
Speaker
I don't think this was a great... I don't think that was a great direction for Ghost Rider, the demon man, to you the demon motorcycle man. Literal friends with Jesus Christ.
01:47:28
Speaker
Not one of Jenny Isabella's best ideas, I'll say. um But I understand why she quit. So, written by Bill Mantlo. Oh, boy.
01:47:38
Speaker
Artists. Penciled by Bob Hall. Who's that? Ooh, Bob Hall, Matt. He's actually the co-creator of a little team you might know called the West Coast Avengers.
01:47:50
Speaker
Well, hold on. Now I know the Avengers. Yeah. Now I know the new Avengers. That's later. Now I know the mighty Avengers. Right.
01:48:02
Speaker
What's the freaking West Coast Avengers? So the Avengers are supposed to protect the whole country, even the whole world, you might say. But they're located in New York. So proximity wise, they're a little limited in the threats they can address and decided, hey, we should form a team.
01:48:24
Speaker
of avengers somewhere else in the country if we're on the east coast we should put them in california it's the west coast adventures matt it's uh okay all right they defend the west coast they're like the co-created i also know the great lakes avengers uh yeah sure West Coast Avengers. What else? West Coast Avengers. He and Claremont in 1978 will actually team up for a Spider or will join voices for a Spider-Man ah SNL team up.
01:48:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The Spider-Man and the cast of Saturday Night Live. And then, guys, if readers didn't know that, it is it is literally just. in an issue of Marvel team up, the, the guest who they team up with are, are like the cast of SNL.
01:49:19
Speaker
Yeah. It is John Belushi and, Gilda Radner and such the 78 cast. Absolutely wild. It's stupid. It is during an era where they're doing that with bands and movies and, ah just like trying to,
01:49:36
Speaker
exploit every angle they can to sell comics. And then currently Bob Hall is actually the artistic director of the Flatwater Shakespeare Company in Lincoln, Nebraska.
01:49:48
Speaker
um Okay. Yeah. Do you know as much about B. Patterson, the inker? No, I don't even know their first name. Is that not the person that we figured out who it was before and she was married to Dave Cockrum or something? Fuck it.
01:50:03
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not going to just toss around accusations about people being married to Dave Cockrum. You know how much trouble that got me in before.
01:50:13
Speaker
ah b Patterson, Inker, Kay Mantlo, letterer, de Warfield, colorist, and Archie Goodwin. Huh. Is that a good sign when the editor changes in the middle of a book?
01:50:26
Speaker
I wonder maybe if the writer and penciler also change at the same time. Yeah,
Action and Humor in Comics
01:50:34
Speaker
that might mean it's a really things are going really well. Things are going swimmingly.
01:50:38
Speaker
Yeah. So release date July 20th, 1976. Rampage returns. He's in the Champions HQ, but don't worry. He's here to deliver a letter. Seems fine.
01:50:50
Speaker
From the bad guy. oh Showing that they kidnapped Black Widow. The champions are incensed. Ivan punches him square in the jaw. The only like the ocean the only one to think of it.
01:51:05
Speaker
and everyone prepares for a fight, but Rampage has a message for them directly from his employer, the head bad guy. He presses on a... This fucking blew me away, Pat.
01:51:19
Speaker
More than it blew Rampage away. Less than it blew Rampage away. now He presses a button on his chest, and he explodes. ah Holy shit.
01:51:30
Speaker
i'll i'll give I'll give you that, Matt. This got me as well, because it's it's made very clear that even Rampage didn't expect this. He thought he was about to transmit a message by pressing this button.
01:51:43
Speaker
And he explodes. It's actually a bomb. Yeah. Yeah. he survives, but he survives, but he explodes to death. But he explodes to death, but he also survives. And he's clearly surprised about this, as surprised about this as the champions are, and Griffin and Darkstar verify just outside that he was a pawn, meant to blow up the remaining champions.
01:52:03
Speaker
It's okay, though. Everyone survived the explosion, even Rampage. Literally every. There's no further impact here. Even Rampage, who exploded to death. Although he is unconscious, and his pulse is barely there.
01:52:18
Speaker
As heroes, they gotta rush him to the hospital. So this is so, this is so insane. Ghost Rider says Clark isn't going to last till the ambulance gets here.
01:52:33
Speaker
So instead, Patty lifts him up on his fucking shoulders. Despite the internal injuries, he's definitely suffering and then puts him on a motorcycle and drives him to the hospital on a motorcycle.
01:52:47
Speaker
There's a there's a couple of steps you missed here, Matt. Number one, Bobby specifically says, don't move him. You will further his injuries.
01:52:58
Speaker
And number two, Warren offers to fly him to the hospital. says, I'll probably be a bit quicker and I can fly him there. Yeah. Probably pretty gently.
01:53:12
Speaker
Ghostwriter's like, ah I'll show you. let me so let me let me just strap him to my hell cycle.
01:53:21
Speaker
And then fly through New York City on it. There's some really terrible images here also. Richard Fenster, Dick Fenster, takes his glasses off and his eyes disappear.
01:53:34
Speaker
That's how he sees Matt, his glasses.
01:53:38
Speaker
Ghost Rider has just legitimately round white eyeballs just in his skull. Just eyeballs. Just human eyeballs his skull. He looks... You mentioned Undertale earlier. He looks like Sans from Undertale.
01:53:53
Speaker
He looks like a Batman Forever villain. Like, the the flame is just serving as a mohawk on top of his head, and he's wearing a skull mask. He looks like a ah Walmart wall decoration at Halloween.
01:54:08
Speaker
you yeah All right. um So, yeah, he. ah So, yeah, he takes fucking Stuart Clark. Yeah. To the hospital.
01:54:22
Speaker
ah Dick Fenster steps in Has everyone forgotten that the whole media will be here in just two hours for the champions inauguration? and This is where my boss is coming over for the big dinner tonight.
01:54:38
Speaker
It's exactly that. and It's like these say set the The place is a mess after blowing up and it's time for everyone to start cleaning. Ivan is insulted that it would be a priority and storms out. He's right.
01:54:51
Speaker
Ivan's right. Justice for Ivan. They should probably be looking for Black Widow. This should be Ivan's team. he said He should run this team and also be the only member. Iceman doesn't want to clean and feigns sympathy for Ivan as an excuse to also leave.
01:55:07
Speaker
suddenly only hercules and warren are going to be around for the big inauguration hercules is pushing around a broom and just being like this is so this is just a sitcom plot a man just blew up to death in front of you and now suddenly you're in an episode of fucking the honeymooners Bobby, why don't you clean up the living room?
01:55:34
Speaker
oh my head hurts too bad. I gotta It's also, it's a perfect time for some characterization if you want to put it in there. But instead, yeah Bobby's just grumpy.
01:55:48
Speaker
And Warren and Hercules are both thrilled that they get to be the two featured in... inaugury We're going to find out more and more, especially if reading Alpha Flight. We're going to find out more and more over the years.
01:56:02
Speaker
ah That Bill Mantlo does not care about characterization. that is his That is the thing that interests him the absolute least. If somebody is not, okay, Bill Mantlo, he can do a couple of motions, right? He can do guys is angry.
01:56:16
Speaker
Yeah. Ladies, ladies is jealous. Right. Mans is competitive over ladies or over powers. Somebody is sad because of how they look or their their physical form.
01:56:30
Speaker
We get we get later. Oh, somebody made me a helpless cripple um is something that um Bill Mantlo has a character say, i think, next episode. But hey, he has people say it fucking every fifth panel in a Alpha Flight.
01:56:45
Speaker
Anyway. and All right. Cut to Black Widow and the Commissar tied up in a warehouse back room. By the Commissar, you mean that guy, the mean man and turned out to be... Charles Bronson who turned out to be Black Widow's old briskin teacher.
01:57:01
Speaker
Tied up in a warehouse back room. They're both tied up there. Darkstar shows herself to be an empathetic warden, but makes it clear she's bought in on the mission. Everyone who calls each other comrade a hundred times while a Crimson Dynamo reveals that he's actually Yuri Petrovich, the son of Ivan.
01:57:18
Speaker
He already revealed that, though, just in his thoughts. Oh, well, he reveals it again. Have we mentioned that the Crimson Dynamo is here yet? ah No, you're right. You're right. Oh, good point.
01:57:29
Speaker
Yuri Petrovic was the man hiding behind the file cabinet, and he thinks to himself, I'm actually Ivan's son. Right. and Like, we all think all the time. i'm I'm walking around going, I'm Ronald's son. I'm Ronald's son.
01:57:42
Speaker
I'm Ronald's son. Ah, me. Son of Bob.
01:57:49
Speaker
But we did not talk about the Crimson Dynamo, nor the fact that... Basically, he shows up, the Crimson Dynamo shows up, who's an established character, but Black Widow is like, the Crimson Dynamo is dead. You're not the Crimson Dynamo. Who are you?
01:58:01
Speaker
Yeah. And this is the moment when the Crimson Dynamo pulls his mask up and is like, it's me, young Charles Bronson. I've been hiding behind the filing cabinet the whole time.
01:58:16
Speaker
Meanwhile, Ivan and Bobby hatch a scheme to track black pearls.
01:58:22
Speaker
They like have a machine. He's like, I made a machine that if you put a black pearl in it, it can find every other black pearl in the city. And this guy's always carrying black pearls around in his pocket.
01:58:34
Speaker
To find where Natasha and the commissar are being held, Ghost Rider drops Rampage off at the emergency room and threatens some doctors. And Warren changes into a new costume that Dick Fenster made him. It's the Magneto costume. It's the costume that Magneto made him, but Dick Fenster made it and...
01:58:51
Speaker
made the blue red did it red instead it still it still looks rad i love it i still like seeing it it is but it's still it's so funny that he's like the costume is just so good can we just can someone else make it he just keeps having people make this costume over and over does this one drain my power as well Dick Fenster was supposed to be a villain probably like 20 issues from now. He's like, I've been trading your power all along.
01:59:22
Speaker
Bill Mantlo was just like, oh, that was a great story. Let's do that again. he loves, because as we've seen, he loves doing that. um Hopefully it'll be good enough to make up for all the missing champions because the press conference is starting now.
01:59:35
Speaker
The governor, the Giovernier. The governor is here. Oh, okay. Because you wrote ah the Giovernier is here. I think you're putting a few extra eyes in there.
01:59:46
Speaker
Okay, probably. only put in one extra eye. think there's just one accidental eye. I just wanted to rib you, Pat. just wanted to rib you like friends do. right Warren starts delivering a speech about how freedom is great when he's met with disagreement from the sky.
02:00:04
Speaker
Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, and the Griffin are all here charging from the air and promising to kill them damn champions. On their big day? To be continued. be continued okay i think we are over the hill and from here we're just going down yeah i think we're just going down i think we're just going down the best they made a device to track pearls that look like each other i think we are going downhill Can you imagine if you could build a pearl finder, how much fucking money you would make?
02:00:39
Speaker
I would use it to find fire marbles. i think I'd be like, oh, well, can you find ones that have ah that are orange and yellow to Matt's out there trying to track down Pokemon cards?
02:00:54
Speaker
Put this shiny Pikachu in there. If it can track down pearls that look like each other, I'm sure it can track down just any two objects that look similar. This was a team that the the one interesting thing about the champions was that they were all friendly with each other. And of course, it didn't make sense because they didn't know each other yet. But by now they know each other. And it was going to be cool that they were just like nice and friendly with each other. Right? Yeah. It was the it was like the ah calmer superhero team. Yeah.
02:01:25
Speaker
Yeah. And now Bill Mantlo is just like, ah this is a Marvel team. They just bicker all the time. Yeah. he's just And that's what this is. And it it starts to really, i really come out in Ghost Rider, right? Where he's just, he's a dick through this whole thing. But this is where he steps it up where he's like, oh, everybody hates me here anyway. he yeah starts disappearing and reappearing. It's just one of the four emotions. Grumpy.
02:01:53
Speaker
yeah right One of the four emotions that Bill Mantlo could do is grumpy. I'm grumpy because I think everyone hates me. It's not character. Again, not character development. It's just like he has a it's it is like he has four post-it notes.
02:02:07
Speaker
One says grumpy. One says jealous. One says jealous parentheses female parent competitive parentheses male. And I forget what the fourth one was, but it's still fucking hate it.
02:02:20
Speaker
I'm.
02:02:23
Speaker
We do. We mentioned that they say yeah they call each other comrade a hundred times. There are I counted, Matt. There are on one eight panel page, six uses of the word comrade.
02:02:36
Speaker
And then you turn the page and the very first panel of the next page has two more. God. Yeah, it's all. marvel writers know about russia hello is they call each other comrade hello comrade yes comrade lennon by lennon's beard you're my comrade comrade lennon's comrade comrade all right i want you to tell me about uh champions number nine yeah we might as well oh actually i'm sorry there's one very good moment that we missed bobby
02:03:07
Speaker
goes to help Ivan and Ivan says, yeah, I appreciate your help and offers him a year's worth of popsicles. You know why he knows that Bobby wants popsicles.
02:03:19
Speaker
He's back on the ice cream. Because he's always eating ice cream in front of his team. try can't Try and keep this guy away from ice cream. only' It'll only last a couple years and then he's back right back on it.
02:03:30
Speaker
I'm just glad that that was acknowledged. For all of Bill Mantlo's crimes, at least, he i don't he's bringing back Iceman loving ice cream.
02:03:41
Speaker
All right. Champions number nine, the Battle of Los Angeles. That's a cool name. So this must, this is going to be a cool issue. Rip.
02:03:52
Speaker
Bill Mantlo, writer, ball artist, Bob Layton, inker, Karen Mantlo, letterer, Don Warfield, colorist, A. Goodwin, editor. Release date, September 21st, 1976. Cover date, though, December 1976.
02:04:08
Speaker
Picking up from last issue, Angel and Hercules are facing Titanium Man, the Griffin, and Crimson Dynamo. Because Angel can't do shit against these guys, he takes the microphone and tries to control the crowd.
02:04:20
Speaker
doesn't work. No, he's just like, hey, guys, stop. don't Hey, be calm. Nothing bad is happening. And they're like, we can clearly see something bad happening. Ghost Rider shows up and he and Hercules do an actually kind of dope move where Herc bounces the golden mace off Dynamo's armor.
02:04:38
Speaker
Blaze catches it as its momentum pulls up out of Griffin's reach so he can blast Griffin with fire, then bounces the mace off of him. Herc catches it and immediately clobbers the fuck out of Dynamo.
02:04:51
Speaker
It's very MCU. Like, it like i it felt like tossing around Cap's shield and Thor's hammer and forth with each other in, like, The Avengers. it's It is very cool.
02:05:05
Speaker
The gang is winning the fight until... Inconceivable. Angel... Jesus Christ. Tries to help and legitimately ruins the whole thing, and they all get kidnapped. Yeah.
02:05:19
Speaker
They're taunting him because he can't do anything to them. They're like, we have armor. You can't win against us. And he's like, oh, yeah. And he pounces on, i think it's Titanium Man. Then Titanium Man lands on Hercules and knocks Hercules out. And that frees up fucking whoever it is, Crimson Dynamo to blast Ghost Rider. Like, Angel ruins it all.
02:05:40
Speaker
it's it he He changes the conditions of the fight. It throws all the heroes off balance. They all get knocked out. Yeah, yeah, they were winning. They were just about to, like, wrap the thing up.
02:05:55
Speaker
Oh, also, there is a moment where Dick Fenster tries to clobber Dynamo with a chair and it shatters and Dynamo doesn't even even notice. Dick Fenster, though, hero, brave man.
02:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, great guy. Although I think Bill Mantlo just like forgot where Dick Fenster came from. He calls himself Dick Fenster Boy Public Relations Man.
02:06:21
Speaker
Public Relations? You're not a boy. no you were you had white hair when we met you. And you're not a public relations man. No, you were like a professor of history or some shit.
02:06:33
Speaker
hu
Storytelling Gaps and Character Arcs
02:06:35
Speaker
Then the bad guys... Find Iceman and Ivan using their Pearl Finder. Oh, I wrote this bad, Pat.
02:06:45
Speaker
Pat, this one's on me. You can tell the listeners. Tell them now. This one's on me. I wrote this bad. No, I don't know if we can. don't know we can this time. don't know if we can this time.
02:06:55
Speaker
It's that but Ivan and Iceman are using their Pearl Finder. The bad guys just find them. Oh, right. Ivan and Iceman use the Pearl Finder, show up at the door to the bad guy lair, and then the bad guys also show up to that door because they were just coming home.
02:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's basically what happened. They trash Iceman, but Ivan gets away. Meanwhile, Black Widow and Alexi Bruskin in captivity ambush Darkstar when she comes in to feed them.
02:07:26
Speaker
Oh, Black Widow pulls a straight up Ferris Bueller. She leaves like two sacks of potatoes under a blanket. Yeah, there's like a mop and that's supposed to be her hair. Literally no human would ever mistake a mop for hair.
02:07:42
Speaker
It's very good. i Through some questioning, we find out that her name is Lania, and she was once a pupil of Bruskins, just like Natasha, as she fights the Widow.
02:07:52
Speaker
Suddenly, Ivan crashes through the ceiling and joins the fight, knocking her off balance, and Widow takes her out. The bad guy squad appears, and Dynamo pulls off his helmet to reveal, again, he's Yuri Petrovich, Ivan's son.
02:08:10
Speaker
It's the third time he's revealed it. It's been like, yes, I'm his son. but Okay, all right. Bad Guy Squad was a first draft take. What do you think?
02:08:22
Speaker
um The Good Guy team's named the champions. Bad Guy team is yeah Griffin, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and Rampage, Dark Star. Yeah. It's mostly Russian, except for two do ah one one guy two guys in outfits.
02:08:39
Speaker
So what would you name this? ah The... The Legion. The Iron Legion. The Iron Legion? No, that's Iron Man's already got that.
02:08:53
Speaker
The Iron Men. That also sounds like something. I'm trying to work with Iron Curtain. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. but The Butt Curtain. The Butt Curtain. know and so what's So what's the opposite of champions?
02:09:07
Speaker
Well, losers, but they couldn't be called that. The losers. The runners-up. what would be or What would be like the... antithesis not the opposite but the antithesis of champions what if they just called themselves the antithesis the antithesis what about the spoilers right like oh you're trying to be the champion i'm gonna spoil the competition what the spoilers i like that the spoilers the spoil we'll never see these guys really again out so after this story they do not become so we did this for nothing fuck we do get a ah good look at jerry brown
02:09:46
Speaker
and
02:09:49
Speaker
it seems like bob hall is ah big fan of because he draws him very flatteringly Yeah, I mean, this is this thing is that every comic book artist can draw two faces, one of them being Charles Bronson.
02:10:04
Speaker
But when there's a celebrity, they put all this detail in their face. Like, that's how I know if if there's a celebrity in one of these old books that I don't know of, i like an an an old politician or some shit, I know that's what's happening because their face so much more detailed than everyone else. Yeah, yeah.
02:10:24
Speaker
Everything I know about Jerry Brown, I learned from the dead Kennedys. So like this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um Johnny Blase's identity is secret.
02:10:36
Speaker
What the fuck? Yeah. How does he maintain that? He he can't control when he transforms. And he's famous. So we he's riding through the city. Everybody's got to be looking at him because he's famous. Even when he arrived on the UCLA campus, people said, oh my God, there's Johnny Blaze. Yeah, yeah.
02:10:53
Speaker
And then he immediately turned into Ghost Rider. I just assumed his identity public. Everybody knew. Yeah. Yeah. He's also, he wears the exact same clothes Ghost Rider for him. And both of them are motorcyclists. Like imagine if Spider-Man, if Peter Parker disappeared when a villain showed up And then came right back in a Spider-Man mask, but wearing all the same clothes that spider or that Peter Parker was wearing. And jumping around like Spider-Man. Yeah.
02:11:24
Speaker
And also Peter Parker's incredibly famous. Right.
02:11:31
Speaker
All right. All right. i Well, Warren Commission. He fails to calm down a panicked crowd. He punches Griffin once. And he upsets Titanium Man's center of balance, getting everyone hurt.
02:11:46
Speaker
Yeah. Just a little update on how useful he's been. Let's finish this episode out, Pat. Champions number 10. We're here? We're here? We're the end? Of this episode, we have a whole other episode to record right after this. Shit!
02:11:59
Speaker
You never asked me how my pizza was. i Matt, how was your pizza? Mediocre. The only thing open that was still taking... DoorDash orders was Papa John's.
02:12:12
Speaker
Ugh. So, mediocre. should i order Should I order a pizza? It's now midnight. You, I mean, you're in the city, so I'm guessing they are. Oh, I get pizza right now.
02:12:24
Speaker
You could get pizza right now. Yeah. yeah Yeah, order pizza. I'm not hungry. Okay, well, then why'd you ask me? It was more just to let the listeners know what time it is. Champions number 10, one man's son is another man's poison. Oh.
02:12:40
Speaker
Bill Mantlo, writer, Bob Hall, artist, Frank Giacoya, inker, Ray Holloway, letterer, Don Warfield, colorist, Archie Goodwin, editor.
02:12:50
Speaker
Is it a good sign when like everybody besides the writer and artist change? Is it a good sign when in the ah credits they mentioned that this might be the last issue of the comic?
02:13:06
Speaker
Release date October 1976. The champions, minus Natasha and Ivan, are regaining consciousness as Darkstar keeps them in a prison of her own powers' is making.
02:13:20
Speaker
we are We're going to have to talk about this fucking lady's powers. Yeah, it's unbelievable. She can make a prison. She can do anything. Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man stand menacingly just behind her, peppering the champions with insults and telling them they will die.
02:13:35
Speaker
As soon as they start breaking through the force field, though, the three villains realize there's no reason for them to be here and teleport out. They were like, she was like, I can't hold this any longer, guys. Please, I can't hold this any longer. And they're like, just give us a second. We want to watch these guys be unconscious. They really, their whole purpose there was just to insult them, to be like, ah, look at you losers. We took you out.
02:14:02
Speaker
Literally. And they're like, okay, well, we're going to try to break out of this force field and fight you. like Get us out of here!
02:14:13
Speaker
They inform the champions on their way out that they're trapped in a steel cell along the San Andreas Fault and that any attempt to escape will create a massive earthquake across all of LA. The gang pickers about whether this is true or not.
02:14:26
Speaker
Up in the air, we see these evil idiots. ah What do we call them? The um the spoilers. The spoilers hop on a jet that Griffin is piloting while Natasha, Ivan, and the commissar ride in handcuffs.
02:14:41
Speaker
Yuri tells us his story. As a child, Ivan, his father, remember? at first denied money from the U.S. government to defect to America.
02:14:53
Speaker
But when he turned them down, their next move was to murder his nameless wife and kidnap a young Yuri. His father, he believes, took the U.S. government's money after that.
02:15:05
Speaker
So he knows that... Okay, whatever. hes He believes that he denied the government's money, and then the government killed his wife, and then he was just like, all right, I'll take it. Yeah, you know what? Why don't I...
02:15:17
Speaker
defect for no money instead son back this seems like a solid deal yeah he believes that happened and he defected to start a new life without his son the commissar tells yuri he's missing half of the story but before they can dig into that yuri and titanium man has to have to go deal with a couple of bogeys on their tail oh there's a couple of bogeys on my tail the air force shows up again Commissar reveals to everyone else that Yuri's kidnappers, as well as the people that rescued him, were actually all agents of the Soviet state, putting on an elaborate show to radicalize him against his family in America. ah It was a false flag, Pat. Wow.
02:15:58
Speaker
When Yuri returns, Darkstar tries to explain the whole story, but he's too angry and he refuses to listen. He says, no, i don't care if I'm wrong.
02:16:11
Speaker
As a result, she uses her powers to release the prisoners, teleport the rest of the champions out of their underground cell and send a message to Bobby that they need. to commandeer a plane and fly to their location what the fuck cause he okay she can make force the she can make force fields she she can do blasts there's like green lantern she can do force fields and blasts cool fine she can fly all right green lantern cool She can make a v a magic video screen. Yeah, she can make a magic video screen with the dark force.
02:16:43
Speaker
She can do telekinesis. Okay, fine. Makes sense. Again, Green Lantern. She can teleport. Okay. She can teleport other people when they are miles away.
02:16:53
Speaker
Yeah. Just between one location and another. And she has telepathy. Yes, she can send telepathic messages. So she is she can do like literally everything. She is more powerful than Phoenix.
02:17:08
Speaker
She sort of, picture if you took the Phoenix and gave her Charles Xavier's brain. And then Nightcrawler's powers, but better.
02:17:18
Speaker
Yeah. And then like, picture sure they could picture all the X-Men, but they were like one person and they were better. and they were like a hot blonde woman who had also trained as a super spy.
02:17:32
Speaker
Yeah. Imagine that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's that's Dark Star. Issue number two. Sorry. Before we before we move on, would you let the champions commandeer a plane?
02:17:45
Speaker
I would not. I would let the champions to drive my car. Absolutely not. No. You're going to blow it up. You're going to abandon it.
02:17:59
Speaker
I know you champions. None of are responsible enough. I've seen what you've done. they do just So they do commandeer plane. They do commandeer plane. They do it. And they fight the villains on top of a submarine in the middle of the ocean.
02:18:12
Speaker
With Darkstar now on their side, they make light work of the whole thing and everyone but the Commissar survives. Time to go home, I guess. The end.
02:18:23
Speaker
That was it. They just they get to the submarine and then they fight everybody and win. And I guess the plane, I guess they just leave the plane. They abandon it midair, Matt.
02:18:35
Speaker
They commandeer a plane. This is why I wouldn't let them commandeer one of my planes, because they see a submarine and they're like, well, we're up here and the submarines down there. ah can everybody just jump out?
02:18:47
Speaker
We'll let the plane figure it out. Yeah, it's got autopilot. Yeah. Man. So fucking stupid. I do. i will say I'm I'm beginning to love Griffin because he is just pissed that everyone else has political motivations.
02:19:06
Speaker
its Just like, when are we going to kill someone? Let me kill somebody. Also, it's it's mentioned that Darkstar and Yuri were dating.
02:19:18
Speaker
Did you pick up on that? I didn't even pick on a up on it here. I didn't pick up on it, I think, until like a couple and like a couple issues later, she references it in retrospect. Yes.
02:19:29
Speaker
Yeah, I have no idea. yeah I guess they were dating. I guess we were supposed to know they were dating. Bill Mantlo forgot to write that part. And he thought we he would just sneak it in and we'd be like, oh, okay, yeah. ah Oh, I didn't.
02:19:41
Speaker
Oh, I must. i must have missed it. It's the it doesn't get revealed until she's made the full turn and they've fought everybody. And then she's like, boy, stakes were high here. Right. That's my boyfriend.
02:19:56
Speaker
yeah She's. Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah, this is this has been what how do you feel about these first 10 issues? Oh, of the champions. My God.
02:20:08
Speaker
yeah I've already kind of said my pieces that like, I think like this really shows a contrast between like what Claremont's doing. What's happening in the rest of comics, comics, I bet is a little closer to this, maybe less stupid.
02:20:24
Speaker
I don't know. but I assume a little less stupid. ah Yeah. This he is, it well, so it feels to me like it's so old comics, right? This is when you think about what comics used to be like before the modern era.
02:20:38
Speaker
This is what I think of. There's a ton of weird action poses in that last issue. They've got Warren just like hunched over with his arms out in front of him They've got him It looks like he's dancing in the panel because he's just in the background striking these bizarre poses. i The faces aren't consistent on characters from panel to panel.
02:21:02
Speaker
Everything's super brightly colored. The logic is really shaky and nobody cares about that. This is essentially the 60s and 70s equivalent of yeah Mr. Beast. Just something where...
02:21:12
Speaker
The priority is just to be very loud and busy and bright to appeal to children and hopefully keep their attention.
02:21:21
Speaker
It's yeah, I'm angry. I I'm also the other thing I'm, I'm angry about is Bobby's overall characterization in here. Right. Like the Bobby we know is bright eyed young kid. Of course he probably grew up a little bit, but he has like, he's got heart, right? He's got moxie. He's, he's got the soul of a leader. He's just got to grow up a little bit, but in I,
02:21:46
Speaker
run He's tired of being a hero, right? He says, I'm only here to help my friend Warren set up his super team. And then as soon as it's over, I'm done with this hero business. I'm going to go ah learn to sew or something.
02:22:02
Speaker
ah Yeah. I mean, he we didn't talk about that very much. But yeah, he's constantly thinking to himself like, ah all right, pretty soon I'm going to I'm going to leave these guys and I'm just going to go be Bobby.
02:22:15
Speaker
he's also he's short tempered which i thought would be the part that grows up about him but he's still got like his short little temper and more than ever before is using that short temper to make decisions like before he used to just get upset and then walk back and now he's getting upset and saying all right let me act on this emotion right it's like and so You know how like you have friends who have kids and as kids, they're really nice, but then they grow into like a really shitty teenager.
02:22:49
Speaker
Yes. yeah That's what I feel like with Bobby here. Like I knew this guy. I knew this guy as a kid and he was really sweet, but now he's an incel. I think it's okay that he wanted to give up being a hero, right? Like I think that's a kind of a, an I think that is an interesting place for him to go.
02:23:08
Speaker
Especially because so many writers seem to not be interested in him. Yeah, but it's that's just like if he's got it's not burned at all. If he's going to be out of comics, I think it would make sense for him to be like, all right, I'm I, you know, i did this as a kid.
02:23:24
Speaker
was like a little kid. Now I'm like an adult and I think I got to go to college and I think I got to like make a real life for myself. ah like I would be OK that. i I think there's a way for him to grow into it.
02:23:37
Speaker
The sort of like doing it by half measures is it makes me just not understand who this guy is. Like, who is Bobby Drake now?
02:23:48
Speaker
i don't I don't I don't know. don't know. He's grumpy. Constantly. It's not good. ah Yeah. He's he dislikes his team. And he's with any again, it's it's just not an earned departure from his normal attitude. He's just one day is like, actually, i'm here even though I don't want to be.
02:24:08
Speaker
Right. Stupid.
02:24:12
Speaker
And I think it's it's interesting. Like Hercules is the strong guy but he's basically just there to be the strong guy, right? Like he's supposed to be just this big dope. Who's here to punch hard. Right.
02:24:27
Speaker
Right. um He doesn't seem to be somebody that the writers are interested in too, too, too heavily. They seem to both love, both writers love angel.
02:24:38
Speaker
Yeah. Angel is the main character of this book. Maybe. with Ghost Rider being a close second. But think they still have no idea what to do with him.
02:24:51
Speaker
He's still just completely actionless. Right. He gets one issue where he gets to hit somebody, Well, because he's just ah his only power is that he can fly. And other than that, he's just like a guy.
02:25:05
Speaker
So, like, he's just flying around ah and they're having they're having to pretend like it's heroic, like he's doing something. So he's dodging stuff or he's or he's shouting orders even though he's not the leader of the team. Yeah.
02:25:18
Speaker
They seem to, like, just want to make him a leading man. It seems like everybody at Marvel is, like, again, he doesn't really have any real power. So he just gets to dodge and stuff. Yeah. But... They want him to be the leading man and of the book. And like they tried to make him a solo character for a bit too.
02:25:38
Speaker
Like it seems like so many people at Marvel are like angels should be one of our leading guys. But then and then you when somebody actually writes him, they have nothing. They can't think of anything.
02:25:50
Speaker
But it's it's not like he's even... i can understand that you see like a young, rich teenager, they're all the rage around the time, yeah, give him his own solo book. But then it's it's not like these writers who realize all he can do is fly are trying to make him a heroic personality instead, right? Like somebody that's inspiring.
02:26:14
Speaker
He's still worried about his secret identity until he gives up on protecting it over saving people if things are going wrong. He also just makes rash decisions based on emotion. There's a reason that he's not the leader of the team. Like they talk about that.
02:26:30
Speaker
in comic that he wouldn't be able to handle a leadership role because he's because he doesn't have the skills for it he's just not a hero it makes me really really wonder what that bobby drake warren worthington road dogs book was gonna be like that would right like yeah i like i i'm i'm really curious what ideas she had for that and we'll never know we'll never know and this is the warren worthington we have now right and this is the bobby drake we have now yeah and it's a shame all right pat oh matt you're gonna be a little mad at me no no
02:27:14
Speaker
Really, this is your fault. So we've talked about this before. i have spent my vast fortune collecting every single issue of X-Men, the original prints.
02:27:27
Speaker
I won't accept anything else. And that's what enables me to see these old advertisements and put them up for past deals and steals. And as we've seen before, sometimes we add something that's not an X-Men comic in here. And yes I have to, on short notice...
02:27:44
Speaker
gin up some cash so that I can go out and buy the original prints of those. And this
Closing Humor and Episode Recap
02:27:49
Speaker
is my this is my fault. Yeah. you Yeah. Again, we've talked about this before, but there's some sort of i don't know if it's like a tick tock trend or maybe it's a cult or something. But I think it's a smuggling ring.
02:28:01
Speaker
They take black ink and they spread it all over the advertisement pages so that I just can't read them. I think they profit from that somehow. I think it's like a yeah, a dark money thing.
02:28:14
Speaker
Maybe we can do it with all my original X-Men printings. Uh, once we don't need them anymore, see if we can make some cash or black ink all over them and, and make some money. so So as a result, there are ads in these comics. There always are, but I just can't see them.
02:28:32
Speaker
You don't have them now. right. Well, no pats, deals and steals. I'm sorry, everybody. I'm sorry. This is my fault. Yeah. Maybe we can get next through du through this next round of issues.
02:28:44
Speaker
Maybe we'll we'll find one that somebody somebody didn't get to mark up yet. All right. How are you feeling? This was a long episode and we have a long way to go. Like, how is your health mentally and physically?
02:29:00
Speaker
uh pretty tired pretty tired i'm tired yeah yeah yeah my eyes are starting to do do that thing that like burn yeah it's also it gets pretty hot down here i know i've complained about it before on the podcast but i turn my air conditioner off i'm in my little basement and it's just i uh i sweat very easily so I'm pretty wet.
02:29:23
Speaker
You're pretty wet. Yeah. Much like Namor. I thought you were like, I thought you were like leading into outro. Much like champions number 11. All right, everybody. Thank you for listening to this wild episode. i promise you next episode is going to be even wilder.
02:29:45
Speaker
um you know the issues get weirder we are going to get more annoyed at them and we are both going to get more loopy so tune in folks we'll hate each other by the end of next episode email into pat's email corner mutant menace pod at gmail.com thanks for krill's wilson for the music yeah in these for this freaking podcast and thanks to julia selley for the voice of trish tilby right uh please please please find us wherever you get your podcasts wherever you got this episode you can probably find it again really helps if you rate us if you comment if you get your podcasts through youtube subscribing or liking whatever you can do to uh to give us a little gold star we very much appreciate it
02:30:33
Speaker
All right, so I guess that just leaves one one last thing, and it's what we say at the end of every single episode. And Pat, do you want to do the honors, or you you want me to?
02:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, folks, always remember, I'm sorry about the backshot, okay? And don't you forget, i hope I haven't out-eviled Knievel for nothing.