82 - New Mutants 47-50

Transcript

Speaker: 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.

Speaker: Hey, everybody, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And say it with us, Sean. well Welcome to Mute Menace.

Speaker: Oh, Matt. Patrick, people don't know how much of a weird start we're off to today. Yeah, yeah, we're having we're having weird days We had some technical difficulties.

Speaker: And then... We had a very weird experience when we were syncing our audio. Yeah, just because of our very strange process to sync our audio.

Speaker: Do you guys... Have you heard the full... home improve Home improvement theme song. It's so long. It is so much. Like, there's so many television shows that have longer opening themes so they can, like, cut it down to 30 seconds. I know, like, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has, like, 12 more verses, right? It's like the. Oh, really?

Speaker: The Star Spangled Banner. that is that somebody's theme song? That's got a bunch more to it. Anyway, apparently

Speaker: i never thought that that would happen with ah entirely instrumental theme songs, but it does. Yeah, it man, there's like there's like all these guitar solos and shit that we we were not expecting. Yeah. Very like early ninety s shredding. All we're trying to do is sync our audio, man.

Speaker: Matt Patrick side from all that. Yeah. You know what we're talking about today?

Speaker: I hope the new mutants. Otherwise, man, spent a lot of time reading comics for nothing. You're correct, Matt. It is the new mutants. More like the nude mutants. Fuck yes, man. On a roll today, man. we Yeah, yeah. That was pretty good.

Speaker: And they are often scantily clad. That is true. Why are they so often nude? Because they're teenagers in a comic book being marketed to teenagers. I know we have to keep reminding ourselves of this, but it is made for ah the appropriate age to be horned up by. Again, we we hope. We hope we don't. Like, that that is a very good theory, and I hope you're right.

Speaker: And also the writers and artists are all perverts. Like that's not, can't make, we're not making excuses for fucking Jackson geese. You pervert or Bill Sienkiewicz. You frigging pervert.

Speaker: um That's did you have to mention names? ah ah we'll get sued Where did we leave the new mutants last?

Speaker: ah The new mutants, if you remember, Matt, were traipsing through the sewers of the mutant massacre. They were heavily traumatized by what they saw down there, and then they were removed from the event entirely.

Speaker: Jan's apartment blew up, but they got out of there safely, or so they thought. Oh, no They were being pursued by Warlock's father, Magus.

Speaker: who, ah if you don't remember, wants to kill him. That's just sort of like the way that life goes on the planet that they're from. The father either kills his progeny or progeny kills their father.

Speaker: um And the other gets to live the rest of their life. ah That's how a ah battle to the death does tend to work. well What were the new mutants fucking doing before any of this, right? Like Ileana's Lord of Hell.

Speaker: limbo fine limbo but limbo well as we'll find out in this she explains like limbo is not supposed to be hell like it's belasco who turned it hell like yes yeah which i didn't i don't think i don't think i realized no i never really uh thought of that i just assumed it was like a like a like hell light diet hell diet hell um so karma's back Karma's back on the team.

Speaker: Have we seen her in action yet? Or did she... She lost all her weight when they were in Asgard. Like, okay. So she was missing for like a year.

Speaker: And the entire time was completely taken over by the Shadow King. Who made her incredibly obese. And the leader of a gladiatorial ring that had some ties to dazzler. Yeah. Yeah. Posing as the bastard son of Dr. Dr. Man, when you explain it all, it sounds like, well, what are we even fucking doing here? But we can go further back if you want to talk about the Vietnam war for a little bit.

Speaker: But, Then they rescued her from the Shadow King. and have we seen anything else from her since then? don't know. She's been on the team. We've like seen her around, but she hasn't really had a big moment since.

Speaker: Didn't Secret Wars 2 happen after that? Oh, yeah. Secret Wars 2. So they got completely erased from existence, but then brought back. And then ah memory of them had was psychically restored to the world.

Speaker: they yeah when they They moved to the Helions for a little bit. Yeah, maybe Professor X left, Magneto took over.

Speaker: They have been kind of butting heads a bit, but have come to trust and love Magneto as their new leader. Yeah. And I think that brings us up to where they are today. i don't think there's anything else special about what's going on. Sunspot's been developing more. Bobby DeCosta has been developing more of an attitude problem. Cypher has been kind of like becoming addicted to merging with his friend Warlock, who's a techno-organic being.

Speaker: Yes. Despite the ah danger that we've been warned about. Mm-hmm. Wolfsbane has been, ever since she got killed by the Beyonder and brought back to life, she's she went back to Scotland to be with her foster mother, McTaggart. Moira McTaggart, of course. um But then she got sucked into the TV by Mojo.

Speaker: And then when she was returned, she was returned to New York. And then she's been in New York for probably just like ah a couple weeks at this point. Yeah, yeah. And Psylocke came around. So probably literally just like a week before the mutant massacre, Wolfsbane's been back.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, I guess so. It really hasn't been that long for them. No. Or has it? The last thing we saw them doing was Ileana teleporting them out of the grasp of Magus, right? Yeah, yes. And we don't know where they went after that.

Speaker: Absolutely. So we're going to get right into it without any further delay.

Speaker: No, no, no, Matt. You seem to have forgotten since we skipped Pat's email corner during Mutant Massacre that we do a little segment here on Mutant Menace called Pat's Email Corner. Why are all the segments named after Pat?

Speaker: Because I'm the one naming him. ah okay i Matt, we have now, i like I just mentioned, we skipped a week of Pat's email corner, which means that we are ah slammed with emails. We are stuffed full. We are hu satiated. can you Can you use words that aren't sexual to say this? Can you use some words? and youve got At least one word that doesn't have a sexual connotation. i did is Satiated?

Speaker: yeah

Speaker: I think that's the all right. Everybody email. I know I'm not using it quite correctly, but I'm definitely not using it a sexual context. Mutant menace pod at gmail.com did does satiated feel sexual to you.

Speaker: Okay. Okay. i Taking a deep breath. We are going to start With Lib Grendel, who sent us once again several emails over this period, and I am getting to the first one here. Hey, Pat, tell Matt, once again misspelling my name, but not yours, Matt.

Speaker: I've been doing a read through of the entire Valiant universe, the universe that a smudge made after a guy stopped editing Marvel. Not as crazy as your own undertaking. It's at most 20 years of comics spread out over 30 years.

Speaker: Turok being a weird exception of something that existed prior and got absorbed. Huh. Something about everything that was said just confused me. A smudge?

Speaker: I think that's a reference to Jim stupid. Yeah. Both a smudge and a guy. So the universe that Jim stupid made after Jim stupid stopped editing Marvel.

Speaker: Okay. All right. I'm with you. I'm with everybody. I'm, okay I'm here. I'm here along for the ride. I'm, I understand everything and I will always from now on. Uh, there's there. Okay. Your coverage of Guido Calabrese 1958 to 1985. It's time is editor in chief at Marvel really changed my reading.

Speaker: do you understand that one? I don't. i mean I've heard the name in my life. But, oh okay, so Guido Calabrese. All right, i'm I'm following why you used Guido Calabrese, but it's still...

Speaker: Yeah. It's not quite correct. No, but I think it what it does is it's a good guess at your Jim Stupid formatting. What it does to me, in my mind, what it does is indicate that Glib understands the bit without fully playing along, which is what, to be honest, 90% of our emailers do in of our emails.

Speaker: yeah It's a good guess. i'm I am going to make the assumption that glib is just wrong. You seem to be making the assumption that glib understands and and is winking at us here. So.

Speaker: OK, so yes yeah, you need to let us know. Settle a good cop and a bad cop.

Speaker: Up next.

Speaker: It's weapon Jason. Now, this is in reference to episode 79. Weapon Jason says, hey, Matt, tell Pat. damn it. Everybody's everybody. And I know that it's a funny bit to do now, but everybody's messing with the formatting of the emails. and It's really throwing me off. ah We're never going to get them under control at this point, right? Like they have. This is Pat's email corner.

Speaker: All right. ah Time to get some time. Time to get back to our second of 16 emails. Fuck me. Hey, Matt, tell Pat says weapon, Jason. I'm glad Pat's coming around on Arthur Adams. His work here is laying groundwork for a lot of the scritchy scratch line work that's coming up. Portacio, Lee, Liefeld, etc. But he does it better than any of them.

Speaker: I feel like he was channeling George Perez with a hint of the cartoon in there. Also, Mojo appears strong here. I think the gaps in his appearances help keep him from overstaying his welcome, though. I remember liking that Longshot was in X-Men. He felt like he belonged, but it was sad how underused he was.

Speaker: Weapon Jason.

Speaker: Spoilers. Spoilers for all that. i All excellent points, except for these strange names that I just don't recognize.

Speaker: Never heard of before and will probably never hear of again. Yeah, you want that. Don't worry. that Those those names not very important to X-Men history. But all good points. Weapon Jason. And yeah, I am coming around on Art Adams in.

Speaker: A big way. It's because his name is art. So it's like you have to come around on him. Otherwise, what are you anti art? In this in this. Oh, and you're right. He's got me there in this fucking once he starts. Once he starts going by art, Adams.

Speaker: It's just because you love ai so much is what I'm trying to say. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, sorry. I didn't know. Great. You said it. Now we have to put it in a disclosure.

Speaker: Up next, moving on to Abe, who we have requested permission to call but Abe.

Speaker: Please get back to us on that. But in the meantime, Abe says, I will admit in my quest to stop fucking swearing so goddamn much on the fucking Internet, I have started using holy Hannah instead of holy shit.

Speaker: Oh, my God. Are you sure you still want to call him babe? God, you know what? You know what I forgot is I said when people did this, I was just going to not acknowledge it and say,

Speaker: abe i sent me email with a phrase that we are not going to repeat. So yeah thanks for writing in. a I but will say that. I will not say Please don't use that phrase. Yes, it's it's 20. I've been clear on that.

Speaker: ah So we'll fix that in editing. We got to keep going though, Matt. Episode 79 response from email Michael. ah you email Michael.

Speaker: You ready for this? Hey, Pat. I can't ever tell if you're pausing to for me to say hi to them or if you're pausing just for like general dramatic effect.

Speaker: I know. Usually try to time it out so that it's even more confusing for you too. but so Oh, it's on purpose. Hey, Pat, could you please tell Matt that I'm not the YouTube commenter who called the discussion on lanterns DC trash? However, i do not care even slightly about lanterns, but it's your show and it's limited to the opening. So I want to emphasize that this isn't a complaint and I'm not telling you to stop.

Speaker: If it becomes unbearable, I'll skip ahead. Matt, did you ever watch the finale of lanterns? I did. And yeah, and then we had, um you know, then we had to talk about the mutant massacre. So I didn't get to opine on it.

Speaker: It's good. It's really good. It's really good. It's really great. And it's really good. Yeah, yeah. I still kind of can't believe that they have done this with a superhero show, a mainstream superhero show.

Speaker: Pretty cool. Yeah. There you have it folks. And that, I believe... is the is a series wrap yeah well season on kilowatt hours season wrap season wrap season kilowatt hours kilowatt hours season one is done pick us up uh warner brothers for season two or whoever the fuck i don't do they have an official lanterns podcast at the moment it probably sucks ours is better ah yeah i think every hbo show comes with a companion podcast now why what

Speaker: Honestly, Pat. I know. Like, honestly, taking jobs from guys like us. But honestly, why don't we host any of these? Oh, yeah. I was going to I was going to go resentful, but you're right. We should embrace and try to join that community.

Speaker: Email Michael continues. Thank you for your patience. Email Michael. Matt's pronunciation of Siddhartha was very good. I know He says, I call going around in a shirt and no pants going pants list, not Donald ducking or Winnie the pooing. Well, then there's where's the whimsy in that.

Speaker: But that's because I lack whatever whimsy in my soul is required for me to be exposing my dick and balls and thinking what children's cartoon character do I most resemble? Asked and answered. All right.

Speaker: In a parenthetical here, he says French studio Bobby Pills did make an extremely explicit adult cartoon called Peepoo Doe, which had a title character whose dick and balls were visible because he only wore a shirt, likely as a reference to characters like Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh. That's so funny. Holy But I also wouldn't say I'm Peepoo doing it.

Speaker: I might. Peepoo doing it. Pee-poo doing it. This email, Matt, came in, what, three weeks ago at this point, ah plus or minus? And it's still relevant today.

Speaker: Oh, what were you going to say? I thought I dreamed about somebody emailing us about a character called Pee-poo-do, but it is real. Oh, okay because you read this email and forgot.

Speaker: Forgot. And then a week later was like... What is this word that's in my head? If you were to take a minute to go ah run upstairs to your wife and say, and say Rachel, Rachel, people don't know what's

Speaker: You said it wasn't. You said it couldn't hurt me.

Speaker: right And finally, email Michael continues. You asked what fucking nerd shows you nerds listen to. He put that in quotes. That's bait. And I won't go for the obvious punchline. Oh, when somebody answered that last Pat's email corner. Yeah, Marky T-Mails gave us some recs. We forgot that we asked it. That we had asked. And now I'm realizing we asked it in a really rude way. Yeah, now that we've got the exact wording in our faces. Yeah, oops. Sorry. Sorry, everybody.

Speaker: we were probably hungry.

Speaker: He signs off funny looking dummy freak alien geek dweeb. Email Michael. Oh. ah Famous catchphrase.

Speaker: Glib Grendel is back with ah three emails in a row in reference to episode 79. They're quick. We're going to we're going power through Matt. Okay. Hey, Pat, tell Matt, spelled wrong again, that since my inability to select the correct number of T's in my emails has been brought up more than once, I will now sign my emails to, hey, you puffy faffers, converse on this.

Speaker: Or just HPTM, pronounced Hip Thomas. HBTM. HBTM is pronounced hip Thomas. All right.

Speaker: email. Doubting this will make Lex a logical change, but unwilling to improve as a person. Glib Grendel.

Speaker: Followed by 79 practice round. Hip Thomas, body of email. Pretty cool, right? Ha ha ha ha

Speaker: Okay, I'll accept this from Glib Grendel. All right, yeah. If if you're on board, Matt. it's ah it's It's a shame that Glib Grendel is so much funnier than us.

Speaker: Don't you think? Yeah, most of our emailers are, and I hope they never find out. If they start their own podcast? Fuck, what if they start their own podcast with HBO? Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, shit. Hey, we're the guys. We're the gang that listens to Mutant Menace. Can we host a podcast? HBO would be like, yeah, I heard you guys were so funny. We've heard of those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One more to follow up. Also around episode 79, we have Glib Grendel's gay adjacent footnote.

Speaker: Okay. Oh, okay. Hip Thomas. Winnie the Pooh-ing requires exposure of the midriff, like a cropped situation and no pants. yeah All else is duck.

Speaker: Interesting. That is interesting. Interesting. And what and that's a that's a gay thing? i i guess. this is our This is our gay adjacent footnote.

Speaker: Okay. either Either way, this might be the answer to this question. going to sit my ass down and listen and let myself be educated. this might This might be settled because it's it makes a lot of sense. It makes too much sense to to let go. Yeah.

Speaker: Let's keep going. ah We're moving on to episode 80. Mm-hmm. And to usher us in is Weapon Jason here. He says, hey, Pat, tell Matt.

Speaker: Okay. Ah, The Sad End of Power Man and Iron Fist, written by James C. Owlsley. The owl. The owl. A.K.A. Christopher Priest, A.K.A. Priest, and drawn by Mark Bright, A.K.A. M.D. Bright. The pair that will go on to create Quantum and Woody. Not saying there's a parallel there. Editor was Bob Harris, who who will reappear in the podcast eventually. No Archie Goodwin to be seen.

Speaker: Iron Fist. So if you remember, i think you mentioned, Matt, the end of Power Man and Iron Fist is just like super anticlimactic, especially considering the fact that Danny Rand dies in it.

Speaker: Yeah, somebody in our Discord posted it and I've seen it now. And holy shit. Yeah, yeah. Get on the Discord if you can, because nuts. But Weapon Jason sums it up for us, as he as he often does as is his want Iron Fist gets beaten to a pulp by 12-year-old Bobby Wright, who, thanks to exposure to a meteorite, can turn himself into Captain Hero, but also has a terminal disease and, as a result, is dying.

Speaker: Danny slash Iron Fist basically is watching over the hospitalized Bobby, waiting to see if the last-ditch effort by the Avengers to save Bobby's life by putting Megabans on the board. what Danny is asleep when Bobby wakes up, transforms into captain hero. Then in a fit of frustration and anger over the pain, he's feeling basically beats iron fist to death where Danny doesn't wake up while getting smashed. So he just, he just beats a sleeping iron fist until he dies. Bobby then disintegrates and Luke cage finds Danny's body. And so ended power man, an iron fist.

Speaker: Unbelievable, man. Wow. Yeah, if I was reading Power Man and Iron Fist, and that's how my favorite hero, Iron Fist, died, I'd be fucking so pissed.

Speaker: What else we got up next? We got Mikey two males. First up episode 80 might be X-Men related email says, Hey Pat, tell Matt. I got some great news. I wanted to share with my favorite podcast folks. I just got my script for a part of a superhero animation that I can't give any details on. Besides I was cast and it will eventually come out and fuck.

Speaker: It's part of the big two comic companies lineups.

Speaker: Congrats, Mikey two males. Wow. Mikey two. That's crazy. That's really huge. ah Wow. Wow. I didn't know we had such big, big time listeners.

Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome. the we Way to go. Mikey two males. Congrats. ah Wishing you lots of success there. we'll We'll keep an eye out. We know your real name.

Speaker: And then, of course, his episode 80 X-Men related email, Mikey Gmail says, hey, Pat, tell Matt. I said I really enjoyed the history of the pettiness between the artists of Wolverine and Sabretooth. The ah what was it? Cockrum and Byrne. Yeah, that which I just I do need to be clear about that.

Speaker: We we that's ah we invented that. out of out of the knowledge that we have about their arguments to begin with, right? Like we we don't know that that is what occurred. We just have a very strong hunch based on what we already know about them. Yeah, overall, there is a long history of pettiness between the two of them and just from the two of them towards other people. but And looking at the this sort of pattern of when these things were released, it seems self-evident. if you if Again, if you know it all, but it's possible we're just entirely wrong.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. This is a mutant menace exclusive, I think is a a fun way to phrase that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody else has reported it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and you're Possibly because it's not true. You're allowed to just say that is the thing.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. ah He goes on, honestly, I love hearing the history of the comics and the behind the scenes beef that happens between artists, writers, editors, and et cetera. I'm a huge history nerd and it makes me happy to hear. Hope you're both doing well. I know you both have a monster set of issues for next episode, eight episode 81 he's referring to. So short emails this time.

Speaker: Man, no one can ever get your system right. I know. he did you you thought you were going to be on the Mutant Massacre episode, but mathematically, because of the date that it fell on.

Speaker: right. Two more, Matt. We are nearly through this barrage of emails, this this attack. don't Don't characterize it like that.

Speaker: and Up next, we have Veo, who we renamed because... They dare want to ah be associated with genocide, which we understand. yeah Yeah, totally. But we disagree with. But understandable. But we came up with another nickname.

Speaker: I don't remember it in that conversation. I don't remember either. So I guess we'll have to start over. Maybe this is something we should start keeping on paper, too. It was funny. It was. That's all I have to go back.

Speaker: We'll have to check the index. We're going start indexing this podcast. Why don't we index this podcast? The only acceptable thing that AI can do is indexing, but then we'd have to have a disclosure.

Speaker: You said it again, Matt. Two disclosures in one episode description is going be awful. We said AI twice in this episode.

Speaker: ah ah ah We believe. And with one of those like like, we believe in human creativity. We believe in the efforts that humans, and we want to continue to invest in human efforts.

Speaker: But we have we said AI twice in this episode, and we are very sorry. So, VO, nickname pending. somebody is Somebody has to remember, right? MeetMencePod at gmail.com. What was VO's new nickname? Please help us out. You know, nobody has to remember.

Speaker: All right. Well, it should be somebody's job.

Speaker: Definitely not ours. No. I think. Vio with the subject line, not an iPod MP3 player email request.

Speaker: Okay. Dear Pat, please tell Matt that while it's not a Zune, not an iPod and crappy, the third party one I used at the time was an iRiver H10. That's exactly the sort of shit I wanted to know about. holy Yes, this is incredible. Do you remember there was a time when anybody could name something i something before Apple was like, no, that's ours. iPhone, iPad. We own i that.

Speaker: We own I. So this is we we get a picture here, too. You can have J. It's incredible. She goes on, it came out in 2004 and had a full color screen with video playback, a miniature disc based hard drive with 20 gigabytes and an FM tuner you could record from.

Speaker: ah ah I used mine for years to the point I had to use a paper clip onto the exposed motherboard to turn it on. That's the stuff, man. That's that incredible shit. Yeah. Yes. Way to go. God.

Speaker: Oh, wonderful, wonderful email. We have one more. Matt, do you remember Benjamin? Who wrote in with a pity email a few episodes back? Just let us know that it sounds like we need some emailers.

Speaker: Yes. i remember He's back, baby. ah is Benjamin's back. Okay, yeah. and If we're trying to propose that it pro proposed nicknames. Benjamin's back is the nickname? Yeah. It's back Benjamin. Well, didn't we say like bad boy Benjamin? What was it? Oh, bad boy Benjamin was pretty good. was something to that effect. Bad boy Benjamin.

Speaker: Man, if somebody listens to our podcast, can you please tell us what all our nicknames are? yeahy Yeah, yeah. If you can go back, I think it was...

Speaker: Somewhere in the teens, we started assigning nicknames to people and just listen to the episodes from there on. We have that big Patreon money, so we could pay you upwards of $10 if you do this. Slow down, Matt.

Speaker: I need that. ah ah So Benjamin says Secret Wars. more Hello. peter oh Ignoring for if you're at the Secret Wars episode, you know, the formatting rules by now.

Speaker: Benjamin says, hello, i am now on your Secret Wars episode connecting with you all from the distant past of early 2026. I sense a bit of disdain for the project. That being said, let's all let's all project ourselves back to early 2026. What was happening in the world at the time? The ja the Olympics. Oh.

Speaker: Somebody's always talking about the JFK assassination. if Probably. That being said, probably Olympics. Big ass Galactus eating his own ship was rad as hell when I was a kid. That's fair. Yeah.

Speaker: Also, Titania is cool and becomes a somewhat interesting staple of the Marvel universe. I wouldn't know. I'm not following the Marvel universe. Yeah.

Speaker: I do think her and I really love her relationship with Absorbing Man. I think. Yeah, yeah. That's some real top tier Marvel weirdness.

Speaker: Benjamin does close it out here with a nice blue collar crime romance with Absorbing Man, if I recall. Oh, yeah. Yes. So thank you, Benjamin. That's it. That is Pat's email corner. We got through it, Matt. Bad time, Benjamin. I think it was bad time, Benjamin. Bad time, Benjamin. What terrible nickname to give someone.

Speaker: Oh, boy, Matt. Patrick. Just before we get into it, you know, we're just getting started here, just getting warmed up. Just still getting warmed up 40 minutes into the recording. Let me ask you, let me ask you, let me ask you a question.

Speaker: I'd rather you didn't. I'm very busy. Okay. Have you, Matt, done anything X-Men related this week? Oh, boy. i i e Okay, let's see. Let me think.

Speaker: Again, I'm going walk through my week and you tell me. Okay? Okay. Okay. Saw. You can see everything. That was great. I i got so i got i got home from- Professor X can see everything. I got home from You Can See Everything, and i ah i got sick immediately, and I threw up. And then I just blurfed up my whole life on the ground. well Professor X was sick.

Speaker: And then i spent the whole week like with this weird stomachache that I could not fathom. like it it it it It felt like like when Professor X was infected with the brood queen. It felt like when Professor X was infected with the brood queen. And then i got all better. And then I started a new ADHD medication.

Speaker: Well, oh, no. You know what happens? You know what happens when they put ah Professor X on psychoactive drugs? He turns green. He turns green and evil. Evil. Which ah might come up in this episode. Pat, do anything ah did you do anything related this week? Are you trying to word me that you're going to turn green and evil this episode?

Speaker: um I don't know. ah I'll never tell. Okay. I did do something X-Men related. ah Matt, I watched the television show and I'm here to recommend it. This is not an endorsement. I'm not getting paid for this. I just want to say you should watch the show. Shady.

Speaker: Adults. What the fuck? It's a bunch of... 20 something queer people from various ah ethnic backgrounds who all live in the same building and kind of go through, ah but go through their young life. And it is,

Speaker: I think maybe the funniest show on television right now. No way i Season two, I just watched, which came out recently, and I was dying.

Speaker: ah Really? Because i I feel like I yeah saw something about it, and I thought, this looks really lame. There is, I will say, the opening scene of the pilot turned me off, but I kept going, and like five minutes into the pilot, it...

Speaker: it writes itself and it's also, it's, it's a character moment that makes sense once you understand the character, but because it's an interest. So I'm sorry. What I'm saying is give it like five minutes before you turn it off. If you don't like the very opening scene, but, uh, the show itself I think is fucking brilliant. It's got, uh,

Speaker: It's about 20 somethings. So, you know, people my age. But even if you're a bit older than that, it has a very sort of aware perspective of ah looking at a bunch of early 20s kids living their lives, knowing what you know as a 40 something year old man.

Speaker: OK, if I were a 40 something year old man. Okay. Highly recommend. I thought you were going to say the funniest show that ah you've seen in a long time is that new sitcom Newlyweds.

Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about. I keep getting advertised this fucking shitty looking sitcom Newlyweds and it looks like the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker: oh it's I know exactly the show you're talking about. Yeah, it looks like it looks like the sort of sort of shitty sitcom that but like early 2000s or something that. Yeah, yeah. That we've all grown when Chuck Lorre was king.

Speaker: that We've all fully, fully, fully grown out of i the thing about newlyweds for me, Matt, is that. I'm glad everybody there is working.

Speaker: Those are people that they' I'm just glad they they still get to act. You know, Taylor Leone. Are we are we glad that all of these people get to act get to act? these The guy from Wings.

Speaker: OK. All right. Remember Wings? Yeah. You can manage spotted Gmail dot com. Wait a second. Is your prompt. Do you remember Wings? Yeah, at the show.

Speaker: That's the that's what you want. Launched Thomas Hayden Church's career. You want people to email. Do you if they remember the show wings? I'll tell you what. Yes, do that. But especially email.

Speaker: If you remember Thomas Hayden Church's next project, Ned and Stacy.

Speaker: What is this show even anymore? It's what is our podcast about the X-Men? Matt, let me ah or tell you about new mutants. Number 47 to kick things off here, Matt, my heart for the Highlands.

Speaker: Okay. Chris Claremont writer, Jackson, Gucci, penciler, Kyle Baker, anchor Lois, Boo Hollis, letterer, Glynnis Oliver, colorist and no senti editor, Jim,

Speaker: Pisshole. Pisshole, editor-in-chief Chris Claremont and Bob McCloud, creators New Mutant Stars. I didn't need to read those last two parts, but. So what was it called again?

Speaker: My Heart for the Highlands. Please tell me this isn't another one of those Chris Claremont horny love letters to ah Anglican culture. I will not tell you that, Matt.

Speaker: okay Release date September 23rd, 1986. Cover date January 1987. The the new mutants are all fully passed out in limbo after their escape from Magus in the Morlock tunnels.

Speaker: Bobby DaCosta wakes up first and finds he can't activate his powers without the sun. So he's unable to protect Illyana when some demons come by to abduct her. I'm just a boy. he says, I'm just a boy. I'm just a boy. ah

Speaker: Summoning the courage of Magnum P.I., his hero. He decides to follow them anyway. He sees them place her on a slab and raise a sword above her, and he's just about to attack when Sim plucks him up by the nape, and he's forced to watch as the demons complete the ritual. No, that's... but Bobby DaCosta is such a little...

Speaker: shit. Yeah, yeah. He's but he's stupid. There are these moments where he's like, he's gonna get fucking killed. but if there's if There's no way he can fight a horde of demons in hell. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: He's just a boy. he's When he's just a boy! and he's but he's got a stick and he's gonna do it. Yeah, yeah. he He does pick up a big stick, which is very brave of him. It's very, yeah. It's just like,

Speaker: God, there's he is a big shit, but there's he's so lovably, did we you know, the way he is. ah zi Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Thankfully, this was all just a restoration ritual. Iliana's their queen after all. Yeah. How could you forget? love I love Uncle Sim.

Speaker: Just the. yeah Like the the the fun older guy that shows up and yeah yeah just helps you get things right when you're a little off course. He's just like, he just shows up. He's like, hey there, kid. Hey, kid. yeah Just hold off a second.

Speaker: he's like Sort of like a yeah sort of like ah a Wolverine that you if Wolverine was a piece of shit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if Wolverine was a literal evil demon, he would be a lot like S-M.

Speaker: Yeah. ah Anyway, the new mutants all gather up and discuss what to do about Magus. They decide they're going to stand by Warlock and fight. Okay. And none too soon, because at that moment, Magus appears in limbo.

Speaker: um He starts before right before this. We got to talk about. So Ileana conjures up a whole like. set of ah of like x Xavier's mansion. She's like, would this guy make you guys more comfortable hell? Oh yeah, because they're all freaked out by ah by Limbo.

Speaker: But it's like an evil version of Professor Xavier's. And again, it's just, it's the same fucking thing that they do with Ileana where it's like, ooh, this is evil. It's just like,

Speaker: yeah She tried to cast a spell, but there's a demonic twist on it. It's just like, yeah, there's spikes on some of the walls. That's what's cool about this. But what's really funny about it is like the pictures on the walls are just like demons screaming.

Speaker: Just like demons open mouths caught in grave. And I have to imagine, Patrick. This is where evil green and Xavier lives. Oh, in this weird demonic x Xavier's mansion. He has to, right? He must. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Uh, it's with all the new mutants are also complaining about it being too cold in limbo. And i think it's Sam is like, Hey, Ilyana, can you like turn up the heat, light a fire something like that? And Amara is like, no problem. I got this. I'll just summon a fire. And she does. But right before she does, she says, but understand that my power right now is extremely limited.

Speaker: I'm not on earth. I can't summon things like I usually can. so this is a waste. I got it. Don't worry yourself about it, Ileana.

Speaker: It's Chris Claremont just seeing the panels and being like, well, fuck, he has her making a fire. But if you just make a fire, then why? It's Chris Claremont being us, but having the power to do something about it. Yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, those guys are going make fun of me for this if I don't say something here.

Speaker: wrong move chris yeah yeah yeah you you you gotta to you gotta wake up a little earlier in the morning to get to get ahead of matt so maggis appears in limbo he starts in in the morning of 1986 sorry sorry not early enough we're both alive now There's nothing you can do about this, Chris. You're fucked, man. All

Speaker: right. So Magus appears in limbo. He starts infecting and sucking the life glow from all the demons as the new mutants scramble to mount a defense. shit They barely hold together, though Danny does discover that Magus's greatest fear is Warlock.

Speaker: Karma possesses Magus for just a second, which gives magic all the time she needs to transport the team away. Okay.

Speaker: Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Moira McTaggart is taking a well-deserved rest between caring for the victims of the mutant massacre. Magneto arrives and offers to prepare her some food, and he offers hope that the new mutants, who they see as having gone missing during the massacre, are still alive. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: He's holding out hope. it's with it He must be kicking himself right now, right? This is like the third time in the few months that he's been in charge of the new mutants, that the entire group of them have disappeared. Or or fully died.

Speaker: Or died. Like, we can't forget the fact that under Magneto, all of them died once. And then were reborn through a baby-making machine.

Speaker: Yeah, but that's Magneto would have done that had the Beyonder not done that. He knows how to re rebirth babies. yay Yeah. Also, the reason i think this is this is kind of interesting. The reason that Magneto believes they're still alive is Bright Wind is still hanging out at the mansion. And he's like, if Bright Wind or if Danny was dead, Bright Wind would have left.

Speaker: Yeah. Brightwind hates me, man. but No, but that's a, that's a, that's an interesting thought. Yeah. It's an interesting thought, but it also seems because we're seeing it in a lot of issues now, seems like Jackson Guichy might just keep drawing Brightwind. He's like, I love drawing this fucking horse. And Chris Claremont has to be like, all right, well, here's why the horse is featured in this panel. Yes. Yes.

Speaker: i think like um this was supposed to be a conversation about why the new mutants are still alive but i guess i have to explain why there's a horse here too there's just like a winged horse flying around outside just like doing loop to loops like somebody's always got to be like oh and and the horse and the horse is here uh there's a horse here well okay So I think we talked about this last episode, right? It's like, yeah, of course, it's such a cool scene setting thing to cut to the mansion. And there's just a fucking winged horse, right? Like this is such a boon for the artists of this era of X-Men where they're just like, oh I get to draw a fucking winged horse. Draw fucking Pegasus. And Chris Claremont's, please don't draw Pegasus in this scene. And then he gets the pages back and there's a goddamn Pegasus in the scene.

Speaker: The new mutants, for their sake, are dumped from one of Illyana's portals into a creek on a hill in a big sunny field. Okay. Soon they see a battalion of knights on horseback chasing a few Scots Gaelic speaking riders who appear to be wearing tartan.

Speaker: They realize they've traveled back in time. Oh, great. They traveled back to... Okay. Yeah. It's here's the there's a lot of time travel here. So ands and you know me, Matt, I'm going to talk about it.

Speaker: The one complaint I want to get out of the way up top is. That there doesn't seem to be, up until this point, any reason for Ileana's powers to be both time and space-based. It seems like it's just a way to buy some characters some time or send some characters on an interesting path.

Speaker: And I've forgiven it up till now because it's been part of a story. Yeah, yeah. This is insane. She transports them back to... A pre-Scotland Scotland? scotland just like i was like If you were aiming for Professor Xavier's mansion in 1986, the Highlands of Scotland during the Scottish Revolution is a really wild place to end up.

Speaker: So... Despite all this and despite not knowing anything about the two groups, Sunspot and Wolfsbane rush in and start attacking the pursuers. So, yeah. Well, because they're okay.

Speaker: They had a big speech right before they left Limbo. um yeah they they had They had a big like group meeting and they were like, look, if we fight Magus, we're all dead.

Speaker: But we got to do something. We're used to going up against strong ah strong odds. and We have to talk about this for a second. Oh my God.

Speaker: Danny Moonstar is like, yeah, my people, of the Cheyenne, right? Like they, they fought against the colonizers ah and it was a losing battle, but they fought up until the end.

Speaker: And then fucking Sam Guthrie. Sam's like, oh, I can relate. My people fought for the Confederacy.

Speaker: Samuel! Sam! What? That's not a point of pride. Don't. Yeah. there kill it What? Like, I guess. Slow down. to you In response to a Native American person being like, yeah, my people were killed by, you know, racism.

Speaker: I get in concept, right? Him being like, yeah, it was us versus a much so much a superior army right? Sure.

Speaker: But yeah it's the Confederacy, dog. And not only that, like, say Sam's not a real human being who said this. Chris Claremont wrote this. Yeah.

Speaker: Yikes, man. Yikes. He could have been like, my my parent my my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. Same fucking thing, only way less problematic. Still weird to say it after a Cheyenne is like...

Speaker: ah like Yeah, my people fought against the people who fought in the Revolutionary War. And then to be like, but like, there's, yeah, maybe Sam, just keep your mouth shut at this moment. Yeah, yeah. Sam, don't talk about your racist, your slave voting relatives. Jesus Christ, man. I love Ileana's response here, which is just great.

Speaker: So Sunspat and Wolfsbane, just jump into that. i ah Step one, travel back in time. Step two involve yourselves as actively as possible, as quickly as possible. thing there's just stage Yeah, we're back in time. Let's beat people up.

Speaker: So ah the rest of the new mutants hold back until the knights take their teammates for demons and try to kill them. So Cannonball plows into one. Danny conjures an image of the Scots army to scare a bunch off. Magma summons a volcano and then melts a sword that tries to slice into her. Cool moment.

Speaker: Yes. Good moments. Good moments in this issue. Yeah, I think like initially when ah me and you were sitting on each other's laps writing this recap together, what we thought was was like, oh, you know, we want to save as much space as possible. Like, you know, our episodes are long enough. So maybe we should just write they fight.

Speaker: But we don't like we would have missed this moment. Yes, sometimes just like. watching the new mutants use their powers is and or the X-Men or whoever is fucking cool. and We have to just like every now and then dip in and remind people it's fucking cool to watch these guys use their powers.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. We would have missed this next one too, Matt. If we skipped all this karma possesses a guy while cypher clobbers him with a sticky fat. Yeah.

Speaker: Which, i I mean, very brave. We gave Roberto credit for it. We got to give Doug credit for just picking a stick and running into battle. ah Which, which professor?

Speaker: Because two of them did it now, right? So was it Magneto or was it Professor x Xavier or was it like a guest lecturer like Wolverine who taught New Mutants? It's like, hey, if you if you got nothing else, grab a stick. Grab a stick, Russian. Clobber the first guy you see, even if you're in ancient Scotland.

Speaker: It was Warren guest lecturing. but

Speaker: You just need something to hit them with. And then they were like, we're never letting Warren teach them again. why did we Why did we make this mistake in the first place? It was the worst danger room training session they've ever had afterwards. ah i But when magic opens a portal to Limbo, mass of techno-organic tentacle stretches out, transforming and consuming one of the knights.

Speaker: What the hell has Magus done to Limbo? Damn, dude. That's legitimately a little scary. ah yeah like Yeah, yeah. With the battle won, one of the tartan-clad men turned to thank the new mutants.

Speaker: They recognize him from their history books. This is the legendary Scottish figure, Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce is here. Robert the Bruce is here. Friend of the New Mutants. Legendary ah Marvel character. See, okay, so here's this thing. In Marvel history, Robert the Bruce, he was the King of Scots from 1306 to 1329.

Speaker: know obviously in marvel history he led the first scottish war of independence marvel history he fought alongside william wallace you know that movie braveheart that's actually a marvel movie about when this happened yay yeah yeah um but also gotta say and this is all 616

Speaker: Is this also true in the MCU? Yes. would No, it it is just a yeah a universal. It's the Franklin Richards universe. So, right. Like any place of Franklin Richards is all worlds. This happened.

Speaker: Okay. Unless Franklin Richards isn't there, then it probably didn't happen. So. this isn't true scotland doesn't actually exist in the old fantastic four movies

Speaker: so ah tartan i just want to say this real quick ah sure this is important people really misunderstand tartan like tartan designs and fabrics have been around for fucking ever right like prehistoric times like not yeah yeah they're not unique to Scotland the oldest tartan fabrics I think were found in yeah yeah like East East Asia East East Asia you know um but the thing that people get wrong about tartan fabrics and that Chris Claremont gets wrong here is this idea that they identify, they've always identified certain clans in Scotland.

Speaker: That's even, even a lot of ah Scottish people think this. you get If you visit Scotland, you see references to this and like, establishments in like Edinburgh, like in touristy areas. It's not fucking true. ah that okay That was developed in the 1800s by people who wanted to sell like old timey shit.

Speaker: Right. And we're like, like just made up this idea that tartans were linked to heraldry and And so like now they are right. Like now if you have a ah a Scottish name like ah Sinclair or Bruce or McDougal. Right. Your you your family has a tartan ancestry and like an ancestral tartan. But that didn't exist in your actual family. It was born out of i an urban legend. Yeah, well a marketing campaign in the 1800s, you know?

Speaker: Anyway, so... Anyway, Robert the Bruce is here. Robert the Bruce is here. And the New Mutants saved him from certain death. So funny, too, that, like, they...

Speaker: end up back in old Scotland. And of course, they drop right in front of one of the what two most important figures in Scotland. And i I can't stress this enough. Save him. Robert the Bruce dies if the new mutants don't show up.

Speaker: Yeah, in the Marvel Universe, that's part of the continuity, right? There there would be no Scotland if Doug Ramsey hadn't picked up a stick.

Speaker: ah So ah Robert Bruce explains he was being chased by the Saxons who have been invading his land. Jerks and suggest the new mutants leave or they'll get caught up in a losing war.

Speaker: Bobby wants to stay and fight. He is in ah a moment's notice. He's wearing a kilt. He's with the same pattern. around. As soon as they get back to base, he's like, this rules.

Speaker: There should have been a scene where Robert the Bruce was like, what where did you get that? you I wasn't watching you while you walked from the door to my throne. Now you're suddenly wearing a gilt.

Speaker: Who did you take that from? Also, cool thing. They use the historical ah term for Saxons, the Sassenach. Sassenach. Yeah.

Speaker: Claremont did a little research here. I think, ah you know, I'm sure people of Saxon ancestry. ah it's It's not correct to call them that, but that's what they were called at the time by those people. And it's cool.

Speaker: So Robert the Bruce explains ah to Bobby eve in particular, the valor that can be found in running from impossible odds which is what he was doing is exactly as they met them.

Speaker: They decide it's best they leave before they ruin the earth's timeline. Maybe too late. Or before Magus tracks them here and does even worse.

Speaker: Despite his fear of the transmode virus end of limbo, Bobby offers to go through magic's portals first to make sure the coast is clear of Magus. Just another Bobby being brave. Brave Bobby. Brave Bobby. brave. Bobby brave boy. Email her. Bobby brave boy.

Speaker: But Warlock insists it be him. He goes in, he finds the coast clear, and they leave. Which is baffling to me. Just that one panel where he's like, coast is clear. How? What?

Speaker: yeah after Now, after everything after everything we know. oh yeah, yeah. How is it clear? they particular is They're on lunch.

Speaker: But before they leave, Danny notices that Rain is missing her X belt. She says that Robert the Bruce gave her a necklace and it was only fair to give him a present in return. Our last panel is of Robert the fucking Bruce wearing a fucking X-Men belt.

Speaker: ah Such a good detail. It's so funny. It's so funny. and i You know Claremont wasn't attempting to be funny here, which I think just makes it more funny.

Speaker: It's, yes, it is like a very serious picture of a man standing tall and proud with his with his tar his armor, his tartan kilt, and his big X-Men belt. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Speaker: it would be a really good cosplay costume i think i love uh sam guthrie always always a little dorkier than you think he is like always just a little bit more of a nerd than you think he is like he's always talking about like uh was it larry mcmurdy or whatever like he's always talking about his weird sci-fi anyway yeah he says historians are gonna love puzzling that one out girl

Speaker: If like an archaeologist finds an X belt in like Robert the Bruce's grave. Yeah, yeah. All right, Pat.

Speaker: Do you want me to tell you a story of the new mutants? Ooh. Do you like those guys? Chronologically, is it the next one? It is the next one. It's from the release date October 28th.

Speaker: Which is a month after the one you just told. 1986? 1986. It's February It's Mutants ashes of the heart Writer Chris Claremont. Jackson Guichie, I guess, penciler. P. Craig Russell is the ink-a-rur-er.

Speaker: Interesting. Buchalus and Orr Zikowski are the letterers. Glynis Oliver is the colorist. And Nusenti is the editor. The editor-in-chief is James F. Burns, 1882 1972. He's the actually.

Speaker: there that yeah I already said the release date and all that. Listen. Listen. Listen, Pat. Listen. Rain... Remember her? Amara, Roberto, and Shan? I thought about doing it for all of them. I was like, no, this episode's gonna be long enough already.

Speaker: They all stand in an homage to the days of future past. A wall plastered with pictures of mutants, including adult visions versions of themselves, most with a terminated banner running across.

Speaker: Notably, Mirage and Cannonball seem to be alive. Yeah, they don't have the terminated banner. You know who is on here?

Speaker: Who's that, Matt? Ariel. That's right. Kitty's listed as Ariel. And as we all know, if her name is aial name is Ariel, she's and an ah not in your carry all of canon X-Men stories.

Speaker: uh i also want to say simply simple to remember also want to alternate future also want to say jackson grease he's fucking killing it in these issues yes his art is incredible here he's got different inkers for i think every issue that he draws here right Oh, yeah.

Speaker: And he's still like his work is is still good across every issue, which is a testament to what he's doing. If even with three different anchors, you're saying like, yeah, holy shit, this art is good.

Speaker: And what you told me is what you really like about his art in this first page is ah Bobby's big old butt. pop and we are seeing on with We are seeing a lot of nudity with Jackson Guichy too, which I which i appreciate.

Speaker: This is a clothed ah Roberto butt, but it is a big old butt. um Point is, we zoom out and we see that this wall was actually the remaining ruins of a destroyed x Xavier mansion. We zoom out further and see a squad of sentinels marching right towards them, confused that these particular mutants are still alive.

Speaker: Regardless, they try to kill the new mutants. ye Fucking Karma says. They're talking about how bad everything looks. This like ruined wasteland. Karma's like, it's worse even than Vietnam.

Speaker: Chris, ah you didn't need to write that. Just like once again. Like, you don't need to write you don't need to write everything that pops into your head, man. You don't need to have fucking Cannonball be like, yeah, and I'm from the Confederacy. You don't need to have karma say you know what? This is worse than Vietnam.

Speaker: Like, Christ, dude. I know. it And it's like you didn't fight in Vietnam. You were in like political science college. exact And theater He doesn't know what Vietnam was like. It's not really your place to to make that comparison. Yeah.

Speaker: God damn it, dude. And you're not going to reclaim the Confederacy as a fucking... it's Man, it can be so frustrating sometimes. he's such a he's such a We love his writing so much, and we love so many of his quirks, but then some of his other quirks are like nearly indefensible. Baffling.

Speaker: Yeah. All right, so the kids, they struggle against the Sentinels. Good Sentinel fight, we haven't seen one of those in a while. Yeah. But only for a moment as adult Sam Guthrie appears out of the sky and blasts straight through the chests of one of the Sentinels. From the other direction, an adult Danny flies in on Brightwind. You didn't write an adult Brightwind. I think on the timeline of the Pegasus. He's still a baby boy. He's still relatively young. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah Rides, it flies in on Brightwind, wielding a big gun, your favorite thing in the world. Yes. And shooting down another sentinel. Give more superheroes guns just to shoot stuff.

Speaker: It's better. Sam and Danny escort the gang to temporary safety. Back in the present.

Speaker: Magneto he's cleaning up the new mutants rooms it's it's kind of sweet yeah yeah he has been he's been doing all this stuff like they'll be home any minute and I just want to make sure everything looks good enough for good for them and then like he's like cleaning Danny's room ands he's like man her room is worse than everybody else's tsk tsk tsk Danny Yeah, yeah. Really. ah as We mentioned, I think, last episode, him being reduced to scolding teens for spoiling their dinner. And now he's like he's like ah an empty nester that's finding weird things in his son's room or his daughter's room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's um it's sweet, but he it's also nerdy as fuck.

Speaker: Because he made a bunch of little robots to help him out. why do I have... He calls them widgets. do i They truly are. They're just little, like, drones with feather dusters. and They're powered by his powers. So it's not like even really made robots. He's just moving them around. Yeah. Like what a big nerd. It's very sweet. ah Really, really endears you to Magneto. Why do I have a memory of him making a bunch of little robots once before? Did that happen or is that totally in my my head?

Speaker: it i mean, it very well could have. He's done some madcap shit.

Speaker: So he's the only one who believes the new mutants are still alive, but then he's surprised by the appearance of Stevie Hunter. he tells him oh it would be okay if he gave up the search for them, but he refuses to. Stevie Hunter, missed you girl, I missed her.

Speaker: Yeah, but like, geez Stevie. They're still alive. Yeah, she's just like, yeah, those those motherfuckers are dead. Forget them.

Speaker: They're bad at dancing anyway. yeah

Speaker: Back to the future, where the New Mutants' temporary shelter turns out to be the abandoned Sentinel base of Larry Trask and Stephen Lang. Remember?

Speaker: this is the This is the but, right? Do you remember that? is this the This is the original but. Yes, it's it's under a butt. Well before the butt where the roman the romance butt. romance butt.

Speaker: This is the original butt where... Yeah, yeah. The bad butt. if The bad butt that was a mountain a mountain that was secretly a base and it like... Oh, God.

Speaker: They also show the wrecked Marvel offices. Oh, yeah. As they're showing the wrecked. Real mind fuck there. All right. So anyway, Sam explains to the Numians how they found them. He remembers this crazy time travel adventure. So they knew exactly when and where to show up to rescue the gang. he What?

Speaker: You can't do that. Explain yourself. You can't, the concept of knowing that a past self of yours is time traveling. yeah So you show up to that spot in the future to meet them. It's dangerous.

Speaker: Evidenced by the fact that he remembers time traveling to this time and he's not here. He's not part of that group. Whoa. I didn't even fucking realize that. it's That's what doing he's just later on in the issue. He lectures them about disrupting the time stream. And one of them is like, Sam, what the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker: You said that you remember being here. ah It's so frustrating that he's doing this. Like, what's your. If you survived this.

Speaker: Right. why are you coming back now? And you've just. He himself is saying he himself, he admitted himself is saying he is, they are going to get back to their time.

Speaker: Yeah. and Unless he happens to interfere. Sam, Sam, ah you can't do this. I'm on Pat's side for once.

Speaker: ah He also explains how the world got this way. Mutants became so feared and reviled that the government called on all non-mutant superheroes to bring in the mutants where they were escorted to prison camps guarded by revamped sentinels.

Speaker: Once all the mutants were contained. Fuck Pat. This didn't hit me when I was reading it. and it It's hitting me right now.

Speaker: Once all the mutants were contained, the Sentinels turned on all super-powered people, killing them all and leaving no one to stop them from wiping out mutants everywhere. What a... I mean, this is exactly the... First they came for the communists, and I wasn't a communist, so I didn't say anything. And then i would then they came for the... This is...

Speaker: I mean, this is that, right? This is the idea that when you support a fascist regime doing fascist shit, they'll come for you eventually, right? this is This is all the people who voted for Donald Trump because they were like, yeah, let's get all these filthy immigrants out of here. And they themselves had immigrants in their family. And they were like, well wait, I didn't think he meant my immigrant family.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Like, they call in they call in Freedom Force, obviously. But then they also call I mean, Freedom Force gets sent to the same camps.

Speaker: They call in the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. and And there's this panel. This all happens over the course of, like, five panels. They tell this insane story. But the Fantastic Four and Captain America are fighting the X-Men. and like Yeah.

Speaker: capturing them and and taking them into these prison camps they are they are part of the problem right right i mean how many people joining ice at this moment would be thrown into ice camps if steven miller had his ultimate way in say 10 years sure yeah yeah right yeah You support a fascist regime regime, you get imprisoned by the fascist regime. It always it will always work out that way. ah unless somebody Unless it gets interrupted.

Speaker: The process gets interrupted. and Yeah, yeah. hu it hadn't I don't know why it didn't hit me when I was reading it. Because it just hit me like a fucking ton of bricks when I was reading this recap. It's kind of the central metaphor of...

Speaker: everything we've read madam well ah but this this moment exactly like the superheroes helped and then yeah now sam explains he and danny run around the country rescuing surviving mutants and with lila cheney's help they teleport them all to their dyson sphere planet to live in safety you remember that The Dyson Sphere. Dyson Sphere planet. Why the Shani's Dyson Sphere? Which, like, I keep thinking about, can you live in there? It looked like just a big, ah a planet-wide city with no, like, where do they get, where do they get food?

Speaker: Yeah, I'm sure they have something out that way. They have a mutant who can grow crops from the ground. Sure, or maybe they're, like, maybe it's near a grocery store. Yeah.

Speaker: ah

Speaker: But at that moment, the Sentinels project a message to the country. They've kidnapped Lila Chaney and are holding her at their main base in Manhattan. It's surely a trap, but Sam can't abandon the love of his life and the rest of the team aren't going to let him go in there alone. After all, he fought for the Confederacy.

Speaker: They arrive in Manhattan to find the entire island uninhabited with a huge crater where Central Park used to be. This is now the prime sentinel base of operations. It's cool. It's cool. There's also just like a big crater in the middle of Manhattan. for It doesn't explain why.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Suddenly an earthquake. We see Magma smiling over her work, buildings and rubble lying at her feet as the sentinel scramble to deal with that and don't see the team drop in Except for one sentinel dressed as Captain America for some reason and wears an energy lasso.

Speaker: yeah They're like, is that the guy who killed Captain America? Which is also terrifying. If the sentinels are gaining like a sense of pride at murdering.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. but like to to the To the degree that they're painting themselves. After their victims. After their victims. That's fucked up. That's really fucked up. Um...

Speaker: They all beat the Captain America Sentinel up, but then his arms and legs come back to life, and they beat those up as well. It's it's meant to be like a big, scary moment. and But it's just them punching some hands. Yeah. Cannonball says, you can't ever beat them the same way twice.

Speaker: Really, Cannonball? You mean? Yeah, then he just rockets through them. You've never blasted through a Sentinel before? People say this, like Wolverine will say this when they're fighting Sentinels, and it's like, Wolverine, I've watched you carve a Sentinel up before. Like, you can beat them the same way twice.

Speaker: i There's a really good moment. they They beat the Sentinel at first by collapsing a building on him, and there's a panel where the Sentinel seems to be noticing, and, like, his mouth is agape, as if he's going like, ah! it's Like, he was startled by ah It's very good.

Speaker: As they do this, Danny and Rain sneak underground to locate Lila Chaney, hanging in an energy prison and guarded by two sentinels. They leap into action. Danny lays down covering fire as Rain leaps in to rescue Lila, dodging the grasp of the sentinel chasing her.

Speaker: But... Just the one. The other one stands still. still Rain senses something. She shouts to Danny to shoot Lila. Pat, why would that happen?

Speaker: They can't shoot Lila. After a brief hesitation, Danny trusts her and fires? What? This happens? Yeah. Damn it. And Lila Chaney... dies in a bloody mess. No, no, I'm just kidding. The holographic projection of Lila fades away, revealing that a sentinel was getting ready to blast them as soon as they were close. It was pretending it was Lila Chaney.

Speaker: They'll never catch me here. Just wearing a Lila Chaney mask.

Speaker: ah Rain tears the head off the motionless sentinel, revealing that it's been hollowed out to hold the real Lila. Why bring the real Lila to the to the fake? Yeah, yeah. If you have a fake Lila, why do you need the real one?

Speaker: They pull her out. She manages to teleport them all back to the rest of the team by teleporting across the galaxy, then back. Yeah. Really interesting fact here.

Speaker: ah Lila can only teleport across long distances. so anytime she teleports from like one place on Earth to another place on Earth, she's actually traveling across the universe. Like it's that scale and then teleporting back immediately. Yes. Which...

Speaker: would allow her to teleport to somebody that's somewhere where she can quickly change clothes and then teleport back. Well, we talked about this. Kind of settling our debate. which But she doesn't teleport through time.

Speaker: well yeah, but then we the the clothes want to be worn thing. The clothes want to be worn, I guess, is what everybody has told me. It's time to get everyone back to the Dyson sphere. But.

Speaker: Once again, Rain senses something. Sam, Danny, and Lila, they plan to travel alone. They're leaving the younger new mutants behind. The team is shocked at the betrayal, but Sam explains he knows they've been here and he knows they survive and grow to adulthood. If they follow them to space, Illyana will never find them and they'll never return to their own timeline.

Speaker: The entire timeline will be disrupted. Danny pipes up. Oh, yeah. Kind of like making sure you're present to meet the time travelers, Sam.

Speaker: Danny pipes up. If they don't return to the past, how can they ever hope to change this future? That's a good point. The new mutants accept their fate and say goodbye.

Speaker: They turn to find shelter, but not before Amara leaves the sentinel something to remember them by. Summoning all of her power, we watch a fiery fucking mountain raise up from the ground and cover half of Manhattan, eclipsing what remains of the skyline.

Speaker: My goodness. To be continued, that ruled. yeahy Yeah, yeah. Even like the earthquake to create a distraction, like just reducing Manhattan to mostly rubble was really impressive because you have your note on this, I believe, was just damn magma. So when I got to that part, I was like, oh, this must be what Matt was talking about. And then I got to this last part where she raises a mountain out of.

Speaker: out of the ground it is she's fucking cool really goddamn powerful and like oftentimes i don't know if we've covered this in the podcast but oftentimes when magma is using her power she will talk about how ah her powers are dangerous and she wants to try and be careful not to use them too much like use them to their full extent because she could yeah yeah cause it and other new mutants are like magma don't use your powers you could cause a fucking earthquake and kill everybody um so she has to be super careful and what she says here is like this was like refreshing I got to like actually use my powers for once in my life

Speaker: which, yeah, yeah, wild. She was like, i I wanted to see if I could do it. And man, yeah, just like the idea of like, you have an evil, you have an evil robot base and suddenly a mountain grows through it.

Speaker: Just like shattering it to pieces. Wild, really cool stuff. How did they kill her the first time if she could do this shit? Hmm.

Speaker: My other note, Jeanne is calling Bobby you Robert. Not his name. His name is robert Roberto. You can call him Bobby. He's OK with that. You can call him Berto. We've seen you can call him Roberto. Robert is just not his name. That's just like and that's just like not what he's called. That's not I get that she speaks French. So if it was Robert, that'd be something else. Would it be?

Speaker: robert Roberto? and How would you say Roberto in a French accent? Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. crobe ro ah Roberto.

Speaker: Roberto. I can't do French without going, ha which means I shouldn't try. It's racist. Matt. Yeah. Can I please tell you about New Mutants number 49?

Speaker: Asses of the soul. Nope. Ashes of the soul. You know I've been telling you for so long you cannot tell me about New Mutants 49 Ashes of the Soul. And yet you choose here.

Speaker: I'm going to do it anyway. On our podcast to ask me about it? Like a where I can't say no? Matt, it's time to face it. Chris Claremont, writer, Brett Blevins, guest penciler, Val Mayerick, guest inker, Tom Morzikowski, letterer, Glynis Oliver, colorist, and no centi editor and.

Speaker: Cornholer, editor in chief. Cornholer, huh? Cornholer. OK. Release date November 25th, 1986. Cover date March 1987. Look, I only had to come up with two today, so I kind of got lazy about it. Yeah.

Speaker: Sue me.

Speaker: We're in the future again. And Cypher is riding his warlock like a skateboard, dodging some folks called arbitrators who are wearing a modified version of the new mutants uniform with like sort of a like a Nova style helmet on top.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Or like a yeah Judge Dredd helmet. Sure, yeah. Their hovercraft goes off the road in this towering city filled with twisty skyway roads, and Cypher and Warlock save them from falling to their deaths.

Speaker: As they fly away, they leave the words, humans are people too, on a nearby skyscraper. What? huh um At one point when the arbitrators are shooting at Doug and Warlock, Warlock turns into a shield, but a shield with a duck face. And he puts his like little hands in his where his ears would be and wiggles them and sticks his tongue out. He goes, wooga-wacka-wooga.

Speaker: Warlock. Come on, man. ah

Speaker: Cut to the mansion lovingly preserved in the middle of this glassy future city. It's lawn, a walkway lined with statues of the hero mutants who died for the cause like Rogue, Wolverine and Mirage.

Speaker: Danny Moonstar looks up at the statue of herself, knowing that she can't die in the past if Ileana doesn't show up and teleport them back to it. Oh, yeah. So she knows she survives this.

Speaker: She also she ah has an interesting question that she asks herself. If she does go back, who's to say that she's not making the future this the present she's currently in worse?

Speaker: She's like, there could be consequences for me going back to my time knowing what this future is that makes this future turn out worse than it already is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: interesting. It is interesting. Sam Guthrie appears behind her, pointing out that this utopian uptown seems to be populated entirely by mutants, except for humans who are wearing slave tags. Yikes.

Speaker: Uh-oh. ah Fucking ah Sam, you should like that. They're wearing, they're wearing, I guess, go what's supposed to be like the fashion of the time.

Speaker: But it just looks like they're wearing brightly colored Sherlock Holmes outfits. They've got these wide brim hats that look like those old detective hats and they're wearing trench coats, but they're bright blue and pink.

Speaker: Yeah, it's it's really bizarre. Sherlock chic. This is what Brett Blevins thinks people are going to wear in the future. Okay.

Speaker: Should we talk about this now? What do we think of Brett Blevins' art? It's fine. It's like, it's very fun.

Speaker: it and it I mean that in a neutral way, not a good or bad thing. Just like his style is let's have fun. Yeah. I mean, his OK, his not not. Let's make ah complex art.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And it is comic book. get goofy. He is like. um Bad faces. He's bad at faces. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Great at Warlock. good at poses right good at kind of the action and picking angles to show us at even though the sky chase gets a little confusing based on the angles he chooses ah but otherwise he's fairly good at angles draws very giant torpedo shaped boobs for adult women yeah sure That's fun.

Speaker: But generally, he also gives Doug a terrible haircut. Generally, the kids look like kids, though. Like you can tell the difference between his kids and his adults, which you can't say for all.

Speaker: ah That's true. Comical artists. OK, later, the gang robs an uptown hospital with the intent to bring it to the people of downtown.

Speaker: But Danny gets caught on her way out downtown. When you're on hospitals and going to fight in the mutants, you can always go.

Speaker: It's what's the next. I'm not singing. yeah I don't sing on this. part Downtown. Downtown. Thank you. ah This the city set up kind of like Parasite, you know, the movie Parasite, where like.

Speaker: There's this huge yeah glistening city that all the privileged people live which were mutants, if that's not clear. and then all of the humans live in the shadow of that city, ah which is like the original New York. But it's overshadowed by these New York City hulking skyscrapers and falling apart.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Some arbitrators nab Danny in the name of the Lord's Cardinal. but she slips away, losing the medicine in the process. No, Danny last Cardinal. Matt, where do we know that title from?

Speaker: Wow. So are the frigging are the tell tell me the frigging Hellfire Club isn't involved in this. The freaking heck fire club.

Speaker: So the downtown is a grungy world of burned out buildings populated by humans, as we see when the arbitrators in a hover car kidnap a pair of mutant children from a human couple.

Speaker: The mother leaps to grab her children and one of the cops smacks her, causing her to plummet toward the ground. No. Luckily, Cannonball is here. Yay. He blasts through two of the hover cars and piles all the cops up into the last one. While he does this, a familiar rainbow streak shoots by and scoops up the falling mother.

Speaker: rainbow streak? A rainbow streak. Sam takes the kids back to the parents and when he does, He finds an old grandmotherly woman there wearing a power pack uniform.

Speaker: The fuck? Who's this old lady? Katie Power. The youngest power pack kid. Thank you. I i have couldn't remember. well Now like old as shit. They're like, they're like, Julie Power? And she's like, no, I'm and Katie.

Speaker: Like, just because I'm old? You think I might? Yeah. we we were like At this point, at this point, fucking the the the five, years four years or whatever that separate Julie Power and Katie Power.

Speaker: when there's would be indistinguishable. Exactly. 61 and 85 and 81.

Speaker: i Extremely cool, though. Katie Power is the only one that I like out of that pack. Yeah.

Speaker: ah The father they leave behind thinks about how their meddling has cost him an increase to his talk to his starving family's stipend. So I guess he was going to get money because they they gave up their mutant children or he gave up their mutant children because clearly the mother didn't want to give them up.

Speaker: Right. I know we're we're only like halfway into the story, but a couple of things that need to be mentioned. Number one, I hate. this, the like the reverse racism metaphor, the what if the minority got into power and they were just as bad. Okay. I see what you're saying. Imposed white slavery on everybody. Like that's, it's a, it's just,

Speaker: it feels like when you go down this road, you don't understand the, the metaphor. If you think that the, and I get like, it makes a good story and, uh, there's some interesting possibilities you can play around with there, but you have to abandon your sincere comparisons to like,

Speaker: the the black liberation movement or to what the the way that queer people are being treated at the time to be able to picture this kind of setup. And it always just bothers me for that reason. Right. Because it's kind of like you're you're reducing.

Speaker: systemic issues of white supremacy down to individual choices, right? Anybody, anybody who's in power would have done the same. Could do this. Not that, not that certain people are brought up in systems of power that make them have these sorts of ideas. Instead. It's like, Nope. When people get power, they get greedy and then they, so they change and everybody with power is evil. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, i mean there's there's not nothing there, right? But, yeah, it does really queer the um the metaphor.

Speaker: but Anyway, okay. So I think... Anyway, it sucks. It's stupid. The story is bad. There's some interesting... It's not to take away from this story. It's actually very yeah very interesting. And there are there are interesting sociological concepts at work here. But yeah, the overall metaphor, i totally see your point, is being rocketed a little bit. it's Yeah, it's it's just you have to like you have to look past it for for this one issue

Speaker: Cut to a shadowy office uptown. A large man at a desk is being delivered a report by one of his commanders on everything we just told you about. I knew who this was immediately, by the way. I saw the shadow and I was like, ah, you jerk.

Speaker: When the shadowy man asks, asks to see what they looked like. The commander shape shifts into the bodies of Sam, Danny, Doug, and warlock nude by the way. Cause they're all, uh, mutants is always henchmen. Right. So instead of yeah describing them or showing them a picture, he's like, well, one looked like this.

Speaker: Which I like, you know, I complain about this is when there's like mutant henchmen and none of them exhibit any powers whatsoever. yeah yeah And this happens in this story, but it happens both ways in this story. Both. though yeah Yeah. I love that this guy is a he's a shapeshifter, but he's also too stupid to be like.

Speaker: ah somebody high up he's just a like a beat cop so he's reduced to to being a witness and then morphing into the people that he that he saw do a crime

Speaker: So shockingly, the shadowy man recognizes the figures of the new mutants. Then the commander shifts into old Katie power, apparently a hero of the revolution against the Sentinels until she turned on the new order and now has become an infamous renegade.

Speaker: Cool. Katie powers. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Kick ass that she grew up that way. Yeah. Finally, a shapeshifter becomes the father who apparently had just fed the arbitrators info about where all the others are.

Speaker: The shadowy man and a shadowy lady informed the commander that they will be accompanying the strike team. Hmm. Back downtown, the four new mutants and Katie Power distribute stolen food to the starving human children. ah good, good, good, good guys.

Speaker: Despite this, Danny's death site tells her that many of these kids won't survive the malnutrition and lack of medical care. Damn it. Damn it. And this is actually really good here. These, is the bringing you back down to earth saying ah the worst part is that people aren't dying, fighting oppression. They're dying of not having enough to eat because they're being oppressed.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. They're dying of that and, and poor medical care. If they do sustain an injury, fighting their oppression, they're probably going to die from that injury. Well, like not just that, but just also just like if they, so if they get the flu, right.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because these are kids. Yeah, it's just like these are random neighborhood kids that they're feeding at this point. Like. Yeah.

Speaker: Katie Power introduces her to a group of mutant freedom fighters called the New Mutant Brat Pack. Damn it. After some brave warriors she knew back during the wars.

Speaker: Okay, so Chris Claremont is so trying to make this Brat Pack thing happen that he's like, and the Brat Pack, they fought in this war and they were some of the bravest warriors. Butch, Darla, Alfie.

Speaker: Alfie, you don't think this is just a running joke that they're like, how many issues can we squeeze this annoying group of children into across how many titles? Do you think? Do you think? I feel like it's it's Chris Claremont trying to build his own. ah what' What was that Rick Jones thing? The youth.

Speaker: and Oh, the teen brigade. The teen brigade. Yeah, I think it's Claremont going like, let's make a new teen brigade. And they are brigade the fucking little rascals. ah So ah Katie introduces them to these people. One of them is just named Archangel.

Speaker: Yeah. that' ah That's I wonder where you got that from. We have we are. It's not it's. Pat, we are like one episode of this podcast. Three, maybe. Away from meeting Archangel.

Speaker: Like, what?

Speaker: um So, wild, wild stuff. Amidst all this, suddenly... The arbitrators attack. No.

Speaker: A large volcanic explosion erupts underneath the food truck. A volcanic explosion? Katie, who now possesses all the powers of Power Pack, gets shot down and captured. Just when you start to get your head around it, Pat.

Speaker: I know. we' lost again. That wasn't her power? No.

Speaker: They suggest it's because the rest of Power Pack is dead. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So it's a shame.

Speaker: You don't. Doug. broken he it You said it's a shame that your face and your voice are not so are not agreeing with the one I liked. survived

Speaker: Doug pinned to the ground, asks Warlock to merge with him. He knows the risks. Just do it. Damn it. God, you addict. Then, out of nowhere, an adult Sunspot leaps onto Cannonball's back, pinning him to the ground.

Speaker: With two hostages, Sunspot persuades the rest of the new mutants to stand down. Damn.

Speaker: Interlude, back in the present, Magneto is having a nightmare of the moment when his powers manifested. Magneto origin! He was a boy placed in a line with his parents as a Nazi death squad fired on them.

Speaker: His magnetic powers moved the bullets, but he passed out. Thinking him dead, they threw him in the pit with the others. When he woke up and struggled his way up through the dirt, they decided to spare him and send him to Auschwitz.

Speaker: He wakes up as an adult and wonders if this is the future in store for mutants. Will joining the Hellfire Club as their white king help Xavier's school survive the mounting threats to mutantkind?

Speaker: bring about their destruction? Wow, this is a big question for us to ponder. And I mean, there could be so many different answers. We'll we'll get to it later because I'm sure we won't get an answer like right away or anything. um Back in the future, the new mutants and old Katie Power are floating in a stasis field as they're introduced to their wardens, Roberto DaCosta and Amara Aquila. Oh,

Speaker: Roberto explains that there was a war and that if Magneto hadn't forged an alliance between the x Xavier school and the Hellfire Club, mutant kind would have been destroyed. Oh. Oh.

Speaker: ah Oh. Okay. Well, okay. Never mind. I guess I hope he does that. Yeah, I guess that's we got our answer. Huh? Weird. let's Listen.

Speaker: Amara's here, Roberto and Amara here. Right. And we finally see Roberto and he's like white at the temples. He's got those wings go in like Reed Richards style. And he is big and bulky and like a very powerful looking man.

Speaker: Amara looks like she's aged five years. ah They did not age at the same rate and they don't understand why. Yeah. Yeah. At first I was like, did Amara time travel here?

Speaker: ah i after the war, many wanted of the humans eradicated. The Lord's Cardinal decided to be merciful instead, building a brand new city for themselves and allowing humans to live separately.

Speaker: Roberto explains that the mutants and humans had the same opportunities and it's not their fault that the humans decided to live in squalor while the mutants prospered. look After all, it was the humans who wanted nothing to do with the mutants in the first place.

Speaker: Some really gross stuff. And as much as like we're off the rails on the metaphor here, this is actually pretty strong of like, Pointing at the poor or i guess any marginalized community and just being like, look at them. They're responsible for their own oppression. Yeah, they have all the same opportunities as us. They could just easily.

Speaker: build their own and lost a fucking war they could build their own utopian society well that's the thing right yes exactly you've got it like that's the whole fucking thing is like they're fighting off starvation and tending to their war wounds when did they have the chance to develop to rebuild society exactly yes Yes. Yeah. Yeah. This is the problem with whenever somebody says that up by the I mean, I mean, that's why the phrase pulling yourself up by your bootstraps exists, right? Because it's literally impossible.

Speaker: You can't. Yes. You cannot lift yourself up by your own. People don't realize that that's like. That's that's what that phrase was and originally intended for. Exactly. To say like, yeah, they would have to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Isn't that ridiculous? Right. And and this is an example of that.

Speaker: Right. Like it would be what Roberto is saying is they should lift themselves up by their own bootstraps because he doesn't realize like. They don't have. No, they don't have the opportunities. yeah that's physically impossible. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker: Meanwhile, Warlock hidden in Doug's body worms his way out of the containment field and shoes through the power cable. Hmm. extremely cool he starts like Doug just looks like Doug they don't even realize Warlock is there it's cool and then he and then he goes from being like a tiny little like microscopic string to when he shoots out of Doug's body he turns himself into a big muscly man yeah yeah The containment field breaks the new the new mutants start fighting arbitrators. They send Katie Power out to escape and keep fighting for Xavier's dream against whatever the hell Bobby and Amara are doing. Yeah.

Speaker: The ARBs capture the mutants again. And Danny tells Roberto that whenever they make it back to the past, she's going to beat up his younger self and make sure this future never happens.

Speaker: a good threat. if I were even adult Bobby, i would be scared of this. Yes. Right? If Danny Moonstar said, I'm going to beat up your younger self.

Speaker: No. Don't. Please. I'm sorry. i'll take I'll change society back. It's also that is that aside, it's also a really powerful threat for her to be like all of this that you have. I'm going to erase it You won't even know that it once existed.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. That's how I'm going to punish you for this. And he he knows it's true because she's the scariest person he's ever met. Right. So what's he going to do about it, Pat? Roberto tells them that he's thought of this and to make sure they don't, his psychics are going to reprogram their brains and make them love all he's done.

Speaker: be continued. This is. This is an interesting thing, though, with the ethics of telepaths, right? Yeah. um It's the utilitarian principle, right?

Speaker: the like John Stuart Mill thing, right? Like if it increases happiness for the most, the the greatest number of people, it is a good, right? So if you are a if you are a telepath and you're doing something like, well, so in this scenario, it's a little different because it's, I'm making you happy with oppression, right? But yeah it does raise that thing. Like, okay, what could a telepath compel somebody to do and then make them happy about it?

Speaker: that

Speaker: fits the utilitarian philosophical ethos, right?

Speaker: Yeah, i mean But I guess that's what that's what like obsession is about. to me yeah To me, this kind of read as like, if you still have any questions about whether or not Bobby is doing the right thing here, right? Because he he tries to make a strong case, not a foolproof one, but at least one that if you were stupid, if you were an idiot, like ah i I guess if you're susceptible to propaganda, you'd be like, okay, maybe this guy's not so bad. Maybe his ideas are pretty good. But

Speaker: Then he would top it off with also we're mind wiping people so that they think this is all good is like the the exclamation point the way to be like, hey, if you had any doubts, this is an evil thing they're doing.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I agree. This is like the he is a full on villain, but it does. I always do think about this with the with the with telepaths, right? Because it really raises some like wild ethical questions. And yeah, yeah, because there's a lot of.

Speaker: There's a lot of manipulation of free will involved in the the psychic side of it. Yeah. and in And like the obsession question, right? Is there going to be a part of yourself forever that understands that you're not actually happy, right? Yeah, yeah. Get Out had the same question in it, right? Yeah. um Anyway, ah interesting interesting questions. i love to...

Speaker: think a lot of philosophy and morality in this episode ah and butts and fucking but John wait till we get to this last one John Stuart Mill and a lot of nude butts that's what this fucking podcast is about um I'm gonna tell you Pat about a new mutants issue the final one for today and the final one of this like time hopping alternate future spanning adventure Yeah, which has been fucking fucking rad. Right. And yes, can I say? Yeah.

Speaker: Typically. If the new mutants or the X-Men or anyone I'm reading traveled back to thirteen hundred Scotland and got involved in an adventure with the king.

Speaker: I would say yeah this is a bad run. yeah Something went wrong here. You made a mistake. But not here. This is fucking this is engaging. And that just feels like a stopover in this larger, fascinating story. And even the character moments they get in that little time time escapade. Yeah.

Speaker: I'm going to are worth it. I'm going to have a lot to say about this in our wrap up. But yeah, I think like right I look at this. I look at this. um I've looked in the past at this arc of like, oh, yeah. And then they do some time travel, alternate future stuff, whatever.

Speaker: But reading this, I was like, this is some of the fucking best New Mutants has been. yeah What a great, like tight, cohesive story this all is. um Well, not yet, Pat, because he hasn't brought it all together. And there's no no way he's going to be able to bring all of this, all these threads together in one issue.

Speaker: Get ready, Matt. Here comes the glue. Mutants number 50, Father's Day, presented by Papa Chris Claremont, writer. Papa Jackson Gweiss, Daddy Jackson Gweiss, penciler. ah Pappy John Beatty, guest inker. um Fuck. Father.

Speaker: You didn't say father. I father. Father, Glynis Oliver, colorist. Peter Orszakowski Dada Bulholas, letterers.

Speaker: um Dad. Dad, Ann Nocenti, editor, and what's in in what's dad father in another language? ah um padre padre

Speaker: James F. Burns, 1882 to 1972. might have, that might have been the one I said earlier. But anyway, that's the fucking editor-in-chief. God, why do they all have- The same editor-in-chief for two issues in a row?

Speaker: Why do all these kids have the most boring names on earth? Christ. Release date, December 23rd, 1986. Cover date April

Speaker: crouches at the summit of a hill in Limbo, sword in hand, eldritch armor covering her left arm and a third of her face and horns sprouting out of her head. She raises her sword as she stands tall, sending a horde of demons below her toppling down the hill, but more comes still. These demons are no longer hers to control. Pat, they've been infected with the transmode virus. Fuck. And they want only to destroy her.

Speaker: One of them grabs her and infects her with the virus, but with a swipe of her sword, she removes it and replaces it with that mysterious eldritch armor. She cleanses herself. More about that. There's they're being very clear that we're we're getting close to the story about this. She's she's like another piece of eldritch armor.

Speaker: But where did it come from? Yeah, it couldn't still be two years off or anything. It's got to be right around the corner. No, sure, because it's been years already. surely They're bringing it up again now.

Speaker: As she fights off demon after demon, she finally comes face to face with Sim, also infected with the transmode virus. Magus promised him the throne of limbo once he finally purged it of Ileana.

Speaker: Jesus. Heartbroken at the news, Ileana says, fuck it, and stabs her soul sword into the ground, tearing Limbo asunder as she thinks about what her adoptive father, Charles x Xavier, would have done in that moment.

Speaker: She says, you know, Limbo looks the way it does, as we we alluded to earlier, because of Belasco's demonic influence. Yeah, yeah. He's turned it into hell. ah but And he taught me to be who I am, but he wasn't my real father. My real father is a man named Charles Xavier, and he wouldn't run away from anything, she says, about the man who literally ran away to space a year ago. Fuck.

Speaker: He was very badly hurt. He was he was so sick. He's sick. he's You gotta run away when you're sick. Speaking of Charles Xavier, he, Lalandra, Corsair, and Binary are... The Star Jammers.

Speaker: They must... Pat, what the way I'm going to finish this sentence has got to be fighting Deathbird in the revolution, right? all right. going to look at the second half of the sentence now.

Speaker: Are hanging out at the Mos Eisley Cantina.

Speaker: Lil' Antra, go home. You've got shit to do. She even talks about it. She's like, boy, I got to get back and take the throne back from my sister.

Speaker: one of these days. Another round, barkeep. I've got birthdays to celebrate. but

Speaker: They're hoping to strike a deal with a shady character to get the parts they need to repair the ship and get off this planet before the law or bounty hunters find them. But in the midst of making the deal, Xavier senses an impossible psychic presence and he just starts running towards it without thinking at all.

Speaker: He's wearing an Xavier's school baseball cap. this is Very cute. Also, in this cantina, there's all sorts of cultural references. The one that I think is the funniest is all the Micronauts are here.

Speaker: Oh my God. It's art in that foreground. Arcturus ran and like Marionette is on her, on his lap, like flirting with him. And ah that little pixie girl who I had to look up, her name is fire flight was, is flying away. Like, ew, I don't want to. like And then in the next scene in the crowd, which this is very morally questionable, acro year and bug are just like in the crowd watching.

Speaker: So weird. Yeah. They're not out in space. They're in the micro realm. They're in like. Yeah, they don't exist here. No. So like Xavier arrives at the local bazaar where he finds Ileana being auctioned off as a slave by a monkey man. Oh, this monkey man, man.

Speaker: He attempts to rescue her. And when the local law bots get involved. Law bots. The rest of the little robots flying robots. are the law bots. You are violating the law.

Speaker: Don't don't run away. Law bot go.

Speaker: um So the rest of the team has to abandon their deal and rescue the two of them. They shoot Ileana when Ileana starts like acting up when she's like, let me go. not a slave. They shoot her with an orgasm gun.

Speaker: ah Yeah, they do. And they've also torn her uniform to into like a bikini. Yeah, yeah. It's not great.

Speaker: Not great. um We do find out the monkey man shoots x Xavier with a gun too, but he switches it from orgasm to pain. Those are two modes. If you'd shot, but Professor Xavier gave up his whole dream to chase after his girlfriend in space.

Speaker: He's a horny dude. You shot him with the orgasm guy. You would have had better results. He would explode. ah Back on the Stardammer ship, everyone asks what the hell was Xavier thinking until he explains who Ileana is.

Speaker: They get back and Hepzibah is like, ooh, you brought a souvenir. ah They get her to the med bay and she eventually wakes up, but she's nice hu and polite.

Speaker: And Xavier can suddenly read her thoughts. Everyone's relieved. Although Lalandra, seeing Xavier's joy, knows he'll be returning to Earth. Aw. Ileana catches Xavier up on what's been happening down on Earth, including Scott's baby.

Speaker: know and So, Corsair, he's a grandpapa. um The Marauders and Magids. Xavier's horrified. He makes a plan. With his psychic augmentations, he and Ileana should be able to pinpoint where they where she teleported all the new mutants, ah like where in time and space they might happen to be, and rescue them.

Speaker: They teleport out of there with Lalandra and Binary in tow, and almost immediately after, the Starskimmer comes under attack. It's like, they're like...

Speaker: It's not played for laughs, but it is sitcom level where they're like, he's like, you know there's no telling that we'll be here when you get back and yeah you might not find us again. And then he's like on like, you'll be fine. We'll be back like in a moment.

Speaker: And he's like, that girl too cocky for her own. Oh, things are hitting the hole. Oh, show no.

Speaker: um Yeah, so yeah, it's like what's happening here is Ileana is missing her demonic side when she cleansed Limbo. Yeah. um She, I guess, and they they credit her, all of her spells recently turning out demonic to this too, of like her connection to Limbo, but now that she stabbed her sword into the ground,

Speaker: I guess that dark side of her is gone is stuck in limbo. It, Very unclear. It's one of these magic things where it's just like, i don't know, fucking go with it. we don't Yeah. we Don't forget she's got an evil side to her. It's just not there right now. Unbelievable. it's an essential part of her. So her fucking evil side, what it does is it makes all the silverware knives.

Speaker: And it makes like, and it makes, when she makes like a, when she tries to do a nice chore for everybody, it puts skulls in it. Right? Like that is what evil Right. I know. I am i am shouting.

Speaker: Then maybe it's not evil. And everyone talking to her. All she does through that. we'll We'll get into it. There's going to be so many opportunities to talk about this. They find themselves back in limbo, but Illyana's actions seem to have removed the dark, grim surroundings of the place. They're in a peaceful, grassy field with a full sky above love them, and Ileana's sword still stuck in the ground where she left it. This is where she says, this is what Limbo was always supposed to be before Belasco. Yes, this like just sort of, it's not it's not this the sky, it's not the sun, but it is a sky.

Speaker: Like, you're no longer just in some hell cave. Like the Elysian field. This big open area. Yes. Yeah, there you go. Or um what's the what's the what's the Norse one?

Speaker: Valhalla. Yeah. So all this piece is interrupted by an attack from Sim.

Speaker: Ileana pulls her sword out of the ground immediately becoming less pleasant and growing horns again. Sim is still Technarch by the way. He's Technarch. Yes he's and also with this makes it clear that all of Dany's or sorry all Ileana's evil side was in the sword.

Speaker: Yeah. Soon as she picks it up again she's she's half evil and has horns. You know and like a real evil person she accepts it so that she can save her friends.

Speaker: Right. And she can give it up to save the world like she did earlier. because Then maybe it's not evil. she was so evil when she did it. um It's fucking so dumb. It's so dumb. Find another word for it. to Stop calling her evil. Stop calling yourself evil.

Speaker: All right. Well. Sim is more powerful than before, and he manages to escape her assault. She wants to chase him down, but there's no time for that now. They gotta go get the new mutants.

Speaker: There's time for, it's time travel. You're doing time travel. There's literally time for everything. Well, they don't say there's no time for that now. I know, but its still, they're like, we gotta get going. Like, no, you don't.

Speaker: You can just go back little. There's place for that now. It's like the fact that that they have been gone from Magneto for so long. If you're time traveling at the end of this, just come back the moment you left. What time is passing for him? Yeah, why?

Speaker: yeah This happens a lot of time travel stories, and it's always the dumbest thing in the world. Like, no, they would come back right away. They would back maybe even before they left. Who knows? Like, they wouldn't, you wouldn't go, and we should go back a week later because we've been gone a week. Because we spent a week in the future. And we want them to know that we've been gone a week and worry for a week about us.

Speaker: We don't want to be a week younger than all of our friends. Or a week older. Sorry, my fault. ah Look, Sam, Danny, Doug, and Warlock are all locked in the penthouse of one of the big future skyscrapers arguing with old Roberto about the merits of his society.

Speaker: He promises them all that they'll be happy after their re-education. At which point, is Xavier and the gang show up.

Speaker: Bitch. o Xavier dresses Bobby down with a stern look and a disappointed speech and the team teleports out of there. It's such a good moment. Xavier, I forget exactly what Bobby's saying, but it's something about just like, you'll love it after we've reeducated you. And he just pops in like, think again, bitch. mabo he calls him bitch here. the I didn't say bitch out of nowhere. He calls him Xavier says bitch.

Speaker: Yeah, he developed a foul mouth in space. God, he'd be so much cooler. You know, but ah so he doesn't, obviously he doesn't, but one thing that he does say, which is wild, um Sunspot is like, I think we did a pretty good job here. And Xavier's like, I know, it's an honest belief. it's yeah your thoughts And then he says, therein lies the tragedy of your life.

Speaker: fuck You got him. Yeah, he's he says, like, i can see that you clearly think that that is a correct thought, which is. Which is why you your life is a tragedy because of the way your brain works.

Speaker: And he says, bitch again, like that's so. drops a microphone. We don't know where he got it. We don't know where he got it. He and Bobby have a great back and forth here where, like, Bobby has every excuse in the book. Everything that he fed to the new mutants of, like, it you weren't here. killed. There was war. You don't understand, like, how hard it was to build back. And he says... Shadowcat's name was Ariel? Like, I didn't... What am I supposed to do? He was...

Speaker: He was i talking about like we were trying to uphold the ex Xavier dream and this is the best we can do with what we had. He says it's hard to hold on to a dream when you're fighting for survival. and Xavier says that is when you must do so hardest of all.

Speaker: that's pat that's pat bait right like that's a real pat bait that's like that is thats and for me quotes from yesteryear uh yeah man that's yeah still it's good it's good and then and then he calls his life a tragedy and teleports down there it's very good but again a tragedy because of the way his own mind works like fuck dude savage And just he doesn't have to fuck look. We've said a lot of terrible things about x Xavier because he's a terrible man. But this is where he shines telling other people that he's smarter than than them. And he fucking knocks it out of the park here. He's a terrible man. But he like he has a he has this philosophy that is really strong that.

Speaker: does legitimately help guide the mutants like that's what we've been talking about for 10 episodes now right since exactly yeah yeah like he he might do questionable shit uh as a caretaker and as a ethical wielder of telepathy but as a um ideological leader yeah yeah he's fucking second to none except for cyclops when cyclops is eventually more right than he than xavier ever was but look we'll get that in 30 years next we find ourselves in manhattan where young bobby rain amara and shan are once again under attack by sentinels it this moment it's only like a couple panels but it hammers home like

Speaker: Adult Cannonball Mirage really did leave them there in a apocalyptic hellscape. Yeah, yeah. We think you'll survive until you get rescued. Good luck.

Speaker: Toss them a canteen and just be like, you good luck out there, kids. We got to go because this is ah an apocalyptic hellscape. They couldn't have just stuck around for a little bit and helped them survive.

Speaker: Well, they finally got the gang back together, you know? Yeah, they were just, yeah, they were like, well, we've got poker night. We've got it. We already told everybody you guys are dead.

Speaker: They fear they're making their last stand. But a voice tells them not to worry. They look up and the astral form of x Xavier hovers above them with a plan.

Speaker: that Yes. Fully nude. Fully nude. Fully nude, we are looking at his actual astral bare butt. Yeah.

Speaker: And he is facing them, and they are turned to looking directly up at what must be his astral dick and balls. Because he's like 10 feet in the air. You're looking right at his his perennium. is for His four students. Like, oh no, we're about to be killed. What the fuck? Is that my teacher's astral dick and balls?

Speaker: Long lost father figures. Big old dong. Because here's the other thing he's doing, Matt. Remember when they when they go into astral form, they're projecting their ideal of their own body. So this is jacked x Xavier with a big booty. And you know...

Speaker: That on the other side of that, he has pictured himself with a monster hog. By this point, the New Mutants have to be used to it, right? they're like Sure. There's x Xavier's big, big He made it 12 inches longer.

Speaker: Why does he do this? It's unrealistic at this point. He couldn't even use that thing.

Speaker: um Suddenly, Binary is there. She's zapping sentinels, cannonballs there, blasting through them. They work as a team to take out the the rest. Ileana, she comes in. She teleports everyone to the Star Jammer, where we see what's been attacking the ship. They're back on the Star Jammer. The Star Jammer did manage to stay in place.

Speaker: Oh, sorry. You misspoke, Matt. This is the Star Skimmer. Oh, I must a little ship that I'm out of the star jammer. I must have misspoke. I we do do these ah recaps off the cuff. So I was I don't know what I was thinking.

Speaker: So now now the team is all back together. They're doing they they did some hugs and stuff. They are. Oh, ah so I want to say we get a look of LaLondra from behind, which we don't get very often.

Speaker: and like Yeah, her her armor is like second skin. But it is she was like she's got that like the big feather, you know, bell.

Speaker: Which you assume is just a big head of feathery hair. But we see her from behind. No, she's like fucking bald and it's like a big... It's like all in the front. Oh, yeah.

Speaker: It's like a it's a um horizontal mohawk. Yeah, yeah. It's all in the front. And if from the back, she's totally bald. It's also a moment where she's wearing a helmet that goes over it, like accounts for the shape. It's like a bell shaped helmet. Why would you need that? Why do you need a helmet that fits your hair? Just put your feathers down.

Speaker: Just put it. just Just I've seen birds. They can do that. ah Okay, so we see what's been attacking the ship, remember when from before? It's fucking Magus! ah How does he keep finding them? he He stands in a sea, 100 feet tall, crazed, literally tearing the planet apart. He's got half of his face is covered in techno-organic like hair and beard, and the other half is not, and he's just like, man...

Speaker: Really cool. Really cool. It's intimidating. Like you get a sense of the scale here that he is standing 100 feet tall in the middle of like rising out of the sea like Godzilla.

Speaker: And he's the hair that's flying off his head is made to look like ah like pirate. Oh, I was thinking God, like an um angry Christian God. see. Yeah. Like just big, bushy white beard and hair and just like sending lightning bolts. Maybe I'm thinking of ah Zeus.

Speaker: The team, they jump into action. x Xavier calls on Amara to connect with this world and use the full strength of their power of her power to hold it together against Magus's attack.

Speaker: Xavier jumps into action. he just starts commanding everybody. He's like, all right, I know exactly what to do. You are going to listen to exactly what I say right now. ah Yeah. He starts commanding people. And his first command is like, hey, Amara, hold this planet together. and she's like, I can't do that. And he's like, yes, you fucking can. And I know you can. can God damn.

Speaker: He then commands i yeah to teleport to the bottom of the seafloor. And Chris Clarebot has to throw a line in there like, oh, I'm so quick that the pressure isn't going to hurt me.

Speaker: but Nope, not how that works. oh That is that's milliseconds it takes. It's worse. It's worse when you do it this way. ah where She finds a fissure closing around one of Magus's legs. She stabs the shit out of it.

Speaker: And we see Magus scream in pain. She also teleports. She does the nightcrawler trick. She teleports a piece of it away. i'm And I'm telling you the sense of scale here, I know I use that word all the time, but i don't know how else to say it. The like the grandeur of Magus in all of these ah panels, when you see him cry out in pain, you're like, fuck, yes. How?

Speaker: keep doing that yeah because it's like when when one little tentacle of his when magic's in front of it it's it's bigger than her whole body when he leans his face down in to yell at magma yeah because magma's holding the planet together and she's less than the size smaller than the size of one of his teeth and he's just screaming in his nostril it's it's it the scale is wild here um And then it cuts to Corsair, and he is lying he's sitting on his butt. He fell over.

Speaker: He fell over on his butt, and he's just sitting on the ground. Man, get up. Get up. You see what everyone else is doing? ah It's not enough, though.

Speaker: Guns and zappy powers are useless against him, and he continues his assault. x Xavier augments Amara's power, so she continued to hold the planet together, but Warlock... has seen enough he summons all of his bravery and he takes on magus himself he like transforms himself into like a big i don't even know what it is it's like a yeah almost like a like start with a tank but then take off all the wheels and add more guns add more guns in a big wall and a head turn it sideways

Speaker: And that's what he looks like. So it's supposed to be impressive. He takes up the whole page. Yeah.

Speaker: Only to be slapped aside like a gnat. it's It's like absolutely ah it was zero percent effective. um Doug has a plan, though.

Speaker: And Xavier reads his mind and approves. It's risky, but what else can they do? As he merges with Warlock, Doug, your plan had to involve you. Every plan you have these days involves with you merging with Warlock, you pervert.

Speaker: Xavier's we're going pervert. Oh, whoops. Oh, I'm sorry. and I thought we were all on the same side here. of attic at it That's what I said. Actually, if it's how differently I padded it. Xavier explains to Danny that he's going to augment her powers to suddenly a giant warlock rises out of the ocean in front of Magus looking more confident and powerful than ever.

Speaker: Before Magus can realize this is one of Danny's illusions, Xavier ament augments Karma's powers as well, and she possesses Magus. He's frozen.

Speaker: He's fucking augmenting three different power sets at the same time. Yeah. With his psychic abilities. I didn't realize it's how much I missed Xavier.

Speaker: I know. Man, he kind of kicks ass. He's he's fucking crushing it right here. And he we even saw him do his revolutionary thing when he freed this, when he freed Ileana the slave. we said we' We'd see him, and later we're going to see him do incredibly morally questionable shit.

Speaker: Okay. He'll be back to normal, but right now it's still like you and he's making all the right choices. I missed shitty Xavier as much as I missed badass Xavier. Like, every form of him. Um.

Speaker: It's Douglock. Now that Magus is frozen, it's Douglock's turn to hop onto his body while he's enthralled and start interfacing. the warlock part, he's hacking the mainframe, Pat. The warlock part connects to Magus's programming while the Doug part starts to understand the programming as if it's a language.

Speaker: Just as Magus regains his mind. He sends little bots after him, but Bobby and binary show up just in time to hold them off. Bobby's been complaining like, Oh, why don't I get to do anything? Um, there's Xavier's augmenting three different people's powers. And Bobby is standing next to him, like arms crossed, just moping. So he has to, he has to, on top of everything he's doing, going, Bobby, are you okay, dude? Yeah.

Speaker: And Bobby's like, I don't get to, but to Bobby's credit, Xavier is like, give you've done plenty right now. The most virtuous thing you can do here is be patient. and so And so when he lands next to Doug lock and starts beating up a little box and he's like, this is what I've been waiting for. It's really, it's an earned moment. if It feels really good. You're happy for him. It is. And Bobby, when when x Xavier tells him this, he's like, I'll i'll try.

Speaker: I'll try. And then he thinks in his head, like, man, this is what I wish my father had always been like. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. it It really a lot of reinforcing that ah they all see x Xavier as a father. And yeah, I know the fucking story is called Father's Day. Bobby.

Speaker: bobby this is just another example i i know i'm sounding like a broken record at this point but fucking it's another example like bobby needs this kind of father figure in his life and without him he's been spiraling dude he's been such a dick and even like yeah he's knocked over all the sandwiches um yeah he's been yeah he's been more of a dick than ever and Even they cut to like they cut to the future, and a Bobby without Xavier turned into a megamaniacal racist.

Speaker: Yes. So, ah Binary and Bobby are fighting bots. It's cool. Doug's hacking into the mainframe. He's in. Doug begs for the professor to augment his powers, too. This programming language is too hard, but Xavier refuses, turning this into a learning opportunity for Doug.

Speaker: Carol's like, dude, this not everything has to be a fucking classroom, dude. that We are all about to die. And Xavier's like, uh-uh-uh. Everything is a classroom.

Speaker: ah Carol, by the way. you're right. We are all about to die. Carol, by the way, ah really this...

Speaker: in this You're really seeing why her and Logan have such like a strong and ah historic history friendship here.

Speaker: Yes. Because you're like, oh, they. They're very similar. The way she's talking is very is very like she's filling the Wolverine spot by.

Speaker: by miles yes there are i think two or three times in this issue where she's like look it sucks but we have to cut our losses and run right now like we've already lost those people which people that aren't dead we find out but we've already lost those people it's not worth going back for them if we also want to it's very ah it's that i sort of like military emergency mindset that they both have Right. but i mean There's another point where and ah where Cypher is trying to give a ah hurt warlock his life energy.

Speaker: And Carol's like, hey, buddy, I can just shoot energy into him. and Yeah. Yeah. Why are you sacrificing yourself? And he's he's like, I'm so dumb. And she's like, live and learn.

Speaker: Anyway, I this did the trick. Let's move on. Like, like, just like. Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't say you're not dumb. She says, well, now you're a little bit smarter. Yeah, yeah ah yeah there's so many lines here that are like, Wolverine could have said that.

Speaker: Really good, really cool. Yeah, so yeah. Doug, he digs deep, and suddenly, he understands that He doesn't explain it to us. We just, it' just it's it's a good season. He's like, I understand it now. It says, he literally says bingo.

Speaker: And it looks like a sound effect. Once again, you can speak every language in the world. Earlier he says no way, Jose. was like, come on, man. You can think of better slang terms to use. Spanish, I guess. Than my dad.

Speaker: Every 30 seconds in 1997. All right, so we zoom out. We zoom way out to see Magus's hulking form crackle with energy in all the circuitry, and his body start breaking down. He lights up from center mass, screams, and explodes with a huge favoom.

Speaker: Favoom. Favoom. There go.

Speaker: Where's there? There's also a, I can't, I don't. Oh, when Bobby hits one of the ah ah robots, it goes, splam. Splam. Splam. good one. That's a very like Batman TV show sound effect.

Speaker: Yeah. Pow, bop, splam. This is another good Wolverine, like Carol being best friends with Wolverine line. um Sunspot's like, we can't leave Duggan Warlock behind as Magus is blowing up. And he's like she's like, Ken and Wilchom, if we want to live, I know it's tough, but this is their play.

Speaker: They have to see it through to the end. She's not saying, like Wolverine wouldn't. She's not saying we have to sacrifice them they're going to die She's saying, look, their survival's up to them at this point and we just got to trust them.

Speaker: we've done ah We've done our part, filled our role. Again, just man, God. I can't wait for more Carol Wolverine stuff as we move into the future. like That happens? No. Doug and Warlock come flying back a moment later. Totally okay.

Speaker: Doug explains what happened. They couldn't bring themselves to actually kill Magus. Okay. Oh, God. Pat, this has all been so perfect up until this moment.

Speaker: Up until this point. Don't. God, it's the last like four panels of the whole fucking thing. They couldn't bring themselves to actually kill Magus.

Speaker: So they just manipulated this programming to make him a baby again.

Speaker: This can't be the answer to every problem. ah

Speaker: Either the bullet creased your skull or you make a man a baby. That's the only two things.

Speaker: God. And if you make him a baby, he's fully redeemed. Hopefully he won't grow up for a long, long time. There'll be plenty of time to prepare. Oh my God.

Speaker: It's okay. He's a baby at the bottom of the ocean on ah on an alien planet. I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen again. It's as good as killing him.

Speaker: God damn it. Warlock asks Xavier to be his adoptive father and Xavier agrees and everyone hugs the end. o

Speaker: I cannot believe four. Okay. there Three issues of this like. Okay. New mutants are lost in time.

Speaker: Shit goes wrong. They get split up. One half of the new mutants go to Days of Future Past Future or something similar, a similar to the Days of Future Past Future um where mutants are hunted. a couple more go to that future's future where the mutants fought back and won.

Speaker: and is it? Sorry, i didn't even think of it that way, that that that is maybe the same timeline, just two different stages of it. I thought that it was either. But it's like age wise, it would work it would still work out.

Speaker: Either that or they're similar timelines. Maybe it is like in one. I thought it was like. Like if they lose the war, this is what happens. If they win the war, this is what happens. Exactly. They split at the war. The only thing I'll say is I i don't know if we see. you know what? can pull it up right now. I don't know if on that wall we see Amara and Bobby as terminated.

Speaker: If so, then my whole theory oh yeah uh i guess we have ah yeah sunspot terminated damn okay okay so the alternate timelines alternate timelines um but really cool and timelines that complement each other in a but in a certain way right the future that Bobby sees fills him with the determination to want to be the guy who who he becomes in this other future.

Speaker: Yes. But the that Danny seeing that future fills her with determination to make sure that that never comes to pass. And then...

Speaker: We bring it all together in this way that like until both of them meet Professor Xavier again and he starts smacking sense into everybody and sets him back on the right track hopefully. Yeah. And yeah, i'm not sure how he's going to fix this conflict exactly. But and solves. Well, all he's got to do is fix Bobby's mind, right? Like just be like, dude, I understand that that was really hard to see all your friends being dead.

Speaker: But you got to understand that the you in the future that Danny and Sam saw is fucked up. And here's why seems it seems like if he overcorrects there that the mutants might lose that war.

Speaker: m Like, if these are two alternate timelines, then clearly he's a factor in some way. Yeah. Interesting. um So. Interesting stuff. Really, really just, like, amazing, just, like, weaving in and out and and then it ends with turning them into babies. um Well, yeah.

Speaker: Damn, dude. Just a really impressive arc. Yeah. As I was saying, Earlier, like on my first read through, I think I cared a lot more about like continuity and action.

Speaker: You know, like sure I was looking for, oh, the cool moments in X-Men history and things that will set up stuff that I know happens in the future and whatever, whatever, whatever. Right. And then but and then I looked back at this is just like, ah this is some filler issues in between cool stuff.

Speaker: Right. They travel back in time. They travel forward in time. They fight a giant monster in the middle of the ocean. Like like if you're if you're flipping through this, you say, hey this art is cool, but ah i I don't see why I would read this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you're youre Yes. And goofy.

Speaker: And you're also thinking like. And these these alternate futures, they don't happen. so They don't matter. Who cares? Right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. um This feels like he's treading water.

Speaker: But. Now we're reading them again. This is the best shit. It's Claremont telling what are fairly straightforward comic book stories, but like with may major fucking risks. like Real experimental stuff happening at the exact same time. like yeah are He separated all of his characters across time and space, left them apart for issues,

Speaker: And then brought them all back together in this like unique way that brought their like old teacher. Like, and all of this was to avoid the major villain. Exactly. This is like four or five different stories that weave into each other really smoothly. It's like ah it's like a Seinfeld episode.

Speaker: And he said, this is what he was saying with this, right? The new mutants, not just like power wise, but emotionally are not ready to face Magus, right?

Speaker: Who else is doing shit like that at that time? yeah yeah. Right? The idea that someday they will be. So going to put this villain away for... The growth, like the actual evolution of my characters, my comic book characters, which is just something you don't right get in most comics.

Speaker: and And then, I mean, so if we think about it like, yeah, when Magus first appeared, right? He had to wait for everybody to grow up. But then even this, I have to do an arc explaining why they're ready to fight Magus.

Speaker: How they could possibly be ready to fight Magus. And it's they learn each lesson that they need to fight like that. Sometimes running away is better. Sometimes.

Speaker: You have to to whatever exhibit patience when you want to leap into action. Also, also, sometimes it's better to face overwhelming odds because that's the right thing to do. Like they had to separate.

Speaker: learn some lessons and then come back together for us to see like these guys were ready to face Magus. They just didn't know it yet. Yeah. i you And just from like a ah technical perspective, I i've went off about the storytelling here, but the art, holy shit, the way that this is like, there are a lot of things,

Speaker: choices that the artist is making here uh whether it's what weird aliens to include in the cantina scene to how do you make magus look like the most terrifying thing in the world or how do i how do i scale a battle from the thirteen hundreds europe like right this is with it's all so thought out the ah sort of evolution of our characters we start seeing them moving in new ways and like fighting in new ways it's just it's the creative choices here are I think are half of what what really engaged me about this yeah yeah

Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's ah it's a story. It's a comic focused on the evolution of some characters. How do these characters grow up? And that's like, that's such a hard thing to do. And he's done it over, what, 50 issues. And we're coming to the end of... ah ah Spoiler alert.

Speaker: We're coming to the end of Claremont's run, right? We have a fuck one more book we have one more episode. One more new Mutants episode. um and Jackson Geese is also, I think, um I'm flipping through right now. I think he's already done. Oh, he just figured it out, too. I know. Yeah. I think we are done with Jackson Geese. And, ah yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: He's really leaving them in a vastly different place than they started. And it's... It's wild to think of that first issue of New Mutants and how old it felt.

Speaker: Yes. Yeah, yeah. It felt like ah but like a classic comic. Yeah. How just like archaic and outdated it felt. And then how... Modern this feels really. Yeah. And at the time we were like, I guess this is him taking a crack at like another X-Men origin. Yes. And now we're 50 issues in, we get to see what he actually did with that. And the majority of it is.

Speaker: fucking really fascinating yes yes yeah absolutely like he's lost his way a few times but only briefly and then found his way back in such an impressive way like this arc even though it's involving alternate futures and stuff like everybody's at the peak of what makes them cool yeah yeah

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Speaker: Complete kit includes illustrated instruction manual, thousands of live eggs, sea salt mixture, water purifier, special growth food, only $2 postpaid money back guarantee.

Speaker: I don't know what they would give you your money back for. ah Desert Aponics. If they don't grow into shrimp. How New Mexico? If they grow into a different animal. yeah um We have so many eggs in this factory. Anything could grow out of these fucking things.

Speaker: um So this is just, do you want some shrimp? Yes, this is... These are sea monkeys. Oh, Artemia. They're not calling them sea monkeys yet, but they they do explain that these are Artemia. This is the original sea monkey. ah Okay, all right, hold on. not Okay.

Speaker: So they send you... I'm going to see. Here's what they send you. Illustrated Destruction Manuals, eggs, salt... They call it sea salt mixture, but it's just salt.

Speaker: Water purifier. What? What could that be? That's probably like a chemical thing. Okay. Special growth food.

Speaker: Brine. What? I don't know. What does shrimp eat? a Smaller shrimp. Algae?

Speaker: What do shrimp eat? Algae? I don't know. But I'll tell you, I had sea monkeys as a kid. I don't know if you ever did the sea monkey thing, but like they marketed at him as these little creatures that were like waving at you and they had funny, cute faces and like little jiggly heads. I never believe it. one is just a close up picture of what an actual Artemia looks like.

Speaker: Which is cooler. I was going to say it's the fucking ugliest thing I've ever seen. I would not buy this as a pet. But it is cooler to say. ah It's cooler to say, hey, this isn't a weird ass little aquatic animal.

Speaker: Then, hey, this is ah some fantastical thing that doesn't like. Isn't real. I don't know, man. They're still calling it amazing mystery shrimp.

Speaker: it's But it's only $2, Pat. Come on. For $2, you don't want to. You're telling me it's only $2? It's only $2. And what is that and in in today's money? $2. It's like $6 today. Come on, man. It's little more than $6. $6.15. think it's about $6 and yeah, right around there.

Speaker: So you wouldn't. Okay. How much would you pay for salt?

Speaker: How much would I pay for enough salt to make a jar of water salt water? Yeah.

Speaker: Less than $5. Okay, cool. How much would you pay for, let's say, something, just ah a cool chemical that purifies your water? What?

Speaker: Like $100. Okay. How much would you pay for a, so but is if somebody said, hey, Pat, I've got some special growth food here. That sounds like a scientific breakthrough. Hundreds hundreds of dollars again. Okay. And then i say, pat I've got thousands of eggs here for you.

Speaker: Say, how am I going to eat all those eggs? How much you're paying me? unless they're Unless they're really tiny, I don't think I can eat that many eggs. Okay. So would pay me for as many eggs as you think you can eat.

Speaker: And these are, they're like, I mean, I could i buy like three eggs usually. I could probably do four or five in a sitting. Okay. And how much would you pay for that? Half dozen eggs these days is like three bucks. And then I'm going to say also, Pat, I have this illustrated instruction manual.

Speaker: Do you want it? For free? You drew it yourself? Somebody drew it. It's illustrated. Okay. oh i love illustrated ah that's my favorite magazine yeah you know what matt you sold me on this one okay all of it together for six bucks yes yeah yeah we're both in i'm starting to see monkey farm i'm not buying it no oh

Speaker: He's got an eye out of stuff that you buy out. If you had a time machine that you would like to try out, it's Pat Fields.

Speaker: Oh, Matt, we did it again. We ended an episode. Oh, yes. Also that. this is this was but This is only four issues. Four issues? What is wrong with us?

Speaker: God, we just love each other so much. you know. Can't stop gabbing. And we love the X-Men. And we love you dear listeners. Yeah. smooth Smooth. Hey, real good. Especially you.

Speaker: ah ah pat loves okay pat loves you more than you, but i love you both equally. I love my wife more than all of you. No offense. Don't say that on the podcast. These people still have to subscribe to our Patreon, which you can find a link to in the show notes. ah You could spend as little as nothing.

Speaker: but Get yourself some free updates. But yeah, with nothing you get, all you really get is the reading list with something. as little as a dollar, you get our special episodes.

Speaker: There's many little episodes. A handful of bonus contents. Little little tiny things that we chuck up there sometimes. Continue to add. Yeah. too yeah You can find us on Instagram, of course, at Mutant Menace Pod. You can find us on YouTube. You can find us on Spotify. Yep. You find on Spotify. Why did say Spotify? I don't know. You can find us on anywhere that they have podcasts, including Spotify. And do they have podcasts on title?

Speaker: I don't. Are we on title? If we. you I hope so. I haven't been getting the title paychecks. If we have, we are artist just owned. um Also, please join our discord. We mentioned it earlier. It's super fun. There's a bunch of good, good folk in there. Good posters. Good posters. You know what? Good posters. You're going to get into that discord. And you know what you're going to say? You're going to say, wait a second.

Speaker: There's weapon Jason. oh Oh, my God. There's Mikey two males. Holy shit. There's all the other emailers. And Matt and Pat. They're in there. Daniel's always in there asking when he's going to get a nickname.

Speaker: Oh, we haven't thought of a nickname for Daniel yet. could have sworn we gave him one already. You already have one, man. i swear we gave you a nickname. Anyway, um also, YouTube, start pushing up roses in there. You you like her? Join our fucking Discord.

Speaker: um what What else, Patrick? Some thanks. You have some thanks to some people, I think. Yeah. you know what i You know who I'll thank? I was just thinking about this today. I was thinking. Yeah. I was i was walking down the street.

Speaker: Tripped over a rock. Fell over. Smashed my face on the ground. Bleeding it Not your hicken rock. bleeding bleeding Bleeding everywhere. blood Blood everywhere. I'm lying. i turn I fall over onto my back and blood's rolling down. I'm having to spit it out of my mouth and nose because I'm like suffocating. Cars driving past. No one's stopping. And you know what I'm thinking? All I'm thinking at that moment...

Speaker: What's that, Matt? I'm thinking, you know, I'm thankful for Julius Sally for doing the voice of Trish Tilby and Krils Wilson for doing all the music for our podcast. I'm sure they'll they'll appreciate that you thought of them in that moment and then described it in detail. And then I died.

Speaker: you didn't die, Matt. I keep telling you. a ghost. I'm a ghost and you haven't been able to prove to me I'm not for 30 years now.

Speaker: All right. I can't argue with that, folks. I think we got an X Factor episode coming up next. So, yeah, wonder what happened to Warren Worthington after his fucking wings got ripped off his body. So, yeah, I'm sure he's fine. He's probably OK.

Speaker: And yeah, with that, Matt, I think all we have left is to say our famous catchphrase that we say at the end of every episode. Yeah. So until next time, folks.

Speaker: Boy, do I love it when these metal monsters go squee.

Speaker: That's right. And as always, whoops, we've been rumbled.