Funny Book Forensics 343 I Wonder Who Dies

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You did. [00:00:01] Speaker B: You three, two, one click. [00:00:03] Speaker A: I three, two, one click. [00:00:05] Speaker B: We have totally gone backwards in time. We're now just using audacity to record these. I know everybody loves the backstory behind these podcasts. I said screw the man. Not using these things that downgrade my audio quality. We're going to audio quality it up right here. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Right? Yes. [00:00:22] Speaker B: In audacity, the newest piece of software were ever invented. [00:00:25] Speaker A: You know, honestly, for everybody that bags on, this kind of is, this is what podcasts were born on. Why not go back to the roots? [00:00:35] Speaker B: That's right. I mean, we're not going to use Garageband or something like, whoa, some of. [00:00:41] Speaker A: My best music was created on GarageBand, thank you very much. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's when you had enough money to have Apple products. [00:00:48] Speaker A: I mean, I did buy a very cool imac from lawyer Paul. [00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, used, yeah, from the bottom of a bin in a thrift store somewhere. [00:01:00] Speaker A: And I still use it to this day to put all my music on. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Well, I'll just remind the listeners, this is funny book forensics in case we ever actually decide to record a different type of podcast. But this one is funny back forensics, where we're talking about thrift storeing and things like, you know, you honestly missed your calling because if you had just done the thrift storeing thing later, you could have done all those videos that Anne hates on the Internet. Anne is Greg's wife that owns the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Yes. I could have been one of those people that, what are they, instigators? I mean, influencers that gets people to jump on their feeds and all their videos and get all the likes and stuff like that. Maybe get a couple of pennies for the clicks. Yeah, I could have been one of those. [00:01:53] Speaker B: You could be. I mean, it could happen. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Could be. I have people that come into the store all the time and ask like how come I don't have a twitch or something like that? [00:02:01] Speaker B: What are you talking. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Well, yes, yes, I understand, Dan. Yes. We influence people to go read cool comic books from the past or even new comic books from now or comic. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Books from the future, or we influence them not to read comic books from the past. [00:02:18] Speaker A: You're going to influence people not to read comic books from the past? I'm going to tell them they should. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Well, I'm always going to tell people to read comic books from the past. I had a comic book disaster. I just opened a box of comics that was sent on December 2 22nd that arrived at the end of the month. But I just caught up on my past reading. So I opened that big box of comic books to start reading those comic books. And it's like the post office, the comic book buy. And this is Vista Comics in Longview, Washington, by the way. I've heard people say John is surly. That's a description. I don't find that to be the case at all. I just talked to him on the phone for like 45 minutes and we were talking about power pack because I brought up your book. Yeah, thank you to him. Because I said, I never tell you about Greg's other book on Kickstarter because I buy comics from you. And I don't think to tell the person I buy comics from about comic books they can buy. Right? It doesn't make sense. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:10] Speaker B: But I've been using Vista forever. I always joke with Greg, I need to switch to a comic shop in Tacoma and maybe I will someday. So I don't have to get all my comics a month at a time because that's where I get behind reading. It's a. He's always been great to me as far as when I lived down there. And he just kept shipping me my books and has been consistent every month. And he takes great care in shipping them. He used to ship them in diamond boxes, but of course, diamond is whatever it is now. So now he has an outer box, and then he puts them in a penguin random house box, one of the ones the Marvel comics get shipped in. And then he wraps in between those two boxes with bubble wrap and stuff like that, and ships my books and I open them and every corner, he puts them in another plastic bag too. So he'll put like 15 books in a bag, right? Not even that many, more like twelve. But stacks them up and he even staggers them, right? So I open the box and the corner, either the upper bound corner or upper other corner, right? Depending on how the books were fake, were all bent. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Disaster. [00:04:17] Speaker B: And I look at the box and the internal box is bent in the corner. It's like the post office would have had to drop the box off a building and have it land on that corner perfectly for something like this to happen. I mean, this guy's been sending me books for years. And these were all wrapped up too, right? It was like the post office somehow would have to deliberately damage these books. But all of the books are damaged. Pretty much. That's the crazy part, because it hit the corner, right? So I had a comic disaster, and now, of course, some of you are like, well, Dan, you don't need perfectly beautiful comic books. I can just hear yeah. Saying, well, just read your comic books. But I'm probably going to go get a little OCD, so I'm probably going to go get some new comic books. So I'm not going through my books later and going, 123458. God damn it. Nine. Like, what happened? [00:05:11] Speaker A: Why don't you just flatten them? [00:05:13] Speaker B: I don't have a big flattener. [00:05:14] Speaker A: Why don't you do what I do. [00:05:16] Speaker B: And just get modern books? Don't flatten that way either. The covers don't do that. You're well aware of that. This is not 80s books. You can do that, but you can't do it with the new covers, encyclopedias. [00:05:26] Speaker A: And for those listening that don't know. [00:05:28] Speaker B: What, that doesn't work that way. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Talking those big giant books that you get from the library that they don't let you check out. But if you got a big enough. [00:05:34] Speaker B: Backpack, you can get, you know, it doesn't work that way. You need like a heat press and all that stuff. I've honestly thought about buying one. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Do you want one? [00:05:43] Speaker B: Well, sure. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Have one in the basement. [00:05:47] Speaker B: Well, okay. Well, let's take that discussion off the podcast. But yes, I do. [00:05:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:52] Speaker B: So that could solve some other problems besides these books, perhaps. But yeah, we are on to X Men number 95. So we read giant size X Men number one, which was fantastic. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:06:06] Speaker B: We read X Men 94, which was not fantastic. [00:06:09] Speaker A: What are you talking about? It's an all new different X Men. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Except it was an all same, all boring ass villain. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Oh, come on now. Everybody loves Solomon Grundy. I mean, what? [00:06:21] Speaker B: I love Solomon Grundy. That was not Solomon Grundy. That was Count Nefaria or whatever. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Count nefarious. [00:06:28] Speaker B: Nefarious? [00:06:29] Speaker A: No, Count Nefaria. Yeah, everybody loves count. [00:06:34] Speaker B: And the anime, those characters. What? [00:06:37] Speaker A: Hey, you know, it's a different time, Dan. A different time. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Well, if they're the same anime we mentioned, maybe they're even the same ones that were in the issues of Iron man that happened before the Iron man stories got villain. This is terrible, right? They picked a terrible villain. It's like they went out and got an amazing. It's like a wrestling company goes out and signs like the best baby face in the world and then has them go against, like, I don't know, think. [00:07:12] Speaker A: Of the worst. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Who'S like a terrible past wrestler, bad guy. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Man. [00:07:22] Speaker B: Who's the worst in your mind? Like Brutus beefcake. Okay. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Brutus beefcake. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:07:30] Speaker B: The earthquake oh, he's dead. I don't want to make fun of, actually. And he was a sumo wrestler, so I don't really want to make fun of him. He's actually pretty cool. [00:07:39] Speaker A: What about, okay, Sergeant Slaughter, when he turned heel. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Ooh. That was pretty terrible. [00:07:43] Speaker A: That was pretty. [00:07:50] Speaker B: On top of that, Sergeant Slaughter made people think he actually was in the army and stuff, and he wasn't. [00:07:55] Speaker A: But he's got. [00:07:57] Speaker B: That makes him a really bad G. I. Joe character. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Come on. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Well, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, let's say it was, like, now, and they got Sergeant Slaughter to be the bad guy. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:08] Speaker B: That would be this. Why didn't they just give me a new villain? [00:08:14] Speaker A: I mean, he's pretty old. [00:08:17] Speaker B: I just. I don't know. And maybe it's the Len wean influence on it. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Like, lean launches the book, but then wants to tie it. I do think that Claremont, throughout his run, and I know I'm not supposed to be talking about the future, but does do a pretty good job of taking some old concepts and making them new. Bet. I'll go back to the parallels with the legion of superheroes. Right. I think when they finally get Paul Levitt's on the book there, too, he does the same thing. He's really good at taking villains that existed before and kind of redoing them. [00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Bringing them back and giving them a little tweak and a little turn here. [00:08:57] Speaker B: But this is not the case. [00:08:59] Speaker A: This is a case of bringing them in so that these new X Men can fight these old bad villains. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Well, I think we should jump right in now. Jump right in at the ten minute mark. [00:09:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Jump right in at the ten minute mark and have me start attacking the book and you start defending it. We do have approved by comics code authority. [00:09:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So it's safe to read. Good for you. [00:09:23] Speaker B: We've got X Men, Marvel Comics books. The price of comics just keep going up and up. $0.25. You're killing me. It's a lot of dough. And this is number 95. So we are well into the year now. We're past giant size X Men number one, or we're in 74, right? Yeah. That was a very confident statement on your part there. [00:09:49] Speaker A: I'm trying to do math. It's tough for me. We were talking about the new math of the children today, so I was building my stack. I was taking the numbers through the triangle. I was pulling out the numbers. [00:10:04] Speaker B: 75. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah. There we go. Yeah. I was trying to do the visual math that the kids do today. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Release date. July 22, 1975. Cover date October, 1975. As we can see, the big October on the COVID and we've got Chris Claremont and Len Wean writing it. Still, it says, but only Claremont is credited in this book. Marvel comic database says it's both of them. Penciler is Dave Cochrane. Inker is Sam Granger. Colorist Petra Goldberg. Letterer Karen Matlow. They seem like to just rotate letters through these books. And editor Marv Wolfman. So this is before Marv gets fired from being editors. We have this revolving door of editors at Marvel Comics through the. Fortunately, before we get to the shooter guy. Yeah. I'm going to jump right into this book. And I'm sure, listeners, this is the first time I've read this comic book. [00:11:04] Speaker A: But the COVID if you saw this cover on a spinner rack, you would have bought it. It looks so awesome. [00:11:11] Speaker B: Okay, the COVID looks amazing, but let me look at the COVID for 1 second. Okay? [00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:16] Speaker B: The X Men logo being covered up by storm. I mean, Dave Cochrane's amazing, right? The art's amazing. And it says, not a hoax, not a dream. This issue in X Men dies. You must read warhunt, exclamation point. You've got Colossus, and we've got Thunderbird. We've got some nightcrawler. They're all fighting these anime storms. Flying out in the Cyclops is nowhere to be found. The old X Men are nowhere to be found in the picture. Right. It's all the new X Men except Wolverine. [00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, he's. But you don't see him, but he's, he's. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Well, no, here's the flaw in the COVID They tell us one of them is going to die. And in the famous marvel heads up in the corner, there is Banshee, Cyclops, nightcrawler, wolverine, storm, and Cyclops. And no Thunderbird. So they've given away the end of the book on the COVID Spoiler. [00:12:15] Speaker A: Dang, dude. I didn't even see that. Whoa. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's my first issue with the issue. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:12:23] Speaker B: And I was so pissed when I saw it. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:12:27] Speaker B: I was like, why? And I know, of course, I've never read this book, but I know what happens, right? I don't know what happened. Well, I do know what happens, because I read a synopsis a long time ago, but I knew what was going to happen at the end. I don't know what happens in the middle. Right? So here we go. So we're in page one, but they've already given away who's going to die on the front cover. So that wasn't cool. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:51] Speaker B: So now we're in. Stan Lee presents the uncanny X Men. And I went through it does give Len Reed lean plotter credits. Yeah, it was right there. I missed it out. So we're transitioning from Len Ween to Chris Claremont, and we get Warhunt, and we get a great view of all the X Men flying out of the sky out of an. Love how. I love how Cochram just has them all in these weird, different positions as they're trying to get their bearings. Floating through the air. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Yeah. As they're falling. Free fall. [00:13:23] Speaker B: And the only one that looks sort of like he knows what he's doing is Banshee. Right. And sort of Wolverine. Wolverine looks like he's maybe done a few. Maybe he was jumping into wars or. I don't know. Yeah. And all it says is Warhunt. These are the new X Men, and in a few seconds, they will all be dead at the end, we're podcast over. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Thanks a lot for listening, everybody. Next up, we're going to be doing a new format completely. Thanks for joining. [00:13:56] Speaker B: End of an era. We've gotten rid of comics altogether. We're just going to burn them. But instead we get Cyclops falling toward the Earth head first, which would have been fantastic if his head just splattered all over the earth. I don't know what would have happened to his powers if that happened. Crazy. [00:14:14] Speaker A: He hits the earth and his eyes are still working. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah. That's like a. Don't you know? That's. That's what would happen in one of his movies. I don't know. [00:14:24] Speaker A: I can see. [00:14:25] Speaker B: Anyway, we get it. We get a short recap with the beast in the background, and we see count Nefaria, and we're going to see him a grand total of one more. [00:14:35] Speaker A: Times in this book, I believe. [00:14:36] Speaker B: So it's a good time. We see him in the recap and the Animan one or two more times in the book. The one thing I'll say about this book is a positive. We do get some character development. I'd like to see more here, but we do get to start to see the threads of the Chris Claremont character development, where it's more about the interaction of the X Men than it is actually fighting the. [00:15:00] Speaker A: I mean, and honestly, that's what I like. It's a team building. That's. And I can talk about that more, but I really feel that this lays the groundwork for this team as they're starting to build up, and you get that feeling that they're becoming a little. The strings are being pulled out. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Somewhere. I'll disagree with you a little bit. [00:15:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:28] Speaker B: I agree with the first part, but I really think this book is a spotlight on Nightcrawler. [00:15:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:15:34] Speaker B: I don't think it builds the whole team. I don't think I get a good feeling for the personality of all the members of the team except for Nightcrawler. [00:15:41] Speaker A: That's fair. They all don't get that kind of shine. That is true. [00:15:46] Speaker B: And I think that's good, though, right? Like, when you have a team book, I think it is good to introduce the characters to people over time. And this is know, one of the things Claremont was really good at, besides the plot threads that he would tie together, they had Claremont and Gerber writing for them at this time. So two all stars write it having plot threads hanging and know, tying them back together. By the way, just to interrupt this for 2 seconds, I just finished up the Defenders number two omnibus, too, and finished the whole Steve Gerber run. So we were on the destroyer duck stuff, and I just got through that. That was a wild ride. That's all I've got to say. We may review a little bit of that, because it was a hell of a ride. The problem is, I'd have to think we'd have to do almost like a whole Defenders podcast to do it. Because we'd cover, like 18 books in a row, right. Because there's so many dangling plots that keep getting picked up that if you just read one or two books in the run, it wouldn't make any sense. [00:16:42] Speaker A: And that is the hard part. That when I was younger, and I'll admit, I'll pick up a book or two, and then I'd be lost, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I'd grab another couple of books, and I'd be like, okay, I know a little bit about this. I don't know. Well. [00:17:00] Speaker B: And I think that's the fun thing about this part of the X Men, too. You think a lot of teams were started in the Silver Age, and here the X Men are started in the Silver Age, but we get a relaunch in the Bronze Age, and so the readers here get a reset, and they get to learn all about those characters. And you think then people get to grow up and love these characters, right? And so we don't have the movies now. We get the movie to relaunch a character, right, or redefine a character. So you think now, in the grew up with that got the Iron man movie, which resets the entire character. Here we get a reset of the X Men with new characters that people get to grow with. With the exception, of course, of Cyclops, who sucks, who doesn't grow at. Yeah, like everyone hates. And it's okay. I think my favorite thing I did this week was send Greg a gif of Cyclops getting punched in the cartoon by Wolverine, which I still remember that it was after Morph died. You know morph, that famous character that we saw in the comics? [00:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:02] Speaker B: A lot. [00:18:02] Speaker A: All the time. He was, like, in every panel, on every page. [00:18:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You just didn't know because he was hiding in the background. [00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah. He was always. [00:18:15] Speaker B: First we get Cyclops trying to murder the team again. So they're flying out of the sky, and Cyclops is, like, telling Storm Banshee, listen up. Grab an X Men. Hey, Kurt, go ahead and teleport yourself to the ground. And Nightcrawler's like, I can do that, but I would die. Because gravity. And then he's like, the law of conservation of energy demands I materialize with the same velocity I started with. So, clearly, Chris Claremont just wandered out from his physics class in college because he's like, yeah. But, yeah, I love the very first move in the book because Cyclops sucks so bad as a leader is to try to murder one of the. [00:18:58] Speaker A: This. I would say it's just more or less he just doesn't understand. [00:19:03] Speaker B: But didn't he? The whole last issue. The whole last issue, the entire thing was Cyclops training them in the danger room, learning all about their powers, and bitching at Thunderbird because he wouldn't let him learn about his powers. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Right? [00:19:20] Speaker B: Am I wrong? [00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. And that's the thing. We still don't have a clear, concise understanding of Thunderbird's powers. [00:19:28] Speaker B: I have no idea what Thunderbird's powers are, but I can tell you what everybody else's powers are. And Cyclops is supposed to be assessing those skills and learning all about them, right? And the first thing he does is. Has no idea how Nightcrawler's power works. [00:19:41] Speaker A: He's like, you can get to places you can teleport. Yeah, teleport to the ground. Okay. I mean, yeah, he has an idea, but not an understanding. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Well, it's also pretty clear, as we flip the page, that Chris Claremont just came out of college because he knows Russian, which clearly makes him a communist, because long before the only words in Russian that Colossus said were Boishimoi or whatever that was. Right. Actually, I do think this is kind of cool, because I actually thought it was kind of lame when I started reading X Men. That's the only thing Colossus would say in Russian, right? [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:17] Speaker B: And here we actually have. The text is written in Russian. And I have no idea what it means. [00:20:22] Speaker A: Me neither. [00:20:23] Speaker B: But it's kind of cool. Like they're illustrating that somebody actually speaks a different language. [00:20:28] Speaker A: True. [00:20:28] Speaker B: Without doing the parentheses or translated by thing and just writing it in English. But moral of the story is everybody's falling. And Colossus is like, no, I'll just fall on my own. It's all good. And then we see Cyclops floating down in the sky, and it's like, impact -63 seconds. And I was so excited. Granted, I knew he wasn't going to die, but I was so excited because it's like Colossus is the first to land. And if one could truly call this a landing. But right up above that, you see Cyclops was falling. So at first, I didn't realize that was Cyclops crashing to the. Sorry. I didn't realize it wasn't Claussus crashing the earth. I thought Cyclops had crashed to the earth. And I was so very excited that. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Cyclops had hit the ground and exploded in a fiery ball. [00:21:23] Speaker B: Right. Just 1 second. I thought, I'm rid of Cyclops forever. [00:21:26] Speaker A: No. Sorry. He is not the X Men that dies. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah, well, either. Well, either is so. And you know, I would tell you what page number we're on, but there's no page numbers. Much like starlight. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Hey, we follow in greatness. If it's good enough for Claremont, it's good enough for Travis Webb and myself. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Well, I'll say. Like the sovereign seven, Claremont and not the X Men. Claremont. But anyway, we're, uh. Wow. You're just going to take these hits today? We've got. Everybody else is floating down, and eventually we get to the next page, and Banshee goes over, and, much to my chagrin, grabs Cyclops under the armpits. And since he's falling at terminal velocity, grabbing it under the armpits, rips his arms off. He bleeds to death. And I never have to seek Cyclops again. Right? [00:22:19] Speaker A: No. I'm sorry. [00:22:21] Speaker B: No. Doesn't what we. What really we missed on screen. And actually, I think you do see it, because he's falling, and you get a little whoosh. Oh, no. It looks like he grabs. Going to. I think it would have been a cool touch if Cochrane had had him use his power to put like a cushion of air there. That's one of the things they used to do in Superman comics is he would put a cushion of air under somebody and then as they're falling, so they would hit a pillow kind of thing. I don't know if that works in physics either, but I always thought the graphic looked cool. It looks cool. So everybody lands safely. Is that a fair. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody lands safely. They're all good. [00:23:00] Speaker B: They give us kind of this. Maybe Cyclops will die. But I was kind of thinking banshee probably was up to the. [00:23:06] Speaker A: He's. I mean, he's responsible adult. Can't let the kid die. [00:23:11] Speaker B: He's a responsible adult. And my God, his biceps and triceps. Oh, yeah, that's some Hulk Hogan level shit, right? Mean for the, uh. He's swole just in that picture, though. If we go back to the other pictures, he's not as than. He's looking much bigger than Thunderbird in that. [00:23:34] Speaker A: In the next page, he's like, he's small. He goes from swole to small. [00:23:39] Speaker B: Well, we get back to the next page, and Thunderbird does an amazing job making us hate him some more. So we find out that, by the way, this is a bad strategy, us. So I hope we don't have this now. But according to General Frederick, Cyclops says we've got less than an hour to deactivate the doomsmith system before it automatically fires every ICBM in the United States arsenal. Yeah. So you know what happened today with the doomsday clock, don't you? [00:24:08] Speaker A: No. Refresh my memory. I did see it. [00:24:11] Speaker B: We're like at 25 seconds to midnight or something like that. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me look that up just to get it right. But, yeah, the doomsday clock was updated today. Okay, we're at 90 seconds to midnight now. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:24:23] Speaker B: They're citing the war in Russia, the israeli conflict, and, yeah, they're all standing around just like they did in the watchmen movie and moving the arm. [00:24:37] Speaker A: It's amazing because to think when we were kids and it was like ten minutes, that was the worst. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Now it's like 90 seconds. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Excellent. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Well, and here we're at an actual 60 minutes, so it could be kind of even closer. And we'll get to like nine minutes, I think, in this book. So anyway, Thunderbird's like, how are you going to do that, one eye? You got a key? And he's like, Mr. As a matter of fact, I do, Thunderbird, but my name is Cyclops. It's like, didn't we deal with this already, this dialogue is killing me on those two. [00:25:16] Speaker A: They're going to do it all for the buck, dude. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Well, anyway, apparently Cyclops woke up and figured out how Nightcrawler's power works, though I hope Nightcrawler knows where he's banffing into. But Nightcrawler just jumps down into the missile silos. I guess bam maintenance, just like he. [00:25:37] Speaker A: Badass mfs in there. [00:25:39] Speaker B: Is it fair to say, like, I'm sure somebody else does it better, but is it fair to say nobody does the bamp art better than Cochrane? [00:25:48] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:25:48] Speaker B: I mean, it is mostly because everything else is a version of his. I just always thought he wanted to go skiing. [00:25:58] Speaker A: Whoa. Yeah. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Bamf. Yeah. I always thought that was funny. I don't know. Nobody else thinks that's funny. There's got to be crickets. Do you have a cricket sound effect over there or anything like that? [00:26:09] Speaker A: I don't think so. I don't think I do. Yeah, I'm looking. I don't have a cricket sound effect. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Okay. For my jokes there. Yeah, that just didn't work. I called for a sound effect. You didn't have it. Absolute fail. No, I'm now calling my own shots. Yeah, these are all the old ones you've used. They're boring. So anyway, he bams down in there and immediately gets kicked in the back, bounces up and starts beating up this frog looking dude. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:26:41] Speaker B: And he calls him air Frost and air frog. I assume that's German for frog Frosh. I don't know. Well, anyway, he beats up the frog. He beats up the frog and starts dragging him around. That's good. And then we get a couple panels of Count Nefaria. Not just the animan here. And we just get angry. Count Nefaria, like saying, croaker is an unmitigated idiot. How dare he try to defeat the X Men on his own and he gets Croaker. Croaker, I guess of the anime. We don't learn a lot of anime names, do we? I guess we do later in the fight scene, but we don't get a lot of. That's the thing. It's like we've got the mustache twirling villain and his nameless cohorts. Like, this could have been an episode of Batman 66. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Batman 66. Yeah. Or like Power Rangers. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and I will say, too, and maybe I'll turn my own argument on myself. Right. But in this case, the villains are just there for the team building. This is like walking dead, right? The zombies are only there so we can see the development of the other. We do. We get Nightcrawler, figures out how to open up the mountain and let the X Men in. But then he lets Croaker leave because, I don't know, just, he's so excited about opening the door. [00:28:08] Speaker A: He opens the door that he forgets. [00:28:11] Speaker B: About the giant frog man he's been dragging around. They just all go in the mountain. So this seems easy. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah, easy peasy. [00:28:21] Speaker B: But the important thing is what we found out from the mustache twirling villain is he has some surprises awaiting the X Men. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Like gifts. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah, like a gift of gas. [00:28:32] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:28:33] Speaker B: He farted in their general direction. [00:28:35] Speaker A: That's terrible, man. Silent one. [00:28:37] Speaker B: Here we go. [00:28:38] Speaker A: Yeah, nobody likes that. [00:28:39] Speaker B: And hopefully this wasn't mustard gas because it's like they're choking, blistering by. I think they'd all be dead. It's like they're describing it as that, but then they're okay. [00:28:49] Speaker A: It's probably just like, some really bad pepper spray. [00:28:53] Speaker B: Well, Cyclops is in the front, so he should die first. [00:28:58] Speaker A: But he doesn't. [00:29:00] Speaker B: But he doesn't. Of course he doesn't, because that would make me happy. And they note that the air force designed this complex to survive anything, nuclear war, biological holocaust, even a meteor strike. Trouble is, they never expected the X Men. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Oh, man. Wreck shop in there. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Well, with 35 minutes left, some mps come out and start shooting them and they're like, get those muties. [00:29:26] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:29:29] Speaker B: Before they flew down, weren't they, like, didn't they want the muties to help? Like, I feel like they got that announcement last time. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but I think that these guys might be under some kind of mind. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Control or something, maybe. Well, they're still shouting slurs at, so. [00:29:43] Speaker A: Mind control, man. [00:29:44] Speaker B: Well, anyway, Colossus stands up and blocks all the bullets because he's a badass, and then storm freezes everybody. Well, she didn't freeze them. She just makes it rain on them and washes them out, actually. So goodbye, stupid anti mutant soldiers. And I did say not a lot of the other characters get a lot of development, but I do think they gave a lot to Nightcrawler. I guess they gave a little bit to storm here. They're building on that whole, like, she's a badass thing. She just takes charge when Cyclops is completely incompetent. [00:30:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:15] Speaker B: And takes care of the got. And that's why she'll be the leader later. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Yeah, she's got skills and ability. She's got a skill set. She leads from behind. She knows what to do. She's quick on her feet. [00:30:26] Speaker B: And I love that last panel on the page with her smirking and just going, I think we may proceed now, Cyclops. The soldiers will not bother us anymore. It's like, she'll let him lead to a point, and then it's like, okay, I got to take over. And she knows. She knows. She knows Cyclops sucks. Everyone, let's be honest, knows Cyclops sucks, but especially storm. And you get to see it right on the face, thanks to Dave Cochrane's awesome art. So we get the next scene, and they're just walking. And this time, Thunderbird's actually doing what he's supposed to. He's in formation. And, like, what happens in any good dungeon. The guy at the back of the line or the front of the line is always a person attacked. So this giant. I guess his name is Gort. This giant ape man, literally. [00:31:14] Speaker A: Yep. He's. He is picking him up, and he is wailing at him. [00:31:19] Speaker B: And the real question is, if they've got an ape man, where is the walrus? [00:31:23] Speaker A: Well, funny question you should ask. There is one walrus looking guy. [00:31:29] Speaker B: I don't see a walrus looking guy. [00:31:31] Speaker A: Maybe that's not a walrus. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Cuckoo. [00:31:34] Speaker A: Okay, moving on. [00:31:37] Speaker B: I'm full of bad jokes. [00:31:40] Speaker A: It's okay. [00:31:41] Speaker B: It's normal. I don't even know why I'm trying to be funny. You're the funny guy. I'm just here for the. So. Well, anyway, the fight's barely begun, and they grabbed Gort, grabbed Thunderbird, and just threw him at Banshee. And this is what happens when you have your tanks too close to your spellcasters and your. Yeah, it just doesn't go well. Two down. [00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, he did not roll. He rolled, like, a four, so it didn't work out. [00:32:15] Speaker B: I think Gore rolled a 20. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Yeah, he rolled a 20, but thunderbird. [00:32:20] Speaker B: He rolled two twenty s and a sneak attack. Well, Cyclops, they tell Cyclops. Kurt is nice enough to let Cyclops know. Hey, that's the man frog I told you of. And Cyclops is like, yeah, he's got the rest of Nefaria's anime with him. Did they know the anime were part of the attack? I don't remember that. Maybe Nefaria always had the anime. Cyclops just remembers from before. [00:32:47] Speaker A: From before? [00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's entirely possible way back from what it was. Issue 28 or something like that. 24, 28. It's all a long time ago. [00:32:55] Speaker A: All of a sudden. Meatloaf is queued up. It's all coming back. [00:32:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, the good news, I was going to do another meatloaf reference, but I'm just not. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:06] Speaker B: I decided not. I stopped midstream. We ate half the loaf, and it left the other half. Put it in the fridge for sandwiches tomorrow. [00:33:14] Speaker A: I forgot about the meatloaf I cooked last week for my grandma, and I think I got to throw it away because it's no good anymore. [00:33:19] Speaker B: No. Well, if it's in the fridge, you could always make it into a meatloaf sandwich. [00:33:22] Speaker A: It's been hanging out. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Just smell that thing and see how it's going. [00:33:25] Speaker A: It might be a little funky. Chuck it. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Well, I'm sure meatloaf is also a little funky at this point. [00:33:32] Speaker A: Chuck it. [00:33:34] Speaker B: I mean, meatloaf there at the end reprised his role from Rocky horror picture show, so it didn't go real well. But anyway. Or did he reprise his role from fight club? I'm not really sure. It's probably a little bit more rocky horror, I think. But anyway, moving on. We've got a giant Animan fight. We've got a cat animan. A caneman. Yeah. I don't think we get the cat's name, do we? No, but he's like, you think you're some hotshot beauty with claws? ANd WoLVeRine is down. What is up? Wolverine is the least badassy badass ever in these couple comics. [00:34:11] Speaker A: I know. I think Wolverine's been hanging out with the brown liquor before he came into the fight. [00:34:19] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know what's going on with this dude. [00:34:23] Speaker A: I know he's chumping it up. [00:34:26] Speaker B: Wolverine sucks. I'm reading these, and I know they give the character way more airtime. Coming up. But right now, after the first couple of issues, I'm like, why didn't anybody like this guy at all? [00:34:39] Speaker A: Well, I think you don't see him on the COVID for a reason, man. [00:34:43] Speaker B: He's getting his ass kicked. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Yeah, this guy sucks. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Well, we get to the next page. Wolverine gets saved. Wolverine gets saved by colossus. I was really hoping the fastball special was invented here, but it wasn't. So we're going to turn the page, and we get more fighting frogs. And Cyclops does something. He hits SomEBoDY with his eye beams, and then he gets smacked and immediately taken out. But they were fighting as a team. They're illustrating that Nightcrawler jumps in and takes care of the bird. Animan. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's got Cyclops and a bird got Cyclops in the claws. Kaka. Kaka. [00:35:30] Speaker B: But then Gort's back, and he's mad because they hurt his friends and he's going to take everybody. Then, yeah, I didn't miss her. Then we get Anna. I don't even know what Animal is the mind control. Animan and a woman, she is like. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Some sort of bug or something like that. She's got wings, so she's like a. [00:35:53] Speaker B: Dragonfly and she has hypnotic powers. But apparently she rolled a one because she can't control Cyclops at all. He just takes her out. Yeah, she lasts two panels. Congratulations. I guess four, technically. If we get the two panels where Cyclops is thinking anyway, they take them out in like twelve minutes. We got the doomsmith clock down at the bottom. So we're 18 minutes to nuclear midnight. Like a good leader, Cyclops finds out what happened to Banshee and Thunderbird. Wolverine is like, yeah, they're out cold. Wolverine noticed as he was lying on the ground. And, yeah, Cyclops is just like, yeah, just leave them. We got to go take care of this shit. [00:36:44] Speaker A: We got to go. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Always a good plan. Split the party. Rule number one, leave them behind of every DND game. Split the party. Always a good idea. And so we get a flashover. We see that there's nine minutes left. Now, I don't know what they were doing in two panels. They went nine minutes. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Wow. [00:37:03] Speaker B: I've seen a lot of football games where, like, a minute can take, like, nine minutes. So this seems a little bit ridiculous. [00:37:09] Speaker A: Just jumped. Well, who knows? Something happened, man. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Well, we get a flashback and. Yeah, a flashback. I don't know. Not a flashback. Flash forward, flash two. [00:37:20] Speaker A: Flash two, flash two. [00:37:23] Speaker B: We get everybody's favorite hero, Thunderbird, the kindest, nicest, most humble new X Men we have ever met. And Banshee. And they find the anime everywhere. And we find out it's armed. By the way, the self destruct circuit is it? And nefarious is. Guess. I guess. So help me understand. So the doomsmith system is now on self destruct. So that means it's not going to launch the weapons think. Because I'm not sure where Count Nefaria thought he was going to go on Earth if he launched all of the nuclear weapons on think. [00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's going to blow up the mountain. So he's got to go. [00:38:08] Speaker B: I mean, just to be clear, Count Nefaria is an mean. I don't know. What is your plan? So his plan was to go and launch every. There's some plot holes here, right? His plan is to go launch every nuclear weapon in there, in the arsenal. So where was he going to live? [00:38:29] Speaker A: In a safe place. [00:38:33] Speaker B: Yeah, this guy, I'm not a big. [00:38:35] Speaker A: Fan of this nefarious. He's going to go wherever he could go. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Well, we get another scene where he's going to an airplane, and he says, the fools, the X Men, think Count Nefaria is beaten, that they've won. But the very moment of our victory will be the moment of their death. The moment of Nefaria's greatest triumph. I have no idea what that means. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Well, maybe he just wanted to kill the X Men. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Oh, he's going to explain it to us. The self destruct system will blow this mountain and all. It is the deepest pits of hell. And when that happens, Count Neferia will be long gone. Ha. But it's not true. Yeah, there he goes. He was posturing before he took off in that plane. That's a pretty cool plane. It, like, floats upwards instead of taking off. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Jump jet has the ability to. You don't need a Runway for this kind of plane. Heavily during the Vietnam war. [00:39:28] Speaker B: I see. Did Boeing make them? Did Harrier make them? [00:39:32] Speaker A: Donald Douglas. [00:39:35] Speaker B: Well, that means Boeing then. [00:39:36] Speaker A: I mean now. Yes. I honestly don't a. I could go to the air museum and find out for you if you want. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Well, you could take me to the air museum. You've never taken me there. [00:39:47] Speaker A: I could take you there. We could go. Field trip is in order. [00:39:50] Speaker B: Field trip to the museum. Okay, so this Harrier is taking off, and Thunderbird jumps up onto it. And because Thunderbird is a certified genius, as we've covered in this book, he just starts hitting the plane. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. Maybe his power is strength. Ability. It's a british plane. [00:40:13] Speaker B: The important thing is, on January 23, 2024, when we're recording this podcast, it's a super good time to joke about somebody hitting planes and shaking things loose off planes. [00:40:27] Speaker A: I'm going to tell you that this is a McDonald Douglas plane. There you go. Moving on. [00:40:33] Speaker B: Nice. That was beautiful. [00:40:36] Speaker A: It's a british and McDonald Douglas joint aircraft. Be told. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Well, the first thing we have is he jumps up on there. She's like, dude, get off the plane. All I have to do is hit it with a sonic blast and disable it. And Thunderbird is not getting off the plane. And then we have Cyclops at the computer, and we got Wolverine, voice of reason, against Cyclops, as always. Psych. We're running out of time. We got to go. I wish we would have called him one eye. I wish he would have called him one eye. It would have made me so happy. He says, cyclops is. How far do you think we'd get in five minutes, Wolverine? Because that's all the time we've got. Because Wolverine's like, leave. And then guess Cyclops is a great leader. Professor X pops in, is like, yo, idiot, leave. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Go. [00:41:26] Speaker B: Is that a good summary of that conversation? [00:41:28] Speaker A: Yeah. That's, like, totally 100%, right. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Yeah, get out of there. But Mr. Proud star is still on top. The plane, smashing it while it's flying. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just beating the crap out of this thing, trying to get through the bulletproof glass. [00:41:49] Speaker B: And Professor X is like, dude, get off the plane. And he's like, but out, Baldi. I've been a loner all my life, Xavier, an outcast, dumped on by everybody I met. But I'm a man, Xavier, a warrior of the Apache. And today I'm going to prove it. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, yeah, but warriors of the Apache weren't loners and outcasts. [00:42:14] Speaker A: I mean, true, but maybe he felt that way. Maybe proud star felt that way. [00:42:19] Speaker B: Or maybe he's just mentally ill. Maybe. [00:42:21] Speaker A: He has dealt with a lot of things as a mutant, as a Native American, growing up in this time frame and feeling these things. We don't know his true story. We don't know. [00:42:35] Speaker B: We definitely don't. They do try to retcon a lot of it later. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's interesting, when you see the pisker quick, like, two panel bit, there's more depth in that than there is in any of this. [00:42:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And again, you see him squishing the plane. They're all telling him, get off. The banshees there, like, get off the plane. What are you doing? And it makes you wonder, too. Now, I say he's mentally ill, and I don't mean to joke about this too much, because it looks like he's trying to kill himself, like he's trying to commit suicide. [00:43:14] Speaker A: Honestly, it feels like he's a proud warrior. He wants a warrior's death. He wants to take out this bad guy, and he's going to do it at any cost. And if that's at his cost, that's the cost it will be. But it didn't need to happen at he. And maybe that's the thing, is he lives up to his name. He is proud star. He is too proud to work with the rest of the team. [00:43:40] Speaker B: And it says, john well, and we flip the page. John proud star's hands rip deep into the harrier's cockpit. Ravaging control systems, computers, electronic hardware, now usually pretty complementary of Claremont and Cochrane. Right. We don't need that line in there. We need the plane blowing up on this panel. We don't need that. Yeah, because then they see it blow up in the next panel. It's already evident from the page before that something bad is going to happen. The plane should just go up in that top panel, get all that text out of there. You can see it. It's big. We get to show off the art, but they don't need to tell us that he pulled out all the things, because it's a visual medium. [00:44:24] Speaker A: I can understand what you're saying and why you're saying that from a reader's perspective, but I can tell you probably, from their editorial direction, they were probably given. They're probably told to slow the action down and give the spacing to allow for a build up, and they're probably told to let it happen over two panels. [00:44:47] Speaker B: Well, and I will say when we get here, to the reaction from Charles Xavier still telling him, get out. Get out. And the facial expression he has. Right. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:59] Speaker B: And it's like, here's something that I think is key that Cochrane does here with the art. So the explosion happens, and it looks like Charles Xavier's head is also exploding. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Well, honestly, I feel like with his connection, his ability to connect to people telepathically, maybe he had a connection with proud star, and he's feeling all that, everything. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Well, and the plane explodes. Of course, we never see a body, which is always interesting in comics, but I'm just going to gloss over that one for now. I do think the words here were appropriate inside the art. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:37] Speaker B: The scenario ends now, as it began, with the breaking of Charles Xavier's heart and the twisting of his soul. For in the end, he could not desert his people. And all John Prodstar felt, Charles Xavier felt as well, with only one difference. Charles Xavier is still alive. You look back through X Men history, it's honestly not the death of Thunderbird that is the big deal. But it's the fracturing of Charles Xavier's mind in this scene that's the big deal. Yeah, because this is the thing they reference. Now, I'm projecting to the future that we're not supposed to be talking about, but this is the thing that gets referenced over and over and over again. Maybe not even the scene, but even the onslaught stuff, the fracturing of Xavier's mind, the recreation of reality. Right. Like it's his brain not being able to cope with situations like this. And this is really the big start of that. Right. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Because he's constantly and continually opening himself up to this type of thing with every connection he makes and every connection that breaks, not trying to rhyme stuff. [00:46:41] Speaker B: And he's constantly sending kids into war battles. Right. [00:46:44] Speaker A: What? Yeah. [00:46:47] Speaker B: But it's also, to me, it's like a representation of what a general or a colonel might experience. Right. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:56] Speaker B: If you choose to fight a war. Right. And he's fighting a war, so to speak. Right. And obviously, that gets way more played out in the mean. That's like his mind is fractured, literally here. [00:47:11] Speaker A: Definitely. [00:47:12] Speaker B: And Cochrane does an amazing visual representation like that, of the blend of reality and Charles Xavier's psyche in the art. [00:47:21] Speaker A: It's definitely very deep, and it makes you really think about what he's going through with every choice that he. [00:47:38] Speaker B: The. He's thinking about that, too. But the blending between the reality, like this art style, and dealing with Xavier happens again and again and again after. [00:47:48] Speaker A: Mean, because he's living through the experience even though he's not there. He is there. [00:47:52] Speaker B: I'm also going to even make the challenge that I like this better than when the. When he goes to the astral plane or whatever. I like this blend better than when his thoughts separate from the body, if that makes sense, because it makes it real. And the facial expressions are crazy. Yeah. I mean, they're not a Gil Kane facial expression. Right. It's not quite that good. [00:48:15] Speaker A: Not going to Dave Cochrane. It's not Kane. [00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not quite think or. But, you know, the other thing about Cochrane is he's able to do other things that they couldn't. The costume design. [00:48:33] Speaker A: The banff. [00:48:35] Speaker B: Yeah, the banff. Well, I'm sure somebody could have done that. Well, anyway. And then, I don't know. I didn't read on. I obviously know that banshee leaves, but we also get Banshee, the grown up in the group. Right. He's like, I begged, I pleaded, and he wouldn't get off the plane. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:55] Speaker B: And Cyclops is. I know it wasn't your fault. No, of course, Cyclops. It was your fault for bringing. Well, so here's something, too, that I am kind of annoyed. Right. Like, last stay, because this is the last page. [00:49:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:12] Speaker B: So basically, it ends with this Cyclops saying. It comes with the uniform. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:17] Speaker B: I kind of hate that line. Right. But I also like they last issue made this big deal out of him getting hurt in the danger room, and he gets to go on the mission anyway. [00:49:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:27] Speaker B: After, I just thought that he was going to die because of that decision. Right. But no, he just died because he's an idiot or he's mentally ill. Right. He's either dumb. Right. And thinks he's just going to pound on things and break them. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Or to your point, he's suicidal and he goes out in a warrior's death. Right. [00:49:45] Speaker A: I'm not saying he's suicidal. I'm just saying that he thinks that is his answer and the only solution is the solution that makes the most sense to him. [00:50:00] Speaker B: Right. He's so proud, he's so stubborn. [00:50:03] Speaker A: If it means putting his life out there, then he's going to do it. [00:50:08] Speaker B: To prove his point. [00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's frustrating because I can see where he's coming from, but at the same point, I can't agree with it. You can see it, but you don't have to agree with it. It's one of those things. I wish he had more page time. I wish we had more understanding of who he is, more of a character development for him, because I feel like there's a lot there, and it was a wasted character. [00:50:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I do too. Right. That's the other thing about it. He's not in the book long enough for me to care about him dying as a reader. Okay. He dies. So the jerk died. Right. As a reader, I'm like, and he deserved it because he was an idiot. That's the thing. Never reading the story before and just knowing that it happens and the reverence that the character has. Right. And I get there weren't as many deaths in comics then in that. And so I understand some of that piece, and it's jarring. [00:51:20] Speaker A: I wonder if in the time that they, and this is a question, more or less, it's just a question to think about in the time frame in which this was written, do you think that they did this type of story with this character dying and using this character as the one that dies as a. All right, so here is a character that we don't have a lot of connection to. We're going to use it as he's our bad good guy, and this is what's going to happen, and it's okay. And in this time frame, it's okay. I don't think that this type of situation would fly today with this type of character. [00:52:12] Speaker B: No, I don't think it would. Here's the one thing I will say, because I did read the first few pages of the next issue, which we're not going to cover on the podcast, right? Because it's not X cast. If you want to do a second podcast, and we want to cover all the uncanny X Men books from the start to through, I might welcome that, right? I mean, you're going to be here a few years, I would say hilarious. [00:52:42] Speaker A: All of a sudden, there is nothing but people messaging. Yes, we want to hear your hot takes on the X Men. Please do the second podcast about the X Men. Oh, my God. You guys are hilarious. We can't wait. [00:53:00] Speaker B: We have no hot takes on the X Men, and the X Men are one of the most overanalyzed books. [00:53:06] Speaker A: Everything you see is. [00:53:07] Speaker B: I did like in the first few pages of 96, Cyclops is struggling with what happened, so at least there's some reference to it. Also, in the next issue, Banshee is dressed like a caddy. That must have been high fashion for the 70s. [00:53:33] Speaker A: He was hip. [00:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he was hip. [00:53:37] Speaker A: He was hitting the club hip. [00:53:38] Speaker B: To be Square. [00:53:38] Speaker A: He was hitting the club. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Well, anyway. But, yeah, I don't know. I say not my favorite book. Not my favorite book is a single read. So I want to emphasize this, right, because we weren't allowed to talk about the future, right? You heard me, though I get more excited when I talk about what comes out of the book because the Bamp Piece comes out of the. More of. I know Bamp showed up before, but this is like the Banff in growing the evolution of Xavier's character and not just being the guy that pops in to tell them what to do at the end, but the person who's really powerless and actually can't do anything to solve the problem. We get STorM's facial expression and HER SlOw usurpation of Cyclops as the leader, which will eventually happen. We get Colossus being Russian a little bit, and really, we don't get anything out of wolverine, which is fine. Unpopular opinion, I think. I like all the other characters BETtER than WolverIne anyway. [00:54:52] Speaker A: You love all the other Mean, and it's. [00:54:59] Speaker B: Uh. Well, I like WolverIne better than Banshee and ThunDerbird. I just mean of the core, right, of the core characters. It doesn't mean I don't like. And I'm going to be clear, I love Wolverine, right? I don't dislike WOlvErIne. [00:55:12] Speaker A: I saw you with that shirt that got wolverine and a big no symbol like Mr. Yuck or like the ghostbuster thing on it. [00:55:22] Speaker B: You know what? If one of the listeners wants to get me a wolverine with a ghostbuster symbol over him, I'll wear that to a. [00:55:35] Speaker A: Mean, I think it was more Jackman on the front. I don't know, maybe I'm confused. [00:55:40] Speaker B: Anyways, of the core four, obviously, I think you have to like wolverine more later just because he's a BEtter Developed, more developed character. I don't mean that. Then maybe Colossus, right? I think. But I always liked Nightcrawler and STorm More than WolverIne, for sure. Colossus, maybe not. [00:55:58] Speaker A: But ten issues away from this, you get a better built up Wolverine and 20 issues, you're going to get a Wolverine you're going to like. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but as of right now, if I'm picking, I love Storm and I love Storm and Nightcrawler. Right? [00:56:17] Speaker A: They're great. [00:56:17] Speaker B: I love them, they're great. And Colossus, kind of a big Goof Doofus, but he's getting the job done. Wolverine really, again, didn't do anything in this issue. I also think, too, this was probably good for Wolverine because I think building up the other characters first and letting Wolverine grow over time was probably good for the character. [00:56:40] Speaker A: I feel like in this issue, you had to let proud Star, you had to let Thunderbird be Thunderbird. Do Thunderbird, like, Jerk run and have him front and center for that and have Wolverine not be that guy. And then Wolverine steps out and is the Jerk for the next ten episodes or ten issues and fills that spot because like I said, you can't have three jerks in a room. And then who to choose from because Sunfire, Thunderbird, Wolverine. Yeah, it's a tough run. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Well, I mean, and Cyclops. [00:57:18] Speaker A: And Cyclops. Well, I was going to say, and then you had Havoc and Havoc already left, so. I mean, Havoc, yeah. [00:57:25] Speaker B: And now we get, of course, the other fallout of this is we get the dour, grumpy, sad Cyclops for the next 20 years. Oh, woe is me. I'm just not a good enough leader, honestly. [00:57:43] Speaker A: This is the beginning of that, because you had Cyclops where in the beginning he was trying to deal with, oh, I'm the leader, how do I do this? And then he's like, I'm the leader. I know how to do this, and you all have to listen to me. And then this is his big first time out with this group. And then he rolls a two. I would say one, but at least everybody lives. No, they don't. Not everybody. [00:58:19] Speaker B: And it looks like Havoc's back in a couple of issues, too. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, he has to come back because his brother. [00:58:30] Speaker B: It's funny, they both end up leading. Obviously, Havoc leads X Factor a lot of the later X Factor, not the beginning, but. Yeah. Well, this was fun. This is a lot of fun. [00:58:44] Speaker A: I know as much as you dislike certain aspects of it, but it is an interesting thing to discuss. It's an interesting to look back on. And there's a lot there to talk about, in a sense, for comics, for character, for writing, for art. There's so many different facets to the X Men books. And then from just a human perspective, even though it's mutants, obviously it was written because they're dealing with ways that people are different and how we deal with that. But it's easier to put it into mutated people with powers as opposed to talking about people. [00:59:32] Speaker B: Yes, it is. [00:59:33] Speaker A: And you look at it like that and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is what they're talking about. Once you kind of take the layers apart. And, I mean, for me as a kid, I didn't understand it all, but I resonated in a way that I kind of did. And being a mixed ethnic kid that has parents that have different stuff that made them up, and I'm starting to see all these things that make the mutants and stuff. I'm like, oh, wow. You just start to put the pieces together in your own what makes sense for you? And you're like, okay, the world is messed up, the world is different, and these are the things that you need to do to make things better. [01:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and that's also the other peel of the book. Right. But then that's like everything you just talked about is why I thought Count Nefaria was the stupidest villain to start. [01:00:36] Speaker A: I mean, and you take a look at what he did. He took regular people and turned them into animal mutant people things. [01:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah. The themes you're discussing aren't really hit there, right? They're fighting a mustache twirling villain. [01:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Dr. Strange. Not. [01:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, good book. I think we should wrap this one up and we will review something next week. [01:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, I can't wait to review something. I can't wait. I hear something is going to be amazing. [01:01:11] Speaker B: Something is always amazing. You will find out next week what that something is. Maybe I'll even disclose it on, you know what, what we are going to do. [01:01:22] Speaker A: Oh, my Gosh. What are we going to do? [01:01:24] Speaker B: I'm making an executive decision now. [01:01:26] Speaker A: He's doing it, people. He's telling us what it is. [01:01:29] Speaker B: Well, we just read something you read every year, so we're going to read something I read every year. [01:01:37] Speaker A: Oh, snap. [01:01:38] Speaker B: We're going to read the great darkness saga. Legion of superheroes. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Whoa. He's making me read a legion book, people. [01:01:46] Speaker B: And you've never read it? [01:01:47] Speaker A: Never read this. Holy crap. [01:01:50] Speaker B: This is going to take us five to six episodes because we're going to read the main books, but we'll probably read the lead in book so you have a clue what's going on. Okay, so it'll be very similar to what we did here, right? Like, we read the one big book that sets up everything, and then we read the two stories after this. It'll be the opposite, right? This will be like, we'll read a couple of books that lead into it, and then we'll read the story itself. [01:02:12] Speaker A: Okay. [01:02:13] Speaker B: It's going to be fun because you're going to have no idea what's going on, and it's going to make me so happy. [01:02:18] Speaker A: I am excited about this because I like new stuff. [01:02:21] Speaker B: I know you haven't read it before, and it's just like giant size X Men number one. I mean, great darkness saga is pretty much known as something everybody should read. So this is the book that reintroduced dark side back into the DC Universe after Kirby's failed project in the. I'm just stating facts here. I love fourth world stuff, but it was a failed project from a sales perspective. [01:02:51] Speaker A: I was going to say, are we taking a boom tube there? No boom tube. [01:02:54] Speaker B: Well, boom tubes may pop up in this book. Could happen. It'll be a little dark side in the 30th. Oh, spoiler. Maybe I should just cut that out. It shouldn't be talking about some dark side. [01:03:08] Speaker A: Okay, no dark side. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Dark who? Dark what? [01:03:12] Speaker A: Dark what? Dark wing duck. [01:03:14] Speaker B: There I go, spoiling the story for you before we even get going. So you know what? We're going to stop talking before I spoil any more of this story. Of course, putting Darkseid's head on the COVID of the trade may do that, too. [01:03:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's bad move, people. Bad move. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Well, I'll give you not the trade so you can get the original covers, and we'll go from there and. Yeah, that'll be fun. I going to be really happy for the next few weeks. [01:03:40] Speaker A: Me too. I'm excited. [01:03:42] Speaker B: All right, well, on that note, let's wrap this baby up. You have a book that people can buy. [01:03:49] Speaker A: Yes, I have a book that people can buy. You can pre order absolute Zero's camp launch pad. You can go and hit up your local comic book stores, bookstores. You can go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can check out and go look for absolute zeros. Camp launch pad. We'll put a link out there for you, but it is pre orderable right now. It'll be available in March. Mike Tanner and I wrote it and Gabrielle Gomez did the artwork. And if you like summer camp, you like space, you like adventure and awesomeness. Talk about a team book. It's not quite the X Men, but gosh darn it, these kids do some amazing stuff. [01:04:30] Speaker B: And of course, if you order the hardback version of Absolute Zero's Camp launchpad, you will indeed get an MxPx CD mailed to you with the book. [01:04:39] Speaker A: No, you won't. Don't say that. Good Lord. [01:04:43] Speaker B: In fact, when you order absolute Zero's camp launch pad, you will indeed get a scratch and sniff cover that smells like vanilla cupcakes. [01:04:51] Speaker A: No, but if you go to the Einhorn Epic productions website, you can get t shirts and stickers. What the publisher that also smell like vanilla cupcakes. The publisher is actually making t shirts and stickers for this book. So you can go to Camp launchpad with us. You can rep camp launchpad, you can rep absolute zeros, put a sticker on your car computer, whatever you want. [01:05:17] Speaker B: And the publisher, of course is little brown. I have no idea how to buy this at a comic book store yet, but I can give you the link on Amazon where you can pre order it as. [01:05:25] Speaker A: Yes, yes, you can go there. You can grab it. Okay, I'm just going to say right now, my mother in law, an english teacher for many years, when she found out I was doing a book published by Little Brown, she lost her mind because apparently that's a big deal amongst english teachers and the literate. [01:05:47] Speaker B: I don't know, I don't know. [01:05:51] Speaker A: The people who love the books, they're a big deal. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I thought it was a big deal when you told me it. [01:06:00] Speaker A: Is a big deal. Her and my father in law were like, oh my gosh, this is a real big thing. This is amazing. You've made books for the last twelve years, but this is a big publisher of big books, of books that I have bookshelf books on my bookshelf from this. [01:06:20] Speaker B: So they're like, because you haven't published something with a publisher they've heard of, because they don't collect comics, then it's not real until it's published with a publisher that they've heard of that has books with no pictures? [01:06:29] Speaker A: No. Well, I mean, I don't know how to explain. It's like when I got to go take my grandma to Shinyuba and bring her there for the book signing because they carried junior braves. And she was like, oh, my gosh, you have a book in my bookstore. [01:06:52] Speaker B: Yes. Okay, there we go. [01:06:55] Speaker A: It's putting it into a place that you're familiar, right? So this is a publisher. They're familiar with it. Hit them, and they're like, oh, wow. Button. Same thing. When my grandma, when I had a book signing at a bookstore that she actually buys books at, and then she was like, why isn't it in Japanese? I was like, I don't know. [01:07:13] Speaker B: Well, I love that. Why isn't it? She could translate it for you. [01:07:19] Speaker A: Well, we did. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Well, on that note, we are going to wrap up this episode, but you can, of course, always find Greg at the retro Emporium on Meeker street in Kent, Washington. I shouldn't say always because he would be there now, but he's here with me podcasting, so not always, but often. Especially often on the weekends. You could find him there if you want to. You can find me nowhere. [01:07:43] Speaker A: Sometimes you're there. [01:07:44] Speaker B: Sometimes. Generally, I'm a shut in, but for the most part, you might find me at a comic convention someday. So it could happen. But we look forward to you listening to the podcast next week where we get into the great darkness saga. So if you want to pick up the great darkness saga trade paperback or however you want to do that, go ahead and follow right along with us and learn about the books that were published about the legion of superheroes before I got my first legion of superheroes book and already loved it. And when I went back and read that was like, oh, my God, do it. All right, well, we're going to sign off now, and thanks for listening. Bye.