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17 - Giant Size X-Men #1 w/ Alex Goldman
56 Plays2 days ago
Before Matt and Pat took on one of the most important X-Men issues of ALL TIME, we needed to bring in a heavy hitter. Alex Goldman, from the podcast Hyperfixed, joins us to tackle the introduction of some of the most beloved characters in comic book history and a big island that’s also a mutant.
Topics include:
Sleeping in the Superman movie. Flying around in a cloud. Cat eyes. The X-Men arcade game. A bunch of Aztec gods stomping around. "Lorna Dale?" Recruiting X-Men by race-baiting. Another torch-wielding mob. Wolverine the business-man. Cut your boss's tie. Storm can only grant one wish. Sephiroth Posting. Cyclops is NOT a baby. Bobby Drake experimenting with Groucho eyebrows. A Force that Assaults. “Please don’t call me ‘Thunderbird’.” The Ringo of the group. The murder of Captain Planet.
Listen to Hyperfixed: https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Live Report from Westchester: Mutant Menace
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey, everybody.
Meet the Hosts
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm Matt Aukamp. I'm Pat Reber.
00:00:42
Speaker
And you can say... and Alex, if you don't mind. Oh, shit. I'm already off to it. It's fine. It's fine. And I'm Alex Goldman. What? And say with us. Say it with us, Pete. Welcome to Mutant Menace.
Introduction to Giant Size X-Men #1
00:00:59
Speaker
Listeners, we just got to let you in here a little bit. We are doing a monumental issue this episode. it Giant Size X-Men number one. And so what we thought is what we should have somebody with us who we think is cool and who we think is funny and who is podcast royalty.
00:01:21
Speaker
That's fair to say, right? I'm not going to cop to that. When you started that sentence, I thought you werere going to say we've got a giant sized X-Men number one. so we wanted a giant sized person. And I was to be like, damn, these guys go hard.
00:01:37
Speaker
ah But yeah. yeah Alex Goldman is here, everybody from Hyperfixed and many other projects. How's it going? Thank you for having me. I'm very excited about this. I was very excited to read this.
00:01:49
Speaker
um I have tons of questions and tons of thoughts. I don't know how many answers we'll have, but we definitely could share thoughts with you. i'm trying i want to I'm going to get it out at the beginning.
00:02:04
Speaker
I'm going to get out my two fan out moments at the beginning here, Alex, if you don't mind.
Personal Anecdotes and Humor
00:02:10
Speaker
Okay. Number one, I'm also a so shower sitter and I felt very seen.
00:02:15
Speaker
All right. Well, I mean, it's the only way to take a shower. It's the best way. But then i walk I was like, leaned into the bathroom the other day to tell my son. i was like, it's time to get out. And I saw him like, and I was like, i i was like, I really can't tell if he's sitting on the show in the shower because it's like what he learned from me because he's depressed.
00:02:34
Speaker
Should I be worried? It is always the picture of a depressed person in like a movie or a commercial or whatever. And for me, I'm just like happily sitting there. Right.
00:02:45
Speaker
Right. I mean, I'm just vibing. Yeah. Honestly, the best thing about sleeping in the shower, it's what I learned in high school, is that you can sort of put your head, your chin against your chest and kind of fall asleep for 10 minutes. i I've not crossed that barrier yet.
00:02:59
Speaker
Get on my level.
00:03:02
Speaker
ah Number two, ah i i just have to say ah the Kristen has doubts episode ah Hyperfixed made me fucking ball.
00:03:14
Speaker
Oh, wow. Oh, thank I'm sorry. It was very good. I'll dare you, Alex. that is how dare you out like
00:03:23
Speaker
So, yeah, we brought you on here so I could yell at you for making me cry. i did it for my child. He no longer respects me. No, I'm kidding. for those of For those of you who don't know, someone wrote in and asked, hey, should I have a kid or not?
00:03:35
Speaker
And then we went through this process of trying to figure out whether this person, like using statistical analysis. There was a whole part that we left out where we were like going to – um actuary, like the people who make actuarial tables for insurance and like being like, what's the risk process? How do you calculate the risk of having a kid?
00:03:53
Speaker
And they were like you don't understand this this industry at all. You're an idiot. Stop talking to us. That's not how it works. There's too many variables. It's not the same as getting into a car crash.
00:04:03
Speaker
So that's my brand of journalism.
Listener Emails and Feedback
00:04:08
Speaker
but um But but but one thing that i we plan on doing is revisiting old episodes to see how people are progressing once we quote unquote solve the problem. And I'm terrified to go back to this person to have her be like, ah yeah, I'm no clearer about whether I should have a kid than was. Wow. Yeah. so Because her conclusion at the end is what the thing that made me cry. It was like so I won't spoil it for listeners, but it was very it was so poignant.
00:04:34
Speaker
Right. It was yeah she had such a clear headed idea of ah the ah personal emotions and ethics and how they combined.
00:04:46
Speaker
she She was such a better radio producer than I am. She like came up with such a good ending that I never could have in a million years. Right. You like called her to be like, we don't really have an ending. And she's like, hey, don't worry. yeah I got you, bud.
00:05:00
Speaker
um Well, we're really glad to have you here. So thank you so much. Yeah. um Hey, Pat. Uh-oh. Do you do you want to you want to do some Pat's email corner? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's the cue. i pat's had a really wanted a theme song for Pat's Email Corner, so, you know, I got it. Pat made one himself. i Pat's Email Corner, welcome. First, we have an email from listener Simon.
00:05:32
Speaker
Simon says, hello, I just wanted to take a moment to convey my appreciation for all the hard work you put into your podcast. I collected comics in the 90s, and due to my lack of funds, I spent all my money trying to buy every X-Men title there was.
00:05:45
Speaker
Since then, I've been interested in the convoluted history of the X-Men. your podcast Your podcast gives me a compact, insightful, and funny overview of every embarrassing story in the early years.
00:05:57
Speaker
Can't wait for you to catch up. ah Yeah, go ahead. Who is this listener? This is listener Simon. Simon, I am doing that like now. I'm doing that now at 39 years old, spending my my limited funds to try and buy every X-Men comic.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, you're almost there. i he says, can't wait for you to catch up to the issues I read as a teen and see what you do when there's 36 different X-Men titles a month to recap. Hang in there. And when word of mouth does its thing, you'll be explaining to thousands why the X-Men hung out in shacks in the Australian outback for a while.
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, that did happen. Thank you, Simon. Uh, listener Jason, who's developing his own reputation on Pat's email corner, uh, says that my approach to Hulk comics You come nickname for him, like, email Michael.
00:06:49
Speaker
We will, we will. It's gotta be better than email Jason, I think. My approach to Hulk comics in this period is similar to my approach to Punisher comics in the Ennis years. The Hulk is unchanging and uninteresting. Hulk only wants to be left alone, or Hulk is smashing. Yeah, Alex, have you ever read old Hulk comics? Yeah.
00:07:06
Speaker
i my My exposure to the Hulk is pretty much limited to like the Bill Bixby television series, the Ang Lee movie, and then like where he appears in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. like i I don't really know Hulk outside of those iterations.
00:07:20
Speaker
I remember having a puzzle when I was a kid with the Hulk lifting up a school bus, saving some children. But that's sort of the extent of it. That puzzle is like, like that's all you need to know about the Hulk. Like me and Pat recently read some Hulk issues for while there's a period time where the X-Men were canceled and they just appeared in other people's comics for about five years in the late sixties or early seventies.
00:07:44
Speaker
I had no idea that that was a thing. That's what makes this we'll get into it. That's what makes this one so wild is the X-Men had been gone for five years. Okay.
00:07:56
Speaker
um Amazing. Yeah. But yeah, the Hulk comics are not super interesting. They are 100% what you think a Hulk comic would be. Okay. Yeah, that doesn't. I mean, to be, I mean, Bill Bixby, the Bill Bixby Hulk show as, as comforting as it was when I was a kid, because that haunting theme song, us incredibly boring.
00:08:24
Speaker
They did make a TV, a made for TV movie with the Bill Bixby Hulk that also has a daredevil in it. Oh, shit. Yeah, I miss that entirely. That was one where they had, like, a Thor and stuff.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yes. yes, there is a Thor in that. Absolutely ridiculous costumes. I mean, they're superheroes. All of them are ridiculous. Okay, what's the rest the email? Jason does go on to point out that the interesting bits worth reading, as we figured out, are with the supporting cast and how they grow and develop around this force of nature.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah. i He's got a couple other points. Did you know that listener Jason is Canadian? Yeah. Just like Logan. yeah That's exactly what he points out for us. I'm coming here with some prior knowledge of the X-Men.
00:09:09
Speaker
Whoa. Okay. What about Weapon Jason for the ah for his his email nickname? Weapon Jason. It's done. i He does point out how funny it is that the Canadian government singing is extremely well-funded and secretive when he knows for a fact that they...
00:09:28
Speaker
Don't really have. raise what's How does he say it here? ah Can barely afford to replace its aging helicopter fleet in a nursed tank design. Lastly, thanks to this podcast and Save Your Game, I've discovered the broader Matt Allcamp franchise have started listening to the very worst and every folk song.
00:09:46
Speaker
Can you imagine that, Matt? Somebody just hearing your voice all day long. you've You've embarrassed me, Weapon Jason. but that's That's like ridiculously sweet. Thank you. And then finally, we did, of course, hear from Email Michael. He sent us two emails because he is Email Michael.
00:10:01
Speaker
Tell me, hey, Pat, tell Matt I'm on his side. Jeez, sometimes I have to write like I'm telling him things he already knows because the strict format of Pat's email corner requires me to open every email this way. i literally have no choice of the matter.
00:10:16
Speaker
You're very right about that. You yelled at him last time for... yeah what you interpreted it accusing you of something when we really demanded that he write in, hey, Pat, tell Matt. We demand all our listeners start their emails with, hey, Pat, tell Matt.
00:10:35
Speaker
The stupidest. We're stupid people. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And you took it as, hey, Pat, tell Matt. No. i ah Email Michael. that I was just joking.
00:10:47
Speaker
yeah also I'm not going to give it i dignity, but he mentions that holy Hannah might be the word that Professor X made everybody think on. he ah signs off as email Michael, but seems to – he says, who has definitely been called worse. I want to be really clear, and it doesn't sound – that great because we just named Jason weapon, Jason, but
Podcast Evolution and Community
00:11:13
Speaker
email. Michael was meant to be a compliment.
00:11:16
Speaker
And then, yeah, listen, coming off of weapon, Jason, email, own Michael, so he's off it's not but this is how names are formed. I had no idea that email Michael would realize, would take it as a, but yeah, I thought we were bestowing an honor on it.
00:11:33
Speaker
Um, We are, what, 17 episodes in and we have, like, what, under 100 listeners and we're already up our own asses about this fucking podcast.
00:11:45
Speaker
I love it. We're just going to keep getting worse. Matt, he also sent us a second email just to congratulate you on graduating college.
X-Men Origins and Media Adaptations
00:11:54
Speaker
Oh, thank you. And that, play the music, is ah Pat's email corner.
00:12:10
Speaker
Well, thank you for all those emails, everybody. You're welcome. On behalf of our listeners, you're welcome. Why were you waiting for someone to respond? None of us sent it. What a great What a great...
00:12:25
Speaker
I wasn't, I honestly, okay, here's my thought process. I didn't know what we were moving. I didn't know how to move forward. I don't know. i felt stuck. I felt like this, the tracks skidded me to a halt.
00:12:38
Speaker
um you ah You have a hard time moving on when someone compliments you. Yeah. i'm just going to turn my microphone. You guys can do this show with Alex. Alex, I do have a couple of questions for you just before we get into the issue.
00:12:52
Speaker
Number one What's your experience with the X-Men? What's your entry point? Yeah. I would say that I am like an intermediate X-Men fan.
00:13:03
Speaker
Like I was reading the comics in the early 90s, right about the time that yes all of like, you know, I feel like Jim Lee was doing them for a minute or. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And then everybody jumped to image and then i kind of fell out with it. But I was also watching the the cartoon show. I, of course, of course, solve movies.
00:13:24
Speaker
um So like, I know i have a decent knowledge of the X-Men. And then I felt like when I was going into this and I saw this was giant X-Men number one, I was like, I'm going to be pretty solid on all these characters. And there were about four of them where i was like, what the hell is that? what
00:13:47
Speaker
yeah Perfect. i Second question Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Did I do anything X-Men related this week? That's tough to say.
00:13:59
Speaker
i did see the Superman movie. How did you feel about it? I fell asleep for the first 30 minutes. So when I woke up, i was like, people are running around. I have no idea what their motivations are.
00:14:14
Speaker
um And then for the final 30 minutes, my daughter was like, I'm bored. I want to go. i want to go. So it would there was, like I got like just solid hour of movie watching right in the middle there.
00:14:27
Speaker
um It was great. It was fine. It was, ah it was, ah it was as good as I expected it to be, which is like, perfectly fun movie not a game changer ah all the critics were right the lois lane and superman are both perfectly cast ah that it's a lot of fun it's a very fun movie that seems like what you want out of a superhero movie mostly is just good really good casting and beyond that you're you're like lucky to get anything out
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, but we never got Glenn Danzig as Wolverine, so I'm never going feel happy. We're currently, matt and I both feel strongly about this, campaigning for Bo and Yang for Wolverine.
00:15:12
Speaker
Pat seems to think Bo and Yang would be a really good Wolverine. Interesting. I never even considered it. No one has. No one on Earth has. Okay, now that I'm looking at him, the reason I never considered it is because he'd make a terrible Wolverine. I don't think that's true.
00:15:28
Speaker
you He's stout. He's about the same height as you would expect Wolverine to be. I think that we need a fresh take. But he's got that sort of angry ah sass that Wolverine has.
00:15:42
Speaker
You know, the problem, the real problem, the real reason I'm not able to visualize it is just because of, like, his haircut choices. Like, he needs to go way wilder if I'm going visualize Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. But sure, okay.
00:15:53
Speaker
All right. I'm in. I'm in. There's a lot of. He's also completely hairless, apparently. But yeah. All right. Well, they'll like school I'm out. Yeah. That's what but this is. Yeah. That's the first thing I did when Pat said this insane thing. And so I was like, well, the thing about Wolverine is very, very hairy.
00:16:11
Speaker
And I was like, well, we don't know. And I typed in Bowen Yang shirtless and like immediately a picture of Bowen Yang in a thong with absolutely no hair on his body comes up. It's funny, I like Googled short stout actors and I was like, maybe this one. And all I'm getting is Danny DeVito.
00:16:28
Speaker
Maybe not the Wolverine that we're looking Yeah, not quite Wolverine material, but maybe a younger Danny DeVito. ah Pat, how about you? Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
Creation of Giant Size X-Men #1
00:16:41
Speaker
i I did not. Nope. No, just you're not even going fake it this week. I will say, yeah i just to get back to Alex's answer for a moment, Hank McCoy, the Beast, loves Superman, or has at least referenced him in the comics before. So that is an X-Men related activity.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. OK. Matt, did you do anything X-Men related this week? Fuck. You ask me this every week. It's always the worst question. And I always don't have anything prepared.
00:17:16
Speaker
ah and I drank this tea. Yeah. I don't know which X-Men drinks tea, but... What kind of tea is it?
00:17:27
Speaker
um It's chai tea, and it's got some almond creamer in it. i don't I don't know if that's very X-Men related. I went to ah some arcades. this like Weirdly, I went to two arcades this weekend.
00:17:41
Speaker
o What'd you play? ah You know what I'm really good at? do you guys Do you guys ever go to those arcades? Do you ever see that um arcade game, the Piano Keys arcade game?
00:17:56
Speaker
Yes. It's like Guitar Hero whatever, where you have to hit the right notes in the right sequence, but instead of them coming at you, it goes on at your pace, and it's timed.
00:18:07
Speaker
So it only advances when you hit a key, and if you hit the wrong key... It like ah flashes red for like three seconds to make you slow down.
00:18:19
Speaker
um And I fucking rule at that game. I don't know why. i don't know why that's the one physical thing in this world. can But it's the piano keys game.
00:18:30
Speaker
I don't know great in what way this is X-Men related, but that's the only cool thing I did this week. that's There was an arcade X-Men video game. Yeah, that's true. Oh, there's also X-Men Children the Atom, the fighting game.
00:18:42
Speaker
So I guess there were two X-Men arcade games. Alex, you just reminded me. I played an X-Men ah pinball machine actually just yesterday. i don't know. I forgot about it immediately, but ah it was really cool. i don't know.
00:18:56
Speaker
Had a little video screen up front up at the top. And when you got certain things, the X-Men would fight guys. Yeah.
00:19:03
Speaker
that's great love that all right. Well, do you guys want to do something wild here and talk about giant size X-Men number one with me? Yes, very much so. okay well, before we actually talk about the content, I want to give some background or that would that be all right?
00:19:22
Speaker
I'll allow it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So um the history of this is kind of interesting. So Roy Thomas wrote the, you know, old school original X-Men that we've covered in the show so far.
00:19:36
Speaker
And he had gotten in his head this he was a huge fan of um the Black Hawks, which was a DC comic series. And they were a multicultural team. And he got it in his head, ah along with the president of Marvel at that time, that they would do a Blackhawk-inspired international X-Men team. And his original pitch was that they would fly around in a special airship that looked like a cloud...
00:20:10
Speaker
So that people couldn't see it. um And they would recruit different mutants in different countries. or Mostly the countries that Marvel had major major distribution date deals in.
00:20:24
Speaker
um so that they could sell more comics there. ah So they hired this guy, Dave Cockrum, who eventually would end up drawing this. ah Because he was writing for he was ah drawing for DC. At the time he was drawing for a series called The Legion of Superheroes.
00:20:39
Speaker
And don't know if you guys know the Legion of Superheroes, but it is a fucking Legion of Superheroes. There are so many of them. Okay. So we came up with a bunch of designs, and most of them, DC was like, oh, those are too weird.
00:20:56
Speaker
So they just sat in his notebook, and like one of them was Nightcrawler. Oh. One of them was a was a woman he called the Black Cat who could turn into a cat.
00:21:09
Speaker
um And then another one was a guy named Typhoon who could control the weather. And Marvel didn't like either of them, so they combined them. And also, that's why Storm has cat eyes.
00:21:22
Speaker
I was wondering about that because the way she is drawn in this comic, her face looks... Can we swear on here? Yeah, absolutely. Her face looks fucked up. yeah She looks like, like an, she looks like fucked up anime. Like her eyes are tilted at a 45 degree angle.
00:21:42
Speaker
This impossible 45 degree angle. You saying that she has cat features now clarifies it for me in a way that is very comforting because looking at her was super unpleasant. yeah and They also intended her to be 17 years old.
00:21:59
Speaker
Oh, which that doesn't seem right. Hmm. Just keep that really does not. It's very different than the than the than the Aurora that we learn to that we come to know later.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's another wild thing. Wolverine. Okay, Wolverine was created by Len Wein in a Hulk comic with the idea that if they ever do this um X-Men thing Roy Thomas has been talking about, we'll use Wolverine.
00:22:28
Speaker
His idea was that Wolverine was 19 years old. Huh. So he could still go to school. yeah Yeah, exactly. They were all supposed to be kids and students.
00:22:40
Speaker
and yeah So it wasn't weird that they all were going to you know Charles Xavier's school for gifted. I think in one of the upcoming issues, ah Professor X gives Wolverine a demerit.
00:22:58
Speaker
ah So they brought da Dave Cockrum and Dave Cockrum wanted of the X-Men to work off Magneto's weird island base that he like founded the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in on way back in episode or issue number six.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And Mike Friedrich, who had written like six issues of the classic X-Men, was supposed to write it. But then Roy Thomas stepped down as editor-in-chief and left Marvel.
00:23:25
Speaker
Len Wein became the new editor-in-chief and knew about these X-Men plans, but not many other people did. And Mike Friedrich moved to l L.A., And so Len Wein just completely forgot the guy existed. And so he's like, well, do we even have a writer on this thing? I'll just do it.
00:23:42
Speaker
Couldn't send him an email?
00:23:46
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, Pat, I don't know why they didn't send him an email. They had to do everything by carrier pigeon back then. yeah And then ah they had lost the concept of what, like, why they wanted an international team in the first place.
00:24:02
Speaker
So they ended up Creating a bunch of characters in places that Marvel wouldn't sell comics for another 30 years like ah the USSR in Kenya.
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Then it was supposed to keep being giant-sized X-Men. Like, what we'll find out is the next couple issues of regular X-Men, which gets uncanceled. um Interesting. Which was supposed to be giant-sized X-Men number two, and then they broke it up.
00:24:30
Speaker
But okay, here's the last thing I'll tell you guys before we get into it. Dave Cockrum apparently said the original story. And you guys think about how, if you would have liked this better or worse, the original story was about, was going to, they were recruit these X-Men.
00:24:47
Speaker
They were all going to go to South America to rescue the old X-Men and find a bunch of Aztec gods wandering around like stomping shit and terrorizing people. And so the new X-Men were going to have to stop these Aztec gods and
Cultural Representation and Challenges
00:25:01
Speaker
And ah would turn out the Aztec gods were the X-Men in disguise and it was all a test.
00:25:10
Speaker
I'm sure they would have handled that with the subtlety and care for indigenous populations that they do in the all in the existing comic, which I'm sure we'll get to.
00:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. i So, yeah, Dave Cockrum was like kind of just like, I'm not doing that. And also I like Banshee and Thunderbird, who were supposed to fail the test. um And so that's why they stick around, but Sunfire leaves.
00:25:37
Speaker
I had no idea that I was reading the first appearance of so many fundamental X-Men characters when I read this comic. Oh, yeah. why Like Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler, I think of as like core X-Men.
00:25:50
Speaker
yeah. they've been there for everything, you know? Like Storm's like the most powerful. She's like a god. Like jesus she's been around for everything. Yeah. So it is crazy to me that they're also in this with...
00:26:03
Speaker
the fuck's her name lorna dale what's that orna dude or a dude Lord of Dane ends up being a mutant named Polaris. But yeah, the ones on the island are what all the X-Men were for 66 issues.
00:26:21
Speaker
And so, Alex, now you can kind of understand maybe why the X-Men got canceled for five years. Yeah, i certainly can. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like Angel, Iceman, Beast, they go hard.
00:26:34
Speaker
But there's no Jean Grey here, right? Like, I don't like there's no Jean Grey. There is. She's called Marvel Girl. Okay. She's got the yellow like butterfly mask. I don't acknowledge that as being. That's not canon for Alex Goldman. Also, me and Pat just talked about it. in And listeners, if you haven't, we just released a bonus, a The Story So Far bonus. um Hey, it's a good time to tell your friends about the show because we have a cool guest and we just had a catch-up episode.
00:27:03
Speaker
um But... ah What we realized is that Jean Grey barely talked to anybody for those first 60 issues.
00:27:15
Speaker
Like she barely has a character. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but there's just characters in here that I'm like, so there's Lorna Dane. Never heard of her. Yeah. ah Even Polaris is a name that like I only know in passing.
00:27:28
Speaker
ah Sunfire. Get the hell out of here. Who is that? Come on. be so Believe it or not, Sunfire is from a much more problematic issue. Even more problematic in this issue. Yeah. About how it's actually good that we dropped a bomb on Hiroshima. Yeah. Jesus. Because, hey, in there because it made Japan good at diplomacy now.
00:27:51
Speaker
Like, that's literally the point of that issue. Yes. And then there's Thunderbird, who... oh Not... That that character... i'm sure they've yeah I'm sure they cleaned him up a little bit as time went on, but... Oh!
00:28:06
Speaker
Okay. Fuck, I don't, I'll have to tell you off air what happened to Thunderbird. ah Yeah, we don't want to spoil it. Because we don't want to spoil it for our listeners. But, but, but, but as he's introduced in this comic, he is very much a noble savage in like a really, he's supposed to be, he's supposed to be in indigenous, indigenous American, a native American, and he's got a feather and a, and a,
00:28:33
Speaker
He's got a feather and a headband and all of this shit that you would expect from a like 1950s Western just with bigger muscles. And his impetus for joining the team is and we'll get to this real soon.
00:28:46
Speaker
His impetus for joining the team is that Charles x Xavier says a bunch of racist shit at him. Right. Right. um And he's chasing a bison in the quote unquote great plains of Arizona. The great plains aren't in Arizona. There's not bison in Arizona. Yeah. There's a, there's a very, there's quite a bit of like, there's like all of this, you know, ah box text. There's all this narration text. That's just like, that's just like, you know, the noble native American ah follows a tradition that they followed for 500 years where he wrestles the bison to the ground
00:29:24
Speaker
um It's really rough. It's bad. And they even use slurs in that in those boxes. Oh, yeah. Yes. OK, Pat, do you want to tell us what happens in part one?
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great piece to follow. Giant size X-Men number one. we are looking at a release date of April 1st, 1975. The cover says May 1975. Len of course, writer and editor title. And editor.
00:29:55
Speaker
Dave Cockrum, illustrator. They're both also created or credited as co-creators here, which is a huge battle on all its own. Glynisween, colorist. And John Costanza, letterer.
00:30:08
Speaker
Part 1, Second Genesis. Splash page. A group of brightly costumed and diversely powered people run towards us as the five X-Men we know and love appear as a mirage in the smoky skies behind them.
00:30:21
Speaker
From the ashes of the past, there grow the fires of the future, the narrator tells us. We cut to Vince. missel I missed that text box and I thought you came up with that. And I was like, fuck, Pat. Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
Well, aside from the racial slurs, Len Wein is actually pretty poetic. i We cut to Vinseldorf, Germany, where a torch wielding mob is hunting for a monster.
00:30:46
Speaker
as a furry blue imp runs from them. This imp calls himself Kurt Wagner and pleads for the mob to leave him alone and as he deftly scrambles up the side of a tall building. The villagers set fire to this home, leaving Kurt no choice but to try to defend himself.
00:31:01
Speaker
At the mercy of this mob, after a brief spat, he finds them he finds them all suddenly frozen in place. Charles x Xavier enters the scene and offers Kurt a chance to learn to be his best self. Cut to Quebec, where Wolverine enters a conference room and almost immediately accepts x Xavier's offer to leave the Canadian government agency he's been working for and join the X-Men instead.
Introduction of New X-Men Characters
00:31:23
Speaker
Some government suit tries to stop him from leaving, but Wolverine extends one claw with a simple snicked and cuts off his tie. And the G-Man stops talking. Cut to Nashville, Tennessee, the Grand Ole Opry, where Banshee is finally enjoying a Merle Haggard show.
00:31:38
Speaker
Professor X interrupts to speak with him, and whatever they discuss, Banshee likes it more than Merle Haggard. He's in. Cut to Kenya, where a community in suffering prays for relief when a goddess named Aurora suddenly appears.
00:31:51
Speaker
She brings rain down to ease the drought-ridden earth, asking for no tribute in return. As she stands back to appreciate her work, a voice in her head calls out and compliments her awesome power. It's, of course, Professor X who's able to persuade her that she can have an even bigger impact as a member of the X-Men.
00:32:07
Speaker
Osaka, Japan. Professor X chats with his old acquaintance, Shiro Yoshida, whom he convinces to join the team as his alter ego, Sunfire. In Siberia, Peter Rasputin runs to rescue his little sister from an out-of-control tractor, turning himself into pure metal in the process.
00:32:25
Speaker
The tractor is totaled, but before he can worry about that, he too hears the voice of Charles x Xavier inside his mind. Though he's reluctant to leave his family, Peter knows he can serve the world as an X-Man. The Desert Plains of Arizona. a restless Apache man chases down and wrestles a bison with his bare hands while resenting that no one else in his community is as strong or manly as him.
00:32:48
Speaker
Professor X approaches, but John Proudstar rudely rejects his offer. Not to be outdone in rudeness, Xavier tells him that not joining the X-Man just confirms the rumor that all Apache people are cowards.
00:32:59
Speaker
John Proudstar joins to disprove this theory. The end. Yes. Fuck, man. ah So really quickly, the first thing I noticed is that Nightcrawler does not teleport.
00:33:15
Speaker
Did he not have that power yet when this was written? He does well into the issue. i think they're saving it. But not during his fight with people who are trying to kill him. like its Yeah, yeah.
00:33:27
Speaker
The opportunity was there, bro. It seems like, yeah, it's maybe part three that they were like, oh, why don't we also let this guy teleport? Yeah, weird.
00:33:40
Speaker
um i How do you feel about that? Very interesting. is I really love just the the way this first... pages set up it is done really poetically i think when we does have a bit of a gift for narration uh but the first thing we see is another torch wielding mob it is 1975 we have to be over torch wielding mobs and houses with straw roofs at this point right yeah i mean i don't
00:34:13
Speaker
I mean, we just saw, I hate to be this way, but we just saw a torch-wielding mob in the U.S. just like three years ago, man. Oh, yeah, that's fair. But they was they weren't like the rag, they were, well, that's a depressing point.
00:34:28
Speaker
I'm sorry. Um, Kurt struggle though, is really, ah i pretty visceral. You can feel it. It does call back to, we see this a lot in the X-Men, uh, old horror comics and just the way that's paced out and kind of, ah shrouds it in mystery until somebody that we recognize actually shows up.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. I did like the the line where um Professor X shows up and says, and Nightcrawler says, can you help me help me be normal? And then he says, after tonight's misfortune, Kurt, would you truly want to be?
00:35:03
Speaker
and you know I mean, it's not the most unbelievable thing. ah ah narrative switch that I've ever seen in my life, but it's a little advanced for comics in 1975. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that sets the tone going forward, right? Like that was not sort of up till now, we haven't really seen the X-Men being proud of being weird, right? Like they have, they were clearly weird, but they were like kind of bummed out about it.
00:35:35
Speaker
And this is the first time it's like, hey, it's this is cool. Being weird is cool. Yeah, yeah that's the it's sort of a nascent, it it be that becomes a much stronger theme as the years go on.
00:35:49
Speaker
Sure does. And i think what that's kind of the thing that makes people like us identify with the X-Men. We're just like, like as kids, like, yeah, I'm fucking weird too. I'm just like this guy.
00:36:02
Speaker
Pat, you wrote furry, which is true. Yeah. But I didn't know he was furry until I was like in my twenties. didn't know he was furry until just this moment.
00:36:15
Speaker
Oh, i assume had I assumed he had lizardy skin when I was a kid. Really? I've always, and this furry is my adjective. Oh, I don't believe it's mentioned in the comic. I always assumed he was furry because I,
00:36:30
Speaker
mutant menace pod at gmail.com please let us know no i i happen to know that he is furry people call him fuzzy elf and people talk about the the the fine blue fur but i do not know how any readers were ever supposed to know that based on the drawings in the movies he's just got like human skin and it's blue yeah that's just how i imagined him yeah yeah with like weird like brandings on it or something Played by Alan Cumming.
00:37:01
Speaker
Alan Cumming. He's having a huge moment. Oh, yeah. ah So then we move on to Wolverine, who is all attitude. Okay, here's a fun thing. So in Wolverine's first appearance, he had tiny little eye whatever those are.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah, the little eye spikes. Eye fins. Eye fins. So Gil Kane drew the cover of this issue and misunderstood Wolverine's costume.
00:37:28
Speaker
And so drew like the big drew him like they were big ears was how Gil Kane thought of it. Yeah. And Dave Cockrum was just like, oh, that's cooler. And started drawing him like that. And now he's like that forever.
00:37:42
Speaker
i disagree with that. I think this is a downgrade for his costume. I love his little tiny ears. i his whiskers. Yeah, yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
You said Whiskers, Alex. Yeah, I'm looking at a picture from the from his first appearance. He looks like a dweeb. i don't know. I'm just used to his his sort of modern look. I think there's something really bold about just the way it's like kind of Batman-y, but um it still has like so much color and so it's so vibrant. Like I really like the way that than it looks.
00:38:18
Speaker
Also just a giant, giant belt buckle, which is fun. Yeah, that's true. ah Here's what I love about Wolverine is Len was clearly like, I have to make this guy like have a huge attitude at every moment, but there's not quite the...
00:38:37
Speaker
There's not quite a strong enough moment to give him an attitude. Professor X just says his name like, hi, I'm Professor Charles like Xavier. And Wolverine's like, am I supposed to be impressed?
00:38:49
Speaker
Like, no, that's just my name. He's just introducing himself. Yeah, yeah what are your thoughts on Wolverine's... This is this is Wolverine joining the X-Men, guys.
00:39:03
Speaker
Isn't it? I know. It's really funny because like ah from what i I, again, like I only know the, like the movies and bits and pieces, but like the idea that weapon X just like one day is like, Hey guys, I'm out of here. yeah seems a little crazy given everything.
00:39:20
Speaker
Well, Alex, he cut a man's tie. Yeah, I wouldn't screw with a guy. It's a fireable offense for sure. Well, and that's just something people never try when they are ah trying to leave the military is just cut your boss's tie. You're allowed out.
00:39:38
Speaker
there I did find myself really liking the the thing that that they did the that I thought was like the most entertaining in terms of dialogue was being able to like make Banshee sound.
00:39:50
Speaker
What is he? Irish? Scottish? He's Irish. Yeah. Yeah. but Every time I read his word bubbles, I can totally hear it in like a perfect Irish lilt. So I'm like, all right, this guy's this is great. it a Great writing.
00:40:03
Speaker
Do you want us to ruin Banshee for you, Alex? We just found this out last episode. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. his His face is a little improved here, but his first appearance, we were just, this happens a lot with the X-Men. We said, why is his face so fucked up? We were informed that it's because it is based off of like 1800s anti-Irish propaganda.
00:40:25
Speaker
Oh, no. And it was he looks like a who from Whoville. And oh, yeah, he looks really fucking weird. he'll Yeah, yeah. His nose is like a big prominent nostrils.
00:40:36
Speaker
His mouth is super low. Yeah. His nose is super high. Oh, he looks horrible. Yeah, it is. and like a real old timey racial caricature sort of a one for one he grows to become so handsome but at this moment also say still just so funny that in order to get anywhere he has to scream the whole time one more surprising thing about wolverine when we meet him he's just hanging out in an office building Charles x Xavier is waiting in the conference room and Wolverine is presumably hanging out in his corner office in this costume.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, he swings the door open and he says, all right, gents, I'm here. Now, who's the big wig you want me to meet? Now, read that in Bowen Yang's voice. ah So next we have Storm, and this is – okay.
00:41:28
Speaker
This is supposed to be Kenya. Yeah. This is not what Kenya looks like or it's or looked like. ah Kenya was actually colonized super early because it it borders the Indian Ocean. So part of the you know part of the trade network that happened around there, people settled there super early. Like – Islam was brought to Kenya in like the first century AD.
00:41:54
Speaker
And i think that's where the Swahili culture comes from. It's, you know, is israel ah Islam settlers in Kenya. ah And it was colonized again by Portugal in the 1800s and then Great Britain in the late course.
00:42:09
Speaker
um So it went from an Islam nation to a Christian nation. And at this point in the comic where they're showing like these tribal people in you know, tribal garden. Praying to a rain god.
00:42:24
Speaker
Praying to a rain god in the middle of nowhere. this It was like 80% Christian at this time. but Yeah, they had like cities and towns and stuff.
00:42:35
Speaker
Yes. But what they do get right is that agriculture was huge at this time and there were a ton of droughts. There was a big drought in the 1970s, another a huge one in the 1980s. But I don't know. i don't know what you guys think. i I think it seems like they're trying to portray this as like this part of the Serengeti, which is just like the tiniest, the tiniest little corner of it extends into Kenya. So I don't know.
00:43:01
Speaker
Len Wein didn't have Wikipedia, I guess. So maybe we could cut him a break, but you it's still, it's still that. Encyclopedia Britannica was not hard. I'm not, I'm not letting him off the hook on this one. Well, yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
It's this thing that comics does constantly, which is pretending that Africa is one big country that all looks the same. And I'm still, you know, locked in the middle ages.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yep. Um, but fortunately they can call on the God, uh, this God. And then she just appears and says, I'm here. My children, what do you wish of me? Yeah.
00:43:38
Speaker
Awfully convenient of her. She's leaning into it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because she could only give them one thing to do. So if they had said any other thing, she would have been like, ah sorry.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. They were like, could you make me a roast beef sandwich? She should. She would have been like I can make a rain. My name's storm for a reason, dog. ah right That is her eye her pattern of speech is sort of canonized here. This is the way that we're used to Storm speaking with these like grand sort of, it's not poetic, it's more like proper and... ah there's ah There's a thing that that we call Sephiroth posting. Are you familiar with this concept? People who like post on Twitter like they're Sephiroth.
00:44:29
Speaker
She's sort Sephiroth post. I present a most peculiar argument, yet I sense a deep sincerity in your
00:44:41
Speaker
um It is wild that they made her pretty much completely naked when they expected. They thought of her as 17 at this moment. She's topless. She's not And it seems to me like we're just going through old National Geographic. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, yeah. Right. But Dave Cockrum, one thing that I'm very quickly noticing is that he has a very specific way of drawing women's curves so that it does not look like a National Geographic.
00:45:11
Speaker
It looks a little more like it's like a Playboy cover. Well, yeah, she's got that thing that. had That eventually became just the standard, unfortunately, in comics where women are situated in such a way that you can see both of their breasts and their full butt at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Which I don't know if you guys have ever tried to make that happen where your chest and your back are visible at the same time. It's not not a simple task.
00:45:40
Speaker
Well, these are superheroes. Yeah, okay, good point. Do we ah want to talk more about the John Proudstar stuff? Fuck. Yeah. ah Probably. i We pretty much covered it. He's just.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, there isn't. There isn't much to say. he is. He's a. He's basically told he's a fake. He's a he's a fake. And the only way to prove that he is actually part of this proud lineage is by going to fight with a stranger. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:11
Speaker
And. Even he is like this guy who's kind of thinking to himself, man, my people are all bad. I'm the only good one. Like, even that is sort of this, yes you know, white supremacist, like, ideal of like, hey, even even the even they think that they're all bad, kind of like.
00:46:37
Speaker
idea which yeah yeah yeah he also this isn't a racial thing this is just a pet peeve of mine i hate when somebody's exceptionally good at something and can't recognize it enough to not get mad at people for not being except like he's getting mad that his relatives can't keep speed with a bison and then wrestle it down to the ground with their bare hands that's not a fair thing to expect of anybody else That's true.
00:47:06
Speaker
You're right. You're right. Colossus is, hey, Colossus's intro. Unproblematic. King saves baby, saves his little, saves his little sister. Wonderful. Ever see her again.
00:47:19
Speaker
we just this These intros give us so much long-term characterization for a lot of the ah the key X-Men players here. You see Kurt as Nightcrawler wants peace, but if he's threatened, he will attack.
00:47:32
Speaker
ah Wolverine gives the finger to the government. Banshee, just extremely cool. He's hanging out at the Grand Ole Opry, enjoying his life. Just chilling. Yeah. ah Storm is acting really philanthropically, but still pushing for a more effective path to help people.
00:47:48
Speaker
And then Colossus is really warm, empathetic. And his struggle is between ah family and duty. Like, what is he? Where would he be more valuable? Yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
Here's an interesting thing real quick. I had a ah interactive comic on a CD-ROM when I was a kid of this issue and both Sunfire and Banshee's panels.
00:48:10
Speaker
You could click on them and it would take you to their ah origin story. That's amazing. Okay. Part two, Matt. Part two and when there was one.
00:48:22
Speaker
I keep looking at it like picking up my epic collection again and being like, it doesn't say and then. no it says and when there was one. wait Yeah, it doesn't make a lick of sense.
00:48:34
Speaker
And there's an exclamation that's definitively the end of a sentence. I don't know how to begin it.
00:48:42
Speaker
The seven characters we met in part one are all gathered together in the living room of the X-Mansion, all outed outfitted in uniforms that Professor X explains are made with Reed Richards' unstable
Cyclops and the New Team's Mission
00:48:53
Speaker
molecules.
00:48:54
Speaker
Did you know that? I had no idea that these are essentially the Fantastic Four costumes made into X-Men costumes. Is it... More embarrassing for me to admit I did know that or to say I did. It is. It is. Okay.
00:49:11
Speaker
but But I didn't know it. No, I didn't know it. When the group grows impatient, Xavier reveals that Cyclops will explain everything. Enter Cyclops. He's got a bigger visor and a meaner look on his face. And he explains that the X-Men have disappeared.
00:49:27
Speaker
Flashback to a week earlier where Xavier explains to the X-Men, including Lorna and Alex, but not Hank McCoy the Beast, that Cerebro is once again detecting the most powerful mutant the world has ever seen.
00:49:42
Speaker
Again. is, what, like the seventh time? Yes. They all... Remember when they said Banshee was more powerful than Magneto? yeah Okay.
00:49:53
Speaker
They all hop in the strato jet and fly off to the remote island this alert is coming from. Scott remembers that the rest of the team saw something terrifying once they landed, but he didn't see it himself.
00:50:03
Speaker
The next thing he can remember, he was alone back on the jet being autopiloted back to the mansion. What's worse, his eyes can't blast! As he returns to the mansion, though, his power returns with a vengeance.
00:50:16
Speaker
His ah optic blasts are now more powerful than ever before and can only be improved with this new and improved visor that Dave Cockrum wanted to draw. Fascinating. Back to present day, Scott lets this new team of X-Men know they've been assembled to help him find the old X-Men.
00:50:34
Speaker
Sunfire objects, having no investment in this dangerous mission, but as the rest of them fly off in the stratojet, Sunfire flies up to join them after all. I guess we'll see what happens.
00:50:48
Speaker
You can't put to be continued because it's the same issue, is that? Yeah, yeah. that's I wasn't sure how to end that summary. but How do you guys feel? i don't I don't know. This was sort of like the week the weakest part of the story to me. It's a bunch of dipshits bickering for a while. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:06
Speaker
It's very 70s comics. Just a lot of people mad at each other for very well-defined reasons. I'm upset for a very specific reason ah myself.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah? We get a flashback to the X-Men going to face this terrible threat. Why is Angel still wearing the Avenging Angel costume that Magneto made for him?
00:51:31
Speaker
The very last time we saw the X-Men, we found out that that costume was sapping his energy so that Magneto could reclaim it and suck it all into himself. And after that, he's like, well...
00:51:45
Speaker
I guess that's over, so I'll just put the thing back on. He just keeps wearing it. it I mean, it looks cool, so I can understand. It's his best costume. There's an extremely good Scott moment here where when they all take off, he says, it's traveling time.
00:52:02
Speaker
There's another good Scott moment where, ah oh, God, I need to find the exact wording here. because, okay, we touched down moments later our VTOL jets lowering us to Earth as as gently as an infant is lowered into its cradle.
00:52:19
Speaker
But we were not infants! And this was definitely no child's game. I love this! had to clarify. Hey, but we were not infants.
00:52:32
Speaker
We were Don't me a baby. Scott, don't call me a baby, Summers. There's a... Like, this harkens back to the issue, yeah, where Iceman was mad at him, and he was like, oh, are you gonna cry, baby?
00:52:45
Speaker
He's like, and he got so mad, and now he has to clarify every time, I'm not a baby, okay? Also, like, speaking of Iceman, I like that he's experimenting with having eyebrows now.
00:52:59
Speaker
Does he not have eyebrows most of the time? Normally, he's just got a smooth little face ah made of ice. and then next yeah there There is one panel ah where he's in profile. And for some reason, they make his eyebrows really like Groucho Marx level shag. It's a really weird decision.
00:53:18
Speaker
i love but he could have full control over how he looks, right? Because he's just forming ice over his body. So he was like, hmm, maybe I'll look good with eyebrows now. He picked it up. Magneto controlled his mind the last time we saw him and made him form hair on top of his head.
00:53:38
Speaker
He's like, I don't like that. But I should put some hair here. It's weird to not have any hair. um Oh, this is real growth. I think for everybody on the team, someone Sunfire says that he doesn't want to be in the X-Men and nobody attacks him.
00:53:58
Speaker
They let him just hang out. Alex, this has never happened before. Every early issue of the X-Men, they would find a mutant and they'd be like, hey, do you want to join the X-Men? And they would say no. And the X-Men would just fight them immediately.
00:54:11
Speaker
Well, there you know, they're showing a little growth. That's what happens when you get canceled for five years. You get a little money. I don't know. I wonder if we've ever seen examples of that in our culture.
00:54:23
Speaker
Also, there's just a bunch more racial slurs in this one. It sucks. Oh, yeah, it's really bad. So Thunderbird keeps calling ah keeps calling Scott one eye, and he keeps responding with insane racial slurs.
00:54:37
Speaker
Like, oh, this is equivalent. yeah Yeah, but you're right, Alex. This is kind of like the this is the low this is the boring part of the issue. I mean, it's it's like telling us, it's like we have it's like there's like a long, the backstory's too long.
00:54:55
Speaker
um the backstory of like how they ended up on this island is too long. Yeah. Yeah. And then them deciding to go to the island it also takes too long. Who cares?
00:55:08
Speaker
very yeah Very transition from one from part one to part three story. yeah yeah Yeah, absolutely. I do like Scott with no visor on, though.
00:55:20
Speaker
Those are creepy looking eyes. ah Yeah, he looks... First of all, he looks like he's about in his late 50s. His forehead is super wrinkled. He's got so many frown lines. He looks nuts.
00:55:34
Speaker
yeah But he also has like blood red eyes and just like a look. It's like got it's got real EC Comics kind of vibes to it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. And in the previous in the panel above it, he's like sitting in the jet with his head in his hands and memories are swirling above his head in this really cool graphical way. It's yeah.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah. It feels kind of Jack Kirby ish, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alex, you want to read us part three? Oh, yeah. All right, here we go. Part three, Assault Force. Again, really, it's better than and and when there was one, but not not by a bunch.
00:56:16
Speaker
Assault Force.
00:56:19
Speaker
um There was like a Netflix show a few years ago called Money
Battles and Strategies on Krakoa
00:56:22
Speaker
Heist. And I was like, that's a stupid. I guess I could be stealing diamonds. But like in the end, it all becomes if you're heisting anything, it's to procure money for yourself.
00:56:33
Speaker
Oh, this time we're doing a money heist. Yeah. We need a force and they need to be able to assault. Good thing we've got this assault force together. All right here we go Part three, assault force.
00:56:47
Speaker
After a few hours, this team of X-Men arrives at the island of Krakoa. As they land, Cyclops reveals they've all got code names now, but only tells John Proudstar what his is. Thunderbird.
00:56:58
Speaker
They all split up into teams and of two and fan out around the island. John Proudstar and Cyclops land to look around, but as soon as the jet leaves their line of sight, it disappears.
00:57:11
Speaker
This shouldn't be possible, but nor should the temple that just appeared out of midair towards the middle of the island. They decide trek towards it when they're attacked by the creeping jungle vines that surround Luckily, they're very strong and kick those plants' asses. Storm and Colossus find themselves attacked by an avalanche of rocks, moving quite unnaturally toward them.
00:57:33
Speaker
Thanks to Colossus' strength and invulnerability, though, and Storm's control of the wind, they're able to dispose of the threat and meet Scott and Thunderbird at the temple entrance. Banshee and Wolverine arrive along the island's east coast, only to find a pack of giant man-eating crabs...
00:57:48
Speaker
And they have an absolute blast tearing the crabs apart with their claws and screams and then dance off to meet everyone at the temple entrance. They're having a blast. yeah We find Kurt and Sunfire under attack by an angry flock of large birds.
00:58:04
Speaker
Nightcrawler teleports about to take down as many as he can, while Sunfire flies around and roasts the rest. They're both pretty annoyed with each other, but manage to keep it together and make it to the temple. With the gang all here, Cyclops gets assistance from Colossus and Storm in blasting down the front door.
00:58:20
Speaker
They walk in, and as their eyes adjust, they realize they're looking at the remaining original X-Men covered in vines that seem to be sapping their strength. As they manage to set them free, Angel comes to and yells at them.
00:58:32
Speaker
Whoever kidnapped them wanted Cyclops to bring back more mutants. It eats mutants. The Earth itself starts to rise around them as Warren explains that the mutant they're looking for isn't on the island.
00:58:45
Speaker
It is the island. Whoa. So in the X-Men video game, the arcade game, they go to a jungle island. Is that Krakoa?
00:58:57
Speaker
I... I think so. I think so because it's like weird little plant things come up from the ground and attack them, right? And some of them look a little like this guy.
00:59:10
Speaker
Aren't they fighting pterodactyls there though? or they are They do fight pterodactyls in there. Oh, it was the same level. hand And maybe that's the savage. Although why wouldn't they go to Krakoa?
00:59:21
Speaker
um Pretty iconic. um Maybe Krokoa wasn't really a going concern. Yeah, it's gone. Like soap through a fist. um Hey, why do they all hate each other?
00:59:33
Speaker
yeah I don't know, man. It's weird. It's like the whole point of these guys is that they've been cast out by society and they're looking for friends anywhere they can get them. And then every time they're together, it's just a dick swinging contest. And there's there. They no way like set up why they hate each other. They just yell racist stuff at each other.
00:59:53
Speaker
Or sometimes not even that. Like, why does Sunfire hate Nightcrawler? There's not one moment where it's explained to us. Yeah, that is... i think he's just cranky.
01:00:06
Speaker
But he says he has his own reason for being there. He doesn't reveal it to anybody. He just gets upset that he has to travel with it. Do you think that was supposed to be a plot point? Like, we would find that out? Or that it's just...
01:00:19
Speaker
He's just got to come back. that's it. I mean, when you say that he wasn't originally the one that was supposed to leave, then, yeah, it seems like that's something that might have explored in in future issues.
01:00:31
Speaker
It's pretty fucked up that Professor Xavier gives them these names. He doesn't tell them himself, has Scott set tell them. And how insulting some of these names are. Yeah, people should really, they feel like they should really be able to choose their own own names. Yeah, kind of right?
01:00:48
Speaker
It's, there's just like, if Nightcrawler's like, hey, oh, uh, isn't that some sort of creepy, like, bug? Cyclops just says, they say yeah, Professor X thinks you look like a creepy bug, it's so sorry, sorry.
01:01:04
Speaker
Like fate, like fishing bait. and yeah And again, the Thunderbird. Thunderbird's an Algonquin myth. It has nothing to do with the Apache nation. And Scott just Scott just calls him that.
01:01:17
Speaker
He's like, Thunderbird, you and me are going to are going to go to the west side of the island. And and Thunderbird says, please don't call me Thunderbird. My name's John. but
01:01:30
Speaker
could uh john proudstar have known the difference between when he was being called his code name versus when he was just being called a racial slur by cyclops right it's a good point that you made though is that overene and banshee are the two that just seem to be having a great time yeah they get their dream scenario bunch of giant crabs that they don't have to feel resentful about killing I feel like Banshee's kind of the Ringo of the group. He's just like, hey, I'm done for whatever. It's not like Professor X had to do any convincing.
01:02:06
Speaker
Peace and love. Yeah. yeah Well, I love also that the framing here. is that everybody is just like going off on their own little adventure and then just meeting at a meeting spot. And like the framing is that everybody's waiting for the next group of people to show up.
01:02:23
Speaker
And i there's a moment where Cyclops is so passive aggressive. It's when, oh, it's when Nightcrawl and Sunfire show up and they're like, oh, have we kept you waiting long? And like, oh, no, no, not at all. Not at all. We just got here ourselves. And then the very next line is,
01:02:37
Speaker
Well, since we are all finally here, think we could Like, God, Cyclops. That's so rude. Trying to put myself, as we often do, in the shoes of an X-Men fan in 1975, right? This is mind-blowing.
01:02:56
Speaker
First of all, X-Men is back on the stands for the first time in forever. Yeah. Second of all, you're told that after everything we've done to get to this point, this whole island is a mutant.
01:03:10
Speaker
That... Yeah. Is frustratingly stupid
01:03:20
Speaker
Like, how is an island a mutant? And I think as we move on, they handle it really well. It's pretty cool. The the concepts they put up, with they put up. But having read 66 issues of the X-Men up to this point, I don't have the faith that they're doing this because they have a very cool concept.
01:03:40
Speaker
One time we were told horses were a mutant. All pharaohs were a mutant. Merlin was a mutant. A robot is a mutant. Yeah, yeah. Then we get to part four. I'm eager.
01:03:52
Speaker
i'm so I'm excited to see what happens with this mutant island. I will say that the the the the final panel of this chapter section of Krakoa basically coming alive, like the eyes popping out of the ground, yeah is pretty dope.
01:04:10
Speaker
Like, it's pretty cool looking. Yeah, yeah. And then when we finally see Krakoa as sort of like a fully articulated giant monster. So I, again, only sort of know Marvel lore. Like there's a, but I've got many gaps.
01:04:26
Speaker
So I thought it was going to be man thing that was coming out of the ground. Because if you look at it, it does kind of have that like weird sort of tendrils that sort of hang down in front of its face.
01:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Man thing. And then like, oh, never mind. It's a living island. A much dumber idea.
01:04:46
Speaker
When I was a kid, I had this comic on an interactive CD-ROM. And at this point, I could click on that panel and my computer would make a very loud screeching noise at me.
01:05:00
Speaker
That's badass.
01:05:05
Speaker
i All right, let's get into it. Part four, Krakoa, the island that walks like a man. um I'm really going to need your guys' help on this one because I read it like four times and could not figure out how they managed to defeat the island. I was like, happened?
01:05:25
Speaker
Magnets? I'm not sure we're going to help, but. All right. i We see a big green grass monster with fangs and bug eyes rising out of the ground, easily 10 X-Men high.
01:05:40
Speaker
A series of panels informs us of a small atoll used. is it Sorry, is that word atoll? I wrote it, but I don't actually know how to pronounce it. I don't know how to pronounce it either. I think it's atoll. We'll go with atoll.
01:05:51
Speaker
A series of panels informs us of a small atoll used for an early atomic test, the radiation permeating through every living organism, binding their consciousnesses until the whole island was a living mutant being.
01:06:04
Speaker
It captured the X-Men, fed on them, and let a dazed Cyclops escape to bring back more mutants to eat. The Living Island speaks only to mock Cyclops and threaten the X-Men before attacking.
01:06:17
Speaker
Wolverine gleefully jumps into battle, but soon realizes that the island cannot bleed. Sunfire and Storm both also quickly understand that their powers seem to be useless against such a mutant.
01:06:27
Speaker
The whole team goes in on the creature full force, but to no avail. Suddenly, Scott receives a psychic message from Xavier. Fighting the island the traditional way won't work, but the professor has a plan.
01:06:39
Speaker
He focuses his mind and enters psychic combat with the mutant island. As he does this, Storm summons a great Storm to conjure lightning bolts strong enough to supercharge Lorna Dane.
01:06:51
Speaker
Alex Summers objects out of concerns for his lover's safety, but Lorna insists... Krakoa only seems to be growing stronger, though, and Professor X loses his mental battle with the living island.
01:07:01
Speaker
Storm sends the most powerful lightning bolt she can conjure directly into Lorna as the rest of the X-Men fight to buy her time. Using this extra charge, Lorna is able to manipulate the magnetic fields of the earth to separate the island from the earth itself and suspend gravity, lifting Krakoa high into the air.
01:07:22
Speaker
Follow me here. Have you ever seen, i think it's called The Predator. It's like five or 10 years old. It's really bad Predator movie.
01:07:33
Speaker
yeah about like I have seen that one. Okay. There's a scene in that where they've grabbed onto the Predator ship as it's taking off and the force field starts to activate. The main hero ducks down and the force field goes over him, but his friends are standing up and the force field just like chops them all off at the knees.
01:07:54
Speaker
i think that's what happened to Krakoa. This is essentially that force field sweeping through, disconnecting it from the earth, which in this universe also disables its gravity.
01:08:12
Speaker
Yeah, well... he Okay. I read a little bit about this. and it it's So magnetism, they're trying to say that gravity is based on electromagnetism.
01:08:29
Speaker
And it must be electromagnetism because Storm electrocuting Lorna Dane somehow makes her magnet magnet power stronger. Right. But these are totally different fundamental forces. Right.
01:08:41
Speaker
Like, these are two of the fundamental forces that have nothing to do with each other. um So, I think it just doesn't make any sense, man. Like, I... That's that's fair. They talk about here... um there Something about Earth forces combining, and what the fuck is that?
01:09:00
Speaker
That's not a... That's Captain Planet as far as I know. So Captain Planet, they killed the Captain Planet who was holding this island together. um Yeah.
01:09:11
Speaker
Also, why would if, okay, Storm electrocutes Lorna Dane and that makes her magnet power stronger because electromagnetism, whatever. Sure.
01:09:22
Speaker
Why does Havoc and Cyclops shooting her do anything?
01:09:27
Speaker
Tell me, Pat. No, they're buying her time. No, they're not. They're shooting her. is shooting Lorna? Okay. yeah Yeah, then I misread that. That doesn't make any sense either. What are her powers?
01:09:42
Speaker
magnet Magnetism. ah Okay.
Resolution and Comic Design Evolution
01:09:47
Speaker
I feel like you're leaving some shit out here. what does that mean? She – the way it's been described to us is that she can control magnetic fields.
01:09:58
Speaker
that's That's the sum of it. That's it. And it's this issue that made me in my – when I was a little kid think that this is what's different between her and Magneto. Magneto can move metal around like a magnet.
01:10:12
Speaker
Right. And she can control magnetic fields, which I assumed had something to do with gravity. And also, like, that's why she can fly. But now that doesn't make sense to me either.
01:10:23
Speaker
See, I thought, can I pose a different theory here? That when you disconnect a piece of land from the Earth... it's it's no longer part of the Earth's gravity.
01:10:35
Speaker
ah The Earth gives it gravity, but if it wants to leave, the Earth's going to take that gravity back. Yeah, like, that's why when I pick up a rock, it shoots straight up into space.
01:10:49
Speaker
um The other thing is, if this were to be the case, like, that's not even how geometry works. It would have flown off sideways, right? That's also true, yeah.
01:10:59
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah. It works. The island starts to grow weak. Its monster form starts to melt back into the ground as it begs for help.
01:11:10
Speaker
And the X-Men flee as the island trembles. Bobby forms an ice boat and the Summers brothers use their blasts to propel it out to sea. Just in time, too, as Krakoa appears to drift out into space.
01:11:25
Speaker
But we're not out of the water just yet. The island's absence creates a giant whirlpool in the middle of the ocean, and the X-Men are being sucked in. Iceman forms an ice bubble around the whole team as they go under, being knocked around like flakes in a snow globe.
01:11:39
Speaker
Moments pass, and suddenly the bubble blasts out from the sea with a beam of scarlet fury. The jet also resurfaces, and everyone hops in to return home with one question on their mind.
01:11:51
Speaker
What are we going to do with 13 X-Men? The end. Yeah. Wow.
01:12:01
Speaker
So. and Somebody else get their first thought. in There's a moment here. One of my favorite things is is always what was Angel doing? Like, that's a question I ask myself a lot when I'm reading X-Men comics.
01:12:14
Speaker
And it's never been more apparent than here. Right. Where every X-Man. There's this. There's a panel. where every X-Man is using their power against Krakoa all at once. And it's supposed to be like the big fight.
01:12:25
Speaker
An angel is just flying around. Yeah, it's just doing loops. What's he going ah What's he going to do? Is he going barrel into it? like what is this What is his plan here?
01:12:37
Speaker
He's the worst. ah i'm Now that I'm thinking about the X-Men movies, but does he do anything in the movies except fly around a bit? but Does he have any big hero moments? He doesn't do shit.
01:12:48
Speaker
No, I think he's one of the people who like, ah man, it's been so long since I've seen the movies, but I think he's one of the people who's like, who like goes for the cure. And it's like, I don't want to be a mutant anymore.
01:13:02
Speaker
It's so weird. ah To clarify, X-Men 3, Last Stand, he ah is ah the father of the owner of the company that creates the cure.
01:13:14
Speaker
so his father is forcing him to take the cure, but at the last minute, he busts out. Oh, right. At the last minute, is he jumps out a window and flies away. And that is the moment that I remember about him.
01:13:25
Speaker
Okay. And that's all he can do. You got to be real creative when you're trying to think of like, okay, what, how can we make a guy with wings be interesting here? i mean, when he turned into Archangel in like the nineties and like was all metallic, he looked pretty cool. Still didn't do much.
01:13:42
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I mean, that's like his whole, that was the whole thing. It's like, this guy can't do anything. We've got to make him do something. Yeah. shoots metal from his body.
01:13:56
Speaker
um Yeah, I don't know. This is it's an action. It's ridiculous. Oh, here's an interesting ah factoid. ah So Len Wein wrote this issue, um but he plotted it out loud in the Marvel offices with Dave Cockrum and some other people.
01:14:14
Speaker
And it's Chris Claremont who came up with this terrible plan about severing the Earth's Earth's forces of gravity. So it's like sounds right the legendary, you know, who's about to take over the book, the legendary X-Men writer, chris Chris Claremont, who came up with like that's his contribution to this.
01:14:37
Speaker
He also you might remember, he's also the one that came up with the idea in a previous issue that Cyclops would take care of the Sentinels by convincing them to fight the sun.
01:14:50
Speaker
right
01:14:54
Speaker
um Yeah, I don't know. what do he what do he How did you guys feel about this final part here?
01:15:01
Speaker
I loved to this. I thought the... Just the absurdity of it and the scale that they're able to build in here. I think they do some really, really creative stuff with panel layouts to really make this feel like a big event, even though if you try to talk through it, it doesn't make any sense.
01:15:21
Speaker
Yeah. um And then, yeah, it's just the X-Men being the X-Men. It's a lot of characters that we know being, being goofy, to creating drama amongst themselves.
01:15:33
Speaker
I feel like I am of an age where I learned ah more. Like I like understand modern panel design better than I do this. Cause there's one, one half panel. It's like a half splash splash page, which says,
01:15:49
Speaker
Mere words could never begin to describe the sheer set unbridled savagery of the battle that follows. So we won't even attempt it here. And the page is just cluttered. I have no idea what's happening. Whereas like in modern comics, you see, you see like every blow land, you see the fights are choreographed in almost like a, in like an action movie style. Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:13
Speaker
They've, they've learned a lot of lessons since, since 1975.
01:16:18
Speaker
That would have been incredible because we would have gotten to see what Angel even does here. Right. were and see alex We're so used to just seeing a panel of like a foot connecting with a face and then another panel of a fist connecting with somebody's stomach.
01:16:34
Speaker
This is a real step up for us. And yeah, the entire page just being covered in words. Which, this is a little bit that, but like believe it or not, this is an improvement. Yeah, this is more concise than it's good.
01:16:50
Speaker
You know what's strange to me? Yeah. A science accident affects all the living organisms of a pure, untouched patch of nature. yeah Those living organisms grew to share consciousness and form a very powerful body shaped not unlike a man's.
01:17:08
Speaker
Does this sound familiar to Len Wein, the creator of Swamp Thing? Or anybody else?
01:17:17
Speaker
It really, it takes its own unique path from there.
Comparisons and Metaphors in Comics
01:17:20
Speaker
But the year explanation of how the island of Krakoa formed is eerily similar to Swamp Thing, which he just created like a decade earlier.
01:17:31
Speaker
Swamp Thing is a man who gets blown up and he fall into swamp and become swamp. Swamp things, man, who get blown up and he fall into swamp. Yeah.
01:17:45
Speaker
This... It's swap who get blown up and become man. So I see the confusion, Pat, but it's wildly different. i Scott has a real good line here. He says, filthy monster, you used me like a lousy Judas goat leading lambs to the slaughter.
01:18:12
Speaker
Now, I thought he was just very confused and mixing metaphors. Did you guys know that a Judas goat is a real thing? This is a herding goat that they train yeah to lead lambs to the slaughter.
01:18:29
Speaker
I did not know that. Oh, yeah. Matt did. Sorry. I'm sorry. I can't. I can't. I can't. keep i I can't tell you I didn't know it when I knew it. Yeah, I did know that. um But it is wild.
01:18:45
Speaker
ah But also, like, I know that there's a lot of like lamb and innocence kind of allegory in the Bible. so I was like, this is a Bible thing. I'm letting this go.
01:18:58
Speaker
I thought he was playing out the Last Supper, but with farm animals instead of people. Yeah.
01:19:08
Speaker
yeah um there's i had a few things to say about this issue, but none of them feel as strong as just the the impact of this last moment, right? Like, it's interesting that they're still trying to do the Iceman Havoc Lorna Dane love triangle.
01:19:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah. he Havoc goes to rescue Lorna and Bobby just gets there faster and is like, too late, Slim.
01:19:35
Speaker
ah And then it's, ah you know, it's interesting that Professor X is like, oh, I found ah whats what's an island's one weakness? It's brain! Like, ah I... There's like, there's little moments...
01:19:53
Speaker
The soap that they brought soap through a fist back. That was a thing in a previous X-Men issue when the blob and Eunice charged somebody at the same time and they were like, and then it shot them in the air like soap through a fist.
01:20:09
Speaker
And now they did it here. This is the inverse of Holy Hannah for me. I love this phrase. You want soap through a fist. I don't even understand what it... Like, you can't hold on to it?
01:20:21
Speaker
Is that the idea? Yeah, like, slips out of your hand very quickly.
01:20:28
Speaker
so dumb. um I mean, i like i say that with all the love in the world, but that's yeah dumb. Yeah. It is. Yeah.
01:20:39
Speaker
One really good callback to early X-Men here is they all hop on disc of ice that Bobby creates and then...
01:20:50
Speaker
Two members using their blast power create enough momentum to get that ice disc to move. This is plan G. This is plan G from like issue eight, nine, ten that didn't work because they couldn't work together.
01:21:07
Speaker
And now they're doing it. They've lost to the weird little phallic mounds that everybody has to hold on to. Did you go back and see what they called that plan and it was called Plan g No, I very specifically remember it's called Plan G because they create a glider. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, i there's there's there's a lot here that's dumb and there's a lot here that's silly. But mostly it's just like, okay.
01:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, like, that's a... The X-Men all work together and they fight and not they fight up they fight an island, right? Like... To me, like, I understand the impulse. It's like, you want to give them something really big to fight.
01:21:47
Speaker
But there's a lot of things that are bigger than just, like... a landmass. yeah There's a, like there's a, happy medium you can, you could literally make it anything. There's no rules in comics.
01:22:00
Speaker
It could be like Galactus already exists at this point. Right. So we've already got like a massive, yeah like they could fight anything. I just don't, I don't know why, like, I i understand the scale has to be big for 13 people to be fighting, but I feel like they just could have picked anything else.
01:22:20
Speaker
Right. Because when you zoom in on it, it is literally Wolverine just stabbing ah dirt and never fall and again I feel like if the language of comics had evolved in such a way that could be really cool to see someone to see him slicing away at a creature yeah and just having it reconstitute but it's just not there's not enough detail and there's like not the language like the the language of the panels has not evolved to that point yeah
01:22:53
Speaker
And they ran out. And, like, I love the fight with crabs but it's and birds. But it's like they ran out really quick. Like, Len Wein was like, well, they'll fight vines. They'll fight rocks. And what else? Ah, crabs and Make them big Right. Like, they couldn't think of enough plant matter for for them to fight.
01:23:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:21
Speaker
I had a blast. I really say love these characters more than anything else. I think yeah i maybe I'm getting to our final thoughts too soon. But i yeah, it's my other big thought here is that it's it's the most angry we've ever seen the X-Men. It is the most serious we've ever seen the X-Men.
01:23:42
Speaker
This is not the group of happy-go-lucky teens that we're used to following around. Yeah. what What are kind of your overall thoughts here, Alex?
01:23:55
Speaker
um I thought it was, i I'm like genuinely shocked that all of these characters were introduced in the same comic. Like that, yeah that's really cool to see where they came from, especially since sort of, I have some idea of where they've gone from here.
01:24:11
Speaker
um It's not a barn burner in terms of like plotting and narrative, but like I did enjoy it. Like I enjoy
01:24:24
Speaker
one thing that I feel like I know professor X for is being kind of this grounded sort of sweet, empathetic guy. He's kind of a smart ass in this. And I really enjoyed that.
01:24:38
Speaker
I would like to see more smart ass professor x Xavier. Yeah. Um, ah So, like, I don't know. I really enjoyed it mostly as like, because it was so curious to me because like, I didn't know that they took this five year break. I didn't know this was a reintroduction of the original team.
01:24:54
Speaker
And in addition of like five, six, seven new people, it's like really, yeah I really enjoyed that. um I didn't understand a lick of the fight. Like I had no idea what was going on, but it was very nice to know that I wasn't the only one.
01:25:09
Speaker
you what mean yeah yeah yeah absolutely it's a big tone setter for sure it's not not about the story as much as it's about like this is what the x-men are gonna do for the next 20 years yeah and i i mean and we've been crawling through the desert like this is as stupid as this story is this is a uh this is water to a dying man. Like we've been crawling through this desert of but silver age comics um and the thinnest plots, the worst dialogue. And come across this, like there's actual character in this and there's actual, ah you know, even if the dramatic tension is built around the dumbest stuff ever, like it's actual dramatic tension.
01:25:57
Speaker
um And i Yeah.
Transition from Silver Age to Bronze Age
01:26:02
Speaker
This also, I should say, this is the birth of the Bronze Age of comics, right? Like, this is the death of the Silver Age. The birth of the Bronze Age is often people cite this exact issue.
01:26:15
Speaker
This is when comics take another step forward. so is It goes back to them being a little more angry, a little more serious, because... We start to like we get Frank Miller right around this time, right? There's a slow arc into just making comics a little darker, a little moodier and a little more geared towards the older teen market. And this is really like representing that turning point where it's just it's not as bright and happy as it used to be.
01:26:46
Speaker
i I do want to talk about the one thing that, like, i I... There's some... There's thematically, there's a lot I don't understand about this, which is... We know that the X-Men become, like, a metaphor for racism, right?
01:26:59
Speaker
um Like, it is this idea of them being outcasts in a yeah hegemonic world, but um Standing up to defend it anyway. you know, it's about marginalized communities in sort of a ham fisted, not great, but trying its best way.
01:27:24
Speaker
so why have everybody do a bunch of racism at each other? Yeah. Yeah. Like, the it seemed like the only thing the only thing that Len Wein could do to make tension between these characters was have them all talk about how their cultures were different and their races were different.
01:27:42
Speaker
um And at that point, like, why bring in a multicultural team then? Like, if you were trying to make a point about that...
01:27:56
Speaker
Wouldn't the stronger point, like the stronger point for today would have to be them be all curious about each other's cultures. But the stronger point for the 1970s would be for them to not care about their cultural differences, right?
01:28:08
Speaker
you conceivably Yeah, it just the it feels like a lazy way to build tension between them. And honestly, Claremont's the one that really tries to draw the parallels between i racism and homophobia, which is who we're about to get to. Whereas Len Wein still just thinking of it as an adventure comic. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
01:28:33
Speaker
but You'd think even then, right? like So if he's not thinking about the mutant mutant metaphor at all, and he's just like, okay, well, we're going to bring a bunch of people together.
01:28:43
Speaker
They're going to have ah this tension because they're all from such different backgrounds. You'd think he would end the comic in a way where it's like, and then they all came together and got over their differences. like They don't. right They just kind of fight next to each other. They don't like start getting along or anything.
01:29:01
Speaker
if there was a, if there, if like there was more motivation to their front to like their fighting, which again, later on the divisions become more motivated. There's, you know, yeah yeah the love triangle between Cyclops and Wolverine and Jean gray. And,
01:29:19
Speaker
People fight over all kinds of shit, hundreds of times over the course of hundreds of years. but But like if it was more motivated, it would be really cool to leave that unresolved. They would motivate me to want to read more of the comic, but they just don't have enough space to do that in what, 30, 38 pages, I think is what we got from this giant X-Men.
01:29:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah. If you take out all the ants. So yeah, I wonder if that was just like his long-term plan is like, I'm going to explore this and I'm going to have them get over this racial tension. It's just so clumsily done at first that I don't know.
01:29:52
Speaker
And then he immediately leaves the project.
01:29:58
Speaker
He just creates a bunch of racists. And he's like, you figure it out. Good luck, Chris. Yeah. Speaking of ads, which I mentioned a couple of points ago.
Marvel's Marketing Strategy
01:30:10
Speaker
We do have a fresh Pat Steals and Deals from this issue. Alex, I have spent my vast fortune collecting every original print of the X-Men.
01:30:22
Speaker
And with that, the original ads. This one, and I won't read the whole comic to you, but this is a full page comic, Spider-Man comic labeled The Trap.
01:30:37
Speaker
The idea is that these criminals are setting up a net trap for Spider-Man. Okay. He walks right into it. They net him and they put him in a pit that he can't climb out of. It is five foot thick concrete security cell.
01:30:55
Speaker
Sounds like an interesting comic you're describing. Okay, fine. So this is the, uh, this is now we're at the, that's the end of act two. Yeah.
01:31:05
Speaker
i he doesn't know how he's going to get out of here, but but until he realizes that he has stuffed at least five hostess fruit pies in his costume, offers three of them to the guard who says, these are delicious.
01:31:21
Speaker
Why don't I just let you go? And then before he goes off to take care of the boss, we don't get to see the conclusion ultimately, but he does show us that he has one more hostess fruit pie hiding in his costume.
01:31:35
Speaker
points to it and tells us all to eat them.
01:31:38
Speaker
So this is two things. steals and deals Pat steals and deals this, this week. is hostess fruit pies. Hostess fruit pies. Two things. Number one, i wouldn't want to eat a hostess fruit pie that came out of Spider-Man's costume. It's very tight and he does a lot of exercise.
01:31:57
Speaker
i Number two, this actually signals a big change in Marvel's approach to marketing where they are grabbing a national brand at this point and putting them into a comic book.
01:32:11
Speaker
Before it's been like mostly classified ads or like the people selling a literal monkey. Yeah. People selling an actual monkey. you know, the, the, the, him having ah a hostess pie and, or a, a pie in his suit reminds me of a tweet that I read once that says last time I hooped at more gym, I was guarding a dude with no socks on and he did a spin move and a smashed McDouble fell out of his pocket.
01:32:38
Speaker
Yeah. yeah that's like This is like the Spider-Man version of that. Right! i love it. That's so true. At some point, some of these have to fall out while he's fighting the Rhino or whatever. it i Anyway, this is this is a huge moment for Marvel in just i booting up their ad revenue, which isn't particularly interesting, but it's history.
01:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. You're right. Who drew it? Who do you think was in charge of drawing the hostess at the hostess comics? They don't give any credit here. i i don't know. Who's drawing Spider-Man at this point?
01:33:24
Speaker
i I don't know, man. yeah yeah Nobody knows. We're not following Spider-Man. We're not following Spider-Man. We're following the X-Men. don't distract Don't distract us.
01:33:35
Speaker
um Well, that's giant size X-Men number one. Before we say our goodbyes, do you have any, anybody have any other thoughts about this or Pat Steals and Deals? Because I don't know that I have anything to say about Hostess Fruit Pies, Pat. I'm sorry.
01:33:50
Speaker
That's okay. I could talk about him for an hour. Yeah, me too.
01:33:56
Speaker
What's everyone's favorite hostess fruit pies? Go router around the room. Well, it's definitely cherry. Oh, yeah. Okay. Alex. Oh, damn. Okay. I'll give it a try. I'll try them tomorrow. All right. You still make those?
01:34:08
Speaker
I'm not sure. They made them in my childhood. Yeah, they definitely made them in my childhood. And they were definitely advertised pretty liberally in Marvel Comics. Yeah. I don't. Yeah, they still make them.
01:34:19
Speaker
I don't think they're still in the wax paper, are they? No, it looks like they, it doesn't, look I mean, as near as I can tell from just a quick Google, it doesn't look like they sell them individually anymore.
01:34:30
Speaker
Ah, fuck. You gotta buy a pack of fruit pies. I'm not gonna buy a whole pack of Hostess fruit pies. Might as well just buy a pie at that point. And it looks like they, looks like they've become subject to shrinkflation. They've now, they're now snack size.
01:34:45
Speaker
yeah These are huge. These are the size of Spider-Man's head. They're taking everything away from us. Where does he hide that on his person? it's good He's just covered in sticky cherry goop.
01:34:57
Speaker
ah but Every time somebody punches him, it's just like, like even he doesn't. No, no, that's just my. horse for the pie
01:35:07
Speaker
This guy, this guy bleeds ah ah green blood. It's just, I say yeah had at green apple today.
01:35:17
Speaker
um Well, Alex, Alex Goldman of Hyperfixed.
Alex Goldman's 'Hyperfixed' Podcast
01:35:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on Mutant Menace and talking about giant size X-Men number one with us.
01:35:29
Speaker
Hey, I learned so much. ah Not about how they stopped the island of Brazil, but certainly about the history of the X-Men. Good, good, good. Yeah, I mean, that's all this is good for is it is a historical artifact, ah which is why we read it and tell ah our listeners about it so they don't have to sit down and read these fucking things.
01:35:53
Speaker
ah Alex, anything you'd like to plug before we sign off? Not really. Just ah if you're interested in a podcast where a dipshit solves other people's problems, it's hyperfixedpod.com and HyperfixedPod on all social media.
01:36:10
Speaker
We've got a three-part episode coming out in the next six weeks. It's going to be a banger that's going to require a ton of work and money. But it's goingnna it's going to be good. I'm excited for it.
01:36:22
Speaker
So, ah yeah, that's um that's coming up. And, yeah, that's it. Awesome. Well, everybody, you can email Pat's email corner and mutmenuspod at at gmail.com.
01:36:38
Speaker
You can follow us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. Big thanks to Krills Wilson for the opening theme. Big thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby. And as we say at the end of every single episode, you can stuff a cactus, Custer.
01:36:58
Speaker
ah ah That's right, folks. And as always, the boss will have my head, but gee, light flaky crust, real fruit filling. You got a deal, web slinger.
01:37:10
Speaker
And ah like we say every week, I much prefer the direct approach.