Transcript
Speaker: I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Speaker: Hey everybody, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And say it with us, Daniel. Welcome to Mutant Menace.
Speaker: Matt. Pat. Welcome, just like Pete said, welcome to Mutant Menace. Thank thank you Thank you. I've been waiting outside for a very long time and I've come in and I've got a lot of new ideas for you. First of all, I'm not sure.
Speaker: Yeah. Before you go over all that, I've already set out a plan for us today. Damn it. Okay. All right. Sure. Today. When do give notes? When's that part of the plan?
Speaker: Off air. Fuck. Today, Matt, I think we should talk about, it's been a little while, the new mutants. You know there's a reason I haven't been talking about the new mutants. You know what they said to me last time.
Speaker: Well, it's time to forgive them in your heart and on your podcast, because today we're covering ah pretty interesting arc of the new mutants. Can you remind us what's going on with them?
Speaker: Oh, God. So the last we left them, they were the the entire ah all the X, the all the X-Men and the new mutants got sucked away to Asgard. where dannyotwellert Where Karma lost all her weight, Danny Moonstar became a Valkyrie. A Valkyrie of the like of the Valkyries. Of the Valkyries. One of Gila's Valkyries. So she is the chooser of death.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. um and when they got back, they got dropped into France where Magneto was on trial. in a global court for his crimes against humanity, he kind it kind of got dismissed and he kind of escaped. It's like a little bit of both.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. There's more episode about that if you want, The Trial of Magneto, if you want to know more about it. But in that episode, Professor x Xavier was dying because of another big, long story. And he got taken away by Lalandra to the Star Jammer to be healed leaving Magneto in charge of both the X-Men and the new mutants yeah so this is the first time the new mutants have gotten back together back to Westchester and now their papa is Magneto
Speaker: Well put, it Matt. They have appeared in Secret Wars 2 once, maybe twice, but not their final appearance in Secret Wars 2, which we won't spoil here just in case you haven't heard this Secret Wars 2 episode. still long i When the Beyonder grabs Illyana and turns her into...
Speaker: ah The dark child. That's right. That's right. He's like, oh, you're interesting. And he touches her and pulls the dark child out of her. And she's like, what the fuck? um And we saw the fallout from that in the last New Mutants episode. Right. Where they were in limbo. And it just it just fixed itself after a couple panels.
Speaker: Yeah, most most of the things did, but not everything we'll find out today because we are unfortunately still dealing with the interference of Secret Wars 2.
Speaker: Which I think is referenced metatextually in these issues. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We'll get into it. by Fun to dive into. um But yeah, I mean, yeah, the the thing that Claremont is interested in here is metatextual commentary.
Speaker: On what Secret Wars did to his plans to for the new mutants. and the psychology of what would happen to characters that have gone through the things that happened in Secret Wars 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But first. But first what?
Speaker: Oh, Matt. Huh. Matt. The interesting thing about that one was nobody saw that coming.
Speaker: I welcome. Matt, are you paying attention? I'm paying attention. what Welcome and two to Pat's email corner. Hi, Pat. Did I sound like the Jurassic Park guy?
Speaker: Mm-mm. Yeah. Up first, X-Man Sam. You remember X-Man sam Sam? One of our first emailers. One of our first emailers. And now we ah X-Man Sam or did he nickname himself X-Man Sam?
Speaker: I don't think we ever gave them a nickname and we are just now getting. Oh, good point. Yeah, we don't know. self-appointed nickname. So we have X-Man Sam here. ah Hey, Pat, this X-Man Sam writing in again.
Speaker: Would you be able to ask Matt if he would be interested in a bonus episode about X-Men video games where the two of you try to guess when each X-Men game takes place in the canon covered so far? This can be based entirely on the cover art of the game or advertisements if available.
Speaker: Maybe that would make for a neat bonus episode or one of your puppy laughing shows from the Patreon. Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to the coverage of the Longshot miniseries. Puppy laughing. That's a good way to say puffy faffin. a Puppy laughing is funny. And thank you for plugging the Patreon.
Speaker: I know that we've talked about a Matt. I know that we want to dig into these weird X-Men video games. We have talked about, and this is a good time to mention it because, you know, people in the discord or on social media or whatever can, can let us know what they think. We have talked about doing live streams of X-Men. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm just trying to play them and goof around. And yeah, we haven't quite figured out the mechanics of how we would do that multiplayer because most of them would need to be emulated in order to be streamed. but We can do our best if people would be interested in that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah use do with have with do it Do you want to see us do a live stream? ah Vote with your votes. and moment
Speaker: We do get a PS from X-Man Sam here. My owl doctor has diagnosed me with anosmia. What's an owl doctor, Matt? Are you sure it's not AI?
Speaker: My owl doctor. Anyway, has diagnosed me with into not let me copy and paste this into a word document and then make it make it really big so I can see if it if there's any kerning on it or not. I or an L.
Speaker: Or I could just change the font. While you're doing that, i I'll continue reading here. ah My doctor has diagnosed me with anosmia, meaning I'm unable to detect certain sulfur-containing odor compounds called theols, such as those found in skunk spray, flatulence, and natural gas odorants.
Speaker: I guess, yeah, Sam, let us know. i Can you smell skunk spray? I think they just told us they can't. one Well, well, this is, I don't know if this is a real doctor just an owl doctor. No, i I blew it up and it's owl. It's owl. You don't need to let us know the first name of your doctors people, but you can. Oh, everybody actually, you know what?
Speaker: Everybody email us, uh, mutant menace pod, first name of your doctor. And we'll shout them out at the beginning of the podcast.
Speaker: Up next, and we got an email from Sweet Douglas. Okay. No subject line. ah Content just says Flurgle McDurgle.
Speaker: Yeah, because that's Sweet Douglas' real name. Real Christian name. I think Sweet Douglas is drunk. I think he's telling us his real Christian name so that we can ah say it at the beginning of the podcast like we are going to say all your doctor's first names.
Speaker: Okay, Matt, you can say that one next time. Okay. How's that? Okay. Unless we get a doctor's name. Up next, Weapon Jason.
Speaker: Episode number 71. Pat, tell Matt. it's It's not often that we talk about emails off air. This one we have talked about off air.
Speaker: He says, i can't tell if Pat's doing a bit or not around Scott, but nothing in these X Factor issues feels like the Scott we've known since Giant-Sized X-Man. No, it I am not doing a bit. This is...
Speaker: This is very real, and I'm not going to re-litigate. we so We cut out some of our arguing about this from the last episode. I will say stretched there's a very good... he makes some very good points in this in this email, though, about it. And i do want i want us to keep in mind the difference between the average person going through a crisis like you described versus Scott Summers.
Speaker: going through the crisis that you described. Scott Summers, whose father abandoned an him and who who has never had a reliable father figure. Yes, but who has already lost that father figure several times and did not collapse in this way.
Speaker: Okay. Is this a man in crisis? Weapon Jason says. Sure. A normal man with none of the experiences or character of Scott Summers. Not a man who's faced the death of his mentor, the sacrifice of his lover, who's fought Magneto, the brood faced off against the Imperial Guard who moved on and built a life with Maddie.
Speaker: whose core is a sense of responsibility to those around him, who is someone who can be counted on to step up and be there. This is not Scott Summers. This is a sock puppet filling some directive slash plan from Layton and Shitter to tell real X-Men stories because they do not understand what Claremont is doing.
Speaker: And they just disagree with Claremont's idea that superheroes should grow out of it, which is such a fucking good and smart idea. It's a fun way to approach. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. i just And look, that last sentence, the, i or the last half of the last sentence here, this is just filling some directive slash plan from Leighton and Shitter to tell real X-Men stories because they do not understand. That I fully agree with. I'm telling you,
Speaker: that Scott Summers is not a perfect man. And the, uh, the courage guys, that you see in him, that you see in him is for an entirely different emotional range than settling down, leaving a life of adventure to be a father, to to take on raising a child.
Speaker: Like it is entirely possible for the best person that you know to be so broken by ah jarring changes in his life that he does something awful and that's what we're seeing here scott has gone through a decade maybe not a decade but years and years of this weird trauma that he that he just doesn't have an outlet for and it all comes together when he has actually when he actually has to remove himself from that cycle he doesn't know how to handle it so he
Speaker: disassociates. Like, that's how it happens with extremely intelligent and caring and empathetic people when they're finally broken. But it's not even just his intelligence and his caring and his empathy that makes him...
Speaker: dedicated to the people around him. It is a pathological sense of responsibility that he has. To the X-Men. He's never shown that to anyone except for his team that as soon as he left, he he changed.
Speaker: And, i mean, and like bystanders and the rest of the human race. Well, yeah, he's saved other people, but like the... the There's a difference between doing something nice for...
Speaker: a stranger on the street and doing that, doing that same thing for your wife. Did we forget that issue where ah he goes to Lee Forrester's house and kills her dad?
Speaker: What is dude that's not one of his X-Men that he feels responsibility for. And that is him living like for months on a boat, taking on all the responsibilities of ah this entirely different family that he's. That is not entirely different. he's He's acting as the the co-captain of a boat crew.
Speaker: Well, so now he's the man tied to work. Once you once you pull that, once you separate the work from the family, he doesn't know what to do with the family side of it.
Speaker: He can only be family. With his work family. Well, now he's co-captain of the ah Nathan Christopher Xavier Summers or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a different that's not that's not going to work.
Speaker: what But he lives at his work. I've said my piece. You guys can can pretend this isn't canon or or whatever it is that he was replaced by an alien somewhere in the ah I think why this is important is the next sentence that Jason says.
Speaker: The rage and character assassination here is real, and a lot of the crap that Cyclops slash Scott will get for the next decade about being boring and an ass comes out of this complete shitting on the character. I think that is what's the problem is by breaking scott Scott's character at the beginning of X Factor. Now, no writer knows who Scott Summers is. And we will get this absolutely blank sheet of paper called Scott Summers for, I mean, until Grant Morrison gets their hands on him.
Speaker: Well, I don't know that. Okay, sorry! I mean, you do, and you're lying. But for the fiction of the podcast, let's say Pat has absolutely no evidence for this, and so he can stand in his it is convictions. All right. when was Moving on, because again, we we cannot...
Speaker: We cannot keep arguing this over and over again. Outside of the X Factor episodes. I can get it. I can get that not, I can get without, if you're removing the context of that last sentence, you could be like, no, some exciting stuff is happening for Scott Summers. You could see, like, this is an interesting new chapter in his life. I could see that. It's just, but we'll see. We'll see if it pans out.
Speaker: Okay. I think it will. Yeah.
Speaker: ah Weapon Jason goes on. He says, honestly, the launch of Factor felt like such a what the fuck series. If I hadn't kind of liked the art, I suspect I would have dropped reading the book much sooner. Thankfully, Leighton isn't around very long and the book slowly finds some kind of direction.
Speaker: Some kind of direction, but I don't know that it ever finds character. Well, besides our urchins are like new pals, our new little our little runaways, arty and rusty. And we'll meet some new. We'll meet some other. OK, yeah.
Speaker: Changing direction briefly, just wanted to add that another thing that makes Secret Wars 2 even worse is that a few months before it started, DC had launched Crisis on Infinite Earths, a much better series slash crossover written by ex-Marvel writer Marv Wolfman and penciled by ex-Marvel artist George Perez.
Speaker: I've also suspected Jim was scrambling to try and do something he thought would be just as important and would change the Marvel Universe out of jealousy. Also suspect to suspect this jealousy would fire his new universe launch.
Speaker: i Okay, all right. Yes, I think the jealousy fires off the new universe launch, right? Definitely his jealousy of DC and their success with launching a new universe out of their old universe is the reason for the new universe, right?
Speaker: ah you ye i mean, so wasn't the new universe his plan all along? Like from day one, wasn't he saying, hey I'm going to just start everything over
Speaker: Huh? Because that was at the end of Secret Wars one. he even flirts with that, right? He has the Beyonder destroy everything and just like start the world anew. And then he's like, actually, just maybe.
Speaker: And maybe the end of Secret Wars one is where Marv Wolfman gets the idea. But yeah New Universe is a new set of superheroes in an entirely, at the time, supposedly unconnected universe. So Starbrand and Justice and I forget who else.
Speaker: oh And I think, yeah, i think that is jealousy over the fact that DC got to start from Square One and retell all their origin stories and everything and got sales for it. I don't think Secret Wars 2 was this.
Speaker: I think it is interesting that Crisis on Infinite Earths had just launched. I think Secret Wars 2 is an evolution of the ego that built from Secret Wars 1.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. And it also... it The planning for it started after issue one of Secret Wars 1. And he became in love with this idea that he hadn't really fleshed out in the first series that he was god of marvel of the Marvel Universe. Yeah, yeah. And he realized he didn't really push or pull that metaphor very far. And so he was like, i have to make sure people understand.
Speaker: Like, I i think... like All the biographies of Marvel say that he didn't want to write Secret Wars 2, but I have so much trouble believing that. Because how did he have such a solid, I mean, a chaotic, stupid, fell apart the moment it started vision. But it was a clear vision for what he wanted to do at first. The first, like, three issues at least. Well, that's what I mean. He thought the premise would hold him for longer. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, um I do want to step back a little bit when he talks about what f X Factor being a what the fuck series. Okay. I have fully swallowed, especially when editing and releasing the last episode, I fully swallowed your, I'm, I'm Pat Reber pilled on s the first couple issues. The Bob Layton X factor isn't bad. It's just out of step with 1986 comics. Yeah. It is a really good
Speaker: series And when I look at it that way, the way that you explained it, it exploit it it illuminates something for me, which is why, like, i was always of two minds about the Bob Layton X Factor issues. Like, I knew somewhere deep down inside that there was something I enjoyed about them.
Speaker: But yeah my my whole brain was saying you hate this because this makes no sense and is character assassination and is poor writing and is ridiculous and doesn't fit with anything else going on in the X universe.
Speaker: So I think what comes out of my mouth is just like, I hate this. But there is something I enjoy about it and I think it's what you said. It's that it's returning to a admittedly bad time in Marvel comics history, but a time that will be and you have some affection for. Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's very, it's, it's schlock, right? It's brain candy. It's not the, the high level comics that we have been reading or attempts at high level comics, depending on, on what we're reading. ah This is just meant to be like,
Speaker: fun, old timey X-Men and it pulls that off really well. I mean, i think that's, that's, I, the only thing I'm going to disagree with is I think that's the problem with it. I don't think it's trying to be that, but it is that.
Speaker: Oh, it it really feels like it's trying. I feel like it thinks it's... I feel like they think they're doing something a little better. Okay, that's fair.
Speaker: i Okay, one more... And introduce us to Artie and Rusty, and and like like you can't discount how cool these new folks are. That's true. Rusty's kind of a...
Speaker: He's a trick, but but I just I like everybody that he's about to make friends with. So it like what rubs off on him. All right. We got to keep moving. Matt, we are on to our last email. Are episode 71 from Ink Master Ink Master?
Speaker: Hey, Pat, tell Matt. And then we get some compliments. I'm not going to read them out loud. but Also, I don't understand them. he's he's He's saying that we do bits the Talking about bit that we did. i don't. That only speaks truths. I only speak truth.
Speaker: I found the discussion that email Michael brought up especially interesting and wanted to build on what you two were saying a bit. When people say this character would never do this, despite that character just doing that thing on page, what they're actually saying is this character would never do this if they were being written consistently. They are being mischaracterized.
Speaker: When someone asks, is this how this character's powers work, despite it being shown that's how they work on page, what is actually being asked is, is this how this character's powers are supposed to work? Does this depiction of this character's powers make sense given what we've been told about how they work and how they've been depicted in the past?
Speaker: not a question of canon, but a question of internal consistency. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that first sentence is kind of what we said, and I'm glad that Ink Master was here to elaborate on it.
Speaker: Because, yeah, yeah that I think that's how i that is how I feel about it. Yeah, it's fair. it's i it is always...
Speaker: And I think this was Emil Michael's point, like the mischaracterization has to at that point still become the characterization unless you're going to decanonize it. That is still something that.
Speaker: Which sometimes makes a character less interesting and maybe sometimes does it for. years or decades or whatever. And that's, that's bummer. Um, but i can I thought about this a lot when game of Thrones was very popular and still pretty good.
Speaker: Um, where there was a ah period of that show where people were dying left and right. Right. It was just, it was one of their good ways to end an episode was to kill somebody.
Speaker: And yeah, what I realized, because you love these characters and you see them die and and that's where the story goes. Like the story has to evolve around the fact that they're dying. You don't need to like that it happened, but you should, if you're enjoying that story or that character, you should be able to trust that it's going to go somewhere.
Speaker: So yeah. that's, that's the way that I try to look at it, even though, yeah, right's I, e sometimes really hate it. And I think what we're saying when somebody other than Chris Claremont grabs a character and does something with them that doesn't make sense to our current, our our reading of them thus far is I don't trust where this is going.
Speaker: I think, this is going to lead this character down an uninteresting direction because it doesn't square with the things we know about them or the things that we found interesting about them before.
Speaker: Um, I think we will see. That's a perfect way to put it. In 10 years from now in this podcast after we're done new X-Men, we're going to see that a lot from Chuck Austin and Brian Michael Bendis um is people not liking Grant Morrison's new X-Men.
Speaker: Oh, right. And then just kind of being like, okay, I don't like that the Stepford Cuckoos, what's interesting about them is that they're all the same person, so I'm going to give them their own personalities. I don't like Scott and Emma together, so I'm going to break them up. I don't like that Zorn was...
Speaker: I won't spoil it. um So I'm going to do something wildly different with it. Right? That is bad storytelling because you don't you don't understand something. and yeah Yeah, this is how you get the rise of Skywalker.
Speaker: And, you know, in the past, like, before serialized franchise storytelling, you wouldn't have that. um when you were making those arguments, you were talking about a specific a single writer.
Speaker: Well, I don't know. ah That's really... and Hold on. now Now I'm thinking about it because the single writer holding a character is really only from... It's really only an invention of the nineteen hundreds right? I was thinking about like Sherlock Holmes. People got really angry when...
Speaker: Arthur Conan Doyle brought him, well, when he killed him and then when he brought him back. and But then I was thinking, like before that, if you were telling a new story, if if somebody was telling a new story about Odysseus, they are participating in a tradition of 7,000 other storytellers telling stories about Odysseus.
Speaker: So if somebody's like, that doesn't seem like the Odysseus I know, you would just throw that. You would just not retell that story, right? You would just not tell that story anymore and it would disappear into the annals of history.
Speaker: um Anyway, Inc. signs off with agreeing with Matt about Scott's character assassination, inc Thanks. So another point for Matt, even though I've already made a salient enough point to outscore you.
Speaker: ah Play the theme song.
Speaker: Oh, okay. No, he's still going. Oh, okay.
Speaker: We were so mean to him last week. I know. I can't believe he made a sign that paper. And now we just have to let him play.
Speaker: Oh, he looks like he's getting tired. that i let him call the police i could see him falling
Speaker: He starts feeling really quiet when he falls asleep. He turns the volume down so he can so he can finally get some rest.
Speaker: It's so damn loud in here.
Speaker: Oh, Matt. ah yes fat let me let me ask you a question buddy i'd love it did you do anything x-men related this week i did oo but ah but it's hard for me to explain how i did something x-men related so gonna say this first i'm going to say i did something x-men related i saw the new spider-man movie okay And I can't elaborate beyond that.
Speaker: Right. But I saw it's a Marvel property. Right. But I saw the new Spider-Man. Yeah. Yeah. And I can share my opinion on it if you want. I haven't seen it yet. Without giving spoilers, I can spend spare share my opinion on it.
Speaker: I feel like your opinion in itself is a spoiler, right? So i think this story gives you a lot of plot contrivances.
Speaker: And story conceits that are ridiculous. and Sounds like Spider-Man. And stupid and frustrating and follow don't follow in ah consistent internal logic. And you're watching it and you're like are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker: And that is frustrating. And so I could see you any total nerd, of which me and you are half of... each of Each of us has half of total nerd in us. Yeah, together we are a total nerd. um Being like, this movie sucked because... And then listing all those inconsistencies. And it'd be hard to argue against that. Like, yeah, if that's what's important to you, then... Yeah, you're you're right. Those were very stupid things that the screenwriters decided on.
Speaker: Thematically... This movie is tackling like bigger themes and ideas than Marvel movies have in a while. me we That was what made us love Marvel movies to begin with, right? It wasn't just seeing super... Well, okay. First, it was seeing superheroes punch super villains in cool costumes.
Speaker: Yeah. sick and But once that wore off, which happened really fucking quick, like way quicker than any of us thought it would, that wore off so fast. It wore off before the first Fantastic Four movie. Because we all were like, no, not this, I think. No, actually...
Speaker: um ah The thing that made us love Marvel movies was then like the early Iron Man movies, the early Captain America. Well, not the first Captain America movie, but Captain America, the Winter Soldier. These movies had themes and ideas that they were trying to to communicate, right? Like they were pieces of art. You could argue how high of art they were, but they were. Yeah, yeah. They were Disney-fied, but they were like, they were still trying to do something. They were artistic expressions, right? They weren't just schlocky entertainment. um
Speaker: I think Spider-Man brand new day is a return to that. And yes, just like a Marvel movie, it still hits you over the head with it. It's not subtle, but it is layered.
Speaker: And I appreciated that. And I felt like it was, it was emotional and it was, I liked this movie a lot. Okay. um But there's a lot to hate about it. too What if I cut out the second half your thing?
Speaker: You just say all the negative stuff and then i skip to there's a lot to hate about it. um I'm also I am going to give one spoiler that I think everyone should have before going into it. If you've seen the trailer, if you haven't seen the trailer, skip ahead 15 seconds. If you have seen the trailer.
Speaker: broie We only have 15 seconds. Bro, all that stuff happens in the first five minutes. Literally, all that stuff is in. Oh, OK. Everything in the trailer. Yes. Don't expect to see all those villains and stuff like that is not what the movie is about.
Speaker: OK. And they shouldn't have lied to you like that. which Why I'm uncomfortable spoiling it is because that's like utter bullshit. All right. All right. Was that was that too spoilery?
Speaker: No, don't think so. Okay. Patrick. print it. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Did I do anything X-Men related this week? You knew this was coming. You don't have to um'm I'm going to use my my no card.
Speaker: Okay. You only have to do this left. I haven't done anything X-Men related this week. Sorry. it's all right. I lived.
Speaker: The X-Men live. Not all of them.
Speaker: Rest in peace. Speaking of, Matt. Did somebody die? Do you want to ah tell you about New Mutants number 35? The times they are a-changing?
Speaker: yeah I would love to. It's by Chris Claremont. He wrote it. and Pat, Mary, here's, okay. This, Mary Wilshire draws this thing, which we, were who we recently saw in Power Pack, and we were like, we love this girl.
Speaker: Right, yeah, yeah. Bill Sienkiewicz, we love this boy. He fucking, we see him in New Mutants, we're like, we love your artwork. So it's a boy and a girl who we love. Working together.
Speaker: yeah Are they married? And they fucking do not work well at all. What? You don't like this? sucks, man. I love this. There are moments. I love this art. How are we not on the same page here? but it is mary wilshire draws such clear and clean art and um bill sienkiewicz draws such like expressive it's like abstract all over it yeah so so she draws these these scenes that would look really great if they were like the pencils probably looked amazing and he's just scribbling over all the lines i love it so much i think it comes out perfectly So you get these really cool moments, which we will talk about. Like, there panels that I am in love with. But largely, I am not a fan. All right. Okay.
Speaker: Tom and Lois are the letters. Petra Scorsese is the colorist. Ann Nocenti is the editor. and Gabrielle Duvall, 1752 to 1844, is the editor-in-chief. Release date, September 24th, 1985. Cover date, January 1986. Pat, January 1986! Uh, yeah. I heard you.
Speaker: I'm ready to not be dead. I'm, like, so close to not being dead. Magneto stands behind Charles Xavier's desk. And does his best to introduce himself to the new mutants as their new instructor and warden.
Speaker: he He gives a big speech about it. And he ends it with, my name is Magneto! ah Yeah, yeah. i like It's like, guys, ah dude, we if you didn't want to sound like a like the villain, you probably shouldn't have ended that way.
Speaker: I actually love this. yeah I think this is a theme that runs through all these issues we're about to read where Magneto is trying his best to be a good guy, but is still doing these sort of pointless villain things. And one of them is ending a speech with, I am Magneto. Yeah.
Speaker: And he stands in front of a backlit window so he's covered in shadow. And he's used to doing that. That's just what he's always done. They, of course, object he's a supervillain.
Speaker: Arch rival of the X-Men. He pleads with them just for time to prove himself. That he's reformed and considers this responsibility his redemption. He's like, you guys are a test for me.
Speaker: Yeah, i I think that's a really interesting. It's ah not a thing you should say to children, but I think that it's a really interesting way of looking at this. Right. Is he's and this and maybe just because it hasn't been said out loud, but this is him saying, shit I did a lot of bad things.
Speaker: There has to be some sort of penance here. ah There has to be, or not even penance. There has to be a way that I can and try to balance the scale and make up for some of what I've done. And this is it to him.
Speaker: And giving up his own whatever the fuck he was working on and embracing x Xavier's dream. What made him realize he was an evil man, bad guy, villain guy, or at least the catalyst? You know, we don't know if there's something else going on behind is his is his the eyes. But what made him the catalyst was a bunch of children stuff, right?
Speaker: He almost killed Kitty Pryde. you watched those kids die in God loves man kills. God loves man kills. So it makes sense for him to so like kids are like he he does believe the corny ass shit that children are the future. But yeah.
Speaker: So to prove it he challenges these guys to a danger room session. And their respective locker rooms. Yeah.
Speaker: Does that weird you out? we it' It's just I didn't know they had boys and girls locker rooms adjacent to the danger room. This is this is a new room that I don't think we've seen before. I think well, because we have seen the X-Men getting ready in the same locker room.
Speaker: Right. So I guess when it was kids, they were like, well, we don't want to put a second excited by their butts and stuff. That's true. i guess. can Yeah, we can't have kids looking at each other's butts or they'll go. They'll go crazy.
Speaker: The original X-Men would never have sex.
Speaker: No, they would, but they just wouldn't let it interfere.
Speaker: um I love these this panel, this one panel. And so this the Mary Wilshire putting character in each of her scenes. Bobby's like frustrated about all the Magneto stuff. And he's just like leaning up against a locker, eating a Twinkie.
Speaker: the background And in the background, Warlock is doing his non-existent hair. He's having a blast in this run. He's got two hair dryers. Well, he's got one that's an actual hair dryer in one hand, and he's turned his other hand into a hair dryer. She does some really good bits with Warlock, but she really doesn't get Warlock. He mostly just looks like a guy in these issues. Yeah, he's shaped like a man, and then he has the, because Sienkiewicz is doing the inks, he's got all the circuitry filled in on him. You almost feel like Mary Wilshire just drew a guy and then Sinkiewicz was like, no, when he was doing the inks and drew a bunch of shit coming off of him. Yeah, yeah. He wouldn't be pretending to be a human here.
Speaker: Yeah. So the guys and the gals in their own locker rooms talk about how they feel. Notably, Sam thinks that Magneto deserves a second chance. Bobby doesn't.
Speaker: Ileana and Amara kind of like him. m The two with the penchant for evil. And Danny just doesn't know who to turn to if the professor is gone now that she's a Valkyrie.
Speaker: There is. Yeah. I think the only one really justified here in having any say is Ileana, who's like, everybody was pretty sure i'm evil, right? I have an evil. I have have literal evil inside of me. Yeah. And we kick ass together. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah It is. She does do that stupid thing where she's like, there's a demon sorceress in me. And as you know, that's pure evil. How is it evil?
Speaker: How is it evil? What evil have you done? Illyana? None. You've only been a hero since you've become a demon. Magneto seemingly in his own private locker room. He's got the biggest ass like bathroom with like a couch in it and He's got like a sauna.
Speaker: It's so crazy. He goes for a steam. He goes for a swim and then a steam later. Did Professor X have this the whole time, but he was too modest to show us? And then when it's Magneto, he's like, look, look at my sauna, readers. yeah He's not trying to hide it. He just assumes everyone knows about it. He's turning to us and being like, look at my solid gold couch in my bathroom.
Speaker: He's stunned at how bad he's sure he is at this. He hasn't done anything yet, but he's sure he's bad at it. Yeah, yeah. And at the fact that he misses Lee Forrester.
Speaker: oh Scott's ex-girlfriend. Scott's ex-girlfriend. we can We can't stop reminding him of that. That's what's going to turn him into a villain again. so ah often me and you remind him that that's Scott's ex-girl. Yeah. i love Now that he's taken over, we've been having chats with Magneto.
Speaker: In the danger room, Magneto immediately kicks Doug out. He's so pissed. And then absolutely wrecks the rest of the team. Doug, meanwhile, goes crying to Tom Corsi and Sharon Friedlander about how unappreciated he feels.
Speaker: Tom and Sharon! They're back! They're back. they was I guess they've been just, like, hanging out, doing odd jobs in the mansion this whole time, and we and we just haven't seen them in a while.
Speaker: I think, like, Tom is their mechanic, and yeah Sharon is their nurse. But we've never seen that We haven't needed to. that they've been They've been but working on it all between the panels. They've been doing their jobs so well, we haven't even needed to see them on panel.
Speaker: It's like that. I mean, a good mechanic. If superheroes really did their jobs well, we would never even need to read stories about them. Right. We wouldn't even know. We just assume that this is how life goes. Exactly.
Speaker: hu
Speaker: Oh my God, it's happening right now. It's happening right now in our world. Doug, when Doug, con in when Doug yells to Sharon and Tom, he chucks an Xavier's jacket.
Speaker: At them? Yeah. Where did he get this fucking thing? He wasn't wearing it in the previous panel. We've never seen a character wear it before. I know. It's like ah it's like a letterman's jacket. And then later, Danny is wearing a t-shirt, a yellow t-shirt that has x Xavier School written across the front. When did they start merchandising? Yeah, when did they open up? Xavier decided he needed some extra money to open up a school store.
Speaker: For his five students. Yeah. Because when their parents visit, they'll buy the merch for their kids. Yeah, yeah. A humbled team later convenes at Harry's hideout, still debating whether they can trust Magneto or not.
Speaker: What choice do they have? Quit and leave the school? Shan might. Bobby might. Only Dani stays quiet, consumed by her own thoughts.
Speaker: She opts to walk home alone while the rest of the team rides back with Sharon. Okay, but's let's talk about the Danger Room session before we get to this shitty thing. Because there's a there's a lot of things that happen in the Danger Room fight that we didn't know people could do.
Speaker: First off, Magneto encases Cannonball in a cocoon of metal. Yes. Cool. We knew we could do that. Magma then tri says she's like, I'll melt it off your body, but I'll be careful so I don't hit your skin.
Speaker: No, that seems like a tv it's metal. Is it possible? Is it even vaguely possible to melt metal off your scal a human body without boiling them alive? Right.
Speaker: The next thing is Karma tries to possess Magneto and he uses his magnetic powers to reflect her possession off of himself and so she possesses Bobby instead.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. is Mirrors are metal, is that right? Mirrors are a type of metal.
Speaker: Mirrors, i guess, are a glass with used to be silver behind them but then just like Aluminum, I think. Some reflective surface.
Speaker: I think. Never, just never had to think about it. But yeah, like, you don't, that, there's so many reasons that doesn't make sense. If you are, you're trying to possess somebody, why would magnets have anything to do with it? But second of all, what,
Speaker: You couldn't reflect it and be like, ha-ha, you're possessing somebody else now. You would just say, no, I don't, I'm not, I won't. Yeah, it didn't work. Okay, won't do it then. Okay, if I, you you can't make me do it to someone else, I just won't do it.
Speaker: Because you would assume possession is like, it's not just like a You know, it's not just like ah I'm snapping my fingers. It's like you are worming your way into the mind of somebody else. So once you see it's Bobby's mind, you'd be like, oh, I'll stop.
Speaker: Yeah. She can stop possessing someone anytime she wants. Right. Ridiculous. the The craziest thing to me is at the end, Magneto lets them get close, like lets them think they have him. And then he's like, oh, until I just let out such a powerful burst of energy that I reverse gravity in the room and they all go flying in the other direction.
Speaker: ah heat He can do that. Yeah, he reaches all the way down to the Earth's core. What you don't see is at that moment, millions of people die around the globe.
Speaker: He's reversed polarity on the ah the entire world. The entire earth has lost its gravity, gravity field. and All right. So, all right, we have to, we have to talk about it. A few frat bros catch Danny leaving by herself though, and decide to follow because she's a quote cutie moments later. Once she's out of view of Harry's Danny's accosted by these dick bags.
Speaker: They grab her, tell her she's pretty, and start pinning her to the ground.
Speaker: When a winged white horse descends from the sky and trashes their car, sending them running, Brightwind, Danny's Valkyrie horse, picks her up and carries her back home. It was pretty cool.
Speaker: It was cool. I don't know that we needed an attempted rape scene. um ah they don't get too graphic about it right it's just she's walking down a lonely road and they start getting rough with her and and they're like telling her she's pretty do you want to party you're cute let's hold you down right like do you understand what it's what is happening but yeah maybe if you're a kid you don't maybe you think they're robbing her or something it's but it's just like I don't I don't know that we needed that in a comic book about children but whatever
Speaker: When they get back, Magneto and Tom Corsi greet them, noticing Danny's injuries and the chips of paint on Brightwind's hooves. And they put together what happened. Tom wants to call the cops, but Magneto says he'll handle it and asks Brightwind to help him track down the assailants. Let's note that here. They do not call the police.
Speaker: They do not report this. They do not. That is important for later. Rain, meanwhile, activates her psychic link with Danny and explains what happened to her to the rest of the gang. that Privacy violation.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, she could have asked when that psychic link was established. That's true. Desperate to help and jealous that Magneto is the one going to take revenge, they all hop in a helicopterized warlock and follow Magneto and the horse.
Speaker: couple things. i like that Magneto's riding Brightwind. Magneto riding a winged horse is fun. It's pretty cool. Number two, Warlock starts making the whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop sound that a helicopter does, and he can't understand why helicopters make that noise. And he's like, are they trying to communicate? And they're like, why don't you go talk to a helicopter and ask it? And he's like, okay, I will.
Speaker: It would work. He talked to the Blackbird. That's right. We don't know that the Blackbird talked back. In his head, it worked. Remember when he tried to talk to the refrigerator to ask why it keeps its own food inside of it? Yes. Yeah, yeah. ah Um...
Speaker: Bright Wind tracks the scumbags down to a frat house where magneto yeah where Magneto confirms the damage to their car. New mutants arrive a moment later at a distance and trying to stay unseen.
Speaker: Magneto knocks their door in with a magnetic bolt announcing less than an hour ago you assaulted a young woman that crime shall not go unpunished. See he's still doing the supervillain shit. He like he bursts the door open. He's again backlit just standing there as a silhouette but very menacing and a shadow spreading across them.
Speaker: This crime shall not go unpunished. That's right. Yeah. Styling his eyebrows like a supervillain. Yes, he's got the the wisps coming off of him. ah They all pick up weapons and jump to attack. But this is fucking Magneto. He renders their weapons inert and tells them what pieces of shit they are. The one guy jumps at him with a crowbar. He, with his mind, of course,
Speaker: Magneto bends the crowbar into like a U shape and then uses it to pin this guy to the wall. m Second guy steps up with a gun. Magneto just dissolves the gun. He pulls the metal...
Speaker: apart and destroys it. What can you to the third guy? The third guy's coming at him with his hands. Just jumps at him. Doesn't have anything metal. So Magneto picks up a bunch of thumbtacks, it looks like, and just points them at him, like a wall of thumbtacks in front of you, and dares him to walk forward. He uses them to pin the guy's shirt to the wall. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And that's the guy who is most scared, I want to say. like i like We should mention, that is the guy who ends up the most scared out of any of them. He explains that he was once a piece of shit too.
Speaker: Slick back hair, sloppy snakes. And were he still, he disemboweled them. But he's changed, and in his effort to be better, he just wants them to know he could have killed them.
Speaker: And if they do this again, someone just might.
Speaker: He returns to the mansion, followed by the rest of the team who try to sneak in behind him. He catches them, but just tells them it's past their bedtime with a little wink.
Speaker: As they scamper up the steps, he hears them talking about how cool he is. The end. He was, it's a good moment at the end where he's like, ah he's a little proud of them for having followed him. And also knows that he just did something that gets him points. So like, he's got a little brandy snifter out and he's like, I think it's past your bedtime.
Speaker: There's also a reflection of x Xavier in the Brandy Snifter. I'm sure, yeah. Well, I thought that was super corny until I realized earlier in the issue opposing Magneto's desk is a big picture of portrait of Xavier. It's like, how could I possibly live up to your legacy? Yes. So the reflection actually makes makes sense. um My favorite thing that he does when he's facing the frat boys, and he's giving this really rousing speech about how...
Speaker: how yeah What they did was evil. And now if they keep doing this, they can keep doing this stuff. He's not going to kill them. But if they keep doing this stuff, somebody is going to kill them. This is not a way to live. um Even if you're just worried about self-preservation, it's not a way to live. And he tells them that he's very sad.
Speaker: He's like, I am reformed and very sad and am a man of mercy. That must be terrifying. Like, that's the point where it it starts turning. You're like, okay, this guy's saying he's not going to kill us. And then he's we're out of nowhere. He adds. Also, I'm very sad. i like Oh, fuck. I'm dead. Oh, no. He is going to kill us. I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead.
Speaker: ah Why did he tell them he's sad?
Speaker: He just needs to tell somebody. He doesn't have. He does. Yeah. Who else is he going to talk to? Brightwind?
Speaker: ah Okay. Matt. Whoa. Sounds complicated. that no that's over with. I thought it was a good issue. i don't know. Shut your damn mouth. This guy. ga Do you guys hear how he's talking? For like a moment even.
Speaker: do you guys hear this shit? While i take some responsibility around here.
Speaker: And tell you about New Mutants number 36, Subway to Salvation. Chris Claremont, writer Mary Wilshire and Bill Sienkiewicz, artists. Michael Higgins, colorist Tom Worsikowski, letterer and no centi editor and dumb gunman editor in chief. Release date October 22nd, 1985. Cover date February 1986. We're getting closer. what?
Speaker: february nineteen eighty six <unk> getting closer
Speaker: would Bobby DaCosta is struggling under a massive weight press in the danger room controlled by Professor Magneto. Despite Sharon Friedlander and Tom Corsi's worries, Magneto pushes Bobby to his limits.
Speaker: Bobby himself is angry. Why does he have to get even stronger? He's not here to become an X-Man just to control his powers. In his rage, Bobby smashes the machine and storms off to the locker room to cry and reminisce about Juliana and how fucked up it is that the Beyonder exists.
Speaker: Initially, I was like, why is Bobby being so weird and different, right? Like, he does want to be an X-Man. What the fuck? And then it's like, oh, of course, it's Beyonder bullshit. it Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah he's he met God. Yeah.
Speaker: Kitty pride is studying Norse mythology in the library while Ileana Rasputin rushes across town on the subway to meet her. oh ah they're best friends. Best friends.
Speaker: Her trip is interrupted when the beyonder appears in her subway car. God damn Ileana attacks, but the beyonder takes her soul sword from her hands and transforms her into the dark child once more. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: Then he changes her back to Ileana and we cut to the street where the subway car shoots up through the street and into the air. Pat, what's this guy frigging even up to I'll tell you. was Look, I don't like this guy. I don't like the concept of him or the the fact that he has to be here. But here.
Speaker: In Chris Claremont's hands, this dude is fucking menacing. Yeah, he's he's better. He's a better guy. He's scary. this is This gets scary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm scared. I'm scared right now. also, he understands what's going on with the characters that he's working with, unlike ah Dumb Stupid. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And we're both scared. And we're we're reading this, we're friggin' hiding under a blanket. It's the Beyonder, dude. It's Chris Claremont's The Beyonder. And did you know Ileana, she's a demon and she's evil?
Speaker: That's right. Also, I will say you ah Mary and Bill here are making him look intimidating. Like he's got the same... General features, the same Jerry girl and like facial structure. but he's i he's like an imposing man.
Speaker: Scene where Bobby cries over Juliana. Very good. Visually scene where Beyonder takes the sword from Ileana. Very good visually. This is much better. They are a much better team on this issue than the last issue.
Speaker: Yeah, they are working in sync. At the library, Kitty is surprised to see the soul sword appear in front of her on the table. ah She picks it up and magic's armor and bloodstone amulet suddenly appear on her body. Seconds later, a bunch of giant demons appear and attack.
Speaker: Oh, dang it. I'm scared, Pat. i' We get ready to get scared or at the mansion. The rest of the new mutants are having a fun pool party. Oh, never mind. When two things happen at once.
Speaker: First, they see a bright light in the sky and Cannonball rockets up to meet it. Second, a demon appears and it attacks. It's fucking Master of Languages, Doug Ramsey over here. He sees the demon. He goes, Trey Disgusto.
Speaker: yeah fuck it he also He also speaks slang. This guy could speak any language in the world. And he says, Trey Disgusto. Disgusto.
Speaker: ah The second thing, the demon, isn't a problem because Warlock just eats it. But the first thing. It's really anticlimactic. They make a big deal of it showing up. And within a page, it's just like, oh, ah it's oh it's dead. I'll just eat it.
Speaker: It turns out the bright light was Ileana's subway car. The two step out of it. Claiming to be enlightened, Sam and Ileana. What? They say that the Beyonder wants to make the entire world a peaceful and happy hive mind, and the rest should join.
Speaker: They ask what the hell is up with the demons, and Ileana explains without her guarding the walls between Limbo and Earth, the demons are crossing over to take over the world. No big deal, though, because the Beyonder will make everything better.
Speaker: All they have to do is step onto the subway car. Pluribus. Pluribus before Pluribus. The New Mutant. What? You never saw the show Pluribus?
Speaker: It's the Breaking Bad. The Breaking Bad guy did a show called Pluribus about a big hive mind that takes over Earth. I did not see that. And it's a really good pilot and a really bad show. okay
Speaker: ah The new mutants are all like, hell no. And Warlock blocks the door with his techno organic body. Ilyana tries to convert him and his brain starts to scramble all up when suddenly a giant demon appears with Kitty dangling from its neck.
Speaker: It's planning to kill her and put her soul into the Bloodstone amulet. And it came here to do it for some reason. Yeah. Why did it come here? Why did it? Yeah. Yeah. We're the only person on earth who could stop it lives. Yeah. What the fuck, man?
Speaker: You could have, you attacked her in the library. You had her dead to rights and you were like, I'm going to go to where Ileana Rasputin is before I, before I do this, just in case she wants to thwart me and describe me.
Speaker: But, Ileana doesn't want to do anything about it. There's a greater good to consider. The Beyonder told her so. However, when she sees Kitty in pain, she says, fuck it.
Speaker: She summons the Dark Child and her soul sword. Sam rockets her up above the demon and then downward as she extends her sword, slashing through the giant. Whoa, it's a that. I mean, I don't think this is very well drawn, but it is a fucking cool concept.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah, it's it's well conveyed, if nothing else. what Largely through the dialogue. Like, I think Chris Claremont saw this page and was like, not all right. i just let Let me clarify.
Speaker: Everyone is relieved except Ileana, who knows that she had to accept a giant burden and evil soul back into her body to save the day. how' is it evil? I don't know.
Speaker: But that burden is lightened by Kitty's gratitude and faith in her best friend. The end. Very sweet ending panel. um It took me a second to even to to like fully absorb it to Kitty. She's like, why so glum to Ileana? And she's like, you did real good. Me, I wasn't worried. And then the last panel is her just saying, I knew you'd save the day.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah. And it took me it took me a little bit to understand why that was important enough to be a whole panel. And it's like, oh, because even though Kitty's not, even though against all of Claremont's instincts, Ileana's not expressing it to us, the idea here is that is what keeps Ileana stable and keeps her from going full evil.
Speaker: her friends have faith in her and like, that's how she's able to shoulder this bird. Okay. Right. Interesting.
Speaker: Well, Pat, I'm going to keep on rolling. If you, yeah if you get the fuck out of my way, Please. No, no. By all means, please. Use me. right on by. Excuse me. got to get by here, and I got to reach New Mutants number 37 if I should die.
Speaker: no that's the name of it. Oh, okay. I thought we were still arguing. that No. No, it's called If I Should Die. Written by Chris Claremont. Mary Wilshire and Bill Sienkiewicz are the artist.
Speaker: Orzakowski and Buchalas are the letters. Glynis Oliver is the colors. And Nesenti is the editor. And the editor-in-chief is Joseph Story in 1779 to 1845. That one works, actually.
Speaker: Joseph Story works. Same initials. Yeah. Release date November 26, 1985. Cover date March
Speaker: we're Creeping ever closer to whatever it is you're so excited about, Matt.
Speaker: Things are good. and Everyone's having a good time. The team sits around watching old movies and goofing about while Danny talks. Yeah, they are watching old John Wayne movies.
Speaker: and And like goofing around pretending to shoot each other and stuff. But yeah ah Rain, to her credit, points out how fucking racist these movies are against Native Americans. Yeah.
Speaker: And... it It becomes ah a talking point for the first half of this issue is just like, guys, Danny is right here and we're watching a movie about John Wayne going and killing a bunch of a bunch of natives. Like it's.
Speaker: Yeah. It's kind of gross that we're doing this and and laughing about it. Yeah. Danny's right there. Yeah. Which is. I'm. not with Cool. Better than we've done so far. Better. We're getting better. Also, is this the searchers? Is that what they're watching?
Speaker: I couldn't find any markers in this that would explain. I've never seen the searchers, but I couldn't find It's racist. It's really bad.
Speaker: I couldn't find any anything in this scene that marked like to to like mark and research what this would be. Yeah, there there's only a few where he was just like going into villages and shooting people up. And yeah, that appears to be what he's doing here. um So while this is happening, Danny's talking to her mom on the phone, trying to find the words to explain that she's a Valkyrie now. How do you how do you confess that to your parents? Yeah.
Speaker: You already had to tell them you're a mutant. You already had to tell them that you killed the demon bear that was them. How do you have of right how do you tell them, now I am an ancient Norse ah semi-deity?
Speaker: I don't know. At this point, I think you'd be surprised how well they would take it. Yeah, exactly. With everything that's happened. They were the demon bear. course you are, sweetie. We knew you would do it. Okay.
Speaker: Unless it's just that it's a different mythological tradition. And they're like, yeah, we were a Cherokee demon bear. yeah You went ahead and became a Norse ah mythological creature.
Speaker: rain ah But before she can get it out, she starts seeing things. Holy forms appear over each member of the team.
Speaker: yeah you put here except notably Bobby, but that's because Bobby is not there. I mean, yeah, but later she specifically says, yeah she notes, she bobby did not have one.
Speaker: He doesn't have one. He doesn't have one. Correct. Yeah. But she is, but he is, but he is not there. And I think this is something we have to we're going have to keep noting throughout. This is Bobby is conspicuously absent through the rest of these issues. Right. Um,
Speaker: It's interesting here that everybody has a different kind of like death deity or death symbol that hangs over them. Yeah. Shan is a Roman Catholic. So she's got an angel over her.
Speaker: Notably one of the only religions that takes angels literally. But Ileana. Has a demon over her because she's demon. Of course. Yeah. She's evil. Yeah. Amara is, you know, believes in the Roman religion. So Pluto, who is a character in Marvel Comics and they have the Marvel Comics Pluto there and he's standing over her.
Speaker: Rain, we met him once, didn't we? Defenders, I think. in defense yeah Champions. Champions. That's what it was. Rain, who's Scott's Presbyterian, um has some lady with a glowing hand and a harp. I could not. I did a lot of researching. I could not figure out who the fuck this was supposed to be. It's just a lady. did no researching, and i also could not figure out who this is.
Speaker: um Warlock has some techno-organic god. It might be Magus. It looks kind of like Magus, but I just assume it's a techno-organic guy yeah um sam has like a Sam, who's a Southern Baptist, has a gloomy preacher with a giant Bible. um Looks kind of like the Saint of Killers from Preacher.
Speaker: um And then Doug just has the Grim Reaper. Yeah. is he's so Is he atheist?
Speaker: Well, where does the Grim Reaper come from? That's a good question. Does that have cultural origins? Romance cultures...
Speaker: I don't think any century European art. It doesn't look like anyone believes in it. I think he's I think that this the Grim Reaper is just a always been symbolic. Yeah, has just been symbolic. I don't think anyone actually believes that the Grim Reaper shows up to take you away.
Speaker: Well, then I don't know what he believes in. Maybe he just saw it one day and he's like, that's real. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, just because he knows languages doesn't mean he's smart. He could be the government of the new mutants. um Anyway, as you would, she runs off in a panic, but finds herself in front of a mirror.
Speaker: Her reflection is her at first, but wearing full Valkyrie gear, but it slowly morphs into Gila, Norse goddess of death. Oh, do you remember her? she tell for a movie She tells Danny that what she's seeing is the impending death of all of her friends.
Speaker: esh Still panicking, she hops on Bright Wind and rides it high into the sky, reflecting on a story her grandfather once told her. The Cheyenne, he told her, had become too proud, and the white man was sent to humble them. They waged war ruthlessly, not stopping for victory, slaughtering without care, while the Cheyenne relied on symbolic victories to represent death.
Speaker: Quote, the whites had no shame. All they cared about is winning, and since they did, who is to say which is the better path?
Speaker: What's being talked about? Yeah, yeah. yeah you you tell you You say first how you're... This is interesting. I don't think this is meant to be you like... but He is putting Black Eagle in the position of somebody who was reflected on all this over time and said, what lesson can I pull from this? So this is not like...
Speaker: a way to throw blame around as much as it is him saying like, look, our people were wiped out. Right. Why did that happen?
Speaker: we i mean, white people is why it happened, but what could we have done better to, yeah to, uh, have prevented uh,
Speaker: It's interesting to be like, hey, we were just – we considered ourselves the lords of the land and were quickly taught that we weren't. Yeah.
Speaker: This was – I mean and this – that's a little more in keeping with modern um Native American historiography, right, is giving um the Native Americans agency.
Speaker: in Yeah, yeah. what happened and talking about their successes and failures right like a lot of tribes or members of tribes made the conscious decision to merge with the white settlers um to make deals with them or to surrender to them right like these weren't just like this didn't just happen because the white people were so strong and powerful and smart and good yeah not good but evil or good or however you view them it happened because these were like negotiations and
Speaker: active decisions um there's a really good book in indigenous peoples history of the united states by roxanne dunbar ortiz if I remember it, I will record You should read it. I'll record it and send it to Pat and he'll edit it in right here.
Speaker: God damn it. I'll write it into the show notes. um But he does mention a concept here called Counting Coup. Do you know what Counting Coup is?
Speaker: i I do, but why don't you explain it for all the people who don't? So Counting Coup, it's a real thing. um Black Eagle describes it here as you touch your foe, show how easily you could have killed but chose not to, and thereby shame him, which is kind of true. That's kind of a real thing. But...
Speaker: but It's important to note that counting coup, um it's not always just touching somebody and riding away. It could be disarming them.
Speaker: It could be stealing their horses or their weapons or their their you know resources or whatever resources. It could it could be being touching the first enemy to die in battle, like touching their corpse.
Speaker: is um Is a type of counting coup. You're not shaming. okay You're shaming them, but you're also shaming all the other people who lost the war. This always... It's important to recognize this existed alongside all the brutal acts of warfare actual war that happened. yeah ah But this was a...
Speaker: Specifically, planes ah Great Plains societies did this. But this was a this was a real thing, right? That was a real thing that some people did in various ways. But it did happen exactly how it's represented here. You could approach somebody in a battle, touch them.
Speaker: and not be violent towards them, and that would shame the person, and that is counting coup. That is way You could consider the the battle won, having done that. Or at least, even whether you win or lose the battle, that person is shamed.
Speaker: That person is cucked by you. Okay. Oh, all right. So... And but Yeah. So there's we're still waiting a little bit into noble savage stuff here, right? Where he's like, oh, they never fought actual wars. They were 100% peaceful. and Which is why. Yes, exactly. Which is why I'm i'm clarifying.
Speaker: Sometimes you could count coup and kill the person at the also. Yeah, yeah. And. if you counted coup in a battle, that doesn't mean that you and your friends weren't also killing everyone around that person you counted coup on. So short, yeah, it's, it's not, yeah, but it is an interesting tradition and it was notably used. I don't know much about this story cause I don't, I fucking hate world war two history stuff, but Joe medicine crow in world war two notably did something similar to a German soldier. Um,
Speaker: So look that story up Anyway, she's up there. She's thinking about her grandfather and Sam burst through the clouds at that moment. Having found Danny, just hoping she's okay.
Speaker: It's the art here is so cool. Him like popping out of a burst of clouds. They're creating like a little hole in the clouds in his rocket form. And Danny's just yeah sitting there on one of the clouds atop her winged horse. It's kind of like um it's got that sacred geometry look where on the right side you have these big clouds. On the left side and kind of lower you have Danny on her horse and its wings are stretched out along the left side of the panel. And Sam is kind of doing a curve and he's just off center.
Speaker: And it's got that spiral. Yeah, he's doing a parabola.
Speaker: She's comforted by his effort and flies back with him, but doesn't see how she can explain that everyone is going to die. Yeah, that's tough. Man, everybody's going through stuff so such such tough stuff.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Bobby's limo is stuck in traffic.
Speaker: in midtown manhattan he gets out to see what the issue is and finds the police scrambling to rescue a woman who had a bulldozer fall on her just fell over on top of her she's having a rough day oh frick i knew first i spilled my coffee I knew something like this was going to happen today.
Speaker: ah yeah He tears off his shirt to reveal his new mutants uniform and summons all his strength to lift until she Hulk shows up and just picks the whole thing damn thing. self She deservedly gets all the credit and attention as Bobby mopes off.
Speaker: He resigns to return home to Brazil. There is there's one police officer that initially when he showed up was like, I don't want you helping if you're one of those muties.
Speaker: ah As Bobby is walking away, he's like, hey, kid, I saw what you did out there. And I'll tell you what you muties. You're all right. in my book
Speaker: Oh, man. That sucks. That's gotta suck. That's like the worst compliment to get. Insulting injury. Yeah, yeah exactly. ah But don't touch me!
Speaker: yeah yeah You're allowed to save lives. Walk on that side of the street, but you can save any life that you want. As Danny and Sam arrive back at the mansion, they spot an unwanted visitor at the front door.
Speaker: It's the Beyonder. No. what No, remember, we like the Beyonder in these comics. Yeah, Claremont writes the Beyonder a thousand times better than... As, like, a god that you have to fight. ah Yeah, yeah, yeah. um He's pretty upset at them for rejecting the paradise he offered. Remember that ah subway car?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. I sent a whole subway car to you guys.
Speaker: And just because of the demons.
Speaker: ah He clearly plans to punish them for it. Ileana steps forward, taking responsibility for the refusal and asking that he only punish her. Without a word, he atomizes her and she's fucking gone.
Speaker: Jesus Christ. Instinctively, they attack him, but it's useless. Danny tries to probe his mind for his greatest fear, but is overwhelmed with new perceptions.
Speaker: Karma tries to possess him before the psychic link kills Danny. It saves Danny, but the psychic force it's reflected back to Karma with kills her. This bugs me. Sorry.
Speaker: I don't mean to interrupt the drama here. This is a very dramatic moment, but like, yeah, it seems written pretty dramatically and really well paced too. You think? Yeah. It's the right delivery.
Speaker: ah
Speaker: I, it bugs me that they, they gave karma this cool power. Yeah. And it's been an, What, literally years since she's been able to just use it like normal?
Speaker: Right. it's we it is It's ridiculous that Magneto was able to reflect it. It makes sense here because the Beyonder's brain is so...
Speaker: Crazy, sick, and twisted. Sick and twisted. It's like it's like like the South Park guys. It's so sick. it's Rick and Morty style. It's Rick and Morty. Yeah.
Speaker: um yeah It makes sense. It's just a bummer that we, like, are we ever going to see karma just karma stuff again? Yeah. Anyway, Karma's dead, so I guess not. Dany comes to see her vision coming true.
Speaker: They put up a pretty good second effort and think they defeat the Beyonder. But he's actually just pretending. Nah. Without a thought, he removes Magma's powers and then opens up a pit beneath her. Sam flies in to save her and then the Beyonder seals the top of the pit off and collapses the walls around them, suffocating them.
Speaker: Jesus Christ. This is such a good... That is Sam's like deepest fear, right? Getting trapped in the mines. Yeah. And not being able to blast out or save the person that he was trying to save.
Speaker: And then Amara, it's like she is now master of the earth and to be killed by the earth. like what a What a smart idea on Claremont's part to just be like, this is one... This is basically...
Speaker: Here's the in the Venn diagram of their greatest fears. I can. Here is the overlap that I can make this so fucked up for both of them using my fucked up brain.
Speaker: You don't want to look in there. Yeah. you don't want to know what this guy. One by one, the Beyonder kills Warlock, Doug, then Rain, while Danny is powerless to stop him.
Speaker: She wonders if they too were too proud and the Beyonder sent to punish them.
Speaker: That's why it's important to cover the story her grandfather told her. Well, yes, yes. But ah then Danny tells them tells him to go fuck himself.
Speaker: He tells her to shut the fuck up. She this isn't in this recap for some reason. i don't know. i Maybe they just didn't understand the significance of it. You you didn't understand the significance of it. But Danny Danny flies up and touches the Beyonder on his back.
Speaker: Oh you must have missed that. And shouts. That is good detail, though. And she shouts, today is a good day to die. she And he disintegrates her. So she counts Ku. Yeah, yeah. He kills her. And this, there's a couple panels here that are fucking wild. One is Danny flying towards the Beyonder. And it's just a it's just a sort of full body and face of her crying and Brightwing's wing in the background, and she's saying, this is wrong, and it's yeah a heartbreaking little panel. And then after she counts Ku, after she touches the Beyonder, Brightwind is flying away, and Danny's, like, ashes are trickling off of him.
Speaker: I think that was pretty concisely covered in Danny tells him to go fuck himself, he tells her to shut the fuck up. Yeah, that's what Counting Q is. If you can tell your enemy to shut the fuck up before kills you. No, shut the fuck up.
Speaker: That's how the Sopranos count Q. Yeah. But anyway, as she disintegrates, like she knows she has won, right?
Speaker: The Beyonder has not diminished her pride. She has shown him, look You might have killed all my friends and me, but I touched you, right?
Speaker: I have my dignity. You haven't taken that from me. you have yeah What you've won is a Pyrrhic victory. Bye, I'm dead. hu He waves his hand and all memory of them is wiped from the world. Nothing remains.
Speaker: He's wiped their existence away from the time stream. Jesus Christ. Yeah. So now is a good time to say we saw this in Secret Wars 2 if for some reason you didn't listen to the Secret Wars 2 episode.
Speaker: Can't imagine why you wouldn't. At some point, we learned that all the all the new mutants had died. Do you think they might not have listened to it because we had been talking for months about how terrible Secret Wars 2 is going to be and how much we weren't looking forward to that episode? Yeah.
Speaker: No, I think that just drives people. That would make me want to listen to it, but I don't know if I'm i'm just a built a little different in my fucked up brain. Anyway, this is the point at which they die. And I'll tell you, i knew it had to be dramatic in some way. I didn't realize it was going to be This like upsetting to watch him just actually kill each of the new mutants one by one.
Speaker: Right. Yeesh. It's incredibly well done. And I think, again, noble savage stuff aside, counting coup thing was a fucking incredible touch. Yeah. Really good theme to run through.
Speaker: To have Claremont being like, okay, a pair of jump shumper just left this note on my desk saying, kill all the new mutants. Thanks. Bye.
Speaker: And he's like, fuck. what can I do in response? And he's like, well, I'm going to leave Danny's... I'm going to give the victory to Danny, even if the Beyonder kills everybody. Kills them all, yeah, yeah. um And yeah it's really...
Speaker: I think that's really poignant. A really great sort of parallel to how Claremont clearly feels about the Beyonders interference here, right? Like he just shows up at their door literally out of nowhere. He yeah he just appears and is like, we have to fight again.
Speaker: There's let me extend that. He tries to give them a gift and they're like, this gift sucks. And he's like, you didn't take my gift? Fine, I'm killing all of you.
Speaker: Yes. Right? Like, i have a great story for you, Chrissy baby. i came up with this whole good thing about what the Beyonder can do to the new mutants. and Chris is like, like I'm going to undo it in two pages. He's like, no this isn't a good story. And ah so metaphorically, Junk Shunker,
Speaker: murders his team yeah yeah and then they just they throw everything they have at him and he rebuffs every single one until he's just like okay are you done having fun because I'm running out of time I have to bring the hammer down on all of you right now yeah yeah boy well what How is there? So there's no more new mutants.
Speaker: No, Matt. What? If you listen to our Secret Wars 2 episode, you would know. He brought them back to life through his birthing machine. And oh then I believe Rachel Summers reached into one of their minds and was like, oh, he did some fucked up things to him and and told all the other heroes. But they didn't then put him through his own birthing machine and make him a baby and then kill him.
Speaker: Matt, did you listen to our Secret Wars 2 episode? They wouldn't have done that. That is a crazy thing to have at the end of your story. that's had That is the crux of the story.
Speaker: They put a man in a birthing machine, turn him into a baby, and then kill him then. and So he births himself from a machine that makes him a little baby, and he doesn't have his powers yet, so they kill him.
Speaker: Right. Right.
Speaker: You should know this. ah I do know this. don't i Don't you wish you didn't know that? Yeah, yeah. this is a lot of knowledge I wish I didn't have. But I've probably forgotten somebody's phone number. Remember when the band remember when the beyond birth so you could be at a party and be like hey remember then the Beyonder birthed himself through his birthing machine and he became a baby and then all the superheroes in the world killed him?
Speaker: And everybody can say, no Pat, are you okay? ah We go to a lot of parties together. So one of us, we should see, one of us should just observe from the other side of the room while the other one tries this.
Speaker: And then at the next party, we reverse it, but do it on the same person. And they'll be like, yeah, actually, I did know that.
Speaker: Oh, Pat. How could you possibly tell me about another issue when the new mutants are dead? Well, Matt, if you would listen to Secret Wars 2, you would know that they're not started all over again.
Speaker: All right. Let me let me cut to the chase here, Matt. I'm going to read to you new mutants number 38 aftermath. Chris. All right. When's math?
Speaker: no no no no that's the name of the story aftermath oh one word okay i saw chris claremont writer a rick leonardi guest artist of course bill sinkiewicz anchor ken brusenak letterer glennis oliver colorist and no centi editor and we could all use a brush up on our math skills i got nothing editor-in-chief release date december 24th 1985 my first christmas
Speaker: Cover date April 1986. open. Yes. We're getting so close. To what? My second Christmas.
Speaker: We open in the midst of an action packed battle. The new mutants are beating the shit out of some sentinels while Magneto watches horrified at the danger they must put themselves in. As if in answer, the White Queen and her Helions show up. The mutants are still winning the day when Magneto comes outside to tell them enough is enough.
Speaker: It's time to stop this and go to bed. So the new mutants all pull off their costumes and tuck themselves into shallow graves, like pulling dirt over their own bodies.
Speaker: Our last images of gravestones on a hillside. I told you they're dead. How could you have an issue here? The next morning. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because Magneto tells Sharon Friedlander that the dreams continue to happen.
Speaker: Dreams. Oh, this was a dream. This was you got me. I will tell you. I will tell you. I want you to tell me this was i demand you tell me chilling because this is this is smarter than I think you might give it credit for based on the based on the reveal here. This is a dream.
Speaker: Yes, but. You start with the new mutants in a huge battle with the Sentinels. All of a sudden, the Hellions show up in your head. You're like, OK, whatever's going on with the new mutants right now, this is a danger room training session. Like there's no way we're just opening on their two biggest enemies fighting them without any context around it. And you're right.
Speaker: At some point. the danger room ah illusions turn off and it's revealed that Magneto is just in the danger room talking to the new mutants. And then he sends them to bed and they just climb into graves and bury themselves in dirt, which is disturbing in itself. But you thought you were safe. You already guessed the reveal. And then a page later, there's a second one. It's really like they're fucking with you in these issues.
Speaker: Could you imagine if you were doing real good as a superhero? Like, you were doing real superhero shit. And you're like, I am kicking ass. And then you're like, dad comes out and it's like, all right, Pat.
Speaker: enough Enough fighting evil. Time to go to bed. ah dad. i was i was just about to beat the White Queen. I'm being real hero.
Speaker: All right, you can be a hero tomorrow. The White Queen will still be there. That's the problem, Dad. How do you not see that's the problem? So he continues to have these dreams. he says unless he breaks the cycle, he's sure it won't stop.
Speaker: Sharon tries to implore him to eat and delivers him a letter from Emma Frost just before the kids come down to the breakfast table. They all sit in silence. No one eating.
Speaker: No one talking. most serious Most staring down at the table forlorn. The New Mutants are rightfully traumatized by their own deaths at the hand of the Beyonder.
Speaker: Yeah, man. You would be. Yeah, it's fucked up. Yeah, it's so fucked up. It's fucked up. It's all so bleak. Also, turns out. Funny.
Speaker: do not know No, it's sorry. I thought I knew where you're going. It's really light, especially after the end of like, we watch them all die. And then we got this weird surprise at the beginning of this issue. And then when we actually see them, they're still like, they're all fucked up. They're just these little soulless.
Speaker: yeah Idiots. Yeah, they're idiots. So stupid. If I got killed by the Beyonder i'd and I got back to life, I'd be like, whatever, whatever. What's on TV?
Speaker: Give me a Sunday. Here's here's something interesting, though. They're told that the Beyonder is dead. They were told that after that whole experience, the Beyonder died.
Speaker: Is that not what you took from that? No, he went back and made his own Big Bang in his own universe. I thought he kind of became that universe. So like, he's dead. oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker: But now he's humans in that universe. Yes. All of them. I win. No, I don't think so.
Speaker: Late that night. Wait a minute. Is that the new universe that happens in Marvel? Oh, no.
Speaker: thought about that but they have been so close together and they're both gypships initiatives fuck man sorry yeah it's all right it's not your fault late that night magneto pours himself a drink in the dark think of how he's failing these children relatable content he's failing his promise to his old friend charles Suddenly, a match lights and Emma Frost is sitting at his desk lighting a cigarette.
Speaker: So cool.
Speaker: She offers to psychically dampen the kids' trauma and accept them into the Massachusetts Academy. She even promises not to pressure them into the Hellfire Club, but Magneto refuses and throws her out.
Speaker: But she promises. I promise I won't put him in the Hellfire Club. promise I won't put him in the Hellfire Club. The next day is no better. Bobby is still gone. Cannonball is failing both in the danger room and in his studies.
Speaker: Rain, Ileana, Doug, and Amara are sucking at their dance lessons. And Magneto's flares of disappointment and anger only seem to make things worse and drive the kids away.
Speaker: Stevie sets him right. He yells at the kids for being bad at dance class and she's like, don't talk to my kids that way. yeah This is my fucking dance class, dude. You made Ileana go to hell. i That's so funny is when somebody gets, when Ileana gets mad at you, she goes to hell. You made her go to hell. You made her go to hell.
Speaker: In the carriage house, Damien Moonstar pours her heart out to Brightwind. She watched all her friends die and could do nothing. Then the Beyonder brought them all back as toys, as tools, as weapons.
Speaker: Despite the fact that the Beyonder is dead, she no longer has faith in her abilities, her friends' abilities, or life itself. Then a glowing frog shows up and it's Thor and he tells her to cheer up and hops away.
Speaker: so ah ah um ah where ah so ah important editor's note that we get here. thor is currently a frog in walt Simonson's run.
Speaker: So. It's a super dramatic moment where she's like, I don't i don't know what to do. And I i failed everybody. And What's a glowing frog? Hi, I'm Thor. Don't be sad. Hop, hop, hop. There is, i think it's a cute. So first of all, she's she just needs to get a vision from Thor, right? To be like, hey, I'm a massive good guy. And i also appreciate the work that you do. But...
Speaker: because of what's going on in the actual Thor comics at the time, he just has to appear as a frog. And then like a vision of his head appears. And Danny is automatically like, uh, okay, how can I help you not be a frog? This seems like a problem for you. And he bounces out and Danny has to come to the understanding of like,
Speaker: Oh, even even as a frog, even as a man who's just been transformed into a frog, he came to me to be like, hey, buck up, kid. Yeah, he doesn't want my health.
Speaker: Oh, it's cute. Still fucking weird. Still a fucking weird. Oh, yeah. A week later, the gang attended dance at the Salem Center High School. Magneto yeah posing as Charles x Xavier's cousin, Michael like Xavier.
Speaker: Tends a chaperone and worries as the students fail to even socialize. Sorry. ah yeah what's wrong? You are now going by the the most reasonable cover for why you are the next in command that you have is that you are his quote, mysterious older cousin, Michael Xavier.
Speaker: So you remember in high when we went to the same high school and do you remember in high school when our principal disappeared. And so obviously what's the next in line to take his job was his cousin.
Speaker: o That's what happens. i Also, it seems we'll find out through later issues that I i can't imagine it's mentioned in recaps, but him being Michael x Xavier, Charles x Xavier's mysterious older cousin, is built into a number of systems around the house, which makes me think that ex Xavier is Is the one who came up with this cover and insisted that Magneto was older than him.
Speaker: This is my mysterious older cousin. ah Yes, it's it that that is confirmed here when he's talking to the principal of the other school of Salem Center High School.
Speaker: And she she's the one who calls him his mysterious older cousin. Yeah. yeah And Magneto is like, I'm not i'm not mysterious. um And then he thinks to himself, God, thanks thanks a lot, x Xavier. Thanks for giving me this cool identity. Dude, oh I'm so fucking glad you did this. How am I supposed to explain to people that I'm older than you? I'm currently 30 years old. but That's true. But he does have white hair. That's true, yeah.
Speaker: ah That night, Magneto sits at his desk when all of a sudden his chair comes to life. What? It's Warlock. He to talk and didn't know the best way to initiate it, so he did that.
Speaker: Of course. He's confused as to why his friends are all acting weird. He too was dead, but he got better. So what's the deal? But Magneto has no guidance to give.
Speaker: That's so Warlock to be like, yeah, okay, yeah, we were all dead and didn't exist anymore. But now we do. We exist now. So why is everyone being so fucking weird about it?
Speaker: Warlock turns back into the chair quickly as Doug Ramsey's parents enter the room. They explain that Doug is unhappy and they're considering pulling him out of the school. Oh, it's so sad. They can never know who their son's best friend is.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Because he's a techno organic alien. But, you know, there's like soulmates, those two. And they think the man, he can never introduce him to his parents and be like, this is my friend and roommate.
Speaker: This is my friend. We are alive we are life mates. We saved each other's lives. And sometimes we become the same. Yeah.
Speaker: Meanwhile, empath watches from the hill outside. Fuck him. Apparently he's been using his powers to deepen Magneto's confusion and doubts.
Speaker: At that moment, he's caught by Sharon and Tom. They demand he follows them inside to talk to Magneto, but Empath has a different idea. He makes them forget him and fall instantly, passionately in love with one another.
Speaker: Ew. Oh, God. He pulls his binoculars back on to watch as Magneto makes a final decision. they just start, they just start making out and then crazy making out, like they collapse in the snow making out. It's really disturbing. told them to go until they die.
Speaker: What's the, how's the way he says it Oh, they say, they say, see how he is, that he is disgusted by the way they go after each other. And he says, see how easily you are consumed by a love that defies description, a bestial passion that will not die until it has drained you utterly. Yes. He says bone to death.
Speaker: And he did it and he's disgusted by them for it. He's such a fucking ah shithead. and like Out of his mind. he is there's There's almost no distinction between this and like a sexual assault. Yeah, yeah. yeah The next warning...
Speaker: Magneto calls all the new mutants, except Bobby, who's still gone, into his office where Emma Frost has joined him. What? Effective immediately, he's transferring them all to the Massachusetts Academy and closing x Xavier's school.
Speaker: Danny is the only one who refuses, and the rest of the mutants quietly accept their fate. To be continued.
Speaker: Do we know... How much empath affected here, right? Like we know he's manipulated Magneto. Right.
Speaker: And he's made him more confused, more doubtful, all that. Do we know if he has helped... deep in the New Mutants depression here?
Speaker: i don't think so because as soon as we see him at the start of the next issue, they're still like kind of husks of people. and And what we didn't mention here is the reason Danny's... ah not the reason Danny's objecting is because she worked through her shit. She like came to terms with everything. It was like, cause of the frog that I can be, uh, well, yeah, but so that's like, had empath been suppressing her still, she wouldn't have had the ability to do that. Right.
Speaker: You can overcome empaths shit. Yeah, that's true. all he he All he does is influence. Usually feelings that are already so that are there on some level.
Speaker: um When he tries to completely change somebody's mind or feelings, he usually fails at it. Not always, but usually. Sure. um So far, anyway.
Speaker: But... a I think you're right, but it would position if Emma Frost is like, I'm going to fix you guys. It would put her in a position to become the like the hero.
Speaker: Yes. To gain their trust. But she has the same problem. We'll find out in the very beginning of the next issue is she's like, the fuck's wrong with these kids? Yeah, I agreed. I agree. i do want to revisit it again a little bit later because I think it's worth at least thinking about. But I think you're right.
Speaker: um too but let's let's move forward to new mutants number 39 pawns of the white queen yeah not a very not a very hopeful subtle
Speaker: writer chris claremont keith pollard bet guest penciler del barris guest inker never heard of this guy um Tom Orzakowski, letterist. Glynis Oliver, colorer. Ann Nocenti, editor. And joe ah smith Thompson, date, January Cover date,
Speaker: my first birthday thank you emma frost we're on a first- name basis but Yeah, for the ever the listeners. Miss Frost to you guys. Emma welcomes the gang to the Massachusetts Academy and ranks of the Hellions, promising them they're in safe hands now.
Speaker: They just stare on with blank expressions until she dismisses them, wondering why they're so broken. What the fuck wrong with these kids? She starts planning the massive psychic surgeries she'll have to perform to fix them.
Speaker: Hey, ah better put on my loose corset with nothing underneath and my skin tight white leather to go talk to my new child students. Matt, you know that at all times this is what she's wearing. She has just stopped trying to project other clothes on top of her.
Speaker: Isn't it so wild that we, this is something that we all, we are all just like, yeah, that's the white queen. Yeah, sure. That's the white queen. We just accepted about her. that woman in full white lingerie?
Speaker: Oh, Emma. Yeah. Oh, her her two favorite things are um teaching children and ah walking around in underwear. Yeah. And she usually does them at the same time. No big deal. That's her. don't even notice it anymore.
Speaker: Why shouldn't a person compare god can combine their two passions? Wearing underwear, teaching kids. The existing Hellions try to mix it up with their new members, but find the new mutants to be just as emotionless to the degree that empath can't even influence them.
Speaker: Yeah, he's trying to be a creep. Point to the empath side, unless he just did his job so well. There's a weird, so Massachusetts Academy underground training room also has boys and girls separated locker rooms, as it turns out.
Speaker: and But they're very big. Way bigger than they need. Yeah, yeah. And Empath is in there trying to charm the girls and it doesn't work. But Ilyana shows up, like pops pops in and is like, I think i think you were just leaving.
Speaker: So Magic scares him and knocks him over. and then um ah But the other the the existing Hellions come out. And they seem like they've already dealt with this. Yes. To the point where like...
Speaker: he knows not to do this to them and they're like how fucking dare you and they beat his ass it's that's good but it's also like god damn it this guy sucks so bad Back in Westchester, Magneto looks over the new Massachusetts Academy school photos side by side with his own group photo with the new mutants and thinks about what a failure he is. i get i got this group photo of the new mutants with Magneto, which could only have been taken in the span of like three days, right? Right. It's adorable. They're all making goofy faces and like...
Speaker: posing for a funny picture while he just stands there with them it's really cute I think especially after this next scene that we're about to get to I think they I think this issue is supposed to imply that the new mutants and Magneto have spent way more time together between issues Then. Okay. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Because downstairs, Danny is turning her power on herself, showing herself her greatest desire. The new mutants having fun, a fun and enriching time in the danger room under Magneto's tutelage. know She's like remembering what it looked like to see Magneto.
Speaker: not tell them he's proud of them, but slightly smile when they do something. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She also, she says disgusto again. What the fuck is happening? It's probably something he heard at a shopping mall.
Speaker: was like, kids say it. He misheard it. It was somebody saying disgusting, but like there was like a, there was another noise going on and he was like, oh, that's good.
Speaker: Pat, she says the the thing Danny says after her, after she does this whole thing. is this is the way it could have been had the Beyonder never, had we never met the Beyonder.
Speaker: Right. This is 100% Chris Claremont saying, i had a fucking plan for the New Mutants and I was building to something and you made me interrupt that plan to do your dumb Beyonder shit.
Speaker: And now I have to change my plan completely. Right? Yeah. like This is him expressing how his book would have been a different book. Yes. My book. This is what I was going to do. I was going to have the new mutants learn, continue to learn to work as a team and slowly.
Speaker: Learn to accept Magneto as their mentor. But I can't do that now. Because you've made me kill them all. And bring them back to life. And I'm not supposed to. And I'm supposed to just go back to my normal story. Without dealing with the consequences of that. Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker: And that's. I mean. That's the the other thing that we're dealing with here is Chris Claremont clearly writing his way out of a depression. And that's like him just describing through different characters the symptoms of depression and the steps that you have to take to try to break out of it.
Speaker: So clearly this threw him into some sort of spiral. This is also like with around the X Factor debut, right? So this around when he would have learned that ah things weren't going his way exactly. i think that's the bigger than just Secret Wars 2. This is him saying like, I fucking hate this job. What am I doing?
Speaker: I think, yes, I i think that's there. i but I do, I think like there's just, so it's just so one-to-one him being like, if we had never met the beyonder, this is what would be happening. Yeah. It's like so clearly like if I didn't have to, yeah, I wish I didn't have to put the beyonder. I had it I had a plan, right? Yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker: Later, back in reality, Emma is wrapping up her psychic surgery, shocked at the trauma the new mutants have endured. Rain wakes up, the last of the team to get fixed, and very happily returns to her equally cheerful teammates.
Speaker: They all love Emma Frost for lifting them out of their depression and promise they won't let her down. Just one problem. They're all having terrible screaming nightmares they can't remember at all.
Speaker: Except for Ileana, who's just been going to limbo at night instead of sleep. Oh, that'll that'll fix it. Normal. Meanwhile, Danny berates Magneto for wallowing in his failure, drinking nonstop, and letting the mansion fall into disrepair. She begs him to try to fight his way out of it, to reopen the school, but he won't.
Speaker: And so she decides to return home. Oh. She says her goodbyes to Stevie and Warlock. She also also says though alsou says chomping at the bit. It's champing.
Speaker: Is it? It is But if she's unable to find Tom or Sharon to say goodbye to them. She flies off to figure out who she is, what she wants to do.
Speaker: Had she stuck around a little longer, though, she would have found Tom and Sharon, who returned from the woods, dressed in weird bondage gear and dying from exposure. Oh,
Speaker: In the infirmary, they explain what happened. They tried to bone each other to death until they were both so resentful of Empath for making them do this that they were able to stop Magneto immediately puts the pieces together and starts raging.
Speaker: He goes down to the danger room and starts blowing things up, including giant FSGs he makes of Empath and his mentor, Emma Frost. It's time for him to correct this situation. I'm going to go fix this, but first I have to go make pictures of those people that are mad at and blow them up. he makes them He's tearing the danger room apart too. like He's tearing the metal off the walls to form these giant busts of people that he hates so that he can shoot them with his with his magnets.
Speaker: When Tom and Sharon come in he's like... He thinks there's like invaders and he's like... Halt intruders, but he's in the shower. So he's just like nude holding his ra shaving razor. Which he could fucking kill you with. yeah Yeah. Magneto nude is more threatening than the Punisher with all of his weapons.
Speaker: He also, it's this is interesting, he also realizes at this moment that Empath fucked with his emotions. He's also like, and he made me doubt myself, and that's why i did something so out of character as letting the new mutants go. Yeah.
Speaker: So I think it's interesting to note, this is what happens when somebody fucks with Magneto's emotions, which I want us to keep in our heads. That he gets very upset. When somebody fucks with Magneto's emotions, he gets instantly, like he instantly rages and gets murderous. Okay.
Speaker: Back in Massachusetts, Emma feels his revelation psychically. The Hellions certainly aren't ready to face Magneto, and summoning the Hellfire Club would mean a major loss in her status as the White Queen.
Speaker: Now, she's got a much simpler idea. She calls the police on Magneto. No. To be continued. White lady privilege, am I right? No.
Speaker: This is, i am on the edge of my seat here, Matt. This run yeah where as the reader, we know that empath is just manipulating Magneto and we're waiting for him to figure it out and just watching them like live miserable lives and just be unhappy. Like, you know, this is building towards a resolution that it's not just going to be a bunch of depressed, emotionless teens for the next hundred issues or whatever. But yeah,
Speaker: unless they give Bob Layton a book maybe I don't see how it happens and need to and i need to yeah I need to find out yeah yeah well why don't you why don't we find out we can find out right now Matt with the last issue this was written 40 years ago we can find out right now let's do it New Mutants number 40 Avengers Assemble Yeah. Well.
Speaker: You're thinking to me, my X-Men. Oh, OK. Sorry. Chris Claremont, writer, Jackson, Weechy, Penciler, another new. This is our the four issues for different artists.
Speaker: Kyle Baker, anchor, Michelle Wrightson, colorist, take Tom Orzakowski, letterer, and no centi editor and ham sandwich editor in chief. Release date cover date June 1986. I live.
Speaker: I live. I burst into life. I burst into life out of my mother's womb. Not only that, Matt, but in the middle of the night, the Avengers get a call from the Snow Valley Police Department.
Speaker: That's exciting. They've been told that Magneto intends to kidnap some children from the Massachusetts Academy. The Avengers assemble disappointed, but not shocked that Magneto is up to his old tricks.
Speaker: The Avengers at the moment, of course, are Captain America, Black Knight, Hercules, Captain Marvel, Wasp, and Namor. And that's the Monica Rambeau Captain. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Real weird era for the Carol is still in space. Not not the weirdest. I think the next era of the Avengers is the weirdest. Yeah, it gets worse. But this is still very strange. They also. So I guess living at the mansion right now are Wasp, Cap, Black Knight and Hercules.
Speaker: And we get, i guess, a look at all of their pajamas. Wasp wears a sheer lace nightie with her underwear or the panties and bra cap just wears boxers and a tank top, like an undershirt tank top.
Speaker: Yeah. The black knight. He has a striped pajama set, like a nice, like polo Ralph Lauren pajama set. With his sword. He's got it when he's in his pajamas. So he might sleep with that sort of custom pajamas. So the, that a sword can go.
Speaker: And then Hercules, if you had any doubt in your mind, just sleeps nude. He's covering himself up with a sheet as he runs. And then they get on this video screen. It turns out the video screen they have just gives them augmented reality costumes. So anybody watching doesn't see them all in their pajamas. They see them all fully outfitted as the Avengers.
Speaker: It's funny, Hercules is like, like apparently he's just like whispering in Cap's ear about how boring and stupid Thor is all the time.
Speaker: And so when Captain America says things, he's just like, well, yeah, I guess you're a patient guy if you had to put up with that boring idiot Thor for so long. Yeah, yeah, over and over again. ah In the Massachusetts Academy, Cannonball and Magma train with Jetstream, but they're all chided by Emma Frost for doing so without permission.
Speaker: Jetstream explains that that the new mutants haven't been sleeping and have been having nightmares since they got there, and Emma probes the kids' minds to figure out what's wrong. She can't find anything amiss, but something about her psychic surgery must have gone wrong.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Magneto flies into Snow Valley in a big bird jet that's actually just Warlock. Warlock wants to fucking murder the White Queen, but Magneto argues against violence of any kind on their mission and tells Warlock never to absorb any sentient beings life glow ever without exception.
Speaker: He knows this hard. Then Hercules smashes him with a mace. The Avengers are here. The Avengers are here. So he's ah he's trying to be the blackbird. So he's half jet, half ba bird. Yeah, very cute.
Speaker: The Avengers are here, but Magneto is more worried about Warlock. He starts trying to funnel energy into Warlock's dying body, but slowly so as to not overload him.
Speaker: But then the Avengers find him and attack. He wants to lure them away from Warlock and he wants an explanation. They want him to surrender, but he wants to magnetically pull Black Knight's atomic steed out from under him.
Speaker: Yeah. the Yield your, your, yield your persons to our authority. And he, and Magnus is just like, no, it was Black Knight's steed out from under him. Makes him fall on his butt. Next time. Don't bring a metal horse, idiot. Yeah. No. Magneto gets in some good hits at first, but Namor clocks him hard and Hercules bear hugs him. They explain that. Remember, Namor hates Magneto.
Speaker: Yes. I'd forgotten this, Namor. From the like, since the Lee Kirby era, right? Yes. Yeah. Yes. When Magneto first tried recruit him. Issue three, i want to say.
Speaker: The Avengers explain that they're here to stop him from kidnapping kids, and Magneto realizes he's stuck. He can't explain what's really going on without unmasking the new mutants. So he blasts free and they all have a big fight, although Cap is suspicious about this whole thing and wants Black Knight to examine the wreckage of the ship.
Speaker: The ship that they don't know was actually Warlock. When Magneto pulls some rock out of the ground to fight Hercules, Magma feels it in the nearby cafeteria.
Speaker: They know Magneto's here, so Magic decides to go check it out. She sees Warlock on the rocks, and when Black Knight notices her, Magneto chucks him away. This causes Captain America to realize that Magneto isn't doing any of them any real harm.
Speaker: He chucks his shield, but magic opens a portal to catch it. Then she ports away back to the cafeteria, shield in tow, and explains to the others what's happening. This is so cool.
Speaker: Fucking magic just yeah steals Captain America's shield. And because she's magic, she doesn't even care. Like, she's not like she's not excited by this or she's not like tickled by it. She's just like, yeah, it's Captain America. She's enjoying it a little bit because she doesn't just like keep it away somewhere. She continues to carry it around with her and show to everyone that she has Captain America. She like she understands the status associated with it, even if she's being modest about it.
Speaker: And then, of course, Magic explains to the others what's happening. They don't know what to do, but she tells them she's heading back to help. Meanwhile, the Avengers have gained the upper hand. Magneto is tired and hurt and then drowning after Namor punches him into an icy lake.
Speaker: Seeing his teacher and friend beaten, Warlock gathers the last of his strength to grab all of the Avengers and start sapping their life glow. Warlock could kill all of the Avengers yeah by himself. Ugh, nuts.
Speaker: Magneto zaps Warlock and tells him to stop, and then he tells the Avengers that they can do whatever they want with him, but to let him heal Warlock first. Cap is confused again, but no time for that now. The new mutants are here.
Speaker: The kids threaten the damn Avengers and then teleport away with Magneto, even as he protests. Then a few days pass as the White Queen and Magneto team up to nurse the new mutants back to psychiatric health.
Speaker: Within one page, they're all better and they want to return to Xavier's school with Magneto as their teacher, except Rain, who wants to go home. And the White Queen walks away with the kids' eternal gratitude.
Speaker: The end. So that's where it's like... Even though their depression put a strain on the White Queen and the Helions, arguably. Yeah.
Speaker: In the end, it all works to her benefit. Right. Because now, even though they're not directly under her command, they trust her implicitly. They are like, this is a person who always has our best interests at heart.
Speaker: um So very interesting things happen in the fight between Magneto and the Avengers first. Yes. um Magneto keeps his calm really, really well.
Speaker: Yeah. Until Captain America fucks the fuck up by being like... Magneto's like... yeah You accept bad guys on your team. You like you understand that villains can change. You have Namor on your team. And so ah Captain America's like, Namor proved himself when fighting the Nazis in World War II, so you might want to watch your tone. fucking Magnus is like, are you fucking kidding me? That's what he flips out.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. um He has quite a speech, too. It's really... yeah Yes. Righteous. And he's right. Yeah. And he's right. He was a victim of that. Yeah. that Yeah. Whatever Captain America and Namor went through in World War Two pales in comparison to what Magneto. Right.
Speaker: And still even in anger, like he's still showing this restraint the entire time. Yes. If I were willing to kill them or maim them, then yeah, I could win this fight.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm trying to be nice. Exactly. I'm trying to be nice to you guys. Stop bringing up Nazis. He also another thing he does. He's fighting. i want to say it's like Hercules that he surrounds in a just a bunch of metal and then jets him off into the sky. Just absolutely yeets him. Right.
Speaker: And okay. Yeah. He knows that he sent it towards the ocean, but he's like, the Avengers don't know that I'm sending it towards the ocean. They're going to be worried that it's going to strike civilians. So I've got just gotten rid of Hercules and at least one more of them that's going to fly after him and make sure he doesn't hurt any civilians.
Speaker: Yeah. civilians yeah That, again, is classic supervillain technique, right? if If you're fighting Spider-Man and he's got the upper hand, all you have to do is throw some rubble down at a crowd below and he'll go and save them from the rubble before he beats your ass. And so Magneto's doing that here just...
Speaker: knowingly not putting any civilians in danger. He's the only one that knows that still supervillain technique. Really. yeah Yeah. Really just cool detail. Just the way that he approaches these fights is even so unique.
Speaker: Here's another fun thing. Yeah. Magic. When she steals Captain America shield, she calls him Mr. America. Got him.
Speaker: She's like, you're being a naughty boy, Mr. America. yeah That had to fucking, can you imagine your, your Captain America, a little girl in a a school outfit, school uniform, shows up, steals your shield from Steals your primary weapon.
Speaker: The fucking, moving it back, the Nazis in World War II couldn't even do. Steals your shield from you, calls you Mr. America, and then disappears.
Speaker: God. ah Another interesting thing at the end, the reason White Queen's psychic surgery didn't work is because she healed their brains. But not their souls. So just more confirmation that in the Marvel Universe, souls exist. Souls exist. 616. 616 souls exist. More and more evidence.
Speaker: Well, what did you think of this fucking... weird arc man matt i had such a good time i in ah loved every moment of this i thought that the the writing was high quality i thought all of the art was very good i know that we talked about like that first issue with mary wilshire and bill sankiewicz syncing up it takes them maybe an issue to kind of work through but From the start, the the first two pad, there's two big splash panels to start, right? And one yeah is all of the new mutants looking grumpy and confused and not understanding why they have to stand here and listen to Magneto. And then the other is Magneto giving his speech and and they're just like, they're imposed so that you're looking at both of them at the same time.
Speaker: And it's it's like this. It's these two just beautiful, starkly contrasting frames. They're all wearing super 80s clothing, which I absolutely love. And then I do a good. Yeah, it's just this this really. Emotional.
Speaker: emotional two pages with each one conveying its own emotion and from there i was hooked i was like oh this is going to be good we got we read through we get through we get to beyonder shit and even then i'm like oh this is a better beyonder than we've read yeah ever this is somebody this is like an intimidating villain i don't know how they're going to get through this and then they fucking don't they don't but then they do
Speaker: And then you do, you have three issues to deal with just the emotional state that leaves them in and the impacts of that. It's so, yeah, this is just, it's really good storytelling and it's so many things happen, but the theme of Magneto just getting his shit together, figuring it out is, is so consistent here that yeah, this is one long story I agree. I think – and and i I love the metatextual layers. I love Chris Claremont just being like every situation – this put me in such a shitty situation that I have to write my way out of. And I'm going to explain that to the reader on the page. I'm going to put that in the text, not just –
Speaker: not just feel it and be grumpy. I'm going to, I'm going to write stories about how bad this was for me. um ah And, we and we'll see. well It'll be interesting to compare how he does that in,
Speaker: X an uncanny X-Men right but yeah I mean but he he uses it to do some really interesting things with the characters which clearly were different than what the exact things he had originally planned for the characters but I think are really important I think they really show some interesting things about them um Yeah, everything you said about Bill Sienkiewicz and Mary Wilshire is true, but I still think like there it's like two great tastes that don't taste great together.
Speaker: Like, as everybody in the world agrees with me, fruit and chocolate, we all agree. All of us in the whole world agree. Fruit and chocolate taste bad together. But the things you're pointing out, like her sense of layout, like her her the way that she designs layouts, the way that she designs characters and wardrobes and stuff, the way that she... that Her storytelling is fantastic. And i I just... I know she moves into like Barbie comics and stuff later in her career, but it just... It's that's such a
Speaker: It's a shame for us. I don't know if it's a shame for the world. I don't know how popular those bob Barbie comics were, but it's a shame for us that we don't get more where Mary Wilshire superhero stuff because she's so good at it Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: but then But then, of course, it jumps from artist to artist. And it's going to for a little while, I think, before they find their the next like New Mutants artist. Maybe Jackson-Gweetchy stinks around. Stinks around? Stinks the place up a bit? I like Jackson-Gweetchy's art.
Speaker: Any other notes? No, i really i really enjoyed this. Oh, here's here's one thing that got me but I didn't think was important enough to mention.
Speaker: ah In the first issue we read here where Magneto goes up and fucks up those frat boys, comes back, catches the new mutants, sneaking back in after him and just gives them the little wink. he's yeah What he says is like, all right, just get to bed.
Speaker: Be quiet because Danny is resting and Rain is like, is she going to be okay? Like, tell us. We haven't seen her since since she got back. And Magneto looks right at her and says,
Speaker: A few days rest will find her right as rain. You think it's because he's talking to rain? He's saying it to her it and the ellipses are there. the ellipses are there, yes. Make it clear that he is either, i don't think it's a bad pun as much as it is him saying it and being like, oh, how about that?
Speaker: He's just realizing, I'm not a villain anymore. I'm allowed to make puns now. Yeah. I can do this. um Good issues.
Speaker: Good issues. Good episode. Good episode. i don't know what the I don't know the actual quality. He's got an eye out. Stuff that could buy out. If you had a time machine that you would like to try out.
Speaker: can feel sealed. Oh, Matt, you're going to hate this one today, but i could not resist. Let me just ask you before you look at the ad here. What could be better than Nestle quick and baseball?
Speaker: What could be better than Nestle quick and baseball next? Oh, Nestle quick without baseball. No wrong, idiot. Gotcha. Ah, you got got no i with the answer.
Speaker: That is Nestle Quick and a free baseball. That's just Nestle quick and baseball. Hold on. That's the same thing. no, no, no, no. it's A baseball and it's free.
Speaker: You're saying what's better than playing baseball and drinking Nestle quick, which would be horrible, by the way. What's better than playing? that You say what's better than drinking Nestle quick and playing baseball is drinking Nestle quick and having a baseball in your hand.
Speaker: Because you got it for free. So all baseball players, what they would rather in their lives than to be out there playing baseball is if somebody just gave them a free baseball. They're all playing in baseball so that they can save up enough money to buy themselves a baseball. And then they're done.
Speaker: They're out of it.
Speaker: Listen, you haven't even, you're so outraged that I haven't even gotten to the point here that this is a free Steve Garvey baseball. It is, that's right, Matt, the San Diego Padres own Steve Garvey illustrated here.
Speaker: Did you just cut out where I said it was the San Diego Padres Steve Garvey and then edited you saying it was the San Diego Padres Steve Garvey? No.
Speaker: Because obviously I knew that. No, that is not what happened. And I said it first and you must have cut it out. Anyway, Steve Garvey's the one that says, what could be better than Nestle Quick and baseball? And he's asking that weird little rabbit that comes on the Nestle Quick bottles.
Speaker: He's like ah Michael Jordan in Space Jam in that moment. Yes. Yeah. Maybe this is where they got that. there is I've got an idea. yeah Somebody get me Steve Garvey. ah ah Sir, he's dead. Fuck.
Speaker: Who's the closest guy to Steve Garvey in 1995? Michael Jordan.
Speaker: i Matt, to get your free baseball imprinted with Steve Garvey's signature, send two UPC barcodes from any Nestle Quick product plus 75 cents to cover postage handling along with your name, address, and zip code.
Speaker: That's it. you I mean, you know what I'm going to say to this. So do you. So what do you what do you want to tell the audience? I know you don't like the sport of baseball. You're telling me that you wouldn't enjoy two chocolate milks and then just ah getting a baseball for free.
Speaker: Right. Like if somebody was like, that if you drink two chocolate milks, I'll give you a baseball. Yeah. It's a little thing that you can play. It's a toy. You love toys. Yeah.
Speaker: But I do have to also mail them 75 cents. I could use those three quarters to get more chocolate milk. Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: But maybe I could trade up the baseball. You know that – you ever hear that story of the guy with the paperclip and he traded up to get the – and he ended up with a house? Right. Yes.
Speaker: So I get – Start with a baseball. I start with a baseball. Trade it for some Nestle Quick. Nestle Quick. Then I trade that Nestle Quick up for two baseballs. Then I trade those two baseballs up for four Nestle Quicks. That's too much Nestle Quick, dude. I'm just going to get – How many hours is this happening? I'm living in a house made of Nestle Quick.
Speaker: yo All right, right. na out of the fire
Speaker: Well, folks, that's the end. Listen to the rest of this crap if you want to. But all the ah the good stuff is done. yeah Do you think do you think people people at if they don't like listening to this crap, they at least fast forward to us saying the taglines, right? The our famous catchphrase at the end so they can say it with us since it's the same thing every time.
Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. But in the rare event that you're not skipping ahead, I do just want to say go to our Patreon.com slash mutant menace. It's a cool little website where it's site on the internet.
Speaker: where you can ah You can keep up with us some updates, mostly reading lists that we put out there for free. Or if you pay a dollar, there's also a lot of bonus content up there. A lot of just bonus stuff.
Speaker: Yes. Outside of that. Outside of Patreon, there's where else there's a whole kind there's a whole world out there. You could go to Instagram and look up at Mutant Menace Pod. You could go to your email inbox and send an email to, i guess this would be your outbox, but send an email to MutantMenacePod at gmail.com to be featured on Pat's email corner.
Speaker: m and then join our Discord. There's a link in the show notes. Please come chat with us. um I also want to give a big thanks to Julius Ellie for the voice of Trish Tilby and Krils Wilson for doing all of our music every week. i Except for Pat's email corner.
Speaker: That guy's still asleep in my house. Oh, man. Wake him up, dude. I know. I always kick him out the moment he's done and now he's asleep in here. And I'm afraid to wake him up. I know what wake him Because he fell asleep with a knife in his hand. Oh, no.
Speaker: I know what will wake him up, Matt. What will wake him up? Our famous catchphrase that we see at the end of every episode. Yeah, which I have right here.
Speaker: why don't you give it a shot, Matt? Okay. um As we say at the end of every episode, a glowing frog? me That's.
Speaker: That's right, folks. and as always, get a free baseball from Steve Garvey's favorite chocolate milk.
