Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
35 - Avengers Annual 10, ROM 31-32, Uncanny X-Men 158 - Rogue! with Abby Denton
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Get ready listeners - this episode, we introduce an iconic character with an iconic guest, Abby Denton! Comedian and writer of Gamer Mom! We're talking Avengers, ROM Spaceknight, and the X-Men all facing off with this...villain?!? Who IS this woman??
Topics discussed:
Jeez what DON'T we discuss? Local pro wrestling circuits. Gamer Mom. Digimon. San Francisco. Spider-Woman. Carol Danvers? The pretty fucked up events of Avengers 200. My Dark Angel. ROM's back! Is he stupid? The SISTERhood of Evil Mutants. Wraiths! Hybrid! Mack Killburn, Hack Reporter. Death by twirling. Two girlfriends. In love with ROM. Can claws do that? Alien virus. And a lot of mentions of Philadelphia. Go birds!
Find Abby Denton here: https://abbydenton.com
Find the Gamer Mom Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/abbydenton/gamer-mom-the-mom-who-games
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV Instagram: @mutantmenacepod (https://www.instagram.com/mutantmenacepod)
Recommended
Transcript
Introductions and Guest Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm Trish Toby with WARC reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:38
Speaker
Oh, that's smooth.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, everybody. I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And I'm sweet little Abby Denton. And say it with us, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:56
Speaker
I remember that wrong and you corrected me and and I remembered it wrong again. sorry. Now you nailed it. you We all nailed it. Once you started, though. In fact, if anybody is wrong, I think it was Pete Hey, everybody.
00:01:10
Speaker
We have with us an incredible guest today. Yes. She is a comedian, a comic book writer, a former pro wrestler, and the writer of Gamer Mom. It's Abby Denton. Hello. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here.
00:01:30
Speaker
Welcome, Abby. ive for I've been a big fan of you both for many years, and and i I consider this to be the the culmination of months and months of negging Pat into into letting me on You've been following us all the way through the very worst years, you're saying?
00:01:49
Speaker
ah Well, well when when you were at your lowest points and there were only one one set of footprints on the sand, you would have seen a bunch of cigarette butts piled on a bench while I was laughing at you, having a having a good time.
Vaping Anecdote and Wrestling Experience
00:02:02
Speaker
Pat, just before this recording, um took out a vape and then clarified to me that it was nicotine and not ah not weed, just to make sure that I knew he was cool.
00:02:15
Speaker
Just so you know, i've I'm going to hit this thing but a handful of times, and I don't want you to think I'm being unprofessional. i Pat, i would I would rather you were you were doing weed. i would i You're killing yourself, I assume. I know nothing about vaping. is that Are you going to die, i look My mom always said smoking will kill you. smoked 20 years, and by yeah all medical standards except in the U.S., this is a healthy alternative to cigarettes.
00:02:45
Speaker
standards Except in the US. Abby, I want you to tell me about Gamer Mom. But before that, I wanted you to tell me about, can you tell me about being a former pro wrestler? Well, when we say pro, I think we lost money on the whole endeavor. um But the government of the state of Pennsylvania shut down a wrestling concern that I was involved with.
00:03:07
Speaker
the Magical Girl Wrestling Federation. It's a sad story. See, it turns out that as opposed to Kaiju Big Battle, who we'd sort of modeled ourselves after, and yeah and they they weren't classified as an athletic event by the state of ah New York, I believe. I got to talk to um the gentleman who played Loud and Noxious, their commentator.
00:03:30
Speaker
He's a comic. guy And that that's just his stage name, too. like Loud and Noxious, what a stage name. it I think jeff i' I don't know. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if that's even OK. I've outed a fake wrestling commentator. you know We can beep it.
00:03:48
Speaker
Very nice guy. We lived in the same neighborhood for a while. um You're still doxing him. Yeah. Now it's getting worse, Abby. It was in Koreatown in Los Angeles. No, I'm sure he's moved. I haven't seen him since since COVID. Oh, my gosh. I don't even know if he's alive. Well, he lives in heaven now.
00:04:05
Speaker
The ultimate doxing. The ultimate doxing. But the New York and the Pennsylvania and Athletic Commissions have very different policies of what counts as an athletic event. And even though like our commentator was ah was an alligator puppet, and I believe there was time travel involved. Granted, Jakari does time travel jokes and and their actual wrestling. But we were just a bunch of theater nerds in the state of Pennsylvania. It was like, you owe us $70,000 or close down.
00:04:31
Speaker
or close down And we chose to close down like the cowards we are. Wow. Matt, what yeah and not to be you a hater in any way, but you and I are not fans, actively not fans of professional wrestling.
00:04:50
Speaker
Oh, God. I thought you were about to just be incredibly cruel to our guest. No, we hate you, Abby. What? We looked up everything we could find. Yeah. No, it's no yeah the reason I say that is because do you think if we switched this to just a podcast ah about the minutia of professional wrestling law state by state, we would lose any followers?
00:05:19
Speaker
I kind of think that the wrestling bubble is in the process of breaking. I know data for this. But i feel like I feel like wrestling is on lock. I feel like you might as well do a podcast about, you know, comic books. You know, like like the field's been tilled. The bubble that never bursts.
00:05:40
Speaker
It's a, you know, I think it's it's safe to say if anything is popular at any given point, it's a bubble is on the verge of bursting. People have very short attention space. Well, yeah, I mean, I i feel like the main thing that that will always be popular, but there's not enough podcasts about it,
00:05:57
Speaker
With very good reason. Furry pornography. ah Furry pornography. Yeah, there'll never be. There's probably a couple. I would have assumed that there was a bunch of, I mean, I don't know of any, but I would assume, have assumed there's a bunch of podcasts about furry pornography.
Comic Book Discussion: Gamer Mom
00:06:15
Speaker
Abby, I'd like to know about Gamer Mom. Yeah. Gamer Mom, though. i week Why Gamer Mom is a comic book that I kickstarted earlier this year that's almost done and and lettered and and ready for everyone to read. It's about ah basically what if Yu-Gi-Oh from the cartoon Yu-Gi-Oh hit middle age and and had ah had a couple of kids.
00:06:37
Speaker
and and discovered that ah being really good at card games doesn't actually earn you any kind of respect or admiration from ah your children who are sort of aware that that's a ah preposterous way to live your life.
00:06:51
Speaker
and it's basically a comic about a woman who has no value to humanity whatsoever entering into the the most intense grudge match with the head of the school board who wants to ban all gaming.
00:07:06
Speaker
the The gaming has been banned and it's up to Gamer Mom to to to free the free they the youth of the school. Like a sports commissioner in Pennsylvania. Yes. Faced with a wrestling league.
00:07:20
Speaker
Ooh. Yeah, some keen analysis from that. i'm I'm very, very pleased. I don't even know if it counts as a joke, but I think my favorite aspect of the story is that all of her heroic choices are on behalf of her daughter's friend because her daughter is a dick.
00:07:37
Speaker
but but But she really likes this this one girl that her daughter doesn't even hang out with anymore, but she's like, I'd take a bullet for this kid. Yeah.
00:07:50
Speaker
Well, that sounds amazing. Where can people go? Well, we'll put a link in the show notes, I'm sure. yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we we kickstarted it a couple of months ago. If you um Google Gamer Mom Kickstarter, you'll find it there. We put out 10 pages for free then, and the other 20 pages have been sort of...
00:08:06
Speaker
a little delayed in being finished, but they will be available digitally. um I don't know what Javi's plan. Javi is javi ah Martin Caba is the artist I've been working with. Very talented man. okay I don't know where he'll be putting it because we both sort of have shared access to it. ah But I will also be putting it on abbydenton.itch.io or abbydenton.com. You can find it there whenever it's done.
00:08:28
Speaker
And you can read the preview on either of those yeah URLs either. That's amazing. What a nice plug. Thank you so much for listening. Outstanding. Yeah. yeah i I'm very proud of it. I think Javi's done some amazing art and I think it's some of the funniest stuff I've ever written. And we're firing on all cylinders. 32, I think.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yes. It looks incredible. Thank you. Thank you. Oh.
00:08:56
Speaker
Oh, goodness. What is that, Pat? It means we all we got to stop this puffy faffin' and get to what Pat's email corner. oh Sorry you considered our guest's how dare work puffy faffin'. How dare you call me Hassan Pfeffer?
00:09:13
Speaker
is We depend on our sound guy to put in these music cues because we we try to derail ourselves as much as anyone tries to derail us. ah But let's get to We have two emails today. Number one is yeah from ah frequent flyer email.
Listener Emails and Pixel Art Reaction
00:09:30
Speaker
Michael says, hey, Pat, tell Matt that I couldn't hear any lozenges in his mouth, even with my nice noise canceling earbuds.
00:09:39
Speaker
I encourage him to try using more and larger lozenges in the future so that we can hear him better. i assume that's his goal. I did a lot of cutting out lozenge noises from from the last episode. He goes on, and he says, you discussed the deadliness of downdrafts in this episode. So it raises the obvious question, could Wolverine defeat a downdraft? Like like if it was Wolverine versus a downdraft in a one-on-one fight, who would win?
00:10:09
Speaker
Okay, well, that's Wolverine versus a force of nature, but this is a particularly, as we've learned through chris Claremont's writing, this is a particularly powerful force of nature, the downdraft.
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, we learned in this issue coming up, not to not to spoil, but I'm going to spoil, we learned that Wolverine's claws can interrupt psychic connections. That's right. Energy beams, yeah,
00:10:38
Speaker
So i don't know why they couldn't interrupt wind. He's also at this point, he's only briefly mentioned that he has any sort of healing power, but a downdraft does not.
00:10:56
Speaker
That's true. So if he got enough stabs in on that downdraft, it's turning updraft real fast. Abby, what what forces of nature do you think could kick Wolverine's ass?
00:11:09
Speaker
Well, now now this is ah one of the Superman Goku questions, because ah even in this episode, he needs the help of Storm to to summon wind to help him sever the the psychic energy connection. So I think him and Weather get along too well to to fight.
00:11:28
Speaker
Oh, he would bond with the downtraft.
00:11:36
Speaker
I think they might have a child. Team up.
00:11:40
Speaker
It's hard to not make friends with a down draft. I don't think humans and down drafts should make love. Before we start saying things that'll get us all in trouble.
00:11:53
Speaker
Email Michael finishes here acknowledging that I did ask for a no prize for catching the Monroe Monroe spelling error. And he agrees. He says spotting typos in comic books from over 40 years ago does deserve no prize.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay, you got it. Constantly afraid of downdrafts. Email Michael. yeah Mostly in these comics, though, downdrafts save people. So. No, updrafts save people. That's right. I was thinking of updrafts this whole time. I've changed everything I said. Having read Animorphs as a child, i I call them thermals. I know that that makes me sound like a maniac, but that's what the talking bird twink in Animorphs calls them.
00:12:35
Speaker
Abby, you should start an Animorphs podcast where you just recap chapters of Animorphs each week. Actually, my my main podcast I've always wanted to do is reviewing specific episodes of other podcasts like the same way, like going through, you know, all we summarize the episode of of We Hate Movies or whatever where they're talking about Pimby Longstalking.
00:13:00
Speaker
Okay, we have one more email to get to, and it's it's a good one. Oh, are you... she Did you just say... Are you implying that email Michael's email was not a good one?
00:13:12
Speaker
no No, no, no, it was fine. This one... it's you know Michael, write in and let us know what you think. You'll see why I'm so excited about this one. This comes from... Ambitious Eric.
00:13:24
Speaker
The ah subject the line says, you missed me Did we talk about this on the podcast or did we just talk about it after recording that we missed ambitious That missed ambitious Eric. I don't.
00:13:37
Speaker
I hope it was on the podcast or ambitious Eric can hear us either way. Uh, you're absolutely right. Ambitious Eric. He says, Hey Pat, tell Matt to stop puffy faffing around. Okay.
00:13:49
Speaker
He's right. Uh, you were both undoubtedly wondering where ambitious Eric has been these last few weeks. I haven't even yet enjoyed your amazing discord shared with the effervescent savior game podcast, which introduced me to mutant menace in the first place. In truth.
00:14:04
Speaker
I resolved not to email you until I had finished my masterpiece of pixel art, Nightcrawler making out with Colossus attached. Oh my goodness. I had to Google what color their tongues are. That's a lot of effort for four pixels, but they are four comics accurate pixels. And we can all agree that is of tantamount of importance. This is great.
00:14:25
Speaker
This is something we asked for, Abby, just to. I'm very sorry to hear that. There was a scene that there was a scene that they came very close to kissing. And we said, if anybody wanted to draw it, that we would, uh, we would talk about it. We would put it up on our Instagram, I believe.
00:14:42
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, there we go. We have Nightcrawler and Colossus kissing. And I guess Colossus has a gray tongue. Yeah, which makes sense. I'm having trouble picturing Nightcrawler and Colossus making out, but i I am having a grand old time picturing Kitty Pryde sort of sitting over her notebook drawing that and and dreamily sighing.
00:15:06
Speaker
Listeners, you actually will be able to see this undoubtedly on our Instagram at this point because it's too good not to share. That's good. Yeah.
00:15:18
Speaker
This is really thank you, Ambitious Eric. He has a few other things to say. he says, i I want to thank you for your coverage of the Dark Phoenix saga. I've only ever seen its interpretations, and I honestly didn't realize how good the original story was. He says, I still think Jean Grey is boring. I didn't know you thought that in the first place, but maybe you'll turn me around on that someday too.
00:15:41
Speaker
How? She's dead. He's very excited to hear that we are going to cover ecstatic someday in the probably far future. ah And he also mentioned that he has looked for Jump Shooper.
00:15:57
Speaker
He's been trying to find out more info on this Jump Shooper that he doesn't seem to be turning anything up. and He was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics for like over a decade. You should be on Jump Shroom.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's a big deal. Jimbo Jumper. Well.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's it. Oh. For Pat Seymour Corner. so So we just have to wait for the sound guy to... to to wake the fuck up.
00:16:31
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, there he is. Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to. Thank you, Elliot. I think your pie Annie is out of tune.
00:16:43
Speaker
that Yeah. Elliot, get on that, please. Okay. I got to ask Matt. Me? Have you done anything X-Men related this week?
Philadelphia Jokes and X-Men Activities
00:16:54
Speaker
Oh, boy. All right.
00:16:56
Speaker
What did I do? Well, we just recorded an episode like three days ago. So it's hard. You know that doesn't count. It's hard to. I know. No, I'm saying. It's hard to say that I've done anything X-Men related in the meantime. Today was shoe shopping.
00:17:12
Speaker
Does that is that X-Men related? Can you find any way that that could possibly be X-Men related? I feel like with their freaky shoe feet shapes, they probably have to do more shoe shopping than average. Yeah, yeah. The thing about shoe shopping we in fact that fucks me up is that there are differences in different types of, like, it's like arch support or ultra wide or cushion. And some of these have meanings and some of them don't. And I can't tell when one does or one doesn't.
00:17:43
Speaker
Like, there's shoes that talk about their support, but that's different than saying it has arch support. And so if I need, like I'm looking, I was like, I'm for once going to buy like shoes that are good for my feet.
00:18:00
Speaker
And I can't fucking figure out how to do it. I hear you, Matt. I got, uh, we've talked about this before. Big old hobbit feet. Yeah. So there, I, I need, uh, I need to special order my shoes. Yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
ah How do you do it? How do you special order them? I don't. Honestly, my wife buys me a new pair of shoes every Christmas and it is it has changed my life. Huh?
00:18:26
Speaker
Can your wife get a wife? I mean, OK, I'm trying to get a wife.
00:18:32
Speaker
How about you, Pat? Have you done anything X-Men related this week? You know what, Matt, Abby? I have. ah Since our last recording, is tonight, in fact, I have made a great sacrifice, just like many X-Men.
00:18:47
Speaker
Okay. We are recording during the ah Philadelphia Eagles Monday night football game oh sports against the Green Bay Packers. Okay.
00:18:57
Speaker
And instead of watching that with sound on, I am watching it silently in a little corner window on my monitor here. So. Wow. Big, big, big sacrifice. I want everyone to know. What do you miss out on with the sound off?
00:19:17
Speaker
The sound? Like grunts? Well, I mean, like, yeah. Is it the crack of the bat? No, it keeps, it keeps your attention. That's what keeps you tuned into the game, you know? But why would you need that if.
00:19:30
Speaker
Because I'm here talking to you.
00:19:34
Speaker
Huh. Well, now Los Angeles, Los Doyers just won the the World Series. And yeah I guess i I'm not really clear on why they're still doing sports. I thought we figured out that Los Angeles was the best and all others, you know, like you're not real cities. i Okay, you guys are just trying to Like Philadelphia is like a little a little town full of baby men who can't play baseball.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, is that true, Pat? Yeah, and I don't think anyone would question my characterization of Philadelphia like that. Is this true, Pat? This year, yes, that is true. Oh, no. but yes Okay, well, i I learned something today then, because I didn't know any of this.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, i always used to think that everyone in Philadelphia was very dignified and cool, but sad now that I know that... You know, even from a Philadelphia, now that I know it actually is full of little baby men who should should never be allowed in a sports field. No. that Yeah, yeah. None of these Philadelphia Phillies are from here, first of all. And they all live in the suburbs anyway, with a yeah except for a select few. With all the cops, yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. i Abby, how about you? Have you done anything X-Men related this week? Well, I'm an insulin dependent type one diabetic and the government is trying to kill me. So I would say in many ways, just getting out of bed is X-Men related.
00:21:11
Speaker
I think that in some cases in comic books, which are separate from reality. But in comic books, I think there are a lot of situations where, like, for example, when Lex Luthor was the president of the United States, I think that in comic books, in fiction, it is often you'll find that assassinating politicians is a ah very heroic act, like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. suppose it's the opposite of an X-Men activity. That's more of ah an evil mutant activity.
00:21:46
Speaker
ah but i Yeah, but tangentially. ah You know, i am Abby, I think probably we could say that a lot of the X-Men, even though a lot of the X-Men don't try to assassinate senators, lot of them probably wake up in the morning thinking about it.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they probably... I bet in the issue we didn't read where they saved the senator from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, one of them I bet says, i don't see why we should do this, pal, but I'm gonna save you anyway.
00:22:13
Speaker
and um... I guess that's probably where where I sit. You know, I don't really like thinking of people being hurt. This is actually a great segue because as we know, there are also some brothers of evil mutants. How would you define? how do you what What is one unit of Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Oh, okay. There are brothers of in of Evil Mutants.
00:22:45
Speaker
Brothers of Evil Mutanthood. There is one brother of Evil Mutant named Mystique, and there's another Brotherhood of Evil Mutant named Rogue.
00:22:57
Speaker
Is what we're... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say there's one... brother of evil mutant hood at least that we know will become an X-Man. So even if right now you're behaving like a member of the brotherhood of evil mutants, ah which you could yeah it could very well be X-Men. i don't It's almost like good and evil are defined by power.
00:23:23
Speaker
I still, i don't I don't think she is. i think many heroes could wake up thinking, i want to assassinate a senator. And what makes them heroes is that they consistently do not.
00:23:40
Speaker
it's they're in In comic books, death solves a lot of problems. I i think that Jodie Foster would be very attracted to any superhero who assassinated an evil supervillain politician.
00:23:59
Speaker
such as ah
00:24:06
Speaker
So why do you bring this up? i Because today, I think it's a good time to learn about one brother of evil mutant hood or sister of evil mutant hood who eventually goes on to join the X-Men. I don't think that's too heavy of a spoiler, right?
00:24:28
Speaker
I don't know who you're talking about. It's Rogue. Rouge the Bat. It's Rouge the Bat from Sonic the Hedgehog. Yes. Making her first appearance in the X-Men comics. No, we got Rogue here today. who All right.
00:24:43
Speaker
Which one of us wants to read to the other two? Avengers annual number 10. I can kick us off here, Matt. Please, please. hey If everybody's ready. This is an annual, so it's ah it's giant size for sure.
00:24:59
Speaker
ah Let's talk about Avengers annual number 10 by Friends Betrayed.
Avengers Annual #10 Discussion
00:25:08
Speaker
Chris Claremont, writer and co-editor. Chris Claremont gets a co-editor credit on this, which I think means he just had final say, right?
00:25:16
Speaker
good for him yeah i mean yeah okay michael golden penciler armando gill anchor joe rosen letterer m golden colorist david anthony craft co-editor and jumpy shoopy editor in chief release date august 1981 cover date october
00:25:38
Speaker
We open on a night scene as a woman falls from the Golden Gate Bridge. Luckily, the dark angel spider woman is there to catch her just before her body hits the water. Which, as we all know, if you are falling, if you're falling so far and so hard that an impact with the water would kill you...
00:25:58
Speaker
Somebody yanking you up from that. Swooping underneath you and yanking you upwards probably is going to be helpful.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah. This would happen to Gwen Stacy. Yeah, exactly. Hours later, Spider Woman is drinking coffee on the wall of the emergency room when her pal, Lieutenant Sabrina Morell, comes in to say she's identified the following woman as Major Carol Danvers. Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker
Retired Air Force and missing for six months. And former magazine editor. Apparently also a former ah a magazine editor. there's a There's a very weird scene here, by the way, where s Sabrina Morrell walks into the emergency room and there's a little girl walking out of the emergency room. Yeah, yeah what's up with that?
00:26:52
Speaker
This little girl identifies herself as Maddie Pryor. Which she says, I've been sick, but I'm better now. Yeah.
00:27:04
Speaker
X-Men fans may know the name Mad Maddie Pryor or Madeline Pryor. This little girl has absolutely zero connection to her.
00:27:15
Speaker
Oh, Wikipedia has informed me that Maddie Pryor was also the name of the lead singer of Steel Eye Span. That is is presumably why Chris liked the name both times. Yes, used the name two separate times.
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. what But why did he do it? Why is this here? Why is there a little girl like getting a full... They had to pay her for that whole day because she had a speaking line.
00:27:43
Speaker
So this is all very strange because the doctors read nearly no higher brain function in the woman Carol Danvers at all, as if her mind had never developed.
00:27:56
Speaker
Spider-Woman knows just who to call to get to the bottom of this. Professor x Xavier of the X-Men. i I do know that guy. Who is he? What's his deal? don't know that I would call him.
00:28:09
Speaker
He's just this he's this old pervert who hangs out with a bunch of kids and bosses them around a lot. there's Oh my gosh. We gotta do something about this for you. Yeah, it's not a healthy relationship. He's a menace. hero No, he's hero. No, he's actually a hero for doing this.
00:28:26
Speaker
Who knew? ah In Westchester, New York, the X-Men are still repairing the danger room with some difficulty when the call comes in. this is We actually get a lot of fill in here for when the danger room got fixed because we never got to see that happen.
00:28:44
Speaker
it's true It's so funny, though, now that we've gotten to the end of the danger room has been destroyed arc, and now we're like jumping back a little bit. that they spent fucking months of the comic fixing this thing and constantly talking about fixing it and how destroyed it was. And then the, like, two like two issues after they finally fix it, the entire mansion gets destroyed.
00:29:12
Speaker
Professor X rushes to San Francisco only to find that Carol's mind has been actively erased. Despite calling it a tabula rasa, he nevertheless says her personality and critical memories should be intact yeah and also finds a surface memory of who caused this whole thing.
00:29:29
Speaker
A woman named Rogue. It seems like for a person whose mind he says has been completely erased and is a blank slate, he's finding a lot of shit in there.
00:29:41
Speaker
Cut to Rogue beating the living hell out of Captain America. Dressed in a kind of green hooded tracksuit with an evil grin and closely cropped brown hair with streaks of white at the temples, Rogue stands over the fallen Captain and monologues about her powers a bit.
00:29:57
Speaker
Apparently, when she touches someone skin to skin, she absorbs both their powers and memories... Though if she holds on too long, the transfer can become permanent. This is what happened with her and Ms. Marvel, whose powers and memories she used to find and beat the hell out of Cap.
00:30:13
Speaker
Nearby in the Avengers Mansion, Vision, Jocasta, Beast, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Man are being served tea cakes by Jarvis, waiting for their weekly meeting to begin when Captain America flies through the window. I have a question, Pat.
00:30:28
Speaker
Why did you say Wonder Man that way? Because Wonder Man died in like the the first five issues of the Avengers. Huh. How is he here? How's he here, Matt?
00:30:40
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not following the Avengers. Over in Long Island at Stark Industries, Tony Stark is busy making armor or whatever when the Avengers call comes in asking Iron Man to bring Dr. Donald Blake to the mansion.
00:30:54
Speaker
As he's about to walk out the door, he runs into Janet Pym, aka the Wasp. As he tells her what's happened, she pulls a gizmo out of her back and places it on his back, incapacitating his Iron Man armor.
00:31:06
Speaker
Her shape changes into that of Mystique, leader of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who calls her new protege Rogue to tell her what happened. Does I want to sit back just one one one second, because there is a moment where they're all like waiting for this meeting to begin. And they're having high tea. They're they're having high tea. And Jarvis is like, oh, who would like a tea? Who would like cake? And everybody's like, oh, I would like cake. Oh, no tea for me. Thanks. And Vision's like, I am a synthesized robot. I do not need to eat your food or cake.
00:31:44
Speaker
Does he fucking do this every time anybody eats around him? Like, he's got plenty of human friends. Is it really like you're like, do not invite him out to eat. He was spending the whole time bragging about how he doesn't have to eat. He'll come. He'll show up each for some reason. And he'll sit there and he'll he'll say it to the waiter and then he'll say it to you when they bring the food. He's so rude to the waiter about it.
00:32:14
Speaker
I like to imagine he just knows that Jarvis has been struggling to lose weight and this is just his way of of punishing the meatbags around him for being smug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it Outside Avengers Mansion, three people arrive at once. First, Jessica Drew, a.k.a. Spider Woman in a taxi cab.
00:32:34
Speaker
Rogue, on foot, rushing past Drew into the courtyard. And Thor, who drops from the sky, taps his hammer to the ground, and becomes Dr. Donald Blake just before being knocked to the ground by Rogue's super strong fist.
00:32:49
Speaker
Spider-Woman immediately dives for the girl and distracts her long enough for the mighty Thor to reappear, but only for like a second because Rogue zaps his power too. Spider-Woman venom blasts her, but to no avail as the rest of the Avengers are alerted to the fight. Rogue, now possessing the powers of Thor, Captain America, and Ms. Marvel, they stack on top of each other, yeah beats everyone's asses quick and flies off.
00:33:15
Speaker
I love this from the logic of ah of a child's playground fight. Like superpower tag. If you lose the game of tag, then she's like, well, now I've also got Spider-Man girl powers. My dear friend Morgan is obsessed with Spider-Woman because i think a little after so the first Spider-Verse came out, she was in a park.
00:33:40
Speaker
And she had these little kids playing and they both wanted to be Spider-Man. And this little boy was like, you can't be Spider-Man. You're a girl. And she's like, I'm Spider-Man girl. Oh, that is so good. and every time I think of Spider-Woman, I think of Spider-Man girl. and Spider-Man girl so I love Spider-Man girl so much. That girl is going to grow up to be President of the United States. That child's name, Jim Shooter. I don't know who that is. Pittsburgh Jim Shooter.
00:34:18
Speaker
I've never heard of this guy. He's done some stuff. He did blow up Pittsburgh in one of his comics. and For him, honestly. what what Anyone who escapes from Pittsburgh, that's basically our dream.
00:34:33
Speaker
Ooh, menace pod at gmail.com. If you're from Pittsburgh, let us know. shots through We're just happy we got out. If you're still in Pittsburgh and like I'm rooting for you.
00:34:46
Speaker
Our new thing, Abby, now that we're in the mid thirties of episodes is to try to pick fights between people. why I've been playing the odds by ah also clarifying that I think everyone in Philadelphia is a little baby man. Just so that the entire state of Pennsylvania will unite to kill me.
00:35:05
Speaker
Which I didn't know, and now I know, and I'm actually really glad to have known that now. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah. It explains lot about my behavior. All the men in Pittsburgh are are very, very strong and smart and have great beards, whereas in Philadelphia, they can't really grow beards. Yeah.
00:35:24
Speaker
It's just sort of a thing. They're not not manly enough. interesting Interesting. Yeah, i didn't know. Later that evening, Spider-Woman briefs the remaining Avengers on the situation. Carol Danvers, missing for six months, had reappeared three months ago in San Francisco, laying low until last night.
00:35:44
Speaker
The Avengers are shocked because they believe that Carol had found some kind of happily ever after. See, six months ago, Carol Danvers, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, suddenly got super pregnant overnight.
00:35:56
Speaker
Within days, she gave birth to a son, and within hours, that son became a man named Marcus. Marcus was the son of Immortus and grew up in Limbo. Wanting to escape, he teleported Ms. Marvel to Limbo, manipulated her into falling in love with him, impregnated her, and then released her to Earth.
00:36:14
Speaker
His ties to Limbo caused all kinds of chaos on Earth, so he had to return, but Carol willingly, in quote-unquote, offered to return to limbo with him because they were in love the avengers were all 100 cool with this they just wished her well this is as fucked up as you guys listener think it is we will get to it we promise yeah yeah it's you're right you are right you think this is yeah you nailed it yes
00:36:47
Speaker
The Avengers track Rogue's new Kree energy signature to Rikers Island, where all the rest of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants have been since their attack on Senator Kelly. Right in the middle of New York. Mystique and Rogue drop Iron Man, still trapped in his inner armor, on the prison, destroying the energy grid.
00:37:08
Speaker
Blob, Pyro, Destiny, and Avalanche all escape, meeting up with the other two members in the wrecked prison courtyard just in time for the Avengers to assemble there or whatever. While the two groups do a big superhero fight, Spider Woman slips away to rescue Iron Man and Mystique slips away in disguise.
00:37:25
Speaker
While Jessica frees Iron Man, he warns her about Mystique's Nick Fury disguise, giving them the upper hand. Mystique runs while Iron Man beats the hell out of Rogue. So Iron Man's suit, like he can just survive fall out of a helicopter in that suit just mechanically without any of the electrical systems working?
00:37:47
Speaker
and I guess he's got some real good bubble foam. It's a rye. It's iron. Nothing can break iron. trade And if you can't break it, the things inside it can't get hurt either.
00:38:03
Speaker
i Did anyone and read the yeah the the Marvel What If issue where um Iron Man is dropped out of the helicopter the same day as he'd been saying to Jarvis earlier? um Oh, Phooey, who needs springs?
00:38:17
Speaker
I could survive a fallout of a helicopter without springs. And then a magical spring-shaped elf shows up and and takes away all the springs and is like, Tony, you need springs. They use the brakes in your car and they'll protect you from falling out of a helicopter in your Iron Man suit.
00:38:34
Speaker
No springs. I haven't seen this, but with the voice you're using, i'm picturing the Great Gazoo. it's It's basically the Great Gazoo, yeah. And I have a lot of material about Mr. B Natural, too, while we're at it.
00:38:50
Speaker
We'll leave you a segment at the end for that. I think she would be a great Avenger. the The tide is turned against the Brotherhood and rogues Thor and Captain America powers are wearing off. So her and Mystique take off in some cool jet down in the prison. The flight. It's a cool jet. We're like, we want a jet. That's one better than the Quinn jet.
00:39:13
Speaker
Let's take off in the sex jet.
00:39:19
Speaker
Down in the prison, the fight with the failed es escapees comes to a close with three knocked unconscious and a massive blorf of water and sand to trap the blob. A few weeks later, at the X-Mansion, the X-Men, Jessica Drew, and Carol Danvers are all chilling poolside as the Avengers Quinjet drifts into view.
00:39:38
Speaker
At Carol's request, they all leave her to her confrontation alone. The Avengers deplane and smile as they're reunited with her friend Carol, now back in possession of her personality and large chunks of her memory.
00:39:51
Speaker
The reunion is not as happy as the Avengers wished, though, as Carol pulls back and really lets them have it. She tells them what they should have known all along, that they abandoned her to her own rapist, that Marcus manipulated and used her, that she didn't truly leave Earth of her own free will.
00:40:07
Speaker
She fills them in that in their time in limbo, Marcus's plan backfired, causing him to continue rapidly aging until he fell to dust freeing Carol from his mind control. She had to find her own way back to Earth from that cosmic hellscape. When the Avengers ask why she didn't come to them upon her return, she tells them it's because she hated them. They betrayed her.
00:40:31
Speaker
Professor X and Jessica Drew watch from afar and mourn for Carol, sensing her grief, her anger, her shame, her pain. But they allow her to have this confrontational... I don't know why I'm doing this voice. I'm sorry.
00:40:44
Speaker
They allow her to have this confrontation alone. Carol goes on to tell them that, as she was going through the most difficult, destabilizing moment of her life, the Avengers thought only of themselves, making jokes and picking out baby clothes. No one stopped to think what she must be going through.
00:40:59
Speaker
She misplaced her trust in the Avengers and they failed her completely. She asked them to leave her be for now and that maybe in time she'll be alright. The Avengers fly home, despirited, but Vision and Scarlet Witch vow to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday.
00:41:14
Speaker
I really like the ah the dialogue Scarlet Witch has at the last page where she's like, I guess I never thought that I'd be capable of failing a friend like that. Yeah. And I guess i yeah i at least I've been there. I i i hope that's a a universal experience. It doesn't just mean that I'm the worst friend ever.
00:41:33
Speaker
no i i no No, no, I think that's one of the things that's important about the end of this comic is that Chris Claremont didn't He didn't have them all just sort of collapse into self-pity.
00:41:45
Speaker
They were just like, man, we yeah we fucked up. And I didn't i didn't know i was this type of person. And now I do. And now I know I have to be better. Yeah. the The demand that Carol makes is like the damage is done here. I'm saying if you see it again, do something about it.
00:42:05
Speaker
All right. So there's obviously a lot to unpack here, but I do want to. talk about something real quick because this comic was not received well in its time. Like not really not the one we just read was but the comic that they are referring to which is Avengers number 200. Okay.
00:42:24
Speaker
okay So Miss Marvel is was a comic book about, you know, a female Captain Marvel. And it was exactly like you think, like, exactly like women in comic books were in the 1970s, right? Just a bunch of men trying to cash in on this idea of like, well, maybe women will buy these things. So...
00:42:47
Speaker
It was just... Let's give her lady powers. Exactly. Like, they called her Ms. Marvel. They named her after another character and just put Ms. in front of it. Yes. And you could tell because she she looked just like Marvel, but she had lipstick and a little pink bow like Pac-Man. Is that right? But I think the ghosts had different names.
00:43:08
Speaker
so Nintendo rejected my pitch for Ms. Mario. I don't know why. Ms. Sonic the Hedgehog. So Chris Claremont takes over that comic at at some point very shortly before its cancellation. He takes over Miss Marvel and he starts making her into like a fully rounded, fully realized character. He starts trying to add to her and make her have a personality. Right. And then the it gets almost immediately canceled.
00:43:46
Speaker
So then in 1980 in Avengers 200, David Michelini is writing and comes up with this comes up with this idea. And Carol Danvers is supposed to have a baby and then fight Marcus for what he's done to her and defeat him and then become a single mother.
00:44:11
Speaker
That was... The plan. Still kind of fucked, but that was the plan. Then a little guy named Jim Shooter gets involved.
00:44:23
Speaker
Who? Pittsburgh's favorite son, Jim Shooter. And he says, this is a little bit too much like a What If comic that we recently did.
00:44:34
Speaker
but that What if the Avengers fought the Kree Skrull War without Rick Jones? And... It was, yeah I don't know. Was it a serious what if, not a funny one?
00:44:45
Speaker
i I don't know. but it was Those are the worst. But it was, I think so, and it was stupid, right? So Jim Shooter was like, no, I don't want you to do that. and basically rewrites this comic.
00:44:59
Speaker
And this is his way of trying to, he's like, ah, Ms. Marvel didn't work. This is our way to send her off into the sunset. Ugh. And so he writes this story.
00:45:11
Speaker
Then shortly afterwards in a comic fanzine at the time called ah Lock, L-O-C. I don't actually know what it stands for, to be honest. Lovers of comics? Lovers of comics, maybe? Maybe. Maybe it's short for Lock spelled L-O-C-K.
00:45:33
Speaker
Ha ha ha! So a woman named Carol A. Strickland writes an essay called The Rape of Miss Marvel. and she writes really eloquently about how fucking horrible this issue was. Yeah. um First of all, how women have been treated in comics up to this point, how refreshing it was to see Chris Claremont's take on her, how...
00:46:05
Speaker
Annoying it was that that got immediately canceled. And then. How no one. No one seems to understand.
00:46:18
Speaker
That what happened to Miss Marvel in that that comic Avengers 200 was in fact a rape. Yeah. And then they made her fall in love with her rapist.
00:46:31
Speaker
And run off into the sunset. She says, ah the story ends with Miss Marvel and Marcus teleporting to semi limbo. Iron Man begins to have second thoughts. We've just got to believe that everything worked out for the best. He temporizes.
00:46:44
Speaker
He isn't convinced, but he won't make a scene. Mr. Macho Hawkeye turned sloppy John Wayne sentimental. That's all we can do. He says, believe and hope that Miss Marvel lives happily ever after. It is a fitting end to this male fantasy. A desirable woman slash mother figure is raped and then chooses to be the lover of her rapist son.
00:47:03
Speaker
Raping is manly. Women love to be raped. Perversion is wonderful for kids and other people of taste to read. The story would be almost laughable if it weren't written in such earnest.
00:47:17
Speaker
And then Chris Claremont, while writing the X-Men, is equally horrified. So a year later, writes this Avengers Annual 10 to try and like, and I think this is probably why is the co-editor credit here, right? Yeah, yeah.
00:47:36
Speaker
um Because Jim Shooter is still the editor in chief. and he's trying to fix some of the damage that has been done to a character he cared about.
00:47:48
Speaker
So that's that's where this comes from. Goodness. the The way that it's written reads so much like ah sort of what I think of as very special episode comics where they really get to grip grips with the hot button social issue. But it doesn't... I don't know. it it It feels a lot better than a lot of those usually strike me. And I'm realizing I think the the reason that a lot of very similar plot lines felt so samey to me in the last like 20 years of of pop culture is probably less...
00:48:22
Speaker
because they were written any differently and more just because we've been so inundated with the same discourse and everyone's sort of trying to, this is how it really is. And you're just like, I, how would, I mean, obviously we get, you know, like, right, right, right. I just want to play Digimon. Um,
00:48:41
Speaker
so we can think here that there's a more complex story to tell, but I, I wonder you know, are superhero comics the best place to address that story? yeah Oh, that's, yeah, there's another question there for sure.
00:48:59
Speaker
And I wonder if, like, like, this isn't, Pat, you you mentioned this being sort of a simplified version, and I think that's true, but this might, that this might actually sort of be the best way that one could address, like, the obviously, the original story, the story in Avengers 200 shouldn't have happened, right? Yeah.
00:49:22
Speaker
but it did. And you're still within the medium of superhero comics. So how do you then, how do you address it without being um subject to the same simplifications that caused the problem in the first place?
00:49:39
Speaker
Right. The, the Avengers could have just moved on. Like the story of the Avengers could have just moved on pretending it didn't happen, but that would be exactly what the characters, the Avengers did to,
00:49:51
Speaker
to cause a problem. Yeah, I guess I'm in the in the in the fortunate position of not really caring about ah comic books. I think the comic books are for children and therefore nothing that happens in them matters to me.
00:50:07
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know if if ah The Avengers is the is the is the comic for that. But then on the other hand, you know, like like the comic book with a big green man that punches things really hard I think there is a case to be made that that you should be tackling sophisticated themes.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah. In that just because because it's so stupid. Like it yeah you're not just right like talking about, you know, here's John who works at the store and he's dealing with alcoholism.
00:50:39
Speaker
becomes very bleak. Whereas like when there is the element of the power fantasy in it, then, you know, whether you're dealing with it or it's just exposing you to the idea that someone might be dealing with it, you, you have the element of, Oh, but I, I could fly. So it wouldn't be that bad. I don't know. is I don't know if that would be, be easier. Cause I guess if whenever I've read anything that really hit close to home in Cape comics,
00:51:03
Speaker
you know, it it hasn't left me feeling empowered. It's just left me feeling like, oh, so I don't have superpowers and I'm dealing with this crap, you know? But I think i think that's, like, I don't think that's normal. Like, i I think a lot of other people find comfort in seeing whatever superhero, I don't know. but what What has been your experiences?
00:51:24
Speaker
I see myself as a superhero. when When you see, like, a Philadelphian, you know, who's dealing with, like, oh, wet my pants again because I'm a stupid baby man. My girlfriend doesn't respect me because I'm a little baby man.
00:51:39
Speaker
You know, like superhero who can still fly. i mean, not very well because people up from Philadelphia have something wrong with them. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know why I'm compelled to say this. I'm so sorry. this is You're lovely. Everyone in Philadelphia is cool.
00:51:56
Speaker
I don't think we have many Philadelphian listeners. You really don't have to apologize to them. That's fair. One of the the later issues we're we're going to look at, ah Kitty Pryde is sort of struggling with adolescence because she doesn't have any like adult women who can give her advice. She's like afraid of Ororo, I guess, making fun of her a little. And there's a cool motorcycle outside of my apartment, you might have heard.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yes. And that sort of meant a lot to me, sort of you know remembering being an adolescent and sort of not having a lot of female role models who could... give me advice, but because there's sort of this fantastical element of like, oh, she's friends with superheroes. Like it it's not like she never looks at the camera and says like, and I'm dealing with having a single dad who can't give me advice.
00:52:44
Speaker
Right. yeah Who wants to get to a fun one? Okay. Yeah. no i I think there's some interesting things being handled here, but again, I think like it's, and I love that Chris Clannermont stole the narrative back from fucking Jim Shooter yeah but I'm glad it ended here so not because that is the most cathartic or intelligent way for it to wrap up just because fucking I don't want those guys writing about it anymore I just like I don't trust them with it does that make sense for sure for sure do you think Jim Shooter because he was still editor-in-chief like what is what did that meeting look like do you think
00:53:30
Speaker
I wonder. I think it would have gone a little something like. Could I could I just introduce before um we move on?
X-Men Universe Whimsy and ROM Spaceknight
00:53:43
Speaker
I'm sure you've talked about this before, but I only found out today that Mystique um was Sherlock Holmes in her backstory. Have have you two discussed this at all?
00:53:57
Speaker
What? No. um According to Wikipedia, it was revealed last year that the the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes was historically just mystique living among Victorian London as ah as a white man.
00:54:12
Speaker
And Irene Adler Destiny was, of course, the actual Irene Adler from the stories. And I just from the for the rest of this, while we're talking about Mystique's adventures with Rom Space Knight, if we could refer to her as Sherlock Holmes, I'd be very grateful.
00:54:27
Speaker
Sherlock Holmes Destiny and Rogue. Sherlock Holmes and her daughter Rogue fighting Rom Space Knight. That's so fun. There are some fucking writers, right? Who all they see, they, they can't a to see it, right? Like they can't, they can, they see a thing and they can't think beyond the most basic a to B connection. And I think honestly, we'll talk about it. It's referenced a couple of times in the comics that we're,
00:54:58
Speaker
reading today but i think that's where the mystique and nightcrawler are related thing comes from it's just both blue right oh yeah yeah that's so when rom is saying like he looks very similar to nightcrawler Like that was when they introduced that. That's so dumb.
00:55:17
Speaker
I love it. And it's i so I think honestly, so like fucking Chris Claremont names destiny, Irene Adler as a nod to Sherlock Holmes. And then some fucking so bad writer 50 years later is like,
00:55:33
Speaker
What if it is Sherlock Holmes? I'm so mad at this. I'm so mad. This inability to think beyond step one.
00:55:45
Speaker
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, a.k.a. Mystique. And Rom Space Knight. And Rom Space Knight. Speaking of writers who can't A to C like Bill Mantle. Yeah.
00:56:00
Speaker
Abby, do you want to read ROM 31 or do you want me to? So ah the next issue we're going to cover is ROM Space Knight number 31. ROM, I believe, was based on a toy line that they lost the rights to. And now ROM can only appear out of his suit in flashbacks and things.
00:56:20
Speaker
ah Now there's a man. Oh. i didn't Apparently he has to appear in flashbacks like like half out of his suit, someone was telling me. I think it was my girlfriend. who lean Now, okay, so it's a it's a man who sort of grew up in a land that was sort of scarred by wraiths. These horrible dark wraiths that, you know, these inhuman creatures that stalked the land and would would just kill anyone who looked at them wrong and and sort of warped the people of this land into like
00:56:53
Speaker
you know barely recognizable as living beings at all. um ah Pat, what's it been like living in Philadelphia? Oh my god.
00:57:08
Speaker
I want somebody to tally how many times this joke comes up in this episode.
00:57:16
Speaker
I'm loving it every time. Thank you. Thank you very much. yeah are do you want to Our story starts. Sorry, I'm so sorry for interrupting you. You were very polite in trying to keep me on track, but unfortunately, my desire to clown on Philadelphia for no real reason. Everyone I know from there is wonderful. Pat's one of my favorite humans.
00:57:40
Speaker
Oh, one of your favorite little babies. Yeah, one of my favorite little baby men toddling around in his little his power wheels car.
00:57:52
Speaker
fucking but Hey, we have to record a podcast. Right. So Clareton, West Virginia. Toddling. Toddling off the subject.
00:58:03
Speaker
ah
00:58:07
Speaker
Bill Mantlo wrote the story of this issue of Rom Space Knight. Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott did the art. ah R. Parker did letters. B. Bean did colors. Milgram and Nocenti were the and editors and Jim Shooter was the editor in chief.
00:58:21
Speaker
I got to say, by the way, the lettering and the in in this era of comics didn't impress me. Yeah, really with yeah it's it it's everything's out of order. Sorry, go on. They do a thing that drives me nuts, which is they don't bold words for emphasis. They just bold words that seem i it seems at random. At random. Yeah.
00:58:46
Speaker
Maybe they're trying to cover up mistakes, but there are letterers that bold for emphasis. And I think that's the most effective thing you can do as an editor is help people read the sentence in a voice.
00:58:58
Speaker
And they're not doing that here. Drives me nuts. Yeah. is They're kind of unstuck in time. the The panels, like sometimes the panels will be like read left to right, even though there'll be one beneath it. And it'll be like, like short panel, short panel on the left and then one tall panel.
00:59:19
Speaker
And you're meant to read it in like a Z shape. Yeah. yeah Nonsense. If ever there's an arrow telling you which panel to move to, give up you've done it wrong. Quit. yeah yeah Go home.
00:59:32
Speaker
Write a novel. And then point at at the end of every yeah the the end of every paragraph of the novel. Points to which paragraph it wants you to read next. I like this. I believe that's House of Leaves shtick. Yeah.
00:59:49
Speaker
ah This issue came out March 9th, 1982, but the cover date was June 1982. Clarendon, West Virginia. Torpedo, a sex pervert charged with protecting this town in the absence of Rom the Space Knight, sees a wraith materializing out of a snow drift through the visor of the pup helmet that Rom Space Knight gave him.
01:00:11
Speaker
And this freak wraith is materializing around the old Mark's farm. He looks kind of like a like a like if a jellyfish had lips you could kiss. Yes. And Torpedo is easily knocked aside by the grotesque creature.
01:00:25
Speaker
Torpedo uses what is called full jet power to throw a pitchfork at the monster, but it stops midair. The monster even mentions that he just used that pitchfork to kill a man.
01:00:37
Speaker
And I think that means the pitchfork recognizes him as its master. ands to obey torpedo who i assume has sort of uh gambit powers you know i i bet he he charges his the things he throws with power i could google it but i refuse to it looks like he has fans on his like hands and feet As if like, oh, I throw this thing and the fan propels it forward. This is the worst character I've seen in a long time. love him. I'm just pulling his shoulder out of socket every time. want to know all the lore about Torpedo.
01:01:17
Speaker
I'm making that up. Like, I don't know if that's it, but that's the way it looks to me. Like, man, this this character is, yeah, one of the worst looking characters in all comic books. He makes me think of there's like a human bullet guy in the comic book themed video game Freedom Force. Like, ah oh, yes.
01:01:37
Speaker
I like that we normally do like a little bit of research about these characters. I think with Torpedo, we really we just should not. We just shouldn't. He says he's not he hasn't earned it. Just speculate. I imagine Torpedo is the only superhero um on the Marvel Comics fandom wiki that has like a list of fetishes and limits. LAUGHTER
01:02:06
Speaker
No butt stuff, all right?
01:02:10
Speaker
You look at this guy. His limit is so far beyond no butt stuff. For the purposes of this podcast, I am pretending that I can't think of anything else.
01:02:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:02:25
Speaker
The creature announces himself as hybrid. Well, see, so so scientific words, ah you know, things march on and you'll hear a ah complicated word more often. And so like, you know, DNA, which used to be very rare, like now we hear and you're like, you don't even know what that means. Shut up, dude. Like, what's a clone? Everyone knows what a clone is. Clones aren't interesting anymore. Hybrids aren't interesting anymore. So it can help to sort of go back 43 years and sort of get into a more scientifically primitive mindset. So I was wondering, ah Pat, you're from Philadelphia. What do you think?
01:03:00
Speaker
We don't have hybrids here. I'll say the word hybrid in the way that we're describing it was first used in 1601. Really? So I know. Yeah.
01:03:12
Speaker
it was first ah in print in sixteen ah one so ah ah i don't i don't know um I might talk about this on a lot of podcasts. It's one of my favorite stupid trivia word things. But um the word homosexual from early sex theorists in like the 1800s, a lot of them were like, this is ah a horrible hybrid word between Greek and Latin.
01:03:37
Speaker
Like they thought the word homosexual was disgusting because it combined Greek and Latin. And I just think that's a wonderful objective to have. It makes me so happy that that's... the main concern and i do like to imagine that there are people today who are still like yeah what if that's how dare you that's that's what drives like clarence thomas is he's like disgusting You know, it's a better world. dr It's a better world.
01:04:07
Speaker
Somewhere else in West Virginia, a prison chain gang clears snow from the road so that a high security transport can enter the prison. This transport contains the blob, avalanche, destiny and pyro. And my favorite thing about this is that they're in little little magic rings that are are freezing their powers.
01:04:25
Speaker
But we we hear destiny's internal monologue and her powers are still working. Which means that Iron Man has built a thing that can freeze powers, but didn't bother to use it on Destiny because it's her powers are stupid and useless.
01:04:41
Speaker
Yeah. What's she gonna do? says. can spend that money on Jack Daniels. I can't believe that...
01:04:52
Speaker
Even this early on in superhero comics, they were still transporting all the supervillains together in one caravan. Still fully in costume, too. Yeah, so still in costume and just like, I'm sure nothing's all happened here. Pyro still got his fire shooting thing. son Yeah, yeah, yeah. His powers are useless if he can't make fire. And they're like, ah let him have his his ah flamethrower. It'll make him happy. is is the idea that like if someone went in to try to take it off, they'd get frozen too. So like there's no way to remove it.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, I i fucking i yeah have no idea. d Their last few prison breaks, their last several prison breaks have been in the middle of dense populations. So they're hoping that a rural prison will make their next breakout a bit safer. I believe Avalanche is mentioned to have recently fought ah the Hulk in in another issue who broke his arms.
01:05:59
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. Send him right back to jail. see Suddenly one of the prison crew slips on the snow right into the path of the the big truck, ah which can fly, by the way. But but they feel that putting the million pound truck on ice is much safer.
01:06:16
Speaker
Also, it has like they're like fire shooting jets beneath it. So you'd think they'd be able to turn those on just to melt the ice. Right. Or would that damage, like if it's that close, it would damage the mechanisms. i don't know.
01:06:29
Speaker
I don't know why this didn't occur to me. Well, you've never had your car stuck in the ice. That's all I think. I wish I had jets on my car. Why did they but drive it at all?
01:06:41
Speaker
we fine Well, they they say visibility is too low. Like in the blizzard. Oh, okay. They've solved the problem of like turning off mutant abilities with magic rings, but not um radar.
01:06:55
Speaker
it They could have just asked destiny if they were going to hit anything. Yeah. That's why they left her power on. They're like siphoning her visions out of her, the back of her neck.
01:07:08
Speaker
All seems lost for this poor guy locked in the snow until Rom Space Knight comes streaking down from the sky and brings the truck to a halt, saving the prisoners lives. Unsure of what's going on, the transport driver assumes they're under attack and does take flight and makes it to the prison fine. So all of our all of our justifications were for nothing.
01:07:30
Speaker
ah The prison guards panic and start shooting at Rom, only to run away screaming when their bullets only bounce off of him. Rom asks the prisoners why they're chained, and a man named Japes tells them they're slaves, forced into labor by the warden.
01:07:44
Speaker
And Rom buys this without hesitation and breaks their chains, wishing them luck, my friends, as he takes off to follow the transport. I kind of got the im impression... I haven't read much Rom.
01:07:57
Speaker
But in the last two issues of Rom that we read, i kind of got the impression he was just like a kind of a normal guy with normal brains. Yeah, and maybe smart. Like, how did this work on him? He doesn't know what prisoners are?
01:08:14
Speaker
i I'm so torn, because one interpretation I'm enjoying a lot is the idea of him as just dumb as a brick. yeah He's just like, hey... You stop that.
01:08:25
Speaker
gotta fight wraiths. But he he did have like a relationship with a woman. And and so i i I kind of like it better if it's just he he could believe it about West Virginia.
01:08:37
Speaker
is he comes from... Those guys. Yeah. That's so fucking funny. they So he comes... I mean, he comes from a war planet that never had prisons.
01:08:53
Speaker
Like, is that what we're meant to believe here? Like, his war planet didn't have ah such a thing as a prisoner. I think he mentions later that he he does know the idea. he just He just believed this guy. And I i guess his name is Japes, so maybe that's the name of a... That sounds like a con man kind of a name. So maybe the idea is just that this specific guy sounds very convincing.
01:09:14
Speaker
He's very charismatic, Japes. my goodness. Well, good good on you, Japes. Look, i'm I'm in support of Japes' prison break. I don't know what J was convicted of. So maybe I shouldn't throw my whole weight behind J. But ah ah yeah, yeah. I think if they let you go free, then it's fine.
01:09:35
Speaker
You know, there's no no. my I think prison should operate in a policy of no take backsies. ah ah If you get out, well, that that one was on us.
01:09:49
Speaker
I'd like to imagine the guy looks at Rom and he's like, this is a this is a primitive region of America where people are allowed to keep humans as their slaves in like a system of of um you know might make right and you know warlords control us.
01:10:05
Speaker
The warden in this case is the most powerful warlord of the region and he's enslaved us to to his bidding. And Rom's like, well, you are very close to Philadelphia, so I can believe it. i'm i'm I'm not sorry.
01:10:18
Speaker
I'm a little sorry. That one took too long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know that people from Philadelphia don't have a long attention span. now That's true.
01:10:30
Speaker
ah that one is that That one is fully true. Yeah. As the evil mutants are loaded into the prison behind special energy fields, an alarm sounds at the front gate.
01:10:42
Speaker
But it's not another evil mutant. It's Rom, ready to free the slaves. Yay. And the evil mutants are being escorted to the cells by the the warden, ah Dr. Kellogg, that looks a lot like Rogue in a professional suit. And by the way, I'm so used to Rogue as like the young, you know, almost the kiddie pride type.
01:11:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know how much you know, making her look evil and how much is like 80s hairstyles. But she looks like 50 at least in all of her appearances we've been reading. And I love it. Like it. She looks like she should be telling Bob Newhart that he has another patient in on the Bob Newhart show. What a very specific reference.
01:11:25
Speaker
I just recently learned that that lady went on to play Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons. No way. Oh, yeah. And, uh, and the warden has a special device that's keeping the prisoners powers from working. And he gives his device to, uh,
01:11:39
Speaker
To Rogue, and it turns out she's Rogue! And she sets the Brotherhood free and reveals that the Warden is also on her side and is in fact Sherlock Holmes in disguise. Another clever disguise, Holmes! Says Lestrade.
01:11:52
Speaker
And they take out the guards and run to the exit. And at one point the blob is like, I should go free all the other slaves. I mean, prisoners. I mean, oh, whatever am I. And Rogue says, like, no, they're they're humans. We hate humans. We're evil mutants.
01:12:07
Speaker
We can't free criminals. I like that Blob is so good-natured. He's just like, yeah, just might as well free everyone. He's just out to have a good time. He really ah just likes, like, bullying people. That's what gives him pleasure. So I can sympathize with him just being wrapped up with people that are a little too motivated to do to do actual evil, where he just wants to, like...
01:12:36
Speaker
He just wants to like break stuff and bounce into people and make fun of people like that's all he wants to do. And like. Is that evil or is that just kind of an asshole?
01:12:49
Speaker
It's his way of making friends. He just wants to be a bad boy. He's just yeah he's just like, I'm a big bad boy. We've all been there.
01:13:01
Speaker
Justice for Blob. Justice for Blob. Amen. Amen. Rom initially mistakes the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for more slaves and wants to help. But then they introduce themselves as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. And, you know, you always knew that that was going to bite him in the butt.
01:13:18
Speaker
Aha! It finally got him. hey Hey! Have either of you watched the sitcom Barney Miller?
01:13:31
Speaker
No, know what you're talking about. I forget. that It was a 70s sitcom about a cop. And there's a there's a Polish police officer. And he's he's a little he's very well written. Like he's a he's a the character over the course of what is it? Eight seasons.
01:13:45
Speaker
I stand by Wojciechowicz as being a great character. but And he just like he did just does this really deep dumb guy voice. And it's incredible. And I i just i I'm reading all of Rom's dialogue like, hey, they said they're evil.
01:14:00
Speaker
What's going on here? you know at this point, it's kind of just like, is he is he stupid? I hope so. Is that his problem? Has he? Oh, yeah.
01:14:11
Speaker
He did not seem this stupid in that. Like, we haven't been reading Rom, right? But we the the last time he crossed over with the X-Men, he seemed like a normal guy. okay Well, that's the power of a con man.
01:14:24
Speaker
He, uh...
01:14:27
Speaker
I've actually been pitching a spinoff about the adventures of Japes, the greatest con man in the world. And, uh, shooter hasn't been answering my emails. I don't know why not. Could, could be any number of reasons. Jim. couldy and answer my emails in a while If Japes had come into contact with even one X-Man for a moment, he would be on the loser league list.
01:14:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah Abby, we have a collection of overconfident criminals who have tried to fight the X-Men and embarrassed themselves.
01:14:59
Speaker
That rules. ah You know, that's another thing where the um like the the mutant power homosexual parallel really takes off because like loser criminals are always coming up to to homosexuals and and um just just getting humiliated.
01:15:16
Speaker
You know, in my neighborhood all the time, you just see a lot of like a con man will come out and he'll be like, Hey, do you want to buy a watch? And then, uh, I have no punchline here. I don't, I thought I'd find some kind of a funny thing to say if I went down this road, but I think I've put all of my wit into making fun of Philadelphia for this episode. And it's gone. That's all you can pull That's my, uh, my, my racial enmity has, has been activated as a, as a Pittsburgh native.
01:15:48
Speaker
and So the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all have a big fight. And Avalanche is trying to join the fight, even though his arms are broken and they're in like. Yeah, I guess they have to be casts, but it looks more like like they're just in giant rocks.
01:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird. Rock casts, I think. That's so dumb. So that he can destroy them at any time. yeah He's like if Whitebeard from One Piece was level one.
01:16:16
Speaker
That's a really stupid thing to say. I'm going to see again. It's not a Philadelphia joke. Yeah. Well, he has earthquake powers. We both have an X-Men podcast and we don't get that joke.
01:16:27
Speaker
Well, I think you'd like One Piece. It's pretty good. It's no... I mean, it's no para shoppers, but it's pretty good. I think pro wrestling and anime are the two things that you would really assume at least one of us is into. And we just aren't.
01:16:44
Speaker
Honestly, goals. I want to be less into anime and and pro wrestling and and just like the X-Men. But unfortunately, I'm too busy getting laid. Okay.
01:16:58
Speaker
So I was showering with my girlfriend earlier. I'm sorry. Let's get back to the story. Yes. So they have a big fight and Avalanche. So Avalanche is like, I want to fight the guys. And Mystique is like, your arms are are broken, you moron. And Avalanche is like, I want to fight the guys. And then he tries to move the earth.
01:17:17
Speaker
But his arms are broken. And so he doesn't do it right and Blob and Pyro just like go flying into each other. yeah And they say the shockwaves go through Avalanche's arms and he passes out from pain. Oh, and i I'd forgotten in the earlier fight, Beast from the X-Men is there. And he like jumps over Pyro. no he jumps over the Blob and kicks Pyro in the face. And Destiny was like...
01:17:44
Speaker
I'm fine with you doing that thing that I couldn't stop you from doing anyway, because a building is about to fall on your head. It's called chess, idiot. And it's like the closest to making a a person with future sight, like do anything in a fight, I guess. It's like, it's just, I knew you would do this.
01:18:05
Speaker
absolutely I did absolutely nothing to to make it happen but I knew it would happen therefore my power has come in handy hey really bad ah so half of the guys are done and then um Rogue takes off with her parents Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler ah Sherlock Holmes flies away with her daughter Rogue and they say sounds like we should rename ourselves to the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants sure do i like that they're not fussed about being evil but they they do care a lot about their gender i same it reads its as a joke at the time but then they just continue to call themselves the sisterhood of evil mutants right right right the narrator takes it up yeah
01:18:54
Speaker
And Rom is like, sorry, I set all those murderers free, man. I'll go make up for it. And the warden's like, I guess that's the only way that we can be square is if you re-arrest those guys.
01:19:08
Speaker
And he doesn't deputize them or anything. They just superhero rules, you know? There's not enough panels for that. And so Rogue, Mystique, and Destiny stop at ah an abandoned farmhouse that we saw in the cold open.
01:19:21
Speaker
And Destiny says, oh, there's horror and death in there. And Rogue is like, well, if the lady who can see the future sees horror and death, I mean, it's got to be fun.
01:19:31
Speaker
And she goes inside. um But then it's hybrid is standing there and she's like, is this jellyfish going to make out with me? Because Rogue's gotten really into kissing strange men.
01:19:42
Speaker
um in her sort of buildings, Roman. This is the era of Rogue where she. it Like, all she could do was kiss.
01:19:53
Speaker
She could, they they they were like... That was me, 14 to 16. Her power was you could touch anybody and they, and you you take their powers. But every writer was like, yeah, but what if she kisses him every time? Wouldn't that be kind of cool?
01:20:11
Speaker
i i hope every time she kisses someone, there's like a little editor caption at the bottom communicating her age.
01:20:23
Speaker
Abby, you will not enjoy reading X-Men if you're trying to calculate everybody's age. ah So all seems lost, right?
01:20:36
Speaker
Criminals are wandering the streets going free. Women are being menaced by an inhuman monster. um There's like ah like a horrible jellyfish creature stalking the streets.
01:20:50
Speaker
Its name is the Philadelphia Fanatic.
01:20:56
Speaker
All right, ROM number 32, Choosing Sides. A Mantlo Buscema Sinek Parker Sean Nocenti production.
01:21:09
Speaker
Release date April 6th, 1982. Cover date July 1982. The sisterhood of evil mutants. Woke bullshit.
01:21:23
Speaker
Stands face to face with Hybrid. While Destiny can only see death in the future. Fighting him proves useless. But when Hybrid starts invading Mystique's mind, she formulates a plan.
01:21:35
Speaker
She sees his memories as we get a recap from Rom 17 and 18, including the end where he's defeated by Rom and the X-Men. And since they share common enemies, Mystique proposes an alliance.
01:21:47
Speaker
Meanwhile, Rom returns to Clareton, West Virginia to tell all of his friends that he fucked up and freed a bunch of murderers, only to find them gathered around an incapacitated torpedo.
01:21:59
Speaker
Torpedo, the pervert, explains that after getting his ass handed to him, which he loved, hybrid also entered his mind, which he loved and ravaged his soul, which ah he didn't actually love that one. Yeah, that that was the unpleasant. We found his limit. he's more of a pervert.
01:22:16
Speaker
No ravaging my soul. Hard limit. The only limit I have is ravaging my soul.
ROM's Battle with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
01:22:27
Speaker
Some weird drama ensues involving a guy named Steve and a guy named Matt Kilburn, Hack Reporter, and then Rom runs off to find the criminals he freed. Matt Kilburn, Hack Reporter is here.
01:22:40
Speaker
Pat, who's Matt Kilburn, Hack Reporter? ah He's a character created exclusively for Rom Space Knight. This is his final appearance in comics.
01:22:56
Speaker
ah Poor Mac Kilborden, Hack Reporter. We hardly... we like literallyter we hardly knew he like We hardly knew you. He gets two frames where he just says, remember me? I love the idea of ah of a team up with Japes where Japes is just always fooling him and he reports it as a breaking scoop. i yells it up Back at Mark's old farmhouse, Hybrid and the Sisterhood start planning their next steps to take over the world as the convicts that Rom freed last issue approach.
01:23:28
Speaker
They love murder and especially murdering broads. So this seems like a prime opportunity until hybrid uses his powers to levitate. All of them read their minds and then spins them in place. So rapidly the flesh is ripped from their bones. the Skeletons remain.
01:23:50
Speaker
This was, that sounds like he killed them by spinning them around. They they warn you about this in ballet class. Death by twirling. That's why you gotta do spotting.
01:24:05
Speaker
So Mystique reminds Hybrid that these Homo sapiens could have served Homo superior when they rule the earth. Hybrid snaps at this and reminds everyone that everyone will serve him when their work is done.
01:24:20
Speaker
No time for that now, though. We've got to go kill Rom. Shit. Oh, boy. Rom flies through the West Virginia skies using his scanner to find signs of evil life.
01:24:33
Speaker
My evil life scare. He finds Mystique beaten and in distress, claiming that she- But enough about Philadelphia. Sorry, had to- No. Took me a moment. I was like, ah, there's something. There it is.
01:24:46
Speaker
He finds Mystique beaten and in distress, claiming she was beaten by Hybrid. He's too smart for it this time, though. He calls Mystique a liar, just as he's zapped in the back by Rogue. he's he still falls into the trap. He's just, instead of believing her, he wastes time saying, Aha!
01:25:10
Speaker
Knowing he's part human... Rogue tries to kiss Rom and absorb his power, but Rom has suppressed his humanity in order to tamp down his emotional pain, so all she absorbs is some of the goodness in him. Wow. It's a very weird moment. They're like...
01:25:28
Speaker
It's like they both fall in love. Oh, yeah. He's like, curse you for being so hot that I'm feeling emotions that I must never feel. how dare you make me feel these feelings? Because I can't be human and fuck you. I guess I've met a lot of evangelical guys who are like that.
01:25:47
Speaker
yeah It's very i it's very Bill Mantlo. It's very like. you're either human and you fuck or you're inhuman and you don't fuck.
01:26:00
Speaker
And you're so upset because you can't fuck. Yeah. Yeah. um And just the thought of fucking makes you like incapacitated with emotion. I love the idea of Bill Mantlo just meeting an asexual person and being like, what?
01:26:15
Speaker
Whoa. My God, there's so many. There are so many types of people. Bill Mantlo would ah does not understand.
01:26:28
Speaker
are you a cyborg? No, I just wear crutches. There's a bit earlier on in the Avengers we read where a Beast is talking to the Dark Angel. Spider-Water is like, hey, my darling Dark Angel, how's it going?
01:26:46
Speaker
And i I guess that's now the voice I'm going to picture chris Claremont in. Like, Bill Mantlo meets anything that's different and he's like, whoa, this is terrifying. Chris Claremont's just like, hey, yeah, I've been with one of you guys. but Wrote one of it into my stories I did.
01:27:04
Speaker
so you're setting up a universe where Chris Claremont absolutely fucks and Bill Mantlo... Has barely ever seen human beings before. I'm saying Chris Claremont has had sex in ways that we in 2025 still haven't conceived of. That's the only stereotype I know about Chris Claremont. I haven't read a lot of his work, but that's how I choose to interpret him. Having done no research. He's all horned up Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:33
Speaker
Well, there's lot of people, you know, who have sex in in sort of strange and unusual ways, ah you know, maybe because they, you know, no one taught them sex education properly. Maybe they were sort of raised, you know, in in the fields, you know, working for some kind of a warlord. And they had to sort of piece together their understanding of sex just from, you know, what other like toothless people.
01:27:56
Speaker
ah warriors have have taught them like well while stewing um lizards over ah over a a fire in like an oil can. yeah all right it's get You're getting there. It's coming around. It's coming. it's governed We can see it. We can see it cresting over the hill.
01:28:15
Speaker
ah because i could have gotten it out if you didn't do this. How's your wife, Pat?
01:28:24
Speaker
She's asleep.
01:28:27
Speaker
i i I tucked her in. I said goodnight. Oh, that's so sweet. She's comfortably in bed.
01:28:34
Speaker
Okay, this kiss between Rogue and Rom... This kiss, this kiss. Unspeakable....does buy enough time for Hybrid to catch Rom by surprise, though, and they start battling to the death. With Hybrid's psychic guard down, Destiny is finally able to see a clear future and sees Hybrid's true plans for them.
01:28:54
Speaker
Once Rom is out of the picture, he will enslave them all to breed them, creating a race of unstoppable superbeats. again, Bill Manlow, all he can see when he sees any female character is something for the villains to breed with. Yeah, pregnant.
01:29:11
Speaker
Rogue's reaction to this is also very, or all of them, I guess. The entire sisterhood isn't so much disgusted that he wants to imprison all female mutants for breeding. They're disgusted at the idea of having sex with him. They're like,
01:29:27
Speaker
this is a terrible plan that guy's gross not like a space penis and he is gross he looks like the independence day aliens yeah he looks yeah he looks like a bunch of creepy crawlers melted together yeah led by rogues persuasive pleas they agree to help rom instead Cut to Rom, who is being torn apart by Hybrid, just getting the absolute shit kicked out of him. Rogue flies in, though, and makes skin-to-skin contact with Hybrid.
01:29:59
Speaker
Remember, he's half-human? That's the hybrid part. And absorbs enough of his power to temporarily stop him. Rom hops back into action, telling Rogue he can take it from here, but Destiny knows he's doomed without their help.
01:30:16
Speaker
In order to manipulate Rom, Hybrid shape shifts into the human woman he has a crush on, and Rom seems to fall for it? Here he goes again. Mystique sees what's happening and enters in the form of the same lady.
01:30:33
Speaker
This oh allows Rom to focus, seeing how easy it is to create an illusion? Yeah, exactly.
01:30:44
Speaker
I don't have a better sense of it than that. He's like, there's two of you. You're probably both fake. Have a punch. um Rom gets the upper hand again, but discovers hybrid has a force field to protect against his neutral. light Where did he get this? It's weird. Cause like if i saw two identical copies of, you know, someone I loved most in the world, my thinking would be,
01:31:11
Speaker
Great. Let's go home. and be more It'd be more Claremontian than Mantloian. Yes, you know what? Yes, absolutely. Well put. It'd be like, hey, babes, I got a martini. yeah but Where Bill Mantlo would be like, there's two women in the world.
01:31:31
Speaker
Kill them both. Poor Bill Mantlo. I mean, literally poor Bill, but like, it's like what happened to Bill Mantlo in real life is a fucking a tragedy, but there is so little excuse for his writing back in the, back when he was healthy. It's rogue time again, as she removes a glove and touches hybrid, absorbing just enough of his power to remove his force field.
01:31:57
Speaker
And Rom blasts him into oblivion again. Hopefully it'll stick this time. Rom assumes the gals have learned their lesson and lets them walk free. Da-n. Hey. And Rogue and Rom think wistfully after each other.
01:32:16
Speaker
It's so strange it's for her to... I hope I see him again. Do you think they ever do meet again? i I think no. My guess is no.
Rogue's Character Arc and ROM's Popularity
01:32:28
Speaker
Rom is, like, peaking right now, right? This is... the it doesn't get more popular. there's a guy in the letters who says that the last issue of ROM is the greatest comic ever published. I think and it is. I would not say that nuts for this.
01:32:43
Speaker
Yeah. Huh? The way that rogue can make out with ROM and, and they enjoy it so much. And I guess she can do it without killing him. Makes me think that,
01:32:55
Speaker
Like, like, was there ever an arc where she's just like, I'm going to make out with a bunch of like aliens that are so incompatible that it's okay? Like, does she ever try to date Iron Man in the suit? Yeah.
01:33:06
Speaker
Or guys kind of made of metal, right? Yeah. Like, Rom is a toy. He is a toy that's human sized, right? Like that that's like. You are a sad, strange little man. And you have my pity. is Yes. He's Buzz Lightyear. She can just keep making. Like, why wouldn't this inspire her to be like, oh, I kind of like kissing action figures.
01:33:32
Speaker
All right. ah there is ah There's a very fun and confusing moment here because we don't follow Rom Space Knight at all, where he's back talking to his friends and somebody goes like, oh, Rom, does that mean you're not sticking around permanently?
01:33:49
Speaker
And this guy thinks to himself, good. Yeah.
01:33:55
Speaker
He's throwing a little baby tantrum. It's this guy named Steve. His name is Steve, yeah. Who seems clearly to be getting cucked by Rob. Right? He's clearly like, oh man, my... Hey, my dear Dark Angel, how's it going?
01:34:12
Speaker
My girlfriend loves this big toy and not me. Like, everyone talks about him like he's half human, but he is like just made of metal. and Right?
01:34:25
Speaker
Right? He's so there's there's a human in him. He's a former human who had to replace most of his body with metal.
01:34:36
Speaker
Oh, but there's still he's a cyborg, so he's not entirely robot. So there's like guts in there and stuff like you tear Rom open. He's it's going to be icky.
01:34:48
Speaker
I don't know. i don't know. Do they ever tear him open? Let me quick Google. What's inside ROM? oh What's inside Space Knight? How many licks does it take to get to the center of ROM Space Knight? Oh, okay. The original ROM Space Knight contained a simple circuit board, a speaker, LED lights, and a connector port powered by a single 9-volt battery. So that's now we know. Simple.
01:35:17
Speaker
This guy's running on nine volts. Pat, would you do me the absolute honor? my My sister actually died trying to make out with our ROM space.
01:35:35
Speaker
um Pat, would you do me the absolute honor? Yeah. Of reading me. A synopsis telling me, just basically telling me the story about Uncanny X-Men. Get the point, You're puffy faffing.
Uncanny X-Men Issue 158
01:35:50
Speaker
I'm not.
01:35:51
Speaker
You saying puffy faffing took longer than my puffy faffing. Read, tell me, tell me about Uncanny X-Men 158. Uncanny X-Men number 158, the life that late I led.
01:36:07
Speaker
Chris Claremont, we're back to Claremont titles. Yeah. Chris Claremont, writer, Dave Cockrum, and Bob Wyacek, artists, Joe Rosen, letterer, Glynis Ween, Louise Jones, editor, Jimbie Jimbie, editor-in-chief.
01:36:20
Speaker
Release date March 9th, 1982, cover date June 1982. In the X-Men's Bermuda Triangle base, Carol Danvers spars with the Starjammers while Peter Corbeau monitors her on some computer thing.
01:36:34
Speaker
He discovers that, remarkably, Carol's physiognomy Physiognomy? Am I saying that right? um Now I don't know. I think it's physiognomy.
01:36:45
Speaker
I think it's physiognomy. Physiognomy. I've only ever seen it written. Oh, yeah. Like they've invented writing in Philadelphia. He discovers that, remarkably, Carol's physiognomy is operating at peak levels, though she eventually finds herself dogpiled by the gang.
01:37:06
Speaker
k Corbeau concludes that while her powers may be gone, some of the other genetic modifications that came from her transformation into Ms. Marvel appear to be intact. While she still mourns the loss of her powers, she's actually still superior to a normal human.
01:37:22
Speaker
Also, Moira McTaggart is here. ah she is! There is a gingham pattern on everything in this room.
01:37:34
Speaker
The walls, all the computers, the boxes that are just stacked up on the wall. Oh, yeah. Why are they doing that? I, uh...
01:37:46
Speaker
i got ah Maybe it's just drawn straight lines to add textures to things very quickly. Yeah, it looks nice. I'm not complaining. It's just it's everywhere. I didn't notice. And now I got a now I'm flipping back.
01:38:00
Speaker
it It does ah add a lot of detail without you having to actually think of anything that exists. Yeah, yeah. i guess they do it with With buildings outdoors, like ah the guy has a box in the bin with Carol Danvers.
01:38:14
Speaker
Like he has a box with that sort of pattern on it. Maybe it's the visual equivalent of possum pfeffering or whatever is that term you use. Puffy faffing. Puffy faffing. Yeah, it's visual puffy faffing.
01:38:27
Speaker
We are absolutely wearing that term out, Pat. yeah We only invented it like five episodes ago, three episodes ago, and we've used it 700 times. Can I recommend you you mix in some hibberty gibberties?
01:38:40
Speaker
I like a hibberty gibberty myself. Hibberty gibberty. We'll find a place for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Meanwhile, Peter Rasputin recovers from his injuries while watching War of the Worlds with his little sister Ileana and Kitty Pride watches wrestling with her crush on the boy.
01:39:00
Speaker
She wonders if, along with powers, her mutanthood comes with enhanced emotions because her love for Peter is driving her fucking crazy. Abby, you were talking about this earlier, right? Which is...
01:39:12
Speaker
I think it's really clever of of them just not to say like, oh, also she's going through puberty. Yeah. yeah like that they It's like no one ever gave her the talk. Yeah.
01:39:24
Speaker
I guess it kind of feels like it's she's living under the restriction that within real life, like they can't just have her say like, oh, this is the first time I've thought about having sex.
01:39:35
Speaker
right like But that's clearly what she's struggling with, but because she can't verbalize it like that, it's making her even more confused. It's like living in ah in a comics code world has like had ah an even more disastrous effect on on her development.
01:39:51
Speaker
This raises, I think, a wild question, which is is, sex education in the itinerary Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters? Ooh.
01:40:04
Speaker
hey I hope not. I do not want Professor Xavier teaching any of these kids. Right. Currently the only professor. I feel like he calls in Beast and Beast is just like, hey, kids, so here's what you do. All right. It works like this. It's very simple. That's not a bad theory, actually.
01:40:21
Speaker
I think there's something interesting here, though, that like. She is being raised outside of A normal environment to such a degree, right? Where she's she's commenting here about how like how dramatic it is living with the X-Men.
01:40:40
Speaker
And how she almost wonders if being this is part of being a mutant. Is these incredible...
01:40:51
Speaker
Like everybody around her is is having these big reactions to everything all the time. Like everything around her is a soap opera. And is that just part of being a mutant is that your emotions are all crazy. And again, it is just like, like Abby saying, it's just sort of a metaphor for puberty, but it's also. It's also kind of true. It's also kind of, yeah, like a legitimate question because everybody around her is crazy all the time.
01:41:17
Speaker
So what were the circumstances where Colossus died? And I promise I'm going somewhere with this and this isn't just wasting time. Well, if you listen to our last episode, he almost died. And then it turned out he was okay.
01:41:34
Speaker
He was. So while in metal form, he was like splashed with acid, which was cosmic acid, which weakened the the metal on his chest.
01:41:46
Speaker
And then. He was stabbed with an energy javelin. And then he was stabbed through the chest, through the heart with an energy javelin. Can you just imagine talking about like how the X-Men's life is so dramatic? Can you imagine you're you know, you're already removed from your parents. You can't ask your parents about sex.
01:42:05
Speaker
And and you have this crush on an older coworker. And you know, you don't know what you're doing. and And you just for the first time in your life, you allow yourself to fantasize about the act of love, about making love to this person that you you care about deeply.
01:42:24
Speaker
And then the next day you watch him be burned alive in acid and killed by a space travel. Holy shit. Yeah.
01:42:36
Speaker
How messed up would you become? You know, I remember when my mom tried to explain the facts of life to me. and I feel like if I was Kitty Pryde and like Professor x Xavier sat me down to explain sex to me, I would probably use my incredible X-Men powers to phase through a wall and just leave forever. And then just go away somewhere. Oops. Yep. We never saw Kitty Pryde again.
01:43:05
Speaker
it Well, meanwhile, meanwhile, Oracle of the Imperial Guard stands over the unconscious x Xavier's bed. Remember, he i he brain died last episode. Yeah.
01:43:20
Speaker
but Trying to revive him from his psychic shock last episode. Oh, yeah.
01:43:27
Speaker
Have a little faith in our recapper, Patrick. As she touches his mind, she senses it's evil and alien and chaotic. x Xavier seems trapped in his own mind as something grows within him.
01:43:41
Speaker
He tries to take control of Oracle and use her powers to kill him, but Moira and Storm throw Wolverine between them, using his claws to sever the psychic link.
01:43:56
Speaker
If two people are thinking about each other really hard and then somebody puts knives in between those two people, they can't think about each other anymore. Try and think about somebody on the other side of a knife. You can't.
01:44:09
Speaker
it was It works. Oracle tells them that x Xavier is at war within himself and they worry that he may not come out of his coma when Kitty appears to tell them that the X-Men are on TV.
01:44:22
Speaker
Oh, cool. Neat. Thanks. You can even hear that theme song right now. did it and andda
01:44:32
Speaker
In the other room, they arrived to find an exclusive interview with Senator Robert Kelly about his experience with the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants some months ago. Kelly has concluded that the X-Men are no heroes and that mutants are a threat to the entire world.
01:44:48
Speaker
As he seems poised to try and take legislative action, Moira suddenly remembers x Xavier's ties to the government and realizes that there must be files on the X-Men in the Federal Data Bank.
01:44:59
Speaker
That damn ah FBI agent Fred Duncan. Fred Duncan or Amos Duncan, as he one time forgot his name. I knew you as soon as he introduced himself as Amos. I knew you couldn't trust him. if you can't even remember your own name then yeah you can't be trusted feel like if my name was amos i would go to great lengths to forget that but if your name was fred would you sometimes forget and think your name was amos
01:45:33
Speaker
ah Moira advises that they must be destroyed, that the files must be destroyed, to which Kitty suggests an alien computer virus.
Mutant Files and Government Threats
01:45:42
Speaker
If only she can get to the computer. what a nerd What a Why does that lady's head look like a Christmas tree?
01:45:51
Speaker
Lalandra? Yeah. Oh, because she's part bird. That's really bad. she's and She comes from an avian race, and those are feathers growing out of her head. I think she should condition.
01:46:04
Speaker
i think conditioner would save her. I'm very sorry. There is there's a nice little moment in this scene where Kurt, ah Kurt Rupert, Kurt Rupert, he yells at the television. Is it just like me? Yeah.
01:46:20
Speaker
and Lacey yelling at the news. Yeah. Next, a brief interlude as Cyclops lands in Rio Diablo at the post-grad fuck shack of Alex Summers and Lorna Dane.
01:46:31
Speaker
And surprise, he brought their long-lost father, Corsair. They've just been studying and fucking out in the desert for and I swear it's been multiple deserts, right? Like, I don't think they were always in Rio Diablo, Texas. I thought they were in Arizona at one point. They were in Utah at one point. Yeah, they've just been bouncing around different deserts fucking and studying. you did well it's The X-Men always show up and then their shack gets blown up. i Damn it. you got to Pick up and go somewhere else. How many deserts do we have to get ourselves lost in for you X-Men to stop finding us? Also, Cyclops just shows up uninvited with his long lost father.
01:47:18
Speaker
is oh hey. What up? Thank you for having me. By the way, I also brought our father who we've thought dead for the last 20 years.
01:47:31
Speaker
Oh, hey, Lorna. All right, we cut to the Pentagon where Carol Danvers and Logan arrive in their old military uniforms with Aurora Monroe in tow.
01:47:44
Speaker
Hey. after a After a brief hiccup with the metal detectors, they pass into the halls and Carol just happens to bump into Rogue at the drinking fountain. Rogue?
01:47:55
Speaker
Yes, Rogue. She's stricken with terror and Carol with rage as Rogue tries to flee. Wolverine tackles her, but gets thrown into the ceiling and then gets his powers drained through Rogue's patented power stealing kiss.
01:48:11
Speaker
Kissing everybody. She really like, he's bare places on his skin. yeah She chooses to kiss him. Yes. I'm glad that they get rid of that aspect of like, it seemed in this era like the only thing Rogue could do to steal your powers was kiss you.
01:48:32
Speaker
and yeah yeah I'm very glad that they they stopped doing that somewhere in the 1980s. I just think there should have been a whole running plot about how this confuses Kitty and gives her like feelings she can't deal with and doesn't know. who ah oh that ah storyline might happen with some other characters actually Kitty. Oh boy.
01:48:57
Speaker
Can't wait. Carol takes an MP's gun and tries to shoot her, but the bullets just bounce off. Love a superhero with a gun. So Storm sends her skittering, sends rogue skittering down the corridor with a gust of wind and a sheet of ice.
01:49:14
Speaker
Storm whoops up a fog, allowing the two X-Men to escape, but Carol blends into the crowd. Or would, if not for Raven Darkholm, a.k.a. Mystique, who is in disguise in the crowd as well. A.k.a. Sherlock Holmes.
01:49:27
Speaker
A.k.a. Sherlock Holmes. While Storm struggles to find a place to allow Wolverine a rest, Rogue uses Logan's enhanced senses to find them and bursts through a wall on the attack.
01:49:39
Speaker
Before she can issue the coup de gras coup de grace, though, Nightcrawler pops in and Judo throws her across the corridor. Wolverine socks her through a wall and Storm pursues, but Rogue grabs her wrist and steals her weather powers.
01:49:54
Speaker
Unable to control them, though, things get kind of nuts. Storm wraps up Rogue in her cape and the X-Men pile on her. The cape is wrapping her up in her cape. It's such a good move. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:50:05
Speaker
Rogue still breaks free, but Storm whips up a massive tornado to carry Rogue off into the horizon. Bye. Storm gives me real Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit vibes in this issue.
01:50:19
Speaker
Like they're just piling around with a God. and Yeah. Like, Oh, why, did why don't we get Wolverine in to use his knives to, why why don't I just summon a horde of angels to it's, it's a, it's a, a sketch to to be clear, but that's the vibe I'm getting here is she's, she's,
01:50:39
Speaker
radically overqualified for the position. And I, you know, I've been in places where like, that's my ideal. I just want, you know, I i wave a finger, fixed the problem and then I can just get back to, to watching my stories on my phone.
01:50:55
Speaker
That's also like a Final Fantasy thing, right? Where you have like a bunch of guys with swords and sticks and ah and ah and guns. And then one dude who has a so ah power where he can summon like eight gods in a row. And you're like, why did I do any of the rest of this fight? Why didn't I just do this? all So is is your idea that Professor X keeps Storm around just to be like...
01:51:20
Speaker
You look, I'm power leveling the rest of the X-Men. Could you stick around just in case? no ah Meanwhile, that's our final meanwhile for this episode. wo Carol has been attempting to complete the mission pursued by Mystique.
01:51:39
Speaker
Mystique uses the same Nick Fury ploy she did on Spider Woman, allowing her to get close enough to shoot Carol in the head. Because this is Claremont, though, it just grazes her skull. Don't worry. Yeah, fucking Claremont loves this. Oh, somebody got shot in the head. nope they're fine.
01:51:57
Speaker
He's pointing a gun at her from shoulder level. They are three feet apart. it just creased her skull, Pat. That's what bullets do to heads.
01:52:09
Speaker
Carol plays dead long enough to aim a good kick at Mystique and knock her off balance. Mystique tries to morph into Storm to throw Carol off, but Carol is too good and choke holds her into unconsciousness.
01:52:20
Speaker
While Mystique is taken off by military police with a white face. Huh. They forgot to color. I think they just forgot to color, but I'm sure we could come up with some theories. While Mystique is taken off by military police, Carol makes her way to the federal computer banks and loads Kitty's virus, deleting all references to the X-Men. To cap things off, she pulls up her own files, both Major Carol Danvers and the Avengers Ms. Marvel. Not recognizing herself in either picture, she decides to forge a new path and deletes them both.
01:52:54
Speaker
The end. Yay. Next issue, Dracula. It's so funny that it says that at the bottom. It's this really like, it's this really like heartfelt moment about a person kind of like coming to terms with the way that they've changed and the person they are now versus the person they need to be. after having recovered from trauma right like she was a different human being before her trauma than she is now post trauma and and is finally like smiling with the picture of her old self behind her she's learned like i'm going i'm i'm accepting myself and who i am now next dracula
01:53:42
Speaker
wow but don't forget me bla I feel like that that's a good a good way to get over a trauma is to have a new unrelated crisis that you can deal with such as having your identity expunged from your mind by being kissed by a a southern woman or Dracula for example and then you know you can overcome this thing and then you're like emotionally, your heart is like, I can get better. i can get through this. I've i've done worse.
01:54:15
Speaker
I've been through worse. I've been through worse, and now I can now i can fight the Dracula. You know, i I feel like that kind of, like, I've gone through times in my life where You know, just like my my career, terrible things have happened. And then like I've just come out with like a deranged sense of invincibility, which is probably not not the healthy way to come out. Like, I feel like trauma is better.
01:54:40
Speaker
I should have been more traumatized because, i you know, I just sort of I'm smiling through life now and I'm like, I'm invincible. No one can hurt me. yeah But things can hurt me. I should still look both ways when I cross the street. I don't.
01:54:54
Speaker
Next, Dracula. Next, Dracula. See, I'll be fine. What's the worst he can do? One fun observation from this issue for me.
01:55:10
Speaker
Wolverine uses the verb form of buffalo. Oh, yeah. That page is great because Wolverine in military uniform looks like the hottest butch lesbian I've ever seen.
01:55:25
Speaker
All right. What do we think, folks? we We did a little time traveling here. We met Rogue. we You know what's wild to me? What's wild to me is how much Rogue's appearances thematically tie together, right? You have, like, her first appearance is dealing with the Carol Danvers...
01:55:51
Speaker
situation right and then ah i guess her third appearance is Carol Danvers dealing with her the Carol Danvers situation right like like this felt like four issues in a row kind of do do you know what i mean yeah yeah if it was a very cohesive story for Rogue I like Rogue, but I feel like the stuff that I have liked about Rogue in like the cartoons and what I vaguely remember from the the Solid Snake movies, like they they don't seem to have noticed those yet.
01:56:27
Speaker
Like here she's just kind of a vamp who looks to be about 50 years old, which is yeah is like, I don't know, the idea of ah of a 50 year old Southern woman like forcibly kissing me and making me weak at the knees, like...
01:56:42
Speaker
terrifying. I mean, yeah, you can see what Claremont sees in her, but but the you know the the conflict about, oh, i can't I can't be with people. Like, you know, it doesn't exist yet.
01:56:53
Speaker
I feel like the Brotherhood of Evil... When you're evil, you don't get the luxury of the the internal conflict because... Yeah, you've already committed to being evil. Yeah.
01:57:05
Speaker
The story doesn't exist for them. Yeah, there's... like It's amazing what Rogue became because there's very little interesting about her in these issues.
01:57:16
Speaker
You know? Like, i found her interesting because like i like seeing her because i know her personally she's she came to my ah no um oh she nice no no no no no full of totally full of herself totally full of herself she just assumes everyone wants to kiss her all the time she fought me with the combined strength of all my friends from my party
01:57:52
Speaker
And these first few appearances, it's just like there's so little to her. There's very little. Yeah, there's very little internal conflict and there's very little like the fact that Claremont looked at this character.
01:58:08
Speaker
I guess he who he created. Yeah. But there's plenty of other characters he's created and thrown away. The fact that he looked at this character and was like, I see something really interesting and significant in her is, I think, a testament to his creativity. Because I i think this seems just like an also-ran villain.
01:58:31
Speaker
Well, it also seems like Bill Mantlo is the one that planted that seed, right? That there's a goodness in humanity within her. And he was just trying to communicate that Rom was horny.
01:58:45
Speaker
Yes, it's also fair. But like, this is whether we like it or not, our first look at her making the righteous decision. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Claremont did have the foresight to say that the stealing of Carol's powers for good was an accident, right?
01:59:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's true. Oh, yeah, yeah. cause they don't really bring in that like she's taking their personalities inside of her. That's not really there yet, is it? I guess it kind of is with Rom.
01:59:18
Speaker
Oh, and yeah. She's talking about like, oh, I get their experience in there. And she does start calling people bub when she's fighting. That's right. Oh, yeah. In the in the in the military base. And she's got, you know, so, ah yeah. So I don't know. It it seems almost like so.
01:59:35
Speaker
Hmm. That's an interesting thing, because if Claremont already knew that she takes their personalities and he already knew that it was a mistake that she held on too long. Then maybe he did intend.
01:59:50
Speaker
For her to develop into a hero, right? do Do you think there's another timeline where instead Chris Claremont decided Blob should should join the X-Men?
02:00:04
Speaker
And he's just like, hey, bud. like We should free all the prisoners. And Professor X is like, no, the the prison industrial complex is something I'm heavily invested in. It's keeping the school alive, Blob. And Blob's like, that's wrong.
02:00:21
Speaker
In this era, Professor X does own some prisons and it's seen as a good thing. What? That makes me so mad. i am actually really mad now. Well, he does. It may just be the one prison. for island which pats he yeah Pat's being a little tongue in cheek here. it's there's There's a place that he sometimes keeps.
02:00:44
Speaker
it so it was Sometimes bad mutants he'll like. It is a prison, right? But it's not... The writers didn't intend it to be a prison, right? Like, it's like he keeps mutants here to rehabilitate them or save them from some, like... Or run experiments on them. He's also got a prison in his basement. Okay.
02:01:05
Speaker
This was not... this is This is Pat's interpretation, though, not the writer's intention. So that all I'm saying is put the... angry Like, I think there's reason to be angry, but put it in context.
02:01:21
Speaker
I don't need to do that the I didn't know he went through a period where he was dating alien bird women. Good for him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. One other thing I found interesting about all this.
02:01:34
Speaker
I always knew. i think it's like fairly common knowledge that Rogue started out as a villain. She was part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and eventually turns good. hmm.
02:01:47
Speaker
What I didn't realize was that her first appearance, her first mission with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was actually against the Avengers. She was taking out Captain America when we first met her. Yeah.
02:01:59
Speaker
Yeah. Also, here's the other thing that clicked for me.
02:02:04
Speaker
What a good name for this character. I never thought about why she was called rogue. That was, i knew that name before I knew the word, right? Just associating it with the character.
02:02:18
Speaker
i But it makes total sense for her power set. Yeah. um I'm not making the connection. i I think she should be named Joker. I'm not making the connection. Because she can do a little bit of everything.
02:02:36
Speaker
Oh, like ah like a the D&D class rogue. Like the D&D rogue, yeah. Where they are sort of a jack of all trades. I see what you're saying. Okay, all right. I was... i guess so su There was an ad for D&D in the first issue she appears in.
02:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. yeah We hit that on a Pat Steals and Deals in a recent episode, I think. I was thinking of that what's fitting about her being called rogue more like...
02:03:05
Speaker
that she goes rogue from being a villain to become a hero. Oh, but we don't know that yet.
02:03:17
Speaker
She's a bit of a rogue. All right. Anyway, ah does anyone have any final thoughts before i ask Pat whether he has this deals and deals this episode?
02:03:28
Speaker
No, I've said nothing. i I've bugged you enough. right, then I'm not even going to ask him. I'm just
02:03:45
Speaker
That's right, folks. It's time for Pat's Steals and Deals. Today's pretty simple. It says... Ain't she sweet? And then it has an absurd picture I'll describe in a moment. And then it says Spider Woman on sale by monthly at 50 cents. The copy.
02:04:04
Speaker
Oh. Spider Woman. Okay. The comic. Yeah. So this is an advertisement. You can go out and buy Spider Woman, the comic. The reason I picked it out is because of the pose that we see Spider Woman in here where somehow we're,
02:04:21
Speaker
her butt and her breasts are both facing us. That was like an epidemic in the 2000s, I remember. yes Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Is this the first time they did it?
02:04:33
Speaker
I'm sure it's not, but this is definitely an early, ah or this is an especially egregious one because this is not physically possible and they're not doing a good job of covering that fact up. It is clear. yeah She's punching a man in the face.
02:04:52
Speaker
But also showing us both of her breasts while she does it. Yeah.
02:04:58
Speaker
She's leaving herself open, honestly.
02:05:04
Speaker
And you can see you can see her butt and both hips. Oh, yeah. Like like like her, the her back leg. is like twisted underneath her like like it's broken.
02:05:18
Speaker
Spatially, it doesn't make sense. And if you want a little extra punch on this, this was immediately after Carol Danvers gives her a speech about how the Avengers let her down.
02:05:32
Speaker
Really, really in poor taste. But here is your deal, Matt. We know that that in 1981, the dollar was worth about $3.50 right now. So if we do that math. $1.75. This comes out to $1.75, Matt.
02:05:57
Speaker
You know how much I pay for a comic book these days? Like 525. At least $5. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. $1.75 for a. ah For well, but they were selling them to you bi-monthly, so they're still getting 350 out of you.
02:06:20
Speaker
I think bi-monthly means every other month. Oh, so that's bi-weekly. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So they're getting a quarter a quarter of the profit. But even – I'm just saying like measured out for inflation today, this doesn't make any sense.
02:06:37
Speaker
I'm of the opinion that everything in the world should cost $5, including comic books. and That's fair. I think if – I could get a comic book or a whole pizza for $5. Yeah.
02:06:51
Speaker
I would say. or like a bulldozer. These are equal value of entertainment. Yeah. Or like a jet plane. Yeah, or like a gumball. Yeah.
02:07:03
Speaker
Yeah. Or like a new lung... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gumball or a new lung. Yeah, that's when the benefits really kick in. Oh, man, I only got the one $5 bill. Do I get a new lung or a gumball?
02:07:17
Speaker
I really thought you were a about to suggest that this was all coming out of a gumball machine. like you and Everything comes out $5 cash fund.
02:07:30
Speaker
Oh, I hope I get the lung, because I'm really about to be dead here. I got the dud. Oh, I got the gum.
02:07:41
Speaker
no well. Core for cancer. ah Well, that's Pat Steeles and Deals. He's got an eye out, that you could buy out.
02:07:52
Speaker
If you had time machine that you'd like to try out, it's Pat Steeles and Deals.
02:08:01
Speaker
Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening. Hey, Abby Denton. Yeah. Thank you for being here. was my pleasure. Thank you for putting up with my silly nonsense.
02:08:14
Speaker
And thank you for putting up with our silly nonsense. You are scholars and gentle people. Thank you. Where? What?
02:08:25
Speaker
What? what what What would you like to plug? Where can people go to find you and all your stuff? Well, I've actually finally gotten around to designing a whole landing page for anyone who wants to see my stuff at abbydenton.com.
02:08:43
Speaker
And that can point you all of my socials, all of my, all of my, the places you can buy my books and, and, and little, you can play my little Christmas video game coming up. It's going to be Christmas time. And I i might even,
02:08:57
Speaker
I fixed a couple bugs from the little Christmas game I put out last year. It's called the The Blade of Cutie Pants, A Very Cutie Christmas. It's like a demo for a longer game that I may never finish.
02:09:09
Speaker
Thank you. I'm very proud of the game. I hope that you enjoy. if you ever would like someone to help design a website, my rates are... Chiba's free because I want to make a portfolio of this kind of thing.
02:09:21
Speaker
Oh. there i mean I mean, you too. I mean, if you're just a random person listening to this podcast, I will probably ask for some money. but But Pat, you good people.
02:09:36
Speaker
And i I feel guilty for having spent all day making fun of a city I have no beef with. So, you know. Now that you own my business. yeah wow Well, I'm saying I'm going to work for free out of out of guilt. It's more that I'm trying to buy your forgiveness.
02:09:54
Speaker
All right. Yeah, I'm open to that. that's ah Yeah, clemency. It's usury. I think this is is usury.
02:10:03
Speaker
we may speak Thank you for... Abbeyden.com. I was going to say... i Okay, big thank you to – wait, no, sorry. i If you are on the internet, please follow us on Instagram. Join our Discord. There will be comments or there willll be a link in the comments to the show. i Rate us, review us, like us. Check us out on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. Email us.
02:10:33
Speaker
To be on Pat's email corner. Pat. but It's not Pat's email corner. It's. Mutant menace pod at gmail.com. Wow. Email. Yeah. Email Pat directly. He's trying to cut me out of the thing.
02:10:49
Speaker
Pat's email corner at gmail.com. Don't just don't. No. You don't know where that email address. Yeah. No. says because It's a mutant menace pod gmail.com. And.
02:11:00
Speaker
ah thank you to Krils Wilson for our theme music. Thank you to Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby. Gosh, is there just about anything else we need to tell these people?
02:11:14
Speaker
I think we should just close it out with the line we say at the end of every episode. It's morphin' time. Nope, not that one.
02:11:25
Speaker
So just like we say at the end of every episode, you just hit the jackpot, bean brain. That's right, folks. Always remember, my energy analyzer reveals that despite your mutant abilities, you share a common humanity with the other inhabitants of this planet. Jesus Christ.
02:11:50
Speaker
Blorf. Blorf.