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49 - Alpha Flight #7-12
0 Playsin 7 hours
ALPHA FLIGHT IS BACK! And we get a bunch of solo adventures until the team comes together and IMMEDIATELY comes apart. This is a wild ride, folks. Join Matt and Pat on a trip to Canada with our favorite incredibly bad super-hero team.
Topics Discussed:
DEADLY EARNEST. Homosexual implications. "Why are you mushing my face?" The smartest man in the mall. Bashing through a window... sneakily. NEMESIS has a cool costume. Cutting between molecules. Blowing our minds back and forth. We keep forgetting about some Yanchus. Mike T.V. Detective Walter Langkowski. A physics-defying mustache. Blood Battle! Captain America's super super-hero sense. Super Skrull's Super Cancer. The Canadian Dance. OMEGA FLIGHT!! The rudest way to pick someone up from the airport. A long tangent on TV shows from 1966-67. Flashback sucks. ...And One Shall Surely Die. A taxonomy of super-hero teams.
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Transcript
Live Report from Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Introduction and Email Corner
00:00:36
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aucamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say with us, Abe. Welcome to Mutant Menace. Pat.
00:00:48
Speaker
Hey. How are you? I'm doing okay.
00:00:54
Speaker
This fucking taskmaster of a piano player. Ooh, I love that show. Does not give us...
00:01:04
Speaker
any time to just catch up and be friends well we do have to keep things moving along matt let's start off with pat's email corner okay okay by jumping right in not nearly as many emails as last week we'll try to get through this quick so uh so we deserve a break you know Yeah, folks deserve a little bit of break from hearing from themselves. Yeah. no That's why you listen to a podcast so you don't have to listen to yourself.
00:01:32
Speaker
Unless you're one of our emailers, of
Cartoon Pranks and Marvel Discussions
00:01:35
Speaker
course. That first one being Mikey Two Males. Mikey Two Males. Here's our episode 47 X-Men email. Hi, Pat. Tell Matt that I said that the cartoons he mentioned where the kids or characters have their arms and legs visible, but their torso is a different color was a very big staple of the Hatter-Barbera cartoons in the olden days of cartoons. Just like one block of color. Yeah, and I think that's entirely correct. I was thinking of Weebles. You remember those? The Weebles. They wobble, but they never down. don't fall down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:02:08
Speaker
the reason for this was because the studio produced an absolutely astronomical amount of cartoons in a ridiculously short time, causing them to cut a lot of corners, reuse animation cells, and even half paint characters or do simple colors to get episodes finished.
00:02:23
Speaker
It's wild what cartoon shows used to be able to get away with. and Just like reusing entire scenes. Yeah, yeah. The first season of the X-Men cartoon show from the 90s is like half reused footage from the first three episodes. Right. That was our X-Men related email. This is our non-X-Men related email. That was X-Men related? That was X-Men related. Mikey TwoMail says, Hi, Pat. Tell Matt that I think it would be really, really funny if for April Fool's you all did some random DC comic. Literally a small margin of people have heard of like Ragman or something like that. Would be funny. Think about it. You don't have to read this email on air if you decide to do something like this. Yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
what me This is a prank. He never emailed us. We've never met a Mikey two males. We don't know him. We don't know him. We don't know. we don't know. we don't know. We've never, we don't even have an email address. That's
00:03:22
Speaker
that's a cute idea. I don't know if we'll do it ah because we have so so, so many years of X-Men to get through, but it's a cute idea. It is. Mikey two males, nothing if not cute.
00:03:37
Speaker
up next is Weapon Jason. He wants to talk to us about episode number 47. hey Pat. Tell Matt. Enjoyed how they decided to spend an entire miniseries laying the groundwork for Ileana as magic.
00:03:49
Speaker
This is one of those stories that I think would have been ill-served as a couple of pages of flashback in the main book. John Buscema was the right choice. Coming off all the Conan comics he'd been doing, he set the fantasy tone for the story. The story also lays some groundwork for why Ileana will get close to kitty and why kitty will be able to spoil this is some crazy spoiler stuff since you're not following kesar the savage you know this gets uh this gets a little long but i think it's worth reading through you ready for this okay kesar shanna zabu dirk the android from atlantis and a green-winged guy named buff are
00:04:25
Speaker
exploring a hidden world under the hidden world of the Savage Land called Pangaea, apparently some kind of amusement park created by the ancient Atlantis. What? They're descending into a series of cave tunnels called Inferno, but have lost Dirk to the various defenders.
00:04:41
Speaker
now the remaining four find the city of dis inside they find traces of dante yeah in the city of di okay including a ship's log that details the origins of a sorcerer priest alchemist named belasco belasco secretly schemed to summon the elder gods to attain immortality but got caught was imprisoned and sentenced to the stake he escaped with the help of demonic familiars kidnapped Dante's true love, Beatrice, and took to the seas to flee to the far south, Antarctica.
00:05:12
Speaker
Dante pursued him. They ended up in Pangaea, and Dante allied with the winged Aryans to find Belasco. Belasco has corrupted Beatrice, though, turning her into a birthing machine for the demonic children of the Elder Gods. Belasco then ambushes Dante, nearly killing the author, but accidentally freezing himself before he can kill them. Dante escapes...
00:05:35
Speaker
this is the return your is this is the florentine poet dante alighieri like this yeah yeah the dante when i was a kid i read a book that was about all these noir detective writers finding themselves in uh it was like dashel hammett and uh ray uh it was three noir writers that found themselves at the center of a noir style murder This sounds a lot
Comparative Comic Analysis
00:06:00
Speaker
like that. Dante escaped to return to Europe writing of the encasing of Lucifer in ice called Lucifer in quotes. In Canto 34 is a hidden reference.
00:06:10
Speaker
Kesar concludes that Belasco likely immortal is probably the current ruler of this PNG and leader of all the demonic foes they faced. They continue to explore get split up and eventually Kesar stumbles on Shanna dressed like Beatrice. Before he can figure out what's going on, Dirk appears and attacks.
00:06:26
Speaker
Dirk! Atlantean android is in the thrall of, and I quote, the crimson garbed figure of omnipotent evil who towers before him, eyes blazing, cruel lips drawn back over dagger-like teeth.
00:06:40
Speaker
the demonic Belasco, who does have just one arm and the horns on his forehead. The sorcerer was thawed by the warming volcano. He intends to use Shauna as a breeder for more demons, but Kesar has objections, which come to naught as Belasco is easily able to deal with a blonde Tarzan knockoff. Belasco monologues the other gods want to come through and conquer Earth. He cut a deal with them to help them do that. They gave him a bloodstone amulet with five bloodstones in its pentagram. a spell to grant him immortality and turned and him demonic in appearance. He's all in on using his evil powers to spawn demons for him, his bride, willing or unwilling, but he's lost the amulet, so he's not able to complete his pact. that's interesting right he right they had an amulet with five bloodstones in it so this is where the bloodstone amulet comes into marvel canon and then it just sticks with iliana forever right but at some point he loses all the oh it already has the bloodstones okay and he loses yeah yeah yeah all right so now he's exploiting iliana to get them back to make sure that the spell that he knows can be
00:07:44
Speaker
But right now he's lost the amulet. So oh yeah. So here's the, our conclusion here. Only the amulet is with Shana who had found it earlier. Belasco, Mary Shana enacts the ritual and summons the elder gods only for Kesar to grab the amulet from Shana's neck and toss it into the lava filled chasm nearby.
00:08:04
Speaker
This naturally foils Belasco's plans and brings the elder gods wrath upon him. They blast him into the lava below and into limbo.
00:08:15
Speaker
Okay, so...
00:08:21
Speaker
Belasco then recreates the Bloodstone Ambulance because... he it it It works so well the first time. Right, exactly. And he just needs to refill the bloodstones. Interesting.
00:08:37
Speaker
So this this major thing, this Belasco is going to something like use Illyana to summon the Elder Gods and it'll bring the end of the Earth in this like prophecy of Illyana's that she will bring about the end of all creation or whatever.
00:08:55
Speaker
happened once before with Shanna. And all Tarzan had to do was take the amulet off and chuck it into lava. ah Yeah, yeah. So, like, this thing that's going to build forever, build for however many years as a story in X-Men, was one issue of Kesar and resolved.
00:09:18
Speaker
And, I mean, this time he's probably going to pay a little more attention during the movie. during this era i'm not gonna lose it this time no tarzans this time i guess i mean i guess like this is a thing that happens in silver age comics moving on to like um i guess what is it bronze age or whatever this is something that happens all the time right like uh the original ultron story Was one issue.
00:09:48
Speaker
And then... oh yeah. Days of Future Past is... Yes. Two issues. And then these things come back later, and they become massive... you know, years-spanning events.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because now... Huge echoes. Yeah, right. Because now this thing had such a ah Stuck in readers' minds so deeply that it becomes...
00:10:15
Speaker
Almost mythical. Though, this might be overstating it for the Bloodstone Amulet in Kesar 29.
00:10:27
Speaker
It seems pretty important. ah Thank you, as always, wow Jason, for that parallel recap. That was wild. We're going to keep going. We have email, Michael, old standard email. email michael He says at the end of the podcast, Matt said that fishing was unethical and Pat asked listeners to weigh in. While I think Matt might be talking about a specific kind of fishing to call all fishing unethical might be a bit much given that Matthew 419, Mark 117 and Luke 510 have Jesus Christ himself saying that he will make his disciples into fishers of men.
00:11:02
Speaker
o That's probably not the kind of fishing that was thinking of, though. He probably meant the literal kind where you catch fish, not the metaphorical kind where you evangelize about your religious beliefs. As for whether evangelism is unethical, I leave that to the guy on the podcast with the anthropology degree and will not weigh in. Sorry, Pat. I know when I'm not an expert.
00:11:23
Speaker
Eater but not fisher of fish email Michael. um I will not weigh in on this. I will not weigh in on whether evangelism is ethical or not. I feel like knowing all of the other things you know about me, listeners, you can guess what my stance on evangelism is.
00:11:47
Speaker
I will keep moving. That is very helpful. Thank you. Email Michael. and We have follow up from Pete. VP. Hey, Pete. I about his I mean, the subject line is Kmart, but this is specifically about his XXL casting. And this is before he would have heard our responses to this
Casting Suggestions and Acting
00:12:10
Speaker
casting. OK, this is unprompted. he ah wrote back in. He said, on second thought, Jack Black should be arcade because they're both fucking dumb. Hmm.
00:12:22
Speaker
love this. Yeah. I still kind of like Jack Black as Beast. You don't have the back. You don't have Pete's backing on this anymore, Matt. And with my vote, it sounds like we're moving Jack Black over to Arcade. I think he would be really good at it. And then taking Marshawn Lynch and making him Beast. Beast mood Beast.
00:12:45
Speaker
Marshawn Lynch is going to be Beast. Yeah. look wait i know you don't know who that is uh pete goes on he says also on the intro note i'm happy to lend my voice to whoever the football player voice of the people the football player marshawn lynch is going to be beast why yeah because he's a good and funny actor okay he's an okay what was he in ah He's he was in Bottoms. Did you see Bottoms? No.
00:13:16
Speaker
Very funny. He was on that. I forget the name of it, but Will Arnett has a show where he improvises as a detective. Solving murders with celebrity guests. What made you think of him as Beast?
00:13:33
Speaker
Because he's he's funny. He's OK. Got an accomplished acting resume at this point. And his name is Beast Mode. That's like his. oh his name is beast mode okay name yeah all right all right i told you it was it was sort of stunt casting but it would absolutely work all right up next we have ambitious eric he says hey ambitious eric tell matt he's doing okay he's doing okay h he says it twice you're doing okay but did i huh what's this like sure but always worth hearing
00:14:08
Speaker
First of all, I am shamed. I spent so long touting the superiority of deceit and you all skewered me. I should have lied about manipulating your emails the second time.
00:14:18
Speaker
I would be ashamed if it were not for new emailer Abe6 having coaxed you both further toward the side of duplicity. As this was my ultimate goal, I am ultimately victorious this week.
Nostalgia and Scam Email Humor
00:14:31
Speaker
Okay. All right. He also, would dig this, I listened to the relevant episode a little late, so i was sure Weapon Jason or somebody would beat me to the punch on this, but not so. That means it's my unique privilege to dive into Chris Starr.
00:14:46
Speaker
which I think is pronounced Chris star like crystal since they call him Chris for short. Did we think his name was Christ tar at some point? Definitely not. There's no way that we thought that. He breaks it down to bullet points for us, but I don't think we have time to get into most of these. i He does highlight that there was one issue. He there's a Kurt Rupert in. ah Yeah, yeah. Oh, the point so six.
00:15:13
Speaker
Issue six is a crossover with Nightcrawler. he says, holy hippo spit, Kurt Rupert.
00:15:23
Speaker
The summary is that he accidentally teleports through the weakened barrier between worlds to Crystar's world. So this all takes place distant, distant space. It has no bearing on the Marvel Universe itself, it sounds like.
00:15:36
Speaker
Right. But it thinks well it is university the actual Kurt. So, yeah, he will take this knowledge back with him. Everyone thinks he's a demon, meaning the bad guys treat him well and the good guys treat him with suspicion until everything gets sorted out. The day is saved and Kurt returns home.
00:15:54
Speaker
Sounds a whole lot like Rom Space Knight to me, Matt.
00:16:00
Speaker
There are a couple of panels where they mention Amanda Sefton is a non-practicing wizard. Has that come up in the comics yet? Sort of, I guess, right? Yes. Unless there's more to develop, but we know that she has the power and just doesn't really use it. They also hint towards something with her mother. Panels and clothes that you don't have to read this issue unless you want to see a lot of boobies.
00:16:22
Speaker
What? There's a... There's no way there's a lot of boobies. Not bare boobies, but it does look mysterious. Some of the panels he provides have some off of awfully...
00:16:38
Speaker
ah Pat, you're getting really distracted here. I'm gonna need you to close this. I'm trying to think of the word. Oh, are you? Okay, well, maybe the way to think of the word is not to stare at the giant boobies.
00:16:51
Speaker
Okay. The other pertinent detail here, aside from Nightcrawler and breasts, is in the final issue, issue 11, three members of Alpha Flight join the protagonists to save their world. I don't think anything relevant to the overall plot of the comics happened, but my attention span was dragging at this point, so I can't promise anything.
00:17:14
Speaker
On a parting note, comic ads make me feel so nostalgic. I'm not sure how you guys don't get sucked into talking about full page spreads on Bubble Yum and promotional comics for early video games.
00:17:25
Speaker
I have a backlog of ads that I have taken screenshots of that we that we haven't gotten to because we only do one per episode. Yeah, yeah. maybe Maybe one time we'll do it like an oops all ads. That's a good idea.
00:17:40
Speaker
That's a fun idea. But yeah listener Emily got back to us. you Remember, she was writing to us about the comedian booking. Oh, yeah. She wanted to book us for her corporate event. That's right. We told her we are usually available, willing to travel and both independently wealthy.
00:17:57
Speaker
Her response was, hello, our company has an annual event that brings together all our employees from around the country to celebrate our achievements and set goals for the upcoming year. Her company. She's talking to add some entertainment to the program.
00:18:10
Speaker
Oh, and we believe that you would be a perfect fit for the event. OK. It seems when we said, what are the details she thought we meant? What are the details of the term corporate event?
00:18:25
Speaker
but I wonder if you Google, what is a corporate event, if it'll say exactly this. She wraps up here saying, we would like to know your availability and your fee for the event.
00:18:36
Speaker
Okay, tell her this. all right, this is what we need to tell her. Because we want to keep her on the hook here. Right, right, right, right, right. So first, you want to say, wow, your company sounds really incredible. Right.
00:18:50
Speaker
Incredible. Okay. Though we are both independently wealthy, and then in parentheses, we have a lot of money in our bank accounts. Like, really wealthy.
00:19:06
Speaker
um And then we'd actually be interested if you have any open positions at your company. We could then perform for a paycheck. Okay.
00:19:21
Speaker
And then our availability is ah Sunday through – do you think? it's Sundays through Tuesdays. Sunday.
00:19:32
Speaker
the the The following Tuesday, though. Fees or fee, I would say – Ooh, what should our fee be? Well, we're, okay, we're independently wealthy, but we are both, but we're looking for a paycheck, so maybe we say our fee is... Let's say, I've always wanted to make six figures. Let's say one hundred
00:19:55
Speaker
say 100,000 per year broken down to... Say, and then in parentheses say pending performance review. and kate Because if we do a bad job, we you know.
00:20:10
Speaker
Wow, your company sounds incredible. Though we are both independently wealthy, like really wealthy, we'd actually be interested in any open roles you have. We could then perform for a paycheck.
00:20:21
Speaker
Availability, Sundays through Tuesdays. Fee, $100,000 per year broken down to our performance hours. I think you should mention that we have money in our bank accounts because I think if this is a scam, which I'm sure it's not, that's the sort of thing that they would be concerned about okay how about this like really wealthy in our bank accounts all right i like that all right sending it out um thank you emily keep on listening thank you emily thanks for listening i'm glad you thought of us for this booking uh finally we have daniel we owe him a nickname matt
00:21:05
Speaker
We've got
Comic Relationships and Character Clarifications
00:21:06
Speaker
it at this point. He's written in much. I mean, yeah, man, he's written a bunch of times. Poor Daniel. Poor Daniel for not that we haven't come up with a nickname for. I know. All right. We'll keep is we're going to we're going to keep workshopping as we go through your email here. Daniel, he says, hey, Pat, tell Ernie.
00:21:24
Speaker
This is an email response to bonus episode with blurred without throw this one away. pat Tell it Ernie I'm a huge fan of your YouTube channel and I was pleasantly surprised to see you on my favorite X podcast. I discovered your channel when looking for recent breakdowns of the X-Men from the ashes era.
00:21:39
Speaker
Very cool. Thank you for ah shouting out and saying nice things about our guests.
00:21:47
Speaker
As for your regularly scheduled volley of unsolicited comments, i'm gonna I'm going to grab a couple here, Matt, because there are plenty of them. i
00:22:00
Speaker
Ernie was quick to point out things in this comic that fall flat in today's standards, being both points I hoped were brought up because it's the two things I remember from the most remember the most from comics. First, Cyborg dropping the M-bomb, either the...
00:22:15
Speaker
thought they should let the only minority character do it as some sort of reclaiming your slur or solidarity thing. or they were tone deaf when writing that. i'm I'm guessing ah they're not mutually exclusive, actually.
00:22:27
Speaker
sort ah The second, the nods to Kitty and Colossus' relationship being outside of the norm for even their standards in the 80s. I remember when Kitty and Gar were playing around, there's some thought bubbles that mentioned how nice it is to hang out with someone her own age.
00:22:41
Speaker
Then there's the Colossus and Starfire kiss, to which Kitty calls her a hussy, but still remarks how it makes sense for Peter to be into a grown woman his age.
00:22:52
Speaker
I... Yeah, the fact... i think the fact that they... Here's how I feel about it. The fact that they keep mentioning how weird it is for Colossus and Kitty to be together is making it more uncomfortable that they're together. Because if it was just like, oh, this was the standard of the age or something, which I don't know that it was in the 1980s. But if it was just like, oh, in the 80s, we didn't think too much about this. And a 19-year-old could date a 14-year-old and no one would think much about it. It'd be like, okay, I...
00:23:26
Speaker
was a baby in the 80s i don't know sure but that they keep saying yeah this is weird this is weird and we shouldn't do this and it's actually better when we're with people our own ages then that lets me know this was not normal and this was not okay in this era and this is this this would have been disturbing for the time and yet they still chose to do it i think i think it's ah thoughtful the way they're going about it. Maybe thoughtful to a degree that they were thinking about this podcast. Like the idea that they know that there's something wrong, but that there is a romantic spark there and confronting that.
00:24:15
Speaker
I think is the the best way you can go about it. would I think it would be weirder if they just didn't mention it. confronting it while also but they're confronting it but not lightening up on it at all like there are scenes where they heavily imply all sorts of physical encounters between kitty and colossus right uh sure but we we got like two years of will they won't they right it's at some point they're going to
00:24:54
Speaker
they're going to move forward. Like after all of that, as a reader, you know that they're going to move forward with it. Right. Well, unless, I mean, in yeah, unless they totally backed off of it, unless they just gave them, you know, they gave Kitty Doug Ramsey and they gave Colossus some adult woman, yeah right? Like they could have done that too. And then it could have just been this forlorn sort of,
00:25:22
Speaker
I don't know. there's There's other things they could have done, and I think it's just the acknowledgement that there's something wrong with it, yet we're doing it anyway, I think is an indictment on...
00:25:36
Speaker
Claremont. I see where you're coming from. And yeah, the third option is always just, just don't do it. Right. I, if you were a fan of the X-Men marketing, found out that you were a fan of the teen Titans as well. That's a quote from you, Matt. And Daniel says, God, this is so obvious. I've never even noticed it. The Titans and the X-Men are my two favorite comic teams and comics in general.
00:26:02
Speaker
The only comic team that comes close to them is Suicide Squad, in my opinion. I can give you that. Well, from what I understand, that that that was like the the fan communities at the time called the new Teen Titans DC's X-Men. Yeah, yeah.
00:26:18
Speaker
So. Yeah, very, ah very astute. Here's one for, I assume, the Teen Titans fans out there because I didn't understand it. He said, Gar, Beast Boy should go by Garth.
00:26:32
Speaker
Which is something one of us said. He says, oh, so we're forgetting about Aqualad slash Tempest now, huh?
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm not sure what that means, but I'm sure. Following Aqualad. but Some folks will get that. I do think that Daniel may have misheard.
00:26:54
Speaker
Because we were saying Beast Boy should go by Garf. G-A-R-F. Yeah, yeah. j r f G-A-R-F. He also, here's a good one. Not only did Kid Flash disassemble the whole engine in a split second, but he also did it while the engine was in motion and parts parts were moving at thousands of RPMs. Though maybe that would have helped the unscrewing because you put a screwdriver in there while it's already moving thousands of RPMs. That thing's unscrewed and um a microsecond.
00:27:24
Speaker
i Maybe we can test that out. He wraps it up. You guys got off easy with this email. Not a lot of meat on its bones. That being said, I am cooking up my other responses to earlier episodes in the Chris Claremont Phoenix saga.
00:27:39
Speaker
It's taking a while because I do not care for the bird people and their space politics. Meat. Okay. How about this? Meat. He says meat. He says cooking.
00:27:52
Speaker
Chef Daniel. Chef Boyard Daniel. We're getting closer, but it still feels that's getting closer, but it's still not there. It's still not there.
Alpha Flight Overview and Developments
00:28:02
Speaker
I don't think we've got it. there We'll keep working on it for now. For now, nameless Daniel.
00:28:06
Speaker
i And that's it. That's the Pat's email corner this week. Wow. Well, once again, I'm usually played out, but I guess maybe we're just reading for too long.
00:28:18
Speaker
can't believe. Yeah, I think had to run back to his piano. He didn't. just got a secret with the pianist here is that you got get passive aggressive with them. Huh?
00:28:30
Speaker
I don't hear that. Oh,
00:28:35
Speaker
well, Pat.
00:28:39
Speaker
Shit, the piano is still going. Well, Pat, hear that piano.
00:28:46
Speaker
Well, Pat, that was a nice Pat's email corner, but I got to ask you. Yeah. It's a question that i've been that's been bugging me all week. Oh, man. ah this will First, I'll say this week is an Alpha Flight week. This week, we're reading Alpha Flight again. We're back to the we're back to the Canadian wilds. Alpha Flight 2, baby. With our baby favorite bumbling team of misfits. ah Canadian misfits, anyway. Yeah,
00:29:17
Speaker
So, Pat, did you do anything... Canadian this week? Just Canadian in general. But I thought it was Alpha Flight related. It doesn't matter because I forgot and thought of something X-Men related.
00:29:31
Speaker
But this could be this could be anything. I i got a haircut.
00:29:42
Speaker
All right. yeah yeah are you you're not gonna work to tie that to oh i thought it was obvious walter lankowski okay every time he transforms back from sasquatch okay shortens all of his hair so i like i cleaned up my beard i had a barber ah clean up my hair sure and now i look much less like a sasquatch okay So you've gone you've you've become less Alpha Flight related, actually. No, this is exactly what Walter Lankowski does.
00:30:19
Speaker
It looks less like a Sasquatch sometimes. when he Yeah, when he transforms Sasquatch. Yeah, but the more interesting thing is him turning into a Sasquatch. You didn't ask me if I did anything interesting this week.
00:30:30
Speaker
But if it was just Walter Lankowski all the time, we wouldn't have a comic book. The Sasquatch is what makes him a member of Alpha Flight. I don't know. He's a super smart scientist.
00:30:43
Speaker
That doesn't get you on Alpha Flight. It could get you like a bit part. You're a Canadian super scientist. Where else are you going to go? He would have been stuck in Gamma Flight or Beta Flight if his whole thing was just smart. If he was just a scientist, yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
He played in the NFL as a linebacker.
00:31:09
Speaker
Hmm. I don't know. ah How about you, Matt? Did you do anything Alpha Flight related this week?
00:31:18
Speaker
um Well, much like Canada. Much like Canadians in Canada. yeah I've just been trying to survive the fucking cold, man. sure. Staying inside, trying to get through. This is I don't look.
00:31:34
Speaker
I didn't do any. I didn't look this up at all. But I'm going to just go ahead and say it. This is the coldest that I'm going to just go ahead and declare in case anybody hasn't declared this yet. This is definitely the coldest winter in Pennsylvania that Pennsylvania has ever seen in history. In the history. in history ok And you don't need to look that up. going take your word for it.
00:32:01
Speaker
anything that you read Anything that you read is just going to reference back to me because I'm the one who declared it so I'll start telling people. this is This is the coldest winter. with some other sources generating on this.
00:32:13
Speaker
In the history of Pennsylvania, and it's very cold. Take it to Facebook. You could really ah get some people let get some people going in there.
00:32:25
Speaker
I should use and especially if I take it to Facebook and especially if I'm like people say the globe is getting warmer. But this is the coldest winter ever in the history of Pennsylvania. And people are going to be there'll be that's really going to get if you say, yeah, here's how you should phrase it. So just to make sure you're not putting out misinformation. In my opinion.
00:32:49
Speaker
This is the coldest winter in Pennsylvania history. Yeah, it's less authoritative. But it protects you legally. You think I could get sued for this?
00:32:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh. Weibel. of Well, then, ah in my opinion, in my opinion, put that back. Put that in the, put it in. In my opinion, in my opinion, don't, and, and, after put it in this, ah legally, you can't sue me.
00:33:20
Speaker
Can we get, can we get a couple of takes? Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ah In my opinion. in my opinion.
00:33:32
Speaker
in my opinion. Perfect. Thank you. all right. You can use one of those. And then you can't sue me. is You have the original take and then the wild one for that one.
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah. Where the fuck did we leave Alpha Flight? What do you remember? Oh, man, Matt. It was episode 44. We last covered in 44.
00:33:59
Speaker
Alpha Flight reconvened without government supervision e in episode 44. Right. It was. we and and our our main dude, Vindicator.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah. Who keeps calling himself the Canadian Captain America. Right. ah He's got a power suit that lets him fly and be super strength and do for force field. Anyway, he... What more like Canadian Iron Man. Reassembled Alpha Flight.
00:34:32
Speaker
And he's he's a little shady, and he his his wife is cooler than him, and her name is Heather. Yeah, his wife is very cool. ah He hired a two new members, right? Other than the ones that we were already familiar with. He hired...
00:34:48
Speaker
Marina, who is... who I think, yeah, we will have to cover because most of the story that we read last time involves her. Right. And then Puck.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yes. Little living hockey puck. He's... His name's Eugene Judd, and he's got no superpowers. He's just really physically capable, and he suffers from dwarfism, and he's lived a fucking crazy life. Yeah, yeah. suppose Apparently.
00:35:18
Speaker
Our old members, Shaman, he's got a magical medicine bag and he does spells and he's got his grandpa's skull in a box. Sasquatch. Also like a world famous surgeon.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Sasquatch, he's a doctor and a jock and he turns into a big furry hulk. he boned Aurora. Right.
00:35:41
Speaker
And he always he gets in fights with Puck all the time. Yeah. Like the thing Johnny Storm style fights. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got North Star. He flies and he runs super fast. Aurora flies and runs super fast. The brother and sister. Aurora has two personalities. She was raised.
00:35:59
Speaker
We find out is Jean Marie Boubier in a school like a nun school. And she hates her other personality, Aurora, who is like this thrill-seeking superheroine who bones Sasquatch.
00:36:15
Speaker
Right. um We got Snowbird. Yeah. She's... All right. I'm going to put i mean keep this very simple. She's an ancient god or something in the body of a human woman...
00:36:34
Speaker
Or like invented a human persona for herself. Yeah. And Anne Mackenzie, she turns into any Canadian animal but a white. Right.
00:36:46
Speaker
She is compelled. about it. She's compelled to fight these ah great, these big primordial great beasts because of the mystical god thing. Whether they did anything wrong or not.
00:37:00
Speaker
Anne McKenzie is in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and she gets keeps going AWOL. So she got thrown in a prison cell but escaped to fight the great beast. And there's a guy there who's in love with her.
00:37:13
Speaker
Right, right, right, right. um Who keeps making excuses for her and he's like, dang it. I didn't think she would smash through a wall and run away because why would you think that? All right. So Marina, what happened with her?
00:37:28
Speaker
ah She is a space alien, a space monster. She was sent to colonize Earth by mimicking its creatures a millennia ago, but Her ship crashed. Her eggs sat on the seafloor.
00:37:42
Speaker
Some humans found her. Yeah. Now she's a fish girl who can swim really fast and kind of control water a little and sometimes turns into an angry monster.
00:37:53
Speaker
ah She, when we last saw her after defeating her maker, left the team to go hang out with Namor the Submariner. Okay.
00:38:05
Speaker
I think that's everything. That's Alpha Flight. Which means that we're ready to jump into Alpha Flight number seven.
00:38:14
Speaker
The importance of being deadly. Yikes. you didn't think I was going to say that. I thought you were going to say earnest. ah ah That is exactly what John Byrne wanted you to think.
00:38:28
Speaker
He got me. John Burns, the writer and the artist. Andy Yankus is the colorist. Michael Higgins is the letterer. Denny O'Neill is the editor. And gypsh.
00:38:43
Speaker
Release date, November 15th, 1983. Cover date, February 1984.
00:38:51
Speaker
Jean-Marie Boubier exits the office of psychologist Dr. Bosson's office. Bosson. This whole, they say this whole issue is in French, by the way. Yeah.
00:39:06
Speaker
The doctor assuring both her and her brother Jean-Paul that there's nothing wrong with her. Jean-Paul knows this can't be true, but without exposing their identities as North Star and Aurora, he has no way he can explain her alternate personality.
00:39:22
Speaker
All the doctor can see is a man reunited with his long-lost sister and unable to cope with how differently they grew up. this fucking creep ass creep also tells Jean-Paul that his sister's beautiful.
00:39:38
Speaker
Very strange. It's there's, there's a, a bit of sense to it where he's like, out of nowhere, he's like, she's a beautiful woman. And it's like, what the fuck? And then he's like, so you might be thinking that she's not living up to her potential.
00:40:00
Speaker
By revealing that beauty. But you have to understand, it's up to her how she presents herself. But it's like, okay. You could find more professional way to say that. Yeah, exactly. You didn't need to start off with, but she's sister. She's beautiful.
00:40:17
Speaker
Fucking hot, man.
00:40:22
Speaker
Okay, few minutes later, Jean-Paul is leading his sister down a quaint Montreal side street on the way to an old friend's house, of Raymond Belmond. Raymond Belmond? I didn't even notice that his name was like right, but it rhymed. Mond Mond.
00:40:41
Speaker
Raymond Belmond. Raymond Belmond. When a purse snatcher grabs Jean Marie's bag and starts running in a blur, she flies past the mugger, stopping him in his tracks as her Aurora identity takes over, pummels the man, and jeers, and she retrieves her purse.
00:40:58
Speaker
Jean-Paul is shocked to see his sister's alter ego has returned, and he wants them to leave the scene quickly, but Aurora insists that she take the perp to prison herself.
00:41:13
Speaker
dork no i want to take him to prison myself i want to take him to prison i hate i you know i'm such a a crazy wild girl that i hate criminals shortly after they turn him in they learn that his bail has already been paid and he's once again roaming free before they even leave the police station He's likely the employee of a local crime boss, Ernest St. Ives, better known as Pat.
00:41:45
Speaker
Deadly Ernest. Oh, my God. Deadly Ernest. Deadly. The importance of being a man named Deadly Ernest. The importance of being a man named Deadly Ernest. It's so Ernest St. Ives is such a better name.
00:42:02
Speaker
hmm. With his connections to the American Magia. Whoa. What? Count Nefaria! This guy's working for Count Nefaria? This guy's working for Count Nefaria like porcupine.
00:42:16
Speaker
With his connections to the American Magia and his slick legal team, the police can do nothing. o As they leave the station, Jean-Paul's friend Raymond Belmont rushes up to greet them, having heard about the purse snatching and beating that followed.
00:42:32
Speaker
he takes them He takes them back to his little bistro where, despite being lunchtime on a busy street, the restaurant is completely empty. Belmont opens up.
00:42:44
Speaker
Ernest St. Ives is responsible for the lack of business. His goon must have heard Jean-Marie and Jean-Paul mention Raymond's name as they've been instructed to harass any potential customers. All right.
00:43:00
Speaker
we even talk about a shakedown We need to talk about this. The implications here. Yes. They it's it's it's so heavy.
00:43:11
Speaker
It's like. um When G. Murray when Aurora is like, how do you know this guy? North stars like he is dot dot dot.
00:43:23
Speaker
A friend. Right. And then later when she's like, oh yeah my brothers told me all about you. He's like, bond he told you all about me.
00:43:36
Speaker
That surprises me.
00:43:41
Speaker
Right. is It's innocent enough to be read as like, oh, why would she bother telling? or why would he bother telling his sister, of his long lost sister about some old man he knew years ago? But.
00:43:57
Speaker
It says there's some other, there's so many other implications. There's like, he's something less than a father, but much more than a friend. At some point, Raymond is like, you're so beautiful. You're as beautiful as your brother is handsome. And then very soon,
00:44:16
Speaker
ah we meet, we're going to meet his daughter. And Jean-Paul is like, you have a daughter, but how?
00:44:27
Speaker
Again. if you if you're not picking up their favorite lovers. Yeah, yeah. Because Raymond says, oh it's from another life, which right you can interpret one way if you're not looking for it. But the just to be clear, i the implications here are... This is not us but trying to find some sort of yeah queer representation here. the Each of these issues has a butt issue that includes the origins of Alpha Flight that we'll get to someday. Calm down. We'll get to it. Don't bug us. i
00:45:08
Speaker
But in that, i Jean-Paul is talking to Raymond, and Raymond is... i be Raymond is clear is making it clear that Jean Paul doesn't care for women like he can have with his status he can have money he can have fame he can have women although I know you're not interested in women and.
00:45:35
Speaker
There has been implications about North Star throughout the comic already throughout the first six issues, but this is the this is probably the heaviest that it's been so far. Yeah, yeah.
00:45:46
Speaker
yeah If you don't already know the character of North Star... he is 100% gay. Like he is gay.
North Star's Identity and Personal Struggles
00:45:53
Speaker
He's out gay. Now he's married to a man or I don't know if they're still married, but he was married to a man. He's the first gay marriage in comics. Um, he serves as like the, ah role model for other younger gay superheroes in the Marvel universe. He is.
00:46:10
Speaker
ah Yes. So yeah, this was, and this wasn't something they put on him later. This was John Burns intent from the very beginning. He said it in he said it in interviews. Yeah.
00:46:21
Speaker
Once again, John Burns baffling social politics.
00:46:28
Speaker
So Raymond asks North Star and Aurora for their help in dealing ah with this this this earnest St. Ives problem knowing about their powers.
00:46:40
Speaker
But while they're discussing this, a young woman interrupts them and questions if he should be inviting strangers into all of this trouble. Raymond and introduces her as Danielle, his daughter, staying with him after her mother recently passed.
00:46:54
Speaker
Oh, your daughter? But how?
00:46:59
Speaker
ah As he explains... A limousine pulls up on, as he explains, a limousine pulls up outside and two burly men in suits and sunglasses shove their way in and demand Raymond.
00:47:13
Speaker
Pushing Jean-Paul and Danielle to the ground. Jean-Paul considers springing into action, but doesn't want to reveal his identity to Danielle. Come on, man. ah Aurora, being mistaken for Raymond's daughter, decides to play along as well.
00:47:32
Speaker
Raymond and Aurora are marched up to the limousine window where deadly Ernest gives Raymond one last chance to sell his cafe and retire. As Raymond defiantly refuses, Ernest's hand reaches out and touches his face.
00:47:46
Speaker
Suddenly, Raymond collapses to the floor, dead.
00:47:53
Speaker
There's so this is a very scary power, right? He can clearly touch your face, but Raymond is just objecting. He's like, I'll never sell my building. Stop bothering me. Mid sentence.
00:48:06
Speaker
The hand just comes out of the limousine and starts grabbing his face. And he's going, what on earth are you doing? And Byrne draws the, uh, the, like, uh, the fingers moving around the skin.
00:48:26
Speaker
yeah. So it's clear, it's just like he's mushing his face for a second.
00:48:33
Speaker
Very scary. Uh, and then Raymon drops over dead. I mean, this is the barrier gaze trope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like, uh, one to one.
00:48:45
Speaker
um Aurora is shoved in the car to negotiate the sale as his heir, and they drive off. Danielle cradles Raymond's body as Jean-Paul stands over them, thinking of how much Raymond meant to him and swears vengeance.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's a cool... ah John Byrne does a cool job here of, like, the each panel closing in North Star's face as he clenches his fist and, like, grits his jaw.
00:49:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Still, even though a man is dead, refusing to activate any powers. ah Maybe he just doesn't want to take off that really nice outfit he's wearing.
00:49:29
Speaker
That's true. He looks fucking incredible, man. I'll say... you It's much more your style than it is mine. We're both wearing t-shirts right now, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I i think style goals, yours is much more.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah. Jean-Paul Beaubier's than mine is. But yeah, sharp dresser. I would absolutely wear of this outfit that Jean-Paul is wearing. In a brief epilogue, Alec Thorne mopes through the Southbrook Mall in Winnipeg, griping to himself and everyone around him how much smarter he is than them. of course As he be begrudgingly eats a hot dog, he's approached by a fashionable, dark-haired woman named Delphine Courtney, identifying him as Smart Alec of Gamma Flight. What a name.
00:50:20
Speaker
Her employer has a project they may interest him, she explains, as they walk off together. Smart Alec is here. Smart Alec. I love, I love...
00:50:33
Speaker
a bitter, intelligent man. I love the yeah smartest man in the world being a villain because he's just so cranky all the time and how stupid everyone is. Just walking around the mall, ordering a hot dog and being like this stupid hot dog vendor. They have no idea how smart I am and playing chess against nine people at once. Also. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
And saying it to all of them. He insults the the hot dog vendors culinary skills. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. there's You're the smartest man on earth.
00:51:07
Speaker
And yet your job is to sit in a mall playing chess. Yeah, he's clearly unemployed. Exactly. and like like And also, you're the smartest man on Earth and you name yourself Smart Alec. Well, he's not the cleverest man on Yeah, I guess there's different types of intelligence.
00:51:29
Speaker
Oh, Matt. Patrick. Should we? that was very exciting. Hop right into Alpha Flight number eight. It's called Cold Hands, Cold Heart.
00:51:42
Speaker
John Byrne, creator. Andy Yankis, colorist. Michael Higgins, letterer. Denny O'Neill, editor. And Jim's hooter, editor-in-chief. Released date December 13th, 1983. Cover date March, 1984.
00:51:57
Speaker
Driven by his anger and grief, Northstar zips through the city alone. He recaps the last issue and then a scene where the coroner tells he and Danielle that Raymond seems to have simply died with no cause.
00:52:10
Speaker
They cannot prove murder. So Northstar closes in on the mansion of the crime lord, Deadly Earnest, and flings himself through a window.
00:52:22
Speaker
It's a that's a cool scene. It's a cool scene. It's dumb. But he bashes through a window in the house and then starts sneaking around corners. Yeah, it's like, ah, they haven't. addicted to They haven't noticed that I'm here. is No, but it is a really it's a cool panel. It's like sometimes John Byrne.
00:52:45
Speaker
I think ten he can get away with eschewing reality a little bit for yeah something that looks fucking sick. And sometimes he will do flying like the way that Jean-Paul is flying here. He's flying horizontally.
00:53:03
Speaker
kicking his way through a window. Like, it's still clear this is mid-flight. And, like, that's fucking cool. I don't know. I think Northstar's one of the coolest. I know Northstar's an absolute dipshit, but he is... I think he's fucking cool. It's funny that he's... First of all, that he does this and then starts sneaking around. But then second of all, it's like, I'm not sure if anybody's home. I'm gonna keep searching around and hopefully...
00:53:30
Speaker
it's like it's no it's so musty and ah and old here probably this place is abandoned he prowls through the musty old house looking for aurora and eventually finds her sitting and having a friendly chat with earnest himself yeah in north star's confusion some thug knocks him out with a blackjack And Aurora quickly calls him Jacques and says he's her cousin.
00:54:00
Speaker
Cousin. Yeah. oh Oh, Jacques. yeah You guys nearly killed him. i'm But I'm so glad he found me here. He must have been so worried about me It's pretty quick. It's pretty clever.
00:54:14
Speaker
It works. Having confused her with Danielle, Ernest apologizes and his men gently put North Star in a comfy bed, unconscious. He wakes up to a sword in his face.
00:54:25
Speaker
What?
00:54:28
Speaker
Backing up, we had a quick interlude earlier where a lady in a rad red and black costume named Nemesis left across rooftops swearing revenge on Ernest St. Ives. It fucking rules, man. It's such a cool... cut It's like... It's like... It's like Deadpool plus Spider-Man...
00:54:51
Speaker
It's a Spider-Man mask with like ah like a Deadpool body, but like also like Stingray. like Just sort of like sleek, tight costume. And with like the red and black and then like this like flowing cape that almost comes out like like wings.
00:55:08
Speaker
I said she looks like a Scarlet Spider, like the Ben Reilly Spider. Okay. Plus Spawn. Yes. is a lady. I think both are fair. Those are two perspectives if you, listener, want to try to get an idea. now and google Now, before you look it up, before you look up what Nemesis looks like, draw this character and send it to mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
00:55:41
Speaker
And she has a sword. She has a sword handcuffed to her wrist. She has a sword. She's swearing revenge on Ernest St. Ives. I wonder who this could be. o Now she's holding a sword to Jean Paul's throat and demanding answers. When they find out they're on the same side, they decide to work together.
00:56:00
Speaker
Her sword is apparently only an atom's width thick and can slice through anything by cutting between the molecules. Yeah. So she cuts their way out of the locked room and they push forward.
00:56:12
Speaker
That seems really useful. Yeah. A sword that can cut through molecules. You got to be careful when you're around ah hydrogen. You cut through those body molecules. Yeah.
00:56:27
Speaker
There's so much of it in the air, too. Yeah, yeah. You got you got to be careful. You're going to create a nuclear reaction. Yeah. Also, during this conversation they have, I don't mean to be a pedant, but it's supposedly all in French and they're translating.
00:56:45
Speaker
Why aren't they translating when someone says touche or mademoiselle? or mademoiselle ah Wouldn't it have been funny if they left in other loner words?
00:56:57
Speaker
Oh, sure. Like French loner words and left all of them in. So every time somebody said me, they said moi. So like it's in the middle of a sentence and every me is moi, but the rest is all English.
00:57:10
Speaker
That would be pretty good. In the dining room, Aurora baits earnest to reveal his origin. Turns out he fought in World War One. And when he was blown up, dying in a pit filling with mustard gas, death appeared to him.
00:57:26
Speaker
He rejected her and cursed her as she touched him, and suddenly he was back to normal. But the first time he touched someone, he found out that they instantly died. Now he believes himself immortal.
00:57:41
Speaker
Wow. So key said, death, don't take me. And they and death said, OK, I'll give you a death touch instead. like You're fine. yeah Yeah, it was more like fuck off lady to death. his His origin story is a fable. Yeah.
00:57:59
Speaker
At that moment, Northstar and Nemesis burst in. Nemesis seems to know all about Ernest and claims to be avenging her father. yeah Nemesis lunges and Ernest grabs her masked face, but she doesn't die.
00:58:14
Speaker
She has no life to take, she says, and slices his fucking arm off. It's wild. Assuming she's Danielle, Northstar rushes to stop her, but he's too slow.
00:58:25
Speaker
Wait, she's who? here In Yel. Whoa. Raymond's daughter. This is blowing my mind. i wouldn't have thought that. A full shock. With super speed, she slices Ernest like a goddamn pizza.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah. North Star yanks off her mask, expecting to see Danielle Belmond, but. Yeah. Whoa, that's crazy. Instead, see something we don't.
00:58:52
Speaker
And he doesn't explain. a lifeless face of anguish and a grim, holy burden. She knocks him out and rounds on Aurora, who's just like, hey, you do you, but you might want to take off before the cops get here.
00:59:07
Speaker
Wait, so Nemesis was not Danielle?
00:59:13
Speaker
Whoa, this blew my mind back to where it was the first time. this was actually legitimately for most of the issue. I was like, oh, come on. Of course it's Danielle. So he got me.
00:59:25
Speaker
He got you. He led me there and he yeah blew your mind and then blew it back into your little head. Exactly. He sucked it out and then blew it back in. i fucking hate when that happens to my mind. Yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
When Northstar wakes up and Nemesis is gone, the twins fly back to Belmont's restaurant to talk to Danielle. Aurora reveals that Danielle was partners with Ernest and returned to her father only to pressure him to sell his restaurant.
00:59:56
Speaker
She gets arrested and the twins take off talking about what happened. Danielle and Ernest only ever talked on the phone, so he didn't know what she looked like. And that's how Aurora managed to get the information she did.
01:00:08
Speaker
Huh. Northstar assumed she slept with him to get it. And Aurora gets super pissed, ending their partnership and leaving Northstar once more alone.
01:00:21
Speaker
So... who do you who's Which twin side do you take in this? i So North Star is absolutely wrong to be like, well...
01:00:34
Speaker
You boned Sasquatch, so I figured you just boned this large man as well. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely over the line. Shouldn't say that, especially to your long lost sister that you were just reunited with.
01:00:48
Speaker
Right. you never Didn't even know about before this point. But I do think ending the partnership altogether when they have powers that depend on the two of them working together is maybe an overreaction. But at the same time, maybe that's, uh, maybe that's exploitative, right? Maybe that is the misogyny is that like, Oh, what are you going are you going to leave me and you can't even flash a bright light anymore? but i i guess. so So I don't think, I don't think him knowing Aurora, that like that she is a, uh,
01:01:30
Speaker
wild kind of thrill-seeking kind of hedonistic personality right and that he walked into the room seeing her like sitting on his desk sure like like i would get being aurora and be like no i didn't fucking sleep with him jesus christ but i don't think it's that unreasonable of an assumption to have made and so he he says it because he's like Because Aurora's like, well, I'm surprised you didn't put this together yourself when you thought when you knew that, like, oh, I was sitting, i was alone in a room with Ernest, and he didn't kill me because he thought I was Danielle, so you must have known that there was something between the two.
01:02:19
Speaker
And... Right, and he was just like, oh, yeah. I just kind of assumed you you used, you kind of like, seduced him, or whatever. And...
01:02:32
Speaker
And in that, yeah, in that moment, she's just like, how dare you? How could you think something like that of me? And then when he's like, well, I also know you slept with Walter Lankowski, which I he i't yeah know.
01:02:47
Speaker
And also, which is none of his business. That's when she's like, all right, I've had enough of you. I get you. All right. So it's it's not specifically the yeah, I follow.
01:03:03
Speaker
it's that It's that he was clearly judging her sex life already. And this was an extension of that.
01:03:14
Speaker
That he felt comfortable expressing like, oh, well, I mean, you already you're already a bit of a slut as far as I'm concerned. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah It's not a tactful way to to explain what you were thinking.
01:03:28
Speaker
i I have a question, actually. Yeah. Northstar's so afraid of giving away his secret identity. But he doesn't wear a mask.
01:03:42
Speaker
Right. And they he's a world-famous skier. So with they do address this. Okay, in the butt issues.
01:03:54
Speaker
Maybe it is in the butt issues because, yes, every time he is not flying, he is people are recognizing him as a champion. Right. What they have to do as a ski as like a world skiing champion, what they have to do is...
01:04:11
Speaker
fly high and fast. And that way folks are only ever catching a passing glimpse of his face. Oh, and they're like, was that the famous? Oh, no, ah he's he's gone. So I've forgotten all about it.
01:04:27
Speaker
Couldn't been. All right, Patrick. Yes. Do you want me to tell you or do you not want me to tell you? And then you answer this question and then I'll finish.
01:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I... Then, yeah, I do. Okay. Well, then what I'm going to tell you about is Alpha Flight number nine. ah Things aren't always what they seem. Sure. There's a little mystery box you opened there.
01:04:55
Speaker
John Byrne is the... project director i hate doing it like this andy yankus is the what he's the anchor michael higgins is the michael higgins is the letterer denny o'neill is the i guess yeah that's the assistant editor and john schlippi is the editor-in-chief the release date yeah who did colors i don't know spectrography
Sasquatch Revelations and Super Skrull Encounter
01:05:27
Speaker
That's color. So Andy Yankus is our color. yeah We've spent so much time with a Yankus, and yet we still don't know what he does. Just like offhand. really It's just some Yankus. Release date, January 17th, 1984. Cover date, April 1984.
01:05:46
Speaker
We're 1984, Pat. Big Brother's watching. The book year.
01:05:52
Speaker
The Northern Lights shine down on the remote Mount Logan. yeah o Cosmic Ray.
01:06:03
Speaker
The Mount Logan Cosmic Ray Research Station as Walter Lankowski and a handful of other scientists inside discuss the configuration of their. um OK, there's their satellites, Patrick.
01:06:20
Speaker
That um scan. Radioactive frequencies. for signs of life okay okay whatever however it works yeah yeah that's all the sci-fi concept you have to kind of like grok because it'll make sense from here so however it works if they they find one and they align their adapter dish to um Yeah.
01:06:48
Speaker
well Okay. Well, like a dish, Patrick, it intercepts a signal, so that's, like, pretty normal. And then it um ah the dish turns it into physical form.
01:07:01
Speaker
Oh. like it Like a television. Yeah, like more more like Mike TV from Willy Wonka. <unk>re Okay. Anyway, what comes out is the thing.
01:07:16
Speaker
What? John Carpenter's the thing. No, it's the thing from Fantastic I mean, that's definitely, we have to, not to jump the gun on this or anything, but like, that's definitely what's being evoked here. And it's like,
01:07:31
Speaker
there's a pun in it being the thing that comes out yeah yeah very funny to uh find the thing in your scientific research substation in art in arctic climate right with a handful of scientists and we'll we'll see how many survive um he seems alive the thing does But he's fully unconscious out in the snow. How could they ever hope to move him inside to the lab?
01:08:04
Speaker
Walter thinks about how he could easily move the thing inside in Sasquatch form, but that would immediately reveal his secret identity. Yeah. Yeah. So the comic ends there. No, he reveals a secret identity. Yeah.
01:08:21
Speaker
I love this moment where he's just like, well, this would reveal my secret idea. or i i can't lift him without revealing my secret identity.
01:08:33
Speaker
So, hey, everybody, I'm Sasquatch.
01:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, so he transforms into Sasquatch, shocking his colleagues, and he brings the thing inside. Now, no one inside is sure how the thing's physiology works.
01:08:50
Speaker
But the team doctor does his best to help.
01:08:55
Speaker
Until he's murdered! o The team of scientists hear a commotion from the lab rushing in to find the doctor burnt to a crisp and the thing missing.
01:09:06
Speaker
oh no. But who, aside from Sasquatch, could have possibly moved him? Walter puts his detective hat on and starts deducing. The first clue he finds is an eight-foot hole in the wall on the other side of the room.
01:09:24
Speaker
Aha! Aha! The game afoot! And he gets it wrong immediately. is there He's like, so somebody must have burst it busted their way out of here! And they're like, no, dude, all the metal is coming inside. It's all... No, no, no. Aha! So somebody clearly wanted it to look like somebody busted this.
01:09:48
Speaker
So Walter perceptively notices there are footprints leading away from the hole in the wall and the perimeter fence. So this can only mean one thing. The killer was already in the room somehow invisible.
01:10:04
Speaker
Okay. Was strong enough to burst through the wall to get out. And then was smart enough to plant false evidence about how he got there to throw them off the scent.
01:10:17
Speaker
Okay. i yeahhu How do we know somebody didn't just burst in through the wall and then walk out that same wall?
01:10:30
Speaker
Same hole they created in the wall. Right, right. And somebody was standing on the roof, climbed down from the roof. Like, all of these are implausible. So why would this one implausible?
01:10:40
Speaker
There's a moment where he's like, ah, and I see that this window is open, but it's so cold out. Why would anyone have a window open in the lab? And that that that doesn't come back. Doesn't come back up. So the doctor wanted a window open in the lab. Yeah. it's like the hole he points to is like smaller than his own hand. It's like.
01:11:00
Speaker
Here's my biggest issue. Yeah. He keeps he keeps using phrase planting false evidence.
01:11:08
Speaker
How does he know the footsteps leading away from the building aren't the false evidence?
01:11:15
Speaker
God, it's it's like ah it's like a Danganronpa plot. The other scientists, I think rightfully so, tell Walter he's being ridiculous.
01:11:26
Speaker
Who? Court guard and McMurdo? those other scientists yeah yeah who's your favorite court guard or mcmurdo i love court guard because he antagonizes walter lankowski does court guard the one everything wrong in this comic is court guard the one who you can see his mustache from literally any angle yes yeah obviously like if he's thing yes if he's if you If you're looking at him to the side, you see his full mustache. If you're looking at him from the front, you see his full mustache. If you're looking at him from behind, you see half of his full mustache.
01:12:02
Speaker
Yeah. If we saw it in three dimensions, it would extend outward as far as it extends sideways. So Walter goes out to ah to on his own to follow the tracks, making a lot of other wild assumptions along the way. As he reaches the end of the tracks, the facility behind him explodes, literally killing all of the scientists inside.
01:12:26
Speaker
oh no.
01:12:31
Speaker
I've been a fool. it's That's not the decision or the realization he comes to. At this moment, being responsible for every one of their deaths, that should be what their realization is coming to. He starts running back to the station, but stumbles and breaks his arm. has no clue what transforming to Sasquatch would do to the broken bones.
01:12:53
Speaker
So proceeds into the wreckage as himself, only to come face to face with the enemy they've been dealing with all along. ah but that wasn't the thing they pulled from whatever, ah you know,
01:13:06
Speaker
It was the Super Skrull! oh no!
01:13:13
Speaker
The story's like 12 pages long. Yeah. Fucking John Byrne doesn't want to be doing this. He said he didn't want to do Alpha Flight and he'd only do Alpha Flight if they let him do Fantastic Four.
01:13:26
Speaker
And so now he's settling Fantastic Four plot lines through Alpha Flight. Yeah, he's doing Fantastic Four in Alpha Flight and he's doing like, yeah, 10 page Alpha Flight stories.
01:13:39
Speaker
this is This is absolutely wild. And Matt, i got to I have to call back to something you said in our first Alpha Flight issue, ah which is just that this is a bad team of superheroes. This is a team of people with superpowers that don't necessarily know how to yes use them. i Walter Lankowski in this story... ah Using his super science brain. i can't see where you're going with this, but please go ahead.
01:14:14
Speaker
Forces against court guards.
01:14:19
Speaker
Objections. And you love forces. These scientists on behalf of the government to adjust the dials. so that they can intercept this strange life form that is clogging up the radioactive airways. Oh, it's a radio... It's a radio wave life form! We've got to bring it to real... to to It's Mike tv He's floating out in space. We got to bring him home.
01:14:47
Speaker
It's they so it's all his action that brings this thing in. Yeah. And then he's the one that says, let's leave the doctor to do his work. He's the one that i abandons the station.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. which leads the super scroll to just double back. He's the one that says, oh I can see that this super scroll tried to trick us is all of his assumptions turn out to be wrong.
01:15:15
Speaker
Yeah. And the super scroll ends up killing every one of us. He blows up the entire building, kills every scientist inside while Walt's out taking a walk or he's out on a a wild goose chase. Yeah. Instead of being there to stop the super scroll.
01:15:33
Speaker
ah he's he is responsible for this entire thing start to finish and so if i were looking for a good superhero story i would be very upset but going into this thinking these are just a bunch of bumbling idiots that got their hands on superpowers yeah uh yeah very i guess that it makes it funny in like a sick sort of irony so I feel like John Byrne did create Alpha Flight okay so he created Alpha Flight to lose to the X-Men right yeah yeah
01:16:15
Speaker
So they were they were meant to be losers. And I think that he grasps that they're not a very good team. But I'm having trouble understanding if he grasps that each of them aren't good by themselves either.
01:16:29
Speaker
That they just are they're just fully top to bottom bad at what they do. And I know later Bill Mantlo doesn't grasp that. So i there's only this small...
01:16:42
Speaker
you know, 20 some issues of Alpha Flight with which we can test this hypothesis. And I just don't know if we're ever going to get a conclusion.
01:16:53
Speaker
It's where I mean, the the real answer is he's doing both right. There were moments where he's like, OK, yeah, this is kind of a goofy guy. he would do the wrong thing in this situation. And then there are moments where it's just a product of i old timey comics brain where you're just like oh yeah he would ah yeah naturally solve an incredibly hard mystery and it's not his fault if everyone dies while he's solving it I love the idea that um Super Skrull
01:17:26
Speaker
was still invisible inside the lab as Walter was running around making all his wild deductions. And he's just standing there invisible, like laughing to himself. Like, what an idiot.
01:17:39
Speaker
All right, Matt, let's move on. Let's keep on rolling here. Alpha flight number 10.
01:17:47
Speaker
Blood battle. a battle with blood in it. Or is it just, it's two people throwing blood at each, like there are a blood back and forth at each other. Like, oh, you got some on me. Blood fight. Blood fight. A huge tone shift from last issue's title. Things aren't always what they seem.
01:18:09
Speaker
Blood battle. ah
01:18:17
Speaker
ah Stan Lee presentation created by John Byrne, colored by And He Yankus, lettered by Michael Higgins, edited by Denny O'Neill, noticed by G.M.S. Hooter. Release date, February 1984. Cover date, May
01:18:38
Speaker
The Hudsons are moving to New York. Oh, specifically the Brooklyn apartment of Captain America. James is signing his lease after getting a job with Roxanne. He almost bumps into Steve Rogers.
01:18:51
Speaker
Matter of fact, as he struts out the front door and takes to the skies as Guardian. So Captain America, as he's passing by, Captain America is like, hu It's his Steve in his Steve or Raja persona.
01:19:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Person is that he's with Bernie.
01:19:12
Speaker
Uh, Yeah, it's the it's he's got like a few friends in his apartment complex that pop up from time to time. I don't know. Bernie. They're just yeah they're his humans.
01:19:24
Speaker
So he's like, he's like, just a moment, Bernie. And he's like, there's something about that man that seems so familiar. Like, all right, that's Captain America has the superhuman ability to know when anyone around him is a superhero. That is the narrator gets very specific. Exactly what happens is this. This man can just sense the presence of superpower. I think what's so funny about this is that yeah as narrator, John Byrne tells us this is why Steve Rogers
01:20:01
Speaker
is so special. That's why he's Captain America. is he can He has this sort of intuition. But James Hudson is walking past with a dumb grin on his face. Completely oblivious. And yet, he's the guy who keeps saying, I'm Canada's Captain America. And like, is John Byrne... Again, is this John Byrne being clever and trying to tell us, look, James Hudson...
01:20:28
Speaker
He is not na Steve Rogers. Or is John Byrne completely unaware that he's making this comparison? Yeah. Is he just, oh yeah, it's Captain America. He would. He would notice. Anyway. yes Cut to the peak of Mount Logan. Oh, actually, before we ah before we go there, I think it's Steve Rogers as he's walking out of the building that says whatever they're going to do would be a hoot and a half in itself.
01:20:56
Speaker
he does I'm going to start saying that. That's a hoot and a half in itself. That's a hoot and a half in itself. Wow. That's a real hoot and a half. That's a hoot and half in itself. Cut to the peak of Mount Logan, where an injured Walter Lankowski is sprinting away from Super Skrull.
01:21:15
Speaker
Evading the alien, Walter leaps into a bank of snow and sinks under its surface, disappearing completely. Super Skrull hovers for a moment in human torch form, confused.
01:21:26
Speaker
until two furry orange arms burst through the snow and toss him across the mountain. Sasquatch is pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It is. it's It's good. It is very evocative of Sam flying out of the ground in ah our last episode to punch. Who was it? Empath, I think.
01:21:48
Speaker
Burn is good. It's at these small moments of heroism. That I don't know. there there yeah There are panels in just about every issue of this that it's like, fuck, yeah.
01:22:03
Speaker
You got if you're reading through this and you're rooting for Sasquatch, it's a very good moment. If you recognize that he's responsible for the deaths of everyone around him. Well, but I'm definitely not voting. I'm definitely not rooting for Super Skrull, who is probably the most boring villain in all of Marvel Comics.
01:22:24
Speaker
What? He's just so fucking boring. What is his what are his motivations? Why he hates human.
01:22:35
Speaker
and And what is his and what's like his personality? I just told you. like Yeah, he is just the most, ah, I will get you, you you do gooders kind of fucking supervillain. He sucks. And his powers are just other people's powers. He sucks.
01:22:58
Speaker
you You prefer the secret invasion? Versions from the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yeah, I i prefer... no I prefer that one Skrull who won't stop looking like John Lennon.
01:23:19
Speaker
There's one Skrull in the Marvel Universe who goes by John and won't and just constantly looks like John Lennon. That's very good. he's friends with Pete Wisdom.
01:23:31
Speaker
Sasquatch is out of Walter's control, enraged by the pain from transforming with a broken arm. They fight for a bit until unexpectedly Super Skrull doubles over in pain.
01:23:45
Speaker
That would normally happen during a fight. I don't know why that's unexpected. It's well, is nobody punches him. Oh, OK. And he just doubles over in pain. He uses an old hypnotic power to freeze Sasquatch in place and starts explaining some of his recent history and how it led him to be trapped here.
01:24:05
Speaker
Boring. Don't care. you Yeah, we don't need to go into Walter's psyche starts to emerge and he realizes that the Skrull throne world must have been destroyed by Galactus when the Skrull tried to beam himself back to it.
01:24:18
Speaker
Or something. I don't fucking... Wild assumptions. yeah yeah Yeah. He's like, oh, so if... he's telling me that he beamed home and instead we found him in space. Then Galactus must have destroyed. was like, what? No, tires scroll home plan. yeah It's not a problem anymore. there could have been in a chunk of aluminum in the way. What the fuck are you talking about?
01:24:46
Speaker
All the radiation exposure exposure from bouncing around as a wave in space gave Super Skrull super leukemia. scroll commands this is all just in walter's head is yeah this is this is he's still uh churning him out yeah sque he thinks of himself he thinks himself as sherlock holmes right he's very much like yeah aha but this is him must be that galactus destroyed your entire home planet and all the radiation exposure because you were bouncing around as a radiation wave as a result
01:25:21
Speaker
gave you super cancer. yeah like now he's Gregory house. Yeah. Uh, the scroll commands Walter to help him get home and Walter complies, but, uh,
01:25:36
Speaker
It's a malicious complicity because he's already freed himself from the hypnosis and he has a plan. Clever girl.
Alpha Flight's Internal Conflicts
01:25:45
Speaker
He rebuilds a transmitter to send Super Skrull back home, but all the while he waits for the alien to get another attack of chest pain.
01:25:53
Speaker
When he does, Sasquatch grabs him and chucks him in the transmitter, still unaligned, to be bounced around space for a while. He figures if the Skrull ever does reintegrate, The super cancer now enhanced will kill him instantly.
01:26:10
Speaker
Yeah. He accelerated his cancer. yeah ah What a hero. What a superhero, Pat. This is the superhero Sasquatch.
01:26:24
Speaker
As he walks off, it feels a Pyrrhic victory as four scientists are still dead. And he now knows that there's a savage out of control side to Sasquatch. No guilt about any of these people's deaths. Just that he can't celebrate as much as does.
01:26:41
Speaker
When he gets back to his Vancouver townhome, he finds Aurora there to greet him. After her fight with Northstar, she broke in and is seeking comfort in his arms.
01:26:53
Speaker
Yeah. end. It's already clear that Aurora is kind of insane. he's like... yeah He's like, how did you get in here? And she's like, oh, you left your ah window unlocked. And hey, no worries for me because I can fly. Anyway, I've come home to you. And then hugs him.
01:27:12
Speaker
And he looks he's looking at her like, oh fuck. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because he's not going to. not sleep with her he's just he knows there'll be some consequences to deal with that right he's not gonna be like hey that's uh hey this isn't cool he's like right oh what'll alpha flight think of this but also he's seeing she's kind she's definitely like unstable even in this persona like this persona itself is unstable which they i mean that is a fair his first fair deduction today is him is when he's like how did you get in here and she was like well you left your windows open you know that i can fly
01:27:57
Speaker
oh i thought i figured you wouldn't leave your windows open if you didn't want your flying girlfriend to come in it's you know ah girlfriend like um yeah man
01:28:14
Speaker
walter lankowski i told you before he sucks i know yeah yeah this uh this read on him really turned the tides for me yeah um fucking dork all right pat do you want me to keep going and tell you about alpha flight number 11 yeah you know what let's just keep on riding here it's called set up often Because a step back from bloodbath. Set up.
01:28:49
Speaker
yeah Okay. We had trouble finding the credits for this one. Because they're not just there. It seems like John Byrne thought he was being clever by it So the scene opens up in the the the a tiny studio apartment, a studio apartment filled with books just like piled on each other all over the shelves and everywhere.
01:29:11
Speaker
And on the spines of the books, it says Lee Byrne, Yankis, Higgins, O'Neill. And then I can't read what this last one says. I think it says shithead.
01:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's when you want Shake Shack, Sherman, Sherbert, I can't read it. Anyway. tonight I can't, but yeah, I don't know why he thought this was, it's they're so tiny and it barely comes through.
01:29:40
Speaker
They are so tiny that the Marvel wiki... told us that there weren't credits on this issue, but you could find names hidden in the books. Like even the Marvel wiki is like, this was a puzzle. These are hidden. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I feel like he didn't mean these to be hidden, but I don't know how this got past.
01:30:00
Speaker
Just a little too clever. Do you also notice in Roger boxes? This is who, this is whose studio apartment it is in his apartment. There's a coffee mug with an upside down peace symbol on it.
01:30:13
Speaker
Hmm. Is that just John Burns politics again? deroatory Derogatory sign for those who refuse to serve in the military in the 60s.
01:30:25
Speaker
Okay, so it's like a it's like a pro-war thing? Quora's not going to help. It's like, ah actually, you friggin' peaceniks, war is really good.
01:30:40
Speaker
i Yes, I don't know if that's what it's supposed to mean here 20 years later, but that does seem to be yeah general intention is like to mock people use it right side up. And this is, I mean, it's John Byrne.
01:30:56
Speaker
He's a what what was it? A progressive conservative. So he's probably a bit of a war hawk. We could surmise. I'm not i'm not saying definitively.
01:31:11
Speaker
Someday we'll do a whole episode where we talk about all of his politics and what they could possibly mean. Stay tuned. it was This issue, anyway, it was released on March 20th, 1984, cover date June 1984. Delphine Courtney, remember her?
01:31:28
Speaker
From last two issues ago, I think? She departs the Moose Jaw Saskatchewan studio apartment of Roger Box... You want to spell that for the people?
01:31:39
Speaker
B-O-C-H-S. Yeah. As he tells her, he'll think about her offer. She tells him that their vengeance must be swift, so not to take too long.
01:31:51
Speaker
Concerned, he immediately tries to get in touch with Guardian about the interaction, but he can't even get through to Gary Cody.
01:32:01
Speaker
Gary or Cody, either one. You must have no sway if you can't get through to Gary Cody. He turns instead to what looks like a giant robot he hides behind a curtain.
01:32:12
Speaker
Cut to Ottawa, where Heather Hudson picks up the last of her belongings and says goodbye to an empty flat. She hops in a cab, then onto a plane, setting off to meet her husband, James Hudson, in New York.
01:32:28
Speaker
Ooh. Man, fucking John Byrne... This whole comic is just him describing parts of Canada. He, it is a love letter to Canada for sure. I'm sure yeah weapon Jason is ah doing a little dance about it, but it's, is that what they do in Canada? If you mentioned Canada in front of a Canadian, they do a little dance and they have to, otherwise they're cursed for a hundred years.
01:33:02
Speaker
uh he is doing it to the degree that claremont describes aircraft like it is he's describing the tundra of canada which i'm glad he's a nerd for canadian geology i guess yeah it's just but it's like for every time he goes to a new place it's like four panels of him just describing what that part of canada is like jump scare hello cut to the world trade center south tower whoa where a group of x gamma flight members bicker over what they're doing there until delphine courtney storms in and commands order
01:33:45
Speaker
she in She introduces the rogues gallery and promises to explain why they're here. Before I tell you this, before I go through the rogues gallery, i I want to say for the past couple issues in the letters columns, the fans have been writing and asking, like they've been saying how badly they want to see the other flight teams, beta flight, yeah yeah gamma flight.
01:34:11
Speaker
um And I wonder if this had been planned ahead of time or if they were just sort of responding to fan demand. Right. Very possible that they were just picking the letters, demanding the things they were planning to do anyway. and Yeah. those Or like Stan Lee used to do. like we are pretty sure.
01:34:32
Speaker
Make them up. Yeah. All right. So here's Gamma Flight. Box. Box. How do you spell that, Pat? B-O-X. Roger Box from earlier. He's a world-class engineer.
01:34:48
Speaker
Diamond Lil. she yeah She's an indestructible giantess, it says. Like, every part of her is indestructible. it's So cool. and And she's very tall. Flashback.
01:35:03
Speaker
A man that can summon his own future selves. So dumb. We'll get there, but so stupid. Smart Alec. He's got a computer brain.
01:35:14
Speaker
I love him. And wild child. Killing machine, only half human and supposed to look fucked up. Now that's the information we get on him now.
01:35:26
Speaker
He doesn't really have a nose. His eyes are too far apart. He doesn't... Yeah, he's... ah that's That's what we get. you If you know who Wildchild is, you're like, oh, and he doesn't have eyebrows. If you know who Wildchild is, and jagged teeth. I just keep noticing more and more about him. um If you know about Wildchild, you're like, half human? What are you talking about?
01:35:50
Speaker
Isn't he just a mutant? And the answer is yes, but I don't know that John Byrne knew that. Or if that was John Byrne's original intent. That would true yet.
01:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Delphine then introduces her employer, Jerome Jackson. spelled how do you spell jackson j-a-x-o-n okay to explain to explain why they've all been summoned here all of their hopes and dreams have been destroyed by one man james mcdonald hudson and he's brought them all together to exact revenge know across town yeah sorry this is so cool i love this next step for alpha flight which is developing the anti-alpha flight the group of alpha flight rejects that are all a little crazy yeah the people who were they weren't even good enough to get into alpha flight right um
01:36:55
Speaker
Or Betaflight. Like, there were only two of them that made it to Betaflight, and they're talking to the others like, hey, the there's a reason you didn't make it to Betaflight.
01:37:08
Speaker
um Across town, Guardian arrives at the airport to pick up Heather, running 20 minutes late. He gets into his Guardian costume and flies to the airport.
01:37:22
Speaker
How are you going to get her home? What a rude way to pick somebody up from the airport. But Pat, turns out there's no sign of Heather at the airport. Oh, no.
01:37:33
Speaker
He asks the attendants about her, and they say she was met by a woman matching Delphine Courtney's description. And she made a big deal of leaving behind a business card. James sees Jerome Jackson's name on the business card, along with the name of his new company,
01:37:52
Speaker
Roxxon. Jackson at Roxxon. He ponders how deep this could go as he streaks across town as Guardian when Jackson's voice hacks through the helmet comms, directing him to the North Tower.
01:38:04
Speaker
He has his wife and will only release her safely if he shows up and surrenders. So they're doing all their plotting in the South Tower, but their death trap is in the North or Tower. Yeah.
01:38:19
Speaker
Simple things, Guardian. I'm Guardian. So no one in this building could hurt me. And besides, I've already called Alpha Flight, but those thoughts quickly disappear with a quick uh-oh as you realize he's walked into a trap.
01:38:33
Speaker
He literally says, uh-oh.
01:38:38
Speaker
and Like, you knew you were going to walk into a trap, dude. Like, how did, like, didn't, he did not suspect it. He said as he's going in, like, well, it's pretty weird that they didn't put in any security.
01:38:51
Speaker
i guess they just don't know how cool I am. The Alpha Flight rejects, Pat, are all here and they're calling themselves Omega Flight. And they're ready to kill him. That's a cooler name.
01:39:05
Speaker
Omega flight. Yeah. What about what are the end? What are the end of the flight? You started this flight.
01:39:14
Speaker
You started this flight and I'm going to finish. I'm going to finish it.
01:39:20
Speaker
That's issue 11 of Alpha Flight. Matt, did you say to be continued? No, I didn't. Can you say it? we do I don't know why, but I will. ah To be continued. Oh, I can't wait.
01:39:37
Speaker
yeah Glad that's not the end of it. that would be If that was the last issue. yeah James McDonald Hudson walks in on Omega Flight and then a comic book is over forever. The end. The next time we see him is X-Men and he's joined Omega Flight.
01:39:56
Speaker
And they just get their asses kicked. It's like, why why did you do this? And he's calling himself Vindicator again. It's just like a tug of war between Chris Claremont and...
01:40:11
Speaker
All right, Matt. Should we, being that it doesn't actually end there, should we move on to Alpha Flight 12 and one shall surely die? um Then no then no, we shouldn't move on to Alpha Flight 12. If somebody's going to die, we do... Seems irresponsible.
01:40:32
Speaker
Then we probably shouldn't. But hey, all right we have a responsibility to our listeners. They want to see us move on to Alpha Flight number 12, whether it kills a human being or not.
01:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, this is on you, folks. This is your fault. You said we need you to get through issue number 12. Ha ha ha ha.
01:40:56
Speaker
All right. Alpha fight number 12. And one shall surely die. John. The name of it, though. And one shall surely die. Okay, but what's
Nostalgic TV and Complex Villain Dynamics
01:41:07
Speaker
the name of the comic?
01:41:08
Speaker
And one shall surely die. All right, well, there's clearly no talking to you here. John Byrne, creator slash chronicler. Andy Yankis, colorist. Michael Higgins, letterer. Denny O'Neill, editor. And Jay Im shooter, editor in chief. Release date, April 1984. Cover date, July
01:41:32
Speaker
Heather Hudson is getting impatient with Delphine Courtney as she supposedly waits for her husband to arrive. Courtney turns on the TV and a man named Jerome Jackson tells her what's going on. Ten years ago, James Hudson walked into his work demanding the super suit he designed.
01:41:51
Speaker
When they said no, he stole it and left it in a field without the psycho cybernetic helmet that controls it. Not not the cyber cybernetic helmet. This led to Jackson on being fired, his wife leaving him, and a suicide attempt that left him wheelchair bound.
01:42:09
Speaker
Later, when he saw Guardian on the news, he recognized the suit's principles in action and figured out it was James. So he went to Roxxon in New York and offered them the suit's power supply for revenge on James.
01:42:23
Speaker
There, he met Delphine, who recruited all the Beta and Gamma Flight folks and started Omega Flight. And here they are. Heather, when Delphine says, like, I will turn I'm going to turn on the TV. She's like, why? There hasn't been anything worth watching since 1966. This
01:42:46
Speaker
this is I mean, that's just I mean, how old was John Byrne at this point? twenty and he's already this grumpy about pop culture an old man also what's he referring to in 1966 yeah well is what was what was on in 1966 when he was 16 that was the last good thing on television yeah what show ended 1966 yeah like this guy is like okay so he's here and he's like
01:43:18
Speaker
but there's been nothing good on TV since 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Like, come on, man. Oh, wow. There were a lot of ah canceled television shows in 1966. Oh, okay.
01:43:34
Speaker
Maybe he's mad about Pumpkin Puss and Mushmouse. Yeah, that was probably his favorite one. ah Maybe he's mad about Shane, the American TV series based on the movie.
01:43:46
Speaker
Shane. The Smothers Brothers show. oh oh that's got to be it. OK. Or a Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tails. um These would actually a lot of these are children's cartoons. so it might track that he was you the last time he enjoyed television. Yeah. I mean, did we i I feel like we maybe judge John Byrne a little too harshly here because like.
01:44:12
Speaker
Flintstones ended. Yeah. Perry Mason ended. Okay. Dick Van Dyke show ended. my goodness. the adam The Adams family. Yeah. What the fuck?
01:44:25
Speaker
Why did, why did this happen? what do you think? Do you think the new Three Stooges was the original cast? Or do you think they recast the Three Stooges?
01:44:36
Speaker
It was also canceled in 66. Oh, this is the cartoon. Whoa, the Munsters also ended that year. Jesus Christ. This is unbelievable. John Verne is absolutely right. Yeah, Mr. Ed ended.
01:44:50
Speaker
there's a ah There's a Wikipedia page for this I just found. ah Ozzie and Harriet ended. Like, who cares? But I know people know what that is. The Donna Reed show. don't know.
01:45:02
Speaker
The Jimmy Dean show? They gave Jimmy Dean his own show. Oh, Jimmy Dean. Do you think that was the actor or the sausage guy? i guess the actor was dead, so probably the sausage guy. Here's the thing. ah here All right. What debuted in What replaced this? Okay.
01:45:19
Speaker
the seven hundred club oh no Oh, Dark Shadows, that gothic, that soap opera that has like vampires and stuff in it. Oh, right. Yeah, sure. Sort of a monsters rip off. Yeah. ah with Adam West, Batman.
01:45:36
Speaker
Okay. There's a bit of a turnaround for us. That girl.
01:45:43
Speaker
Okay. ah Solid. Is it? Mary Tyler Moore spinoff. Okay. um Pistols and Petticoats.
01:45:53
Speaker
o Occasional Wife. Ooh, the newlywed game? Premiered? Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're right. Mission Impossible and the Monkees.
01:46:07
Speaker
The girl from uncle. All right. So yeah already he's wrong. hor it Like there's, yeah there's a bunch of good shows that premiered the same year that all these really good shows ended. Yeah. I could see being devastated by the yeah run of shows that ended 1966. The next year, the Carol Burnett show.
01:46:29
Speaker
And Jacques Cousteau is in 1968. I'm just going to keep going. But I'll do it quietly while you tell me about the rest of this issue. So Heather tries to run, but Delphine Courtney grabs her and tosses her across the room.
01:46:44
Speaker
She seems super fast and super strong, but it's still a surprise when Heather rips her face off to see she's more than what she appears. What is it? What is she? What is she? don't We don't know yet. We'll find out in a minute. Okay, fine.
01:47:02
Speaker
I think this is like a pitch perfect villain.
01:47:09
Speaker
plan reveal i love the way that this is executed right where heather who ah again the coolest and seemingly the most competent among them has just been sitting in this room assuming that her husband like as far as she understands delphine and courtney is a friend of her husband's that came to pick her up and they just have her sitting in this room like not trying to escape because she thinks she's supposed to be there right until Delphine walks in and is like, you fucking idiot. Why don't you turn the television on and watch what my boss has to say to you? And then they explain the reasoning behind this kidnapping pretty concisely, but really like a effectively. They do a great job of drawing out the key moments and just...
01:47:58
Speaker
I have a full understanding of what happened here. And then the moment that Heather's like, Jesus Christ, I've been led into a trap.
01:48:08
Speaker
ah She tries to escape. Things get violent and we get to a second level of villainy ah in whatever Delphine is exposed to whoever Delphine is exposed to be when her face comes off.
01:48:24
Speaker
it's I think it's just... yeah Again, perfect. It's how you want to have this stuff revealed to you. Yeah. In Ontario, Shaman and Snowbird wait for the rest of Alpha Flight to gather.
01:48:37
Speaker
Aurora and Sasquatch arrive first, with Walter wearing some dorky suit to protect him from the friction of Aurora's speed flying. I fucking hate this guy. It's like a... and He just looks like he's wearing a sheet, a big green sheet. Yeah.
01:48:52
Speaker
and it happens after he's like aurora gets there and he's like we're late to this thing and she's like no don't just calm down man and he's like no i i do love that where like the she with aurora the personality of aurora is fully unconcerned is just like can't we just stay back and chill out and let other people be alpha flight today and he's like please no we we this is the first time we've gotten this in a in a year this alpha flight warning which like he's not wrong
01:49:33
Speaker
But also, he's just such a dipshit. Like, I cannot... You know what he has? He has the ah other... The new dad in like, a 90s comedy film energy. Like, a Tim Allen or a Jim Carrey film where they're, like, a divorced dad.
01:49:58
Speaker
And they're, like, kind of a fuck-up, but they're lovable. Yeah, I'm bought in. And then the mom has like some shitty, dorky new husband who, as an audience, we're supposed to hate.
01:50:14
Speaker
Walter Lankowski has that energy. He's the new, he's the Judge Reinhold in the Santa Claus. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. i Next is North Star and Puck, who doesn't need a dorky ass suit.
01:50:30
Speaker
Northstar picked him up in Toronto where he was meditating to control the pain his dwarfism causes him. And he instantly realizes there's something wrong between the twins.
01:50:41
Speaker
Already smarter than Walter Lankowski. Tougher than Walter Lankowski. And I just want to like, i just want us to keep in mind.
01:50:53
Speaker
I just want us to remember this moment. Okay. John Byrne explicitly says that. that Eugene Judd deals with constant pain because of the way that dwarfism can distort your bones and your musculature.
01:51:13
Speaker
Right. Whereas Walter just lost full control of himself from the pain of a broken bone. Hey, that's a good point. But I just want us to keep in mind if for, you know, 20 episodes from now,
01:51:29
Speaker
that John Byrne is very, very clear. The reason Eugene Judd is always in pain is because of his dwarfism. Okay. Let's move on. Oh, boy.
01:51:40
Speaker
Marina doesn't hear the call as she's too busy swimming around and making out with Namor in Atlantis. We refer to and Atlanteans here as homo mermanis. Chill guys.
01:51:57
Speaker
chill out guys When they're all here, when they're all finally there, it's it again, just loving that they are they don't work well together. have them are late. And by the time they all arrive, they're all arguing with each other already.
01:52:14
Speaker
Yeah. North Star tries to apologize to Aurora in his arrogant way, and it sparks a fight between he and Sasquatch. So it's only getting worse from here. Yeah. Puck tries to break it up by kicking Sasquatch in the face. Let me calm things down for a second.
01:52:31
Speaker
But in response... Sasquatch uproots a tree and tries to flatten Puck with it. Jesus Christ. He's trying to kill him. Walter, i hate you.
01:52:41
Speaker
Seeing that he's out of control, Shaman summons roots from the ground to restrain him. But Northstar takes this to mean they're on his side and starts punching the restrained Walter. ah Snowbird leaps up and as as an owl to attack
Snowbird's Vulnerability
01:52:56
Speaker
Northstar. So Shaman throws some magic dust and freezes them both in midair.
01:53:01
Speaker
Then he asks Aurora to calm Walter down, which she does, and he seems confused about what happened. Before anyone has a chance to figure it all out, Shaman throws some more dust and teleports them all to New York, where Guardian is already battling Omega Flint. Just immediately! They're just thrown right the fuck into it!
01:53:23
Speaker
Yeah, he teleports them to, and like... Shaman is the voice of reason here. Yeah. Until without warning, he teleports them all into the heat of battle.
01:53:35
Speaker
Right. Not into a strategic place. He's just like, everybody shut up. We have to go. boom Right. And yeah at that moment, they're like, Everybody's like, what the fuck just happened with Sasquatch? And Walter himself is like, what did I just do?
01:53:52
Speaker
i completely lost control of myself. Why am I Sasquatch right now? Yeah, yeah. And he's like, we have no time no time for that now. We've got to go. And then like they they pop into into a fight.
01:54:06
Speaker
What a mess. So messy. Love it. Flashback, Mob's Guardian with a bunch of doppelgangers of himself pulled out of the time stream. Okay.
01:54:21
Speaker
This. Okay. You have some feelings about this. I do because. first I have a question. if
01:54:32
Speaker
I beat up flashback and then he pulls one of his future selves from the time stream. Is that flashback already beat up? Right, he's like, remember when you beat me up two years ago? Well, i here I am back at the exact moment you beat me up to beat you up.
01:54:52
Speaker
Or even if I just, like, if i you if I broke his leg in a way that it wouldn't heal properly. Yeah. He's done. Who cares if he summons future selves? they None of them can...
01:55:04
Speaker
ah stand up right so they don't address this very good question with flashback however the flash flashback debuted two years after an alan moore comic alan moore did a run on captain britain right yeah yeah um and he introduced a series of he introduced like a team of weird
01:55:37
Speaker
extra dimensional bounty hunters, I guess. And one of them was named Legion and Legion had the same power. He could pluck an, an one of himself from along the time stream hu to join him in the present day. So yeah, you can do exactly. Exactly what flashback is doing. Right. Power.
01:56:02
Speaker
And uh, one of in, in, in the fight, I think maybe his second appearance or something. One of the future selves of Legion is killed.
01:56:16
Speaker
Oh, geez. So Legion is just there going like, Holy fuck. Like I'm dead. What? I don't, do I have 10 minutes? Do I have three years?
01:56:31
Speaker
I just saw my own death. yeah And I don't know when that is, but it's going to be right here and it's going to be by that guy.
01:56:42
Speaker
um Absolutely brilliant. Unlike flashback, who ah is a like the dumbest version of that same idea.
01:56:53
Speaker
He's just he's multiple man, James Madrox, but with a temporal angle to it that as far as I understand. Yeah.
01:57:05
Speaker
Does not come up. Right. There's just no, they don't worry about the time thing. It's just, that's how he generates his doubles. It's, yes it's, it doesn't matter. i don't.
01:57:17
Speaker
It's also always, con confused okay, so if I punch one of ah Flashback's future selves. Right. In the, in the face, and he gets a black eye.
01:57:28
Speaker
And then later, me and Flashback, we make up. We're friends. We're out to dinner. We're sitting there. We're having a slice of pizza together or something.
01:57:40
Speaker
And all of a sudden, he flickers for a second. And he has a black eye. and he's crying. And he's blood he's got a bloody nose. And he's like, did you just do that to me? How could you?
01:57:53
Speaker
ah ah ah
01:57:57
Speaker
Oh, boy. All right. Hopefully we won't have to deal with him much. Aurora leaps at Wildchild, but he slashes her with his claws and Snowbird leaps up to defend her. The narrator says that as fast as she is, her reflexes are not proportionate.
01:58:17
Speaker
How could that be? All right. as there I know. Seems like that means her person that means her perceptions don't move along with her speed at the speed that she's traveling at.
01:58:28
Speaker
So if her or North Star are flying or running at super speed, They're just seeing the world fly by them in a at a speed they can't comprehend. Yeah. they're just like Hopefully on a clear path. Yeah, exactly. They think that they can't adjust like that's this. That's very stupid.
01:58:56
Speaker
Snowbird leaps up to defend her, but before she can transform, she's hit by a sudden weakness and collapses as Diamond Lil grabs an indestructible strand of her own hair and tries to garrote the goddess.
01:59:10
Speaker
How did she pluck it out of her head? As if it's indestructible.
01:59:15
Speaker
That is a creative use, though. I'll give i'll give him that. Shaman summons some magic to invade Lil's mind and rushes to Snowbird's side, who suddenly looks like a hundred-year-old woman.
01:59:27
Speaker
yeah She's withering in front of him, and he blames himself for a spell he cast when he first found her years ago. binding her life force to Canada, the nation of Canada.
01:59:39
Speaker
Now that they're in New York, she's quickly dying. Why did he do that? It's it's again, just another like, what a, what a, what a dummy. what Yeah.
01:59:50
Speaker
If he didn't need to do that, he said he blames himself here as if that was like, ah, fuck, I didn't need to say Canada. I could have said the whole world, the world. yeah Damn it. Damn it.
02:00:03
Speaker
I'm guessing this is in the butt issues. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which I can read even though we're not covering them. We'll cover them. I'll get to it. Maybe maybe that'll be the next alpha flight. Maybe that'll be the next Alpha Flight episode before we get into what happens next. All right.
02:00:22
Speaker
So smart Alec. deduces all this as well and uses the distraction to grab shaman's medicine bag with his enhanced brain. He's got a big old helmet on now that that enhances his brain. Yeah.
02:00:38
Speaker
With his enhanced brain and sensory enhancers, he's confident he can figure out how shaman does his magic. He peers into the bag against shaman's warnings and instantly goes insane. Okay. Bye. Smart Alec.
02:00:53
Speaker
You're gone. yeah The smartest man in the world, ladies and gentlemen. Perfect introduction and perfect ending for for Smart Al. Complaining about a hot dog vendor.
02:01:07
Speaker
And then he dies when he looks into a magic bag. He finally gets to put his intelligence to the test and it drives him insane. ah The first thing he chooses in his new life.
02:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To try to to try to pick apart. OK, meanwhile, Box is throwing Sasquatch across the room. Okay. Walter is afraid to use his strength because of what just happened in Ontario. So he's just kidding.
02:01:34
Speaker
He's just getting himself beat up. He's just letting him. Oh, don't do this. Free from interruptions. Wild child returns to a bleeding and shaken Aurora to finish the job.
02:01:48
Speaker
But North star leaps in and fucks him up. It's a cool again. North star. So fucking cool in this. He grabs Wildchild from like under the armpits, flies straight up into the air. And again, John Byrne does this thing where flying doesn't always have to look like one thing. And so he's just, yeah he looks kind of like he's just standing there holding Wildchild, but based on motion lines, you can see. he And then he flies at the wall and flings him both hands into the wall, but he kind of looks like he's like, uh,
02:02:23
Speaker
somersaulting off the wall as he's doing like it just looks so cool it's just like something about how he's choosing to draw north star north star just always looks rad as fuck yeah he's also he there's a distinction i Between him flying and him flying when he's angry.
02:02:45
Speaker
And I think that that is. Oh, yeah. Adding to the impact here. Like, there's a lot of cool action. He's very imaginative about how he flies, but also there's emotion in the way that he's flying. The thing that I don't get about North Star here, though, is and I guess we're just supposed to assume there's other fighting happening that we're not seeing.
02:03:05
Speaker
But this appears to be the first thing Northstar does. And the fight's been going on for minutes. and i see Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's been biding his time. He's just been staring. He's like, hmm, who should I fight? Oh, he slashed my sister.
02:03:20
Speaker
Back to Heather Hudson. ah She lays on the floor while Delphine Courtney rips the rest of the fake skin off her own robot body.
02:03:33
Speaker
ah She explains that while even Jackson doesn't know her true nature, she's been programmed to help him achieve his goals in any way she can and wanders off. Even though she senses a trap, Heather rushes through the open door.
02:03:48
Speaker
It is, there's another, if we're if we're just going to tee off on John Byrne's baffling politics, there's a ah fairly progressive feminist moment, it with observation, I guess, where Delphine is like, see, as a robot, I am more intuitive than any human. And because I'm intuitive, they gave me a woman's body. Yeah.
02:04:18
Speaker
Just okay. ah boy, dude yeah why Why? Why are? and Okay. Back at the big fight, Guardian is holding his own against flashbacks, doppelgangers when the point becomes moot because puck just knocks the little dork out with one punch at that moment, though box tackles the now free guardian through an open shaft. They hit the ground,
Guardian's Death and Comic Tropes
02:04:44
Speaker
smashing James's helmet and shorting out his force fields.
02:04:48
Speaker
Box beats the living shit out of Guardian, and Guardian asks why Roger Box would never turn on him like this. Yeah. No, says the robot suit. Box wouldn't.
02:04:59
Speaker
But Jerome Jackson would. He's controlling the robot suit remotely from another room while Box is held captive. What? As the killing blow comes nigh, James has an idea. He pulls two wires from his own suit and shoves them into the box robot, short-circuiting it.
02:05:19
Speaker
That's you rad. It's rad. It's a really cool moment. The first time ever where it's like, oh, fucking, okay.
02:05:30
Speaker
James Hudson's a little cool. Yeah, yeah. Without his powers, he's just, he's crafty. Yeah. Very... No disrespect to the new mutants. Very Magnum P.I.
02:05:46
Speaker
In some ominous control room. This is probably back in the South Tower. Oh, yeah, you're right. Delphine watches her. Delphine watches her boss droop in his wheelchair, an odd helmet smoking on his head.
02:06:00
Speaker
Box tied up on the ground gloats. No one could ever beat Guardian. Picking himself up, James Hudson feels bad about destroying the box robot and thinks he'll have to help Roger rebuild it as he starts pulling more wires from his suit.
02:06:16
Speaker
Since he's overloaded his power pack, he has about 10 seconds to disconnect it before it explodes. Yeah, but he's an expert on the suit, right? But he's an expert on the suit. Yeah, exactly. He's an expert on the suit.
02:06:29
Speaker
Even though it's been beaten up, it's been designed for all its parts to be easy to access. As the seconds tick away, things are going well and he has the pack in his hand.
02:06:40
Speaker
When suddenly, Heather opens the door. She shouts Mac's name and he's distracted just for a literal second. And his suit explodes with him inside.
02:06:56
Speaker
Heather shields herself from the blast as it smokes and sizzles bright and hot. Max says Heather as he collapses on the ground. His body burns into a plume of black smoke as he and his suit lay in a crumpled heap on the ground.
02:07:15
Speaker
The end.
02:07:21
Speaker
Wow. Holy cow. of Jesus Christ. um
02:07:31
Speaker
So. We got. 12 issues. With Guardian and he was in What eight of them.
02:07:45
Speaker
If we're not counting the butt issues, which he I know. is Right. And the issues the X-Men issues that he made an appearance. and Yeah. But yeah. And he's just fucking dead. Like... This is if you don't If you haven't seen the artwork, it's pretty...
02:08:07
Speaker
It's pretty certain. Yeah, it's like definitive. It's intense and it's definitive. John Byrne makes it like, like even changing the color of the smoke, like the smoke is like ah like a billowy, like colored by the light in the room. And then all of a sudden it's like jet black. Like, okay, now it's burning human flesh. Like, yeah, yeah. And you can even see...
02:08:28
Speaker
James Hudson's body like deteriorating. Yeah. As he collapses. It's really brutal. And at the bottom it says, you know like, it's not over yet. Guardian is dead, but for Heather, the nightmare is only beginning. Like they're not, they're in they're not fucking around here. They're just like, yeah, that is the death of guardian. He's gone and dead. Yeah.
02:08:52
Speaker
Um,
02:08:55
Speaker
It's – I don't believe that he's dead. Okay. But it's hard for me to not believe that he's dead after looking at this. Right. How – Crazy stuff. And how do you believe – He is how, yeah, like you can't even imagine a way that he survives this.
02:09:14
Speaker
No, im he is the leader of the team. I imagine he doesn't stay dead for long, but I am certain that I just watched him die. Right. Okay. i see what you're saying. So like maybe flashback is like, hey, I plucked another version of him from the time stream and he's here and now he's back or whatever. Like yeah that that's what you're imagining. Yeah. Something.
02:09:39
Speaker
Ugh. Fun fact.
Alpha Flight Narrative Structure
02:09:41
Speaker
Okay. The helmet is called an acephalo helmet. Oh! That is a fun fact.
02:09:53
Speaker
I think it's worth noting here, also, that if the helmet was, like, the most important part of this uniform, the helmet doesn't get burned.
02:10:06
Speaker
The helmet got ripped off before the suit Oh, you're right. So it needs a little tinkering, but that's actually you. And honestly, i like I've read all this. i can't I cannot honestly tell you if that comes back into play or not. But I i only just noticed.
02:10:25
Speaker
Like, obviously, I know what happens with Guardian but with James Hudson. I know what happens with the suit.
02:10:33
Speaker
damnmit now But I don't remember if the helmet comes back into play or not. now i'm' Now I'm hooked. And I'm not happy about it. But now I need to know what happens next in Alpha Flight. Well, let's see.
02:10:49
Speaker
how do you while i While I look up when this next... When we get to find out what happens next. Yeah, yeah. And it'll be a while because there's some like events coming up in the Marvel Universe between now and then. There's a lot going on right now.
02:11:05
Speaker
What did you think of this arc?
02:11:10
Speaker
I gotta say, Matt. Mm-hmm. I liked it. yeah i Now, I have to, again, I think I said this at the top of the show or maybe in the middle of our recap. When I sat down and read this with the assumption that these are superpowered people who want to be heroes but are very bad at it.
02:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. This was amazing. It's so funny. There's so many just little ironic twists to yeah show you that the fact that they're bad has real consequences. and Right. Again, hard to tell what's intentional and what is just...
02:11:53
Speaker
nineteen eighty s comic book brain but it is so much fun to to join this shitty team on their adventures i mean including the fact that like yeah one of them dies as a consequence they're so bad like their first mission in a year their leader died Yeah, and it's as much his fault as it is anybody else's on the team.
02:12:23
Speaker
Yes, because he ran in and he's like, I'm fine. Yeah, no and also because the rest of the team showed up late to the emergency call. Right! They're just a bad superhero team. What do you think of this? So John Burns, like a clearly his he's got a philosophy about doing a superhero team book.
02:12:48
Speaker
It's like each character gets their own independent story and they come together, you know, once a year, once or twice a year, once every six months or something for a major like team up.
02:13:02
Speaker
ah Right. Yeah. they every Every six issues or so, they end up all back together. But for the most part, what we've read so far in Alpha Flight is them just living their lives, like just...
02:13:16
Speaker
we not living their like normal social lives but here's what they do as yeah superheroes in their non-alpha flight time which so bizarre but i mean imagine it's a product of them not having their own titles right the idea that i there's not a Sasquatch comic. There's not a star and Aurora comic. So in order to flesh them out, you almost have to have them go on there, which as far as I understand against the law at Marvel right now. You're not allowed to create a superhero team with heroes that don't have the titles, but I guess this was the, uh, the exception.
02:14:05
Speaker
it It makes me think, i've I've been thinking about this quite a bit, and I've been thinking about, like, I've i've sort of thought up a little taxonomy of superhero team comics.
02:14:16
Speaker
Okay. Because I feel like Alpha Flight is kind of in a league of its own there, right? So, like, you have your ah you have your clubhouse team Like the Avengers, right? A bunch of sure people who all hang out at the same place.
02:14:36
Speaker
um Maybe even the certain eras of the Justice League or like this, like maybe like the Justice League International or Justice League, you know, like. Right. The HQ is also a place that they go in their downtime just to. Yeah. hang out hang out with each other yeah yeah like an extreme example of the clubhouse might be like the runaways but some other you know like uh the teen certain eras of the teen titans are like this as well yeah yeah uh and when a mission comes up or when something happens they're like oh hey let's all get going because we're here anyway then you have the
02:15:14
Speaker
paramilitary ah superhero teams like the X-Men where it's like they get together and they train. Like that's they spend their time training. Right. For a specific purpose. And when that purpose comes up, they go execute.
02:15:28
Speaker
I guess there's some other eras of the Teen Titans that are like that as well. um I'm trying to think of who what's another team book where theyre they like train together. The Bat Family books. guess the Bat Family Doom Patrol.
02:15:41
Speaker
Sure. ye Yeah. Yeah. And then you have your books where they're just there literally has to be a crisis, a world ending crisis every single day.
02:15:54
Speaker
because justify their existence. Exactly. So like yeah yeah most of the history of the Justice League is like this, where it's like the world has to be ending all the time because these guys all have their own books.
02:16:09
Speaker
Right, where they also deal with world-ending threats. Right, and you, so you can't say they've all been hanging out together, you can't say they've all been training together, you can't say that they've all, like, you can't show them out on their own adventures.
02:16:23
Speaker
Right. You just have to show them dealing with a universal threat. Yeah, so it just, like, the writer just has to consistently come up with that. so Then there's this. There's this kind of book. I don't know what we want to call this.
02:16:41
Speaker
the you know the the the the the the the The occasional team. The pack of loners. Yeah. The occasional team.
02:16:52
Speaker
where Yeah. You have a book where you're just following everybody in their own lives. And every now and then a big enough threat will come where they're like, we have to get, I need all my teammates to come help me.
02:17:08
Speaker
All right. I like this taxonomy, Matt. Let's chart it out. We should chart it out. We should go through. Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Try to disprove our taxonomy. Or just send us, because i'm I'm up for expanding the taxonomy, and I'm up for creating, like, subclasses. So just send us superhero teams and some examples, and we will.
02:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We'll build it out. Yeah. We can
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02:17:35
Speaker
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Speaker
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02:17:48
Speaker
All right, folks. We got another good one for you two today. Do we? Yes. Now, Matt, as you know, I've spent my vast fortune on collecting every issue of the X-Men that has ever been published. But i know when it comes to some of these sub teams, have to go to non-traditional sources just because especially with Alpha Flight, like these sell like crazy in the Canadian wilderness.
02:18:18
Speaker
A lot of these ad pages just get lost. They get destroyed. Yeah. ah So i'm I'm working with what I have, but I did have to find an ad from X-Men comic that ran around the same time as as this run of Alpha Flight that we read.
02:18:34
Speaker
Okay. Well, thank you for being honest with me about it. Yes. I would have been so pissed had you not been and I discovered it on my own. <unk> Today, I'll start here.
02:18:47
Speaker
Telling time was never so much fun. Oh. OK, fantastic new floating disk technology makes the unique Pac-Man watch gobble up these powder dots, ghosts and even cherries as it turns and tells time. these Available now at local stores. These powder dots, you say?
02:19:10
Speaker
Power dots. I'm sure said power dots. So Pac-Man watches. Pac-Man watches, Matt. That's pretty cool. And it seems like so they've got it tells time. Of course, it's a watch. It's an analog watch. But it also looks like it has a floating Pac-Man in it and objects float into its mouth.
02:19:33
Speaker
Using this fantastic new floating disk technology. Huh. Here's the thing that's catching my eye about this, Pat. Yeah.
02:19:46
Speaker
this is a very attractive ms pac-man whoa the watch company is a subsidiary of diversified greyhound yes matt so paxon corp okay was a company that made watches in the 60s The Greyhound Bus Company decided to start diversifying, and by the eight s it had diversified to the point that it was making small consumer products.
02:20:17
Speaker
ah Okay, they were like, na did not this isn't your your grandpa's Greyhound. we we don't we we don't just make buses, we make...
02:20:30
Speaker
okay what else do they make also watches i there were a lot of things they mostly specialized in like travel arrangements so okay they would uh set up booths at their greyhound stations for other companies or they would specialize in like travel products soaps and uh and Oh! Products to travel with or that they could sell to hotels with mini mini shampoo bottles and stuff.
02:21:02
Speaker
Okay, so consumer products that you would maybe sell by a salesman rather than in a store. You could now buy directly through Greyhound. And watches used to be sold by salespeople, right?
02:21:17
Speaker
Sure. I don't know that they sold Pac-Man watches. think they were a bit higher quality. But it is it is wild. So like Dial Soap was a subsidiary?
02:21:27
Speaker
ah Yeah. So eventually they broke off everything. They were like, we're going back to the basics. bus We just do buses. Yeah. i And they...
02:21:38
Speaker
They sold everything off the most of the products turned into the dial corporation, which then turned into something else and eventually became the pursuit company. ah Which now specializes in like vacations there. They're like a resort company. Oh, it just like went back. So is there di is there still dial soap?
02:22:00
Speaker
Yes. Dial Corporation is a... Okay, so Dial Corporation does... i think they're owned by a larger corporation, right? Got you, yeah. They're like subsidiary of... and Armor, maybe?
02:22:15
Speaker
i am clicking through... Wikipedia pages of major American corporations and shit is getting wilder and wilder. I like I'm clicking on like armor and company. Here's how the the Spanish American war created this company. And like I had no idea.
02:22:37
Speaker
So many of these companies had such crazy histories. Yeah. Dude, everybody owns everybody. And what we get out of it is Pac-Man watches.
02:22:48
Speaker
Pac-Man watches. Well, how much are these, Pat? Doesn't say. Okay. Well, i ah can't I can't buy something without knowing how much it is. Should we look up how much it is on eBay now?
02:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Let's see if we can get ourselves a Pac-Man pack pac man watch. watch. They do look kind of cool, but I bet the whatever liquid they're floating in by now is like... Black.
02:23:16
Speaker
It's also, we should be clear, we're only looking at illustrations of the watches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So the advertisement you can buy for like 20 bucks, the advertisement you're showing me here, you can find people clipping it out of magazines or comic books and they're selling it for like 15 bucks.
02:23:35
Speaker
What do you think the watches themselves new in package cost? Oh, $200. $200. ah two hundred dollars Think a little bit higher, my friend. $350. Think a lot higher, little bit lower, my friend. $775.
02:23:52
Speaker
Just a tiny bit lower? $774. Okay, well, I meant it's $700. That's $700 or best offer. Yeah. Yeah.
02:23:59
Speaker
just a tiny bit lower seven hundred and seventy fourd okay well i meant it it's seven hundred dollars that's seven hundred dollars or best offer yeah All right. Well, you know what to do, Matt. Put in a bed a bid for $30. what happens. All right. Let's see.
02:24:18
Speaker
All right. ah Make offer. $30. Continue. Review offer. Yep. Sure. $31.80 with tax. That's how they get you.
02:24:30
Speaker
Offer sent. Oh, no! It didn't automatically decline! no! All right. Oh, God! Stay tuned, folks. Oh, no, they're going to be so mean. Does that mean that this is the best offer they've received?
02:24:46
Speaker
It says there's one active offer. Yeah, but it wouldn't it have been rejected if it if yours wasn't the best offer? Oh, no, I think I see what you're saying.
02:24:59
Speaker
i don't think that's the way it works. I think the way it works is you set like a minimum That you'll accept. And if it's below that. So this guy's willing to take 30 bucks.
02:25:12
Speaker
Nothing nicer comes a along. Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm going to get such an angry message. You're going so much crap. He's got an eye out.
02:25:24
Speaker
that you could buy out. If you had time machine that you would like to try out. can't be old.
02:25:32
Speaker
Well, Patrick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've made it through another episode together oh as as friends and coworkers. Yeah. This is my job now.
02:25:45
Speaker
All this, despite the fact that I'm so fucking sick right now. I was wondering if you were going to say something. i I'm realizing i was very like my energy has gone up and down throughout this episode. So I feel like I'd probably just say something a little bit. Also, if you can hear my fucking sinuses rattling through the microphone, like right, probably you. You might be listening in a little confused if you notice those things. I just been a little sick.
02:26:12
Speaker
Editing is probably going to be a little choppy here just because of all those vomit breaks you took. Thank you guys for listening. And ah if you want to show your thanks to us for what we do, um I mean, the the easy way is you can follow us on Instagram at Mutant Menace Pod. You can ah subscribe to us on YouTube at Mutant Menace Pod also, right?
02:26:38
Speaker
Probably, yeah. Yeah. um and you know, like, share, ah tell your friends, comment, The other thing you can do is if you have a little bit of extra cash and you think ah you'd like us to have a little bit of that cash, you can go to Patreon.com and check out Mutant Menace. i think it's Patreon.com slash Mutant Menace. Is that how it goes? Yeah, yeah. It is. um And... ah
02:27:10
Speaker
yeah We haven't said thank yous in a little bit, so thank you to um Doug and Ood Quentin White Raven for yeah ah for for signing up for the Patreon. and it's Every little bit helps, and we you know it's we really super, super appreciate it.
02:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, it means a lot. It's not why we do it, but it means a lot. exactly and uh and as a thank you there's some stupid little content we throw out there uh occasionally there's a puffy faffin with matt and pat there's a little mini podcast or side project and then we do outtakes and uh you get your bonus episodes a week early stuff like that uh as always here's the thanks that we haven't waited a little while to do. Chris Wilson. Thank you so much for all the music. Julia Selly. Thank you so much for providing the voice of Trish Tilby. And I think that leaves us with just one thing, Matt, we should end the show the way we end every week.
02:28:16
Speaker
Always remember folks, the Northern lights have seen queer sites, but tonight perhaps they shall see the queerest of all.
02:28:26
Speaker
And as we say at the end of every episode, Save the heroics, pretty boy.