Episode 79 - Mojo!

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. My name's Pat Reber. And hey, my name is Matt Aukamp. And say it with us, Mikey two males. Welcome to Mutant Menace.

Speaker: Matt! Pat! Welcome to Mutant Menace. Thank you. Old pal, old friend. Yeah, we are old and we're friends. And we've been friends for an old amount of time.

Speaker: That's right. Yeah. I think I summed that up pretty well with old friend. Fuck! it's I'm always doing this! Uh, Pat, let me just let me just take the reins from you for a second and welcome everybody to our new podcast, Killawog Hours. There's two more episodes of The Lanterns for us to discuss, and this is our non-spoiler Lanterns podcast, so one might ask, what are you even going to talk about?

Speaker: We don't know. We just both like this fucking show, The Lanterns. Yeah, I got to say, it it there's two things that it is consistent about. yeah Number one, continues to be pretty good.

Speaker: It's good. It's the thing. That's the thing we mostly want to get across in our podcast called the Kilowog Hours. Number two, yeah they still don't use the ring. They don't use the ring. They're using the ring a little more, but but very lightly. Only in the big budget scenes. they used I think they've used the lanterns, the actual green lantern, more than they have the ring.

Speaker: yeah yeah That's a good point. Yeah, it's it's rare in the comics. You see the Green Lantern. Yeah, yeah. Which funny. it' yeah Forever i was... I just... I didn't have the courage to ask, what the hell are they called Green Lanterns? Why aren't they the Green Rings?

Speaker: Did you... ah so Man, how do we talk about this without spoiling anything? We see Guy Gardner. We see Guy Gardner. He's he's here. That's a spoiler.

Speaker: Fuck. I think. No, i i I think it's so cool that Guy Gardner showed up. He's also a fucking dick, right? It it just... yeah They keep paving these like stone after stone in this wall of like, all of the Green Lanterns are are dicks. All of them are shitheads. None of them do this for the right reasons at all. And if you'd seen Superman, right? You knew that he was a dick. But for me, i didn't make that connection of like, oh...

Speaker: Right. He's a dick because it's sort of a a requirement to be this willful. Yeah. This fearless or whatever. Stubborn, I think is the it seems to be the the shared quality.

Speaker: Because it's like if if this is yeah, if these are the qualifications, if this is how weird you're going to be about who gets to be a lantern and who doesn't.

Speaker: Then you're only going to get the worst fucking pricks. You're going get pricks. And that's all anybody in this show is. And I still think this is such a fucking bold choice of DC to allow them to just be like, yeah, we're going to do a superhero show where everybody is unlikable and nobody is heroic.

Speaker: And it's so good. Like this might be, this is like one of the best TV shows I've seen in years. It's up there. Yeah. It's, it's really good. Especially for comic book television. It is. Yes. It doesn't feel that way. Right. i don't.

Speaker: I was worried it would be like a comic book TV show and it doesn't feel that way. It feels like a show that is incidentally about comic book shit. Yeah, yeah. It's just the I think the pacing of it, the way that they're telling the story almost makes it seem like just some ah police procedural at the beginning. And what's really effective ah is that now that we're in episode like five, six, seven, wherever we're at, you realize in these later episodes that...

Speaker: this stuff that you earned when you were a little bored in the early episodes is paying off now. Like it's, it's yeah important that these things happened and it's, it makes it feel less like they were just trying to keep the wheels moving as they got to the story. It's really, uh, each episode I watched makes the previous episodes better, which is really effective television. I think.

Speaker: And on top of that, it's really fucking funny. that they put Sinestro, they keep putting Sinestro in the show because it can't, think you can it can't be any more obvious that it doesn't fit, like a super villain doesn't fit here. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, there's like a,

Speaker: You see, when you see Sinestro, you're supposed to be like, but but ah I just, you just, i you to end up laughing instead. This guy's probably also a dick. Oh, ah a pink man. Okay, there's a pink man here now. Every time he appears, it's just to be like, hello.

Speaker: yeah Have you seen me? yeah The audience is supposed to be like, oh my God, that's Sinestro. But as the audience of this show, you're like, Okay, a pink man is... Okay, a pink man.

Speaker: All right. There's a pink man. All right, well, this was Kilowog Hours, our Lanterns podcast, and now we'll get you guys to... Thanks for tuning back in, folks. Check the show notes. We have a link to our Patreon.

Speaker: what are we talking What are we talking about today? Wait, just before we move we did get some hate in the YouTube comments about this. so About Kilowog Hours? Just want to acknowledge.

Speaker: We really seriously did? That someone called it DC Trash and told us to get it out of their podcast. DC trash. That's fascinating. to i ah Please write us an email at mutantmenasepod at gmail.com YouTube commenter and explain why why you feel this way about the TV show Lanterns.

Speaker: Can't wait for that. To answer your earlier question, Matt, today on the Mutant Menace podcast, we are talking about someone we just met and we're both very scared of.

Speaker: It's Mojo Week. Eep. Eep. Eep. Why'd you let that guy in our podcast? He's scary. We had to, Matt. Now that we've met him, we need to explore him a little bit.

Speaker: Ew.

Speaker: Come on. heard it it it was as it was coming out of my mouth. Sorry. i And so there's a collection of actually annuals from across the Marvel Universe.

Speaker: Yeah. And is when they they I mean, they're good stories. Here's my question. Yeah. This is Mojo's first interaction with the actual X-Men.

Speaker: So do we have any background about it at all

Speaker: No, I guess not. If you haven't been listening to the podcast, if today's your first episode, if this is your first episode, We got a link in the show notes. We are a half, half, half of lanterns podcast.

Speaker: xmen podcast

Speaker: No, if you haven't been listening, of course, we ah met Mojo in the long shot miniseries where we learned that he is, he calls himself the life bringer, but that's a bit of an ironic title is he's actually bringing a lot of death. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, he's got like a death aura that like surrounds him like what he would as he if he walks through the forest, the forest dies basically. Yeah, yeah. And he seems to use it to hop he's He's able to hop dimensions with the help of his magic companions. And he seems to use that to take over the dimension that he comes in and has the ability to force people to worship him.

Speaker: It's sort of like a mind control sort of thing. he's He's just he's got magic powers is what it seems to be. Yeah. Yeah. sort of there's like was sort of an omnipotence to him to the point that he believes he's a god because he's also fully delusional and and disconnected from even his own warped reality. Yeah. ah So that's the guy we're dealing with, Matt. You and I were both very scared of him. we're very afraid of this guy. Scary. And I hope we don't see him too much in this episode because he scares me. o

Speaker: my goodness, Matt. It is already time for Pat's email corner already. Wow. 13 minutes in and it's already time. We already did a whole other podcast.

Speaker: Technically, we've done two other podcasts. but That's true. We're on a roll. Let's keep going. i We do have a lot of emails to catch up on. Speaking of being on a roll, I know you asked me not to acknowledge it on air, Matt, but we did miss an episode last week. So we do have Pat.

Speaker: I'm sorry. How else can I explain this? ah

Speaker: Two, I want to get out of the way real quick. Number Mikey Two Mails finally got close enough to what we're asking for to have his name read in the opening.

Speaker: He put his name in the subject line of an email with nobody, which is just for any future emailers. It's no subject line. Put your first name in the body and we'll read your name. Is that it? I thought it was the opposite. I would have done it wrong maybe if I had emailed in. This is why I'm allowing. Because this is Mikey Chumales' second attempt.

Speaker: and And so i I think he deserves it. he's He's put in a good effort. So Mikey Chumales, I hope you said it the beginning of this episode when I said it. ah If you didn't, we're taking your name. Write the F out. It's true.

Speaker: Let us know. Mutant men is pod at gmail dot com. ah but We assume you did. Unless you email us to let us know you didn't. And then you get punished. One more.

Speaker: Filled out entirely correctly. It is Ink Master submitting his first name, Ink. Oh, OK. Didn't realize Master was the last name. um Ink Master married into the Master family. Ah, but is Beastmaster. They married Beastmaster. He's heir to the Beastmaster fortune now.

Speaker: And then we got a bunch of regular emails, Matt. Number one, Glib Grendel. Hey, Glib. writing in about our bridge trade proposal. If you remember, they've got ah several supers in the Carolinas. We offered to trade for one of our. Oh, super. Yeah. Super. Even two of our covered bridges are giving you two covered beings, covered bridges for one super being.

Speaker: Hey, Pat, tell Matt, that's not how you spell my name. I do not accept your trade. I'm no longer connected with the super scene in the Carolinas, and where I currently live has so many covered bridges, we used to convert them into pizza places. What?

Speaker: That sounds awesome. Where could this possibly be? Uh, somewhere in the Midwest, I believe. Maybe you can convert a covered bridge into a super with enough gamma radiation. I'm gonna guess Ohio.

Speaker: Ohio. Interesting. Okay, can you turn can you turn a covered bridge into a super with enough gamma radiation? Answer is yeah, you can turn anything into a superhero with a with an or a super with enough gamma radiation.

Speaker: Yes. I don't have any. yeah Don't look at me that way, Pat. Maybe if we find somebody with gamma ra radiation, we can trade them one of our covered bridges. If you have so have plenty to test the gamma radiation. it's Yeah. oh So because if the so if the Caroliners are turning down our offer, then if anybody else in the country has gamma radiation, we will trade you for a one cup, only one covered bridge because we have to do the work ourselves.

Speaker: Yeah. Or if you've already used that gamma radiation to make your own super. We'll trade you two covered bridges. We'll trade you two covered bridges, but we get to choose which bridges. We get to choose which bridges. for You're going to get the one from ah Valley Forge State Park.

Speaker: I'm sorry. I don't want that one anymore. It's just so confusing. It creates so many traffic problems. I hate that one. ah Tune in next week for more local traffic discussion.

Speaker: Up next, Matt, Daniel, as promised, wrote us a second email because the first draft of this email from last episode was just too long to send.

Speaker: Okay. what's so How many points? Please pull up a random number generator. Only numbers one through 12. 12. Okay, not bad. For the past and then for the future. oh oh i'm sorry. no One through

Speaker: There's just in the middle of it, there's an extra note for us not to read. And then for the future, we have one through three. so Okay, does he does he say anything in the intro to the email that is important or...

Speaker: Hey, Pat, tell Matt that Daniel's super long verbose email part two has arrived. These episodes were fun because I just love vampires. We got to see Rogue for the first time and Abby Denton was hilarious.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. Referring to episodes 35 and 36, by the way. And yes, yeah Abby Denton, we continue to receive praise on. I'm so glad that people are finding her. she is. incredibly funny that's not how you spell her name though no seriously she has to be in the top three of guest stars for you guys of which i'm not actually going to list out in order to spare others feelings okay now to complete the previous email matt give me a number between one and fucking 34 jesus christ number seven number seven i know the sisterhood of evil mutants thing was a joke but after these few issues i'd start calling them that too

Speaker: Blob and Pyro were just goofing around, vying for spots on the Loser League while Mystique, Rogue, and Destiny were kicking ass and taking names. They were really getting it done. um If you had to put together a sisterhood of evil mutants, who would you put in it? i Lalandra.

Speaker: Lalandra? think that she... yeah i I think that like her her sense for space, good and evil... terrific it's what makes her an incredible emperor so first one first one not comes to earth she just doesn't really have the well she's not an x-man either and we count her among it's Go, go, go. Okay. Lalandra is your first sisterhood of people mutant.

Speaker: I think Mystique is still the leader and she can bring her, her partner destiny who serves some purpose, right? We've seen her we've seen her get a few good moves in, but then also, yeah, is there's a lot of exceptions for if And then, yeah, Rogue, why not?

Speaker: Okay. um so The thing is, that brief period of time that there was a sisterhood of evil mutants, they were freedom fighters. They weren't just going around being evil. They were... Next number, 23. 23. The X-Men taking out Dracula in like five seconds is one of the main reasons I love them. They're one of the few superhero teams that actually feels like a paramilitary team that trains together.

Speaker: So... ah One thing i always like to... One like little thought exercise I like to do in my brain when I'm, say, doing something like trying to fall asleep or whatever, or really struggling to come up with a conversation with some like other nerds at at in a situation. so Yeah, yeah. is like Is there any team the X-Men couldn't kick their ass?

Speaker: And like Justice League, the X-Men could kick the fucking shit out of the Justice League. The Avengers... The Justice League, you think? X-Men could kick the shit out of the Avengers. Avengers, absolutely. Absolutely. The you just name any other superhero team, the authority, the Avengers kick the shit or the X-Men could kick the shit out of the authority. Because like Daniel saying, they're a paramilitary team. Like it's going to be tough to take down Batman and Superman. Right.

Speaker: But just give them a little bit. They're going to figure out a way. I guess, yeah, the the downfall for Batman and Superman would be the psychics, right? The psychics and the telekinetics.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. um All right, one more. One more. Yeah, give us one more. It's weird that it always seems to go upwards in numerical order, even though I'm clicking a random like a random number button. But almost every time we do this, it goes... How random is it, really? know.

Speaker: All right. 26. 26. was able to clock that Matt was pronouncing vampire as vampire. But not that he was also pronouncing skeleton as skeleton. Skeleton. That's because he's done that for decades.

Speaker: You just some of my weird words and weird phrases Pat's used to and the Internet is just learning them over the past few years. And i forget they're weird sometimes, too.

Speaker: ah Yeah. Yeah. When everybody started saying horned up back to us, I was like, but why is everyone so entertained by this common turn of phrase? Yeah.

Speaker: Apparently the way I apparently yucky is an is a is a thing that is Matt specific. Not like I mean, I know the word yucky exists, but apparently it's not used as frequently or in the same way that I use yucky. And that is still astounding to me.

Speaker: You've got a set of words you use very often that are reserved for you and moms talking to toddlers. but

Speaker: i I got two more notes from Daniel. Number one, he gives us permission to spread his last two emails across two episodes if we want to. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Daniel.

Speaker: And he wishes us a happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker: Remember, he's still listening to. I'm going to love it when Daniel's caught up and he's wishing us happy, whatever it is right now. I think I had an infamously bad Thanksgiving last year, too.

Speaker: So if only Daniel had been there to help me out. Yeah, that's a good point. Daniel. What the fuck, man? Bad timing. Daniel. Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, we still have to come up with a nickname for Daniel. Hold on. bad i mean man I'm sure that we've already done this. We just need to go and listen through the the older episodes. to to Because we keep forgetting. yeah Daniel bad time isn't bad, though. if we If we can't find one, and we will go back and listen, but Daniel bad time's not a bad one.

Speaker: all right. We got another one This, this one is strange. I thought this was a spam email at first because the subject line is testing to see how few people really email you from listener Benjamin. He says, greetings. I am a year behind, but enjoying the podcast sounded like you get very few emails. So this is a pity email. Yeah.

Speaker: Thank you. I do believe about a year ago this time we were begging people to email us because we had gotten like two or three folks. So.

Speaker: Bad boy Benjamin. He starts out starts out nagging us. I'm calling him bad boy Benjamin. Bad time Benjamin. bed time the btb oh btb bad time benjamin that's your nickname benjamin first email he does it's not official yet but it's official to me it's in the works it's official to me btb good question we're gonna have to edit the fuck out of this pat's email yeah yeah we're gonna have cut out some like good material because it's just too long we'll slow it down but we got two more emails to cover two more can you handle it matt

Speaker: No, yes. It just means more shit's getting cut out. But yeah, go ahead. ah Glib wrote in again. This is about the long shot episode, episode 78. Hey, Pat, tell Matt clothes want to be worn.

Speaker: They know where to go when you teleport into them. Okay. Continuing our discussions about teleporting and changing clothes at the same time. So if I'm a nude teleporter.

Speaker: Clothes just magnetically ah attach to them, kind of, is like the thing here. If you teleport, like, towards them. If I teleport into a pile of laundry and teleport out, I'm going to be wearing a full set of clothes.

Speaker: A place to be. Let me clothe him. Which doesn't happen to regular nude men. It's like, oh, a nude man teleporting into me. Let me clothe him. Right. Nude teleporter. Nude man running towards me.

Speaker: I'm going to punch you. Nude man teleporting at me. It's that meme. It's the it's the Drake meme. ah Finally, matt As his name promises, we do have a second email from Mikey Two Mails.

Speaker: Hi, Pat. That's not how you spell my name. Tell Matt I said I found the long shot. This is trend. Holy shit. I know it's the same. I'm pretty sure intentional misspelling. And it's been and it's and I've never seen in Pat's email corner before. And I've seen it twice today. This is a meme.

Speaker: i don't like it. So he enjoyed the long shot miniseries. What a wild character. Someone who's able to be really proficient if they are focused on a task. Sounds like my ADHD.

Speaker: If I focus on something really, really hard, I tend to do pretty well at it. If not, then I am the equivalent of a dumpster fire at the task. we Am I a mutant based on that? We miss that as a metaphor entirely, right? Like if you were write if his luck only works.

Speaker: Hold on. If his luck only works because he's focusing, he's solely focused on the task at hand, maybe he's just better at doing what he's doing

Speaker: when he's able to focus on the task at hand. Holy shit. But he heributees attributes it to like when his mind wanders, he thinks of bad things. But holy, and then his intent is worse.

Speaker: Then he's got bad intent and so his luck doesn't work. But this idea of like when my mind wanders, I think of bad things. But when I'm focused on my task, I think good thoughts is and very Christian devil's idle works. the Idle hands are the devil's playground.

Speaker: lot of ways you could go with this. Fuck me. Regardless, Mikey two males continues. I do think if I was a reader back then, I wouldn't have picked up a second issue with the comic store after the first one, but may have picked it up if it was bundled in a collection of comics that were sold second or third hand through someone's collection. Those were always the best way to get comic books of series you didn't want to pay full price for.

Speaker: Yeah, i I think probably a lot of people gave up on long shot early. And I think more people would have liked it if they stuck with it. I don't know this to be true. I don't know the sales numbers, but like...

Speaker: Just having read it. Yeah, exactly. There wasn't a lot to tell you, hey, keep coming back unless you already know that Longshot becomes important to the Marvel Universe.

Speaker: see Yeah, yeah. it's It's the same, like, if you skip to kill a long hours, you missed me talking about this, but everything that's happening in the early expositional part of a story is going to be important later when that story really gets rolling.

Speaker: And the challenge with... Comic books and television is that they're serialized. So you have to commit to getting to the second act look or at least the second episode or issue or whatever, even if you're bored by the exposition of it.

Speaker: Well, the same in any medium, right? Like it's the same in a novel, right? You're like... if you might be You might be bored by the first chapter or whatever and put the book down, not realizing like all this is going to come back. And like it's about whether or not you trust...

Speaker: The writers, you know? Yeah, but I i think it's it's so much harder when you have to commit to coming back for that next chapter. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, because it it really is like, do I trust these writers? And you don't know, like so so many times you don't know if you should trust them or not. That's why horror movies always kill somebody in the first 10 minutes.

Speaker: And that's worse, right? Like it's worse when the writers say, oh, are these people aren't going to trust me. So I better grab their attention. Like it's better when the writers are like, I know what I'm doing. Like they have confidence. They're like, I know what I'm doing.

Speaker: This is going to be worth it when we get there. Well, it works for me. Because they're not talking down to you. I love falling for stupid literary tricks though. Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. we got to let's see let's speed things up okay oh yeah matt pat's email corner is over it's time to do away with all the formalities get past all these silly segments and no mar get into with and around the meat of this podcast oh yeah Did you do anything X-Men related this week?

Speaker: ah Okay. um Fuck, man. It's been... here's it's been like two weeks. Two and a half weeks, maybe, since we last recorded. So let me let me really think so hard.

Speaker: I did watch Supergirl. Ooh, me too. It was... It was aggressively okay. like it's first I think... Here's my problem with Supergirl.

Speaker: Yeah. I think... As a story, even as a script, you see that thing written down. And i'm I'm not going to say, OK, let me take this in chunks. As a script or as a story, I'm like, this rules. This is great.

Speaker: This is a great story about Supergirl. I like this a lot. As a series of performances, there are moments where in everybody's performance where I'm like, hell yeah.

Speaker: Even the director, even the direction of the movie, there are so many cool scenes in this movie and so many interesting choices. I mean, there's a lot of just like very standard superhero movie choices, but there's enough interesting choices in the movie that it's like, fuck yeah. And even that it's the whole thing is an ode to the story. True grit is also fucking rad.

Speaker: Yes. But it's such a fucking sleepy movie. It's so sleepy. You watch that first half and you're like, why is there so much space in between every single line of dialogue? It's like it's an editing problem, right? It's like it's somebody... It's like whoever was editing the movie was not happy to be there and so it was just kind of like skipping forward.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Just sort of going through the the motions. Right. Moments where they should have been like, let's shave off a half of a second in between these two lines of dialogue.

Speaker: They didn't. And they didn't do that so much that it feels almost like you're watching a community theater stage play at some points where like where there's like, man, ah is it that they forgot their line? Is it like.

Speaker: Like, why is there so much so dead space in this fucking movie? Yeah, it felt to me. And i I hate that I feel this way because it was one of those movies that got dragged immediately, like before it even came out for yeah just being ah a movie about a woman. Yeah.

Speaker: But I just found myself saying like, Why am I watching this? Who do I care about in this movie? Yeah. I think that was my that was my problem with it. i You know, I wonder if those are the same problem. Because I like, in concept, her character and the little girl character.

Speaker: But they had these scenes that just didn't fit with the character that was being developed at any given time. where you're just like right Where you're just like, okay, then now I kind of don't know what to believe about this person.

Speaker: Are they yeah yeah super badass? Are they completely the opposite of being of a badass? Are they like... Yeah, is she actually a jerk? Yeah, she a jerk? And if if she's a jerk, cool.

Speaker: I want to see that. and And maybe I can even root for that. And if she's a hero... Then I need to see that. So we can root for that. But like you can't have it both ways. And it seemed like... So this might have also been an editing problem, right? like This might have been a script editing problem where they were like, no, you need to put in some more heroic scenes.

Speaker: She can't just be a jerk. And that kind of like takes a that takes you takes away from the character that you're trying to grow affection for. I like this approach you're taking where instead of arguing with me, you're saying...

Speaker: I'm right because you're right.

Speaker: Well, you know, you know a person long enough. You learn how to work. Thank you. i also was I also saw the coyote was a coyote movie. It was fucking great. Oh, man.

Speaker: It was it was just good. Like, I can't. You know, I'd say it was sub Roger Rabbit, but um better than so like Space Jam.

Speaker: Better at the Space Jam.

Speaker: Better than Space Jam. Worse than Roger Rabbit. Hang on a second. When was the last time you went and saw Space Jam? Pat, what did you do that was X-Men related this week? What did I do that was X-Men related this question week?

Speaker: I don't know. i've been so busy, which is X-Men related in itself. I have just been, I've been burning the candle at both ends, buddy. And... Boy, are my wicks tired. we are my... Exactly. And I'm all a out of matches.

Speaker: Well, I'm glad you can squeeze us in, Mr. Fucking Popular, busy, fucking professional over here. You're welcome. Pat.

Speaker: Yes. Here's what I want. What do you want, Matt? What do you want? More than more than anything. And I've been saying this for an hour now.

Speaker: Again, the listeners for the listeners, I hope this was 30 minutes. I hope it was 30 minutes. But I've been saying this for an hour now. I would love you to read me all you about what I wanted to say Amy Mutants.

Speaker: Why do we do the things we do? Yeah, man. No one's asked me that before. i'll so I'll turn off the recording and we can talk about it. um Okay.

Speaker: Oh, boy. All right. Now it's been two hours.

Speaker: But we did decide to keep doing the podcast after a long discussion about why. And um ultimately, it's for both of our mental health. So you're all welcome.

Speaker: Chris Claremont, writer, Alan Davis, artist, Tom Orozikowski, letterer. Alan Davis is here. We haven't seen this man yet. here Yeah, I don't know who this is, man. What do you know about Alan Davis? Al Davis? Did he write for Mad Magazine? No, I'm thinking of Al Jaffe.

Speaker: um You know, I don't know much about the the the history of Alan Davis, but I know why he is. I know why he's here. He's here because he worked on a bunch of Captain Britain. That was kind of his breakout thing. He did he worked on Captain Britain with Alan Moore.

Speaker: And sorry for the spoilers, folks, but that's going to play into this next issue that we're reading here. So, you know, so a lot of the characters we are going to see or at least touch on.

Speaker: are Alan Davis creations. Or so I don't know who who who originally created Captain Britain. It was Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpey.

Speaker: But they were kind of like he was kind of an irrelevant character until Alan Moore and Alan Davis took him. OK. Okay. So anyway, I fucking love Alan Davis's art. I think it's so good. Yeah. I mean, this is my first experience with him that I can remember. And it's terrific. What I think, I think he's a B average writer, but he's like an it's like an A plus fucking penciler. I love to see him on shit.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Tom Orzikowski, letterer, Glynis Oliver, colorist, and Nocenti, editor, and John Shooter, editor-in-chief. That'll pay off later.

Speaker: Release date, July 15th, 1986. Cover date, October 1986. One year ago, Elizabeth Betsy Braddock is finishing up a skiing session when suddenly she kind of explodes. Yeah.

Speaker: Whoa. Elizabeth be be Betsy Braddock. Where do I know that name from? So she was also, I think she was, i think her first appearance was maybe, ah she was a Chris Claremont creation and she was just like, um, the Captain Britain's supermodel sister.

Speaker: Um, but, Later on she came back in Alan Moore's Captain Britain run as a part of the British government's psychic program. They're like side division.

Speaker: ho so it's still Alan Davis was drawing it like he kept on Captain Britain after Alan Moore left. And I think Jamie Delano was the writer. i think during that run, she took over the man mantle of Captain Britain for some reason. Like, I don't know.

Speaker: i don't I don't remember why. But she was fighting his ah his nemesis, Sleigh Master. S-L-A-Y, like kill master. Drag performer? she And she lost both of her eyes.

Speaker: Oh. oh So she got them like chopped out by Sleigh Master. and she's So she's a supermodel and a psychic. And she has purple hair.

Speaker: ah and she's And she's apparently, according to the opening of this comic book, an Olympic level skier. Pretty impressive. um And she explodes. And she explodes.

Speaker: Also, she's I should say she's a fully grown adult and she once dated she once dated and like I think she was engaged to a man named Tom Lennox who was like an old balding man who worked with her. so Tom Lennon?

Speaker: We should keep in mind she's a fully grown adult woman with fully grown adult woman brain and body and life. Okay.

Speaker: And she explodes. Apparently in a flash, Mojo and spiral appear and take her seemingly dead body for some strange evil purpose and keep calling her Psylocke.

Speaker: Yeah. What the fuck is with that? They say it like we're supposed to know it. Yeah, I don't know. But its it does seem like it performs sort some sort of function because they're calling her the Psylocke.

Speaker: Yeah, it's super weird. They never explain what a side lock is. They just call her that. And we're supposed to be like, OK, I do At some point, I'm sure they'll explain it.

Speaker: they They have to. One month ago, remember, because it's been a while that that was one year ago. That was a year ago. She's wow. God, that which is wild. We'll have to revisit that.

Speaker: Now, one month ago at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Doug Ramsey tries to confide in Danny Moonstar about how lonely and isolating it is being a mutant.

Speaker: Danny just challenges him to stop pitying himself. A very important stop on our journey. We have to stop with about the this conversation a month ago because this is a very important part of the story.

Speaker: it is it's I think it's very Danny Moonstar here to be like, this is how I got here is I had to learn to stop feeling sorry about losing everybody in my life.

Speaker: It's not a bad conversation. I just don't know why he put it in the issue. She's also, she's wearing an a Xavier's t-shirt here. Just more Xavier school merch. I want some.

Speaker: And I love, I love how Danny is like, she's more concerned with being, making statements about who she is than being a good friend to her friend at all.

Speaker: He's like, man, i hate being a mutant. She's like, we can't walk around feeling sorry for ourselves. I'll tell you something about my life. And i went the last time I did that, so stop being a little bitch.

Speaker: And then he's like, he's like, aw, thanks, Danny. It's like, that was the worst friendship. That's bad friendship skills. one week One week ago. ah Now remember, one year ago, one month ago, now one week ago. Okay.

Speaker: A new anime cartoon appears on television across the globe. Rain Sinclair in Scotland and Roberto DaCosta in Westchester are transfixed. Brian Braddock and his girlfriend Megan ah are shocked.

Speaker: Ugh! The kids from the Longshot miniseries are having mixed reactions. Why are they fucking still here? Yeah, Butch and Alfie and Darla are like, oh, I love this. While all the other kids are just like throwing shit at each other.

Speaker: Leong and Nya are enchanted. Remember Shan's young niece and nephew. Mm-hmm. And what is this show? Yeah. Well, it's apparently called Wild Ways starring Spiral, Mojo the Lifebringer, and a character called Psylocke.

Speaker: No! We get a fun little anime rendition of the three of them, and it's very cute. Yeah, Spiral looks rad. would watch the show. Yeah.

Speaker: Like, Mojo and Psylocke look like whatever, but Spiral looks fucking cool. I think Mojo simplified to, like, a cheap anime form is a really good rendition of him.

Speaker: He's clearly... so detailed. he's He's got, like, a Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree and sort of pose to him here. Don't correct my pronunciation, emailers.

Speaker: Mutantmenispod at gmail.com. Do not correct his pronunciation. Compliment it. Compliment it in email. Even if wrong. Last night, Matt, we are moving along here. Last night in Manhattan, Captain Britain smashes his way into an abandoned school, having finally tracked down his missing sister. Captain Britain! He's awful power and bravado until suddenly some voices start to talk down to him about the mess he's making.

Speaker: The shadows of his mom and dad overtake him and he cowers in a corner promising to be a good boy. This fucking is so cool. This looks so cool. The art here is so cool. First of all,

Speaker: The way Alan Davis draws Captain Britain. So, okay, if you guys don't know Captain Britain, his name is Brian Braddock. He's a rich kid who's given the powers to defend Britain by literal Merlin.

Speaker: Sure. And he's got a super suit. um The other Marvel Merlin. ah He was created by Chris Claremont and then, like we said, kind of perfected by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. he's ah He's both a genius, like a genius super scientist, but he's also a complete doofus who always rushes in headfirst.

Speaker: And he's massively powerful. These are the only things I think you need to know about him. And we will get not just British Captain America. He's like very much his own flawed character. Yes. Like um ah the other thing, I guess you should know he's an alcoholic, but ah that's that's only a minor.

Speaker: part of his character at this point it's something ah it's a it's a piece of his character that is often it's it's almost like um Sherlock Holmes's drug it like cocaine addiction right where every or opium addiction or both where everybody acknowledges it and some people talk about the problematic nature of it within the stories I guess both but they never address it as like he needs to get help Yeah, it's just always just like, well, andaron there he goes. Exactly. It continues to be a problem. That's Captain Britain and drinking. But the way that Alan Davis is always drawing Captain Britain at these, first of all, these low angles. So he looks huge.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. And second of all, the way that he has Captain Britain just barrel through obstacles is like this guy, you get the sense nothing could fucking hurt this guy.

Speaker: Nothing on earth could touch this guy, right? He just seems like power personified. Yeah. It's... And he consistently draws him that way where you you feel it when he bursts through a wall and it rules...

Speaker: But then psychologically, as he breaks down when he hears his mom and dad, like also very visceral, emotional drawings. Yeah, yeah. He's doing he is doing the work. It's great. His I man.

Speaker: Up at Xavier's, Bobby sneaks through the house in the middle of the night to make a phone call. On the other end, a voice asks him if he wants to walk the wild ways. And he gives an emphatic yes. Oh, no, Bobby. Moments later, Spiral and Mojo appear and all three disappear laughing.

Speaker: No, is a real. its with Maybe unintentional comment on the impact of television on children. Very no centi coded.

Speaker: but There's a lot of thematic links to. Between these two stories and the previous. The long shot miniseries. I think there's a lot missing too. Today. hu So. Matt.

Speaker: So that means. Elizabeth Braddock's been missing for a year. Yes. And for whatever 12 hours now.

Speaker: Captain Britain is scared and Bobby DaCosta disappeared into the phone line or whatever. Since last night. Yeah. Since last night. But now we're in the, we're finally in the present today.

Speaker: The new mutants are doing new mutant stuff. Cannonball and Mirage are training in the danger room. Magic is trying to get her demons to do chores for her. She tries to get them to clean up breakfast and they replace all the regular flatware with demon flatware. just like Plates with little skulls on them.

Speaker: And she's like, damn it, guys. Fucked up little forks. Every piece of silverware on the table is a knife. Very funny detail. Magma is writing a letter home to Nova Roma and Warlock, Cypher and Sunspot are out in the yard trying to clear some dead trees.

Speaker: didn't fucking notice that until just now that everything on the table is a knife. Yeah, yeah. this piece of silverware is a knife. That's so fucking funny. Maybe you could just stab each other.

Speaker: Just stab your soup and stab your steak and stab your bread. Oh, God, that's so God. Alan Davis is fucking genius. Cypher and Warlock know that Bobby is acting strangely, but nevertheless, Doug puts on Warlock like a mech suit and takes one end of the tree while Bobby takes the other.

Speaker: When Doug slash Warlock lift, they hear a scream. Roberto DaCosta's mangled, lifeless body lies under the roots of the tree.

Speaker: Later, while they mourn, Danny is puzzled as to why your Valkyrie sense didn't go off. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. wait wait You're telling me Sunspot, Roberto DaCosta's Sunspot is fucking dead.

Speaker: Dead, buried by a tree that he tried to lift up.

Speaker: That's a fucking huge thing to just happen randomly in this annual. I know. And they're we're just moving on? We're dealing with it. Okay. All right. All right. Sorry. yeah go ahead.

Speaker: ah That night, Doug, who's not dealing with it well, sneaks into the morgue full of guilt. Come on, man. Only to find Warlock already there performing some kind of autopsy.

Speaker: Ew, come on, and man. Yeah, both of you would need to find better ways to deal with grief.

Speaker: After some, at least something that doesn't involve a morgue. Yeah, just don't play with dead bodies when you're sad. After some convincing, the two merge and scour his body down to the subatomic level and determine that this isn't Bobby.

Speaker: It's an android duplicate.

Speaker: God. See, here I was, Patrick, thinking these fucking guys... Killed Roberto Da Costa. Killed Bobby in an annual that you don't have to read. to What's wild is you have to read this annual to understand the X-Men. There's nothing new mutants like in it at all.

Speaker: Cut to some other dimension where Mojo and Spiral have just made new bionic eyes for a nude Betsy Braddock. Fully nude, just walking around. Fully nude. Just like being covered up by shadows and like things in the room. But she's just walking around. Yeah, yeah. Nobody here cares about the clothes. Yeah. So why Spiral wear them? Who knows?

Speaker: Mojo says he's grown tired of his toys at home, so he turns his attention to his new crop of young kids. What? Rain Sinclair. Roberto Da Costa. No! Long and Nya Kalman.

Speaker: No! And Butch, Darla, and Alfie from what he calls the Brat Pack, a.k.a. the kids from the Longshot miniseries. Okay. all right fine how does he know that reference he can have those well they didn't call themselves well yeah that's a good point number two they didn't call themselves that they called themselves what they call themselves uh the little rascals no they had they were arguing about two different names for themselves um in the last it was like the the teeth stompers or the butt stompers yeah it was the teeth stompers or the butt stompers and yet he calls them the Brat Pack like like we're already supposed to know they're called the Brat Pack again it's like sometimes when Chris Claremont takes other characters and pulls them into his comics it's like he has headcanon that he expects everybody to know about them yeah

Speaker: He's like, oh yeah, this is the Brat Pack. What? No, that was it. said you The star rammers versus the star slammers star rammers or star slammers. That's right.

Speaker: How would they know about the star jammers? They wouldn't. That's why they don't go with star jammers. ah Mojo makes Psylocke access Long and Yaa's latent powers, transforming them all into weird supervillain-looking adults.

Speaker: Which is, you don't know, really. It's hard to understand that that's what she's doing until much later in the comic. It says it here, but it's yeah so...

Speaker: out of nowhere what she's doing he calls the twins template and said and apparently their their power their latent mutant powers are together they can just change people's bodies into shit sure but changes them all into adults yeah big beefy looking adults big beefy sexy adults The new mutants track the real Bobby down to that same abandoned school from earlier. oh where Brian Braddock met his mom and dad.

Speaker: And there they run into Mojo's new pets. Butch has become snitch with the power to make people start arguing with each other, it seems. It's like big fucking American flag sunglasses like he's on fucking that that motorcycle gang of Team America. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: He looks like he looks like ah he looks like evil Knievel. And while they argue, large powered up versions of Sunspot and Wolfsbane attack them. and Yeah, that's just it's just Wolfs, Wolfsbane with human sized, like adult sized proportions. and Sunspot is wearing a ah dorky.

Speaker: It's kind of a Luke Cage outfit. Yeah, it looks like what he would wear as a 25 year old. Yeah, it's yellow. He's grown up a bit. Now he just wears gym clothes all over the place, but they're very flashy. It's yellow with a with a big belt and ah like metal bracers on his wrist. So he looks very. Yeah, it's very Luke Cage coated.

Speaker: Darla. From the Star Slammers has become, get this, Matt, Jubilee, who creates flashing lights in the sky like fireworks. do you remember a while back when we were talking about how Chris Claremont gets words in his head?

Speaker: Yes. And we just he just uses them all the time. Yeah. Rogue Gambit and Jubilee. Yes. Yeah. And then eventually, you know that they're coming. you know, like this is a character named Jubilee who makes fireworks. Yes. Yeah. Come on, man. like and What was the one shit? Wasn't there one?

Speaker: Oh, we met a Maddie Pryor before. oh there was an actual Madeline. Little girl in the hospital named Maddie Pryor. So the strange thing about Jubilee, aside from being a ah a white woman with blonde hair, is that she's wearing flesh colored bodysuit, like just skin tight and flesh colored. It looks like they drew a naked woman and then removed the nipples.

Speaker: And she kind of looks like Dazzler, too. Yeah, in the sense that she's like a very 80s blonde woman. Yeah, okay. Getting white out of her hands. Yeah, yeah. ah The fight is interrupted by Long and Yaw, who have become template, as you explained. Their powers allow them to make everyone obey them as if they were their parents.

Speaker: But... Okay. Also... They can age and de-age people. Are we sure? I mean, isn't that's a power of mojos, isn't it?

Speaker: Because he's been aging people up and down all this time. Can we assume that they're the ones making everybody obedient and he's the one or maybe even the body shop?

Speaker: Is where they're turning into adults. Later on page 23, they say, you are a very naughty girl, Amara. And since you insist on behaving like a child, then a child is what you shall become. And in the next panel, she's just a little baby.

Speaker: And so, like, it is implying that they are doing it. Okay. But I can see what you're saying. Like, it's not necessarily that. Like, Mojo could just be watching and doing it from afar. Right.

Speaker: But we don't I don't think we see Mojo again for the rest of this issue. So... i well yeah So Warlock, terrified of his parent, because the parent to him is enemy, yeah takes Doug and flies off.

Speaker: Warlock and Doug recover and sneak back, only to see Template transform the other new mutants into beautiful, powerful adult versions of themselves. They are beautiful. It is just a a spread of beautiful people beautiful adult people yeah so here they say we are the guide the pattern the template who shall transform you into adults so here they're they okay so here they are explicitly the ones doing it huh but still weird

Speaker: ah Yeah, it's kind of a mismatch of of powers to be like. These are our combined power. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doug, seeing all this, thinks this is out of he and Locke's league. So he takes off to get the X-Men, only to find a nude boy clutching a Captain Britain helmet.

Speaker: um Okay. lot A lot of nudity in this one, which... Go off, Alan Davis. Yeah, man. Yeah. you You do what you need to do, buddy.

Speaker: You do it beautifully. Brian Braddock tells them what happened, which is that he came to find Betsy only to discover that she's been turned into a minion of Mojo and template regressed him to a little boy.

Speaker: um He skips the part. He skips all the psychological damage that he's. he's doing to test He just conveniently leaves that out. Yeah, it's all them.

Speaker: yeah Speaking of magma. who's been regressed to uh little girl breaks free of the mind control and lashes out only to be regressed to a child again oh so she was they turned her back to an adult when they turned to the other new means to do and then but then she was still disobeying so they're like fine hard kidding you're a child again she runs away pursued by the brat pack cypher decides he and Warlock will go after Betsy and tasks Brian with saving Amara. He also gives Brian his shirt so he's not nude anymore. Oh, good. list

Speaker: Running around in a new mutants shirt. No pants. We need a poo. It almost appears. And I can't tell if this is just tasteful design, like tasteful um angles from ah Alan Davis's.

Speaker: thing or this is canon it almost appears that it's like a ah unitard like it it it goes around his dick and balls and butt sure he's like tying it underneath it's let me ask you before we move forward Matt this is important yes if you're if you're running around in a yeah like a t-shirt uh-huh but no pants you're nude below the waist okay do you call that Winnie the Pooh-ing or Donald Ducking think generally can weigh into mutant menace pot at gmail.com.

Speaker: Generally, I think I would i like I think when I if I try to think of a cloak wheel term for it, Donald ducking springs to mind first. OK, but.

Speaker: I prefer prefer I'd prefer the term Winnie the Poohing. Because you get to say pooing. No, I just like Winnie the Pooh better than i like Donald Duck. What do you call it?

Speaker: I think I'd go with Winnie the Pooh-ing, but you are right that like the, I think the natural inclination for most people is to say Donald Ducking. Yeah. It's alliterative. ah Cipher.

Speaker: Moving on. In a warlock suit, sneaks into the school and finds a strange amalgamation of Betsy and Mojo sitting in front of a room full of monitors.

Speaker: Yeah, it's weird. it's an it's It's a nude Betsy Braddock, but she's kind of yellow, and she's got a big... she's got Her eyes are stretched open like Mojo. She's in like the mechanical scorpion chair. Her fingers are long spikes, and her and she's got like a head her hair is turned into like a ah headpiece that like goes around that fans around her like a big... Yes, yeah, yeah. Looks like the Lawandra...

Speaker: Feathers. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's not big and gloopy like Mojo. She's just a nude woman sitting in a chair. Yeah, yeah. Warlock extends a wiretap into Betsy's brain and they get a full download of her life.

Speaker: Learning that Mojo is controlling her and she is controlling the Brat Pack. To save her, Doug will need to merge with Warlock fully and hack into her whole, like...

Speaker: being yeah to disconnect Mojo's control and reconnect Betsy's true self. Doesn't make much sense, but like, whatever. Hey, cool. It's psychic. It doesn't have to. but they're all They're riding a merry-go-round. But you have two people who are not psychic. So we just had to make it like, ah well, because he sits she's because Mojo sits in this chair and she's kind of like Mojo right now she's like She's kind of a robot, too.

Speaker: You're being obtuse. She is a psychic computer. So you can hack into her brain. ah you're Which is that that statement's not obtuse. What follows is a terrifying journey through Betsy's brain infected by Mojo and turned into a twisted carnival where all this friends have psychotic smiles plastered across their faces.

Speaker: It's scary. It's scary. When he closes in on Betsy, he attacks only to find that it's actually Spiral spinning around and destroying everything in Betsy's mind. She's in Betsy's mind computer, I guess.

Speaker: It's like the real spiral, but she's in Betsy's mind computer. Remember, we found out that she can do this to brains. She can just live in a brain. When did we find that out?

Speaker: When Rogue tried to steal her powers. Oh, and she was in Rogue. Yeah, she was like, actually, I'm you now. I'm in your i'm in your brain. Yeah, I live in your brain. i love going and living in brains.

Speaker: And now she's doing it in Betsy's brain. Oh, no, Betsy. So Spiral's attempting to hollow out all of Mojo's new toys to annoy him, I think.

Speaker: Yeah, I think this is a thing that we haven't talked too much about. But every Spiral appearance, she's a slave of Mojo's. Like, she has to do everything he says. But he seems to allow her some latitude.

Speaker: ah She's allowed to make fun of him a little bit. And ends in her thoughts, she's always thinking about how much she hates him and she's going to kill him and she's going to take over his empire. And he's a big like fat piece of shit who she hates.

Speaker: a Yeah. yeah Keep laughing, fat man. Exactly. exactly Yeah. So Doug Locke turns into a web character.

Speaker: Sure. Catching every part of Betsy before it spins off into the void. Then he begins pulling all his friends out of the spinning carousel at the vortex's center. Again, this is all this all makes sense.

Speaker: And I was but i was being obtuse. And you're being obtuse. It sounds like you're still being obtuse, Matt. This is all geometric. and yet This is all this is all square. And I am obtuse.

Speaker: You're the circle. Yeah. Doug Locke finishes putting Betsy back together and she casts Spiral out of her brain, sending everyone else back into their own bodies. Okay. Right. basic Logically. Hug wakes up in the school.

Speaker: We should also say Doug here is, this is the first time we've heard the term Doug lock because Doug merges with warlock. And he becomes like a so ah bionic boy.

Speaker: ah Yeah, he's Doug shaped, but with Warlock's like sketchy circuitry covering his body. Yes, if if Warlock.

Speaker: Yes, just if Warlock was shaped like a boy. Yes. It kind of rules. It kind of looks great. Doug wakes up in the school with a nude Betsy Braddock lying on top of him.

Speaker: Oh, boy. Everything Mojo, and remember, he's not wearing a shirt. He's shirtless. She's nude. Everything Mojo created is destroyed except for Betsy's new eyes. She tries to tear them out, not trusting a gift from Mojo, but she finds that she can't.

Speaker: Just then, the rest of the new mutants burst in and suddenly the two become conscious of the fact that they're hugging while Doug is shirtless and Betsy is nude. Yeah. Warlock turns himself into a bodysuit for Betsy and Captain Britain gives Doug a huge hug.

Speaker: Later, back at the mansion, Betsy Braddock bids goodbye to her brother. What? She's made the decision to stay behind at Xavier's school to learn to better use her psychic powers. Wow. Okay. Interesting. All the new mutants are like, oh, Psylocke, you've got to join the new mutants. You've got to be a student. like it she's like She's not a child. is she She's got to be like 35. Again, she was dating a grown man who was bald, and I think they were engaged. She was an international supermodel, Olympic-level skier. She was part of a government task force.

Speaker: Like the government division, like she had a grown up job and her boyfriend was balding. Like she is a fully fucking grown adult. And yet they're like, oh, join the new mutants. And she's like, oh, should i And like, yeah, these are, you're fucking 20 years older than these people. The other thing that we need to talk about here.

Speaker: Her and Doug have crushes on each other. It's I mean, that's not explicit as much as it's just her being like, oh, a shirtless.

Speaker: Oh, a shirtless boy. But then she's like, I'm afraid of how much he that he cares much more than he realizes and how much I care in return. yeah And we've read enough Chris Claremont to know what that means. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Speaker: It means that a 16 year old is in love with someone much older than themselves. ah And that they are in love. That is being returned. Yeah. yeah Meanwhile, okay. Med scans show that Doug was not infected with the transmode virus, huh but Danny warns him that what he did was super dangerous.

Speaker: And Doug decides that the new mutants have a new mission. To protect helpless kids like the Brat Pack who no one else will. Interesting. The end.

Speaker: That's, yeah. I don't, yeah that's a sort of a pie in the sky dream. You can't just go out and protect the children. ah But Pat, here's something Doug Ramsey knows that you seem to have forgotten.

Speaker: o Children are are the future. Oh, I always forget that children are the future. I'm so used to thinking of myself as the future.

Speaker: Pat. Oh, actually, I got one more note. Oh, the other thing. OK, so.

Speaker: After all this, Rain Sinclair stays at the mansion. but Remember, she's been staying with Moira for months now. Oh, yeah. So isn't Moira fucking freaked out that just disappeared? And she's like, oh, like even if she calls, what she's saying is, oh, um sorry, mummy.

Speaker: I got sucked into the telephone after watching a TV show. And then my friends pulled me out of a nude lady's brain. And now I'm just going to be in Westchester from now on.

Speaker: Well, did you ever have to have that conversation with a parent?

Speaker: duism Maybe the interdimensional fascism part isn't included. But when you're like, OK, this is my situation now, which is good. But you should understand that I'm here because of these bad things that led up to it that you didn't know. I mean, I remember going go to tell us to explain this. I remember going like, hey, I was out skateboarding and somehow we walked eight miles.

Speaker: And now I am all the way over here. Can you come pick me up? Like now I am at the. Yeah, sure. I'm at the Walmart. I'm at the Walmart a town away ah with my friends. Can you come get could you go get me? I know I said i would I would walk home because I was supposed to be down the street.

Speaker: yeah It's exactly that. It's she's just like, hey, I'm at the x Xavier mansion now ah Don't ask why. but I'm okay I'm OK.

Speaker: It has nothing to do with the the scorch marks on the phone.

Speaker: That was dangling off the hook. I said, don't worry about the phone. All right, Matt. Yeah.

Speaker: Enough of that crap. Let's move on to something entirely different. Now for something entirely different. That's right, baby. It's time to get into all new X-Men.

Speaker: It said all new on the cover.

Speaker: Again, the X-Men annual number 10. performance oh man i almost stole it from you but then you distracted me yeah i did chris claremont writer arthur adams whoa like the guy from the long shot miniseries exactly the guy from the mini the mini shot mini shot long songries He's the penciler Terry Austin wait like from the long shot miniseries exactly like from the Austin shot Terry series is the anchor Petra Scorsese like from the law is the colorist Tom was the letter and no senty like from the love is the editor and i don't think she was the editor on that series.

Speaker: Louis Brandeis from 1856 to 1941 is the release that name? You should know a lot more of these names than you have. i mean Hey, me too.

Speaker: Me too. Like, I should know them too because this has been my, ah this is just, I'm trying to, I'm trying to double up on on memorizing. Memorizing.

Speaker: I know why I know his name. Release date, September 2nd, 1986. Cover date, January 1987. I figured it out. um I learned your tricks.

Speaker: The X-Men are all up to their classic date training in the Danger Room hijinks as Doug Romsey, Sunspot, and our new pal Psylocke.

Speaker: Oh. They all watch from the Observation Booth. But Patrick... Yeah. They're not the only ones watching. Betsy's eyes that Mojo gave her are actually cameras unbeknownst to the X-Men and a whole planet of spineless blob peach people are watching fascinated. This was this was really cool. First of all, they're playing tag in the danger room again, which is an idea.

Speaker: I'm pretty sure they stole from X-Factor. Which is funny at like a character level, but also at a writer level. That Chris Claremont stole it from. He was like, damn it, this was a good idea. ah But i think it was the i think it was the Louise Simonson issue that that it did it, right?

Speaker: Oh, very well may have been, yeah. It was her first issue, and that's why we're like, oh they're back, baby. i Maybe. Maybe. But the other fascinating thing, the actually fascinating thing here is at the end of the last issue, we kind of just assume everybody knows that Betsy got her eyes from Mojo and that he is using them for some purpose. She even tries to dig him out of her head at some point. Because Doug knows, but yeah.

Speaker: But then at the beginning here, she's like, nobody actually knows that he's still using my eyes as cameras. i should tell somebody, but I'm not. It's just it's one of those things that you assume going into this issue.

Speaker: Everybody already knows until she's like, this is actually just my secret. You knew it as the reader. So i i and ah to to to add to that, I don't think she knows he's using them as cameras. She just knows he's.

Speaker: that they heat they're from Mojo and that they are... Not to be trusted. Because nothing for Mojo's to be trusted. Yes, she knows that there wasn't any sort of like deactivation.

Speaker: Yes, that they these were from Mojo. There's a good chance that there's something else going on with them. um But yeah, she doesn't know anything about she doesn't know anything about the camera nature of them. um Also... And just seeing all these weird blobs cheering along. Fucking...

Speaker: um The other interesting thing here, which we didn't talk about last issue, but Mojo says something last issue about like, in his is very short appearance last issue, he says something about like, and these X-Men, which I've grown to hate.

Speaker: And like, what? Why? You've never met them. What do you hate about the X-Men? there's Absolutely. You have no connection to them whatsoever. i don't even know who they are Spiral told you?

Speaker: its This is anti-mutant hysteria. And another another interesting thing. This is the second time Magneto has said to a group of mutants in the danger room, hey, everybody attack me at once and I can kick your asses.

Speaker: Didn't he do that to the mutants? He did that to the new mutants. Yeah, but that was like he schooled the new mutants. This seems like a legitimate training exercise, not a let me show you how much you don't know yeah lesson. But he still beats their damn asses. But he is still, yeah, yeah. He's still Magneto.

Speaker: So yeah, mojo's and Mojo's taking it all and celebrating with his, ah like you said, he's celebrating with all his blob friends. um it's this His newest show is a success. He's joined at either side by Spiral, his bodyguard, and Major Domo, his accountant.

Speaker: Mojo ignores. Yeah. Why is Major Domo? is Last time when we met Major Domo, he was a blob in a chair next to Mojo. And they were talking about doing blob stuff together in long shot miniseries.

Speaker: i I don't remember. i've im I must have glazed over that because like i always I knew of mojo Major Domo as one of the human slaves.

Speaker: But maybe you're right. Maybe in the first appearance he wasn't. Maybe he was just a blob. He was a blob. And i guess the answer is Mojo turned him into ah a spined So...

Speaker: so Mojo ignores the concerns of his staff and charges forward with the next phase of his plan by pushing Pat a button.

Speaker: Suddenly, back in the danger room, a bubble of energy plasma appears and starts to grow right in front of the X-Men.

Speaker: Until it pops, covering the X-Men in goop. in the pew In the process, a bubble so also spits a man out. It's long shot.

Speaker: Whoa. Our boy. Psylocke rushes in with the med kit and tries to figure out who this guy is, but his thoughts are too chaotic for her telepathic abilities to get a read on.

Speaker: He's beautiful, though, she notes. Just again. Everyone's horny for long shot. in immediately Yeah. Yeah. It just gets to, we don't know it yet, but long shot, one of long shots powers being that he's just magnetically attractive.

Speaker: ah i is showing through here, right? It's yeah have a dead body lying on the floor. And the first thing you think is he's beautiful. I'm fucking horny. right now Doug Ramsey.

Speaker: request a sample of the goop to figure out what's going on here but to everyone's shock the goop is gone it's like up the goop did you ever cook um did you ever cook uh cactus Yes.

Speaker: It gets so goopy. And at some point, so you're cooking cactus and it, and it's. Oh I've watched you cook cactus. Really? You've watched me cook cactus? Yeah, you cooked cactus for me one day. It's dry in the pan.

Speaker: And you're like, man, is this is anything going to happen here? It looks like it feels like this cactus. Nothing's going to happen to this cactus. And then all of a sudden it splooges out and the pan is full of goop. And it's like a cactus soup. And it stays that way for a while. And you're like, this is disgusting.

Speaker: Is this ever going to fix? And then again, all of a sudden, all the goop evaporates in like... Just goops disappears. The goop's there for like five to ten minutes. And then it all disappears in the span of like 30 seconds. And then you have cooked cactus.

Speaker: That's what this is like.

Speaker: The X-Men go to the decontamination module. And then to bed. yeah Yeah, they're just like, right, we'll decontaminate and call it a day. Like that was a, that that was a lot.

Speaker: And also it's a living. also i just want to say also because it's art Adams and he has so many errant lines all over. Like he uses so many, many lines and so much detail. It's so busy. You can't tell the goop is gone.

Speaker: You can only tell the goop is gone by people's like dialogue. Right. Any of these lines could be goop or it could be just one of the 70 shadows that were drawn onto this panel.

Speaker: ah Right, like in an Art Adams book, everything could be covered in goop at all times. All it would take is somebody to say, ah oh hey, I've got goop on me. um The next morning, Storm wakes up feeling a little extra cheeky and finds that a robe is way too big.

Speaker: She's got her plants back to she's in her attic room. She's surrounded by plants. Yeah, that's true. Remember she got rid of all of them when she got the mohol. And this is a a Chris Claremont.

Speaker: issue too so it's not like a fuck up this is like yeah i mean she's been slowly ah kind of working her way back from that uh yukio mentality and this seems like a clear sign that she's taking those steps i think it's interesting this is some clever writing too because she wakes up and it's so clearly so clear to us wow this doesn't sound like storm something yeah yeah she's acting like a child and she's not she's not saying anything particularly she's not noting that something's weird about her attitude it's just clear to us like huh this is a little weirder this is a little yeah yeah goofier than storm is anyway her robe's too big there's no time for that now though pat

Speaker: A scream rips through the mansion. Storm charges into Kitty's room to find what everyone's shouting about. She looks younger. Actually, all of the X-Men do.

Speaker: hu And they're kind of acting like teenagers, too. And what's weirder is that they don't seem to notice anything's wrong. All of the new mutants start freaking out about how unnatural this is.

Speaker: But they're interrupted by Psylocke letting them know Longshot is awake. By the way, they go to Kitty's room. The scream that happened was... Kitty looks like a baby. Yeah, so everyone's... Yeah, so yeah everybody's like a little like a little kid. Also, doug here Doug Ramsey says, Holy jumping beezers!

Speaker: Good one, Doug. You can speak every language ever created. Ha ha!

Speaker: i I do love Magneto's look as he regresses to a teenager. He's like he's tall and lanky and has like a real goofy kind of funny shaped head. It's very ah Sam, very cannonball. That's true. It is very cannonball.

Speaker: Wow. and He's just got like this sort of self-satisfied smile on his face. Real goofball, real nerds. So they all go to check out Longshot and find that his brain is scrambled, but all the women fall in love with him immediately. And immediately in a very much, much more cartoony way than Psylocke did earlier.

Speaker: So again, something's weird here. Also, fucking they ask him what his name is. And his response is, what's a name? too far yeah chris you don't amnesiac you didn't you're not you're not quite as good at this as i know look it's not often i'm going to compliment ando senti's writing over chris claremont's but fuck man you over your first attempt at long shock dialogue and you fuck it right Not what's my name, but what's un name? What's a name? now People who have like name amnesia don't wake up and they're like, what is Forks? What is Shirt? I've forgotten my own... what do you call it?

Speaker: yeah

Speaker: Your language centers aren't in the same place as your memory, is I guess what I need what i mean to say. so um Once Betsy is able to read his mind a little, she recognizes his memories of Mojo and knows just where to find him.

Speaker: The X-Men try to rush out to get him, but Danny and the rest of the new mutants stop them. Clearly something's wrong and the X-Men aren't safe to go out on a mission right now. They're all teenagers they just keep shrinking. And the new mutants have to be like, look, guys, you can't.

Speaker: yeah so You don't realize what's fucked up, but something's fucked up and we have to be the responsible ones. Doug and yeah. It's legitimately a funny part of this magic or whatever to have them just act as they normally would, except for noting that anything's wrong about their physical changes to be like, the hell are you talking about? I'm just myself. And then march off and not even be able to like sit on a chair. And this idea that they all are still clearly themselves, but at the same time, like, just a little dumber.

Speaker: Just a little... Yeah, yeah. Just a little more attitude. Just a little more reckless. Man, there's a really great Art Adams pencil here where the new mutants are all like...

Speaker: It's when the new mutants are like, this is fucked up. um What is, what the fuck's going on? And Cypher is thinking, he's like, why weren't we affected when all the new mutants were affected? And Warlock is standing next to him.

Speaker: mimicking his like scratching his chin like yeah elbow in the other hand in the hand scratching the chin he's like mimicking interesting this is what we're doing

Speaker: and it's a great he has warlock um mimic the new mutants uniform so he's got a little new mutants uniform on yeah but warlockified and it's and not only that But there's another little touch that's great here where Amara is looking at Warlock doing this like, huh?

Speaker: Like, huh? This is weird. yeah it's It's just it's not remarked on by anybody, but it's just a great little pencil. There's just a lot going on here. Yeah.

Speaker: So even though the new mutants say you guys can't go anywhere, Magneto in his rebellious teen error era, era, zaps him and the X-Men get in the roles and take off.

Speaker: So such a nerd. Your first mistake was turning your back on Magneto, the master of magnetism. Like he's back to that era. Yeah. apparently he's been doing that since he was a teen. There's a there's a really cool moment here. There's a really cool new mutants moment here where Doug Ramsey, in order to figure out what's going on, is like, we need to analyze this goop and figure out what happened to everybody. Come on, Warlock. We need to merge into Doug lock again.

Speaker: and Warlock's like, ah wait, hold on. No, ah we said we'd do that once. and Remember, this is really dangerous. You could turn into techno-organic being. Like, this is this is... Yeah, yeah. Come on, man. We can't keep doing this. And he's like, Warlock, the X-Men need our help. They are at risk here. We have to do this. It's our responsibility. And it's so, like...

Speaker: It's such this this sort of like subtle... it's It's Chris Claremont's like theme weaving, right? He's just trying to tell us, like, hey, pay attention to this because like Doug is behaving like an addict.

Speaker: And he's making bad choices because he like the experience was so unique and interesting to him that he's like, no, I'm going to be responsible with it. But, well, today we have to do it because...

Speaker: Yes, it's a very subtle difference between what he's saying sounding heroic and what he's saying sounding like somebody that just wants to get their kicks.

Speaker: Exactly. And he does. He's nailing it. He does something heroic with it, but it's still like you're like, du we don't I don't know that you needed to do that. yeah The intent behind it is still and questionable. The scene is so quick that.

Speaker: And without any drama attached to it, that it's and it's really effective. um Yeah. Only if you're reading closely do you really notice, like, oh, I think this is significant. Yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, so the ba the little X-Men, they drive straight into Central Park. Well, I guess they're teenage X-Men, um which I should distinguish because they're about to be little X-Men, and that's it. So they drive straight into Central Park where they find the same light energy we've seen from the body shop this is and march straight in.

Speaker: Now all looking like elementary schoolers. Yeah, they're they're just regressing in age. And Wolverine is still the shortest. It's it's funny that he's like yes six inches to a foot shorter than all of them.

Speaker: And Colossus is carrying baby kitty, which yes is so fucking disturbing when you know the relationship between Colossus and kitty.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, there's ah there's a level to that that i maybe isn't being reflected on here. Yeah, how can yeah how could Chris Claremont not think that through? Also, everybody keeps complaining about Kitty having accidents.

Speaker: And so she just is soaked for the rest of the goddamn. ah Yeah, that was I mean, it makes sense because you regress her to an age where she's no longer potty trained.

Speaker: But They do mention more than once that she's covered in piss. Yes. ah Strange. do e Do you think off panel Magneto was like to send to the rest of them like, yeah, big fucking deal. I've been a baby before. i know he's he's gone through all of this. He's the one that's like.

Speaker: This is fine. We need to keep moving forward. I've been a baby. it's it'll it's It'll get better. You'll be a baby. It's just part of life. You turn into a baby and then you grow back.

Speaker: Don't worry. Any crime that you've committed will be wiped away. they so they think about The UN doesn't care anymore. Think about the plus sides to this. Wolverine, if you've ever done any terrorism, you're fine. know you have. we know you have. You don't have to hide it from us because now you're absolved.

Speaker: um So they see a Wonderland in front of them and ask for the owner's permission to come out and play. The owner is Mojo.

Speaker: you This is another legitimately scary Mojo panel because it's such a small panel on this beautiful, bright, colorful page where the X-Men think they're finding like, yeah, in awesome wonderland. And then it's just a black panel. Mojo's face is drawn with white outline, like very minimally. Like mostly just his eyes and smile.

Speaker: And he's got those crazy eyes and smile out. So you know that the X-Men are looking at something terrifying and seeing it as something normal and fun and childlike. yeah Yeah, really good. was the I have reversed course on Art Adams through this and the next annual we're about to read.

Speaker: um Love him. Wolverine, man, even as a kid, he can't stop swearing. You know what he says here? Fucking guy goes, fucking guy goes, golly gum bucks.

Speaker: Hometown kid. In front of all your friends. Did your mom ever teach you manners? Kid's just showing off. Wouldn't it have been funny? All right. So if everybody's regressing at like.

Speaker: similar Similar rates. Wouldn't it have been funny if Wolverine just stayed an adult the whole time? Because he's so old. Because he's like 200 years old. so everybody's regressing and everyone's like, why is it not affecting you, Wolverine? And so he's just like... Which is... It's interesting because you'd think... So it's it seems like it's based on ah Biological age. Not...

Speaker: temporal age. Yeah, yeah. Because otherwise Magneto at some point would have regressed back into an adult, right? He would have regressed all the way back to baby and then just zapped into adult and then gone back to baby again.

Speaker: But you would have gotten like a clean 40 years on this time scale

Speaker: of adult Magneto. So The new mutants come to to the sound of police knocking on the door, letting them know that the Rolls Royce was left in Central Park. yeah we've We found a Rolls Royce abandoned in the middle of a park. In 1986. We found a Rolls Royce here in 1986. The X-Men are missing, and this is the only lead they have. But before they head out, Danny has a surprise for them.

Speaker: She says that they're the X-Men for now, and they deserve uniforms to match as she opens a chest and gives them all their new costumes. oh Oh. It's... and How long has she been sitting on these? She's got a trunk.

Speaker: She calls them their graduation costumes. Yeah. So it's like, oh, when we... But here's the thing. They're not supposed to be superheroes after they graduate.

Speaker: Right. They're not graduating into the X-Men. They're graduating into they're supposed to graduate into real life after the new mutants. Right. Like that's the whole point. Adults that know how to control their powers and can choose to be superheroes if they want to be.

Speaker: Right. But it's it's it does make sense that Danny is like. Whatever you want to happen. You're going to be we're going to be the next X-Men. It's kind of our obligation ah to be the next X-Men.

Speaker: Here's my other question. Does she give Warlock the cape or does she give Warlock nothing? I think she gives Warlock like a sketch because he comes he comes out as like the cartooniest superhero you can imagine. Yeah, like like Captain Chin from the fucking Fairly Oddparents or like... Yeah, or French Toastman from Ren and Stimpy. Or the Tick, but with a cape or fucking...

Speaker: um The roach from a from a Cerberus. It's the big chin, cowl, cape, and like massive barrel chest. Yeah.

Speaker: It's great. Everybody's costumes are great. And i'm I'm convinced she made these herself and has been waiting for the moment to be like, here's your X-Men. Except for Safer, who looks like a fucking G.I. Joe.

Speaker: ah Yeah, she probably, I guess, made them before he joined the team. like like um I've got some fatigues.

Speaker: ah So Ileana teleports them to Central Park, but they find themselves on the Delacorte stage in the middle of a Shakespeare show as a terrifying spiral explains that they that she danced to teleport them all here. Instead, they talk about how like they're like, why are we here? you were supposed to take us somewhere else. And magic is like something fucking grabbed me.

Speaker: Yeah. And then the most terrifying drawing of spiral we've ever seen. Yeah. Who's also in powering over them from the wings of the stage for from like the catwalk or whatever.

Speaker: Yeah. she Yeah. She's also in fatigue, so which is interesting. Mm hmm. So. Suddenly she's joined by the X-Men, all sporting weird new costumes.

Speaker: And back to teenage, the crowd watches on, hypnotized to enjoying it as the battle begins. Let's talk about these costumes because they're interesting. Um... the one that's stuck in my mind most is that Wolverine is just wearing pants, brown pants and mojo mask. A mojo mask. It's not just a mask though. It's like ah it like as if he has an aquarium over his head with Mojo's face painted on it. Yes. and it's just, it's like, ah I find, um, dead mouse scary. You know how that guy always wears that giant. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: face that that sort of same sense of terror. Well, here, I want to talk about these these costumes. So Longshot's dressed like Longshot. Rogue is dressed like a like a like a wizard lady. It's like it's rogue, but it's like a her green outfit with the big collar. But in the center, there's like a diamond where there's no there's no costume. And it's like fastened between her boobs with a big brooch.

Speaker: So that it's like almost like ah but like ah like a bathing suit style. Colossus is wearing, we'll know this costume much later, but so it looks exactly like a character named Strife, who we'll meet a lot later. It's just a big like metal thing with like Wolverine ears on it. ah Storm is wearing kind of like a dancer's costume with like freely, it's like a leotard, like a dancer's leotard with like freely,

Speaker: Leg like around the leg look where the legs come out. It's like freely, but she's wearing a big pink cape. Nightcrawler looks like a a character in a Dark Souls game or Castlevania. He looks like a Castlevania antagonist. yeah Yeah, he looks like a vampire.

Speaker: And the most bizarre one, Kitty, it's hard to see what she looks like. She's way in the background. But the most bizarre one here is that.

Speaker: Magneto is dressed in a German soldier's outfit. you Yes, so... It's is not a Nazi outfit.

Speaker: It looks a lot more like a World War One German soldier outfit, which is still problematic in its own right. It's got but it's got the armband, but there's it's not a Nazi symbol on the armband. It's like an armband. Yeah, a red arm band on a military uniform. Oh, in the copy, I'm looking at it. It's the same color as his uniform. Well, look at page 29.

Speaker: No. Like though the the one villain this thing that is the opposite of Magneto. ah yeah Yeah, but the the whole idea is that they were regressed to childhood so that he could indoctrinate them. Yeah. Rapidly grew them up. So he's maybe you ah it really into right wing Twitter or something. It's as it's more it's Mojo's like sick sense of humor, right? like Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: So the battle's not a good one. the X-Men continue to age back up, becoming stronger and smarter and more indoctrinated as they do. Plus, Mojo has returned return Storm's powers.

Speaker: The new mutants get fucking wrecked. until Rogue tries to absorb Bobby's power to take him off the board. She's stunned when she sees his memories of her as a friend and a hero. This awakens her own memories, and she's good again.

Speaker: Wolverine, meanwhile, stalks Karma while resisting her possession powers, but it's just enough psychic damage to release Mojo's hold on him, too. Some bizarre things happen during this fight.

Speaker: For example... um we see the fucking kids. We see the Brat Pack again. The Star Slammers. Yeah. These fucking... hey Get out. Get out. They're just in the audience and they're like...

Speaker: They call themselves the Brat Pack. So I guess Chris Claremont just decided that's their name now. Yeah. yeah Whatever and the sent he called them. I changed it. And it's that. And I'm going to do it in two different issues. So no one can argue, um which it's just such a dick move. Like you took your friends characters, you changed their name and you did it twice so that no one could argue with you. Like that's how it feels.

Speaker: ah Right. And their their name was specifically a name children would bestow upon themselves rather than the Brat Pack, which is the adults naming a group of children. Yeah, it really like actually makes me a little mad. youre Weird choice, man. um ah and they show the frogs from the Thor frog thing. You know how like If people don't know, at this time over in Thor, oh Thor becomes a frog for a while. Like, it's an infamous storyline.

Speaker: And the Thor frog, not Thor frog, but all the frogs that Thor makes friends with when he's a frog, are just here in the theater under people's feet talking frog language to themselves to each other.

Speaker: That is not how he read this at all. So... with the Brat Pack is sitting there saying like, I don't know if I really like watching this. I don't know if I'm enjoying the show that's taking place in front of me. Yeah. And Mojo, it cuts to Mojo and he's like, how dare you express that you don't like this show and I'm going to punish you for that. And it cuts back to the the audience. And suddenly, instead of five Brat Pack kids, there's five frogs sitting and talking to each other.

Speaker: Okay, so that is interesting. What an interesting read on it. I i think that i think that's incorrect. um And here's there's a couple reasons. First of all, they are under human feet, and they have the names of the frogs from Thor.

Speaker: Okay. and there's like eight frogs here. um But yeah, so... Yeah, then that's a worse choice. Yeah. But it that is an interesting... Man, I wish I had read it that way, because that is more interesting.

Speaker: That would have been a more interesting choice. But this is just fucking bizarre. Some really interesting Wolverine stuff here, too. Uh...

Speaker: As noted, he was wearing pants earlier. He's fully nude here. At some point during the battle, he took his pants off. yeah yeah Yes. he was He was standing on top of the theater, threatening them, and he's definitely wearing pants.

Speaker: And then he attacks them, and he's wearing no pants. He was like, yeah won't be needing these. Enough of this. ah

Speaker: um God, this is this is this is strange.

Speaker: I gotta understand this. I'm still working on these frogs. but I am so baffled by these frogs. It's just a cross promotion probably.

Speaker: But there's no reference to like, if you want to know what's up with these frogs, go check this out. And there's no reference to Thor. They they reference, they say Uncle Puddlegulp, and apparently Puddlegulp is Throg.

Speaker: A human who is cursed into becoming a frog by a mystic. But he's not. name is Throg, and then he's cursed to turn into a frog. Like he's Throg the human. His name is Simon Walterson.

Speaker: I know. Right. And he's cursed to become a frog. and then he's puddle gulp. But then at some point he gets given Thor's powers and he becomes. wrong he's the Thor frog. But yes, not not the frog that Thor was turned into. But correct. through This the one that continues being a frog Thor frog Thor. That's puddle gulp. And he's here on the page.

Speaker: And they talk about Queen Green Song, who is all. I'm just I don't get it. It's just such a fucking bizarre choice. It's just such a weird choice. I mean, it's seems like a huge comic at the time. Maybe it's just like there this is for insiders. This is for real fans.

Speaker: I hate it.

Speaker: So let's move on. One by one, the X-Men start gaining control of their minds back, culminating with Kitty phasing through Mojo to save Ileana from his grasp, sending his bioelectronics into chaos and inflicting pain on everyone under his psychic control. Fuck yes. Everyone breaks from the spell except for Storm.

Speaker: who just takes a little longer and then also turns good. Oh, thank God. i do it's Interesting choice. A little page dedicated to being like, luckily i had a stronger spell on storm and storm going. Why am I thinking evil thoughts? No.

Speaker: ah

Speaker: Oh man. this is what you get out of a double size annual. You know, you got to fill these pages. They turn on Mojo and start whipping ass until Mojo teleports away to ah avoid avoid Kurt's killing blow. Kurt Ruppert.

Speaker: He was ready to fucking kill Mojo. Yeah, he was back to normal and he was like, I'm murdering this man. I'm murdering this thing, this guy. He also, this was cool as shit. He teleports to directly behind Spiral just so he can wrap his hand around the hilt of her sheathed sword.

Speaker: And then teleports to directly above Mojo so that he can bring that sword down into. He's even like, ah the only sword I see around here is on Spiral's back. So bam, bam. And then he's diving down onto. Yeah. It's so cool.

Speaker: It rules. It rules. He leaves Spiral behind at the X-Men's mercy. Storm uses the opportunity to strike a bargain with her.

Speaker: They let her walk if she returns everything to what it was before Mojo swung by. Everything. Everything. Meaning? Spirals even like everything. because it means means Storm loses her powers. Storm gives her powers back. to Yeah. yeah um but Right before we leave the theater, I just want to mention Art Adams loves drawing weird people in the crowd and sometimes it gets remarked on.

Speaker: Other times it it doesn't. But um like sometimes Chris Claremont has the people in the crowd gives them lines of dialogue to identify them. So Clark Kent and Lois Lane are in the crowd. The a creature from the Black Lagoon is in the crowd. And at some point he says, oh my. me um just He has ah like an NPC dialogue line. That's so good. At some point when Mojo makes everybody in the crowd smile, the Joker is in the crowd.

Speaker: He's a good smiler. And then at the very end, when Nightcrawler is trying to fucking murder Mojo, you can look and see the robot from Short Circuit in the crowd.

Speaker: Might not be the robot from Short Circuit. I don't know when Short Circuit came out, but it's either the robot from Short Circuit or another robot who Short Circuit's design was based on. Oh, yeah. Maybe they designed the Short Circuit robot on this. On this. On X-Men annual number 10. it's just one of those ones where like the vibe it's like wally's design too it's just like the vibe the eyes are above the head so i know there with it yeah so it could be something from i don't know one of those fucking nerd shows that you nerds listen to email ah email us it let us know what fucking nerd show this nerd robot men is pod at gmail.com you fucking nerd

Speaker: Back at the mansion, the New Mutants put their new outfits back in the chest and wonder if they could ever be on the same level as the X-Men.

Speaker: The X-Men, meanwhile, goof around, pull side. Storm. Yeah. Very funny for them. Like, they just got their ass kicked by the X-Men. So and by X-Men clearly under some sort of spell. So they're like, yesh I don't know if I could ever actually be an X-Man. The level of professionalism and the the dedication that they have to this craft of being a superhero. And then it just cuts to all of them in bathing suits next to the pool. Yeah. New mutants are working. theyre do they they have They have to clean the mansion or whatever. and the X-Men get to just bask and sunbathe.

Speaker: Longshot is again, it's Chris Claremont going a step too far. He's like Longshot is perched on the side of the pool looking at the water and he's like the floor moves.

Speaker: Oh my God. Do you know what water is water is? You, if you didn't, he could be from a planet that doesn't have water. You would die from dehydration. My dude. um That's true. Kurt,

Speaker: Rupert Kurt boots him into the pool though. Yeah. off panel, but that guy at a party. He kicks him into the pool. And that's all we get from long shot out of this whole thing. You mentioned.

Speaker: yeah You know, a long shot episode that once he gets to the X-Men, he can kind of get forgotten about. Yes. He has like two lines in this, in this entire annual. He's like yeah issue that introduces him as a new member of the X-Men. He says,

Speaker: What's a name? And the floor moves. yeah

Speaker: Why'd you bring him here? think He says like one or two things while they're like driving around. But fucking. Yeah. well And why? Chris Claremont's like, I love like if if we're to believe the story.

Speaker: ah not Not my story, which was what I thought, which is that Chris Claremont did this as a favor to Ann Nocenti, didn't like Longshot, eventually ditches him to bring in Gambit, who we is like, this is what if Longshot was good. um But the story that Claremont tells is i he's like, I loved that miniseries and I demanded that I get to spiral. He can be in any situation. Yeah.

Speaker: He can be in the background of any comic book. And just to kind of further sully his reputation, I guess. Last time we saw Longshot at the end of the miniseries, he is very bravely chasing Mojo and Spiral through the portal so that he can follow them wherever they go and finally defeat him.

Speaker: Then when we see him here, his very next appearance, clearly he's been kidnapped by Mojo and Spiral so that they could send him as a like a trap for the X-Men. And he just yeah, he's just a fucking doofus all of a sudden. So so between issues, he just lost.

Speaker: He went through the whole long shot miniseries. Had this like promising ending leading to a whole new story. Apparently that a whole new story is he found them and they fucked him up.

Speaker: And I'm going to tell you, Pat. We're about to read. Mutant Massacre is the next is is the next X-Men story we read, right? Spoilers. Psylocke is there.

Speaker: Fucking long shot is not there. He is just absent. It's he's just he's it's just. So maybe this takes place. Maybe that takes place between these two stories. Couldn't possibly be. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker: You'll understand why later. All right. So ah Storm Psylocke and Wolverine chat about Storm's sacrifice, what it means to be a hero and why she had to give up the powers that Mojo, quote, returned to her.

Speaker: It's pretty obvious, but it's just like these were powers given with ill intent. If I kept them, they would be still be used for ill intent. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. She and Logan explain to Betsy that being an X-Man means so much more than being a mutant, and Betsy might fit that description.

Speaker: Through Betsy's eyes, though, we zoom out on this monologue and see her perspective being projected onto a film screen as credits roll and an audience of spineless blobs give the movie a resounding round of applause.

Speaker: Once again, we zoom out to Mojo, watching the audience gloating in his artistic success as Major Domo tells him that this was also a complete financial success. He gives a fucked up, that's all, folks, while holding a fucking severed pig's head. An actual, like, realistically drawn pig's head. It's fucked up. fucked up. Art Adams. Before promising to return for a sequel. The end!

Speaker: Man, dude, that ending was so good. Of just like, you think the issue's ending, like it's just the the sort of cool down at the end of any long issue where the characters just chat with each other about what just happened.

Speaker: And then we cut to it being projected on a movie screen. And Mojo is Taking credit for what a brilliant story. Chris Claremont wrote here. Just like, look at this character transformation that I made happen.

Speaker: Yeah. Because I put all these events in motion and that was the, the intent the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Man.

Speaker: I will say. i want you to, now that we've read Claremont taking two cracks at Mojo. Not quite as scary.

Speaker: Like, as far as what he does and what it seems like he's able to do. Yes, we definitely ah developing him a little further, making some things a little more clear than they were.

Speaker: But when he talks, he like he makes sense. He seems to have clear intent and not just this reckless, like, give me power. delusional man yeah i think it's i think it's clear that and i mean even with spiral and i i don't mind the chris claremont version of spiral yeah but i think it's very clear he doesn't quite get these characters that he wanted so desperately at all he doesn't quite get long shot he doesn't quite get mojo um and

Speaker: what'll happen with spiral? I don't remember if it's Claremont or not, but whoever does it doesn't quite get spiral. Oh, Uh, yeah. I love spiral right now. She's like sarcastic and quippy, but also sweet. She's like an inverse Spider-Man. She's super bad-ass.

Speaker: Well, ah there's just makes jokes the whole time. There's just some origin story stuff with spiral that that really breaks a lot of innocenties. Stuff set up.

Speaker: Yeah. In a way that that I hate. But yeah. So those that was it. That's the that's the mojo. That's the mojo ah ah saga. Yeah.

Speaker: Also, he says he'll be back. We don't see Mojo again for a long fucking time. I think we get. Oh, that's a shame. as Yeah. What a compelling villain. And one of the things that's so frustrating about Chris Claremont's Mojo is when we see him from now on.

Speaker: in In Claremont's hands anyway. It's just for the X babies. It's just for baby X-Men. Oh, really? I'm going to spoil something, but it's something that doesn't fucking matter.

Speaker: He loves... He loved having baby X-Men so much that he eventually clones the X-Men as babies and makes X-babies. they made him write the New Mutants. He got mad about it, called them X-babies, and then developed actual X-babies two years later.

Speaker: Yes. Okay. um So, yeah, Mojo will... he will only appear as like, aha, look at my ex babies. Watch them do funny stuff. And like, that is like Mojo's role from here on out. And it is frustrating. Like there some times maybe a lot later where he becomes scary again, but like, okay, it's, it is a frustrating thing. Like we're not going to see a lot of Mojo until the nineties.

Speaker: RIP Mojo. Yeah, it's a bummer. um

Speaker: so but yeah and So you're entirely right about like him but about Claremont not quite nailing Mojo. Yeah, yeah. He's got an eye out, stuff that could buy out.

Speaker: If you had a time machine that you would like to try out. can't feel steel.

Speaker: Oh, Matt, after all that, how would you like to, for Pat's Steals and Deals, of course. Oh, okay. All right. I didn't know what was going on. How would you like to read and recap a comic?

Speaker: ah You love to do these. ah Okay. Yeah. I do love when somebody ah writes and draws a full page comic for an advertisement. Yes. Should we just do this one?

Speaker: Well, should we do panel by panel? Well, one of us will do a panel. The next one will do the next panel. Or did you write? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there is i a handsome, so handsome, black haired man.

Speaker: We're holding a helmet, looking over his shoulder at an ugly man clad in purple, also holding a helmet. And that ugly man clad in purple is saying, so you're my next target.

Speaker: So ah then we pull out and there's they're standing in front of a futuristic city, ah but where they are is just a featureless a featureless brown floor with three ah Doric columns. Yeah, yeah. And the handsome man throws his helmet on and turns around in one quick move and says, oh, yeah. And then zap.

Speaker: And he shoots the guy in the chest. The purple man in purple who also had somehow put his helmet on very quickly. They both put their helmets on before anything else took place. And he's surrounded by like ah by like these this shock.

Speaker: It's fire. And it says and his chest says blip, blip, blip. And it's shining a yellow light. All right. Next panel. He's hiding behind one of these Doric columns. The man, the ugly man clad in purple. And he's looking down at his chest, which is now flashing red.

Speaker: And he says, he got me five times. Only one left. ah reminds me my Reminds me of my ah Gumby story. um And then ah a close up on the ugly man's face and he's sweating underneath his helmet.

Speaker: He's sweating bullets. Bullets. And his his pupils are like tiny. He's terrified. He's so scared. Next panel, the handsome man.

Speaker: i I have a hard time just describing the motion he's making here. he is He is like swinging around. Yeah, he's he's kind of curling his body around the column so that he can shoot up into the the purple man's chest. And the man in purple is has a look of anguish and pain on his face as his chest starts to light up yellow again. And it goes bleep bleep.

Speaker: And then a handsome man helmet back off is blowing on the tip of his gun, which is not smoking, by the way. He's just blowing on it. No. Yeah. yeah um As the ah that he drew his breath. The man in purple walks solemnly away into the futuristic city in the background.

Speaker: The end. End of comic. We get to the ad copy here. Would you buy this comic? No, we get to the ad copy here that says win or lose laser tag is always fun.

Speaker: Oh, they were playing laser tag. Gosh, that makes sense. But lose? Start practicing now. Get the laser tag game kit with an infrared beam shooting starlight, a star sensor with an LED readout that scores up to six hits, and a star belt.

Speaker: Star helmet and star vest available separately. Yikes. So... Pat, I can't. This is, oh, I should mention, you can look for the Laser Tag Academy Saturday morning on NBC.

Speaker: Pat, I gotta say. Yeah. I'm noticing something here, which is. Oh, what's that? You know, the primary function of past deals and deals is, um,

Speaker: Man, these ads are old and weird. And here's what this stuff costed then versus what it what it would cost in today's dollars. And yet, there's no price on this at all.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah. We can only imagine, Matt, what this could have costed. I would say $20. today's dollars is...

Speaker: Gosh. ah ah Did you have laser tag as a kid? No, I knew friends that had like the laser tag vests and I went to like laser tag places and played laser tag there.

Speaker: The what's what I'm finding interesting about this is in the ad copy actually. rather than advertising this as a way to play laser tag outside of these laser tag arenas. Yeah.

Speaker: This is advertising it as a way to practice laser tag so that you can get good at it when you go to the arena. Yeah. Interesting. Well, because they weren't very good. That's the thing about these. yeah It's like the home. I had one. I had the Star Wars one. um okay It was. Yeah. And i I was so convinced this was going to be great. And then it turned out like I didn't,

Speaker: I didn't really have the friends to make a whole laser tag game when I was that age. Right. Like I would hang out with my neighbors. What was my name? 35, 36. Yeah. I would hang out. Yeah. So like five, four or five years ago, I would hang out with my neighbors and i' get sometimes we would play. No, ah I didn't have like a gang and neighborhood kids that I hung out with. It was either yeah i go over to my friend's house and to hang out with my friend.

Speaker: or they come here and hang out with me, or I just hang out with my one neighbor, right? So there was like, this this presumes a gang of neighborhood kids that run around and can shoot each other. um But even with that, like, man, these didn't work very well.

Speaker: Right. Super inaccurate. ah Easy to cheat with. Like you could just cover your tape over a sensor. Yeah. Yeah. Wear a jacket. ah um So for that reason, i'm I mean, the answer is no, I'm not going to buy these. But man, the promise of laser tag is so strong.

Speaker: Right. It's it really is. And they they they got away. The the arenas got away from like. player versus player and got into like target shooting stuff. They did. i' haven't been to laser tag in a very long time. i don't think they this is let this is when my remembering like the end of my childhood, which okay also coincided with like,

Speaker: is you and me both kind of coincided with the start of school shootings. Uh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Is the mass of them that we've seen since. So a lot of our gun based games turned into shooting inanimate objects rather than shooting people.

Speaker: And that's where I saw laser tag going before I got out of the game.

Speaker: ah well,

Speaker: I already said no, so i guess now we're just kind of treading water. Oh. Matt. Patrick. That's the end of this episode.

Speaker: oht you matt patrick that's the end of this episode Wow, man. Just a neat little two issues. A nice, just a nice clean, a short little two issues that we got through super fast. Just a solid three hours on two issues of comic books.

Speaker: and i'm hoping I'm hoping it's two hours by the end of this. I'm hoping actually it's like an hour 45. But man, that's going to take some real heavy. at Yeah, it's getting worse. Do you notice? it's It's been getting worse since we started trying to address it. Folks, if you've noticed that most of our episodes are three hours long, please know that we're trying and and that's making it worse. I'm guessing this is getting cut out, too, because, man, you're going have to cut out a lot. sees if you do Think of the jokes that you missed if you hear this. If you hear me saying this now. it You won't.

Speaker: Well, Pat, it's been yeah it's been a great time. I love discussing these two issues with you. They're long issues, though. it is It is fucking. This was like 90 pages of comics. They're annuals. it's a lot of It's a lot of comic to take in. and And if you appreciate that we did that, that we took the time to read two comic books, you can pay us for our for our work. You can go to patreon.com slash mutant menace. You can subscribe for free. you'll get some You'll get a reading list so you can read along. You can also subscribe for $1 or more. If we can make that floor lower, we would, but we can't. Patreon doesn't let us. They say $1 more.

Speaker: get a lot of bonus content from us. If ah if you noticed last week, we put out some a few episodes of Puffy Faffin, which is our Patreon-exclusive podcast.

Speaker: um Yeah, which which is pretty inconsistently released, but there's some funny comedy content there, and you also get some outtakes, um which I assume there'll be a lot from this episode because this episode was way too long for two issues. Yeah, we'll put it we'll put a whole reel together. And...

Speaker: You can also follow us on Instagram. It's mutant menace podcast on Instagram, YouTube, YouTube.com slash mutant menace. I believe for food we're on YouTube. fine Yeah. Just search us on YouTube. I think it's mutant menace podcast also, but I don't remember. Listen, you can email. If you want to part of that email corner, you can, you can email us at a mutant menace pod at gmail.com.

Speaker: What, what else do we have to tell the people? Someday Matt will write this all down and these little outros will be so boring. Yeah. Yeah. It's better. It's this is better. So yeah. Yeah. I want to say thank you.

Speaker: Yeah. Go ahead. To Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby and Chris Wilson for all the music in this episode. Fucking right. And every episode.

Speaker: And that takes us to the end of the episode, man. All we got to do is say our famous sign off the catchphrase that we say at the end of every episode. Yeah. um So till next time, folks, he's a funny looking dummy freak alien geek dweeb.

Speaker: I'm thinking it was going to end. I know. That was so good. And as always, folks, humor inappropriate.