Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: And we are here with you for another episode of Funny book Forensics. That is, for some reason, taking approximately five extra days and, well, no, we're recording how many days late. Six days late.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Six days late. I mean, you know, it happens because.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: I had a concussion.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: You had a concussion. It happens. I mean, things happen. Dude, you had a concussion. That was winter weather advisories, power outages, all sorts of things. The Internet hates Greg. I mean, what can we say about saying what we can't?
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Well, and also, I went ahead and I did post a podcast. It just also posted six days late. So that's good. So we're like, basically six days behind. It's all good.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: We're late on time. That is perfect.
That is, if you were taking a look at how the world runs. We are perfectly timed for being on time.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah. But I did just discover I can share the comic book screen with you. That's amazing. We are technologically savvy.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: I turned you off screen so I didn't have to pay attention and I could just watch the little things dance around. Dancing and dancing. Like little dancing things.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: No one has any idea what you're talking about right now.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. I think I stopped the recording on my end. Oh, son of a donkey. Oh, God.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: I didn't stop it. I was just joking.
I like to freak you out, Dan.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I love it when you freak me out, especially when we've had so many issues.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: I know. I didn't stop recording.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Well, we're here, and I am mostly better. So I can stand up and talk and do a podcast. And Greg is mostly, mostly, mostly, mostly better.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: I'm just going to let the screen play out behind what you're showing. So I see what you're showing and seeing, and I have another screen of things that I'm seeing.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Well, maybe this comic book has page numbers and if it does, then we could just reference those. But I don't think it has page numbers. Yeah, see, it doesn't. It's kind of cool that we can share the comic book on the screen. And this is really good. Podcast toxics. No one else can actually see the COVID for X Men 94 on our screen.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: And this is so funny because I didn't read this comic.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Well, you've read this comic many times.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Said read 94. I just picked an issue 94 of a comic to read.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Oh, I see. So which comic did you read?
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Defenders 94.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Defenders 94. I'm not even to defenders 94 in my omnibus. My omnibus only goes to like 40, so that would be silly.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: I just figured, why not? You said 94. I just figured that would be great. We talked about reading defenders. I figured defenders 94 would be fantastic. Why not just throw a dart at the wall?
[00:03:02] Speaker A: I have no idea what you're talking about right now.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: The amethyst that I'm wearing told me to do. So.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Does defenders even go up to number 94? I guess. I assume it does. I have no idea. It does because I'm still reading. Like, I'm, like, on issue. I'm actually, like, on issue 40 or 41. No, I am on the annual, I guess the first annual, because the first big ones were the giant size, like the X Men, the important updates for the listeners who. I'm so sorry, the beginning of this podcast has no relevance to anything.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: So if you're listening to this, there's just literally nothing happening.
When I, however, can tell you that I am to the point where Valkyrie has finally gotten rid of her terrible costume and got a decent new costume.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Hey, perfect. Excellent. Good.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: So there are no longer giant metal things over her boobs. It now is like a superhero costume. And honestly, I kind of don't like her new costume. But the old costume was so terrible that it's an upgrade.
Her horse has not appeared. Like, her horse went to the vet because he was hurt, and then the Pegasus has not reappeared yet, which is weird. Yeah. So it's almost like Steve Gerber took it out of action for a while on purpose.
He does have a tendency to do really weird things to characters, to take them out of action that he doesn't want to write about.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Gotcha.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: And they're fighting the headmen, which is kind of like the X Men, but.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: They'Re made of heads.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: And then there's like, this nebulon guy is a little weird, and there's all sorts of weird stuff going on. But that has nothing to do with what we're reading today, though. If you want some defenders cast, I mean, bring it. I'm just finishing up. I've got about 50 pages left of the Defenders volume two omnibus, and like I said, jumped into reading that because we were reading the other Steve Gerber stuff.
You want some defenders? We can bring you some defenders, but right now we're supposed to be bringing you. And this happens every time we talk about X Men. We don't actually talk about the X Men or the comic book, not exactly.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: 100% until we get into it. We talk about everything around it and then a little bit about it.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Well, good news on X Men. 94 is a 25 cent book.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah, 25 cent.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: So we are into the think it's going to rapidly increase in price here over the next year and a half.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. On the shelf. Yeah, it will.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: No, I don't just mean on the shelf. I mean on the COVID Yeah.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: No, the COVID price definitely goes up.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: For sure of these books. Yeah.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Not this book. Does not.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: This comic was approved by the comics code authority. And spoiler alert. So we just finished giant size X Men. At the end, angel was like, what are we going to do with all these X Men?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah, what are we gonna do?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Well, and then Marvel has a cover, and we've got the all new, all different X Men. It's still called X Men, but for some reason, by the way, if you're using the Marvel Unlimited, which is a horrendous service unless you know how to use it.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: It's great on my tablet. But I discovered something today.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah, what did you discover?
[00:06:29] Speaker A: If you know how, and this is an important step, if you know how they put in the title.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: If you know this, you can actually put the whole thing in quotations and it will find it. So I was able to put in quotations. Uncanny X Men, parentheses, 1963 parentheses, space, pound sign, 94. And that took me to the issue.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: So if you do exactly that, but you have to know their naming conventions, the exact spaces, and exactly know how. Otherwise, you're scrolling through a billion comic book issues that are not the issue. You actually want to find the issue.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah. You just do what I did and go to the fifth tab and work your way all the way back until you get.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: But I just found the hack. Now, if I'm doing it on the tablet, it's actually quite easy. But if you're using their website, it's horrendous.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: No.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And it doesn't make any sense. Right. When you search in comics, it should give you the option for series and issues. But it doesn't. It just lists them all at the.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Same mean, especially for something like. And Dan and I have had this conversation multiple times with multiple books on this website for this.
This. I.
We're going to save this up for next December. Pull out the aluminum pole and just write a bunch of stuff for Festivus and just put it on there and put all our grievances on there for this website.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Well, the Marvel app gets all of the grievances, all the grievances.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: But this one particular, because X Men has so many books and they list everything you're scrolling through. X Men, you're scrolling through X Factor. You're scrolling through every X book possible.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Every miniseries, every maxi series, every double issue, anything with extreme X Men, you find that. Yeah.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: And it's like any appearance and stuff like that. I mean, I thought Spiderman was bad. I thought the Avengers was bad. X Men is tenfold worse.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Well, so first off, we got more Dave Cockermart. Hooray. Yeah, we've got weird body pose is going all over this cover.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's a lot.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: The important thing is we've got storm, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and banshee on the COVID and some guy who's calling himself Count Nefaria. Nefaria? Count Nefaria.
Are you saying Nefaria or Nefaria?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Nefaria.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Okay, Nefaria, I guess I've always heard it in Nefaria, but it can be whatever we want it to be because there's no pronunciation guide provided the other, he says Count Nefaria. Nefaria. Nefaria says X Men. You came seeking Count Nefaria. Instead, you have found only death.
Now, spoiler by the way, we left the last issue with the angel saying, ah, look at all these X Men. What are we going to do with them all? Yeah, well, we already know because on the COVID in the little, the box where they put the heads in Marvel comics, it has Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine and Cyclops pretty much telling us that there won't be any more X Men besides them.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: What? Because when you flip it over on.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: That, it's kind of bad that they spoil it on the COVID I mean, I guess they tell you right away.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Flip it over on the next page, what do you get?
[00:10:02] Speaker A: There's a whole bunch of X Men.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: All of them.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we've got a huge lineup here. We've got from left to right, Nightcrawler, Colossus, but not metal Cyclops, Havoc, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, and Angel. And boy, Havoc's costume always looks stupid, but boy, does it look amazing when Dave Cochrane draws it.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's wild. It's cool.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: I honestly like, I do like some of the things that some artists did later with Havoc's costume where it sort of made when he uses his power, right? It sort of gives it that, like, energy.
They put Kirby crackle around those weird things on his head. But I mean, what possible use could those rings off of his head be for? Right? Does it have something with how he controls his power or something? Because it looks stupid. I mean, did they tell us this before in these books. I didn't read before these ones.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: It just shoots it out, man. It gives out the gift of his power.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Bob McLeod is, by the way, inking Dave Cochrane on this one.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: It's like shooting it out like an antenna.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Antennae, I guess. Did you hear what I said? Bob McLeod's inking Dave Cochrane on this one. That's pretty crazy.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Okay. Well, there we go. And your favorite letterer is lettering this one.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Hey, it's that Tom Orangeowski guy.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: He also edits Starlight.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: No, he letters Starlight.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: I letter Starlight. He did not edit it. Greg edits Starlight.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Yes. I don't edit. Well, we have multiple editorials.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Well, anyway, before we get into the editing of Starlight, we've got a lot of X Men here, and then they're all about to leave. So. First, very first X Men to leave is that asshole sunfire.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Hey, man, he's got to do stuff for his country and his family, and he's got to focus on stuff.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: No, he just literally just cements himself as a complete and total asshole.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Deuces chucks him.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just like. And I'm sure you love this, too. He's got the costume that you hate. And then he says, and once quite enough, my duty is to my country and my emperor. Because I'm sure the japanese fans of this comic absolutely loved him swearing his allegiance to the emperor.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Well, I mean, they have a nice emperor figurehead still, but.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, don't they? Not now. Didn't that just recently. I thought that very recently changed prime minister. No, I mean, I thought the emperor thing changed, like, a couple of years ago. Isn't that not.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: I mean, they have prime minister now.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Well, no, they've had a prime minister. I'm just saying, like, at what point.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: They still have a figurehead. It's like the queen.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that they actually eliminated the position.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Still there.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Are you sure? Well, anyway, I'll look that up while.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: We'Re debating it, because there's still a family.
They just don't have any power. They don't have any power.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Oh, I'm just dumb. The emperor changed in 2019. I thought it went away.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: They don't have any power, though.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Well, yes, I am aware it's like the english monarchy or whatever. Right? Sort of. But it's not.
I, for some reason, thought that they had just kind of just eliminated the entire thing in the last daughter.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: The daughter wants to just be a normal person.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: That's maybe what I read that is probably likely what I read. Yeah.
Am I going crazy? I thought they were getting rid of the whole thing anyway. Well, good riddance. Sunfire, get out of here. Bye. Yeah, go away. You're a terrible character. Just go.
You and your racist costume can go.
Yeah, I guess it's not a racist costume. What? It would be colonial costume.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: I don't know. It's imperial costume.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Imperial costume.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Imperial costume. Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: The literal opposite of colonial, but, yeah, okay. Yeah, imperial costume.
But basically, storm says she's going to stay. Wolverine's like, I don't want to go back to. Canada's a terrible place. Canada is a terrible place. It's cold. I don't want to go there.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: There's nothing about woods. My brother's a jerk.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Colossus is going to stay. They talk banshee into staying. They're like, hey, you could just keep being a bum and an ex cop and a loser, or you can stay around here.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Frissy's like, I want to know. You guys are all too young for me. And then he's like, but then maybe I'll stick around.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: And he's going to be a leader now. He's graduated from rogue to leader. Yeah, this is, you know, and if only. Honestly, if he'd get a slightly better costume, though. Dave Cochrane does draw this banshee costume better than anybody else because, like, how the stripes wrap around him and stuff. Like, when he's really. I still hate the costume, but it's just like, don't have a ginger. Wear yellow like that.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: But it helps his soul.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: Maybe it helps his soul, but it doesn't look good.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it helps accentuate the lack of his.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Well, and then we get to. So all the new people stay, and all the old X Men are like, yeah, peace. Peace out. We hate you and stuff.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Warren's like, I'm leaving.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: I learned some new terms in the last couple weeks. The old X Men are like, this is so mid.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, bro. Bro, this is so mid.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Oh, mid. Yeah, they're out.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: We're out. We're out of here. For real? For real. No, cap. Professor X, you're running a real mid place.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's real mid. So they're all leaving, and then Cyclops is like, no, gene, I'm staying, but I love you, but I'm leaving. Okay, goodbye. And by the way, all the X Men that are leaving, we talked about Dave Cochrane's love of fashion. Yeah, all of them are fantastically dressed.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: It's true. They are their outfits are like, boom. Popping. All the ladies got good hats. The men are in really good suits or nice jackets.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: They look really turtlenecks. Yeah, got some turtlenecks going on.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Dressed to the nines.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: And unfortunately, for whatever reason, they're still insistent on keeping Cyclops's terrible, ugly costume.
Not really.
He just doesn't have much cake down there.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Baji's like, it's okay.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: I forgive it, honestly, to wear that costume. He probably should have a little bit more in the back again. It's a big yellow backside. Right?
If you're going to go the highlight route that way, you should night wing that shit.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: But that's why he's got those buccaneer boots going on.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: He needs to work on some barbell thrusts. And probably he's got to do a lot of squats. He's got to do a lot of work here.
Just not cutting it in the gym. Clearly, he needs to go to the danger room, which we're going to go to very soon.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Boom, danger room.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Well, everybody waves goodbye as all of the old X Men leave and all of the new X Men stay. And we're about to have a danger room session with Thunderbird and Colossus and Wolverine. And I don't know that Wolverine does much in the danger room because we don't really get much of a danger room session because Thunderbird's like, yeah, I'll go in the danger room. It's fantastic. And then he flies out of the danger room. Right. Immediately.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: He gets kicked out boot with a big pow up there.
A very legion of superheroes pow up there. I was impressed. It's. See the Dave Cochrane going back and forth with the art there. Back and forth.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: That's a cool page. I like this page.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I love the giant page with cyclops in the middle. Best looking cyclops ever, by the way. Look how much rounder his face is. The features are there. Yeah, it looks really. If I have a criticism of Cochrane, too, I kind of wish his smaller figures, right? When he draws a big face figure like this, we get a lot of detail. I wish he could maintain that in his smaller figures. I know that's really difficult, but even, like, on this page, look how undefined Wolverine is for.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: And I guess you still get the cheekbones, though. So I could be being a little bit over. Well, there's two wolverines. If you look at the one at the top, it's really undefined. If you look at the one at the bottom, it's pretty defined.
Sometimes the work lacks some consistency across the page. Right. But, I mean, I'm nitpicking here to find something to critique.
What we get is a big montage over a single page. And I love how Cochrane can do that, too. Like, here's a training montage. And basically, through this training montage, they're taking six proud, unique individuals and six learners, six outcasts, and forging them into a team is what they say. Yeah. So we're getting trained up in the danger room, but then on the next page, they have some active lasers for some reason. And one of those lasers hits Thunderbird.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Now, the live fire event.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: I don't know about you. This is the danger room. But if you had the danger room, wouldn't you avoid having things that slice people open that unintentionally, like, they could murder them? What if the laser hit him in the face?
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Here's my take on this, and it might not be popular, but if you go into the danger room, you need to know that you might not walk out of it.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: So it's a live fire scenario.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Fire scenario. You got to be ready for anything, man. If you're gonna go out and you're gonna battle magneto or whoever and you're gonna go up against any baddie out there, you've got to be. So.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: So we got some starship troopers action going on, Maddok.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: And if you can't handle the live fire, you can't handle the heat. Get out of the proud, know, proud star. Yeah.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Starbucks.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Starbucks.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: Well, anyway, and then he gets in a fight with Cyclops again. He calls him one eye, and he's like, my name is Cyclops. And if you'll look at our last episode, it's titled everyone hates Cyclops. I really could have just called any of the episode about X Men. Everyone hates Cyclops.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Everyone hates Cyclops.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah, because they hate Cyclops again. And then what a great leader Cyclops is. Instead of consoling the person whose leg just got zapped, he criticizes him, yells at him, gets mad at him because he mouse off to him and then starts to get in a fight with him. And then he has to get interrupted by Professor X. So why Professor X continues to pick this asshole as his team lead is.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Beyond, because he's the oldest and he's been around the longest. But, yeah, he's a.
It's outside of calling Thunderbird like a lost loser.
And that's a takeaway because Thunderbird feels that way. He even says it, right.
Everything that old one eye says makes him feel that way. To the point where Aurora has to come back and be like, I just see a man.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Can I also just say, I get it. I know it's the. We're not supposed to talk about what we know in the future, right? Because obviously we talked before about Storm's development as a character and becoming a leader, et cetera.
Do you think her stepping in here is her playing the Jean Grey girl role, or do you think this is the first step in them writing her to be the leader she is in the future?
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Honestly, I feel like maybe this might be her.
It's a good way to look at it. You know, we don't know what she's going to do in the future, but this is a good way to make it be like she has the potential to be a leader.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: And it seems more aggressive than the Jean Grey characterization from the. See. Let me read the tie. I see no loser John Prodstar in this room. I only see a man. So she dresses him down, right?
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
Jean's character wouldn't say something like that, at least not in those early books. Maybe after her change.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: Right, right. Well, even after. Well, I mean, let's not go too far into the future. But, yes, while she's Phoenix. Yes. But even after the change, though, after, honestly, like, unpopular opinion again, I said in the previous podcast that they could have just killed off Cyclops during. After the Phoenix saga. Yeah, right. I think they could have killed off Gene Gray, too.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Oh, my God, Dan.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Just over time.
Obviously, I haven't been reading X Men over the last, like, ten years. Right. So, I mean, they may be doing stuff with Jean Gray again, but the stuff that they did with Jean Gray and the Madeline pryor stuff and all.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Okay.
I wouldn't say kill her off, but I would say do a dog leg story where she does her own thing.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Like, just poom, send her to galactic space jail.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: I don't know, man. Just do something different. But honestly, for the dear listeners out there paying attention and keeping score, when I was younger, I was like, this is one of my favorite stories.
I read that book, and I was like, wow, this is really good.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Which one?
[00:24:25] Speaker B: The Phoenix.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Well, yes, I agree. I'm just saying, it's when you take a character down that road, though, and.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Then what do you do with her afterwards?
[00:24:37] Speaker A: And they struggled with it. They really did. I mean, for years. Struggled with what to do with her afterwards.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: But she's gone right now, and we're talking about a character, not.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: I know. That's true.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: That's what I do. That's what you do.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: You take us down, whole entire thing. We're talking about proud star and we're talking about.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Well, let's get into. Okay, let's get into the book. There's more stuff you're going to teach me in this book, and I'm going to be a little bit critical of.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: It jumping into this chapter, too. Gotta.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: So we're to Norad, right? Yeah.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Gi Joe is there. We got the.
Bill is flying the freaking dragonflies.
[00:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah. It's amazing.
So we're at Norrad, right? And they get a package that says, press me, and this genius presses the button. Don't do that.
I don't know why in some sort of top secret facility you would just press a button in a package you opened. But anyway, the animan up here. Animan? Is this the Animan or was that the ones we saw in the animan? Am I confused with. Are these the same ones that were in freaking Iron man later?
[00:25:54] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Well, they.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Might have been. They might have been like a generic animal crossover hybrid character they've got.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: But they were in X Men before, and so was this Count Nefaria guy. Right?
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Count Nefaria. Tracy's Animan.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: I'm skipping a couple pages too, because we're like, we're getting into Count Nefaria.
They basically take out all the people, right? And then we get a flashback and he says, way back in X Men 22 and 23, these fools thought me defeated, destroyed. When my assault on Washington failed those many months ago and all thought was wrong, I escaped. So we've got some exposition. Thank you, exposition lad. Len Ween and I began planning anew and calling in his debts and blah, blah, blah, and he brought back. Okay, so I really hate this.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: What? You hate what? Bringing in the.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Right. We've got a whole new X Men team.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yes, you got a whole new X Men team.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: We've got all this momentum and we bring a villain back from issue 20.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a whole new X Men team fighting a whole old villain team.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: But I only think it's really lame.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: That'S ever fought them before, which is Cyclops.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: I don't like it. Right. I think this called for a new.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Villain, but this is an issue like this. How do you fight these villains? Because it's a whole new X Men team.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I think you bring in a new villain, I don't think you should tie.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: It is like a new villain because it's a different team and they never fought him before. Dan.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Well, they had a different villain because he's really lame.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: What do you mean he's really lame? He's got cool anime.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: He has a monocle.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's cool, man.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Since it's drawn by Dave Cochrane. It's like the best looking monocle ever in a cape.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: And he looks like he.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: And he's spinning 60s dials like a silver age book. It's just not magic tricks.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Like, he could make a thing levitate or pull a coin from behind your ear.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Well, the important thing is we have this lame ass villain that they've got to fight eventually. And we get back and Scott Summers is pouting.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Well, yeah, of course. I mean, he's pouting because they find out that they got to fight the.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Anime, and he's like, not the not. He's. He's pouting before that. He's pouting because he's worried about on the day he became the leader of the X Men, and it cost him over the years. And sometimes.
When did Parker, like, did Peter Parker slide into.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Well, you know, they're friends, right?
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Are they, Pete?
[00:28:58] Speaker B: And would be. That would be a great.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: I don't think they'd be good friends.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: That would be a funny team up. That would be a funny team up. I would like to see that. I know that would never happen. They're not friends, but that would be a funny team.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Well, anyway, Kurt comes in to talk to them and Cyclops all, like, we were both careless, Kurt. Except that I was responsible, and Thunderbird ended up taking all the lumps. God, he needs, like, an emo. He's the worst. Yeah. No, you know what? Team up.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: I want what you want. Him and the postal service.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Cyclops. No, we're going to do a callback. We're going to do a callback to legion 89.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: I want the Cyclops, Garen Beck team up.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that would be good. That would be so good.
Yeah.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Just be a series of wines.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: Okay, here's the question, then.
What band would be playing in each one of their heads?
Who's got what music playing in their heads? I think Cyclops has postal service playing in his head. He seems like a postal service.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: This is 1970.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: But I mean, like, if we're now.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Cyclops has velvet underground.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Okay, well, I mean, like, you know. Okay. And then for Mr. Garrett, who do we have in his head?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Mr. Who?
Wagner?
[00:30:32] Speaker B: No.
On our team up. On our team up. And we had.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Oh, Mr. Garon back.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Mr. Garon.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: So he's 1989.
He would have, like, the cure.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: The cure. Okay. You sure it's secure? Yeah. It's secure?
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Are you sure? Yeah. Secure?
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: I'm 100% sure.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: 100% sure he's not running up the hill?
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yes. All right. You make jokes that I don't get.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: I don't know. The listeners will get it.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: I think the listeners know what I'm putting down, and they're picking it up.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Well, the good news is that you are right.
Professor X pops in and is like, captain Afaria is taking over NORAd. And he's like, I've seized control of NoRad. Ha. And guess what? The Avengers aren't available.
The beast comes on and he's like, the Avengers aren't available. So we're getting the backups.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: The backups which be the X Men, the second string X Men, too. It's not even the original lineup. It's like, beast is probably like, who the hell are these guys? I only recognize one of you, maybe two.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Well, maybe Beast should jump in and help out. Like, I barely recognize beast. The way he's drawn here.
This is how they were drawing him at the time. I know in Avengers, the beast doesn't look like anything.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Like I'm used to the beast either.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: He's looking a little skinny.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: The beast looks like he's been hanging out with Captain America from a couple of episodes ago. He's been chasing down some stuff.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, he's like, we got a strung out beast. Either that or Jarvis is not feeding.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Him both of them.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Jarvis doesn't put his bowl out.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: He's like, I'm not getting fed.
He's scratching himself. And I've been eating some things that I've been finding. Anyways.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Well, they take off. Yes, in a blackbird.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: I guess it is the blackbird. It's not the one that we know.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: But it's the one we used to know.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: It's the one we used to.
I know it well. I'm picking it up.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I given the music references right back to you. At least you get mine. I don't know enough about music to get yours.
But I think maybe I was wrong, because if we were going back to heroin or something, maybe velvet underground is what was playing in.
Well, anyway, they meet up with the US air force, and the US air force is like, oh, fuck, you sent the X Men and not the Avengers, these guys.
And then we get them, I guess, breaking in. Oh, wait, not yet. They get shot out of the sky with a bunch of missiles. Yeah, it's not going well. And Cyclops, mostly because Cyclops sucks, right?
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Executor of plans. He's like, I got this plan. We're going to fly the blackbird into mountain. Like, okay, just so people know, magic Mountain is what they used to call the.
So I thought it was Valhalla or. But I mean, when my dad worked there or went to go work there.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Well, your dad. We don't know that your dad worked there. It's not official.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Not official. Redacted.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Top secret.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Redacted.
But yeah, not the amusement park. But this is an amusement ride they're on because the Blackbird gets taken out. And they are.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Well, the very. Yeah, it gets really taken out. And we end the issue with all the X Men flying out of the sky and Nefaria going, no, by all that's unholy, the X Men still live. How many times must I kill them before those cursed mutants finally stay dead? I hate this character.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Like, this guy, this really bad version of. He's like a really crappy version of Doctor.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: He's like a really crappy version of every 1960s.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: He looks like Dr. Strange, but he's a bad doctor. Strange.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: The one when his Monocle falls off.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah, he's like Doctor deranged.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Well, we got X Men flying out of the sky and we get next issue, war hunt.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Oh, man, it's going to be bad.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: That's it. And I could read it right now, but I haven't read it yet.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: You have to read it later.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Yeah, so, I mean, obviously we'll cover 95 next. That'll probably wrap up our coverage of the X Men for a while. But you, of course, could get this before we read it. Go ahead and read ahead.
Yeah, I think it's a weak follow up issue.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: I don't know, man.
It's not as strong as it could be. But I think for the time that it was put out, it's pretty like everything as I'm rereading it and then I'm playing back this really good version of an audio drama that I heard about, heard it played out on. Even though they did this all in a ten minute sweep. Right. They did this issue and did it in ten minutes just because they're like, okay, we're going to wrap this up. We're going to do this one in ten minutes and do the next one in ten minutes and just give you 20 minutes of a really quick thing.
I think it's a good issue.
There's a lot of really good art in it. The way that they're bringing in the characters to develop them up to get you to go. Okay. I understand what Scott's going through. There's a new X Men team they're getting saying Cyanara to the old X Men, no pun intended, with the leaving.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Just kidding. I wasn't even going to pick up on it.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: You said something. I mean, we're losing our japanese X Men, but our samurai in the sky, sunfire, he's got to go.
Yes, but we're seeing all this stuff come about, and we're fighting an old foe with a new team, and we got to see what's going to happen, how it's going to play out.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's weak. I think it's like it says all new X Men right at the top. Like all new, all different, basically. Right. And then you get Count Nefaria, who's not, and these weird animal creatures that really, outside of beating up the people at NORAD, they don't really do anything in the episode. Right. I guess we're setting up the fight or the episode in the issue. Right. But we're setting up the fight for the next issue. But I like the transition pieces, so I almost wish this would have been a transitioned.
Maybe this is just the new age of comics affecting me, but I almost think that you could have put the whole count Nefaria fight in the next issue and made this issue all about character advancement.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: I see.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: And development.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Without the Nefaria stuff in here, none of that.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: And then all of a sudden, it's like they get the call at the end of the issue where it's like, hey, we need you to go. And they're like, oh, shoot, we got to go at the end of this issue. And it's like, we got to go.
Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I could feel. I can understand. As we throw in the new jargon of the day, this episode or this issue, definitely not lit kind of sucks.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: I don't know that lit is new.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Jargon, but I mean, old, new, whatever. It's not fire for sure. It's definitely mid. Definitely mid. Definitely suss.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Except the art.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: The art, which is amazing. Fire as af. Wow, fr I thought I was the.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Only one that got to drop the f bombs on this podcast.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: I just said just like a kid playing Roblox would.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Well, the cool thing is we have a couple of small updates.
Hey, if you backed starlight number six, seems like stuff's happening.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Stuff is happening.
Did you get an update?
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Okay, so there you go. So, like, Greg has no idea what's going on with his book, so we'll move on to the book he does know about.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: I was playing into your update absolute zeros. I know nothing about that either.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Launch pad. But, you know, it comes out and there'll be a link to it at the end of the podcast. And of course, if you purchase a hardcover, you will get an MXPX CD and it will smell like vanilla cupcakes. And it's very important. And it may even drop out of the sky and be irradiated with weapons from NORAD. So who knows?
You never know what's going to happen to these books by the time they get to your house. A lot of things happen in the publishing process that we can't predict.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: We don't know.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: And so we've got that going on.
Of course, you could always meet up with Greg at the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: That's true. You could.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: You could even find me at certified martial arts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 03:00 though they're closed because that's my workout time. But if you wanted to drop by, I'm sure jujitsu lawyer Paul Boudreaux would be happy to sign you up for some workout time lessons. Yeah, maybe. He's about to get some really cool new murals, too. So. It's about to be a giant goku painted on his. Are you serious? Yeah.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: That's awesome, dude.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: That'll be pretty awesome when it's ready.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Get me to come down now because.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Of know if that's what it takes to get you to come down to Tacoma for the first time in like five years.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: It hasn't been five years. It's been two, maybe a year and a half.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: I've lived here for over two years.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: I was there like not even that long ago helping you get some bookshelves to house all your comics. Don't even.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: That is true.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Don't even.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Not for comics. Comic book. It was to house books about comic books. Let's be real comics.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: I know. Don't even lie to the listeners.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: But anyway, delicious hamburgers. But anyway, I do make delicious hamburgers. Anyway.
But that's it. I think that's the big announcements for right now. We will be back.
We'll be back very soon because we were delayed on the other one. So we'll be back in about a week with a podcast on issue 95 and then we'll decide where we want to go next.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, what's crazy? When you take a look at the issue numbers, 94 and 95 are the years that we graduated high school, Dan.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: No, I graduated in 93.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: 93. Damn it, I messed that up. Okay, we should have read 93 then.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: So what we're saying is I graduated when the book was trash and you graduated when it was good.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah, when it was good. Well, I don't know. You said this was no good, so trash and trash. There you go.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Well, anyway, that's it. We're out. We will see you next week and have a wonderful. At least where we're at in most of the country, cold weekend.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: We will see you next time it.
Oh, God. I gotta hit stop. See, this is the problem. I don't know how to do that. Oh, my God. I was.
Oh, no.
Oh.
