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2 - X-Men #7 - 12
40 Plays16 days ago
This episode, Matt and Pat encounter a veritable parade of long-time X-Men villains limping their way into and out of fights with our mutant heroes!
The Blob returns and wrestles everyone! Unus the Untouchable can't smoke a cigarette! The X-Men face off against THE AVENGERS because Professor X is too lazy to tell everyone what's going on. Ka-Zar is gorgeous, but his dinosaur friends aren't. The Stranger is... Strange. And some massive threat makes its way to the X-Mansion while Professor X excitedly tells the X-Men a very very long story.
If you've ever wondered how the X-Men got their start, this is the series of issues where things just start heatin' up!
Email us: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, I'm Matt Alkamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And this is Mutant Menace. I'm Trish Tobey with WARC reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:39
Speaker
Pat, do you want to know what just happened to me? ah yeah Yeah, from the video portal where I'm sitting, it looks like you were getting robbed.
00:00:51
Speaker
You had your hands up in the air. You were terrified. So I was, you know how sometimes we play little X-Men sound effects on this show? Yeah, sure. um Like that one.
00:01:04
Speaker
yeah yeah I was looking for, right quick, right before we started, I was looking for like, because I'm having trouble uploading them. Yeah. i was looking for other ones real quick and i came across a soundboard that said x-men and i hit the x-men button and it played the whatever the animated theme song yeah yeah and i hit the button again to stop it and it wouldn't stop and i was like shit okay i'll just play another sound effect like a short sound effect real quick And it'll stop this one.
00:01:34
Speaker
And played one that said scream. but And Patrick, it was so loud and it wouldn't stop. You would think it would just be like, ah, the end.
00:01:45
Speaker
But no, it was somebody screaming for, but They started screaming. blew out my ears. And I was like, okay, I can endure this for like the two seconds it'll take. And then they got a second breath and kept screaming. And so that's when I pulled off my headphones and held them up in the middle of the air. And then this guy was still, that was what?
00:02:08
Speaker
We're talking six, seven seconds at this point. Something like that. And the man was still screaming. He was on like his fourth breath. And I was like, oh fuck. I could just close the tab.
00:02:21
Speaker
play it i will not i refuse i can't imagine using a soundboard where scream lasts for seven eight seven eight seconds when i turned it off could have been longer maybe i maybe it's like a transition from one scene to another you're using a scream and you need it to Oh, yeah so like you're running back, you're doing like a live YouTube video, right? A Twitch stream, what have you.
00:02:53
Speaker
And you are running off screen to go do a costume change. And you hit the scream button right before you leave. i was thinking more like A block to B block as you go to commercial.
00:03:07
Speaker
What sort of Hollywood language is this? ah A block? Yeah, I've been listening to some podcasts.
00:03:18
Speaker
No, you'd be like, hey, ah you're listening to Mutant Menace and then kick it out and it slowly fades and then stamps.com. Kick out a really long scream.
00:03:30
Speaker
ah Well, you know what it would do? It would help you to identify where you should skip the podcast to. Yeah. Well, you would want to run it for like 15 seconds, maybe 30 seconds then. So...
00:03:44
Speaker
No, because you wouldn't want the scream to go the whole time. The scream indicates an ad is about to start, right? Yeah, or that the ads have ended. Skipping ahead. and you ask Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just wait till the very long, horrible scream. Yeah.
00:03:59
Speaker
yes Yeah, and then you sit through the rest of it. And it wasn't like a Wilhelm scream either. It was a guy at his computer who's like, I can do better. So anyway, we this is
Art and Education: Philadelphia to Anthropology
00:04:10
Speaker
Mutant Menace. It's a podcast where we read all the X-Men issues in a row.
00:04:14
Speaker
And me and Pat, we talk about them. How you been this week, Pat? been all right. I had a nice weekend. i went to a dinner party. You and I grabbed a slice of pizza.
00:04:26
Speaker
Please don't talk about our personal life on this podcast. I went to a museum. Whoa, shit. ah Tell me about your museum trip. Yeah. I went to Magic Gardens in Philadelphia on South Street.
00:04:40
Speaker
A beautiful, giant tile structure. That's the one where it is a bunch of cement with stuff stuck in it. Artfully stuck into it.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yes. yeah Yeah. Tile. Yeah.
00:04:58
Speaker
But yeah, it's a like a giant collage. It's really cool. If you're ever in Philadelphia, go to Magic Gardens. it's It's not just tile. It's other stuff, right? Yeah. Like you can often find ridiculous little things stuck in too.
00:05:10
Speaker
Like I remember like a little baby figurine stuck in head first. So there's just like a just like a plastic butt sticking out of the wall. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah. There's a big cow's head, like a ceramic cow's head that I found. That exists all over Philly, and I don't know... Is it the same person when you go Yes.
00:05:32
Speaker
to Isaiah Zagar. ah They just made a documentary about him, and I don't know where you would find it to watch it, but yeah, back in like the 70s, they wanted to plow over South Street and...
00:05:45
Speaker
A bunch of artists owned this space and by yeah tiling it up with his beautiful murals, he convinced the community to stand against i bulldozing the block and turning it into expensive condos, I guess.
00:06:00
Speaker
So that's that's amazing. And I know that he has done a bunch of other walls around the city. Yeah. Yeah. but It's also a staple of the city that sometimes you'll just be walking down the street and there'll just be like a brick that is mosaic.
00:06:17
Speaker
Everything else is normal. And it's like a brick went missing. And now where it is, is a little collage stuck into cement. Is that also him? Or is it just people in Philly identify with it? so sometimes they just take action figures, stick them in cement and replace a brick with them.
00:06:33
Speaker
I'm sure there are some... I don't mean to be interviewing you about this like you're the expert on all of these things. No, I just went to the museum. I read a pamphlet. So I'm sure there's some imitators. Is that rude? i um Homagers?
00:06:50
Speaker
much Well, I think it would be imitators if it was, I think, i don't know. I don't think they're claiming. I think that he's inspired other people to do this, but for the most part, those are him.
00:07:01
Speaker
Not to be confused with the Toynbee tiles, which also pop up all over the area. Explain Toynbee tiles to me. Oh, boy. I'm going to get the lore wrong on this one, but it is ah guy that makes really cool tiles and puts them. He's a cool guy, but I don't remember the reason and I don't want to miss misattribute anything, but look him up.
00:07:31
Speaker
Toynbee tiles is another staple. Okay, yeah. Yeah, i I don't want to just speak out of my ass on it, but there's a Wikipedia page about it.
00:07:45
Speaker
that's That's not... Here's the thing, though. This isn't what our podcast is about. Well, sort of a lifestyle podcast, I think. If your lifestyle is reading every issue of the X-Men and talking about it with your friend, which ours actually is. Okay, so...
00:08:05
Speaker
um what okay so last but why don't we Last week on The Mutant Menace, we we met Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. We met the original five X-Men and Professor X. Somebody said Yebo.
00:08:20
Speaker
And now we are up to issue seven. but We didn't talk about we didn't talk about your week. oh my weight I had a weird week that isn't, you know, okay, here's here's something. I am so close to finishing my anthropology degree.
00:08:38
Speaker
Whoa. i just wrapped up another semester. I had a sustainable communities course. Like i had to get some sociology credits in there. So I had a sustainable communities course that was using a textbook that was from 2012, which if you're taking biology or something, probably not that big of a deal.
00:08:59
Speaker
especially if you're not in the 400 levels or postgraduate levels, you're probably going to be okay learning the stuff they knew about biology in 2012. But if you're learning about sociology and something as dynamic as sustainability, but a lot has fucking changed. So when I'm reading this and I'm reading about like, oh, and the federal government just proposed a program to bring this environmental education to 50 cities across the United States.
00:09:29
Speaker
I'm like, there's no way this is still in place. After we're in the second Trump presidency, there's no way this is still in place. So everything in the book I had to go research. in The editor had a blurb about how good Dr. Mehmet Oz is for American health care oh no American health education.
00:09:55
Speaker
yeah its ah So I'm pretty glad that course is over. i'm ah I'm going through a similar phenomenon as my wife and i watch through Vanderpump Rules.
00:10:10
Speaker
It starts in, i think it's around like 2012, 2013, and it's just there's so much that they haven't been through, and you just know that they will be through, and you kind of hold your breath waiting for them to...
00:10:23
Speaker
um yeah stop sexually assaulting each other all the time because the me too movement uh sweeps through social media or i think they're where we're at right now they're about to hit covid i can't wait to see uh how they all react to that one of them probably had to come on and apologize for in season one when they were like my best friend harvey weinstein got me this job and uh I know that a few of them get canceled. I don't know exactly why, but I'm sure we're getting there.
00:10:55
Speaker
Well, according to the Wikipedia, only one of them is has been on since the beginning and is still on. Everybody else. Everybody else. Which one is it?
00:11:07
Speaker
Jax? Old Man Jax? I can't tell you. It'll be spoiling it for you. No, you got to tell me who's still on at this point. Okay, there's two. Actually, there's two. There's a recurring cast member.
00:11:18
Speaker
His name is Ken. Tell me who Ken is. Ken? Oh, that's Lisa's husband. Okay. And then there's Lisa. Lisa Vanderpump of Vanderpump Rules. Oh, and that doesn't count. they're the They are the owners of the show and the restaurants that the show takes place in. Everybody else that was on from seasons one to 11 is no longer on.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, they got fucking old. Okay. just like Just like us, Matt. That's why we're doing an X-Men podcast. Yeah. ah were you ah Were you alive when issue X-Men number seven,
X-Men Chronicles: Blob and Beat Poets
00:11:50
Speaker
Return of the Blob, was released?
00:11:52
Speaker
No. My mother, father, and stepfather all were, though. I think mine were. Yeah. Okay, so this was released 1965.
00:12:05
Speaker
work Yeah, we've we've reached 1964. And yeah, my parents are all over 60. I don't know if this would be... Some of my parents might have been too young to be reading this, though, right?
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah. No, my parents were not reading the X-Men at this time. If my parents are younger than 65, they would probably be too young to be picking up an X-Men comic and reading it. My mom... Like, they might have it in their room, and but they might not.
00:12:33
Speaker
be reading reading let's see if listeners can do a little detective work here my mom was born in the same quarter that ant-man debuted
00:12:47
Speaker
guess her birthday all right everybody email ah mutant menace pod at gmail.com and guess pat's mom's birthday is this is this a bad podcast No, no, no. Let's get to issue seven. Okay.
00:13:07
Speaker
So issue seven is, again, we've got Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Chick Stone. i think this is the chunk of issues where Jack Kirby leaves, but not not yet.
00:13:19
Speaker
It's been, what, three episodes since we last met the Blob? Am I right about that? Yeah, he was issue three. He was issue three. Okay, so it's been four episodes since we've last seen the Blob.
00:13:32
Speaker
people are People are clamoring for him. We miss this guy. Bring him back. And so what happens is the X-Men had just graduated. And they're all roughhousing after their big graduation picture.
00:13:46
Speaker
And we cut to Mastermind hitting on Scarlet Witch. and that's about the whole of what happens there. Then we cut back to Cyclops becoming the leader of the X-Men. And Professor X, he leaves.
00:13:59
Speaker
On unfinished tasks. That he doesn't want to send the X-Men on. He wants to go take care of himself. So meanwhile. We go back to the Brotherhood. And there's some more substance here. As Magneto.
00:14:14
Speaker
Goes out to look for the Blob. He decides he can blend into a carnival. Just in his Magneto outfit. Because everybody looks weird here. He meets the Blob. Asks him to join the Brotherhood.
00:14:28
Speaker
Blob says... No. And actually, no, it's before Blob says no. Somebody just is like, hey, are you talking to my mean talking to my dude? And all of the carnival people, all the carnies attack Magneto. So the Brotherhood has to fight a bunch of carnival folk.
00:14:46
Speaker
They flee in the midst of it. Blob hits his head. And remembers all the memories the X-Men took from him. And so he decides to join up with the Brotherhood to get back at the X-Men.
00:14:58
Speaker
This registers on Cerebro. So Cyclops you know calls back all the X-Men who are mostly at a coffee shop. listening to beat poetry. And um they, they head out to fight the blob and to fight the brotherhood of evil mutants in the midst of it.
00:15:19
Speaker
Magneto flings a bunch of missiles at the group and they all hit the blob. So the blob goes like, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of dealing with mutants, evil and good mutants. I'm, I'm going to go back to the circus. And he like walks away. Sadly.
00:15:35
Speaker
And that's the issue. How'd you feel about this one? Wild that they are putting the blob through the exact same torture.
00:15:47
Speaker
And as he's going through this exact same torture, his memories are uncovered that he's gone through this before. Right. that That poor guy. Just the fight is Magneto offering the blob a position in the evil mutants.
00:16:05
Speaker
The Blob saying, no thanks, I'm happy at the carnival, and Magneto saying, well, I can't let the X-Men get to you, so ah time to go.
00:16:17
Speaker
This is also our first appearance of Cerebro. Yes, which they, ah even in the issue of the first appearance of Cerebro, they misname it as Cyberno later on in the issue.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, the exact same issue. They call it Cyberno. It's a machine that's built into Professor X's desk. doesn't have the headset or anything yet. And it's so finely tuned that you can put people's names into, like, the slots on its side, and it'll detect those specific mutants.
00:16:47
Speaker
yeah They're like, oh there's seven mutants, so we have seven slots for detection. They have a blob alarm. Just a, if the blob's causing trouble, this light blinks.
00:16:58
Speaker
um This is also the first appearance of the Greenwich Village coffee shop where Iceman's sort of semi-girlfriend, Zelda, makes her first appearance and Bernard...
00:17:12
Speaker
who is the poet laureate of the coffee ah ah the coffee shop, makes his appearance reading his, quote, housewife's shopping list.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yes. Stanley and Jack Kirby's disdain for beat poets really shines through, i think. They take two full pages to tee off on the hippies at this coffee shop and how annoying they are.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, they Beast takes off his shoes to let his giant feet out, and everyone's like, oh, these feet rule. Let's let's sort to let's start a movement based on these feet. And they like draw pictures on his feet and hoist them up on their shoulders. Very strange.
00:17:59
Speaker
They even, describing the jazz music, they have Iceman say it's so far out that anyone will be fired for understanding the melody. They don't like the music. it's like The poetry is ah literally a shopping list. They're just reading a shopping list.
00:18:15
Speaker
And a bunch of hippies have hoisted Hank off to draw on his feet. It's so... So they go... The X-Men go to get changed and Iceman, he's like in the middle of getting dressed and he just doesn't take off his shirt.
00:18:33
Speaker
And he blames like he's just like, oops, I like I shattered my shirt. Just take the shirt off. Why didn't you take your shirt off? He ices up and it shatters his shirt and his shoes and his socks.
00:18:45
Speaker
And it's like, well, why did you do that? then And he's nude for the rest of the issue. I'm not. guess I guess so. i they don't They don't really show anything, unfortunately. They kind of reference it towards the end, but they are also there's not an opportunity for him to switch back into human form or put on any clothes.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. As you said, like the Brotherhood show up and they just kind of attack the blob just completely unbidden. but Or they attack all the circus people. The blob actually attacks them, right?
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah. So again, the blob is left with no choice. He's told that if he doesn't want to join the evil mutants, then he has to die because otherwise the X-Men will probably recruit him. So he he calls out and then in a very, in a great Stan Lee-ism, the narration of the panel says, seconds later, in answer to the time-honored carny battle cry, a group of husky roustabouts charge the mighty mutant.
00:19:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, so it's his it's his boss that cries out, hey, Rube, which I guess, which is supposedly, at least legend goes, that that is like the carnival cry for, hey, I need help here. Oh, wait, I thought they were calling Magneto a Rube.
00:20:06
Speaker
I thought they were saying, hey, you Rube. I know. Yeah, no, it is. If you don't know the lore about it, that's the way it seems. But that is like, that's a, that is a...
00:20:18
Speaker
Again, i don't know if it's true, but it is a carnival legend, at least, that if you yell, hey, Rube, it is a cry for help. It's mentioned outside of this X-Men issue, you're saying. yeah Yes, yes, yes. There's a lot of literature on it.
00:20:37
Speaker
But here's something funny. yeah I pulled it up to see if there's anything like really concrete that I could like a concrete example I could give you. And this issue is referenced on the Wikipedia page.
00:20:51
Speaker
good him um and We're stuck in a loop. There's this thing where this is a recurring thing throughout the issue. The blob just like puts people in wrestling moves.
00:21:04
Speaker
Oh my god, he does it mid-speech each time, too. It's great. He does it to Magneto. Magneto's standing up to him saying, like, if you won't join me, i have no option but to... ah And then the next panel is just blob with Magneto in a headlock.
00:21:25
Speaker
And then later in the issue, Angel comes up and he goes... Now listen here, mister, if you're going to mess around, you haven't thought about...
00:21:35
Speaker
The blob has him in a big old barrow. He's just... He's not suffering fools. but Anytime somebody talks to him, he's just like, hold on. And he just grabs them in a headlock or a half Nelson and is just like, I'm not to talk to you. Why am I listening to this guy?
00:21:52
Speaker
I hate listening to people. So, you know, obviously it ends in a big fight and the fight isn't anything besides that moment. The fight isn't anything spectacular. or Iceman puts him in a block of ice.
00:22:04
Speaker
Marvel Girl comes up finally with the incredibly smart idea of why don't I just lift Quicksilver off the ground? Yeah. Like, he can't do anything if he's just floating in midair, which is such a smart idea. And wild that it took her to this long, too.
00:22:23
Speaker
Her powers are so crazily inconsistent. We'll talk about it as the issues go on. But, you know, sometimes she can lift a whole person. Other times she can't take ropes off her own hands. So she's getting stronger.
00:22:35
Speaker
She's getting stronger. Is she because in this issue she could lift a person in like four issues from now she can't take ropes off her hands Well, they have pitch on them, but we can get to that.
00:22:46
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. So this is also so another interesting first. So and again, again it ends with just like Bob sadly walking away like, oh I'm sick of all these mutants.
00:22:58
Speaker
But this is also the beginning of a time honored tradition of the X-Men wrecking aircraft. Oh, yeah. They crash it This is their first helicopter crash. And it's already not a big deal to them.
Humor and Superpowers: Iceman's Mishaps
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, they're just kind of like, oh, man. They're in another helicopter in the next issue.
00:23:21
Speaker
So, ah all right. So why don't we move on? Pat, what happens in episode? Sorry. Issue eight. Before we move on, I have to mention one line which we can add to the growing list of crazy things that Bobby Drake says.
00:23:35
Speaker
There is a panel where Gene and Warren both have real lines, real dialogue bubbles. And I guess they just needed to add something for Iceman to say in that panel as well.
00:23:49
Speaker
Uh, so he says, he's drawn right next to Angel. He says, hey, stop flapping those wings yours, Angel. You're tickling my ears.
00:24:03
Speaker
just like, guess they were just saying like, hey, uh, Iceman hasn't talked in a while. Yeah. He's in this frame. ah what should he say? right There's definitely, there's not, it's not a less is more situation.
00:24:19
Speaker
There's a plot point early on, i which I say so loosely, where Iceman is confused about why the diplomas are blank and somebody has to explain to him, oh, they're just props for the photo.
00:24:30
Speaker
And it's like, did this need to be in the issue? Right. his Beast calls him an idiot for even asking. And then Professor X rolls and is like, I got you real diplomas. Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
All right. So let's move on to issue number eight. What happens? Issue eight, the uncanny threat of Unus the Untouchable. Do you say Unus? Do you say Eunus? I say Eunus, but it might be Eunus.
00:24:58
Speaker
I'm go to say Eunus as we go. Okay. And I'll say Eunus. And listeners, it's like a choose your own adventure. Yeah, yeah. Stop me if it starts driving you nuts. So we open on training as usual. Scott is the new leader and is clearly riding them hard. But because of his overzealous training, Iceman is able to turn to his ice form instead of the crusty snow form that he's been in.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah. Scott loves Jean. He has a thought bubble very similar to the one that Jean Grey, or I'm sorry, that Professor X had a couple of issues earlier saying, how how could I ever tell her my feelings? Yeah, yeah.
00:25:40
Speaker
They both love each other. They won't tell each other. Beast saves a child in New York City and hides his identity as he's doing it. And people hate him for it because he must be a mutant. He climbs up the side of a wall.
00:25:52
Speaker
He's hiding his face. The people really don't like him. They imagine he must be up to no good, even as he's saving a child. ah Scott reaches out to the professor via Cerebro.
00:26:04
Speaker
We find out the professor, we find him while he's in the heart of the Balkans in Europe, descending into an almost bottomless cave. for no like We don't know why. yeah yeah He's just doing it.
00:26:16
Speaker
But it makes it clear that there's nothing Scott can do to help him. Oh, I missed a step. That ah Beast is so incensed by the people of New York hating him for being a mutant that he says Magneto is right and he has to tender his resignation from the X-Men.
00:26:33
Speaker
Which is why Scott reaches out to the professor Hank, in the meantime, becomes a pro wrestler. He's using his agility and talent to entertain people. Quickly gaining fame, he goes up against a man called Unus.
00:26:47
Speaker
Quickly finds out it's impossible to make contact with him. He's just bouncing off a force field before he can touch him. It's kind of a cool sequence. It is. Yeah, it's a really exciting action scene ah and then a fun interaction scene with the crowd once he gets knocked out into the crowd and loses the match.
00:27:05
Speaker
But as he's in the crowd, he does spot Mastermind. Mastermind and Unis meet after the match. Unis is looking to join the evil mutants, but he still has to prove himself worthy, finding and beating one X-Man.
00:27:20
Speaker
um trying to plot how he finds the X-Men. Unis actually stumbles upon a bank robbery around the corner, scares the criminals off and just takes the bag for himself saying, if I can't join the evil mutants, at least this will hold me over.
00:27:35
Speaker
But the X-Men looking for a new mutant somewhere in New York are choppering by and decide to check out the bank robbery. Unus almost defeats the X-Men, but Angel grabs him and hangs him on the top of a skyscraper.
00:27:49
Speaker
They return to the mansion, find the Beast, returned to the X-Mansion, working on a device to increase Unus' power. The X-Men are outraged. They assume that he is...
00:28:00
Speaker
lost his mind and is now hoping to help Unus to prove himself to Magneto and also join the evil mutants. They attack Beast. He runs out the door and runs immediately to find Unus, uses the beam on him and increases his power.
00:28:18
Speaker
Unus is thrilled. ah he He makes a quick exit with the X-Men who show up and then Unus is thrilled about this new power until he realizes he can't touch anything. He tries to...
00:28:30
Speaker
grab a pack of cigarettes they bounce away as soon as he reaches for them uh he tries to eat some food it flies out of his mouth he goes down to a restaurant to try to get some help the gang finds him there he's having a full breakdown because every piece of food they try to serve him ah just goes bouncing around the restaurant he is surrounded by food he's descending into madness Hank says, okay, calm down. i'm going to use this ray to reverse the effect and bring you back to your normal power levels.
00:29:02
Speaker
And Unus is a changed man. This little lesson really worked. He promises to never try to join the evil mutants again. Wanders off into the sunset.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. Why does nobody ever explain themselves? Like all it would take, right? is for Hank to say, oh this will help to stop him.
00:29:27
Speaker
like That's all he needs to say. He just needs to say, oh, I'm going to increase his power so he can't eat, and then that'll defeat him. but He just needs to say something just so quick, but he doesn't. He's like...
00:29:40
Speaker
i I'm not sure what he says, but he just like jumps out the window, right? Like he's just like, everyone refuses to explain themselves and it gets them into so much trouble, which we'll see further in in some of the future issues. But it is, it's just wild.
00:29:57
Speaker
Well, in in this case, Scott does try to blast him immediately. ah As soon as he's like, I'm working on a device to increase his power. Scott says, no, the hell you aren't. And takes his glasses off.
00:30:10
Speaker
But there's also a line that we're seeing a lot more and more in each issue, which is there's no time for that now, which explains a lot of the lack of communication.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's like they say, like, so many old movies would not have just they would not have occurred had ah had people had cell phones. It's the same thing. All of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's plots revolve around somebody not saying one sentence.
00:30:40
Speaker
There's no time to say one sentence. There's some cool... So there's a lot of cool firsts in this issue. Iceman becoming solid. Scott and Gene... professing their love for each other. The first anti-mutant mob.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yes, that was wild. Before we see, here's something that's wild and unsettling. Before we see the true ice form of Iceman when he's still in his crusty snow form, i they show him with an open mouth and it's really disturbing. It's like a void into his head. Yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
That gaping maul that you described last episode. Yeah. It's there. um And it's also the first mention of Lucifer and obviously the first Eunice.
00:31:25
Speaker
So the first mention of Lucifer doesn't provide anything clarifying. Scott reaches out to the professor just to check in. Last we knew, he was descending into a cave somewhere in the Balkans. And...
00:31:41
Speaker
Now he says, hey, I can't really talk. I'm on the trail of Lucifer. I'm fucking on the trail of Lucifer. Okay. Hey, leave me alone. I'm on the trail of Lucifer.
00:31:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course of course. Good to know. All right. um Anyway, I'll talk to you later. but Okay. Here's here. i just have a series. This is these are just bullet points of things that I want to I want to say. And if you have a reaction to feel free. But number one, number one.
00:32:11
Speaker
The bank robbers are carrying a big bag with a money sign on it. Giant bag, like an industrial trash bag. Number two, this is the beginning of Cyclops having numbered and lettered plants.
00:32:29
Speaker
So he yells, Marvel Girl, plan G5 quickly. But the plan G5 is just catch me in the air because somebody threw me.
00:32:37
Speaker
You can just say, Marvel Girl, catch me. Like plan g five like you don't You don't need numbered plans for that. There's got to be, if it's something that detailed, there has to be so many maneuvers. yeah. yeah Then, I mean, immediately right after he says, Iceman, F12, which just means put ice over top of this guy.
00:32:57
Speaker
like Like, these aren't multi-step plans. You don't need the numbers. Well, that's my next bullet point is Angel gets, oh, this is earlier in the issue. During the Danger Room segment, Cyclops catches Angel in a big bug net.
00:33:13
Speaker
is which will come into play in a couple issues but it also is echoed later as the angels plan for catching eunice is just to put a big piece of plastic over him and he's like oh it'll move when he moves it's a perfect plan is this is that not essentially ah what hank mccoy did oh that's a good point yeah right like oh if he's trapped in this big net but the net If he's trapped in a bubble of his own powers.
00:33:47
Speaker
I feel like he probably could have torn through the plastic. It seems like that wasn't a limit to his power set at time. Well, only if he had a knife on him at that at that moment. He's thinking in the right direction.
00:33:59
Speaker
Eunice is an interesting character. because like So a lot of these Kirby Lee characters come back. we you know Obviously, Blob becomes a recurring he he drops from being like a lead to sort of just a goofy henchman in the future. Yeah, sure.
00:34:15
Speaker
Toad starts as a henchman, ends as a henchman. He's only ever really interesting when Jason Aaron writes him as like the janitor of the Jean Grey school, which is, I think the only kind of interesting. think he's really interesting here in these issues as well, but he's just like in a weird like who is this freak kind of way.
00:34:35
Speaker
LAUGHTER um Magneto obviously comes back a million times. Quicksilver, Mastermind, Scarlet Witch. The Vanisher, not a huge X-Men villain, but comes back.
00:34:49
Speaker
Eunice, really, i think maybe because there's only this one story you can tell about him. He's like the Mr. Freeze.
00:35:00
Speaker
It's like the Mr. Freeze scenario, right? Where there's one big Mr. Freeze story you can tell. And beyond that, he just becomes a henchman with an interesting power. A somewhat interesting.
00:35:10
Speaker
That's fair. I like to look at it as he's keeping his promise. He said, you know what? i'm I'm done. I'm going back to entertainment. I promise that I will never do this again. but He does so many times. He joins in the Brotherhood so many times in the future. He's just like a guy in the background.
00:35:28
Speaker
And they don't really deal with him. Oh, he does come back. Yeah. As like an extra. Yeah, he's very... know Son of a bitch. Yeah, I don't know what else...
00:35:39
Speaker
He does. I was going to say at one point he comes back and owns a bar, but that's Avalanche. I think he he does have some sort of background role like that in the um Utopia era, but I don't and don't remember what it is. Anyway.
00:35:52
Speaker
We'll keep an eye out for him. All right. What else do you got to say about issue nine before we move on? Yeah. or eight before we move on to nine. I have a couple of bullet points of my own. Oh, please.
00:36:03
Speaker
Number one, they're in New York City initially because they're going back to that coffee shop. I thought that was fascinating. Is this going to be a recurring setting for us? Yeah.
00:36:15
Speaker
Which you kind of gave away in the last recap that it is. So I'm excited for that. Yeah. This is not the last we've seen of Bernard or Zelda. Great. Excellent.
00:36:25
Speaker
We do have a nice moment. So Scott is on his first, essentially his first mission as the leader. We see a moment where he is trying to think a few steps ahead and thinking of the bigger picture, thinking about what could happen if Unus successfully joins the evil mutants and like what would, ah what would be of the future and starts even thinking of plans to kind of,
00:36:49
Speaker
hu work around that. It's just a nice moment. Like, hey, Scott is actually evolving and growing here. There is a beautiful moment where Scott, on the opposite end of the spectrum, tries his I-beams against Unis, realizes that they bounce right off, so yeah he says, he and he says it out loud, fine, I'll just punch him in instead.
00:37:13
Speaker
And it equally doesn't work. Yeah! Love this. Hope that too is a recurring theme. If anybody's a fan of our Pokemon podcast, it was there.
00:37:25
Speaker
and Oh my God. And I yeah sincerely hope it continues.
Side Discussions: Ash Ketchum and Professor X's Vengeance
00:37:29
Speaker
If you guys have listened to the Pokemon podcast, if you have not, Ash is always trying to punch Pokemon just nonstop and people. But there's so many times he just charges somebody and tries to punch.
00:37:43
Speaker
Sometimes just an object. Wasn't there a time that Ash Ketchum was so wrapped up in trying to punch somebody fell off a set of stairs?
00:37:53
Speaker
Yes, yeah, that's the first movie. He didn't get close to the person he was trying to punch. He just fell off the stairs on his way to punch them. Okay, yeah. as And then here's my last note on this issue.
00:38:07
Speaker
Can you imagine the absolute terror of not being able to touch anything? That's the King Midas story, right? you see Yeah, that's chilling. This is very like, it's very Twilight Zone, which is clearly what they're channeling for a couple of panels here as they illustrate Unus' breakdown.
00:38:27
Speaker
God. is And I'm, as a former smoker, when he tried to reach for his cigarettes and couldn't, it really struck me. Like, it put chills down my spine. You had to put down the book yeah to, like, go take a walk for a minute.
00:38:41
Speaker
I mean, i think this is an echo of the Midas story, right? It is... It's one of the Ovid stories where Midas wishes everything he touches could be turned to gold. He thinks of it as a great power, but then he can't touch his daughter and he can't touch food and he can't touch like he just can't have anything. And it's a sort of idea that you have to make yourself vulnerable in order to enjoy life.
00:39:08
Speaker
Could someone feed King Midas? Like if his tongue touched food, would it turn to gold?
00:39:15
Speaker
i think the implication is yes but but you definitely should write a short story where king midas just has a hack and it doesn't matter at all and he becomes super rich and everything goes great for him and he pays his servant to feed him food and he's like oh it doesn't work on my tongue i'm fine no this rules maybe it'll be an x-men story But then he'd have to do, he'd have to touch all this, like, he still can't, hes he still can't get the benefits of human contact unless he does it with his tongue.
00:39:45
Speaker
And I think he would stop being popular guy really quickly. I thought you werere going to go with, you would never know the visceral feeling of eating a chicken wing in his hands.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah. ah Of getting his hands all messy and that being a good a part of the eating experience. Now, X-Men number nine. Enter the Avengers.
00:40:08
Speaker
Wait. The Earth-Shattering Threat of Lucifer. I have both titles written down. Pat, you have to tell me which version of myself was being an idiot. I, so one is on the cover and one is on the title page, which is okay what is making you an idiot.
00:40:27
Speaker
Okay. I believe the, I believe the title of the issue is the earth shattering threat of Lucifer. And I'm not an idiot. it I opened it up. It says the enter of the Avengers is the title and it says right beneath it's featuring the earth shattering threat of Lucifer.
00:40:45
Speaker
So no shit I think we could say I'm double smart instead of, an idiot half the time. I'm the fool. yeah it starts out the X-Men.
00:40:55
Speaker
They're just on a boat. I think they're going to find Professor X finally. Also, this is the first issue with a splash page, which is interesting, like a splash page that does not tie into the story. It's just here is an overview of what you can expect.
00:41:10
Speaker
So they're they're on a boat. Cyclops blast an iceberg, which we'll have to talk about. This makes him woozy, which brings up something that I've always been confused about with Cyclops. And meanwhile, in I guess this is a bal some Balkan nation, right?
00:41:26
Speaker
Bavaria. OK, the Avengers are there following Thor. Like Thor has his hammer out like he's water witching and he's just like, this is leading me to evil. I'm getting closer and closer. And it as I get closer, it vibrates more.
00:41:40
Speaker
literal bad vibes. They know there's bad vibes. They're chasing bad vibes. And meanwhile, meanwhile, Professor X is deep underground fighting a man with like a green bullet on his head, ah big green bullet helmet.
00:41:55
Speaker
He's fighting with a gun, by the way. And the man says, stop you fool. If you kill me, the whole world is doomed. I'm just going to skip ahead a couple pages.
00:42:06
Speaker
It's because his heart is tied to a thermal bomb. jumping back the avengers are just like questioning random people in the area about the evil and it scares a dude a tourist so bad that he zooms away in his car and he has no choice but to stop and tell a group of teenagers who end up being the x-men that there's a bunch of monsters back there um so the x-men speed off to fight the monsters find out it's the avengers and And just as they meet the Avengers, Professor X is like, I can't risk them stopping me and I have no time to explain.
00:42:43
Speaker
Stop the Avengers. So the X-Men just fight the Avengers. The fight is insane. It just involves, we'll talk about this, but it just involves people picking each other up.
00:42:55
Speaker
And other people saying, hey, stop picking me up. Meanwhile, Professor X is still fighting Lucifer deep underground. He knocks him out with his mental powers.
00:43:07
Speaker
And then he has time to tell Thor, hey, ah this is what's going on Everyone can chill. So the Avengers are just like, all right, ah these guys got it. And they go home.
00:43:21
Speaker
It's just so weird why they can't help the X-Men. Nobody explains. so Even Giant Man is like, well, they must have they must have so much free time on their hands. They're just exploring Eastern Europe for something. Giant Man's like he expresses how annoyed he is that they came all the way here for nothing.
00:43:42
Speaker
So the X-Men follow Professor X's trail underground, and Professor gar X is using his mental powers to try and disarm the bomb that Lucifer has set up.
00:43:53
Speaker
Again, it his powers just do not make any sense here and he can't quite get it. So we need Cyclops is precision needle point. I beams to just flip a switch. Oh, shatter a fuse, I guess.
00:44:08
Speaker
um And they do it, defeat Lucifer. And then they're like, Hey, we beat you guy. And Lucifer's like, oh, dang it. And then he leaves. And they're like, well, is Go on.
00:44:22
Speaker
Get out of here. And Professor X is like, nah, this is this defeat is enough. And that's the end of the issue. Well, OK. okay Here's the thing about Professor X's mission here, as far as I can tell. i Sorry, not to interrupt you immediately when you have a point, but it's the extension of his paternalism, right?
00:44:42
Speaker
yeah Like, just the way he, the amount of paternalism he exudes over the X-Men, he's exuding over his enemies now. Like, look, this defeat will make him learn his lesson. I e you're not wrong, but I'm going much more surface level here.
00:44:57
Speaker
Professor X is on a vengeance mission for his legs. He reveals that Lucifer, not the devil, loose this man named this man wearing green. You'd excused for making the mistake.
00:45:10
Speaker
is the one who he was battling with and lost the use of his legs. yeah And so he's as he's trudging through Lucifer's cave, he's got this recurring thought going on in his mind of, this is the man that took my legs from me.
00:45:26
Speaker
And then he goes through the process just to make him feel small. Just to say, like, that's the revenge that he wants. He doesn't want to kill him. He doesn't want to maim him. He's letting him go, saying, you'll always remember this.
00:45:42
Speaker
I beat you. Yeah. So, yeah, point. so yeah i mean i yes that is a good But this isn't the last we see of Lucifer. He's just going to come back and keep being a supervillain.
00:45:58
Speaker
So it doesn't work. But okay. His ego is bruised. ah The next time he comes back, he's just a little easier to beat because his confidence is
00:46:12
Speaker
Do you think his hat looks more like a um Edison light bulb or like a bullet? It looks like a Roman style helmet, like a historically accurate Roman helmet where it's just like a a dome over his entire head except for his eyes.
00:46:34
Speaker
But it comes to a point at the top. I think they do that. Maybe I'm thinking of a different era. It's a weird helmet. And I'm going to...
00:46:47
Speaker
vi are This is a helmet that becomes very popular in the Silver Age. We're going to be talking about this exact helmet again many times and not on Lucifer's head. Ooh, but I can't wait.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah. It's another, another situation where all somebody had to do is say one sentence and the whole thing would be fixed. This like fight between the Avengers and the X-Men. Yeah, it is. And it could have been Xavier that said that one sentence instead. He chose to like, when he ports into Thor's head and says, Thor, it's me. Professor x Xavier,
00:47:24
Speaker
I'm an extremely powerful mutant. Thor is like, oh, okay, this guy seems fine. Let's listen to him. Professor X had just gone to him first instead of going to Scott and saying, fight the Avengers.
00:47:39
Speaker
Then yes, this, this whole thing is avoided. The Avengers probably stick around to help. A thing that bothers me is, so we get the first ever fight between the X-Men and thevenger the Avengers. It should be really cool. And there's some moments that are cool.
00:47:54
Speaker
Like Captain America throwing a shield, but Angel dodges it, Beast catches it, right? That's a cool moment. The rest of the fight is the stupidest shit I've ever seen.
00:48:06
Speaker
Giant Man picks up the Beast.
00:48:10
Speaker
Captain America picks up Cyclops and Cyclops even just says, hey, put me down. I'm warning you. and And the Wasp grabs Marvel Girl's hair, by which but but which, by the way, she's wearing her hood again for some reason. They they don't explain.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah. Wasp picks up Marvel Girl's hair and just puts it in front of her eyes. And that's like the entire fight. You're telling me Jean hasn't prepared for this in any way, that just her hair in her eyes is is preventing her from using her powers?
00:48:48
Speaker
Right. That had to be danger room lesson number one. Like, let's see if we cover your eyes. If you can move stuff around. The danger room lesson we see in this issue is her sewing. She's threading a needle through ah on a piece of pegboard.
00:49:04
Speaker
Ah, yes. So the wasp should have said, hey, I have some laundry to do. Why don't that'll distract you while I like it's just it's just straight up sexism.
00:49:16
Speaker
Right? Like, oh, and later, but when she's back in the battle, all she does is make a bunch of rocks fly around Iron Man in a circle. I guess there is, I guess at this point in time, it would have been really cool to see the moment where Thor smashes Ice Man's ice block with his hammer.
00:49:35
Speaker
Like that, that was probably a grump moment for its time. Looking back on is little boring, but at the time, like if you're a kid in 1964, you're probably like, oh yeah, I love seeing this guy hit stuff.
00:49:50
Speaker
And I love it when Iceman's ice shatters. There is, i will say there is one big, beautiful, like two thirds of the page panel of the X-Men versus Avengers where you're right. It's just everybody finding different ways to wrap each other up with their powers. But it is. It's nice to see them all. beautiful It's beautiful.
00:50:14
Speaker
It's a real like splash page. It's a real spread from Jack Kirby, just drawing all of the characters in one, ah in one panel. There's also, sorry, another beautiful boat picture in this one. They're on a boat in the beginning and the boat's approaching an iceberg and it is just a beautiful picture of an ocean liner with an iceberg in the foreground.
00:50:36
Speaker
Nowhere. I think it's nowhere near as good as the, because the last one had these just like beautifully drawn birds. and this one's But it is clearly Jack Kirby likes to draw a boat.
00:50:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Every few issues, he gets to draw a boat. that's That was his contract with Marvel. They wouldn't pay him, but every you're allowed to draw a boat. Right. He was getting sick of drawing the Avengers.
00:51:03
Speaker
You would, too. Right? Now we got to put him in the damn X-Men?
00:51:10
Speaker
Now, when did Jack Kirby leave Marvel? Because this is towards the end of his term. His term. As if he's an elected official. This is towards the end of King Kirby's elected, of of you know, alternate.
00:51:26
Speaker
um Exploited artist of Marvel Comics. We're still a few years out from it, right? Okay, we're nearing his end the end of his term on X-Men, but he's still you're right, he still stays on until 1970. And then he he came back later. but I went looking for why did Jack Kirby leave the X-Men, and a lot of people's accounts explain why Jack Kirby left Marvel.
00:51:53
Speaker
Without explaining why he left the X-Men. And as if that was one of his last titles. But it wasn't. So anyway, we're not quite there yet. Do you have anything else to say about issue nine before I sit back and you tell me the story of issue 10?
00:52:07
Speaker
ah Yeah, first of all, there's a panel where Beast is cheekily serving someone drinks with his damn feet. Yeah, it's the Cyclops cutting the cake with his eye beams all over again. Like, come on, man. Yes, this is unsanitary. Hold on. I do want to talk about this for a second, though. Yeah.
00:52:26
Speaker
Are feet really that much grosser than anything else? Like, in the in the panel preceding it, Iceman is making ice with his hands for Scott to, like, put on his face.
00:52:38
Speaker
And, like, think hands are grosser than feet. Dude, this guy is always barefoot. All right.
00:52:49
Speaker
Good point. I'm like, okay, i'm i'm I'm uniquely a man who never had smelly feet. I don't know why. it is just a characteristic of him. That's ridiculous. No matter how sweaty I get, my feet don't get smelly. I don't know why.
00:53:03
Speaker
So I've never quite understood this feet are gross thing. I've always thought, you know, hands are actually kind of a little bit grosser, but... You're right. This man, his hands and feet are interchangeable.
00:53:16
Speaker
I did not know that about you. And I don't have smelly feet? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've never noticed smelly feet on you. The next couple times we hang out, I'll have to put my feet right directly into your face, and you'll have to just, like, take notes.
00:53:31
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so glad we do this virtually.
00:53:35
Speaker
um Like you would have to, right? Like that's the thing. Because of this discussion, if we were in the same room, whether you wanted to or not, you would be in my face by now. Even if I didn't impose it on you, you would have to say, fine. All right.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah. Let me smell them. Yeah. I would have to verify it. One more thing about this issue, again, using my legally obtained original printings of these issues.
00:54:03
Speaker
Man, I am so sorry. This cost you. I know this has cost you your entire life savings. My whole fortune. I apologize for putting you in this position. It's okay. it is It'll be worth it. You've promised me we'll make the money back on the podcast.
00:54:18
Speaker
It's a podcast. they They're so lucrative. they This has the very first, I don't know if it's the first appearance, maybe another comic came out before this one, but the very first Mary Marvel Marching Society ad that they put out in all comics.
00:54:35
Speaker
This is the Inception. No, we're beyond Inception. The first collection for $1, which, let me actually look that up.
00:54:47
Speaker
$1 in would have been about $10 today. Plus or could
00:54:55
Speaker
plus or minus you could join the Merry Marvel Marching Society, which actually seems to come with some sick stuff. So every member from the very beginning came with a welcome letter, a membership card, ah Voices of Marvel record, like a record that had songs, i I presume, sung by the stars of Marvel, a scratch pad, a sticker, pin back button, and a certificate.
00:55:23
Speaker
I'm really jealous about the certificate and the membership card. I can get... duped into a lot of things i get those for ten dollars that's fucking wild because okay ten dollars at the time that's affordable for a kid right like you could probably if you worked hard enough you could earn ten dollars in a day Like you said, it's $10 today. Oh, yeah, yeah. $1 in that day's money is $10 in today's money. So if you're a child, you could earn $10 in a day doing chores.
00:55:58
Speaker
And then you get all that stuff, and you're part of the Mary Marvel Marching Society for life. It's like a Patreon subscription. where I guess not because it's a one-time payment.
00:56:09
Speaker
But they they continue sending you stuff. Do they? Yes. There's more things that they sent out like when they were doing promotions. They would send letters and pamphlets and little promotional materials.
00:56:24
Speaker
I mean, I guess, yeah, this is a time where Marvel was trying to instill ah loyalty in that listener. So my other, I do another podcast about adventure games. And in the 90s, there were two big companies, Sierra and LucasArts, right? That were making point and click adventures.
00:56:41
Speaker
And because I grew up as a comic book fan, where the competition was so stiff, like you had to pick a side. You had to either be a Marvel guy or a DC guy.
00:56:53
Speaker
um at least as a kid or in you know in the past, right? I assumed that any competing companies were this way. And so I grew up feeling like, oh, love LucasArts. Fuck Sierra. And then I grew up to find out that nobody else treated it as a rivalry in that way. And it was like a little embarrassing.
00:57:15
Speaker
But it was because of this. It was because of these things. Like Marvel started this way back in 1974. Like we are the merry Marvel society. yeah And they would call DC like brand ECKC.
00:57:27
Speaker
yes yeah like or the distinguished competition they had like the the dc yeah anyway all right so mary marvel marching society maybe we can bring that back look if we ever start a patreon we'll call it the mary marvel the mary matt and pat marching society and we'll give everybody we can't use marvel are they litigits
00:57:54
Speaker
Have you ever... I've never heard. Is Marvel litigious? And I know they're owned by Disney. Are they litigious? Yeah, in my understanding, it's not... They're not that bad. It's like Beatles level...
00:58:07
Speaker
i' just I've never heard of Disney suing somebody for copyright infringement. It's actually no longer true for that. I mean, the Beatles, if you use Beatles music, they're still pretty litigious, but they've ah they've backed off. Their rights have been redistributed.
00:58:20
Speaker
They've got to be so diffused by now. Like how many people, quote unquote, own the rights to the Beatles at this point? It's got to be like five different estates and three different record companies and then Michael Jackson's estate too.
00:58:33
Speaker
Well, it's not me. All right. Okay. All right, man. Well, our friendship's based on the lie. What happens in X-Men 10? X-Men 10 is the coming of... Kesar!
00:58:47
Speaker
there's There's even an ellipsis in the title to give you that pause call. Which I didn't realize is the introduction of Kesar. I know Kesar is just a character that appears in... I know he had his own line of comics, but he also appears in some of the more lighthearted issues of some of my favorite comics.
00:59:08
Speaker
I didn't realize this was his first appearance. It's the first appearance of the Savage Lion, too. Yes, although they don't call it that yet. Really? was just... It took minute to make the connection.
00:59:21
Speaker
The entire time i was just in my head saying Savage Land as we were reading, as I was reading it Like, i they don't call it the Savage Land? All right. While you describe this issue, I'm going to read like, just like in so, so in depth here.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So we open with another training montage. Not complaining. i absolutely love it. But this is another issue that opens with them all training together. Except for Warren, who is missing, the angel.
00:59:51
Speaker
He's watching TV in his room. He's watching a news feature that's covering a savage shirtless man and his saber-toothed tiger rescuing a group of lost explorers in Antarctica.
01:00:03
Speaker
There's some satellite feed that he's receiving that's letting him watch this this broadcast. Per Cerebro, this man is not a mutant. The professor was already aware, already thought about it, and found out that this is not a mutant.
01:00:17
Speaker
But he does allow them to go investigate anyway because they're pretty bored and they have been itching to use their powers. Okay, you may investigate the Antarctic wild man, is his quote.
01:00:28
Speaker
So they land in Antarctica. They descend into a crevasse where they're pretty sure this savage shirtless man ran into. they discover a tropical land filled with dinosaurs and prehistoric fauna. They are immediately approached by pterodactyls, ah a flock of pterodactyls that Cyclops blasts out of the sky.
01:00:51
Speaker
And then shortly after that, attacked by Swamp Men. We come to know them as the Swamp Men. They're riding ostriches. they capture Marvel Girl as the Savage Man and the Tiger from the news scare the warriors away. he He comes in, scares them away, but they already have Marvel Girl in their clutches.
01:01:12
Speaker
Savage Man introduces himself as Kesar. He speaks like a caveman. He introduces his tiger as Zabu. We cut to Warren also being caught by the Swamp Men in a net. He was out on a fly a scouting fly and just flew into a net.
01:01:33
Speaker
Wait, Pat, I have to interrupt you. I have to interrupt you real quick. just Does this issue include my favorite supervillain, Magor the Killer?
01:01:44
Speaker
I'll get there. Okay. No, I'm glad you asked because there is a misunderstanding. Somebody notices that Kesar has beautiful muscles and tries to touch them and he doesn't like being touched. So he's pretty rude to them.
01:01:59
Speaker
As we're learning, is their typical response to rudeness? The X-Men attack Kesar. There's a brief spat and then they are interrupted by Ma Gore, the killer, last of the ape man tribe.
01:02:13
Speaker
I'm sorry, last of the man ape tribe. it's And I think listeners can kind of probably tell based on our enthusiasm. He is both of our favorite Marvel characters of all time.
01:02:26
Speaker
We both have Magor posters on our walls. We're just big Magor fans. Magor the killer. Last of the man-ape tribe. last of the mayonnaise tribe.
01:02:39
Speaker
Holy shit, dude. Come on. and Sorry, you're right. i'm getting off track. Kesar quickly defeats Magor the killer, last of the mayonnaise tribe, which relaxes him a good bit. He stops trying to fight the X-Men and agrees to help them find Marvel Girl.
01:02:53
Speaker
Back at the Swamp Man camp, Jean and Warren have to fight a T-Rex, which they do. Just as Kesar and X-Men show up at the camp, Kesar summons a herd of Mastodons to take down the camp.
01:03:07
Speaker
They do exactly that. It becomes really easy to defeat them They free Marvel Girl and Angel. And then they offer to be friends with Kesar once all the chaos calms down and he tells him to fuck off and he ah walks off into the sunset.
01:03:27
Speaker
that is how it ends it's just hey i don't want to be your friend don't come back here yeah it it is okay here's my impression of jack kirby getting the rundown of this issue all right all right drawing some uh weird muscle man and t t rex what fuck is that shit yeah
01:03:57
Speaker
It is the lumpiest T-Rex I've ever seen. It's like the... What the fuck is this? The T-Rex from Toy Story.
01:04:06
Speaker
Melting! It is if the T-Rex from Toy Story were melting. Or like bloated. it is the... It is just such a bad T-Rex. If we at this point...
01:04:18
Speaker
ah have an Instagram or something. We'll have to post pictures of this T-Rex. It's got like the body of a man but with tiny hands and like ah just a big mascot head.
01:04:31
Speaker
it's So, but like, okay, this from an issue where he draws a beautiful, beautiful Brontosaurus, right? And some of his action shots in this issue are incredible. Like, clearly he likes Kesar.
01:04:45
Speaker
He is, he's drawing this guy in such dynamic poses. Beautiful, man. Just non-stop. Oh, and yeah, yeah. by the way, ah on my Hear Me Out cake, for sure.
01:04:59
Speaker
But when it comes to drawing this fucking T-Rex, holy shit. He's lost. He's putting fatty deposits on all of the dinosaurs, which I think is yeah maybe something he believed.
01:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, dinosaurs, they were a lot fatter than we think they were, is what he Speaking of disrespecting dinosaurs... They enter the Savage Land.
01:05:26
Speaker
Angel is flying around and gets ah swamped by a flock of pterodactyls. I get that there's not much you can do. If you're being attacked by dinosaurs, you should take action. you should do something about it. But Scott's just blasting him out of the sky. It's a scientific miracle. And he is just wasting was no time. Well, I guess now the second person to lay eyes on dinosaurs in millions.
Savage Land Discovery and the Magneto Story Arc
01:05:53
Speaker
millions Of years. And he just shoots it out of the sky. He's like, oh, let me kill this thing.
01:06:02
Speaker
be yeah This is. I think this is a fun issue. so Especially because there's not like a supervillain in this issue, which I think is fun.
01:06:13
Speaker
Unless we count Magor the killer. Magor the killer last of the man named truck. I know that's our favorite Marvel character, but also here. Okay. All right. bullet points time. At some point, Cyclops says to Angel, no one is excused from postgraduate work. Okay, so they're still students?
01:06:30
Speaker
So nothing's changed? So the whole issue is being healed about everybody graduating and fucking nothing's changed? You don't, i I don't need a reason for them to continue to train. They're a team of ah superheroes.
01:06:47
Speaker
It's totally, they don't need to call it postgraduate work. and Now, I don't actually don't have any other bullet points, but I do want to talk about like the Marvel girl situation. i Yeah.
01:07:01
Speaker
Which situation? That they disassembling and reassembling a rifle in the training montage when the last issue she was working on sewing? This is her right wing rabbit, alt right rabbit hole conversion.
01:07:17
Speaker
From... yeah from independent woman to sewing to guns. This is exactly the Sarah Palin trajectory, the Marjorie Taylor Greene trajectory.
01:07:27
Speaker
But it is, no, it is when her and Angel are captured by the Swamp Men, she goes to, unret he's like, oh, just use your, you know, telekinesis to undo these ropes.
01:07:38
Speaker
And she's like, I can't. They're covered in pitch. Yeah. So what this is is suggesting is that her telekinesis is like two human hands.
01:07:49
Speaker
That like slip off of stuff. I guess. Pitch is like tar, right? It's like... Oh, okay. I think it's sticky stuff.
01:08:00
Speaker
Which maybe... I don't... its it's It's an interesting question, right? Could you, using telekinesis, unbind glue that's holding two pieces of paper together?
01:08:14
Speaker
Well, she lifted a human being in the air. With her telekinesis. Yeah, but its I'm not talking about the strength. Like, imagine just a knot with a ball of tar around it. Are you able just to extract that tar from the situation?
01:08:30
Speaker
If I have the, if I have the, if I can exert the force to lift a man off the ground, I can grab any part of a rope and rip it in half. Yeah, that's fair.
01:08:42
Speaker
Like a grown man. It doesn't. a grown man off the ground and just kind of spin him. i am strong enough to tear a rope.
01:08:51
Speaker
It really doesn't matter ah anyway, because they forgot to pitch Warren's ropes. The knot around his wrist. Oh, yeah. I mean, lucky for them, huh?
01:09:04
Speaker
Also, besides the terrible dinosaurs, this is just another really good Jack Kirby, Chick Stone collab. Like, the art here is great. Yes. There is another, there's a few beautiful panels here.
01:09:16
Speaker
One is the X-Men fighting the Swamp Men alongside Kesar. Again, Kesar is just in this beautiful man pose. He's doing this overhand throw Like he grabbed somebody by the spear they were charging him with. And he is continuing to run forward while tossing the man behind him. It is it's just an incredible panel.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And well, because that's beautiful, but also it's funny because also Iceman is rolling everyone up in a big snowball at the same time. They love spinning people.
01:09:54
Speaker
That's their favorite thing. There's also, ah is towards the beginning, there's another beautiful panel where they decide to go find Warren. Scott says, I'll go grab him. And then Hank and Bobby both follow. And they're just bouncing down the hallway together. It's a pretty small panel, but it's just really cool. It's a very, they're all in action. Beast is like bouncing down the hall. Scott's running and Iceman is using his ice slide. Yeah.
01:10:23
Speaker
But the the fun thing about that image is panel before Scott is very close to Gene. He's getting a little too riled up and he's like, I need to go cool off. Why don't I find a reason? I'll just say I'm looking for Angel.
01:10:39
Speaker
And he announces it to the room and Hank and Bobby are immediately like, I'll go with you. Let's go, buddy. they just He needs a minute to like, he needs a cold shower. And instead he's getting these two boys literally bouncing behind him.
01:10:56
Speaker
It's interesting because this is pre-Ice Man learning how to make ice slides and ride on ice slides. But there is this, yeah, there is a moment where it looks like he might be doing just that. It seems like he's maybe creating little ramps for himself to slide up. yeah' The physics are confusing. Well, physics of Iceman are confusing forever, right?
01:11:18
Speaker
As long as he's moving forward, he doesn't fall from the sky, even if his ice slide isn't attached to anything. I mean, it's like, it's a bizarre thing. There's bizarre physics around Iceman all around.
01:11:29
Speaker
Also, i do want to say the final panel of Kazar makes it so clear that this is just Jack Kirby's drawings of Charlton Heston. Oh, yeah. The final page where he's like, where he's telling them to fuck off. It's just a picture of Charlton Heston.
01:11:47
Speaker
Really, it's a Tarzan ripoff, but... I do have to say, matt on the very first page of this comic... a They explained to you how to pronounce Kesar.
01:11:59
Speaker
um No way, they don't. you They do. It is not Kazar, like you just said. On the very first page. Pronounced K-S-R. The very first page. Holy shit! I've never seen... I've read this issue three times. I've never seen...
01:12:16
Speaker
Well, you can't look. ah You have no control over me, Stanley. So fuck off. It's Kazar. That's a great point. All right. Issue number. Kazar and Unis.
01:12:27
Speaker
Issue number 11. The Triumph of Magneto. So ah this issue opens up with a new Professor X invention. The Radar Image Beam.
01:12:40
Speaker
Upon which a super being registers. It seems more like a Reed Richards invention than a professor X invention, but whatever. He's a gadget guy. The super being is so powerful.
01:12:50
Speaker
Shatters. The radar image beam. Meanwhile, the X-Men are just pranking each other. Cut to a man with very strange hair, like a puffy, bushy head of hair, bushy eyebrows, weird, patchy hair.
01:13:07
Speaker
ah facial hair he is renting a room producing money out of thin air walking walking in the air passing through a wall and ends with a first person shot from his point of view of magneto and the brotherhood just saying like hey we've been waiting for you it's kind of cool kind of a cool moment Meanwhile, the X-Men are out looking for this super being.
01:13:38
Speaker
Cyclops gets in a little dust up with some police. ACAB. escapes base due to an Iceman ice slide or an ice, an ice tube. Sorry. That's what he generally uses these days. He makes a tube. You jump into him and you pop out the other side with the stranger, the, uh, this, the strange man, the brotherhood are showing off their powers to him to show him how powerful they are.
01:14:04
Speaker
But the stranger just kind of shrugs them off. He blasts all of Magneto's metal bindings away. He turns the mastermind into literal stone, uh, And this commotion draws the attention of the X-Men and they rush in and, you know, begin fighting.
01:14:21
Speaker
The stranger's like, I don't know what the fuck is going on here. Creates a cone of energy that sucks up Magneto and Toad and they fuck off, right? This is the moment now that Mastermind and Magneto and Toad are gone, that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch decide they're going to give up being villains.
01:14:42
Speaker
And they're done with the Brotherhood. They're done with Magneto. The X-Men are like, hey, well, join us. We could use you guys. And they like, nah, we're going home. and it is this exact month, Patrick, so that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch join the Avengers. Oh, shit.
01:15:03
Speaker
That's actually extremely cool. Because when they get to the Avengers, they show up and they're just like, hey yeah you might have heard of us, but if you have... we're cool please take us in as i didn't realize it was such a hang out with us please hang out with us yeah it's uh avengers number 16 because i think what's happening at this point is that the x-men for a couple months at least were operating every other like it was every other month and the avengers was monthly so they started outpacing the x-men
01:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, they kind of pull ahead. So, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, they're gone. We cut to the Stranger and Magneto and Toad ah again in this just, like, dick-showing competition. Like, who's who's got bigger, better powers?
01:16:00
Speaker
Stranger does. Spoiler. Spoiler alert, the Stranger is as much better powers than Magneto or Toad. I mean, i have better powers than Toad. The X-Men find out that like Mastermind is alive, but he's just a stone now.
01:16:16
Speaker
So the X-Men go out searching for this incredibly powerful being that turned Mastermind to stone. The stranger's like, don't want to fight people. i just wanted some...
01:16:27
Speaker
examples of mutants. So I'm going to take these two nerds and he grabs Magneto and Toad and he disappears from the planet saying, we shall never return zoot them in a beam of light.
01:16:40
Speaker
The X-Men head back home on their new helicopter. they say you
01:16:48
Speaker
Professor X taking the name tags for Magneto, Mastermind and Toad out of Cerebro.
01:16:57
Speaker
us making room for more new mutants then then cerebro does start beeping and we get like an ominous to be continued do you think pat that they knew what the next issue was going to be when they had this ominous ending no absolutely not they're just like next the x-men face their biggest threat of all like literally could be anything Yeah, I think they wanted to create a cliffhanger. i There's no indication that, like, there's no continuity between this and the next issue. it is just, well, we can get into it in a minute. ill We'll talk about ah issue 12. Do you think that this, do you think they wrote the title before they wrote the issue?
01:17:47
Speaker
Or is this supposed to be ironic, the triumph of Magneto? Yeah.
01:17:55
Speaker
100% they wrote the title first. There's nothing about this that is a triumph, right? he He loses in every scene that he's in. yeah he looks like an absolute fool, and he gets he disappears forever. The X-Men stand around and talk about it for a little while, saying, oh i guess Magneto really is gone.
01:18:16
Speaker
i i think we should highlight here the fact that this is like an ending. At this point, you know, the X-Men are graduated, Professor X has defeated Lucifer, the man who took control of his legs.
01:18:31
Speaker
Mastermind is, for all intents and purposes, fucking dead. Still alive, though. Still alive, just a stone. Magneto and Toad are off in space forever.
01:18:45
Speaker
And Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have left. the brotherhood so there are no more threats for the x-men to face at this time and it's also worth noting this is the last x-men issue of jack kirby yeah yeah this is the last this is the last one he writes he still gets credit in the next one that he draw that he paint pencils he mean oh yeah sorry this is the last one that well that he writes through with his drawings
01:19:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That weird ah nebulous zone between writing and art that was that existed. and see i have to say, so they put this image image beam together, which the radar image beam actually seems kind of feasible, right? Especially was, well, just, you have to imagine that there is a form of radar that can build a better image than just a bleeping dot on a screen, which is what it was back at the time.
01:19:47
Speaker
But this is the first time they've ever used it. And... It breaks like it just breaks. They conclude that it means it's the most powerful mutant they've ever seen, but they don't know that it could just be a malfunctioning piece of equipment. They've never used it before.
01:20:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Seems like an undue panic. They get sent again to New York City to just walk around and look for a mutant. Angel even verbalizes how fruitless it is to just wander around New York looking for a weirdo.
01:20:20
Speaker
Like that is yeah yeah that is the mission. that's Yeah, that's the definition of futility. Actually, speaking of this being Jack Kirby's last issue, he is going nuts here. There is some really beautiful psychedelic art. They go to space for a little while. There's an abandoned factory factory.
01:20:40
Speaker
There's a whole lot of just like detail. There's a few different individual panels where you get all of the X-Men and Professor x Xavier in one shot in like some sort of action pose.
01:20:53
Speaker
He's really yeah he's really putting his heart into this one, which is very cool. I mean, I think he I have to assume he knew this was his last issue. And he was just like, all right, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna kick some ass for a little bit.
01:21:07
Speaker
I'm gonna show people I'm goingnna make them miss me. There's a fun panel continuing the X-Men's tradition of disrespecting the police. There is a fun panel where they are trying to shake down Magneto because they're looking for a mutant and they just start picking on a civilian and he won't take off his glasses. So the cop says only a guy on the lam would be scared of removing his glasses.
01:21:33
Speaker
cra I'm scared of removing my glasses all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's two more things I want to mention. Number one, we do get a clearer picture of Magneto's goal in this issue, which is reducing the human race to slavery.
01:21:47
Speaker
i don't think he's been that specific up to this point, but that's what he tells the stranger. The other thing worth mentioning is a single frame of Bobby with his hands on his hips after somebody asks who just pranked me saying, oh, just that little old frost pot, me.
01:22:05
Speaker
I got him. Well, yeah. Oh, that was in response to the phrase that I wrote down. Gadzooks, who coated the corner of the room with ice? figure You don't have to ask.
01:22:15
Speaker
Who else? could figure that out. You could definitely just intuit that. Patrick, you are going to recap the next issue for us. But before you do, I want to mention the artist change here. So Jack Kirby continues doing layouts for a while.
01:22:30
Speaker
But what we get in this next issue is a real treat. It is Alex Toth. Yeah. Do you know Alex Toth? Yes. If listeners don't, he is he is a Hanna-Barbera artist who is responsible for the creation of Space Ghost.
01:22:45
Speaker
He created Bergman. He worked for DC for a while where he created Black Canary and Rex the Wonder Dog. I did not know. When you look back at those Hanna-Barbera action cartoons and superhero cartoons like Johnny Quest or even Zorro, right? Even human characters in Scooby-Doo, that is all kind of... Alex Toth is the iconic artist of that era. It's his style guide, right?
01:23:17
Speaker
Yes, he is the who Right, so later when people like um his successor, the guy who created the style of like Batman the Animated Series and um Justice League Unlimited and stuff.
01:23:32
Speaker
um ah Bruce Timm. Yeah,
Juggernaut's Menace: A Clash with Xavier
01:23:36
Speaker
Bruce Timm is really following the Alex Toth template later on in animation history but so alex toth actually draws issue 12 the origin of professor x that's right it's also worth mentioning the lettering is still done by the same person but now he's going by sam rosen not s dot rosen yeah yeah yeah that's
01:24:04
Speaker
ah The origin of Professor X, we open ah with Cerebro freaking out to the point where the rest of the X-Men barge into Professor x Xavier's office and discover for the first time Cerebro. Only Scott has seen it to this point. Oh, yeah, you're right. Okay. i hadn't even clocked that.
01:24:27
Speaker
Well, Scott's standing there saying, how dare you barge into the office and...
01:24:35
Speaker
Professor X says, what we need to do immediately is fortify the building. They create an ice wall. They dig trenches. They hollow out logs with ah Scott's eye beams and store grenades inside of them.
01:24:50
Speaker
And Professor X, as they fortify the place, reveals that a mutant as powerful as this must be to set off Cerebro so intensely must be his brother.
01:25:03
Speaker
Flashback. ah yes to the funeral of Professor X's father, who was killed in an atomic blast in New Mexico. like Xavier's mom remarries an evil scientist who brings in his son from a former marriage, Cain Marco.
01:25:20
Speaker
Back to the present, the mysterious mutant is breaking through the barriers the X-Men put up while they watch from inside, just proving how powerful he is. He busts through the ice wall. There's some sort of energy beam they didn't mention before, but now it's there, and he doesn't seem to be chased by that.
01:25:37
Speaker
yeah This is happening interspersed with flashbacks about Professor X not getting along with his stepbrother, his mother, and his stepfather all eventually die. a flashback, Cain Marco at one point offers to drive Xavier to college, ends up driving him off a cliff as he jumps free from the car. like He's driving him, trying to terrorize him. It just seems like he wasn't like yeah meaning to drive him off a cliff, but he does. ah They go a long way to...
01:26:05
Speaker
clarify that this is not how Xavier loses the use of his legs. In another flashback, Xavier and Marco are fighting in the Korean War together. Marco deserts. He says, this war stuff isn't for me.
01:26:18
Speaker
There's a nice cave over there. He walks over. And he stumbles into the sacred lost temple of Sidorak, the worst of the dark magics. And despite x Xavier's warning, he touches the ruby that's hidden inside this sacred lost temple.
01:26:32
Speaker
The inscription on the ruby tells him he's going to turn into a human juggernaut. We see a cave in. x Xavier and Marco are separated, never see each other again. We come back to present day.
01:26:43
Speaker
The X-Men activate lockdown mode, another fortification that they just forgot about until now. Steel shutters come down over the doors and windows. Juggernaut breaks through them anyway, pushes the X-Men aside without any effort.
01:26:56
Speaker
He's finally face-to-face with x Xavier. We see his full beautiful form, and he promises to defeat and kill x Xavier. To be continued.
01:27:08
Speaker
He's just kind of a trash can man. Yeah, I think it is an amazing look. He is so ah bulky and they have put a helmet on him to eliminate any need for a neck.
01:27:21
Speaker
And they're like, you know what we have to show off in this character is his beautiful calves. So you can see. So, you know, he's got full armor on and he's got armbands and he's got boots and he's got a helmet.
01:27:33
Speaker
But those naked calves really teach you something about this man's musculature. Yeah. This is your fucking rules. This is good. I think Xavier's being very weird about telling this story in this specific moment. There are a lot of, there's no time for that now. I'm telling a story moments.
01:27:52
Speaker
And the story isn't relevant to how they would defeat this man or protect themselves. It's really just to say, yes, he's very powerful because he found a magic artifact.
01:28:04
Speaker
But... All that aside, yeah, this is thrilling. Like the way that you're page by page seeing two different stories develop so cleanly where the juggernaut is slowly making it through all their fortifications and where like Xavier is clearly building up to revealing just how big and powerful this guy is.
01:28:27
Speaker
One of the things about this issue is also, like, it it makes it hard for this podcast, is it's not that ridiculous. It's just kind of good. It's just kind of a good issue of comic books.
01:28:38
Speaker
There's, like, there's some ridiculous stuff. For example, even just naming Cain Marco Cain is, like, a little... On the nose, was right? Was he the good brother or the bad brother? And yeah again, like there's, like you said, there's all these fortifications they set up. Some of them are absolutely silly.
01:29:04
Speaker
but some of them are really fucking cool. And it is thrill like it is the first issue of X-Men where you want to keep turning the page, where you're not like, okay, what's going to happen next?
01:29:16
Speaker
It's like, oh my God, what is happening? Who's coming? what Well, we know it was Juggernaut because we have been... X-Men fans forever. But it's still like if if you didn't know that and you were reading this issue completely sight unseen, this would be so exciting.
01:29:36
Speaker
Yeah. Very reminiscent of like horror comics at the time of just yeah the creature approaching and the way that they panel that out. And it's our first real to be continued. So there's ah so as a kid,
01:29:50
Speaker
Reading this, you're like gaming out. Oh my God, there's only like a couple pages left. How are they going to defeat this guy? Yeah, yeah. How can they possibly defeat this guy in time? And then they don't.
01:30:02
Speaker
They don't. He just shows up there They're doomed. So the next issue, they all die. And um it was really it was a really nice podcast.
01:30:13
Speaker
that's the That's the end. um Also, ah this is the first example of the Iceman Ice Slide. Oh, yes. He's moved on from tubes. Where he's he's propelling himself by creating an ice slide underneath him. So this was an Alex Toth invention, I guess.
01:30:30
Speaker
Oh, nice. ah Very cool. Alex Toth. Could have been in Kirby's layouts, but...
01:30:38
Speaker
A couple of very silly things that I, that yes, this is a very good issue. This is like a step up from what we've read so far, but there are a couple of moments that I have to mention. Okay, please. Number one is but both take place in flashbacks. The first one is Professor X is talking about like getting his powers and how he learned to use them.
01:30:58
Speaker
One of those things is becoming a star quarterback in high school because he can predict the defenses so well.
01:31:07
Speaker
It's again, this idea that his mental powers can help him do anything. he also It also protects him from a car crash later. Protects him from a car crash. not Not that he sees it coming, just that his mental powers shield him from damage, which doesn't make sense.
01:31:24
Speaker
He also uses it. I think this is more reserved, less sensical, more nonsensical. He uses it to become a track star because he can predict when the other runners are getting tired. I get that there's probably some advantage there, but I don't think enough to win you championship.
01:31:45
Speaker
If you weren't a great runner and you could tell when somebody was gearing up for their next like second wind... you wouldn't, you just, it would just be more demoralizing.
01:31:57
Speaker
there's man
01:32:01
Speaker
But so because of this, he gets all sorts of trophies.
X-Men's Evolution: From Jack Kirby to New Storylines
01:32:04
Speaker
Kean Marco is very jealous of all his trophies. In one of their spats in this flashback, Kean Marco is getting violent and straight up saying like,
01:32:13
Speaker
I am going to wreck you. i'm going to beat the shit out of you. I'm going to ruin your life. And he starts smashing his trophies to bits. Professor X says, i can read his thought. He's in a thought bubble, obviously, but I can read his thought.
01:32:26
Speaker
First, he'll break my trophies and then he'll beat me up. And I don't think he needed to you to read his thoughts to understand that. This is the panel makes it very clear that he is the next victim.
01:32:43
Speaker
You know what it does do? Okay, so I was thinking about your thing about his sports prowess, and I think it does come into play later, right? Like, there's a point in time where Professor X is a physical member of the X-Men.
01:32:58
Speaker
um It's not going to happen for 20 years. But there's a point in time where Professor Xavier joins the X-Men physically on missions. and And it matters that this is set up that Professor X actually is a physically fit dude.
01:33:14
Speaker
He is a strong, athletic man. And it's interesting that they set this up this far back.
01:33:22
Speaker
I'll take your word for it because there is a panel of him... stiff arming safety in a football outfit and it is hilarious. I don't know what that means, but I believe you that it is a an impressive football move.
01:33:40
Speaker
So we end on a cliffhanger. Yeah. Our first real cliffhanger. And that makes this we and the podcast end on a cliffhanger. Juggernaut is there. The X-Men have been knocked out.
01:33:50
Speaker
Juggernaut, head there's nothing standing between him and crushing his nerdy fucking dork brother, Professor x Xavier. wonder what happens.
01:34:01
Speaker
If you see another episode, that means that they made it. Or we just have one issue to recap. Yeah. Pat, how do you feel about this run of issues? I think it's getting good. Number one, Kirby more and more is caring about the artwork as he goes. And Alex Toth pops in. He's doing some really cool stuff.
01:34:23
Speaker
Hopefully that continues to be tradition, just high effort and very detailed artwork. Yeah. The writing is still very Stan Lee. Yeah.
01:34:34
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Which and God bless him. it'll be for another 10 issues or so, right? Like we we still have a while, a lot of Stanley to go. But I mean, they're they're building a bigger world. They're developing a greater set of villains.
01:34:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I really love, so you were talking about how a lot of this is supposed to just be weird, right? Like at the time, you would see the X-Men on a comic shelf and you'd be like, this is bizarre. I am going to check this out.
01:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's especially applicable if you look at these as like Archie comics, because i think these issues make it really clear that they're trying to, like I said in the last issue, really balance that fun personal life stuff with the action packed stuff.
01:35:31
Speaker
they really explore it here and they're probably going to explore it for a while, right? Like the, the will they won't be relationship, the eventual maturing of Iceman. It's just, it's, it feels like the, ah the overall story of the X-Men didn't get pushed too much forward in these six issues, but they've built a framework to, to tell a shit ton of weird stories. Yeah.
01:35:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think so. This feels like like I said, this feels like a wrapping up of the Jack Kirby era. They are bringing the sort of overarching Brotherhood Magneto saga to a close, but they are also opening up these other doorways. Right. They are opening up the Savage Land, which they didn't call it that.
01:36:18
Speaker
And they're they're introducing the X-Men to the Avengers. They're bringing Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver into the broader X-Men or Marvel Universe. And then, of course, this ends with the introduction of Juggernaut and the implication that there are origin stories to tell of all these X-Men.
01:36:38
Speaker
Yes. Right. We have the origin of Professor X. So we're going to see, we can assume eventually, well, what did all these other guys do before they were X-Men? There's also, i know we made fun of it, but there's that moment where Professor x Xavier is just like, oh, I'm exploring, I'm deep underground in a cave in the Balkans, or...
01:36:59
Speaker
the moment, the next issue where he's, where he's like, Oh, I'm, uh, chasing Lucifer. He's the one that broke my legs. yeah It's this idea that there's more than there's more to professor X than we've seen. Yes. There's a past to dig into. There's there. They're not just setting them up for more stories, more future stories. They're setting them up to explore their pasts and to, uh, yeah, which is what you were just saying, but, um, prettier.
01:37:30
Speaker
ah All right. So do, so do we have a Pat's deals and steals? Yes. segment that We should have a theme song for this. I dug one up, ah not a theme song, but a steal and deal for $1, which we established earlier was about $10 in 1964. So you could either join the Mary Marvel Marching Society or grow two living monsters in your own room.
01:37:57
Speaker
Without a doubt, the most incredible biological wonder you have ever seen. Each of these two hair-raising monsters is completely different. Just place one in a colorful space grotto supply and watch it come alive. Actually grows for weeks and weeks of thrilling fun.
01:38:12
Speaker
As these monsters grow, they become so scary they will make even your closest pals gasp in terror at the awful sight. These spooky, kooky things from another world change your ordinary room into a living chamber of horrors that only the bravest souls will dare to enter.
01:38:29
Speaker
Complete with giant accessory kit, you get a botanical growth control center based upon the same principles now under study for the use in real space voyages to the planets. With your scientific kit, you will actually control the life and growth of each of these strange cosmic creatures. Let me describe this issue to you.
01:38:47
Speaker
If you've ever seen the the movie Heavy Metal, it is two disfigured psychedelic... bleary eyed monsters ah with green hair growing out of their heads. or The conclusion I've come to is that this is an early chia pet.
01:39:04
Speaker
This clearly like a clay sculpture and some funky monster looking thing. and you plant something and yeah the the chia grows out the top.
01:39:14
Speaker
It does come with two botanical hair-raising monsters, a space grotto, a fully equipped control center, a flexible hydroponic biotank, crystal plastic hydro tray, a real working aqua gauge, and illustrated monster-growing instructions, all for $1.
01:39:32
Speaker
That's a steal, man. Yeah, truly is. How could I not get that? My ah only criticism is, as you heard me read earlier, it feels like they wrote three different sets of copy for this and just put it all the same ad.
01:39:50
Speaker
It's, I mean, okay. So you're you're saying they send you and it's just like a ceramic thing and you pour seeds in it and they just grow. Yeah. Let's break this down.
01:40:01
Speaker
Two botanical hair raising monsters. and the The pot, the receptacle, right? Okay. Space Grotto Astronarium. I think that's like a little aquarium. It's like a little diorama set.
01:40:16
Speaker
Fully equipped control center. What do you think a control center does on a Chia Pet?
01:40:24
Speaker
What does a control center do? Is that... I could... I could not possibly guess. Flexible hydroponic biotank, which I'm guessing is seeds.
01:40:36
Speaker
Okay, yeah. Crystal plastic hydro tray that you can put under so when you water them, the water doesn't go all over the place. And Illustrated Monster Growing Instructions, a basic kit on how to water these plants.
01:40:48
Speaker
It's so wild. They they just they don't include pictures. They only include illustrations, and the illustrations are clearly exaggerated. ah i just really want to see one of these fucking...
01:41:01
Speaker
monsters I wish there was actually a name of the product here. It's purely description. Well, yeah, I've noticed a lot of them are, and I'm just really,
01:41:15
Speaker
i think we just, I don't know how we go find, i don't know how we go find them. They, it does say hair raising monsters in quotes.
01:41:26
Speaker
So maybe they were called hair raising monsters. Yeah. In fact,
Episode Conclusion and Credits
01:41:31
Speaker
there is a TV commercial from ah well past this called Hair Raising Monsters. And it was like chia, but not it was like a ah piece of cardboard, not a ceramic. Oh, so this isn't even this is just a picture, a picture of a monster that you can grow a plant behind.
01:41:54
Speaker
Yes, and it seems like it it it fits the description. Based on this commercial, he peels back a thing. He dips it in one beaker of water, then peels back a thing, and then dips it in a second beaker of water. Yeah, he puts some goop on it, dips it in a second beaker of water, and then it grows.
01:42:12
Speaker
So I imagine the control center is like a thing that holds just two glasses that you have to have from your own house. It's the miracle life, Matt. Miracle a life. ah Life finds a way.
01:42:23
Speaker
Life ah finds a way. You had it out of order there. So everybody, thank you for listening to Mutant Menace. You can email us mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
01:42:38
Speaker
do Do we have an Instagram yet, Patrick? Not yet. Okay. Well, you can find me on the internet, Matt Aukamp. A-U-K-A-M-P. That's Blue Sky, Instagram, wherever. You can check out my other show that's um about video games. Save Your Game is what it's called.
01:42:55
Speaker
Find that wherever podcasts are. Thanks to Krils Wilson for our intro music. And we'll be back next. What about Thursday? That's what we said last time. I love Thursdays. I think it's a great day in general.
01:43:07
Speaker
Come back here next Thursday when we'll talk about the next exciting block of X-Men issues. We'll find out if Juggernaut just kills Professor x Xavier at the beginning of next issue or not.
01:43:18
Speaker
And always, remember, homo sapiens just aren't worth it. Don't ask me, pal. Ask the camera.