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BONUS - State Fair of Texas & Obnoxio the Clown
114 Plays4 days ago
This one is WILD! Special guest Matt's Son Toby joins us to follow the X-Men through a couple of their most bizarre side quests to date; one wholesome, one not so much! I promise, you aren't really prepared for either. You gotta listen to understand! Tune in!
SPECIAL FREE SURPRISE FOR LISTENERS: we have digitized, for the first time (to the best of our knowledge), The X-Men at the State Fair of Texas! Links below, please share! No viruses, we promise!
Link to folder with high-res cbz file, low-res cbz file, and pdf
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
Toby Aukamp! Attacky Titans. Scooby-Doo booby trap. Eye-Scream is here! Unstable Molecule Chest Refrigeration Unit. HE’S MY SON. Little dutch brat. Keystone Cops. Loser League. Spider-Man vs. the Dallas Cowboys. “Oh…wars.” The Cotton Bowl. “If her name is Ariel, this ain’t in your carry-all…of X-Men canon.” Nobody likes horses. A winged boy. Throwing motorcycles in a horse barn. Word search. Eques is here! Morgan Boots.
TIME STAMPS:
7:55 - History of Obnoxio the Clown
13:53 - Recap of Obnoxio the Clown VS the X-Men: “Somethin’ Slimy This Way Comes!”
44:17 - History of The Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas: “Battle at the State Fair of Texas”
53:51 - Recap of The Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas: “Battle at the State Fair of Texas”
1:17:45 - Pat's Steals n Deals
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Issues
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, folks, I know you were probably expecting the theme song here, but instead it's me, Pat Reber. I just have a couple of quick notes for the episode you're about to listen to. Number one, this is not episode 61 as scheduled today. We're very sorry we had a few technical issues. We're going to get that one out as soon as we can. But we haven't missed a Thursday yet. We're not going to start today. What you're about to hear is a bonus episode that we're publishing just a little early today. So, please still tune in. This is a very fun one. We've got a very cool guest and a fun special surprise that you can spoil for yourself in the show notes if you want to, or just wait till we talk about it about two-thirds of the way through the episode.
00:00:47
Speaker
Note number two. Okay, we also had some technical issues recording this bonus episode. The sound at the beginning is a little below our usual quality. I'll ask you to bear with us. We did everything we could to fix it. It definitely gets better as the show goes on. But the content, I promise, is still delicious.
00:01:09
Speaker
So please enjoy that. And ah yeah, I'll talk to you on the other side of the theme song. Bye-bye.
Live Report from Westchester
00:01:18
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.
00:01:55
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Toby Allcamp. And say it with us, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Menace! I didn't press the button because it's a bonus episode and I don't have to if I don't want to. Alright, I'll edit it in I guess. We'll just all sound awful. I actually just forgot to edit it in is the thing, or to press the button. And Pat forgot to edit it in.
00:02:23
Speaker
Pete doesn't come in for the bonus episodes. So he doesn't, he can't fly in from Australia just for the bonus episodes. Yeah. He ought to be saying it. you Get out of here. if you feet Sneak out before Pat can see you. Otherwise, you'll be pretty embarrassed. Okay, thanks. What was that? Nothing.
00:02:43
Speaker
i Welcome to Mutant Menace, everybody. i just like I said, am Pat Reber. We are here with a bonus episode. I have my co-host, Matt Allcamp. And as you may have heard, a third voice...
00:03:00
Speaker
Toby Allcamp is here. Hello, everyone. I'm Matt Allcamp's son. This is my son. He did birth me a while ago. i birthed him. And look, I'm such a feminist that I was like, you know what? I'm doing this one. Hey, my girlfriend, when I'm 19, sit this one out.
00:03:21
Speaker
You've done enough. And I think that spoke volumes to all women men everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how that's how you end up 40 and single, folks. You'd be this much of a feminist. Toby, thank you for being here with us for a pretty weird one. I think as listeners must have figured out by now, if your dad dies, you are going to finish out the rest of this podcast with me.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's going to happen soon, but maybe? i don't know, but I think I can take the mantle. Maybe is always on the table, I guess. Maybe is on the table for for everybody. we Look, we have to get to modern day. We have to catch up to the X-Men. It doesn't matter that more X-Men comics are released per month than the issues that we cover per month. We still...
00:04:19
Speaker
Somehow we will catch up one day and ah we have to. It's in our contract. The $70 that we get from Patreon obligates us to it.
Discussion of X-Men Comics
00:04:32
Speaker
i If you didn't read the title today, we're going to cover Obnoxio the Clown versus the X-Men as well as the X-Men versus the Texas State Fair.
00:04:44
Speaker
Wait, hold on. I think you misread the title. I think that's it. if So that's what, with this when I got that comic and it was sitting on the coffee table, ah Toby came over to watch the Attacky Titans.
00:04:56
Speaker
And that's what he said to me. He was like, oh, I had to look closer to that because I thought it said the X-Men versus the State Fair of Texas. Which would have been a fucking fantastic comic. Like, the X-Men just show up in a town, and they're like, us versus all of you. Come get Yeah, I think in Big Tex is the the ultimate villain. i You're right, Matt. It is the uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas yeah in battle at the State Fair of Texas.
00:05:32
Speaker
That's true. Man, Pat... what What do we even want to start with? what do we want to Do we want to give background? like what do we How do we do this fucking episode?
00:05:43
Speaker
let's Let's talk a little about obnoxio at first and then encourage folks to stick around when we get to Texas State Fair because we have a little treat this episode.
00:05:55
Speaker
We do? Yeah, we do. Okay. Before we do that, why don't we talk to Toby a little bit? Toby. Yeah. What kind of experience do you have with the X-Men?
00:06:06
Speaker
um I don't have very much. Most of my knowledge is from my dad because he's very obsessed with them. So I kind of I've gleaned a lot over the years. Yeah, I imagine you have an above average knowledge of the X-Men just from just genetically. Definitely. um There's a lot of X-Men where I hear about them and then I ask him, I just ask him, like, what do they do? And then he goes on like a 30 minute hour explanation of every X-Men that there is.
00:06:42
Speaker
whos Who do you think is the most obscure X-Man you can name?
00:06:49
Speaker
um After today. You can't sing Equus. Damn. That was my next line.
00:07:01
Speaker
um
00:07:04
Speaker
I really don't have an answer because I feel like any one I would say would be a common one. Yeah, I'm setting you to be laughed at probably. or Well, here's the other thing is like, how would he know if I'm his dad? How would he know what ah what people do or don't know about the X-Men?
00:07:22
Speaker
Well, that was the point. Like, what do you think is the most obscure one of the ones that you know? But for him, that might be like Cyclops. Yeah, if you say like Colossus. I talk about him the least. And then he'd be like, well, everybody knows the common ones like Pixie and Anoli and Eyeboy. But I think probably the most obscure one I know is Cyclops.
00:07:44
Speaker
All right, we'll go with Cyclops. Everybody can laugh at you a bit for it. But Toby, ah is Professor Exa? What X-Men have you read? I know you've read ah The Astonishing X-Men, ru Charles Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run.
00:08:01
Speaker
I have a long time ago. that Is that the one where Kitty Pryde goes through the whole earth with a big bullet? Spoilers! What? Yes, that's the one. um Yeah, it was in the mid-2000s after Grant Morrison's New X-Men run.
00:08:20
Speaker
And that is an example of a time. You were you were over here. And you grabbed an issue and you went upstairs to your room or you grabbed a trade and you read it.
00:08:31
Speaker
And then and like 30 minutes later, you come back down and you grab the next trade and you go back upstairs. And then like 20 minutes later, you come back to it and you've read the whole thing in a day. And then you came back down and asked me some questions and I went on for probably an hour.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, there was probably a ton of people in there I had no idea about. I think in these comics today, I did know every everyone. I'm pretty sure. we get some pretty primary teams here, I think.
00:08:59
Speaker
Except for Ariel. Okay, we'll get to Ariel. We'll
Obnoxio the Clown's Role
00:09:05
Speaker
explain Ariel to you. You know who Ariel is, but ah i will we will explain it. um Pat, what what the fuck is Obnoxio the Clown?
00:09:16
Speaker
So... Obnoxio the Clown was the mascot, the... second iteration, I believe, of their attempt to ah put in an Alfred E. Newman-like character into their spoof magazine crazy. ah This was also not their first attempt at making their own Mad Magazine. Yeah, they did.
00:09:39
Speaker
it started in 1975, and it wasn't until that issue they ditched their old irving neish
00:09:52
Speaker
Okay. Listeners at home will be going, yeah, of course we know Irving Nebbish. Irving Nebbish. That guy, Irving Nebbish, who we all are familiar with. um Larry Hama took over as editor, right?
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, Larry Hama took over as editor. He created Obnoxio the Clown as this weird little a mascot that got his own feature strip in the magazine and then very shortly after handed it over to Alan Kupferberg, who...
00:10:22
Speaker
I believe wrote the majority of the obnoxious stories for that magazine. But that's my understanding. Yeah. He appeared almost exclusively in crazy magazine.
00:10:34
Speaker
i think there are some, some appearances of them maybe here and there through Marvel comics, like what ifs and stuff like that. But sure. This is his only. year ever actual comic it was a one-shot starring obnoxious the clown obnoxious the clown versus the x-men because it is the the title that's skyrocketing to the top at this time this is going to be in 1983 so early 1983 we're taking a bit of a step back from the the main continuity here Our lineup here is Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Angel. that that Remember that like two months the Angel was on the team?
00:11:17
Speaker
And what was her name at this time? Sprite? This should be Sprite, yeah. It's Kitty We call her Kitty. Yeah, it's Kitty Pryde. That's the team right now.
00:11:29
Speaker
So, yeah, again, with Angel there, that gives you a pretty narrow window of when this occurred. Is this just pre-Dark Phoenix, or is this just post-Dark Phoenix?
00:11:41
Speaker
This would be just post-Dark Phoenix, because Kitty is here, Jean is gone. by the time You're right. By the time this comes out, Angel's already off the team. Yes, but we can imagine this is a story that took place. During those, yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
So they also mentioned that it's Kitty's birthday, and I wonder if it coincides with... The other Kitty's birthday issue? Yeah, all yeah the other story we've read about Kitty's birthday. Right, where Ili... another one? There's another one. So Kitty shows Ileana all around the mansion, because Ileana's like... Because Ileana aged seven years in a matter of seconds. exactly And so she's taking her all mountain around the mansion and showing her everything there. And it's all a distraction to set up for Kitty's birthday party.
00:12:30
Speaker
Like the last place they visit, she's like, oh, no, the lights are off. Oh, man, we're being attacked. And then it's like, surprise. And it's all the X-Men and all the Star Jammers and Lalandra near me.
00:12:42
Speaker
of the Shi'ar who ah it's supposed to be fighting a galactic civil war because her whole empire got taken over by an evil evil villain but instead she's just hanging around to celebrate she's got a 15 year old's birthday party today yeah okay so yeah I guess this is maybe the same time as that I we should have done the research and figured out that this is the same month do you remember what issue that is in me neither No, ah this is also what considered to be like the peak of Marvel's arrogance. ah not Not of any individual person's arrogance, but Marvel as a whole saying, ah we can do anything. Our readership is so strong that we can create these one-off issues that have absolutely no impact on... ka It's all just winks to the reader.
00:13:42
Speaker
Did it sell? At the time, I think it did. with Actually, I don't know. i i'm I'm just making things up. LAUGHTER
00:13:51
Speaker
And I think Obnoxio does end up coming back like way later, like in modern day. Right. But just like this for like specials like he's.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, this isn't the only appearance. As far as I know, this is still the only Obnoxio headed comic. And he's just fucking Deadpool.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. He's just dead he's Deadpool before Deadpool, and he also doesn't have any sort of fighting skills. Yeah, but he narrates through like little asides that are just making...
00:14:29
Speaker
smart aleck comments and talking about how screwed up he is how twisted he is his twisted little mind yeah and like talking metatextually about the comics and about the reader and making pop culture jokes that I don't fucking understand any of I didn't get a single one yeah I was like who I was gonna ask you guys ah we'll get we we'll get we were we were both still dead when this comic came out yeah yeah this is way before we lived Way before? Okay, it's a little bit before we left. All right. to All right. So who who's gonna who wants to read Obnoxio the Clown versus the X-Men? Something slimy this way comes.
00:15:16
Speaker
One of you two for sure. but i can get One of the All Camp Boys. You want to give it a try? The old All Camp Boys. The All Camp Boys are here. All right. So the script and art and letters and colors are by Alan Kupferberg. He does it all. He's a thing. That's a lot of things. He's a man of many talents, Alan Kupferberg.
00:15:37
Speaker
That is, i will say, not to interrupt you already, Toby, but... That is a real workhorse, right? Somebody, this is somebody that has been slaving away in the magazine department for years. Yeah. Writing these comics, doing it all from scratch himself. So he was like, you know what? i still got it. i I can do a full issue.
00:15:59
Speaker
entirely on my own it's really it's just like it's scrappy good for you i'm also gonna say that this is sort of the early era of like the black and white 1980s indie comics right this is when indie comics are really starting to pick up um and so the idea of somebody doing their own you know the all the art, all the writing, all the colors, well, colors, all the letters is... That's real comics, man. It's real comics and it's happening. And there must have been, this must have looked to people on the shelves at the time, kind of like Marvel doing the indie comics thing.
00:16:42
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah, but yeah. But this isn't black and white. But it is not indie by any means. And it's not indie. But like, I imagine that they are. This is at least somewhat inspired by that movement, right?
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, it has to be. Right around the corner from Ninja Turtles. Yeah. OK, our editor today is Larry Hama. He also created Abnoxio the Clown. Yeah, it's all his fault. The credits say. And Jim Shooter is our editor in chief. Who's that?
00:17:19
Speaker
Who? Who? Jim Shooter. I don't I've never heard. i think you must be reading that wrong. Yeah, there must be a typo. Jim Shooter. Now stop saying his name.
00:17:32
Speaker
My copy says Timmy Trooper, so I don't know. i You must be. i think I was reading something else, I guess. The release date for this comic is January 4th, 1983.
00:17:45
Speaker
Cover date is April, 1983. ninety eighty three A strange little clown man arrives at the Xavier mansion, sporting green polka dots, makeup, and a big stinky cigar.
Comic Plot: I Scream's Infiltration
00:17:56
Speaker
He explains through a combination of narration and monologue that he's here at x Xavier's request as a birthday surprise for Kitty. no But a shaduary figure watches his entrance, worrying the clown may dash his dastardly plans. Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, he's just this grumpy, like hobo looking clown. He's in he's in like a raggedy clown outfit. He's reading the directions to the house on like a scrap of toilet paper.
00:18:26
Speaker
He's refusing to tip the cabbie. Oh, yeah. And that's great. I forgot about the toilet paper. He's like, you want to tip? Don't bet on horses. He's also, Xavier reveals that Kitty's favorite magazine is Crazy Magazine, which was canceled immediately before. They gave this to Andy Kupferberg because they canceled Crazy Magazine.
00:18:51
Speaker
ah They canceled Kitty Pryde's favorite magazine? Those monsters! um I also have to say that he said that he normally spends his Wednesday night. Well, I guess this is on a Wednesday night because he said that he normally spends them shark fishing. I thought that was very interesting. He's a shark fisher. He's a shark fisher in his free time.
00:19:14
Speaker
So we knew he was a shark fisherman. That's not a every Wednesday night thing. Yeah.
00:19:22
Speaker
He's not even on the coast. He does it at the aquarium. yeah Inside the mansion, x Xavier is alerted to a presence of a new mutant by Cerebro and hopes that whatever this is doesn't ruin his surprise for Kitty.
00:19:38
Speaker
Crazy is her favorite magazine. Before can he can account for this, though, Cerebro explodes and knocks him unconscious. It's always doing that. is it do this so often? It really explodes this time. It's not just like a zap to to him or something like it usually is it is. The screen blows out and fire shoots out at him.
00:20:01
Speaker
What I was thinking, I thought it would be so fucking funny if they killed Professor X in Obnoxious Number One. Like, this was dead the death of Professor X. Like, Scott runs in and he's dead. What?
00:20:17
Speaker
it would be is the we It wouldn't be outside of Marvel's business practices at the time to be like, if you want to know about this, you have to pick up Obnoxio number one. It's also funny that Professor X hired. That's true. ah It's also funny that Professor X hired clearly the cheapest clown he could find. Yeah.
00:20:40
Speaker
I thought it his explanation for why he hired him was very funny. It was like, she's 15, so I have to get her a clown. Like a 15-year-old, that's a common thing they like.
00:20:53
Speaker
well Also, you have to I have to keep assuming that Kitty's maturity is all over the place. She only hangs out with other adults.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah. She must be both deeply immature and incredibly mature at the same time, right? Like she must be like, she's like both 10 years old and 40 years old at all times.
00:21:17
Speaker
it's She's also an only child, right? Yeah, that's true. So that's that's the same complex. Yeah, Toby knows all about this. Yeah, no offense to you, Toby, or myself. It's...
00:21:33
Speaker
Hearing the explosion, Scott rushes in to find the professor unconscious and having just heard Cerebro going nuts. Assuming a mutant threat is about, just as Obnoxio the Clown knocks on the front door.
00:21:46
Speaker
They open up a trap door and imprison him and rush to see who this jerk is. But by the time they get to his his cell, Abnoxio has blown a hole in the wall and broken out thanks to the contents of his clown suitcase. what he did A lot of what he does here is just using clown stuff to be like almost like a super spy assassin.
00:22:10
Speaker
He apparently, in his clowning suitcase, he's got a whole rack of half-used CO2 cartridges for his seltzer gun. He loves seltzer.
00:22:22
Speaker
He uses those and his exploding cigar to make a bomb. Oh, man. So when the X-Men are rushing there, it's so it's one of my favorite things. is One of my favorite things of like...
00:22:34
Speaker
comics that have to use excessive narration to set up like for new readers. So yeah yeah Cyclops is running down the hallway and he's like, Angel, Sprite, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm, you're all here. good And it's just like, makes me think of like, what if they still did that all the way to the 2000s when there's like 30 X-Men? Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Namor, Dr. Nemesis, Emma, Magneto, Pixie, Admir, Wolverine. He's out of breath. He passes out. And they're like, we he always does this. We have to wait five minutes before he'll give us our mission.
00:23:18
Speaker
i was also very confused why the X-Men have a Scooby-Doo booby trap on their front door. Oh! New to me. yeah They've never used it before. They'll never use it again. It's never come up with no exits, too.
00:23:32
Speaker
theres There's no way to get out down there. It's just a wall with no doors. room with no doors.
00:23:44
Speaker
In all the commotion, a man calling himself I Scream melts himself into a pink dairy-based goo and seeps into the mansion through the faulty seal of a basement window. Beware, X-Men. Here comes I Scream, he shouts.
00:24:02
Speaker
The X-Men, their security is so poor. How are you supposed to defend against ice cream? I don't know if you've ever thought about that. Water. Just make it a little watertight. Like Hydro Man could show up at any moment and flood your whole basement. Yeah. I have like 15 notes here.
00:24:24
Speaker
ah First of all, why wouldn't you call yourself the Ice Cream Man? That's so much more menacing. Fuck. Second of all. and This doesn't come across it over audio, but it is E-Y-E dash scream. The i scream man. Why not just I, the letter i Right.
00:24:46
Speaker
First person I scream man. and There is nothing about his appearance or his power set that have anything to do with eyes. Nothing hear. He's just a man who turns into ice cream like Alex Mack.
00:25:00
Speaker
Okay, that brings me to my third point. Ha ha ha! How does he know he's ice cream? He can turn into any flavor he wants. but someone's heading eat that ice cream has yeah Somebody would have had to have ate him.
00:25:16
Speaker
Had some, right? Or even just like a scientist. taking a scoop and being like, hmm, milk and sugar and a little bit of egg, one egg yolk.
00:25:27
Speaker
do you that But if he maybe if he goes, because we see him a couple times being half ice cream. Maybe if he goes half ice cream, he eats his own toe or whatever.
00:25:38
Speaker
Maybe it just goes right back. i wonder Okay. Fourth point. I could never have this power because I would cannibalize myself. Yeah. just sit there with your hand and turn it into different flavors and be like oh i wonder what uh lime ice cream tastes like you've you've lost a whole finger and you're like oh i wonder what buttered popcorn ice cream tastes like i won't do it again i'll just get a few bites in today tomorrow we quit
00:26:11
Speaker
okay You're on some weird shit. You're like, I wonder what dust ice cream tastes like. I'll bet they could make it taste good. Not quite there. Let's try a little more sugar.
00:26:24
Speaker
Oops, I ate my memories of elementary school by accident. Okay, fifth and final point, and then I'll let you continue, Toby. Thank you for your patience.
00:26:35
Speaker
How does he know who the X-Men are and that the that they're training here at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters? That is a secret. Okay. i ah Here's my headcanon here. He's a mutant.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yes. He applied. Not even he applied. I'm imagining there is X-Men comic.
00:26:57
Speaker
i'm imagining there is a lost x-men comic Where Cerebro goes off. The X-Men go. They find Ice Cream. And they're like, ah a new mutant. What are you doing? And they they, he says, they say, do you want to join the X-Men? He says, no, they beat him up. And they find out, because that's what they used to do. They find out that he turns into Ice Cream. And he's like, you know what i think I will join the X-Men. And they're like, ooh, you know what? ah are Oh, gosh. I just remembered. I i forgot.
00:27:29
Speaker
Our membership badge is at home. ah um Why don't you sit tight? We'll give you a call. Don't worry.
00:27:40
Speaker
If it takes us a little bit to get back to you, you just you just a hang out here. We'll be back. And here we are 20 years later. and he's very muscular. And he's got like a cat burglar suit with a Batman hood. he is breaking into the X-Mansion.
00:28:00
Speaker
See, I'm not sure if they did reject him or not, though, because he doesn't even say that he wants to be the most like powerful mutant. He just says that he wants to be like the mutant with the coolest power.
00:28:14
Speaker
He already is.
00:28:20
Speaker
if I just want to be the coolest guy and that's why I want to kill you. why And he doesn't generate ice cream. He turns into ice cream. This is the most useless power. Like this is, I hadn't thought about this when I was reading it.
00:28:34
Speaker
It's just like, i was thinking of it as like, oh yeah, he turns into ice cream. Sure. Like I was just thinking of it as a a guy who creates ice cream. No, he turns into ice cream.
00:28:45
Speaker
You can't eat him or he's dead and gone. Yeah. And we do know Kitty loves ice cream, so we should... Hopefully she doesn't run into him here. He's also... It's worth mentioning... Sorry, I guess I'll make a sixth point. He does need an unstable molecule chest refrigeration unit to keep himself... I don't know if it's to keep himself solid. That's the only thing. Because he turns it off in order to melt enough so he can ooze his way through the door.
00:29:18
Speaker
I imagine it's because when he doesn't have his refrigeration unit, he's he's not ice cream anymore. He's cu tart cuss custard. Ew, I don't like that one.
00:29:32
Speaker
But he'd just be custard. He's just custard if he's not frozen. I also think... i so think um The fact that he has an unstable molecule suit means he's got he's been in contact with Reed Richards. Yeah, he's got connections with the Fantastic Four. He also got rejected from the Fantastic Four. We already have one of those sort of remember That's the first issue of Spider-Man is he tries to join the Fantastic Four and they say no.
00:30:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. This is it's the same with ice cream. Sorry, son. It's more family. That's a good read Richard. And he's like, what about and he's like, ah what about She-Hulk? She's not family. All right. Got to go. We let sorry. We left our membership badges inside.
00:30:25
Speaker
Okay, one final thing. He keeps talking about ice He does say a couple things right before he goes in. He said it would be easy as pie, all la mode, ah and lickety banana split. Why does he say lickety banana split? I'll get it done. Lickety banana split. I think lickety split is probably already...
00:30:53
Speaker
Like an ice cream. partner I got to say, Alan Kupferberg credit to him for ah his lettering, where you know the way that he's saying it because of the the bolding and and stuff. i He says easy as pie.
00:31:12
Speaker
o la mode.
00:31:15
Speaker
yeah Here's the thing about this. He's thinking it He's thinking, there's no audience. He's thinking this stuff. This is how he thinks in his brain. this is a damaged man. I mean, when you, I guess ah he ate so much of his own body that that's going to drive him insane. It comes out of the brain first.
00:31:42
Speaker
all right, we got to move on. ah The X-Men confront Obnoxio and demand answers, but there's no time for that now as they jump him instead. But in their rush, they forgot to work as a team and Obnoxio takes them out one by one. This was crazy. Cyclops and Wolverine converge on him and he just hops on his unicycle and slips away and they just collide into each other. a pretty good strategy colossus comes at him and he just he uses an electric hand buzzer and he's just out commission supercharged he does nightcrawler with sneezing powder and it just causes him to teleport around randomly that was my favorite one that was really good dude that was brilliant that was a very good joke
00:32:33
Speaker
And you keep seeing happen in the background. but So this happens to Nightcrawler for like 10 minutes. just That's so torturous.
00:32:46
Speaker
It's very good. It's just, it is happening in the background as the rest of the comic continues. And then I guess Storm and Kitty and Angel are just hanging back. They don't want none of this heat.
00:32:58
Speaker
You see this happen and you're like, fuck, no. Let the clown go. The three statistically that are afraid of clowns.
00:33:11
Speaker
It's, I mean, Angel was here and he was not the first person knocked unconscious. So that... Just that means he's staying out of it. Yeah, just like on that basis alone. I'm proud of her. Our winged boy.
00:33:27
Speaker
Can I ask why does every iteration of X-Men have to have a winged boy? Why is there always a winged boy? I feel like there's a lot of them, right? There's ah the Banshee guy. he He kind of has wings. He doesn't have wings.
00:33:45
Speaker
There's a guy with ah ah metal wings. There's another guy that looks exactly like Angel. There's Archangel. You're naming the same person several times. Over over again. Really?
00:34:01
Speaker
He's gone through a lot of changes in itself ah his body. I mean, there's angel there's Icarus, who looks exactly like Angel, but his wings are red. There's a man we'll be meeting later in this episode. Equus.
00:34:17
Speaker
Equus. um Who else has wings? Pixie has wings. Banshee and Storm. and so like There's a lot of guys that don't have wings, but they're they do capes in a way that function as wings. if They look like they're winged. yeah Yeah, I mean, you need a winged boy. is i think I think that's the thing. I think that's always the thing is that you need a wing you need a winged boy.
00:34:41
Speaker
You want to be a superhero team? You better get yourself a winged boy. You need a fly boy. In most teams, you need a fly boy. You need a fly boy.
00:34:52
Speaker
Or fly girl. Alright. Alright, don't get too woke on me here. Everyone knows girls can't fly.
00:35:05
Speaker
oh Meanwhile, ice cream has oozed his way into the danger room control room. If anything in the fucking mansion is watertight, it's the danger room control room.
00:35:18
Speaker
All right, anyways, sorry. keep it It's not ice cream tight. where I guess they were all fighting because suddenly all the obstacles activate. Obnoxio uses his clown tricks to disable all of them, but is exhausted by the end of it, and finds himself surrounded by the X-Men.
00:35:36
Speaker
Before Wolverine can stab him to death, though, Xavier summons everyone to the control room where they all find him beside a man in a giant block of ice. So, okay, this...
00:35:49
Speaker
recap does not talk about how when obnoxio comes soaring out of the danger room and finds himself surrounded by x-men the danger room was flooding and to survive he inflates a rubber chicken and puts it on his head like a helmet like a diving helmet he said it was an aerated rubber chicken That would be worth but without mean it would breathe and the water would come in. and if he fills it with air, he's even then he's suffocating himself. This wouldn't work.
00:36:25
Speaker
From what I understand, this was pre-filled with oxygen. This was in his... Like, he's going on the oxygen that's already in that that chicken to survive the...
00:36:37
Speaker
The flooding of the danger room. Then Alan Kupferberg has him flopping on the ground like a fish, which is a pretty good visual. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And also, Wolverine is ready to gut him. yeah yeah He's going to murder Obnoxio the Clown. Kitty's favorite clown right in front her. I'm sick of your pranks. Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
um He also fought the danger room with ah cream pies, which I really liked. Lasers started shooting out at him and he just threw a pie at them. This is where a lot of his obscure references come from. Okay, yeah. Should we get into some of these or should we just go through them at the end?
00:37:17
Speaker
Let's go through them at the end. Let's keep going. let's cause we're at We're right at the end. Okay, I one more point. and but so I think they were all trying to get him out of the danger room, right? They they didn't want him in there.
00:37:31
Speaker
And i was just I forgot about Nightcrawler. And then I realized after why he couldn't just go in there and rescue him. He was still sneezing. He was still sneezing everywhere.
00:37:45
Speaker
He could have just got him, but he was just sneezing too much. They literally show him stop sneezing at this point when the danger room breaks open and the like he finally gets covered in water and the water washes it off.
00:38:00
Speaker
Unbelievable. Turns out Xavier had woken up, sensed Ice Cream's presence in the in the control room, and set the thermostat to well below freezing. Yeah. He explains that Abnoxio is actually here for Kitty as a birthday gift.
00:38:16
Speaker
To prove he's cool, Abnoxio covers the frozen ice cream and whipped cream and then refuses to perform and sprays Kitty with seltzer instead. The end. That's, for but first of all, okay.
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah. First of all, that's, that's performing. You spray the birthday girl with seltzer? You're performing. Sorry, clown. Did you just clap for Toby finishing the recap? He's my son.
00:38:48
Speaker
so you know he's He's rightfully offended by the X-Men attack. i'm so he's like I guess taking the money and not giving ah a show. if you step If you step back from this just a second, what happened was a supervillain Invaded the X-Men's inner sanctum.
00:39:08
Speaker
And they didn't notice because they were too busy fighting and losing to a clown.
00:39:15
Speaker
That they invited.
00:39:19
Speaker
um this also yeah can we go back for a second to with x Xavier adjusting the temperature of the danger room control room low enough that it freezes a man in a block of ice Yeah, it doesn't just like turn the moisture in the air around him is being frozen.
00:39:42
Speaker
ah When Kitty gets squirted in the face, she says sports.
00:39:49
Speaker
S.F.O.R.T.Z. Yeah. um All right. Let's talk about some of these fucking references, because what are they? Okay, at some point, when he's when he's getting drowned in the water, he does say, he there's a callback, he says, water, and it ain't even Saturday.
00:40:09
Speaker
It's not... What? It's not Shark Fishing Day.
00:40:13
Speaker
Oh. okay Oh, wait, no. Shark Fishing is Wednesday. So what the hell is he talking about then? i don't know. He's covered in water and he says, it ain't even Saturday. Is that a reference to something?
00:40:26
Speaker
You know, and he said wet Saturday. But he says, where's that pesky little Dutch brat when you need him? What is that? I think that was just racism. No, there's got that's got to be a reference to something. what There's no stereotype about Dutch people... Do they soak up water? That are... Yeah, that's like they're in water all the time. No, I think he's referring to Nightcrawler to teleport him out of there, right? It's where's that little Dutch brat? Okay, all That's a little Dutch brat.
00:40:59
Speaker
It's a new nickname for Nightcrawler. Kurt Rupert. Kurt Rupert, new nickname. Okay, he does one of those... ah Wheel of Fortune style combining a bunch of pop culture things with similar. and he He says, just call me Dead Eye Dick Tracy Hepburn.
00:41:21
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. So Dead Eye Dick is. I know it's a Kurt Vonnegut novel, but what is it actually? I don't know. A private private detective, I assume.
00:41:34
Speaker
I don't know. Dick Tracy's a private detective. Is he private detective? Is that his thing? I don't actually know what Dick Tracy does except for beat up guys with funny heads. Is he just a cop? No, I think he's like a private. app oh mate I don't know. So and then Tracy Hepburn.
00:41:50
Speaker
I don't really know who that is. I recognize the name, but I don't know why. I thought it was about Aubrey Hepburn mixed with somebody else's name. Dead Eye Dick Tracy Hepburn, it says.
00:42:02
Speaker
It says Dead Eye Dick Tracy Hepburn. Keep repeating it. Dead Eye Dick Tracy Hepburn, Catherine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy.
00:42:13
Speaker
There is no Tracy Hepburn. there's Yeah, Tracy was Catherine Hepburn's husband. Dead Eye Dick is the... Kurt Vonnegut novel that appears to be the only one only thing first there's also a band from the 90s but I don't think I don't think that's what he's referring to yeah they're referring to I think he's saying one of the Hepburns what are some other of these references and He compares himself to Max Sennett.
00:42:45
Speaker
Who the fuck is that? When he's throwing cream pies and dancing around the danger rooms. Max Sennett a silent era film star and producer. He was like a slapstick comedy guy. He was the star of Keystone Cops.
00:42:58
Speaker
Did you know this or look it up? I looked it up. Okay. And what is... What is sugar babies? Yeah. What is sugar babies? That one I couldn't find any information on. Like it real like sugar babies since then, like television shows or, pornographies it appears.
00:43:19
Speaker
But he says, go and hire yourselves. The cast of sugar babies.
00:43:25
Speaker
What the hell does that mean? I don't know. I could not find 1982 or 1983 reference. okay So we made it up. So this is proto-Deadpool right here, right? Like this was... But with... I mean, this is that thing about... um What do you call it? Looney Tunes, right?
00:43:44
Speaker
is Looney Tunes made all sorts of pop culture references. But... yeah Even for their time, those references were outdated.
00:43:56
Speaker
They would be people... with you They'd be doing like... Rat Pack references. Right. They're doing FDR impressions in the 60s. Exactly. And that's what's happening here is he's doing these like really outdated. It'd be like if um Deadpool sees a pretty lady and he's like, oh, it's like Cindy Crawford. Right. Like it's like. yeah These are 50 year old references that he's making at the time. At the time.
00:44:26
Speaker
And now they're 100 years old. Literally. One last fun fact about this issue. Tell me it. I scream does get one more appearance.
00:44:38
Speaker
So he cannot join the loser league. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't possibly. He does appear in August, 2023 in the Krakoa era.
00:44:51
Speaker
i should I'm to say, I think very few references are, still allows entry into the loser league because like who, who there's somebody in the loser league that has a couple future references. They're just, there's certainly not Porter Mac.
00:45:10
Speaker
No, not Porter Mac, not rocking red bone. We've got to go through the loser league again sometime. It's been a while. yeah i you know what I'm going to nominate.
00:45:22
Speaker
You can turn them down, but I'm going to nominate ice cream for the loser league. Okay, we'll mull it over. We'll mull it over. While we do, do you guys want to talk about the Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas in Battle at the State Fair of Texas?
00:45:40
Speaker
i i You know what, Pat? I can't wait to talk about Uncanny X-Men and at the State Fair of Texas, Battle at the State Fair of Texas. Let's get into it then. Jim Salicrupp plot, David Kraft script. Do you remember David Kraft, Matt? I do. They need two two writers to come up with this story. David Kraft, he did um The Defenders for a Day. the Yeah, Defender for a Day, Dollar Bills, Defenders, Dystopia. I forget the... Yeah, yeah I don't know. that Yeah.
00:46:13
Speaker
ah Carrie Gamble and Alan Kupferberg pencils. Alan Kupferberg is back. More Alan Kupferberg. This is an Alan Kupferberg spectacular.
00:46:24
Speaker
They need two people to pencil this one. One to draw the boy and one to draw his horse body. Chickstone inks, Rick Parker letters, Marie Severin colors. John Romita did the cover, which makes a lot of sense. It is a very John Romita cover.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. No release date for this one officially. I hope they have fallen.
00:46:48
Speaker
But the cover date was in an October of 1983. And we want to talk about? Yeah, we need some background here. So the background i can give...
00:47:01
Speaker
Is that around this time, Marvel in its in its attempts to make money wherever it could started going to different department stores and saying, hey, would you like your clothes to be featured worn by our characters? What?
00:47:20
Speaker
And this is a Jim Stupid initiative, I'm guessing. It has to be. i The department store Sanger Harris is which is I've never heard of is one that they eventually reached the agreement with and they printed these comics exclusively as supplements to the Dallas Times Herald.
00:47:40
Speaker
Now, there were six in total. The first five were Spider-Man, in one of which he ah fights the Dallas Cowboys, I believe. He actually murders them. He kills all of the Dallas Cowboys.
00:47:54
Speaker
Good. Fuck the Cowboys. Yeah, good. So by the time we got around to this one... It was no longer a s Sanger Harris production. It seems like they had been removed. This was made directly for the Dallas Times Herald to be given out as a supplement to help advertise the Texas State Fair. Was this like a specific like...
00:48:17
Speaker
Division of Marvel? Like, the we make, this is a small little group that makes the comics for the... I don't i mean, these are, like, we know these writers and inkers, and we know that they're not, they're nobody's first choice for... Besides John Romita, maybe, but...
00:48:39
Speaker
who only did the cover. Right. I like these are folks that they're they're working bullpen folk. They're they're the work horses of Marvel at the time.
00:48:50
Speaker
Yeah. It's like they were just like, hey, please put together a comic in which Spider-Man fights the Dallas Cowboys. um And so then they visit the Texas State Fair. um Yeah. What's Texas State Fair, Matt? You know, it's a state fair. It it started in 1886. It's just a bunch of businessmen got together and were like, hey, we want to promote like the commercial aspects of Dallas, Texas.
00:49:22
Speaker
So, ah you know, it's just it was yearly. for let me Let me look. it it operated for certain periods of time. and there was so There's only a couple of years that it didn't. 1918, some of the mid nineteen thirty s some of the wars. Oh, yeah. there. So, yeah.
00:49:40
Speaker
Okay. All right. Okay.
00:49:48
Speaker
so yeah okay all right So let's just pretend it operate operated in uninterrupted since 1886.
00:49:59
Speaker
And there's a there's a racetrack. There's there was a racetrack that turned into a stadium called the Cotton Bowl, where I guess there is a year.
00:50:09
Speaker
You know, the Cotton Bowl. Yeah. A yearly foot college football game. I just learned that. I just learned. I would not expect you to know that. And then, let's see, in the nineteen fifty s is when they got Big Tex, a 52-foot cowboy figure erected at the center of the grounds.
00:50:32
Speaker
how Just for comparison, how tall is the Statue of Liberty? For comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 151 feet. So one third of the Statue of Liberty is this big fucking cowboy man. He's just a big cowboy with a big cowboy's head and like and like ah like a country music cowboy, not like a real cowboy.
00:50:54
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah. He's got like a difference. Yeah, i know the difference. Have you never met a real cowboy before? um He looks like he's going square dancing. Yeah, exactly. ah Elvis had performed at the the Cotton Bowl before. There's a monorail system that was installed in the 1950s. Richard Nixon made an appearance in the 1950s.
00:51:17
Speaker
Whoa. Richard Nixon? No.
00:51:24
Speaker
And then right after this. So this this comic book takes place just before they got their Ferris wheel. Oh, that's why there's no Ferris wheel in this comic.
00:51:37
Speaker
you You were wondering, you were like, what we say in where's the Ferris wheel? Every time we visit a location with the Ferris wheel. Every time the X-Men visit any location. Remember, that I have to cut it out of most episodes because you were asking it when they were in Magneto's underground volcano lair.
00:51:58
Speaker
but There's supposed to be a ton of them around there. Antarctica. In Antarctica, under the ground.
00:52:06
Speaker
All right. Where's the world's only indoor Ferris wheel? I think that exists. I think there's an indoor Ferris wheel at the Mall of America, right? What?
00:52:18
Speaker
I could be wrong. I could be wrong. If the X-Men fight the Mall of America, we'll know.
00:52:30
Speaker
All right. So, yeah, this is a pretty rare comic. It was printed specifically ah for the Dallas Times Herald. That's right. And Matt, we had a difficult time.
00:52:43
Speaker
finding this in order to read it for this podcast, right? I had to find a so Not that, you know, normally we're reading from Pat's... Pat spent his vast fortune on every original X-Men comic book issue. Whereas I collect them all in trades and I just fill in issues that aren't collected in trades here and there.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah. And usually those are weird ah issues where nothing very important happens. That's why they're not collected in trades and I can find them pretty cheap. This one... This one wasn't that expensive, but I had to do some...
00:53:19
Speaker
I had to do some heavy eBaying to get this. And I ended up i ended up winning a lot of two. i ended up... That's how I got this. i ended up having to spend more than I wanted to. Because the only... at the time, the only really affordable auction I could find was for two of them.
00:53:36
Speaker
And I bought two Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas. I gave one to Patrick. As part of my birthday present. And I have one here. and And you sent me it on online. Yeah, do you want to... As a Google Drive. We finally... we dig we did i digitized it because there ah like is no digital version of this anywhere.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So if you are interested in reading this comic, there should be a link in the show notes to our digitized version of this. I don't think there are...
00:54:11
Speaker
This doesn't strike me as something someone would sue us over, but if someone sues us, I'm going to be so mad at them. Keep it to keep it to listeners, maybe share it on Reddit or something, but don't, don't, don't tell them if any cops are listening, you have to email and tell us and you don't have my permission actually.
00:54:33
Speaker
But tell your friends about it, by all means. If you're a cop, you have to tell your friends. If you're a cop, it's the law. You have to tell your friends or it's entrapment.
00:54:46
Speaker
ah But no, you please check the show notes, download a copy, read it for yourself. It's something special. And we're just we're happy to be able to we archive this somewhere.
00:54:57
Speaker
Yeah, it it deserves to exist in people. Like people, people should see this. It's absurd. All right, let's get into it then, shall we?
Mission to Dallas
00:55:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:09
Speaker
Yes. We don't have an official release date for this one because it was a supplement for the Dallas Times Herald. I could not find the newspaper date that it was stuffed into. I imagine a Sunday edition, but who knows?
00:55:27
Speaker
Sunday, that's the day I go shark fishing. Cover date, however... is October of 1983. This should take place exactly between Professor x Xavier is a Jerk on Kenny X-Men number 168 and the start of the Wolverine miniseries.
00:55:48
Speaker
I mean, Professor Xavier's in a wheelchair here. Yeah, well, so it seems like the creative staff was referring to X-Men comics from the 60s through most of this. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:02
Speaker
So officially, this does take place between Professor Xavier is a jerk and the start of the Wolverine miniseries. You'll just have to take my word for it. Why is he in a wheelchair?
00:56:15
Speaker
was Because the i why is he trying to find mutants before Magneto does? Why did Magneto in charge of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants? And why is Magneto at some point tries to kill Kitty even though like that was his whole thing? Like that was his big turn. It's like, oh man, I almost killed this young mutant Jewish girl.
00:56:36
Speaker
And then this thingy throws a fucking motorcycle at her. All right. Toby, you asked about Ariel earlier. Ariel is Kitty Pryde. Her name used to be Sprite.
00:56:47
Speaker
then ariial Then Ariel. Then Ariel. So now and now in continuity where me and Pat are at is Shadowcat. Ariel hasn't really been an in comics like in main canon name for her we saw it in god loves man and kills god loves man kills we saw it in x-men versus the micronauts which we are considering extremely soft canon and it is x-men versus the micronauts is advertised in this comic it sure is uh so she goes by ariel in this one she she has that same strange like green costume with the the green diamonds diamond eyes yeah
00:57:32
Speaker
What I think that tells us is that this is not a canon story. If it's Ariel, it's not canon. Maybe canonized later, like God Loves Man Kills. But if it's Ariel, it's not canon.
00:57:44
Speaker
Is there a rhyme for that? If Ariel, if Kitty If Ariel's her name, if Ariel's... What rhymes with Ariel? What rhymes with Ariel?
00:57:56
Speaker
Nothing rhymes with Ariel. All right. Carry all. all of Oh, if if her name is Ariel.
00:58:04
Speaker
This ain't in your carry all of X-Men canon. There we go. That old adage. Our issue
00:58:14
Speaker
our issue opens with the X-Men, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler huddled back to back in the middle of a danger room exercise. Kitty Pryde, still going by Ariel at this point, and Professor x Xavier, monitor from the booth as each X-Man shows off their unique power to complete their test.
00:58:33
Speaker
Pat, you forgot when in your recap, in this recap that you wrote, you forgot that Wolverine is there too. Wolverine is also there. Toby, I think you left that out when you were writing this.
00:58:47
Speaker
Suddenly, the training halts and the X-Men are ordered to the control booth at once. Professor X explains that Cerebro has detected a mutant in Dallas, Texas, and the X-Men must get there at once to recruit the boy before the evil Magneto can get to him. Oh, okay. Now... We're back to this.
00:59:06
Speaker
this It has been, to say, 15 years at this since... fifteen years at this point since Professor x Xavier has gone looking for a new mutant because he was worried that Magneto would get to him first and recruit him for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
00:59:26
Speaker
He just, yeah, he just woke up that day with like a specific type of anxiety. Yeah. He's like, what if Magneto gets this one? And they're all like, off panel, they're all like, Professor, he doesn't do that anymore. And it's like, what if? haven't seen him in years. yet And yet, he's correct.
00:59:46
Speaker
Cut to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas where a shady man in a big purple overcoat walks through the crowd towards the horse barn where he finds a young blonde boy shooing a horse.
00:59:59
Speaker
After buying Daniel Wiley, the horse boy, snacks and talking to him about his horses, Daniel feels seen and explains his life story. here yeah daniel yeah Nobody ever understood Daniel because nobody likes horses. Apparently.
01:00:14
Speaker
yeah Finally, somebody that likes horses. I've been looking my whole life for another person, especially a grown man whose face I can't see that likes horses.
01:00:27
Speaker
What kind of Texas state fair is this? Everybody's like, these horses suck. yeah Horses. hate horses. i hate horses
01:00:39
Speaker
Apparently, Daniel's father was a secret government scientist who retired after an accident and started a horse farm. Again, going back to you have to be exposed to radiation to have a mutant baby.
01:00:52
Speaker
After becoming obsessed with horses, one night Daniel's mutant power kicked in. He grew a horse body and big wings and changed into a centaur. slash pegasus hybrid yeah he calls himself a centaur but he's got wings he's got wings later justytop it's one of your it's one of your winged boys a winged boy is with as far as we know he might also be part unicorn right um why he is one of a kind
01:01:24
Speaker
Well, why why would he also be part? yeah I mean, doesn't have. We know he's centaur because he's a human on some sort of horse's body. Yes. We know he's a Pegasus because it has wings.
01:01:37
Speaker
Wait, is this just angel again?
01:01:41
Speaker
So how do we know that the horse's body isn't actually a unicorn's body with a Pegasus, a Pegasized wings? Oh, okay. So he's a centaur because he's got a human torso. He's a unicorn because he's got a unicorn's body.
01:01:59
Speaker
and And he's got a pegasus. He's got a pegasus wings. He just doesn't have ah he doesn't have a horn because it's a human head. Because it's the human, because the front half is human.
01:02:10
Speaker
Okay. Okay.
01:02:14
Speaker
okay ah so he he discovered How do we know he's in a literal angel? Because he's got wings, too. Yeah, maybe those are angels' wings. And and ah a dove.
01:02:27
Speaker
And the halo is missing because the top half is human. And how do we know he isn't ah Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, because he's a little blonde boy. What if he's got the digestive tract of a cow?
01:02:39
Speaker
yeah and ah And he seems to have no genitals, so maybe he has the genitals of a fish that like tuck up inside him and have to unfold when he's ready to mate.
01:02:50
Speaker
He discovers he can change into a hybrid of a centaur, Pegasus, unicorn, dove, fish, angel, angel, cow, pig, goat.
01:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. Later discovering he could change back at will. Later, the stranger returns to his weird spaceship and turns out to be none other than Magneto, who sense is eat who senses courage in Daniel and wants to recruit him to his brotherhood of evil mutants in an attempt to rule the world. he'st but He hasn't had a brotherhood of evil mutants in fucking a decade and a half. Yeah, since pre-Dark Era.
01:03:34
Speaker
Since before they were cancelled. This is, I'm telling you, David Kraft. Really a ah shame about them being cancelled, by the way. say that They said a racial slur. but Actually, oh my god, they literally did. at the The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all said a racial slur? No, in the Neil Adams, Roy Thomas run. Remember, Cyclops says a racial slur, and very shortly after, the X-Men get cancelled.
01:04:01
Speaker
Oh, you're right. okay Anyway, I'm not sure about all these eras of Magneto, but I thought it was very weird of him to just call himself evil.
01:04:13
Speaker
He was like, I am an evil man and I want to do my evil stuff. Yeah, he had he had an era. yeah i But i I don't think that David Kraft has read an issue of the X-Men since the 60s. I think somebody was like, these are the current X-Men. These are their powers. He could figure that out well enough. but And they handed him some comics, and he's like, no, I got it.
01:04:40
Speaker
And then they handed him, and they were like, no, you should read these. And he's like, got it. And he knocks them to the ground.
01:04:47
Speaker
Soon, the X-Men land in Dallas and split up into teams. Scott and Aurora go search the age of steam exhibit. Logan and Kurt go look near the big giant metal statue of a cowboy named Tex who serves as the mascot of the fair. Peter, Kitty, and Xavier all go look at some cars before giving up.
01:05:07
Speaker
Dude. yeah Okay. Wolverine dressed like a cowboy. Kitty pride. her outfit is fucking phenomenal. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. they They're all Kurt's just walking around blue with like a that an newsboy cap on. like Kitty Pryde has a red kerchief, green jeans, and like a green like ah a green cowboy shirt or like a denim shirt.
01:05:33
Speaker
She looks fucking great in a big Texas belt buckle. She looks great. Like Dolly Parton. It is. They're all very well dressed. It's maybe this still does have a ah some sort of partnership with the department store.
01:05:51
Speaker
It's clearly just an advertisement for the Texas State Fair, which. Oh, 100%. This whole thing is. But at this point, they are just looking at different sites that are at the Texas State Fair and saying, wow, look how amazing this is. Our mutant's not here, but this is beautiful. Did be did Professor X really want Equus or did he just want to see the fair? he just wrote Exactly. it just turned out there was actually a mutant there, but he was making it up
01:06:23
Speaker
At the end of it, they give up and they say, it's obvious that this this fair has too much to see in just one day. Even though this story takes place over the course of like four days.
01:06:36
Speaker
There's yeah several captions in the story that's like, the next day. Lena Horne is playing. Yeah, at the movie theater, I imagine.
01:06:47
Speaker
i Yeah, I don't know what it is. Yeah. They return the next day taking seats in something called the Cotton Bowl. I didn't know what the Cotton Bowl was. It's a real place.
01:06:59
Speaker
It's called the Cotton Bowl. this is Something called the Cotton Bowl. Then why did you say it like that, Pat? I thought you knew what the Cotton Bowl was.
01:07:11
Speaker
where x Xavier instantly senses the mutant boy. However, he also senses Magneto, who senses him back. Ariel darts after them while Professor X telepathically summons the rest of the X-Men from around the fair.
01:07:26
Speaker
Magneto quickly convinces young dumb Daniel that the X-Men are here to kidnap him and enslave him. Daniel must flee. The man who likes horses told me that these superheroes want to enslave me.
01:07:42
Speaker
Ariel pops in through the wall at that moment and right back out when Magneto throws a motorcycle at her. Jesus Christ! Trying to kill her. This is all taking place in a horse barn, too. It's such a... By the way, the next page is a big um a word search in Professor x Xavier's head.
01:08:04
Speaker
oh oh my god, the little... puzzles and games for children in this are ridiculous and that one is the most ridiculous they double the size of his forehead so they can get a word search in there yeah Magneto and Daniel run off to the horse barn where he changes into his Magneto clothes. The X-Men show up stating they only want to talk, but Magneto uses his powers to pretend like the X-Men are throwing horseshoes and hammers and stuff at them. This convinces Daniel to change into his flying horse boy form, who Magneto now calls Equus.
01:08:42
Speaker
He's Equus now. That's such a Magneto ass name to give him. Get him, charge into battle, noble Equus. Noble, yeah, exactly. When Professor X insults him, Equus charges right at the man, so Nightcrawler puts him in a headlock.
01:08:59
Speaker
out How effective is that going to be against a centaur? Professor X does insult the little boy. calls him a dupe. He calls him, don't do that, you dupe.
01:09:13
Speaker
Dupe, am I? The other X-Men go after Magneto, but since two were made of metal, it doesn't go so well. It's so funny. He just sticks Wolverine in the ceiling. Yeah. He's just like, funk.
01:09:29
Speaker
ah Damn it. Let me down.
01:09:34
Speaker
It's like they never fought Magneto before. They are just throwing their medalist men at him. Yeah. Yeah. We have another word search. We have another word search right after that, but it's not, it's next to, professor it's below Professor Xavier's head, not in it. It's not in his mind.
01:09:56
Speaker
Equus tackles Cyclops and takes to the sky where Storm is now battling Magneto. But what about the horses back in the barn, says Equus? Jesus Christ. Because he threw Colossus into the barn at full speed. Yes, yeah. And and he left all the the villains down there.
01:10:14
Speaker
Horses? Who cares about the idiotic horses, replies Magneto. So Equus chokes him out. The turn here is that Magneto doesn't actually like horses. You shouldn't have lied about that, man.
01:10:32
Speaker
Magneto falls from the sky and Big Tex, the statue, kicks him in the pants ass. No, no, no. The next day, Equus talks with the X-Men and apologizes for believing Magneto. They ask him to join the team, but he'd rather live in peace with the horses. The y X-Men are cool with that. and this guy happy to Check out the rest of the wonderful Texas State Fair.
01:10:56
Speaker
This kid's a creep. No, I just want to spend more time with my horses. I not i don't like Equus. No one understands me, but the horses. And nobody else likes horses like I do. Ew, and he can turn himself into a horse? Do you think he's like... Patrick!
01:11:12
Speaker
What? I'm saying. Well, no, he has the fish genitals. He can't do anything. Oh, that's right. That's right.
01:11:25
Speaker
Oh, by the way, Equus adds, I love how you used your powers to make Big Tex kick Magneto in his pants ass. But we didn't make Big Tex kick Magneto in the pants ass, says Storm.
01:11:38
Speaker
Big Tex looks into the camera and winks. The end.
01:11:46
Speaker
This is so good. Is Big Tex a mutant? He's a robot. He's a big robot. How do you get that tall? there's There's big guys of mutants, right? Yeah, there's some big guys of mutants. so like Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah.
01:12:02
Speaker
I mean, he clearly a thought sentience. Yeah. The living big techs. yeah That's right. You can go toe to toe with the living pharaoh. The living monolith. Toby, what do you think of that the X-Men versus the Texas State Fair?
01:12:27
Speaker
um I thought it was a lot more tame than our last one. I feel like it it kind of, instead of all the stupid, weird remarks that Abnoxio had, it was just like, isn't this fair great, guys?
01:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, the the ricochet was insane. The the whiplash going from... something that was trying so hard to be funny and failing spectacularly to something that's like just trying to be fun and cute for kids and being so funny unintentionally. And it, yeah, like it works for what it is. It it is, it is this, this is a comic that kids in the 19, maybe 1980s thought, would have thought this was a little corny, but if this was 1970s, little kids would have fucking loved this thing.
01:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it's it is very, um I expected a lot more of a cynical tone coming from David Kraft, but they really, they i mean, this is for children, so they really tame it.
01:13:36
Speaker
I was just thinking the whole time, why do they want this random guy who can just turn into a horse? Just get a horse. Because otherwise he'll turn into an evil horse.
01:13:49
Speaker
Get a horse. if If you want a horse on the team, just get a horse.
01:13:55
Speaker
um Yeah, I think you so it's it's it's interesting that Equus never, i mean, he's a terrible character, but it's interesting that he never came back even, like, in any way. You'd think at least, like, so in a post-Civil War era of the the Marvel Civil War, not the Reconstruction. Oh, no. no um The Marvel Civil War in the 2000s, they had the 50 States Initiative where the the the government recruited like five superheroes in every state and every state had their own state sponsored or federal superhero team.
01:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. real life or in the... Yeah, in real life. so um So you think... How cool would it have been if the Texas team had Equus?
01:14:52
Speaker
what a callback that would have been. Equus missed no further appearances. No, and this, this ah X-Men, Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas would have suddenly been like this massive collector's item, right? Yes, we'd be rich.
01:15:07
Speaker
Well, it would have happened 10 years before we wouldn't have gotten the same price. ah Yeah, X-Men at the State Fair of Texas. Yeah, I was worried we wouldn't have that much to say about it. And we definitely don't have as much to say about it as we had to say about it Doxio.
01:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, but that's because it's just a better made comic, honestly. Yeah, and it's it's just like a lot more...
01:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, I remember reading comics like this at like KB Toys or something where it was just like. Sure. Mostly in advertisement. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Spider-Man has been in 10,000 of these.
01:15:50
Speaker
That's fine. It's hickled like a ah little nostalgia ah armpit. Toby, do you know what a KB Toys is? Mm-mm. Okay, I no idea.
01:16:03
Speaker
Toys R Us? Do you know Toys R Us? I do know Toys R Us, yeah. And it's not just a website to you? Nope. I'm pretty sure I've been there. it such It's a seller on Amazon.
01:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, you've been to a Toys R Us. Before they all went away. Yeah, they're gone now. Yeah. Are there even Babies R Us? Babies R Us is... Or is that just your house?
01:16:26
Speaker
ah Ah. Damn it! Damn it! I knew it was a mistake to have this kid on. Very good. Um... God, now I'm embarrassed.
01:16:40
Speaker
I've been... like i've been a Now they all know about you being a big baby. i been I've been... Mogged. Is that what the kids say these days? Alright. and Don't embarrass yourself more.
01:16:56
Speaker
Okay. um Pat, what did you think of this arc of the X? Remember that that era where where they fought a clown at their house and an ice cream man and then they went to Texas and met a horse boy.
01:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think this adds so much more context to the events of 1983 like ah like the Wolverine miniseries. Yeah, yeah. Keep going. tell Tell me what layers of depth and context this gives.
01:17:28
Speaker
ah Like go go into i want i want to hear No, clearly you have some really I see it in the notes here You have some really deep thoughts about What this means How this is like a lost chapter
01:17:42
Speaker
In all their personal lives And how it ah and affects their characters You're just waiting to interrupt me You're waiting for me to stop If had a time would like to try out It can feel Sealed
01:17:59
Speaker
Oh, shut up, Matt, because it is time for Pat's Steals and Deals. I'm talking. Today, we're going to ah take the actual, actually the back cover of this X-Men at the State Fair of Texas issue. If you...
01:18:21
Speaker
ah Check the show notes. You can download a copy right now and go look at this as we talk about it. But we are talking about what a service we provide. trying and Maybe you should go to Patreon dot com slash mutant menace to thank us for our great, great service.
01:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, you absolutely chip in a dollar, a dollar, just a dollar. You get so much. OK, I anyway, this one comes from Morgan Boots. Walk away with a sensational deal. Don Morgan and Spider-Man want to share the incredible savings with you. And so can you seriously.
01:19:00
Speaker
I love misplaced. And so can you simply present this ad at any Morgan boot location and get half off list price on any great exotic boot store wide.
01:19:14
Speaker
And this is like, and then it's got some brands that you can't read. um i here's the thing Here's the thing that is sticking out to me most about this ad. Yeah, yeah. Spider-Man is lassoing the logo to Morgan Boots.
01:19:29
Speaker
And he's carrying the little mascot of Don Morgan. Who I guess is... Little creepy fucking ghost white man. and he's So he's holding on to Spider-Man.
01:19:42
Speaker
But he's kicking his little legs out in both directions. Spider-Man must be like, dude, fucking stay still. Stay still. This is so hard. You're looking up my momentum. This sucks. Stop kicking your legs, Don Morgan.
01:19:58
Speaker
I love, there's two reasons I chose this ad and I'll tell you both of them. Number one, the picture of John Morgan as a haunted Victorian child sporting a pencil mustache. Oh my God. It totally looks like an an Edward Gorey drawing. the labor Yeah. this man this is This man thought this looked good for his businesses.
01:20:25
Speaker
And then... Every other advertisement in this comic, you clearly Marvel was like, hey, please let your local businesses use Spider-Man to advertise. Here are a bunch of pictures of Spider-Man that they can paste into their ads. But The graphic artist for Morgan boots said, no, no, no, no I got this already drawing Don Morgan. I'm drawing Spider-Man in the same style and he takes his own crack at Spider-Man. And it looks like a graphic artist took their own crack at drawing Spider-Man. Yeah. Yeah.
01:21:01
Speaker
he does he has He has eyes, but they're red. They're red. You can't see him. He looks angry. he He's about to kill Don Morgan. Because he won't stop kicking. won't stop kicking around. won't stop kicking his boots around. And he's holding Don Morgan by the belt.
01:21:18
Speaker
He is. And Don Morgan is he's ripping him very tight. He's like twice the size of Don Morgan also.
01:21:30
Speaker
Yes, Don Morgan is a short man. so like an appear Spider-Man has no muscle definition whatsoever.
Local Ads with Superheroes
01:21:39
Speaker
ah So I'm going to break ah the tradition of Pat Steeles and Steeles and talk about some of the other ads in here because you're right. There's Spider-Man is in almost all of them. So there's like Walt's the appliance supermarket and Spider-Man is climbing out of a a a washing machine.
01:21:56
Speaker
They also have a Spider-Man appearance on October 29th, 10 a.m. to 12 noon. um And then Wing Tips Halloween Festival at the Redbird Mall.
01:22:07
Speaker
I don't know what Wing Tips means, but ah Spider-Man is swinging over top of some ghouls and goblins. You have the Incredible Hulk ah shilling for Boot Town.
01:22:19
Speaker
So we've got a total of, it looks like, eight... local businesses advertising with spider-man one with the hulk one with the hulk one with the x-men and there is one page with three separate ads featuring spider-man oh man the rca one is also really bad yeah yeah um that's another one where they chose you can see his butt in the background yeah these little balls hanging down
01:22:55
Speaker
They clearly got sick of the line work on this one, too. Oh, yeah. So this is the one with the three Spider-Mans. The RCA Color Sale at J.G. Boyd. ah Dolphin Pool Supply and Service.
01:23:07
Speaker
You got Spider-Man swinging around. and then Allied Distributor o window one window Window Walls?
01:23:19
Speaker
Matt, they're not going to pay us if you're reading the ad copy like this. Fuck. Um...
Nostalgia for Chi-Chi's and Comic Games
01:23:25
Speaker
Yeah, some interesting. So there's also a bunch of little games in this this that also that rule and there's no real way to. Oh, and there's Spider-Man advertising Chi-Chi's.
01:23:36
Speaker
Yep. There's a good crunch and munch one in there, too. Toby, you wouldn't know Chi-Chi's, but it's kind of like it's kind of like ah even more Tex-Mex Chili's. Okay.
01:23:47
Speaker
And does Chili's even exist anymore? Yeah. Chili's was like... There's still Chili's, but they're doing like McDonald's level stuff. They're like a sit down McDonald's. Chili's was like the Tex-Mex Applebee's and Chi-Chi's was even a little bit more Tex-Mex.
01:24:03
Speaker
Well, they were more... um They leaned heavier to towards Mex than Tex. Chi-Chi's? Chi-Chi's did, yeah. Okay, and then Chili's leaned more towards Tex. They used to make a fucking fried ice cream that was 100% my shit. It was like a like a fried shell around cold ice cream. It was so good.
01:24:22
Speaker
I miss Chi-Chi's. I miss Chi-Chi's, too. Bring back Chi-Chi's. Bring back Chi-Chi's! If there's one thing taking away from this episode... Hashtag bring back Chi-Chi's. It's hashtag bring back Chi-Chi's. post that everywhere. post and don't you don't even have to do say, I love mutant menish. Hashtag bring back Chi-Chi's on every social media site. So there's a lot lot of cool like games in this. There's Cyclops and he says ah he needs his visor.
01:24:53
Speaker
And there's a connect the dots and it's just... Oh, right. Isn't he threatening to kill you? I am Cyclops. Whatever you're doing, I'm here to stop you now. I'm reading a comic book.
01:25:05
Speaker
Don't talk to me like that, man. Then there's Professor X wants you to name the animals and it's named that Pokemon, but with actual animals. It's just like the outlines of animals. There's some, there's those word searches we talked about before. That's comic rules.
01:25:20
Speaker
World's best comic. World's best comic book. X-Men and and and Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas.
Listener Interaction and Guest Promotion
01:25:28
Speaker
And you can have access to it too. Just go to the show notes. We've digitized it. We've archived it.
01:25:38
Speaker
All right, folks. Thank you for being here. Thanks for listening this far. Thanks for...
01:25:49
Speaker
ah right folks thank you for being here thanks for listening this far thanks for already liking commenting sharing telling your friends we're thanking you in advance we're trusting we trust you hashtag bring back chee chees that's right and toby my son the yes papa product of my dna and my um what thank you for being here thanks for having me i love you very much i love you too anything you want to plug toby
01:26:29
Speaker
You want a bunch of nerds to follow you on social media? um You can find my Instagram through my dad's if you really want. um He's just a guy. He's just doing one of those things.
01:26:46
Speaker
I would say watch Jojo's Bizarre Adventure if you can. It's a great show. Okay. All right. right. So that's i wanted to plug that. You can plug. You can plug. There's no rule in podcasting saying you can't plug somebody else's projects.
01:27:03
Speaker
I'm going to go watch that. I've never. i don't know what that is. It's good. All right. I haven't seen it either. I'm still watching Attacky Titans. hmm. I have a plug. It is our Patreon folks. You can join for free and get a reading list. You can also pay whatever you want.
Patreon Promotion and Sign-off
01:27:21
Speaker
Minimum $1 and get bonus content from us we put out our puffy faffin podcast every once in a while you get outtake reels you get early bonus episodes i also want to say thank you to krill's wilson for the music and julia selley for the voice of trish tilby um and i guess there's only one last thing we should do which is say the saying that we the thing that we say at the end of every single episode
01:27:51
Speaker
Toby, you're regular listener. Why don't you kick us off? with the Wait, the one that you know. Guys, the thing you say at the end of every one, right? Yeah, just say that one. like i Famous sign off.
01:28:01
Speaker
Okay. Tough noogies, guys.
01:28:07
Speaker
That's right, Toby. And remember, give them a little goose with my sterling stogie.
01:28:15
Speaker
ah That's right, folks. As always, sports.