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39 - God Loves, Man Kills (Marvel Graphic Novel #5) with Andre!
84 Plays7 days ago
It's finally time to cover perhaps THE definitive X-Men story! Join us for God Loves, Man Kills; a deep, dark, and unsubtle exploration of the Mutant Metaphor. The topics are heavy, the writing is deep, and the art is striking. We tackle the silly and the serious with the help of our very cool guest, YouTuber and video maker Andre (@mostlyandre)! Tune in!
Topics include:
Egg Nog. A brief physics lesson. X-Men Evolution. Brent Anderson! Neal Adams! A very heavy prologue. Reverend William Stryker! Kitty whooping some jerk's ass. THAT moment. Nightline. Ariel?? The Mannequinov family. Not the Rolls! Wolverine's claws. Xavier's crucifixion. The Joe Rogan of the X-Men. Dr Phillip Ramsey. Abominations. The Village People. Idolatry. Magneto! John Cheever. Scott gets it. Dang that ruled.
Find Andre on YouTube at @mostlyandre (https://www.youtube.com/@mostlyandre)
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod (https://www.instagram.com/mutantmenacepod)
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Transcript
Mutant Menace in Westchester
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Introduction to 'Mutant Metis'
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aucamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Andre. And say it with us, Pete. well Welcome to Mutant Metis. Perfect. we nailed it.
00:00:54
Speaker
Andre, how's it going? Man, doing so well. it's It's amazing being here with y'all tonight. Andre, thank you so much for joining us. A little bit about you is you are a YouTuber, sort of a video blogger. What would you call yourself? Yeah. Should have asked beforehand.
00:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, no. I think that's a great description. Overall, YouTube has been probably my favorite platform since I was a kid. And recently I just got into doing little bit book reviews, like high higher like level in terms of just no spoilers. This is the no feels. This is what it's about. And enjoy doing that about books and comics, but I've just really found my stride in being consistent doing that for comic books all throughout time. So I've really enjoyed it specifically in 2025.
00:01:45
Speaker
You've also got a lot of useful just life stuff that I wish I knew when I was younger. Yeah. We should say your channel is mostly Andre, right? Yes. Yes, indeed.
00:01:56
Speaker
If anyone wants to find you, that's where they go.
Andre's YouTube Channel Insights
00:01:59
Speaker
But you did a review on God Loves Man Kills, which is how we found you and how we found each other. Yeah. And now we're best friends forever. Yeah, come on. No, no, it's so awesome seeing just how we're able to make connections online and everything. And so overall, yes, thank you so much for it that shout out. Mostly Andre, because it's me, mostly me, mostly Andre. But then it's things about hanging out with my wife or hanging out with my friends and whatever I'm into at life during the time. And so, yeah, it's just awesome. It's awesome seeing what y'all are doing and such a pleasure being here.
00:02:34
Speaker
yeah Yeah, really insightful stuff. Definitely check the channel out.
Fan Emails and Eggnog Anecdotes
00:02:38
Speaker
Hey, guys, I want to talk to you about something before um Pat's email corners starts and interrupts us. I went and got some eggnog right before we recorded. yeah And I had a little bit of non-alcoholic eggnog and I poured it in there and I was like, oh, yum. It looked, you know, nice and golden. And then I had some alcoholic eggnog from last year in my fridge and I poured it in there.
00:03:05
Speaker
And compared with the other eggnog, it looked green. Yeah, that I wouldn't drink that. did you so you It's definitely green, and I think I'm going to try it. Okay. What are the notes on that?
00:03:22
Speaker
Well...
00:03:28
Speaker
um ah and Well, vanilla. It's got all the eggnog notes, but it also has the notes of like... I can't even tell, like...
00:03:41
Speaker
Cheap vodka. Yeah, cheap vodka is actually, yeah, alcohol that like you remember drinking from like a water bottle when you were a kid, like your friends snuck it out of your at their parents' house and put it in a water bottle and you're like, bla like that nice that kind of alcohol.
00:03:59
Speaker
m Anyway, it's bad. So if I ah keel over and start puking at some point during this recording. That's the reason why. Hey, Pat, I just invaded Pat's email corner with this.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's right We have a guest here, so I'm not going to yell at you, but that sound we heard was the start of Pat's email corner. We got a bunch here, Matt, in regards to ah episode 37.
Avengers, Brood Saga, and Paul Smith's Art
00:04:24
Speaker
We'll start with Weapon Jason, who...
00:04:29
Speaker
but subjects his email brood it's very excited about our coverage of the brood saga i was excited about our coverage of the brood saga i forgot how much the brood saga fucking ruled man i if you recall we also laughed at him for recapping an issue of the avengers that we also recapped on the episode he says hi pat tell matt i didn't feel stupid or dumb Just surprised that you guys are following the Avengers now.
00:04:57
Speaker
Glad that's off my list. But wait, sorry, you don't need to read Power Pack? Does this mean I need to replace the Avengers with Power Pack as something to summarize when you can't figure out why they show up?
Physics Explained, Space and Movement Discussions
00:05:11
Speaker
Okay, so this is to give Andre some context. So our our listener, Weapon Jason, often writes in to tell us what's happening in the Avengers at the time of whatever X-Men comic we're reading, especially if we're confused by like, who's Henry Peter Gyrich or something like that.
00:05:31
Speaker
um And then we covered an issue of the Avengers. And now he it I guess, yeah, we sort of stole his thunder. Yeah, yeah. And we laughed at him for it. We told him we missed the memo. Nice. know To be honest, I have read, God, have read all of Power Pack. So I think I can give context to Power Pack. i Weapon Jason, please keep keep on giving us Avengers context. We we absolutely love it.
00:06:04
Speaker
um He goes on, he has a lot to say about the Brood saga. It's mostly just ah agreeing with us. So what I am going to highlight here is how much he loves Paul Smith. And he's been off about this in the Discord as well. He says, his version of Cyclops is perfect. This is a Scott Slim Summers, but he does such a good job with the facial expressions, making people look distinct, and nails the action scenes. He also gets the different heights of the characters right. Colossus is tall, Wolverine and Nightcrawler are short. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. Well, I'll say Nightcrawler is not short. He's just always hunched. He's always sort of like leaning over. Got a little scoliosis going on. Yeah, yeah. That's what happens when you don't shed your tail and over time.
00:06:50
Speaker
He says his storm is also iconic, I think. He nails this elegance and dignity in her appearance, no matter what she's wearing. His Wolverine looks like he's older than everyone else, and Kitty looks like she's 15, but with this determination on her face half the time that shows while she why she'll be pissed off at Professor X soon.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, he's good at drawing younger people, which a lot of artists aren't. They just draw little adults. ah Thank you,
Omnipotence and Recaps from Fan Emails
00:07:17
Speaker
Weapon Jason. Some really... you, Weapon Jason.
00:07:19
Speaker
good stuff and i yeah agree with most of it. i won't tell you what I don't agree with though. Think about it. ah We also have a follow-up from Master. Matt, if you recall, Andre will give you some context here.
00:07:33
Speaker
Ink Master tried to explain a physics problem that we posed from an X-Men in space issue, ah and we questioned his credentials. So he came back, he said, hey, Pat, tell Matt that while I'm not a physicist, I did take an AP physics course in high school, though it has been five years since then. So take that however you will.
00:07:51
Speaker
Given that... I'll try to explain as best I can. And I'm sorry, everyone, but we are going through this so we can figure this out. Before you do that, on yeah Andre, if you are in space and you are holding something and you throw it's the throwing one, right? Yeah, if you throw it away from you, do you go backwards? Does it go forwards?
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah. So it's OK. I'm in space. I have an item in hand. I'm already like floating. So just an item. I throw it. Yeah. My guess... I never took an AP class in high school. Me neither.
00:08:28
Speaker
My guess is that after I throw it, I go backwards. But is that because of Interstellar? i don't know why I'm thinking. like I don't know if that's... you know i don't i don't know if that's based off of what I've perceived or seen in some of these sci-fi movies. My uneducated assumption which is kind of confusing because, you know, zero gravity is that it would almost give you, it would almost propel you somehow. I don't know. It's like, can you generate that much for us? Anyway, I'm here to get educated. I'm here. I'm here to get educated. This is my question. All right. All right. All right. Is Ink Master going to tell us?
00:09:07
Speaker
Let's find out. ah Friction from the ground doesn't allow you to push or throw things. It just prevents you from going in the opposite direction when you do. That was a point of yours, Matt.
00:09:18
Speaker
Your body is essentially acting as both the lever and fulcrum when you throw something. Upper body lever, lower body fulcrum. You push yourself back when you push a car stuck in mud because A, the car is heavier than you and therefore gravity and friction have more effect on the car than on you. And B, the force of you pushing on the car is greater than the friction of the mud resisting your feet.
00:09:38
Speaker
Also, if you're moving in space and throw something in the direction you're moving, you will stop if you throw with force equal to your movement and will start going in the opposite direction if you throw with force greater than your movement. Okay, so in those... in those Okay, hold on.
00:09:54
Speaker
ah So in those like dramatic... Sci-fi things when somebody is like, oh, I became untethered and I'm floating off into space. Oh, no, I'm going to die.
00:10:05
Speaker
If they'd just taken something off of themselves and threw it as hard as they can, they would just go right back to the ship. Well...
00:10:16
Speaker
that's According got to someone who completed AP Physics five years ago. yes I guess. Yes. That's a solid credential, I would say. I guess all the people in all those like, but what's the show where that happened a lot? Battlestar Galactica?
00:10:34
Speaker
They should have taken AP Physics is my point. Yeah. You have to imagine most of those folks didn't.
00:10:43
Speaker
Inc. also has some I don't knows about the color of dinosaurs, so we'll leave it at that. That is still unsolved. Email Michael.
00:10:58
Speaker
writes in and says, is another regular Andre says, hey, Pat, tell Matt, welcome back, though that was the call to action for episode 36. So I'm one late. That's just how it is.
00:11:09
Speaker
Also, Matt made a joke about Ariana Venti and then backed off saying that the joke didn't make a lot of sense since it implied people get bigger as they get older. People do get bigger as they get older.
00:11:21
Speaker
It's why children's clothes are smaller than adult clothes. Stick to your guns, Matt, is my point. to a point and then but no but okay yeah He goes on, he says, i won't correct Pat about his use of the word reminiscent, which he made up to refer to Storm's pulling herself together being reminiscent of how Dr. Manhattan would do it a few years later.
00:11:44
Speaker
But I feel I need to question Matt's use of omnipotent to refer to himself as all-knowing and thus able to declare Pat's use of the word reminiscent as acceptable. Not saying he's right or wrong because if he's omnipotent, it logically means he can decide what- I meant omniscient. I meant omniscient.
00:12:02
Speaker
But- If I was omnipotent, I'd shut email Michael's big fat mouth. Also, i also i'm not sure if I should tell Matt that Pat was right about binary destroying the soul which transfers its consciousness into the infant which Storm had bonded with because Pat said I should and Matt said not to. But if Matt's omnipotent, then sorry, Pat, it's in my best interest to do what Matt says.
00:12:28
Speaker
These... Email Michael emails are like, they're like, they're like Celtic knots. They tie themselves up in every direction. They do, but it's still, yeah, it comes out the beautiful a beautiful piece of art. Yeah.
00:12:45
Speaker
Uh, personally, I'm not a huge fan of these intergalactic stories, but it would take an email twice this long to explain why i have a feeling there were only going to be more of them as time goes by though, due to villain creep and so on.
00:12:56
Speaker
The scale has to keep getting bigger, whether I like it or not. So it goes missing the days when the X-Men just beat up the blob and went home. Email Michael.
00:13:07
Speaker
Very good stuff. Thank you.
X-Men Activities and Ballet Experience
00:13:09
Speaker
Email Michael. We have exactly one more from Mikey two nails. Okay. Mikey Two Males says, Hi, Pat. Tell Matt that since you all like to follow the format, here is Mikey Two Males' official entry for the recap podcast episode co-host potential.
00:13:26
Speaker
So... Mikey Tumales has thrown his name in for our story so far fan contest before, but he didn't follow the rules. So this is him just resubmitting it with the rule.
00:13:41
Speaker
Thank you, Mikey. Should we say, because i think it I think it comes up either next or an episode after this, we we already did our drawing for the...
00:13:54
Speaker
listener who will help us recap in our story so far bonus episode and it's a listener best friend best friend christy everybody else who wrote in your names are still in the hat when we get like 15 20 more episodes in we'll do another story so far bonus and we'll we'll we'll we'll pull from you guys and anyone else who submits along the way We do ah periodic episodes, Andre, just to make sure that we can remind ourselves what happened in the last hundred or so issues of X-Men.
00:14:30
Speaker
Heck yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, is that the of Pat's email corner? It should be, but I haven't heard the song yet.
00:14:42
Speaker
All right, folks, that's the end of Pat's email corner. No edits. thanks for Thanks for sticking with us, Matt. What the heck are we talking about today? Before that, Pat. Oh, did again.
00:14:58
Speaker
i gotta ask. Actually, I'm going to i'm go ask our guest first. Andre, I gotta ask. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? I absolutely did. My older brother and sister-in-law, they gave birth to um another niece of ours. Whoa. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. For real. Appreciate that. So just like Professor X, my wife and I got to watch my our niece and nephew. So we got to kind of corral a little bit. you know we're looking for the well-being of the next generation we're making sure that we're having some discipline trying to be well balanced so i'll say i was in my professor x bag a little bit this weekend excellent congratulations that's got to feel awesome thank you and thank you for real patrick yes i can't believe i get to ask this twice in a row patrick did do you do anything x-men related this week
00:15:56
Speaker
Did I do anything X-Men related this week? I guess I also hung out with some children. um i was It was not with the purpose of teaching them or enriching their lives, though. I really just let them punch me a lot so You really got to stop doing that. You really got to stop finding children in wrestling. No, they're children that I knew. it's not They're not like strangers. but Oh, okay. Well... I think also a little bit ah in my Charles x Xavier bag, but in the in the militant sense.
00:16:31
Speaker
Because you're training them to fight. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's go. Matt. What? Did you do anything X-Men related this week? This is so unexpected.
00:16:41
Speaker
um You know, i did. Actually, do you remember that time Stevie Hunter and Aurora Monroe went to the ballet together? And I think they got attacked by.
00:16:55
Speaker
oh arcade didn't miss lock. Yes, you're absolutely right. That was when arcade got. Yeah. So I went to the i I went to the ballet this weekend. Whoa. Oh, I went to see. I went to see the ballet. I went to see ballet X in um in Bryn Mawr, PA.
00:17:13
Speaker
And it was. Fucking intense. Yeah, there's four ballets and they they I guess ballet X is like they do sort of, I guess, more experiment, like shows that people are trying out to so before they go to like the big time or whatever. um And so the first one was just like about the first one X-Men related was about the evolution of man.
00:17:39
Speaker
o And then let's go. The second one was like they were like recreating the images, images of insects and insect parts as seen through a microscope.
00:17:53
Speaker
So it's like, whoa. the first thing was like this thing that was like a really story based. And the second one was just like them creating images on stage. ah And then there was like a, there's one that the person I went with was like, ah, this was the crowd pleaser because it was just like,
00:18:10
Speaker
It took place in like a 1950s dance hall setting. and it was just people dancing with each other and just like about the the the men and the women pairing off and stuff. And then snap ballet the last one was about grief. And God, I didn't expect this.
00:18:27
Speaker
It was so intense. I had to like keep like grounding myself. I had to keep like putting my hands on the seat and like looking away from the stage and like putting my feet flat on the floor. I was like, I'm going to have a panic attack. This is so intense.
00:18:43
Speaker
Wow. Huh. It was just... And there's no words, no singing. This is just through movement, right? It's movement, storytelling. And movement and music. And yeah, i like, man, I had never been to a ballet before. never knew I would be interested in a ballet. And somebody invited me to the ballet. And I went to the ballet. And I was like, that was such...
00:19:07
Speaker
moved i was moved i cried at the end shout out well deserved ballet you're in class um so that's my thing this week is like aurora monroe and stevie hunter i went to the ballet but unlike them i didn't get Attacked by a weird woman. say yes in An assassin. An assassin. Assassin's assistant. The assistant to a little boy assassin.
00:19:39
Speaker
Assassin's assistant. Assassin's assistant. Assistants. That's pretty good. All right. Well. ah Back to my earlier question, Matt. Yeah.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah. i knew you asked me something. I completely ignored it because. I had other things in my mind. Because i he was against the rules. i ah What are we talking about today?
'God Loves, Man Kills' Themes and Context
00:20:02
Speaker
Well, today, with our good friend Andre, we are talking about the legendary Marvel graphic novel. Graphic novel number five. Everyone's favorite. Graphic novel number five. All right.
00:20:16
Speaker
You know it. You know It's called God Loves Main Kills. Ooh. It was... We should just do the credits up top, right? Because it's just one long story that we've broken down into several recaps. So it's by Christopher Claremont and Brent Eric Anderson, lettered by Tom Orsikowski, colored by Steve Oliff, edited by Louise Jones, associate editor Danny Fingeroth, editor-in-chief, dumb stupid, and release date...
00:20:45
Speaker
Was November 30th, 1982, and cover date was January 1983. So this was, we talked about this a little bit before the, Marvel had just launched, they'd seen the success of artistic ah comic books in Europe.
00:21:03
Speaker
And they were like, hey, we want to do that. but Which is how, Jim Shooter ran the entire operation at the time. Just, hey, I want to do that too.
00:21:15
Speaker
i could make money with that. So yeah, they started this graphic novel line that was supposed to be a little more like artistic, a little more creator-forward types of books.
00:21:27
Speaker
And this was yeah this was the fifth one, God Loves Man Kills. it you know In fact, this was an X-Men story that wasn't even in continuity until the early two thousand s Right. This is technically out of canon, right?
00:21:41
Speaker
and Or not anymore. but Not anymore, time kind of interesting but at the time it was. yeah So I don't know. It doesn't fit neatly into the timeline of what we've been reading so far, but this is where it was released. ah What do you guys know about God Loves Man Kills?
00:22:00
Speaker
I mean, one of my observations is it's super reminiscent thematically, as we've seen. Like, if you think about, I mean, i grew up early 2000s, and I remember seeing some of the 700 Club, if you will, if those are familiar with that, when you see certain...
00:22:18
Speaker
televangelists. And I mean, even though we don't necessarily have some of that now, I still do think that there's a lot of things that are in connection. But anyway, yeah overall, just saying, I'd say I'd say televangelism, huge, as well as just trying to mirror some of those elements that were pressing during the 80s. That's one of the things I'll point out.
00:22:38
Speaker
You know, yeah, Andre, we hadn't. We should have had this conversation at the beginning. What is your entrance into the X-Men? Like, how did you get into X-Men as a kid? I freaking love this. I love this question. Okay, so again...
00:22:55
Speaker
grew grew up in the 2000s, born 1998. I just gave that context to say that, you know, 90s baby, 2000s kid, very proudly. love that. And I actually had the VHS because my wife and I started it collecting again, but X-Men Evolution was my entry point. And I would say For sure. And like as a kid, I remember like that was how I got into skateboarding because of that was i mean Wolverine had his orange suit you know for better or for worse. I think i think it was cool. yeah like i
00:23:28
Speaker
yeah so X-Men Evolution totally was my intro to X-Men. And then that was like during the time where we had the original X-Men movies that were happening as well. So of course, I would watch X2 and... all those as well and i'll just be fascinated like in the third movie when angel was in the bat do you remember that like angel was in the bathroom in the very beginning of the movie and he was like trying to cut his wings off grotesque but i like but but i remember as like a kid being so just captivated like it just felt so different you know yeah like yeah so that not that's my intro to x-men
00:24:04
Speaker
that's That's awesome. I don't know that I've met anybody, and because I'm old. I don't know that I've met anybody that got into, like my generation, yeah ninety s kids born in the 80s, we all got into the X-Men via the Fox animated cartoon. X-Men 92, as they would call it now. Now it's called X-Men 92, yeah. Oh, right, right, um right. But so...
00:24:31
Speaker
X-Men Evolution is what got you into it. That's so interesting. Was it when you started reading the comics, did you feel... Was the vibe different? Or did you feel like you just sunk right in?
00:24:45
Speaker
Partially. I mean, it kind of depends on and the reading. And i still I'd still say that some of my X-Men arm is atrophied. Like, i I'm really excited to eventually kind of get into... some of the more famous like 2000s runs. And it's awesome that you guys are going from the beginning, but I would say dynamically,
00:25:04
Speaker
It's like when you look back at some of those comics in the 80s, you're kind of like, these are teenagers, but they look like, you know, how teenagers looked in Greece. You're like, you yeah you are not, you know, yeah you are on your like third or fourth career, which is awesome. stable But you don't look like a teenager.
X-Men Evolution's Influence and Comic Comparisons
00:25:22
Speaker
You know i mean? So yeah I'd say X and Evolution thirty two was such a good Right, right. Like X-Men Evolution was like, they are teens and it just you could feel it. And then Wolverine, he's like this more hardened vet, you know, like he just had that dynamic with that. So I'd say the comics felt a little bit different, but familiar enough in terms of more serious themes and the way that they kind of get along.
00:25:48
Speaker
Well, I'll say at that a a little after that was the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon, right? And then yeah Jason Aaron wrote a book called Wolverine and the X-Men that ah I love. i I know it's a little controversial with X-Men fans. I fucking love that book. And it has that same vibe that like Wolverine is the yeah head teacher. He's the elder statesman. And then there's all these punk kids running around and the, and the, Other X-Men that we knew and loved were are just like teachers in the school. Right. Yeah.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah. And I, yeah yeah, I think there's something really cool. I think Wolverine fits that role really well. Yes, facts. Pat, did you ah watch X-Men Evolution?
00:26:32
Speaker
Yes, it was actually a prime college-age stoner cartoon material for me. so Yeah, let's go. I watched a lot of X-Men Evolution. That's the one that has Goth Rogue, right? And she's part of the Brotherhood? Yeah, yeah, yeah. yes Yeah, yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, no, ah yeah. she I mean, she has her just the very 2000s like how she was in Kim Possible it's like yeah hot topic just total to total 2000s total 2000s she kind of like bridged the gap between what rogue looks like in the comics and what um one and a the Anna Paquin rogue right ah like is that that's the sort of look they were going for I think and interesting ah yeah I mean i see it ah um anyway ah that's interesting let us know what you think mutant menace pod at gmail.com does an X-Men Evolution Rogue look like Anna Paquin write us write it yeah we need to know
00:27:36
Speaker
Also, actually, would that would be an interesting email. ah Not that. ah But how like how did our listeners all get into X-Men? like What was their gateway?
00:27:47
Speaker
There's a legitimate call to action. Yeah, yeah. yeah Anyway, Pat, what do you know about God Loves Man Kills? i i Pretend you didn't just read it. I hadn't actually read it before now. So I knew some of the iconic panels. I knew about ah Kitty's use of a racial slur. I knew what about the comparisons to like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Um, Yeah, that was about it. Like, i i remember, what was it, maybe the 25th or 30th anniversary? must have been 35th, right? It was like 2016, 2017. It was the golden age of the think piece. And everybody wanted to take on God Loves, Man Kills because of the comparisons to Trump during his first term.
00:28:39
Speaker
Right. And the striking similarities between the appearance of William Stryker and then Vice President Mike Pence. yeah He looks just like Ali. Yeah. I read an article where somebody or I read an interview where somebody asked Brent Anderson what he thinks about the way they both look similar. And he said, i think someone should ask Mike Pence that question.
00:29:03
Speaker
Oh my God. How good would that have been? That's pretty good. is Somebody on like, it's like a town hall would have asked Mike Pence why why he looks so much like Reverend Stryker.
00:29:16
Speaker
Well, it'd be crazy if he knew. Imagine he and like he knew the answer. you're like, oh, I'm actually kind of impressed that you would like know who that is, actually. If your politics weren't so bad, I would want to vote for you now. you Right, right.
00:29:30
Speaker
What I was kind of surprised to pick up as I actually read through this was yes a lot of that iconic imagery is from the beginning or the end of this graphic novel.
00:29:41
Speaker
Right. There's not a lot from the beginning that I was like, oh, yeah, this image, with the exception of, I think, Professor Xavier being crucified. But we'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the most iconic image from all of God Loves, Man Kills is in like what the last three pages or something.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Did you guys know Brent Anderson wasn't the original artist for this book? It was supposed to be. I didn't know that. It was supposed to be Neil Adams.
00:30:09
Speaker
Holy cow. Yeah. It is very Neil Adams esque. Right. There are some pages. It doesn't really look like God loves man kills when you look at Neil Adams's pages because it's on Tom Braver's blog.
00:30:27
Speaker
Guys, check. Yeah, check this out. I just put I just dropped it in the chat. And these are pencils from Neil Adams. Yes. Version. And it's a it's a magnetophyte.
00:30:39
Speaker
Dang, man. Well, Magneto's this the movement. Yeah. And it looks like like it opened. it looks like, yeah, with Magneto fighting what I guess were the purifiers and losing.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And then it cuts to the X-Men in the danger room and Warren Worthington is there. Yeah. I do love this interpretation of the professor calling them psychically with the the X-Men sort of like echoing out.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's sick. What do you... think yeah So it doesn't open with the the lynching, right? So that, to me, robs it of a lot, to be honest. like that The opening to this book is so...
00:31:35
Speaker
it It hits you in the fucking gut. Whereas opening a book with just a fight with Magneto where Magneto loses, you'd be like, oh, okay. Interesting. Not like,
00:31:47
Speaker
not like, yeah holy shit. What is this? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. And you lose you lose that impact of I mean, we'll get into it, but Magneto dynamically in the story, like you almost lose the opportunity of him entering in and you being like, oh, like, I actually kind of yeah hear I
Mutant Metaphor and Real-World Discrimination
00:32:08
Speaker
hear what he said. You know, like yeah yeah, this element. This guy's got a real perspective, which is something this book definitely did.
00:32:16
Speaker
Is there a given reason for why Neil Adams didn't end up being the artist? It seems though Neil still wasn't absolutely happy with the terms or deal of the project.
00:32:27
Speaker
and wanted certain provisions amended or changed. After a bit of time negotiating with Neil and his lawyer, Marvel, wanting the project to come out, simply decided to go in another direction. So it is basically a business thing where- They were tired of negotiating. Neil Adams probably asked for a reasonable sum of money, and Marvel was like, what? You're an artist! Which is was their a fucking attitude at the time.
00:32:52
Speaker
Well, it's it's just it's interesting. It's interesting. It's interesting. Brent Anderson is not somebody of acclaim at this time like Neil Adams is. Like, Brent Anderson doesn't really... you Nothing against him. he's He's a solid artist, but he doesn't rise to the ranks of, like, some of the artists that we revere on the X-Men. And also, once he comes on, it looks like the...
00:33:19
Speaker
themes of the story change pretty drastically right is it makes you wonder how much of this is Brent Anderson how much of this is Chris Claremont and sort of if the the influence on where the story goes played any part in those negotiations too right what if what if Neil Adams was like what if he was what one of these people who's like you know Comics isn't a good place to talk about politics, which doesn't seem like Neil Adams, but like, who knows? Maybe this specific topic rubbed up against him in ah in a way that and just thing that makes yeah Neil Adams suck a little more than we thought.
00:33:59
Speaker
I'm not accusing him of this. We could also, he very he wear very well could have just been like, Chris, I think you're taking this way too seriously. These are superheroes. Which is a legitimate criticism that some people, especially like some race studies scholars have about the X-Men is like too much comparison to real world stuff.
00:34:26
Speaker
When you're talking about people with superpowers loses some of its impact. I'm not sure I subscribed. it i don't know. What do you guys think about that? Just like, I mean, like, I'm not gonna.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, like, I, I, the way that I see it is, is that it's a it's a vehicle, again. So it's like, yeah we we were talking before this about mouse. So of course, anthropomorphizing the Holocaust on paper to some people were like, well, how dare you, you know, anthropomorphize the most despicable, you know, acts that but the genocidal thing that happened.
00:35:03
Speaker
But the way, first off, it's like this is an account, a first or a secondhand account of a man who had his parents who lived through it. But then we have this information that can reach our minds in ways that I can give it to my niece when she get turns like 11 or 12 for her to be like, hey, like this is a way that I can actually...
00:35:23
Speaker
see something horrific and not just make it kitty, but make it in a way of trying to have this imaginative sense to, to teach a little bit more compassion, teach a little bit more understanding. So for me personally, that's why I love comic books is because like, yes, I want to escape. Like I enjoy so many that are just nonsensical, but I'm not offended when politics or all these things enter, because if you're able to just navigate life and be like, Oh, like,
00:35:53
Speaker
whatever. i don't, I don't have to pay attention to anything. And it is what it is. Like, that's, that's a privilege, you know, like yeah it exists yeah and yeah we interact with it. So anyway, that's, that's what I'll say. That's what I'll say. i I, I, I agree with that. I mean, we've had a lot of discussions on this where I think I still land in the same place where like, yeah this isn't, this isn't theory. You don't need to sit down and like,
00:36:21
Speaker
Clearly, Chris Claremont knows a thing or two about genocide and and how those movements come to be. ah He's done his research there. So that's what makes the metaphor so strong in this graphic novel. But it's also...
00:36:37
Speaker
It's written to sort of to what you're saying, Andre. It's written in a way where if I read it as a child, I have a basic understanding of bigotry and where the problems lie with that. If I read it as a teenager, I'm understanding some of those deeper themes now that I'm taking in some of the world's news and reading it as 40 year old man. Yeah.
00:36:59
Speaker
I've seen this happen. i saw it happen in the aughts. I saw it happen in the teens. We're seeing it happen again. Like you start to understand the experience and, and,
00:37:10
Speaker
you're able to apply that metaphor a lot easier. I'm finding to, uh, yeah, to real life. Well, yeah, I think that's a really, ah you guys both make incredibly good points. And I think that is, and Pat, something you said struck me when you said it's, this isn't theory. So I think,
00:37:31
Speaker
Like you guys are saying, this is something that even even kids can sort of get this. So I think the the biggest argument against the mutant metaphor, right, is um people of color, ah gay people, trans people – the they don't have superpowers, right? yeah They are literally just the exact same 100% as the people who hate them, right? Whereas in the X-Men, there is a legitimate difference and they have this sort of inbuilt defense mechanism that, you know, the people in the real world facing, say, like racial discrimination don't have. And I think if you're seven
00:38:16
Speaker
That's not going to occur to you. It's just going to maybe even give you hope that the hate in the world can be fought against somehow. Right. And if you're a teen, it's just, again, like you're saying, Pat, it's going to give you some insight into things that you see developing around you.
00:38:35
Speaker
And if you're old and educated enough, you're To know the flaws in it. Well then you're already done. You don't need this. right like You can just use as it as entertainment. Because if you already know. That there's a flaw in the metaphor. Then you are well aware. Of discrimination politics. And you don't need. God loves man kills anymore. You can just read it as a piece of entertainment. At that point.
00:39:02
Speaker
You're just going to start sounding like Reverend William Stryker. Yeah. so So that's ah interesting. Yeah. I mean, i'd I'd heard those arguments before, but I'd never thought of it in terms of like there are different levels. And once you hit a level in which you can argue with it, then it's already made its impact almost.
00:39:25
Speaker
Anyway,
Heavy Themes of Lynching and Social Climate
00:39:26
Speaker
yeah. We don't usually dig this deep before we get into the actual story. But ah like we said up top, this is a heavy one. And there are a lot of themes here that crazy yeah we're going to be dealing with. So, yeah.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I thought it would be a nice thing to talk about it before we start getting into the heaviness of it. So listeners, number one, know what they're in for. And number two, where we stand.
00:39:55
Speaker
I don't think anyone thought we were going to come down on the side of Reverend Stryker, but yeah it's nice to set up a baseline for ah for the discussion before we just immediately get into.
00:40:08
Speaker
Like the graphic novel does something incredibly, incredibly heavy. So I'm going to jump into God Loves Man Kills by Chris Claremont Brent Anderson.
00:40:22
Speaker
We open on Westport Elementary School in Connecticut at dead of night. Two children, 11-year-old Mark and his 9-year-old sister Jill, flee from an unknown threat through the playground until, suddenly, Mark is shot in the back.
00:40:37
Speaker
Jesus. There's such... is Sorry to interrupt you immediately here, Matt, but... Jill, the little girl, while they're running says, can't we stop and rest? Like it's it's one line, it's very small, but she's kind of, she's tired of running and her brother has to be like, no, they are right behind us. They will kill us if they catch us. yeah i She is too young to understand the gravity of the situation. Like she's just...
00:41:07
Speaker
ah the ah simple illustration this one line just showing like hey this is a person that isn't capable of grasping any of this that's how young yeah sorry keep going yeah yeah no that's good so mark is shot in the back he tells his sister to keep running but she refuses and clings to him as their pursuers close in on them Four white adults who identify themselves as the purifiers are dressed in tactical gear and backlit by the moon as the leader pulls out her handgun and aims it at the cowering black children in front of her.
00:41:44
Speaker
I mentioned that race, the races, only so that metaphor can really, because they there's a metaphor that they want to hit you in the teeth here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
Us just reading it and leaving those details out isn't going to communicate that metaphor fully. So, right. When the woman gloats about killing their parents, Mark's eyes begin to crackle with energy, quickly snuffed out by a single bullet.
00:42:10
Speaker
Jill looks down at the blood on her hands and asks, why? Before one more shot rings out. Because you have no right to live. The woman answers the child's corpse. Real quick, I remember when i first read that earlier in the year. yeah That is the, again, it's like, yeah, what what are these, like, lines, you know? Like, what are these lines that really yeah reach out? And something like that. because Because you have no right to live. Says who Yeah, yeah. so's like Yeah, because, who you know, this is just the opening of the story, whoever these purifiers, whoever these people are.
00:42:45
Speaker
But already we see that their act of violence is now not just a thing that they're doing, but that there's like a moral superiority. They're saying because you you have no right to live that. It's just it's just stark. Like, it's just such a.
00:43:01
Speaker
such a wild one and just gives a severity of what we're about to get into. It's just like in an ideology of like, there is something about you that is different than what I believe I am.
00:43:14
Speaker
And i have a right to be here because of what I am. You don't because of what you are just like, Oh God, it's so rough.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker
hoof All right. Speaking of rough, the bodies of Mark and Jill hang from a swing set tangled up under the shoulders and chains. The swings themselves strapped across their chests with the word mutie painted on the undersides.
00:43:45
Speaker
Before dawn, Before the children of Westport can find the bodies of their friends and neighbors, the swing set suddenly begins to pull apart. Rearranged into a funeral beer, a figure gently lowers the children's bodies through midair onto it.
00:44:02
Speaker
Magneto speaks the words in execution into the still of night. He gently closes the children's eyes and picks up the swing seat. Ashamed at himself for not being able to save the children, his grief turns to anger as Magneto crushes the swing in his fist.
00:44:19
Speaker
That's a fucking powerful fist, you guys. Swings. Yeah. Yeah, I'm saying. Yeah. I know. Just like thick ass rubber. Okay. Anyway, right ah he crushes the swing in his fist and swears vengeance.
00:44:36
Speaker
This is not to get ah even darker in this moment, but this is especially relevant at the time. this comes out at the end of 1982. The last reported lynching in the United States, because they just stopped calling them lynchings at some point, but the last light public ah was in 1981.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah. People would... People reading... Yes, you're right. um Yeah, the lynching of Michael Donald. And it was... um I mean, just like in he in this, it was it was somebody picked at random. It was by the Klan, and they were angry about somebody else getting a retrial for murder. Not even getting off for mydo murder. Just getting a mistrial and getting getting a retrial. And they just picked a random kid off the street. And were like, you.
00:45:33
Speaker
um but that would have been in people's minds at this moment. Yeah, yeah. And like after that, well, before that, way back in like 1922, they've been trying to pass anti-lynching legislation. do you guys know when it finally passed? When we finally made a specific law against lynching in the U.S.?
00:45:55
Speaker
It was fairly recent, right? mean, I'm guessing much, much later, unfortunately. Like what would that have been like was, say... I mean, sometime in the 80s. Would that have been like or was it earlier than that? You'd think you'd think it's fucking 2022. Joe Biden signed it into law. um It was literally 100 years later. Yeah. And, you know, and they were still making the same arguments. Rand Paul still made the same arguments in 2020 when the when he held the bill as they were making way back then. Like, well,
00:46:27
Speaker
what What if the person doesn't die and they just get a little hurt? What, we're going to send somebody to jail for 10 years? That's crazy. Crazy. Rand Paul ah said, this could result in a new 10-year penalty leaf for minor bruising.
00:46:42
Speaker
Fucking, okay, sorry. It makes me so angry. No, no, no. Well, that's why these stories are, again, important. And that's why the portrayal is important and understanding these contexts because you see even pictures during civil rights movements and like looking at studies in terms of being like, how do people perceive these events because they're in black and white versus in color, even if you have side by side the same year? so right no, it's super pressing, super pressing. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:16
Speaker
Moving forward, in New York City, a giant tower called the Stryker Building juts into the sky, home of the worldwide evangelical mission, the Stryker Crusade. Their kindly-looking, white-haired patrician, Reverend Stryker, is pouring over a Bible so wrapped up in writing the week's sermon that he works straight through dinner.
00:47:37
Speaker
Along with his food, his assistant brings him up some briefing tapes on the X-Men, Cyclops can fire optic blasts. Storm can manipulate weather. Wolverine has an adamantium skeleton and claws, plus the ability to heal rapidly. Colossus can turn his body into organic steel, whatever that is. Ariel can phase through walls, and Nightcrawler can cling to walls and teleport.
00:48:01
Speaker
These six mutants are a team founded by telepath Professor Charles x Xavier, who runs a school full of yet more mutants. Bess interrupts to ready Reverend Stryker for his appearance on ABC tonight, and he tells her that hopefully the X-Men won't be around much longer.
00:48:19
Speaker
So at the time, this was non-canonical, as y'all pointed out. So I just have a quick question, though. yeah So based off of, like, the issues that you were reading, at what point was it that Kitty went from, you know, Ariel? And, like, I know her name yeah a couple different times. She had the nickname. So, like, what did y'all think about that, too? That she was Ariel in this book? Yeah.
00:48:44
Speaker
Unbelievable. I was so what upset. So... She goes by you so many names in the history of the X-Men, right? yeah And so far, we've only seen one codename, which is Sprite, which was suggested when she first joined the X-Men. It was terrible at the time. There was only one worse suggestion on the table, and it was Ariel.
00:49:13
Speaker
The Little Mermaid. This is pre Little Mermaid. This is, that doesn't exist yet. This is just. That's crazy. i as you worried Maybe there's a figure that it's actually based on, but. I i do not know what what Ariel, like where that name comes from.
00:49:33
Speaker
i also want to say, so the quote. Yes. Ariel is the sprite from the Tempest.
00:49:44
Speaker
Oh, okay. So she's just, I don't know. They're still going with the sprightly theme. Yeah. You're just naming her after a specific one. So there's something interesting here about the scripture that striker reads.
00:50:01
Speaker
He reads from ah ah Deuteronomy. He reads Deuteronomy 17, through five. And he He leaves out some interesting parts. So sorry, guys, I'm going to read the Bible loud. I apologize for this. but um He said, so if there is found among you in one of your towns that the Lord, your God is giving you a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord, your God and transgresses his covenant by going to serve other gods and worshiping them, whether the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden.
00:50:40
Speaker
And if it is reported to you and you hear or you hear of it, And this is where Stryker jumps forward and skips this next part. This is the part he leaves out.
00:50:53
Speaker
And you make a thorough inquiry and the charges proved true that such an abhorrent thing has occurred in Israel. And then he starts again. Then you shall bring out to your gates that man or that woman who has committed this crime and you shall stone the man or woman to death. Now, this is...
00:51:15
Speaker
a scene in the Bible where they are setting laws for like the state of Israel or whatever. And yeah the,
00:51:27
Speaker
most operative part of that. Like already earlier in the Bible, I believe I've, I've never read the Bible but fully. I tried once. I got like, I got halfway through Exodus and i was like, oh man, you got to the baguettes. But I, I passed the baguettes.
00:51:46
Speaker
So, The idea that it was illegal to worship other gods was like already set.
Kitty Pryde's Confrontation and Cultural References
00:51:53
Speaker
This is saying the the point of this passage is, but don't do it without like a fair trial and hearing all the evidence.
00:52:01
Speaker
And that's the part Stryker leaves out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. it's Yeah. waste like Which is so pressing. Yeah. That it's that is a great detail because, again, it's like no matter where people land or don't land, it's like being like, do I give a good faith account to either what I disagree with or what I agree with? Yeah. And then giving some time to be like, what do I actually understand about what I'm reading? Is it propagating something or is it just talking about ah a theme or whatever is happening?
00:52:34
Speaker
And what are are we seeing that's happening currently? What are we seeing in terms of why people end up saying that this is how immigration should work? Again, I'm not – I think it's inescapable. And once again, you can agree, disagree. like That's fine.
00:52:49
Speaker
But I think it's like you have these things about – about immigration, about othering people. My wife and I say this all the time. It's like it's so easy for people just to other others. You know mean? And just be like, well, they're the enemy.
00:53:03
Speaker
That's the fear. They're coming in. They're taking our – it's like this rhetoric, and that's what Stryker leans into. But that's that to me is like, okay, like this is showing – to me, if I'm taking this seriously, that you have a weak reading, you know? I'm not saying you two. I'm saying Stryker. Yeah, of course. Stryker or some of these, you know what i mean? Like you have a weak reading because like you're isogeating these things. and you You know, like it's just, it gets me riled up because again, it's like, are you doing these things in good faith? but You know what I right so and i mean? Absolutely, yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
In scripture itself, like that is the, ah that's the actual sign that you're dealing with evil is if they are using the scripture to justify unholy things. It's true.
00:53:54
Speaker
um I mean, i I mean, this dude, I'm also I'm not a religious guy, but this dude is breaking fucking is sinning all over this goddamn thing. He's kidnapping people. He's murdering people. He's coveting shit. He's idolatry. and he He makes a man worship him in this book.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Let him know. Let him know. He's like, let him know. Yeah. Anyway. Small detail here, matt you and I were debating before whether Stryker is supposed to be ah visually based on Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell because he could go either way. Turns out they all look the same.
00:54:33
Speaker
He's actually based on Ronald Reagan's first secretary of state, Alexander Haig.
00:54:41
Speaker
alex Okay. Alexander Haig. Here's me typing in Alexander. Oh, J. I. G. Okay. I mean, in his in one of the pictures that I'm getting off Wikipedia, I'm i'm getting a striker esque Alexander Haig for sure. Oh, yeah. He's got those real harsh eyebrows like striker. Damn.
00:55:04
Speaker
Damn.
00:55:07
Speaker
Damn. Meat. Meat. All right. Andre, do you want to read? us ah Tell us about chapter one.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Chapter one. Finally through the prologue. Yeah. We're going. It's a serious one. Serious. In Salem Center, all seems quiet outside Stevie Hunter's dance studio until suddenly Kitty Pryde bursts through the door, kicking the absolute shit out of a boy named Danny and demanding he take back something he said.
00:55:42
Speaker
Ileana tries to pull her off to no avail, but when Peter Rasputin appears around the corner, she's distracted enough for Danny to get in a good sucker punch to the face. The Rasputins try to hold the children apart, while Kitty gets so angry that she starts phasing through Ileana's grasp.
00:55:59
Speaker
Luckily, at that moment, Stevie Hunter appears through her broken front door. Danny claims Kitty struck her first, when all he was doing was explaining that he and his family belonged to the Striker Crusade.
00:56:11
Speaker
Apparently, Reverend Stryker is going to save all the world from the godless muties and whatever happens to them. They deserve. He challenges Kitty again, but Peter stands between them demanding the boy let the matter drop. Danny backs down, but Kitty is incensed.
00:56:27
Speaker
He and Stevie try to remind Kitty that she's a trained martial artist and she could have done serious damage to the boy no matter what he said. And besides, says Stevie, his hate speech was only words. Kitty lunges towards Stevie, comparing the word mutie to the N word and asks her if she'd been so calm if he had said that instead. Wow. What a moment. Kitty, come on, man.
00:56:54
Speaker
There have been she can't run for president anytime soon. yeah i I think there have been countless analyzations of this scene, right? If you really want to dig into it, it's worth ah reading up on how people feel about this interaction. i think the important thing to note here is that We shouldn't compare struggles. Like, that's the the simple truth of it. This is sort of a ah This is clearly an attempt to say... yeah to set the stakes in the world, right? ah To say, ah hey right now, the word
00:57:36
Speaker
is for all intents and purposes, a racial slur. So it's, it's not, I don't think it's meant to make any sort of political statement as much as it's just meant to help us understand sort of the pain behind that word. But at the same time, uh, no, it's not, it's not like that. it's It's very, very different centuries of oppression based around the N word.
00:58:06
Speaker
And, uh, So again, muting, they just invented to like today. best practice You don't need to compare struggles. They're all they're all struggles. Yeah, no, no, that that's good. And it also just I mean, i part of it to me was also maybe showing her adolescence to honestly, like part of maybe the growth and like and like just her being young it's like as a teenager you're gonna maybe outlash or you outburst and you're gonna say things whatever like whether you can understand it or not but part of me was also just seeing like okay interesting and like how do i think about this like like you were talking about pat and i was like yeah i'm seeing a a more younger kitty here you know yeah yeah that's a great point
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That we don't have to look at her as as the authority on these matters. She's just a kid trying to grapple with it. And like you guys were saying earlier, this would speak strongly to a kid.
00:59:07
Speaker
If I was a kid reading this, I wouldn't understand what's problematic about that. I would understand. Hey, yeah i would understand the basics of like, oh, yeah, both of those things are wrong.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's what they're trying to... Right. i think the stronger metaphor here is just the expectation that and this is this is extremely relevant the idea that Your neighbor or your classmate can just belong to a genocidal organization, like a cause that wants to eliminate. And even if you belong to the persecuted group, the expectation is that you sit there and listen to them, that you let them say their piece.
00:59:52
Speaker
i And that it's like it's rude to argue with them and it is violence to fight against it. And then got Kitty, who's Kitty and a badass, and it beats the hell out of the kid. yeah And that prominence, this is where that Star of David necklace
X-Men Strategies and Magneto's Debut
01:00:12
Speaker
is prominent. And it yeah it's really driving home, again, like you're saying, Pat, and don't compare struggles, but it's still driving home this theme of like, it's reminding you when this sort of rhetoric goes too far, where does it end up?
01:00:31
Speaker
Yeah. And also that this is what we pre, I mean, before being shepherded into ghettos or or into concentration camps, this is just what Jewish people in Nazi Germany had to deal with. They, their neighbors exclaimed Jews as being the ultimate evil in the world, the to cause, the, the antichrist. And they were powerless to, to even speak against it.
01:00:59
Speaker
yeah so yeah he's Yeah, he's not shying away from ah telling you what he's trying to say. No, no, not at all. And it's like last thing on that. It's as well. He was saying that it's my folks and I, you know, my folks and I, what's wrong that we belong to this. And I think that's very pressing about it starts with yeah the home function. You know, oh, my parents voted this way, you know. Oh, my parents did this and this is what this is what I think. So I think that's common sense is that it's right.
01:01:30
Speaker
Right. This is just all I know. Right. Right. God damn. thing
01:01:35
Speaker
So Kitty runs off and Stevie tells the rest audience to go after her and make sure she's safe. Peter tries to tell Stevie that she didn't mean what she said, but can't finish the words.
01:01:46
Speaker
Stevie alone sheds a tear, balls her fist and Kitty was right. She thinks. Across the street, two men watch Stevie Hunter walk back into her studio. One wants to kill her for treating mutie scum like human beings, but the other reminds him that they're just here on surveillance at the moment.
01:02:04
Speaker
Plus, once the mutants are dead, they'll be able to deal with the traitors like Stevie. They report back to base on the mutants' whereabouts, and the operation Headhunter can proceed as scheduled.
01:02:17
Speaker
When the three kids arrive back at the mansion, Kurt Wagner greets them, teleporting onto the hood of their car. Apparently, Professor X's appearance on TV is about to start. Wolverine asks Kitty about her black eye.
01:02:28
Speaker
Scrap or accident? Scrap. Fair fight? I guess so. You win? Nope. How come? Katie downplays the fight and heads upstairs to get changed, phasing through the banister. While Ileana explains the fight to the group. Yeah.
01:02:44
Speaker
What a good interaction. That is like a perfect Wolverine interacting with one of his like the kids that he mentors. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it is fair fight? Yep. Did you win?
01:02:57
Speaker
No. Why? That was so good. Oh, man. And he's not not judging her. Like, if she had said it wasn't a fair fight, he'd be like, all right, I'll go kick his ass. And if she had said, yeah you know, and he's, yeah, he's like not necessarily disappointed in her that he's she's lost. she's He's just like, like.
01:03:19
Speaker
What did we learn? what Exactly. Got it. I fucking love Wolverine. Yeah. So yeah, super blunt. Super blunt. No, I loved it too. Soon they're all gathered in the living room about to watch Nightline on ABC News, which I found interesting that they were able just to use...
01:03:37
Speaker
You know, those ideas. I don't know. Yeah. yeah it was i They're a lot more litigious these days. Yeah. yeah Right. Right. The topic tonight is mutants. present Professor Charles x Xavier is debating Reverend William Stryker. x Xavier opens by defining mutants as individuals who cannot be lumped together in one big group.
01:04:02
Speaker
But Stryker counters that they have each have powers that put the common folk into a vulnerable place. He quotes Senator Robert Kelly's Committee on Mutant Activities, which the increasing mutant population represents a danger to the world. He goes on to debate the use of the word human to describe mutants, citing the genetic term homo superior as a definition of a new species. Imagine, imagine, I mean, actually, this does happen. I was going to say, imagine a TV show where they they just say a type of human. They're like, tonight's topic is this type of human.
01:04:40
Speaker
Pro? Con? And then they do with immigrants. Yeah. Today. Or trans people. Or trans people. Yeah.
01:04:51
Speaker
Yeah. A type of person. are we ah Do we support them? Do we like them? do we Should we kill him? It's so ridiculous. Right. it's it's this it's making It's minimizing people and then yeah making it like topics. And again, if it's politicized, then that's why it's so easy. It's like it's a ballot versus the person's wholeness. right there's no There's no humanity to it. It's a piece of paper.
01:05:19
Speaker
oh Yeah, pressing. when the program is over the x-men all have similar but different opinions kitty is angry can't believe people are buying this peter is baffled night crawler is sad he's been through this before wolverine is concerned believing stryker's rhetoric could strip me of their rights and protections and even lead them to be en rounded up and killed Ileana just wishes that there were some authorities around to reassure them, but Aurora and Scott are in Manhattan with Professor X at the studio.
01:05:53
Speaker
Scott is fully aware of how Stryker had complete control over the public, while x Xavier didn't come off nearly as likable or relatable. He worries about what this will mean as a woman, who looks a lot like the assassin from the prologue, bumps into him, and apologizes.
01:06:10
Speaker
yeah And then makes her way to Stryker who assures her that the three mutants leaving in the studio have no clue of the ambush and waits for them in Central Park. Oh no. Man. So this is interesting. Scott Summers learning how to control media narratives.
01:06:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Coming to play in like 30 years.
01:06:35
Speaker
Actually, I guess it comes into play sooner than that because the X Factor is about to come up. Yeah. We'll talk about this again. Yeah. End of the graphic novel, too. Well, yes. True. Comes up a lot. Fine. But it's still interesting that that this idea of like Scott Summers having this idea of what plays well on camera and how to win over like ah the the public through media yeah which is like...
01:07:00
Speaker
It's set up this early on and then it just like sticks with him through the rest of his. But besides like the weird 90s comics, but after that and before that, like it sticks with him. He like learned something from this.
01:07:15
Speaker
The three things that follow Scott Summers around from writer to writer are spatial geometry. Yeah. Media literacy.
01:07:26
Speaker
Yeah. Calling people mister.
01:07:31
Speaker
Nice. Nice. That's fire. In the Rolls Royce, which that that's clutch. In the Rolls Royce, Xavier tells Scott and Aurora that he notices side screens shielding strikers thoughts behind their car. A van follows Xavier goes on to tell them that striker is not a foe. They can fight physically.
01:07:51
Speaker
They have to beat him with words and ideas. only to be interrupted when a missile hits their car. Yeah. also thegainst gra new Which is crazy. Their car blows rules.
01:08:02
Speaker
It's been with them since 1963. the rules it's been with them since nineteen sixty three roles Well, not Wait till we, i apparently they have a backup, which we find out later in this comic.
01:08:16
Speaker
Thank God. Right. Right. Yeah, that that that's quintessential comic books, man. this things Nothing ever stays dead.
01:08:29
Speaker
Right, right. It rolls over and begins to burn when Cyclops blasts his way out. He's instantly shot, followed by x Xavier and Aurora. Anne smiles in the shadows and says, mission accomplished.
01:08:41
Speaker
As the purifier, as a purifier named Rocco, fires another rocket into the wrecked car and it explodes. Double tap, always. Back at the mansion.
01:08:54
Speaker
Back at the mansion, the X-Men are blowing off steam in the danger room when Ileana gives them specific rules and roles. They solve the scenario by switching tasks with one another and accomplishing it using teamwork. she ah She sets up a fake family of mannequins for them to save, and she names them the Mannequinoth family.
01:09:14
Speaker
Adorable. Oh, that's awesome. That's very good. That's awesome. ah Wolverine, as they mull over their high scores, Wolverine grumps off and Nightcrawler picks up the phone. He hangs it up gravely, telling the others that x Xavier, Scott, and Aurora are dead.
01:09:38
Speaker
No!
01:09:42
Speaker
and then And they are. And we never see x Xavier or Cyclops or Storm ever again. They're dead forever now. It's a whole new X-Men. They had a good run. They had a good run. Good run.
01:09:54
Speaker
A couple of big ideas in this chapter. We talked about the idea of, like, your neighbors being... terrible and you just having to to live with it. i The idea that the leaders of these movements get spots on national television and the fact that it cuts to commercial, they point out that it cuts like this is sponsored. This is sponsored hate speech.
01:10:20
Speaker
Whoa. Which again is extremely relevant today. does The presidential debates have sponsors and whoa you local debates even have sponsors and they're, they're saying just straight up racist stuff.
01:10:34
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah. oh yeah it's it's interesting seeing the paneling too i mean i feel like the action was kind of kind of rushed in some of the things but especially this panel i'm looking at it right now just with with the side beam and with the explosions happening like it's it's beautiful like it is some beautiful coloring especially compared to the beginning of the story when they're in the moonlight and and how dark it is. It's yeah. the The colors just really are prominent throughout this. I think there's some really good paneling, even if the action is a little bit rushed at times.
01:11:14
Speaker
I think. The inks are really doing some heavy work here too. there the It's almost over inked to give everything like a a shadow, sort of a darker tone to it.
01:11:27
Speaker
i And we're just seeing like everybody's eyes rest in shadow. All of your backgrounds are are typically dark. There's also the scene where Nightcrawler picks up the phone and he's got his like jovial Kurt, Kurt Wagner face on. He's like, save your school. Kurt Wagner speaking. May i help you? And then suddenly his face just falls. It's like, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:11:49
Speaker
And then he continues to answer the phone in that way, though. it comes up later. Tragedy after tragedy is just beat it. Hello, Xavier school. Yeah. Kurt, stop answering the phone.
01:12:09
Speaker
All right. i That was a lot. Are we ready to move on to chapter two? Yeah. Good to go. ride The next day, Kitty Pryde is crying by the lakeside.
01:12:23
Speaker
When Ileana comes to comfort her, she throws a brief temper tantrum, but the two hug it out and console each other. They start talking about Kitty's crush on Peter again. of course. When Ileana remembers what she came out here for, she found an electronic sensor module behind a hunting blind in the woods. Oh, just one of those.
01:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. As one does. As one does. Oh, hey, Kitty, I found an electronic sensor module over there. What? you Oh, an electronic sensor module? Yeah. Another one? meant to tell you earlier. ah
01:12:58
Speaker
Kitty phases through it to destroy it, and they hide in the brush to see who comes to fix it. Very clever. Good plan. In Central Park, Peter and Logan are checking out the wreck site. Logan immediately knows that this was no accident and that the bodies found in the car were not Scott, Aurora, and Charles.
01:13:15
Speaker
Up on a lamppost, Kurt watches their rolls and spots another car surveilling it. Another Rolls Royce? Another Rolls Royce. When did they buy a second one? Remember like 10 issues ago when Charles x Xavier was complaining about money problems?
01:13:33
Speaker
Sell one of your Rolls Royces, man. Sell one of your 1960s Rolls Royces.
01:13:42
Speaker
In that car, the car watching the Rolls. Two purifiers have lost sight of the mutants. As one spots Colossus in full uniform, her goggles go blurry as Nightcrawler pops onto their windshield.
01:13:55
Speaker
Wolverine tears through the door and throws the driver to the ground while the woman slams on the gas from the passenger seat. Better to die than be captured, she thinks. Colossus stands in its way and Nightcrawler teleports her out as Colossus rips the engine right out of the hood. She's just standing there baffled. That was sick. Just holding it like, huh? He says, I think I got stronger. Yeah, that was crazy. With a big old goofy grin on his face.
01:14:24
Speaker
ah While he muses over his strength, some armored goons appear in the wreckage, advancing on him. They hit him in the back with some weapon and he screams in pain, but the armored man suddenly floats up into the air. What? The two men hover, their armor and the wreck of the car below them flying to pieces and then those pieces wrapping around them like cocoons.
01:14:45
Speaker
Both men are dropped to the ground next to the other two purifiers when Wolverine rounds on the new entrant to the fray. Magneto stands there and he comes as a friend. Actually, like I like that intro for Magneto. Yeah, it is good. It's a it is a classic ah turn the page and you have Magneto standing there as everybody goes. Magneto, but it's for a good reason this time. Yeah, this time he's like, hey, we're cool.
01:15:16
Speaker
We're also going to get four more of those moments as it goes on. Just yeah somebody waking up or turning around and going, Magneto. Back in Westchester, the girls are getting bored on their stakeout when finally Anne, Rocco, and another armored purifier comes to fix the electronic sensor module. ww I can't believe they didn't name the third one. It's it's not that hard to do.
01:15:41
Speaker
but and Claremont loves naming all of his henchmen. Like this guy, Rocco. He sticks with us through the whole book. yeah Kitty dives into the earth to scout at just the wrong time because the module powers on and the trio spot Ileana in the grass.
01:15:59
Speaker
Anne shoots her point blank in the face as Kitty emerges. Anne tells Rocco Ileana is only stunned though. And they load her into the car.
01:16:10
Speaker
He follows into the trunk and is instantly detected. So they flood the car with nerve gas and take off. Let's remember this. They flood the car with nerve gas when they're still...
01:16:21
Speaker
In Westchester, New York. In Westchester, New York, on the mansion grounds. They do it right away. So let's just remember that that's where this happened. You say that, Matt, but I think they want us to forget it. Okay. At that moment, the others arrive.
01:16:39
Speaker
They set up the cocooned purifiers in the study. Which is very funny looking. And Wolverine does his one-two-one-go-for-a-third-claws thing. It's the first time we get this. It's the first time we see him... shoot one claw on either side of someone's face and say, should I pop the third? He, I think he did that to the hellfire club, but he didn't do it in this sequence. The one, the two, the yeah.
01:17:03
Speaker
Iconic. Anyway, Wolverine does that iconic, but they won't talk. They'd rather die. He's about to oblige when Magneto suggests another method. He uses his own powers to torture the man in some way that looks like maybe he tugs at every part of him like he's going to rip him apart. Is that what you guys got from that?
01:17:22
Speaker
I don't know what I got from it almost looks like he's not doing damage to him because he's just taking off the things there. But yeah was it, you know, like, was it some to him more that it was able to inflict some type of damage? I i wasn't sure what to make of it. on the The only reason I thought it was him pulling the guy apart was that there's like there's like rings wrapped around each of this guy's fingers.
01:17:49
Speaker
Yeah. i I had a very hard time interpreting what he was doing, but I did say that looks painful. mean Yeah. Like I will not, I will not be ordering that one at all.
01:18:05
Speaker
Well, but however it happens, they discover that the purifiers are a part of the striker crusade and they mean to use Charles x Xavier to help them eradicate all mutant kind.
01:18:17
Speaker
Damn. End of chapter. This was kind of just like the X-Men being X-Men chapter, right? ah Yes. There's not a lot of metaphor here. You can put some things out, obviously. They're willing to open fire on a child. Yeah.
01:18:36
Speaker
Because of their mutant status. But for the most part, this is them just kind of solving mysteries. They're solving mysteries and the bad guys are closing in that kind of thing. Yeah. I guess the big or maybe the important point in this chapter is in the pursuit of ending mutants, civilians are unimportant.
01:18:59
Speaker
Like they're ready to do battle in the middle of Manhattan, right out of Central Park, like alongside Central Park. It's the X-Men who have to be careful not to get like any bystanders hurt.
01:19:17
Speaker
that's super interesting yeah but it's also fascist yeah yeah yeah um okay they're also it's also just like cool x-men action right like this this really dr this really pulls you forward this doesn't you know like you start with something really heavy and then you just get some x-men adventure to kind of pull you through to the next bit yeah yeah some really good teamwork scenes too.
01:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I found it interesting too, because you kind of have classic comic book dialogue of being like, well, I shot her with a dart gun. It's like, okay. The reader knows like she's not dead, but yeah I thought it was interesting that they chose to convey that with,
01:19:59
Speaker
Charles, you know, like when when Wolverine is like, I know that they're not dead. And I know that there is like, as a comic book reader, like you figure that they're not dead. But it's kind of interesting to me that they just kind of gave us that, you know, like, I don't know if y'all immediately pull back the veil on that.
01:20:16
Speaker
Right. yeah right i yeah kind of of Interesting choice. Like I was like, ah I mean, I knew they weren't dead, but at the same time, it's like, I almost wonder if some of the impacts, because if Charles x Xavier was present during this, then obviously he could wash house kind of thing. So it makes sense why they they've taken him out of this whole thing. But I just found it interesting that they kind of gave us that on the platter. Like, hey, they're still a alive. No, no, no need to worry. Kind of thing. I know. And it's, it's not the only time they'll do that during the story either.
01:20:46
Speaker
Right. Also a lot of cars. It's like there's a lot of cars in this book. Expensive ones. I know artists hate drawing cars. It's interesting. There's so much car action. All right.
World Trade Center Scene and Xavier's Crucifixion
01:21:01
Speaker
Chapter three. We start in Manhattan atop the World Trade Center. jump scare yeah ah ah for the next two pages everything is colored in only shades of bold red the X-Men all bearing fangs are crucifying x Xavier in the style of Christ nailing his hands and feet to the cross and raising him perpendicular with the roof of the skyscraper one by one they all take turns brutally killing the professor only for him to live through it all
01:21:39
Speaker
Nightcrawler teleports onto him and bites into his jugular. Kitty phases her hand through his chest and pulls out his beating heart. My God. Wolverine slashes his torso wide open. And this is the first time we ever see Wolverine's like we see three gashes in Xavier's chest, which we've never seen what Wolverine's claws do to flesh before comics. Yeah.
01:22:04
Speaker
a Storm burns him with a lightning bolt. Cyclops removes his visor and instead of optic blasts, releases a miasmic fog from his eyes, covering everything in darkness. Guys, can you think about how gross it would be if Cyclops shot fog out of his eyes? yeahy Yeah, yeah. Why don't that was all the time? Just like, yeah, bro.
01:22:28
Speaker
Heck no. Wherever it's coming from, heck no. Nasty. Evil Cyclops also explains the reason for doing this. x Xavier has let them all down, promising them the world if they listen to him, and then bringing them only despair.
01:22:43
Speaker
Suddenly, a beam of white light pierces the red, removing the X-Men from the scene and releasing x Xavier from the cross. A man shrouded in angelic white robes appears before him, extending his hand and offering apparent relief from all this pain.
01:22:58
Speaker
Xavier reaches out, but before he grasps the man's hand, a small flicker of doubt flares up in his mind, and he painfully recedes back into the abyss.
Xavier's Mental Struggles in Sensory Deprivation
01:23:09
Speaker
Damn, we nearly had him that time, exclaims a man observing behind a pane of glass.
01:23:14
Speaker
Full color returns to the page as we see Xavier in a sensory deprivation tank. Very Joe Rogan. I was about to say, very very Dragon Ball Z, too. yeah That's the better reference. What if this is where Charles x Xavier, after this issue, becomes like ah like a Jim Bro, Joe Rogan type? He starts talking about men's rights.
01:23:42
Speaker
like right selling brain pills I can't follow this Xavier guy anymore or alternately goes super saiyan that would be better that would be better um He's in a sensory deprivation tank and there's a visor clamped around his eyes and his ears as he screams soundlessly into his oxygen mask. The man observing, Dr. Philip Ramsey, explains to Reverend Stryker that x Xavier has been heavily drugged and implanted with electrodes to overstimulate his brain activity, but his mind still hasn't quite broken.
01:24:20
Speaker
Stryker congratulates him on the progress and asks to see their other guests. Sorry, I just realized it's doced it could be Dr. Phil for short. That's Dr. Phil! Oh my god! It was right there. oh was right there. All along! right there.
01:24:37
Speaker
All along, man he With the recent news about him, this isn't too far off. I i didn't know do not know the recent news about him. Oh, just that he's a big Trump guy now. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. How it goes. Ramsey flicks a switch and the tops lift off of two large capsules in another corner of the room, revealing the heads of Scott and Aurora.
01:25:02
Speaker
These capsules, he explains, are designed to psionically connect their mind with like Xavier's and then torture them, sending their psychic pain to Xavier's drugged out brain. He can then recognize the pain as Scott and Aurora's, but in his current state believes it's they're doing it on purpose. It's a betrayal. His own subconscious fills in the reasoning.
01:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, so that's it's i Claremont knows this up and down. But Xavier's fear is that he has let all his students down. And at some point they're going to revolt against him. So he feels their pain.
01:25:35
Speaker
That's his brain just filling in those gaps saying like, oh, they must be doing this because I've let them all down. m It's fucked up.
01:25:47
Speaker
Storm demands to know why Striker is doing this. And he simply says, because you exist and that existence is in a front to the Lord my God what a fucking yeah bro relevant answer or not like not appropriate but again yeah gay people trans people black people Jewish people I don't mean to just keep listing oppressed groups but like this is yeah one know seven more yeah
01:26:22
Speaker
okay in descending order no canceled canceled
01:26:31
Speaker
um no yeah yeah you're right you're right this is this is a yeah it seems so absurdly villainous but this is a thing that people say in our world all the time and think it's yeah yeah normal yeah um We flashback to a sepia-toned nuclear test where a young Stryker and his pregnant wife during his time in the military were involved with nuclear testing.
Striker's Extremist Ideology and Past
01:27:00
Speaker
Nice callback to the the early days of the X-Men.
01:27:02
Speaker
When, yeah, nuclear testing was what made all mutants mutants. Yeah, yeah. On a road trip, they get into an accident and Stryker has to deliver his son on the side of a desert road.
01:27:14
Speaker
He gnarly. It was a monster. Striker explains as he brandishes a knife in the flashback. Faced with that abomination. I did what had to be done. When his wife asks to see the newborn, Striker kills her as well. And then in shame, tries to blow them all up with gas leaking from the accident.
01:27:36
Speaker
Fucking godly man right here. This is a crazy, it was crazy. Like, it was like like dark, dark, dark. And the knife, I mean, for anyone who's listening, like the knife, if you're looking at it, it's not like it's ah a huge knife. It looks sharp, too. But I feel like that even adds to it. It's like a dagger, more like. Yeah. It's like a smaller.
01:27:57
Speaker
It's like a thing he was carrying to cut boxes. Brutal. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the guy who's like, I am the moral authority here.
01:28:10
Speaker
He knows that he did this. all right Yeah. Striker survives, but his wife and child's bodies are... He's thrown clear. Gotta love when somebody's, quote, thrown clear. Throne clear of the explosion. Striker survives, but his wife and child's bodies are destroyed, leaving him to wonder why God would spare him after murdering his wife and newborn son.
01:28:31
Speaker
At rock bottom, Striker reads Xavier's magazine article on mutants and decides that God is speaking to him. He wasn't damned for the murders because he was doing the right thing, killing abominations.
01:28:44
Speaker
His wife was the sinner for birthing a mutant and was the vessel God chose to show him this righteous path forward. He started a ministry from there, amassing a following and a base of power and using that ministry to raise fear as their numbers and political capital started to grow.
01:29:03
Speaker
This is... i mean... Like him him being in the wilderness, this big thing, big revelation. already had – I mean, he clearly already had this thought process before, enacted on this thought process.
01:29:19
Speaker
But it's fascinating because out of this, this is where this was birthed. God spoke to him, you know, like this is a revelation god spoke to me in doing this. But then also like I'm yeah, I'm the chosen one, as you said, as he was saying, I'm the chosen one who I have to make this go forward. Yeah, it's just fascinating. Like that's it's It's this revelation, and you can't question it because my foundation is predicated on this linkage, on this one.
01:29:50
Speaker
Yes. if he yeah If he gives this up, he has to accept the guilt of murdering his wife and child. yeah And this is this this is this religious kind of tale as old as fucking time, which is this idea of like, it's the woman who birthed evil into the world.
01:30:10
Speaker
right? This is kind of like legitimately the, I mean, this is the story of Adam and Eve, right? It's like the really that he blames it on his wife is just so, um, yeah. Displacement.
01:30:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Scott asks how he learned of the X-Men. Stryker reveals that he is a crusader at the FBI who passed all of Fred Duncan's files on Xavier along. Oh my god, Fred Duncan. A couple of things.
01:30:37
Speaker
Your tedious notes have damned us all. Remember when Fred Duncan kept having that assistant with him in the early days? Oh my god. yeah like They never named him. He never explained. He was just an assistant every time that Fred Duncan was anywhere. He just always with unnamed man.
01:30:59
Speaker
ah But second of all, like there was an issue not that long ago where the X-Men broke into the Pentagon to delete all the files that Fred Duncan had written. They were too late.
01:31:12
Speaker
Yeah. Turns out somebody had already passed it along. There's also, it's again, but a big idea that we're grappling with here, and this isn't the first time that they mention it, but this hate group has full-fledged, passionate members in the ranks of law enforcement.
Kitty's Escape and Hostile Encounters
01:31:29
Speaker
well Yeah. Yeah. At local and federal levels. ny This has convinced him that x Xavier is the Antichrist, intentionally trying to gain the trust of non-mutants while leading them all to their destruction. He's interrupted by a phone call from Anne.
01:31:46
Speaker
She needs time to study Ileana. Interesting. But wants instructions on how to deal with Kitty. Kill her, says Striker. Storm pleads and shouts, but Striker only quotes scripture at the as the top of her castle is lowered back down.
01:32:02
Speaker
a storm starts to brew over Manhattan. He quotes, what does he quote here? Oh, it's interesting. i actually have it. i'm okay Oh, yeah, no, go ahead. say Oh, just it's another do Deuteronomy quote, I think, right?
01:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he says, when when the lord thy god shall deliver them before thee thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them thou shalt make no covenant with them nor show mercy unto them Again,
01:32:30
Speaker
we've already talked about this but this idea of ah isolate like the danger in isolating something and then yeah living dogmatically by this isolation but then it doesn't matter because like this displacement it's like it's everybody else so of course you can find whatever verse to isogy and support your rally because you can never be incorrect it's the other right yeah yeah yeah Jeez.
01:33:02
Speaker
God. All right. um One other cool detail, just because it doesn't really come back, but a storm starts to brew over Manhattan. A storm is in a capsule. We're told that it is suppressing all of her powers. But still, and we've seen this before, she's able to conjure a pretty nasty storm in the skyline.
01:33:23
Speaker
Yes. Yes. um Dr. Doom did this to her once. Yeah. Yeah. In the South Bronx, Anne and her purifiers prepare to deal with Kitty, figuring she's still unconscious.
01:33:34
Speaker
They empty their clips into the trunk. But when they open the trunk, it's empty. Their trunk has a license plate that says Mewty. Yeah, crazy.
01:33:46
Speaker
Crazy, bro. They went through the DMV, bro. Crazy. Imagine being like Eddie. hate him. yeah hate monger and part of any hate group and your license plate says the slur for the people you hate or ac my little my cutesy version of that is if a toddler's license plate said brussels sprouts nice nice bedtime sorry uh kitty meanwhile is wandering through the bronx herself wait a minute
01:34:24
Speaker
she Yeah, she wandered from Westchester, New York to the Bronx. youre Right. So she got out of the trunk. they She says she got out of the trunk just before the right when the the gas started coming out.
01:34:37
Speaker
So she just inhaled a little bit of it. But how would that be possible? They let the gas when they were still in Westchester. yeah That's true. Well, it is. it is broad daylight when they're in Westchester.
01:34:49
Speaker
Forty miles walking at about five miles an hour is going to take you about eight hours. OK, so this is eight hours later. Now it's nighttime and she's in the Bronx. It makes sense. it's true it's it's It is nighttime all of a sudden.
01:35:08
Speaker
OK, so she could have done you know what she could have done. She could have stayed in the trunk. And then just like kind of phased just her head out. Right. Oh, yeah, that's true.
01:35:21
Speaker
Just phase. Then she would have gotten shot. Oh, because she would have still been in the trunk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right. You're right. But you're right. You're right. I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I would have gotten Kitty killed in my Choose Your Own Adventure book. I got Kitty killed. She's gone. She's gone. She's gone.
01:35:40
Speaker
God. God loves man kills the Choose Your Own Adventure book. God!
01:35:49
Speaker
She explains that she phased as a reaction to hearing gas jets going off again. um Oh, what did I say she finds herself in a dark abandoned neighborhood? Explains that she phased as a reaction hearing gas jets going off. She avoided the worst of it, but must have inhaled a little because she can hardly stand, let alone phase.
01:36:08
Speaker
She finds a fire, the first sign of life she's seen, and runs up to the men around it asking for help. She sees a gang of rough-looking street toughs all dressed like the village people who start are yeah who start moving in on her, demanding that they do something nice for them is if she wants their help.
01:36:29
Speaker
She starts backing off before things can get ugly and steps out of the shadows with a gun and commands the men to back off. They're all armed too, though. And during a brief standoff, Kitty summons the strength to phase away.
01:36:42
Speaker
Anne tries to shoot at her and misses, breaking the tension and giving the gang their opportunity to attack. Anne takes them all out. Which, real quick, I don't know. like that but like What an interesting group of yes street bugs. It reminded me of yeah if like like but like the Warriors as well. and Warriors, yeah. But also...
01:37:05
Speaker
but but But then it's like you have this dialogue that's happening and then you're like, OK, maybe they're trying to portray that they're of like but Latino descent potentially. But then one of them is wearing a turban.
01:37:16
Speaker
know if you all caught one of them like had a turban on. So I'm like, I don't know what. Yeah. Yeah. What are we supposed to believe about these people at all? Yeah.
01:37:27
Speaker
Now, what was the point of the scene?
01:37:36
Speaker
I think to show sort of Kitty's helplessness at the moment, but okay also right right there's another big idea here that we deal with, which is this is a group of seemingly evil men, but in the face of an alternate evil, they choose the right side.
Moral Choices Against Greater Evil
01:37:54
Speaker
They're like, holy shit, this is some sort of government agent looking to just kill this young girl, even though we were just about to assault her.
01:38:04
Speaker
this is clearly wrong. We should do something about this. And they all die because of it. But like that's, that is, I think it's not coalition building, but there is, there's something to be said for like, in order for a persecuted group to survive all this, like even the worst people, you know, have to have to stand up. They have to say something.
01:38:30
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I think that's a very generous read of this scene. That's fair.
01:38:41
Speaker
But hey, that's, I mean, I think it's a very interesting um observation though. Thank you. Yeah. but I like you. I like you and I like your opinions and I think we should do a podcast together. but all right so Kitty's able to find a payphone and phase a few quarters out of it.
01:39:02
Speaker
Very funny. Calling the mansion and giving Kurt her life. She phases quarters out of it puts them right back in yeah And she apologizes to the Atlantic Bell Company. Yeah.
01:39:15
Speaker
They don't need your apology, Kitty. I promise you. call is She calls the mansion and gives Kurt her location. Very smart. First thing she says. ah Before she's spotted. Phasing through bombs, bullets, and beams. They fire at her. She hops on the L train as it pulls away and finds a police officer. Only for the purifiers to come crashing through the roof of the train. Shooting the officer and demanding everyone else stand aside.
01:39:38
Speaker
They do.
01:39:43
Speaker
Unlike your observation about the gangs. Exactly. The police officer stands in front of her, gets shot, and everybody else immediately is like, all right, go ahead, kill this little girl. What are we going to do? yeah Which, I mean, they're faced with violence, but again, people got to do something.
01:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. yeah So, all seems lost when the train lifts off of the ground? As Magneto flies it into the sky and demands the purifier step down. They shoot at him fruitlessly until we see the X-Men come in, remove their weapons, and detain the men. They all fly off to bring the police officer that got shot to the hospital.
01:40:24
Speaker
This is where Kurt teleports somebody all the way into jail, right? Yes, he grabs one of them and teleports them into a cell at Rikers. Pretty good.
01:40:38
Speaker
They also fly away on what they describe as a ah metal flying carpet. Very Aladdin. yeah It's just a side panel of the train. Yeah.
01:40:49
Speaker
Meanwhile, like Xavier sits in a beam of white light as a silhouetted figure walks toward him, quoting scripture. This time, Charles accepts the man's words fully, embracing his position as God's sword against the evils of the world, including his own children.
01:41:05
Speaker
He sends a psychic beam at the imprisoned Scott and Aurora. They go limp inside their capsules, and Ramsay informs Stryker that the mutants are dead. For real this time. for real this time. We never see Cyclops or Storm again. They had a good run. Striker thinks if anything explains that is if Xavier can do this to his own children, it will be simple to unleash him on mutants he doesn't even know.
01:41:32
Speaker
On his way out of the facility, Ramsay is ambushed by Kurt and Kitty. They interrogate him, and a short time later, we see Magneto and the X-Men extract Ileana and the bodies of Aurora and Scott from Anne's custody, only to discover they're not actually dead.
01:41:47
Speaker
got us again. Even in his altered state, Xavier must have subconsciously prevented himself from killing them, instead dropping their vitals low enough to appear dead. It doesn't fool Wolverine's senses, though. He can smell the life in him.
01:42:02
Speaker
Magneto zaps him with a bolt of electricity? Sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah okay. He's got that. Okay.
Striker's Escalating Threat Against Mutants
01:42:09
Speaker
And they spring back to life. Scott and Magneto start debating their causes, but there's no time for that now.
01:42:14
Speaker
They can work towards the common goal of stopping Stryker. Hmm. Should the fates be kind, we shall speak of it again.
01:42:26
Speaker
Very cool. Yeah, it was interesting. I i thought it was kind of fascinating that because especially when it comes to Nightcrawler that we don't really see his Catholic faith kind of play into this. And I just mentioned that because we like he he has his interrogation going on here. He's showing his things and doing all oh things, but also one of his. big points was, you know, I'm not saying that he contradicted himself, but one of his things is like, hey, like we shouldn't use what they're doing against them. Like we have a higher we have a higher moral code, higher moral thought about this. But I was like, it's fascinating because like, there's no dialogue from his end to be like, yeah, I don't, I don't believe this. You know what im yeah yeah I mean? don't rock with this, but there's nobody. It would have been so interesting. You're right to have like a righteously religious character character.
01:43:21
Speaker
in debating the merits of it but they're i mean the official marvel position uh this comic was that marvel comics is neutral in matters of religion yeah that's what they said that's they said in like an interview extremely funny to do in this comic to be like, oh, well, the official position is ah no, none of this is real and we're completely neutral on the subject. um um Speaking of Nightcrawler's bluff where he's like bearing his fangs at the guy. Yeah, yeah. he's get there's the There's a series of panels where he he bears his fangs, he gets closer and closer to the guy's neck and then the guy gives in. So then Nightcrawler just boops him on the nose. But
01:44:10
Speaker
How funny would it have been if it didn't work? And the necrologist had to go like, ah. yeah ah'm Sorry. ah You got me.
01:44:22
Speaker
I'm going to get you over to Wolverine. He'll get some information out of you. Yeah, this happens. I... There's this... One thing... Go ahead. In Magneto's conversation with Scott, it's really interesting because he's like... that This has always been their argument against Magneto. Like, okay, sure, fine. If you're a good dictator, like, debatable, but whatever. Say you're a good dictator. You've now created a system where...
01:44:51
Speaker
It's a dictatorship. What happens when the next guy is not as good as he? Like, who do you leave it to then? And yeah, yeah. He says. That he would that it's them.
01:45:02
Speaker
He would leave it to them, the X-Men. Yeah, that's such a. How cool. Yeah. yeah For him to be like, um I know that once you see my vision realized.
01:45:17
Speaker
you'll be willing to take the reins and protect it for generations. Yeah, yeah. Very, very interesting like this Magneto. Yeah, me too. He's not just like a ah binary, you know, typical Magneto's coming through and is just evil. there's There's these semblances of being able to resonate and be like, dang, dude, like, I feel you. And then you can be like, ah, you know, maybe not there or maybe not here. But overall, as a character, he's I thought he was pretty compelling in this book.
01:45:46
Speaker
i ah I agree. And I think this is like the Magneto that we start seeing going forward. And it's I mean, it's the best Magneto, right? it is ah Magneto is as an ideologue rather than Magneto as a ah what it would a megalomaniac or something.
01:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. Just a generic take over the world guy. And this is only like what the second, maybe third time that Claremont's actually touched Magneto.
01:46:16
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah. It's... It is... in in his past Claremont-written Magneto appearances, we've started to see signs of this, and it's really refreshing to see it fully leaned into. Like, hey Magneto's a whole person. He's got concerns. He's capable of love. Like, there's yeah there's a real human here, and it's going to come into play at some point.
01:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. Wild. Couple... Please. Couple more big themes. Big themes. Number Striker puts himself as the savior. Oh, yes.
01:46:56
Speaker
to weeks Xavier's torture using the scripture saying, like, I am the light of Jesus. I am the light of God here to offer you salvation. And it's it's done in a very like science fictional way. He's being psychically tortured then a psychic image of God is in the form of Stryker is presented to him. But the idea that you're manipulating scripture to justify hatred is not new.
01:47:27
Speaker
And he piles on a couple of, again, really current relevant arguments to that, which is that these persecuted groups are corrupting the children, corrupting their children, which is how they take over culture.
01:47:44
Speaker
i And then also making accusations that x Xavier represents the literal antichrist, yeah which is a panic that evangelicals love to throw people into every few years. but And at the time was happening with D&D.
01:48:06
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. This was the peak like Dungeons and Dragons is actually satanic and is corrupting your children. Dang. Yeah. Can I tell you guys a funny antichrist story?
01:48:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please tell me a funny antichrist story. So when I was like high school age, my parents were still making me go to church, but I was allowed to just go to Sunday school and skip services. I wasn't really a big fan of them. Sunday school was fine. It was a Sunday school designed for high schoolers. So it was this kind of older guy just letting us like talk about our weeks and then saying like, here's how ah this relates to a Bible lesson or this piece of scripture or whatever.
01:48:48
Speaker
He's a very nice guy. we had some really good conversations. It got heated sometimes because there were some young, politically active folks in there, including myself. But he just got older and older as the years go went on. And at one point, he was like, hey, what we're going to start doing is lessons. We're going to start in like two weeks. What I really want to do is start a lesson on the Antichrist. I think it's something that's worth learning about so get yourselves ready in two weeks we're getting into that the next week we came we had our regular sunday school and he said it again he's like next week we're gonna get into the antichrist and i'll tell you why because i believe that he is real and i believe that he is constantly being reborn and reincarnated and i think the last one that we had was hitler and i think the current one that we have
Religious Rhetoric and Manipulation by Striker
01:49:38
Speaker
no no no is former president bill clinton oh no
01:49:44
Speaker
And the next week he was no longer our Sunday school teacher. Wild stuff.
01:49:56
Speaker
Wow. This is like 2001. Wow, man. how would you But again, and like like like even to that point, again, it's it's the it's the fear is the is the, in that case, the weapon.
01:50:10
Speaker
You can be informed by certain things and and your worldviews and continue to see like how that informs you but the manipulation from striker and then like even he like him choosing the that what struck out to me is the verbiage like he comes out of the light but then he says do you embrace the word charles and so in scripture like john 1 1 it's written that jesus is the word like yeah that's another name for jesus okay yeah I just think it's interesting because now Stryker is taking on these these nicknames and these things. So it's it isn't, hey, you'll find salvation through Jesus or you'll find salvation through this vessel and I am the messenger. It's transformed from the messenger, just like you werere saying, Pat, to now I am the messenger.
01:51:01
Speaker
But it's like a slick way, you know? Like, it's so it's it's a slick, minor way. Like, I can use this verbiage to... So, yeah. No, totally. Totally. Convinces him to accept Jesus while painting himself as Jesus and lets those two combine for for his cause. He just... He clearly doesn't believe... Like, he believes in himself and his cause. He does not believe in the scriptures that he's talking about, right? Because...
01:51:31
Speaker
He's... This is idolatry, right? He is making himself God. Yes. In this moment. That is... Yeah. That's a big sin. Big old sin. Almost as big as killing a guy.
01:51:45
Speaker
a bunch of kids, in fact. um Yeah, it's like, how does he... It would take a lot of self-deception, self-delusion to not see that, right? Yeah. To do this and still believe you're your're righteous.
01:52:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One other... Sorry. Stop saying that. One other... A big theme here that I wanted to mention with all the Kitty and
Children as Threats and Real-World Connections
01:52:19
Speaker
Ileana stuff. This is a 13 and 14-year-old girl being seen by this hate group as adults, which is something that happens over and over again. We can go back to Black people in America and lynchings and the idea that black children in America are treated as adults when it comes to the law or even when it comes to just like people observing them or the idea that in Palestine that the children that are being killed there are terrorists or that they were born naturally into terrorism is steve before the pro-Palestinian movement gained a little more steam was a huge justification for for the genocide over there.
01:53:06
Speaker
Yeah. That's deep. Wow. Damn, dude. Yeah. All right. All right. Chapter four, Madison Square Garden.
01:53:17
Speaker
ABC reporter John Cheever let us know that we are less than one hour from Stryker's big event. He's a real guy, right? powerful seven John Cheever? Was he a real guy?
01:53:29
Speaker
There's any Google. sounds like a real name. It does sound like a real name. And and Claremont so often uses... real real like journal like he'll often use NPR people in his thing but once again yeah he chooses a novelist oh it's a novelist and and puts them in a be in the position of a reporter in his comic he keeps doing this specifically what a weird thing to do man but hey he look if you if you're writing a comic this good
01:54:06
Speaker
yeah i don't know man yeah shout out shout out john cheever yeah go read his book or maybe not shout out but yeah uh just about every significant person in politics and media are in attendance surprisingly strikers peers fellow evangelist ministers from other organizations are boycotting the event and drawing comparisons to nazi germany So at this point, we know that those comparisons are out there, right? This is, i think it's important that this is noted here and it's odd that it only comes from his fellow evangelicals, but nobody can claim that they didn't see comparisons to Nazi Germany in this because there were figures in the media pointing it out, which I think is, it doesn't come back up, but I think is still another important point to make here. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay. Yeah.
01:54:58
Speaker
Agreed. Backstage, Stryker introduces the broken x Xavier to his own reproduction of Cerebro and instructs him to reach out all mutant minds in the area and destroy them, likening it to the Mark of the Beast. A battered Anne rushes into the room, explaining that X-Men staged a rescue mission, kidnapped Ramsay, and are likely on to Stryker's plan, and on their way here to stop it.
01:55:23
Speaker
I am a servant of the Lord. What can they do to stop me, he replies. The sermon begins. Stryker recaps the biblical story of creation, drawing from anti-evolution arguments. God created a man, not beast, and accepting monsters as men will lead to the damnation of the world.
01:55:41
Speaker
Mutants are a deviation on God's design from man, sent from hell. We see a couple of crowd reactions. A senator in a private balcony asks his aide if the president actually supports this kind of speech.
01:55:54
Speaker
His aide replies that the president is a fair-minded man. He believes that the reverend's views deserve a hearing. Two police officers work in... Sorry, this is a direct reference to Ronald Reagan and his position on like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and all their fascinating anti-homosexual rhetoric at the time.
01:56:16
Speaker
Oh, fascinating. Right, treating all ideas as if they're equal, as if they all deserve equal treatment because, yeah. And that's were saying that and then giving preferential treatment to people like Jerry Falwell. I mean, I think I think both things kind of suck. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably handin hand in hand.
01:56:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I guess, I mean, this was back before it could be easy to have platform, you know? it could write Not everybody would have a phone. and just so That's a good point. there's probably a little there's There's more weight to what is being televised.
01:56:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's six channels. Especially if it was pre-TiVo, pre-recording. It's like you needed to be in front of it to see or you're going read it in the newspaper, right? so Yeah, yeah.
01:57:04
Speaker
Damn. Two police officers working security discuss their feelings on the speech. One is concerned about the preacher's words while the other wishes that he was at the Rangers game. is not The banality of evil, right?
01:57:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for real. We also see Stryker pull a switch behind his podium as we cut outside where the X-Men are standing on top of their post office across the street. They double over in agony from a sharp pain in their brains as they see a young man down on the street scream and collapse. He starts bleeding from the ears and nose, having a full-on aneurysm. Nightcrawler calls out for help, but the crowd only watches, wondering if Kurt actually attacked this child.
01:57:47
Speaker
The X-Men know that their psychic defenses are protecting them for now, but not for long, especially as they get closer to Xavier. They debate how to approach, noting that Stryker is counting on them to attack so that he can further justify his claims that mutants are all violent.
01:58:06
Speaker
No time for that now, though, as Magneto acts unilaterally, tearing the roof off of Madison Square Garden, lowering himself in, demanding a word as he gently reattaches the top of the building.
Magneto vs. Striker and Crowd Chaos
01:58:19
Speaker
Quoting scripture, Stryker focuses Xavier's energy in full directly at Magneto, knocking him to the ground among ah a rabid anti-mutant crowd.
01:58:29
Speaker
The senator we saw before stands up to step in before the crowd murders Mag's but he starts bleeding from the ears himself. Stryker, through scripture, commands the crowd to kill Magneto, but the police, for now, are able to hold back the few that try to act on it.
01:58:47
Speaker
Meanwhile, backstage, the X-Men have used their attention on Magneto to slip in the back door and begin their assault. But Xavier still actively attacking their minds, the fight's a struggle.
01:58:58
Speaker
Anne rushes on stage to let Stryker know, falls her knees with a massive headache before blood starts to leak out of her nose. She pleads with the Reverend as he recoils in disgust, still willing to serve him faithfully.
01:59:11
Speaker
But Stryker explains that if she truly cared about his cause, she would kill herself as he pushes her from the stage, breaking her neck.
01:59:23
Speaker
She's actually dead. This is... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah This is... ah Man, they do it they do it twice, right? They do with the ah the the senator and with Anne. It's like, hey, more people are mutants than you know or than they know, right? They might not have powers, but it's like, you know, that same sort of thing. Like, hey, you know...
01:59:53
Speaker
As people, you have things in common with these people that you decided you hated, right? Yeah. There was a... I mean, in um in American history...
02:00:07
Speaker
There was a racial segregation rule, the one drop rule, right? Where if you had any um black ancestry whatsoever, no matter how you appeared, blood no matter what sort of society you come from, you still count as black for the purposes of the law.
02:00:27
Speaker
it's it I think it illustrates how tenuous the ways that we categorize people
02:00:36
Speaker
are right yeah it's it's also again i and i think he does it most through this last chapter here but a direct reference to the anti-homosexuality sentiment oh right of just like anybody senators celebrities your best friends anybody could be gay and unless you are involved in their sex life you probably don't know Right, right.
02:01:01
Speaker
I mean, that's the thing even now we we talk about with trans people, right? Yeah. And again, it's the what is it predicated on? And if there's a sense of fear again, and if that's going back to 70s, 80s and linkage to AIDS, if I have my history, yeah, yeah, linkage to AIDS. And I'm like, this is where maybe the some of the fear comes from and and different things. It's a a message can be compelling and powerful without fear, but dang, does fear work well to to get people, you know? And dang, dang, does that work as like a... as a convincer and yeah i mean i mean that worked effectively as a reveal with ann i mean i was kind of wondering how she survived that jump from the elevator don't know y'all remember when that yes i was like i don't know i was like i' i was like i'll let it slide but okay but that this happened like okay yeah yeah she survived that jump maybe there's like this it is way smaller fall and she lands right on her neck. All right.
02:02:05
Speaker
Right. Right. yeah Right. yeah Her acrobatic skills fail her at the moment she needed them. Right. So the X-Men, having finally pushed through the purifiers, find themselves struggling to approach Xavier. He knows their moves. He can also read their minds, but they got a plan.
02:02:21
Speaker
Kurt teleports Logan directly above the professor. yeah Meanwhile, Scott fires a beam that rebounds off a wall. kurt drops logan directly onto the professor claws first scott's beam bounces off another wall x xavier fires a psychic blast at curtain logan knocking them aside before they can land a hit this is only a diversion as he realizes too late as scott's rebounded blast hits the professor and knocks him unconscious Spatial geometry brain.
02:02:53
Speaker
Spatial geometry. Let's go. Cyclops destroys the machine and explains that while they typically consider this a victory and prioritize getting a Xavier home, this is different. If they don't put an end to Strucker's madness now, he and his following will only continue to grow and they will only delay an inevitable Holocaust. This ends tonight one way or another.
02:03:15
Speaker
Enter the X-Men upstage onto the national broadcast where Stryker is shocked to see Storm and Cyclops alive. Cyclops claims the mic with Stryker's blessing.
02:03:26
Speaker
Stryker prepares himself to appear rational and reasonable against Cyclops, just like he did with the Xavier. But Scott doesn't take ex Xavier's approach. Instead, he challenges Stryker to justify what he's saying by suggesting that mutants deserve to live their lives normally with the same level of peace that anyone else deserves to live with.
02:03:47
Speaker
What, Cyclops asks, makes them any less human?
02:03:54
Speaker
Stryker begins to crack. In a now iconic panel, he shrieks while pointing at Kurt. Human? You dare call that thing human? Which it is iconic panel for sure. I did crack up the way that he was kind of hunched over. You know what I mean? You're talking about me? Yeah. You're talking about me. I was just chilling here, bro. What are you talking about?
02:04:18
Speaker
Hey, I'm not going to catch this. Kitty chimes in explaining that despite a life of persecution, Kurt is one of the kindest and most admirable people that she knows.
02:04:30
Speaker
If I have to choose between caring for my friend and believing in in your God, then I choose my friend.
02:04:37
Speaker
This is this is Kitty who remember when she met Kurt, she was legitimately afraid of him. Yeah, she didn't like him because of because he looked like a monster. And this is how far she's come. And this is how far her friendship and her love of Kurt and the other X-Men has come. And like i think that's really but that's really moving.
02:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, very intentional, right? Very intentional that they chose her to say to say that. That's good. Yeah.
02:05:09
Speaker
Striker, now desperate and searching for answers, pulls out the ultimate argument, Settler. a gun. The X-Men stand tall and proud in the face of it, refusing to meet Striker with violence.
02:05:23
Speaker
Striker aims, pulls back the hammer, and we hear a familiar blam! Blam! But as we turn the page, we see blood start to trickle from his chest. As he drops the gun and starts to collapse, he's been shot.
02:05:36
Speaker
As we zoom out, we see a police officer holding a smoking service revolver. The crowd is shocked silent for a moment. But as soon as the crowd starts to grow restless, the commanding officer explains that Stryker was about to shoot an unarmed girl.
02:05:49
Speaker
And the police acted accordingly. The X-Men, as far as the police are concerned, have done nothing wrong and they're free to go. In an epilogue, we see Xavier, Magneto, and the X-Men gathered around the mansion's big screen TV.
02:06:05
Speaker
The news report that Stryker is alive and is, of course, claiming religious persecution, claiming that he'll be vindicated and cleared of charges eventually. Magneto sees this as a hall of victory. They only stopped one man. And there are already media narratives trying to justify his actions. He sees no way to coexist peacefully long term. And to everyone's surprise, Charles agrees.
02:06:29
Speaker
His mission may have been a failure if it had all led here to him nearly mass murdering mutants.
Scott's Argument for Peaceful Coexistence
02:06:35
Speaker
Maybe the only solution is mutant supremacy.
02:06:40
Speaker
Once again, Scott steps in where a defeated x Xavier can't. Conquering in the world might be possible, but it's not worth the cost and is beside the point anyway.
02:06:51
Speaker
What Magneto and x Xavier aren't seeing is that it's not the battle of mutants versus humans. Mutants are humans. And if there's any hope for the future, they have to start seeing themselves that way.
02:07:03
Speaker
The means are as important as the end. We have to do this right or not at all. Anything less negates every belief we've ever had and every sacrifice we've ever made. It's pretty powerful.
02:07:14
Speaker
It is. And this is like, I mean, it's not necessarily, but if you want to... quote scripture in a righteous way saying like, we need to treat, what is it? Uh, the least of these, I'm not, I'm not going to nail the Bible quote. It's been too long. You got it. Like no matter who it is, we are all people. And the way that you treat the person you dislike the most, right. To me, Jesus is also the way that you're treating anybody on this earth. Mm-hmm.
02:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it's not the... I think my wife and I have talked about it too. It's the verses where like you'd see something being communicated about enemies. It's not a communication from... Jesus saying, hey, love my enemy.
02:08:01
Speaker
It's saying love your enemy, which I think is important because it's saying the person that you're not rocking with or the person that you might miss out on or the person that you are choosing to be bigoted, you know, whatever, whatever. Enter it in the box. It's a higher it's a higher challenge. So totally, i'm I'm totally resonating with what you're saying. And that's, I mean, Scott scott turns up. like How old is he here? Probably 18? Yeah. I think he's in like his mid twenty s I think he's in his young. OK, so I think. Yeah, maybe 20, 22 or 20. Yeah.
02:08:34
Speaker
OK, it's pretty, pretty, pretty impressive. Yeah. OK, yeah. Magneto acknowledges Scott's position and the rest of the team agrees. He prepares to take his leave and invites the jaded Xavier to join him in a parallel to psychic torture. x Xavier again extends his hand. Neely grasps Magneto's, but then withdraws at the last moment.
02:08:56
Speaker
He may feel defeated, but if his team doesn't, he owes it to them to keep trying. yeah Charles sheds a tear out of pride and gratitude. Scott and Aurora step out for some air. Aurora expresses her deep admiration for the things Scott said.
02:09:10
Speaker
Both at the mansion and in front of the world, they both agree. The only way forward is with love, no matter hard it may be. Which did it not seem like a romantic-esque, like, was that not like a romantic-esque panel to y'all? Like, did that not feel, you know, like, I'm for a strong friendships, so i'm not I'm not somebody who's like, yeah you you need to ship everybody. Like, that's not what I'm saying. But, like, it just felt, like, unplatonic for, to me, at least. i don't know. Yeah.
02:09:40
Speaker
Yes, I, yeah I think you're exactly right. I read this too and was like, are they about to hook up? yeah But there's a whole each other at the end, like a mother and father, like looking on their children playing in the yard.
02:09:56
Speaker
I think I think there's two things here. I think we number one every artist that has gotten their hands on Storm has fallen in love with her. So it may just be that Brent Anderson is drawing Storm. And in his mind, she just always looks like she's in love. eyes Because it's because he he's reflecting his own feelings.
02:10:20
Speaker
Like when Elon Musk is like using his AI that he makes and he's making it make women who look at him like they're in love. Oh, yes. He's just like so desperate for his... That's ah Brent Anderson with ah with Storm. With Storm.
02:10:38
Speaker
I think the other possibility here is That Claremont has just kind of, or maybe Brent Anderson has kind of run out of ways to show their relationship continuing to strengthen. Like Scott and Aurora have had the heaviest conversations you can have as two people. Right.
02:11:01
Speaker
Like, how do we raise this even more? Maybe we ah make it seem a bit romantic. Or maybe he just doesn't understand that it seems romantic.
02:11:12
Speaker
But yeah yeah I hope they're not trying to put the two of them together. Put the two them, yeah. I i also think... Right. ah There's an interesting moment here that we that yeah we didn't cover, which is... um It's a really cool moment.
02:11:27
Speaker
Kitty offers Magneto to join the X-Men. Oh, yeah. And he still... He can't. Because he doesn't believe in it.
02:11:40
Speaker
Which is also...
02:11:44
Speaker
Man, like, I think Magneto is wrong, right? Mostly. Yeah. i also think x Xavier can be kind of wrong sometimes.
02:11:55
Speaker
Right? yeah He's a jerk. Yeah. I think there is a ideological middle between the two of them. Agreed. Where Xavier sacrifices people for this this cause of He is supposed to represent the peaceful solution, but he is quick to sacrifice people to find that peaceful ah end.
02:12:22
Speaker
Right. But then Magneto's idea is, hey, make me dictator. I got this, which is also pretty bad. Yeah. But the fact that both of them hold these ideologies so strong that they're like, look, we want to work together. We want to be on the same side. We just can't. I just can't do it with you who I disagree with.
02:12:46
Speaker
and ah And like there's a there's a sorrow there. They They regret that, right? Yeah. I think what Scott does here is really important. And I think it's like a... It's almost the one piece of consistent character development that we get through the issue here. But in this matter...
02:13:12
Speaker
Scott is miles ahead of big Xavier and, and likely from growing up in it, likely from dealing with it all of all his life while like Xavier's like sort of a trailblazer and didn't quite come up in a world that knew what a mutant was.
02:13:28
Speaker
But Scott's whole point here is we and he says it out loud, the means are as important as the end. Like, ex Xavier can only see his end goal and isn't seeing the work that goes into meeting that goal.
Contrasting Approaches to Combat Prejudice
02:13:48
Speaker
Or at least if he's ready to give up on the dream, then he hasn't seen the work that's gone into that goal. It's really about going back to chapter one where x Xavier tries to debate striker on television. It doesn't work because x Xavier is obsessed with his...
02:14:06
Speaker
talking points that everyone has heard and that are being challenged by Stryker to say that, no, there's not a peaceful solution for mutants. Scott, at the end, steps in.
02:14:19
Speaker
He just challenges Stryker instead of saying, instead of like, refusing to engage and just covering like the basic why can't we all just get along stuff right he i need you to explain to me why i am not human and that's when striker cracks that's when the narrative falls apart but that's an informed choice that claremont's making here that like We see it today. You don't beat fascism by yeah just saying, well, what this guy is doing is fascist and also he's a hypocrite. like
02:14:57
Speaker
People don't care about that. People care ah about seeing these figures humiliated through just challenging what they do. That's a good point. Yeah. Xavier's thing is like, okay, the humans hate us. We have to hide from them.
02:15:11
Speaker
But one day, maybe if we're good and polite, if we're good little mutants, they will eventually accept us and we can come out of hiding. And Scott's like, no, we should be in front of them and saying, hey,
02:15:24
Speaker
If you have a problem with us, you should justify it because we are here. We exist in the same world as you and we have as as much right to be on this stage as anyone else.
02:15:37
Speaker
And yeah yeah I guess that's eventually, that is a divide that we will see. I mean, like 30 years from now, right? When Scott creates his own mutant separatist island, right? Yeah.
02:15:49
Speaker
But ah where, yeah, where he's just saying like, hey, we have a right to exist. We shouldn't have to hide and wait for you guys to catch up.
02:16:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. That's a good point. That's good. Any other thoughts on yeah yeah this whole... Fuck, we have talked a lot. Time's up. man up Well, i think it feels...
02:16:17
Speaker
Because we talked about it a lot at the beginning. We talked about it as as it went on. I feel like we've covered pretty like a lot of this. what Do you guys have any final thoughts you want to get out?
02:16:31
Speaker
I will go. if if you were listening and you listened first and we're wondering, is this, is this a comic I should read? yeah the answer i believe still remains. Yes. Yeah. And i think my observation about the book in general too,
02:16:51
Speaker
is that what a what an awesome jumping on point for X-Men in a way, even if you are understanding the dynamics, because you even talked about at the end, you have this differing with Magneto and Professor X. So now if you enter into this world, you can look and say, I kind of understand what's going on here, but I want to see more. And I think this book is quintessential. I'm not saying it's like the...
02:17:16
Speaker
most perfect one because I haven't read all X-Men. Right now for me currently, if I had a friend who said, hey, like I want to get into X-Men, like what should I maybe consider? This ends up mapping some of the things that I would suggest because it covers the prejudice, the discrimination, the diversity, like there's so much in the ethos of it that I'm like, check that out. So if you haven't read it yeah and you listen to this podcast and you're wondering if you should read it, still still read it.
02:17:46
Speaker
I, yeah, I think they kind of even know, right, that they are setting up this standard because they, they, there's like a lot of introductions to the X-Men and their world in this book. Like this is set up to be somebody's first X-Men comic for sure.
02:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. If you jump into from here into the monthlies, you might get a little more space exploration than you're looking for. But um no, I think this is great. I think you're 100% right, Andre, that this should be – this is in excellent jumping on point just to learn about – who the X-Men are, and also because a lot of these characters would stand the test of time. And also, what are the major themes for the next 40, 50, going on to 60 years of X-Men? from Right.
02:18:42
Speaker
I e also think it's just good. Like it's, it's the way that it's written, the, the dialogue exchanges, the character development. I know that's Claremont's hallmark, but he's doing it all right here at its peak.
02:18:56
Speaker
Like every moment we, we covered what, what, 50 60 pages this is probably half the length of what we usually cover on an episode and we got so much out of it because every i know i've said this before but every panel is important it's like watching the wire the sopranos it's you need to ingest everything you can't take a break but i do have a skin one other thing to say matt what's that
02:19:36
Speaker
Oh, why folks, by popular demand, even though we read ad-free graphic novel today, I have grabbed an ad from a past Marvel comic, and I am being very transparent about that right now.
02:19:53
Speaker
This does come from an issue of the X-Men. I do not remember which one, so please don't ask me i've just been Ever since our listeners weighed in on how we should treat situations like this, I've just been saving ah fun ads, even if they don't make it to the final episode.
02:20:11
Speaker
edit So what we have here, is not a lot of copy here. It is an ad for Lifesavers. You can tell because it says that in the big colorful Lifesavers logo up top. It says lots of fun and flavors, amazing flavors.
02:20:26
Speaker
And then it gives you the rules for the word search below. It says, find the 13 juicy Lifesavers flavors hidden below. Lemon, lime, cherry, pineapple, orange, apple, tangerine, strawberry, butterscotch, grape, pear, coconut, banana.
02:20:39
Speaker
Okay. This is the hardest word search I have ever seen. This is not a grid in any way. This is a bunch of bubble letters all bladed into each other.
02:20:55
Speaker
And you have to, I'm getting like, I can't complete it because I get nauseous trying to look at it. it It is pretty wild. i I'm not going lie. that This is kind of tough. I can't even, I'm trying to find butterscotch. Oh, I got coconut now. Yeah. It's hard. Are you guys see, do I have some sort of, I got beep is beep. One of them. Yeah.
02:21:22
Speaker
ah One thing that I've been very good at in my life is in word searches, just finding the word ham, e a m H-A-M, ham, ham. It's in most word searches somewhere, even if they're not telling you look for it.
02:21:37
Speaker
I don't see it here. Okay. But again, I'm having a very tough time. Man, I'm crushing it, dude. I found cherry. I found pineapple. I found apple. I found coconut.
02:21:49
Speaker
Okay, well, maybe this isn't funny and there's just something wrong with it. And I got orange or maybe I'm some sort of savant. We've got a test it. is It is pretty intense, though. it is really this it is very i mean it's It's quintessential 80s. This isn't a hand-to-you word search. This is a dissertation level. like You have to work at it for a little bit.
02:22:13
Speaker
Looks hand-drawn, too. Somebody put a lot of work into this. I got butterscotch. I got pear. all right I think I got them all. try to You can try to solve it when we're done recording. if I got strawberry. I got them all.
02:22:28
Speaker
Sorry. Dang. I found storage. with Is there a storage? Well, ah you know, lifesavers are good. So I'm thinking this is a deal, Pat.
02:22:41
Speaker
Great.
02:22:45
Speaker
He's got an eye out, stuff that you could buy out. If you had time machine that you would like to try out. It can't feel sealed. All right, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in. And hey, Andre, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, seriously. Y'all are awesome. You're...
02:23:07
Speaker
You're awesome. And your' ah your perspective on this was super valuable. And I'm really glad we had you here for this episode. um Again, we loved your video. Everyone go check out Andre's video on God Loves Man Kills.
02:23:23
Speaker
As well as just his channel. Andre, where can people find you? Yeah, and thanks again for that, man. Thanks again for the shout-out, y'all, and just this opportunity. On YouTube, if you just search MostlyAndre, so that's M-O-S-T-L-Y-A-N-D-R-E,
02:23:38
Speaker
you will find me doing comic book vids, live vids, and then typically my comic book videos are in shorts, maximum of three minutes, nice little synopsis breakdown, so you can find me over there. Yeah, yeah.
02:23:51
Speaker
Really insightful stuff. Also, everybody... You can find us on Instagram at mutant menace pod. ah You can email us.
02:24:02
Speaker
If you want to be part of Pat's email corner at mutants, mutant menace pod at gmail.com. You can join our discord. There's a link in the show notes to join the discord. So join it. Leave us ratings, reviews, um wherever, wherever you find podcasts. Yeah. Comments. As much as you share, as much as you share and as much as you interact, it helps people find the show.
02:24:24
Speaker
So help help us help us out with that. Big, big thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby and to Krills Wilson for all the music. And with that, I guess we just wrap it up the way we end every show. Yeah. As always, Senator, you're bleeding.
02:24:45
Speaker
And remember, poop on you, Logan.
02:24:54
Speaker
As always, death.