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Bonus Patreon Release: Ursa Major! With Ryan Cady and Justin Wilder! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Great Malkin Lane podcast Patreon channel.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is July 2025 when we are releasing this episode.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So do I tend to be precise?
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this month on the show, it is Colossus Month, which means all the episodes on the main show are about Colossus and all of the Patreon shows are characters who are tangential to Colossus, who we are feeling kind of around this character.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we opened the month with the conversation about Mikhail Rasputin or Colossus's brother.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today we're going to be talking about another Russian mutant that's not Colossus or magic or dark star.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you're like, isn't that all of them?
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, there are many, many more actually.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm talking about Ersum Major, who's one of those characters I feel like everyone's fond of, but no one ever really thinks about.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this character has kind of a crazy story.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am thrilled to be joined by two of my favorite people, Ryan Katie, who wrote Ersum Major in the winter guard series.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: He did a few years back.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of my favorite people on the planet, Mr. Justin Wilder is with us as well.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me have you both introduce yourselves and our opening question for today is, have you ever met a bear in real life?
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a good bear story?
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rankity, I write some comics things.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Have I ever encountered a bear?
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, but there's a very famous incident in my family.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: We were on like a camping trip.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: everybody wanted to go on some dumb little hike except for my own goal on this friend.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so my uncle and his friend stayed behind and like we all gave, we gave them really hard time about it.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: And when we came back like a couple hours later, there were all these other people in our campsite and they were all excited and talking to my uncle and his friend.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: And apparently my uncle and his friend have been playing poker and had just been like so focused and like not paying attention that
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: a bear had like wandered through our camp, like looked around at stuff, and they hadn't noticed until the bear was like fully within like 5-10 feet of them, so we had just come back as they had like the bear had left.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if Park Rage said to do anything about that, but yeah, we just came back to like a big fiasco, and it was one of those things that gets brought up in family lore all the time.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, let me also welcome Justin back to the show.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hi, Justin.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, hey, I'm just a wilder.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am half of the X-wife podcast.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about X-Men comics in the modern era and I got a bear story.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've met a bear.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was four years old and we were at Echo Lake in New Hampshire and we're packing up the car and I, you know, four years old curious walking towards the woods and my parents are like, Just where are you going?
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said that there's a bear.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like, get in the car, what are you talking about?
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like slowly inching towards the bear because all I've ever experienced of bears have been, you know, the poo variety.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or, you know, like, cut a little, totally old, but some fluff, you know, like, these are, when are the poo, these are, these are, you know, different animal characters that talk and are friendly.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they finally acknowledged that I was onto something, they see the bear that I'm seeing.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a full grown mama bear with a little baby bear cub.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have video of this as a comment.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: My dad is like just to get back stop walking towards the band.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, what are you talking about these are friends bears are friends, right?
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm cute Like and and this is this is just near all the campsites near where we're like in the parking lot packing up and they talked about this story for years To the point where like I don't even know if I actually remember it
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: four, you know, or I've just pieced it together based off details and snippets of video recording from other people's stories, but it is, it is the thing that they then quoted as like, okay, we will trust random things that Justin says from now on.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's, you were such an innocent little thing.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, what's what's the meme like about if not friend.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why friend shaped or what?
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: You want to go cuddle that big toe or look and thing.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Come on.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lastly, I'm Chad Anderson.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am the host of the show.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved animals as a kid.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I used to read animal and cyclopedias.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was obsessed with knowing all the facts and like collecting all those like little nature magazines and cards as a kid.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I used to go bird watching when I was like four or five, like I've always been really attuned to nature in that way.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Never run into a bear in the wild.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have seen them in the wild like far far away from like a car in like a national park, but like I wouldn't count it as any sort of encounter.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in Southeastern Idaho, which is where my mother lives, there's about a 40-minute drift from her home.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a place called Bearworld, which is this little kind of odd, you know, you pull off the side of the road and pay 30 minutes or 30 bucks or something and like drive your car around.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: A place where there's a bunch of like bears and different cages and then you can like write a ferris wheel and like drink some hot cocoa like that's the whole place But I definitely have seen some bears there Okay, just we're gonna share some basic opinions on bears.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna see what kind of bear guys you bull are for a minute So Justin black bears or brown bears.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I prefer brown bears
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay Ryan sundayers or moon bears sundayers are moon bears are real thing I know there's a door of all what's the moon bear actually I mean it whole sectors of bear can I can I just do like a one tangent right so moon bears there is a zoo in Rhode Island The Rogerlin Park Zoo where there is a place right next to a moon bear exhibit where you test how far you can jump and then it has markers as to like
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: What animal you can jump as?
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can jump like a moon bear from a stand.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and it's a long jump.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got big legs.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, jack of field all day.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the moon bear has always had like this.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I always had like this idea like live on the moon.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what kind of moon bear?
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like what is that?
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've always wanted to know more about the moon bear.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: A grizzly bear or a panda bear.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, panda bear.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that'd be more chill.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ryan a sloth bear or a spectacle bear.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: Whoa, I don't know what a spectacle bear is.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I'm gonna go with that over a sloth bear because anything that resembles the sloth movements kind of creepy to me.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fair, fair, Justin Yogi Bear or Winnie the Pooh?
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's gotta be Winnie the Pooh.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's fair.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ryan, Blue or Paddington.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Paddington all the way.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Justin, Fazi Bear or Smokey the Bear.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, Fuzzy!
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love Fuzzy Bear.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: These questions are revealing things to myself, just how much they're guy.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ryan and gummy bears or Care Bears.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking 80s cartoons here.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there's a gummy bears cartoon.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god, I've seen a ton of Care Bears, but I didn't know the gummy bears got their own.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have maybe the best cartoon theme song in his song.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Something's here and there and everywhere.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do they get eaten?
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nope.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: They drink juice and bounce around.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's fun.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's awesome.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So care bears for you then.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Care bears for me.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then my last question for both of you, a snowbird turned into a polar bear or a demon bear.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going, uh, we're going X-Men lure here.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which would be prefer.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a pick one.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's probably polar bear.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm, I'm going to go with demon bear.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll go with demon bear.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is kind of a fun topic that we could explore for an hour out of its own is just bears and bears in mythology, bears in movies, all kinds of things.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously there are constellations all around the earth and there are Ursa Major and Ursa Minor and they have their own specific histories.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to delve.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: deep into those today at any great level.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ersum Major is known as the Great Bear, where Ersum Minor is the lesser bear.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are famous constellations that have their own like really extensive history.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're going to talk about the character, Ersum Major.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, was this character, right?
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know you at least have a passing familiar familiarity of a written this character during a particular time in his life.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is a character, either of you were very familiar with.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: What were your thoughts when I first invited you to join this episode?
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, yeah, because of a winter guard, I was excited and really into him and stoked because because of the tales of suspense appearance.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I like when that was coming out, but I love him.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's a hard drink and Russian wear bear.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: What more is there to say?
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so you got him during a time after Jason Aaron had been riding him as this big drunk crazy.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, like just murdering people and drinking bottle.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: We could talk about that, uh, yeah, about the sort of far extreme of of the the drug intensity, but in general, like that, yeah, I mean to him as a character.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: I could I'm excited to do this and talk to him.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: And because the Pattinson movies are really five star film.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is so good.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like him.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had never had to deep a knowledge of or some major previously.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have his action figure and I'm upset that I did not find him for this recording,
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he has a build-of-figure action figure, and I just I love him as a just a humanoid animal with intelligence and strength.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, boom-it-low introduced a whole bunch of new characters from different countries, all through the 1980s when he was in writing incredible whole.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a whole bouncing
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: around Earth teaching Americans that, you know, like people in Arabia are actually human people and whole cops into the middle of like this the Gaza strip between like Israel and and the Palestine and there's like a superhero antics and then he hops over here incredible whole 250 we see a whole bunch of these characters kind of featured on one page and it's over that like next year in the book where we start to see these characters explored in more detail and
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, at this point, obviously, we had Colossus who joined the X-Men in 1975.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also had met the character Darkstar as part of the champions, which we will get to on my show in good time, Darkstar will join us.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are slowly going through those champions issues.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a bunch of characters, like Vanguard, whose Darkstar's twin brother, both of them are mutants.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's been Russian stuff all over Marvel Comics right from the beginning, ranging from characters like the Abomination to Blackwell.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: widow to crimson dynamo and titanium man.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of stories through the 1950s about communist being the worst possible villains for every person to fight.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a bunch of to us stories in like the 1960s where our heroes are fighting
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the iron curtain and the red this and like all these like secret agents from Russia trying to steal plans right Captain America's super soldier serum had that German guy hiding But when we jump up to the 1960s the Hulk had the like Russian spy hiding in the room So there's these stories have changed throughout the portrayal and Claremont with Colossus and so a few other characters being introduced at the time kind of changed the narrative where we're starting to see the Cold War discussed in different kinds of details
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously the country still has a very complicated relationship with Russia and has and Russia has gone through a lot of changes over the years and one of the interesting things to line up But we won't go into extreme detail on this show, but listen to the other shows for more of this is as American understanding of Russian politics and presentation changed our comics changed along with them Which always leaves us to have these stories about different Russian tropes explored with different types of sensitivity as time goes by
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The mutant race across Russia is another really interesting thing.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are stories of mutants being experimented on and dumped into pits.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have stories about mutants being recruited as secret agents.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also have stories about defectors, people who run away from Russia and try to go to other places for quote unquote a better life.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Colossus is kind of a defector when you look at it this way.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's recruited by Xavier and he leaves.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what about those mutants that stayed?
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ursa Major's one of those characters, who met Lewis exploring some of that concept as he introduces this character alongside Vanguard and Darkstar as kind of the trio that we see most often explored together.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in incredible hopefully, 258 and 259 is where we're gonna start our discussion today.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have Bill Mettlow and Steven Grant with Solbyshema here and it's 1981.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: That expector annual I reference with the body pits doesn't get introduced until 1986.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a conflict happening during this time where Russia has invaded Afghanistan.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's an occupation that lasted about 10 years.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to like help a communist take over of the entire country.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of a complicated thing to throw your heroes in the middle of but again, Matlow did that across this whole run of Hulk comics telling very complex world stories with the very child like Hulk in the middle.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: When does first blood come out?
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, I don't know the year.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right, cause I'm like, I'm immediately thinking of the brave Mujahadian fighters of Afghanistan.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to talk about the Mujahadian?
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, 82.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, I'm 1882, yeah.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so a while, looking at four, four, five years.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, no, 81, duh.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this predates.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right around the same time, okay, interesting though that that so it's like clearly like on the I was just sort of thinking about that as I was like getting ready and reading through notes I'm like, I wonder if like is this responsive at all or no it predates that so you could also If you want to research experiment, just look at the history of Russia as portrayed in movies in Hollywood over the decades It's a fascinating thought experiment that I don't have time to go into today.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not interesting
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, one of my housemates is always kind of jokingly.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's always like, oh, good.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: The Russians can be bad guys again.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: American media makes sense and he'll sort of just say that sometimes.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to take some detail to explore Earth's major here in this first appearance, especially.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll summarize some of the other stuff and kind of hit the main themes.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in this first one, it's a really fascinating story.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: On the cover, we see a giant bear man holding the Hulk Bible for this arms.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a bear hug.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna have lots of bear jokes to make guys.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: The crimson dynamos punching the Hulk and the stomach, dark star, and vanguard are there with their hammer and their sickle.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are the symbols of Russia's like different working classes.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like working together, the hammer and the sickle get used in several different types of superheroes.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But our yelling, you may be the strongest one there is Hulk, but there is more than one of the Soviet super soldiers.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Hulk lands in the Nouriston Province and it province in Afghanistan and he sees a man with a gun who looks like he's in shock.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: The narrator tells us, the horrors of war can so filament with terror that he's incapable of feeling any further fear.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Afghani rebel has seen his village destroyed, his family killed, his country overrun, he has no terror left.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then a group of Russian soldiers open fire on the Hulk.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's explosive shells outlawed by the Geneva Accords erupt from the muzzles of the Soviet soldiers
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Russian commander calls for help.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Da, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta,
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a new soldier to add their rank.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So these are previous sea established characters.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the new character is a guy named Major Mikhail Ursus.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Ursus Major, his last name is Ursus.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Mikhail's kind of like the Russian version of Mike or Michael.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you know, Michael there.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: basically his name.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Nail or so, he walks in in fatigues, he's a soldier, Vanguard, and Dark Star Recognizing, because they'd grip together.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll learn shortly.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: In order to prove his strength to the Crimson Dynamo, he turns into a berry, Rips out of his clothes.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: What manner of man are you, Shouts to Crimson Dynamo?
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am, it's a major, the man bear.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so this man's basic super power is to turn into a bear, which is delightful.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have our characters that turn into things,
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Rainson Claire into her wolf form, et cetera, but he's this is a big-a-wool bear and it's cute I mean, so what a dynamic way to introduce yourself to like unassuming I'm just gonna walk into this meeting everybody else knows me and what I can do except for this one guy mouth and off And I'm gonna teach him what's up.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do my super cool transformation ripped through my clothes incredible Hulk style and then I'll be naked later on But it doesn't matter because I've impressed everyone in this room to see
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: the physical strength that I have in this form.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love transformation powers, especially when it's just, I don't know what I call it ridiculous, but it is just like, it's just so much fun to see him transform into this giant creature before you, and then rage out in this conference room.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is this briefing room.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things we are going to just announce first off this character is not well explored psychologically, but we've seen their complex relationship rain has with her like human form versus wolf form versus you know that hybrid halfway form you don't know if this guy's mindset changes he certainly seems more ferocious as a bear sometimes, but we have never really had his psychology explained very much nor the limits of what this power looks like.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: but he's a super strong like Hulk's strength level bear, which is amazing, at least some of the times, sometimes he's not quite that strong.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they end up in the forbidden zone.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is basically the Chernobyl story again, stay tuned for the episode that coming out on the show later this month, all about the presence in Starlight.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: The presence is a guy named Sergey Krylov who basically set off Chernobyl.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: and turned into a big radioactive guy.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: He then raped Celidi and makes her his wife.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a rough story.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Stay tuned.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It turns out this is Darkstar and Vanguard's dad.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's kind of a major bad guy and I'm a little fond of him, but he's also the worst.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So again, we'll save a lot of our thoughts for that particular episode.
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they're in the forbidden zone where it's super radioactive, and they have sent the mutants in after the Hulk.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, there's somewhat expendable basically.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Hulk walks in on the presence in Starlight, quote, commuting in indescribable ways, which means they're like radiation-fucking.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, to slowly, super soldiers arrive, and the Hulk is so mad at the Russians for speaking a Russian in Russia.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Darkstar keeps the teammates shielded from the radiation.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, also the Crimson Dynamo has an electro thrust beam, which is fun.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when the others are suddenly defeated, or some major enters the frame, he's clearly in charge of his bare form.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like super smart, it seems, a whole-calls him hairy, man, and or some major gets to say, power to the proletariat.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Hulk is half my size, but more than 10 times is strong.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: What could create such a creature?
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: The proletariat, do you guys remember that one time, arcade turned Colossus into like, oh, you're kidding.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: That means like, oh, a hero in the working class.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, stay tuned for the classes.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it like the overall jumpsuit, the sexy Tom of Finn and like shirtless overall look.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I love it too.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the presence attacks in a reverts Hulk and or some major into their human forms with a radio act burst.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mother Russia, Santa gay superseded my sheep shifting power with about a thug.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We jumped to 259, where the presence in Starlight of Left, Mikael is thrilled to see the man who had once raised him there among them.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: His name is Professor Piotr Fobos.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: His last name is Fobos.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: One is Ursus and one is Fobos.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he has telepathy and telekinesis and force blasts.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we get the big origin story.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was head of the Ultra-Secret Soviet Research Project called the
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: super soldier school.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It began one winter's night in Moscow 19 years ago.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Members of KGB delivered two mutant infants to Professor Fobos, who already had a seven-year-old Mikhail living there.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: The children are mutants, and the KGB soldier says they deserve to be destroyed as the devils they are.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: A little classes and lyricism, you know.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: All mixed in.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, phobos says these children are a vital importance to the Soviet Union.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are never to be harmed.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you understand never and phobos makes the KGB men scream in pain and then the seven-year-old boy changes to a bear and chases them out.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Baby, baby or some major?
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: These children were mutants, not the first to be born in Russia, but the first to survive the Stalinist suspicion of the Soviet state apparatus.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rumors of similar gifted children, being born in America, had prompted the authorities to re-evaluate their powerful prodigies, and to train them in the service of the state for 16 years, such as my task and my triumphs.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is a weird version of like the Xavier school.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have like the secret school for mutants run by this guy named Professor Fobos, who's also a telepath.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an interesting thing to consider already.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Their state agent mutants being raised.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which that kind of threw me, I mean, this whole layers of reveal on who this guy is and how he's, you know, like at first I was rooting for him.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, this Professor X, take notes.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is how you do it.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: You gather them, you teach them all to stuff and then you just disappear, right?
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because things got crazy.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then like the layers,
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: because we're getting there.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like, okay, but this is almost seemingly kind of like what would have happened if Colossus had not left or if they'd known he was immediately earlier on, right, which is interesting.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, well, the narrator tells us about the three Nikolai, Karelenko, your powerist, that's Vanguard.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your powerist to turn an enemy's might back against him.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: These symbols of the state, the hammer and the sickle, will help you focus that power as Vanguard, and that's the name that Professor Fobos gives him in the past.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lady of Petrovna, the Dark Force you possess is some alien manifestation of your consciousness, with this dark star you can control it, and he gives her her crystal.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And your shape-changing power is complete unto itself, Mikhail Arsus.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: As the oldest I give you, or some major, the gift of leadership,
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I must go away and then he continues that night.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I fled my school burning all my notes.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: All my observations about my gifted students and vanished into the frozen waste of Siberia.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Cersus, why did you flee abandoning us as our real parents had done so many years before?
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: reigns of state power had changed hands to our star mutants were feared, but more feared was the man who controlled them.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would have killed me, or worse, force me to manipulate you to do their will.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would not betray your trust in me that way.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: In hiding, I learned that at first they sought to slay you.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they split you up, drafting Vanguard and Arsa Major, and sending Dark Star to America under the watchful eye of the Crimson Dynamo.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the champion storyline.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now they have seen fit to allow you to regroup to fight a menace.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: They regard as more than a threat than mutant kind.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The forbidden zone is like we wanted to kill you, but now we can use you to solve our problems.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So come on back.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we can send you into radioactive zones to fight radioactive supermillions.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the mutants lose their powers briefly.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: They attack the presence, Mikhail risks himself to protect Vanguard, who he calls his brother.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fobos finds a way to drain energy from Red Guardian and the presence to power themselves up.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: A Red Guardian is a lady who is a doctor and a superhero, who basically got mine controlled into submitting herself to the radioactive treatment.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now she's like a captive rape victim, that the presence is just keeping, again,
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a rule.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's draining their power and then whose aims are now what they have ever been to steal power from others and use it to attack the Soviet state So this is very agithaharkness like taking all the powers from all the witches Photos cause himself a power parasite for years is dean of the super school for super soldiers I secretly drain the mutant abilities of my students to cybernetically create my own artificial mind powers
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: For years or some age, a van guard, dark star, and those other mutant children who did not survive the rigors of their training added to my powers.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so this man is eating mutants basically.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's some sort of crazy human vampire guy.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just like a roller coaster of reactions.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, this guy's cool.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like what he's doing.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to protect these kids.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh no, shoot, he sucks.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like he sucks the whole time.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's just been doing all these secret things and pulling powers from them, using them entirely.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now he's got all this radiation.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's brimming with power and he turns to his students.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: The incredible irony of it all is that I, a non-button with stolen power, she'll preside over the eradication of an entire family of true mutants and then he drops the truth bomb because the presence is the father of Vanguard and Darkstar, Dump, Dump, Dump, Dump, Dump.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got it, we're gonna skip over that piece for now, but it's another giant revelation.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Hulk returns back or Ursa Major is back, they've transformed Ursa Major's as welcome back Greenskin.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sergei has kept his promise.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now it falls to you and me to save humanity.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hulk does not understand bad man's growls, but Hulk knows who Hulk must smash, and they jump on and Ursa Major is fighting his old professor.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You forget professor, you never gave Ursa Major a gift by which you could control him as you did Vanguard and Dark Star.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yours is the ability to manipulate human minds, professor.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the hoax in mind, while I inhabit my man bare form, are too beastial for such manipulation.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the presence in Red Guardian disappear in the radiation, full of those gets defeated.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now they are back.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they are continuing to realize that they have to act as superheroes.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they've also lost trust in the state now.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can never trust the state again.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look what they did to our upbringing.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: We relied to our whole lives.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ursula says the teacher was is finished.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: The cybernetic armor he wore is totally destroyed.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: He could not use it to boost his artificial powers any further.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: He will stand trial for threatening the Soviet Union and for bringing about the deaths of Sergei and the Red Guardian.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, Ryan, how is this kind of an odd parallel to the X-Men reality when it's truncated into two issues?
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's a weird allegory for the X-Men.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly what Justin's been saying.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like the whole time going through I was like damn like okay Even in the 80s they were like showing the nuance of like the Soviet approach There's something going on here.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe photos is interesting.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe there's some critique of Charles and it's like oh no He was just a bad guy the whole time and it was a bummer but it's interesting to fall into that It to me there was a moment where I was reading where I was like wait is this really really smart is this like a
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: really really clever like full-scale inversion and like, you know, flip of the X, you know, Xavier's school.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: But no, he's just some jerk with like incredible technology that allows you to steal mutant powers.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, truly it is sort of just like a whammy of like, oh, but what I took away for this a lot is that like, this is Vanguard and Darkstar's narrative forever, even leading up to to my series where it's like these two characters.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Their whole thing is to be like, we can never trust the state.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: proceeds to which is again you know the mutant we can we have to be better than humanity gets played humanity judges them over and over again now and this is a united states in Russia have their own complexities but in Russia one of the primary mindsets i i know there's a lot of variable opinions of course kind of the communist ideal is that you give white of yourself to the state and you hope that the state is not corrupt right
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: In America, it's all about personal profit.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Capitalism is very different.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have that kind of 1% Russia still has oligarchs and still has kind of controlling interests and fake elections, etc.
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you know, it's kind of a we share and whatever resources you have you give.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Colossus leaving is sometimes seen as like again, defection or selfishness, where surrendering to the state is the thing you have to do.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's these stories of rebellion along the way.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a really interesting story as well because we open on that afghani soldier.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: where we're learning to have compassion for like a Middle Eastern man and we're like recognizing this is complicated.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then we jump to Russia, where we see different agents, one is a villain for one reason, one is a villain for another, but it's all about bigotry in both cases.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So smartly written by Bill Mantlow, we'll be talking more about some Bill Mantlow stories in the next couple of months on my show.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, or some of you just shows up in a bunch of background things, we're not going to cover every appearance of his, but let's jump to another kind of surprising mutant story over in ROM space night, 45 and 46.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Justin, have you read much of ROM?
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of shocking X-Men content in the series.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, only what's been, you know, collected and reprinted, there was a kind of a perfect bound thing that came out a year or so ago with a bunch of X-Men stories.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, not to keep on bringing up action figures, but I just got a ROM space night,
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's what I'm about.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even just how threaded the dire rafes are throughout this two-issue story and beyond for most of what seems to be what Rob's focus is and how often that aim into Claremont's run later on in around what like Ford was there.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of interesting connections that I didn't realize were there and was exciting to experience.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Rahm is an alien space knight.
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a superhero.
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's on earth because an alien shapeshifting race called the dire rates is all over the earth.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's like dark sorcerers and they have a bunch of creepy weapons and they're posing as people.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: They basically like, it kind of warwolves style.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you know the warwolves, they like eat your brain and then take on your form.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is kind of what you need here.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rahm is one of those characters that Marvel no longer owns.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: The licensing for the dire rates in Rahm were like a big deal for a bunch of years.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's some really fucking great.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rahm stories.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Justin tells him about wrong 4546 cover.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean we're talking about it as a major bare-hugging rum.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had gotten involved in some stuff in Russia involving the Gremlin who had taken over the forbidden zone and devastator and the Soviet super troopers died there on a mission.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the KGB director
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: to go in and they have feelings.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Vanguard, the thing, does the arrogance of the state no-know-bounds come?
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Red, you dare ask our help.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You who fear our power so much that you have already tried to destroy us, which just feels like so much of this manipulation, control, we're trying to
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Use your powers, we're trying to take your powers, we're just trying to roll everything our own dark star.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: The state fears us, my brother, because it cannot control us, but it is not the state we have pledged ourselves to serve.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is Russia, or it's a major thing that dark stars correct Vanguard, if the motherland is in peril, we must respond, and they agree to go, which I feel like, you know, I appreciate the self-awareness that these characters have in this complex,
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: struggle of, are we being used?
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are we being utilized?
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are we fighting for what's right?
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, there's this sense of responsibility to their people, to their country, to the motherland.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is very much a thing we say, who seek losses out loud a bunch of times.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and Black Widow even sometimes, the idea that I don't trust the state, but I'm going to represent the ideals, and I'm going to serve the people.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me pause you for a moment.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a character called the Gargoyle, who's a super famous, well, famous, historically long, like he has a long history of marble.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Gargoyle is Yuri Topalov, who's like the first guy that ever fights the Hulk.
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: He gets mutated by radiation at like a Michel's site and then he gets shrinked into this like little pink mutated like diminutive dude.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the gene is intellect and he's the guy that sent the spy to steal the secrets of the Gamma bomb.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he fights the Hulk.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: He commits suicide.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he also somehow mutated his son Kondrothi Topalov to look just like him.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Kondrothi is sometimes called a mutant, sometimes not, which is an interesting thing.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Condrotti calls himself the Gremlin.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for X-Men fans, this is the guy that builds himself to titanium man armor during X-Men versus Avengers, which we'll talk about in a little picture, like Roger Box in the box uniform, right?
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the little guy inside the big suit.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now he's trying to take over Russia, and that's who they're here to fight.
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a bunch of other space nights.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It gets a little bit complicated.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me turn it back over to Justin.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, complicated to say, at least of just the fact that they are, you know, they're trying to protect
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: the base infiltrate the base, take down the Gremlin, and then they discover what's really going on in here and that it's all taken over by the dire rates and potentially the entire state and the corruption that's been manipulating us is an effect after these aliens that, you know, are we on the side of Rome now, are we like this, this constant struggle for
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: for Ursa Major as a character and these group of heroes quote unquote like what are we what are we to ourselves to our state like are we trying to save people are we just do in the mission and and who's calling that shot I just I felt like that was a lot of the the complexity between them uh I love the the subtext as they're fighting and the fact that rom is speaking English and the that just that just flips them all out the way way you you speak English like why is this this
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: general confusion from ROM and this dead set belief that these guys must all be dioraves.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that Ursa Major doesn't get completely distracted by this super fight with with ROM and I'm sorry.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't remember what it was.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Star shine.
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Star shine is here.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I like.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, I think just star shine.
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Who are these?
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm confusing them already.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, Sterlite is what a red guardian the presence his wife eventually just came into.
• 31:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, sorry, it's confusing.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I mean, I do have to give a shout out to her some major for not getting completely distracted by this fight.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were sent here to take down this guy and he's running away.
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go do that job.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he just like bucks off and goes and chases the little guy that's trying to get away.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: During the fight, he's following Gremlin into a dire faith base and found it overrun by Albino Hellhounds.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He stumbles out horrified by the terrible experiences.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've been experimenting on innocence inside.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a war crimes thing.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's horrible.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and just the weight that he's carrying as he comes back, he changes back in his human form just days overwhelmed, hellhounds of the dark nebula just grow off and we have this wild battle, you know, he loses it in his bare form and you gotta give us the starvation.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so good.
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The snarles of beast and man beast intermingle leaving a blood-red trail in his wake Major Ursa surges forward through a crimson animalistic haze There is no escaping his fury as ten tons of man bare seeks to prove a point
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: and men are like revealing the horrible dire rates that had been posing as the humans all along.
• 32:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the dire rates are here.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have to learn that the space nights are basically good people and like team up to defeat the aliens basically.
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Gremlin ends up joining the Soviet super soldiers as the end because it turns out he is kind of on their side.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he understands what it's like to be immune because he's also a freak or a deformity he says.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, oh I
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in, I'll do it.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's on the team now.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, it's cool to see and it's something, especially in the, the first couple of issues with Hulk to see the logic, the reasoning, the heart that versus able to have combined with his strength, right?
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: To be able to, to reason through what's going on, what's happening and, and to,
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: at the same time, Hulk out for lack of a better term, and really thrash in his full strength.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he's getting to see the terrors that are happening.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's being emotionally affected, but that doesn't, he's switching back and forth between man and bear, man, bear, pig, and you know, I think he's talking about every time I read man.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, like you're saying like he doesn't get to like leave it with the Hulk, you know like even in like a sad boy ban or kind of way like he doesn't get to leave with the Hulk at all He's he's a little bit Earth's Mikhail when he's in bare form and he's a little bit bare when he's in Mikhail form thinking about his memories.
• 34:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's it's heavy
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot to reckon with.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a complicated story that a lot of characters running around.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're kind of picking the Ursa out of it, of course.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's kind of intense for sure.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see Ursa back, and you can kind of see, again, what Matt Lewis tried to do with this, because a few issues later, we see Ronald Reagan in number 53, making a public announcement that alpha flight and the Soviet super soldiers are like working with all of Earth's heroes and America to fight against the dire rates.
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's this like, we're the world thing.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, everybody worked together so we can fight the real threat.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: on the way, but also he has a Reagan saying this with fun, which fuck that guy.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Roger Stern gives us X-Men versus Avengers 1 through 4.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not the giant X-Men versus Avengers event from the early 2000s that went on for 700 issues.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Justin, had you read this series before?
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have this series for whatever random reason in my back issues.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so I had read it, but it's honestly just kind of a clusterfuck of all the people that you could put in a comic.
• 35:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like X-Men, Avengers, and then we're throwing in these Soviet super soldiers and just chaos.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, three teams, nobody wants to work with anybody, everybody wants to fight.
• 35:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody trusts mutants.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, when a train derailed in Russia, Ursa Major Vanguard, Darkstar and Gremlin, who now is wearing the titanium man suit, respond.
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ursa Major gets to pick up a whole train, which was just dope to see.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the Crimson Dynamo shows up to ask for their help with an international problem.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're sent to capture Magneto, which I just, you know, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt as they're trying to search for are we heroes or we villains, but issue one, death to Magneto, I'm out.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry guys, but Magneto's the goddamn hero.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean?
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: If anything from this series, it's giving me new appreciation for Dr. Druid and put him on the map because, oh wow, he's terrible.
• 36:03
  [UNKNOWN]: Oh, sure, sure.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: know that this is the only experience that I've had with him.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to see what he's able to do to dark star and to manipulate her to take down all of her comrades?
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, do you know the character Necra?
• 36:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, the late 90s.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Necra comes back from the dead and burns Dr. Druid's corpse in a trash can.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jesus, he's a really terrible character.
• 36:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's all you need.
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So throughout this all crimson down to most furious and wants to go after the Avengers, I mean, they've obviously they've gone mad, they're supporting mutants.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you talking about, bro?
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are mutants.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is exchange of just the realization of like, oh, I'm sorry.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mean like those mutants.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just meant that.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... the crimson dino trina save it and it no urgent not at all i merely meant that the Avengers aided the kind of outlaw scum who are responsible for the world might and time you madness of which we are all victim trina saved in the end uh... he's reminding them
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: of all the evil things that Magneto has done, quote unquote, including sinking the Leninguard, the Sylvie Super Soldiers and Crimson Dynamo go after the X-Men on a freighter, looking for Magneto and another huge fight breaks out.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: This time, her son Major gets to throw some punches at Storm and he falls into the water and she Hulk and Havick helped rescue him.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: He switches to his naked human form as they hoisted him out.
• 37:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She helped definitely take it a look.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like the smirk that she has on the panel and just like, oh, yeah, you're very vulnerable now.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's drawn really hot in his human form.
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not into the bear form.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's...
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I loved his genuine surprise and delight of being helped by these heroes.
• 37:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: These people that I like, you know, he is presumed to be against but he's struggling, he's not going to drown and she Hulk and havoc are like, no, we are going to save you.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: The bashful look of she Hulk when he's naked
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: the bad guy or some major is now back into vague unnotaratory of my hero and my villain and I just doing what I feel like I should at this moment.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, another story we have American sanctioned superheroes, American mutant superhero as well.
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an international group, of course.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the Soviet team, which is a mix of mutants and humans, where there's one corrupt villain among them,
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Ryan, will you take a send a cap to 50 or 350 to 353 because, uh, Ursula defects?
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, um, this is actually like a really kind of fun issue to read.
• 38:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, it opens with kind of the themes you've been talking about.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: The our big three Vanguard Darkstar and Ursum Major.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, they teleport to Avengers Island with the goal to defect.
• 38:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: and like kind of again sort of like reflecting these things you've been talking about the these are the people or at least the heroes who talk about like you know like who are like about the people and the vision and not not the government but of course in typical comic book fashion they have terrible timing they show up right as speedball battle acts blue shield and um is that they make a mecha marauder?
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: yeah
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say this is like the third time I've ever seen that guy He's traditionally just a joke right like African America's auditioning Avengers One of them is feedball one of those battle acts like this is crazy.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know what looks okay like battle X has some good points
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, and Battle X is the one who gets Urs of Ageer like pinned in like the whole, like she's because she's a wrestler, um, but like that also this issue, I don't want to, I want to talk about the issue really quick, but you know, the Urs of Ageer's bare form is depending on like obviously it's, it's very rarely just like a hundred percent bare, but depending on who is drawing him the degree, the ratio of man to bear and whether he looks kind of like Pooey in the face, they're just seeing Battle X pinned him.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was just sort of picturing Urs of Ageer.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: major as a professional wrestler with it just like the crap, especially some of the earlier pedals, well they'll do reactions shots of him and they've had to give him like a very human reaction with his bare face.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, oh, but anyway, very quickly after that, you know, things work out and it turns into a beautiful sort of air and sork and ask political thriller.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: where cap is sort of understandably skeptical, many sort of sitting them down at Avengers Island.
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, before I speak with the State Department about your request for political asylum, I need to know a little more about your reasons for wanting to defect.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: When last we met, after all, you were working for the Soviet government itself.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Really quick, sorry if I can ask, where are we on like no mad?
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Genuine, I was like, my first thought.
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, does he get this at all in character or no mad is okay.
• 40:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I'll be really quick here.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Erica and Bucky disappeared at the end of World War II at World War II right in the 1950s Marvel published a bunch of Captain America, Connie smasher comics and it's Captain Bucky like punching comics and being like kind of racist and awful.
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a story told later where they're trying to clean up the continuity.
• 40:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those weren't really a cap and bucky.
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, there's been a couple of replacement cap and bucky's along the way.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: This bucky, the 1950s Tommy Smasher won.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: His name is Jack Monroe, and he gets put into stasis.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He later comes back and becomes the superhero, Nomad, who Fabi Niseza writes through a bunch of 90s stories, and then turns him into the scourge, who is like the assassin in the Thunderbolts.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this character has a long history, but he's always kind of homophobic and awful and a little misogynistic, but his 90 series as no mad, where he's like the Lorenzo Lomus, like long hair trench coat with the baby on his back.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, series.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, same character.
• 41:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Interesting, okay, okay, cool.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: But okay, so Cap is understandably skeptical, even though he's basically done the same thing a few times.
• 41:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, Vanguard, who is in this instance acting as Russia's cap is like, hang on, let me put my American propaganda Russian accent on.
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: We are heroes of the Soviet people, Captain, not the Soviet government.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: From time to time, the governments and the people's interests were one and the same.
• 41:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, Dark Star interrupts, I'm going to drop this accent already.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: She's like, in which case we'd allow ourselves to be persuaded to work under the directives of the Kremlin, and Ursa Major always comes in with his like, justifiable rage.
• 42:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: She's like, but after we rendered our services, they would not let us be.
• 42:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: They tried to coerce us into enlisting in the state's super soldier team.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ah, it was a mistake to come here.
• 42:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: An arch-American like him will never trust a Soviet.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: We'll but persecute that here is in the motherland.
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have a mind to reassume my bear's form and walk right out.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: But you're like, I'm just picturing him like, bro, you're out of adventure's island like where you can.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a adventure.
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Also, really quick, Vanguard has a wild outfit.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Dark stars outfit basically is unchanged.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's always perfect, but Vanguard looks kind of like Captain Sunshine from the Venture Bros right now.
• 42:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll do the trials of Dark Star and Vanguard one day on my show, I promise.
• 42:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
• 42:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Or so major though, most importantly, for this whole scene and most of this issue is just wearing a reddish brown bath.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is just like because he was in bare-forbodies naked.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's just like walking around and like a low cut, very late 70s early 80s bathrobe.
• 42:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so he, you know, he's like fired up, it was a bit to come here on Vanguard, you know, kind of gets him to calm down as they're negotiating with Cap.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Cap is basically just like, you know, that they're sort of pleading.
• 43:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Darkstar is like, let me impress one thing upon you, Captain.
• 43:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: We love our country.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: We did not want to leave, but the Cremlin was marshalling ever greater forces for our capture.
• 43:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: How could we, how much could we accomplish this heroes if the greatest portion of energies was devoted to alluding the authorities?
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so, you know, Cap is sort of sympathetic, but he says they're sort of confined to quarters as he goes to investigate and talk to the state department.
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they're speaking asylum, right?
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you're trying to follow the rules.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: There is something interesting though about Captain America as this sort of complicated sometimes rule breaker and how much he's like, we got to do this really by the book guys.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is huge.
• 43:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so he leaves the line in Avengers Mansion and he basically just watched TV.
• 43:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: They rake in once again, Rears his ugly head.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: There is a truly horrific panel where it absolutely looks like they were using the rubber masks from Point Break as reference.
• 43:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: for Reagan kind of like talking on TV.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Vanguard just kind of like trying to keep spirits up by joking that Crimson Dynamo used to do an impression of him, but like, you know, Mikael Ursa is like justifiably like really pissed.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, ah, we should not have come here.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: What he's like hearing Reagan, you know, like shit talk.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: he picks up a chair, he's like the over-weaning presumption of the superiority of the capitalistic system, and rage is me, and he tries to break the TV, he inventor fighting, and then cop walks in, and immediately it's like very zaney and funny of the time, they like have a reaction shot and set the chair down and act like they weren't fighting at all on everything's fine, and they're not a mad at Reagan.
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Regarding the over-weaning presumptions of capitalism, I'm there with you, so I hear you, buddy.
• 44:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, over-weaning.
• 44:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Truly, I really do love his rage here.
• 44:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's something I love about the characters that, like, in Justice, just pisses him off and he, you know, as we'll talk about later, because he was raised in the woods slash by an evil professor, he is sort of like, not patient about this shit, like bureaucracy sucks, which is interesting for Russian character.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then, yes, a cap shows up.
• 44:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: They talk on and cap takes the trio to the Avengers training quarters to see their powers in action, a bench Iron Man vision and Thor, and a deadly battle rages.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: It like very quickly goes wrong, and their fighting Iron Man vision and Thor, or some ageer gets like punch, Thor is like,
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: holds barred, cap is doing a lot of really weird flips.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a truly spectacular panel where cap finishes doing a front flip and he has a hammer in one hand, a sickle in the other, and like a kind of evil grin.
• 45:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Very quickly after that, Darkstar Vanguard and Ursa Major realize that it's not the Avengers at all.
• 45:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's the supreme Soviets in disguise.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: So Crimson
• 45:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a new team of state sanction heroes sent to America in disguise as the Avengers to get the The mutant heroes who are trying to defect back.
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: It is kind of flimsy like logic wise You kind of like wait what but luckily like dark stars able to realize what's going on and more in them pretty quickly But they you know, they do get knocked out at the end
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Supreme Soviet team, very quickly, not to be confused with the Soviet superstars and the good super soldiers from earlier.
• 45:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are the Supreme Soviets.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got Dmitry Bukarin as back as the Crimson Dynamo, Perlun, who is the literal Slavic God of Thunder is here Joseph Petkus as the new Red Guardian.
• 46:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's again, Anna Toli.
• 46:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: who got changed into alien technology into kind of like a vision like Synthesoid.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's originally called Sputnik, which is the Russian word for satellite, but later changes his name to Vostok, which means east.
• 46:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: As in other words, the opposite of the west.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So these are all state superheroes.
• 46:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the pyramid around Perron is the only one of these who really has extreme, like these are all new, except for the fact that Perron will continue to show up a bunch, and he's still Perron.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like these are all like...
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's also free entasmat.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I forgot the entasmat.
• 46:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm glad you run a fed tasmat.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has not as a sexy magic lady who's like nearly naked and later, later, later, later, much later continuity reveals that she's really a sorceress, dire-raith, posing as a witch with amnesia, it wasn't her fault though, right?
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: She had, and I hate to, as usual, defend an evil woman, but I can't help myself.
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, she had amnesia, right?
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, she didn't necessarily know she was a dire-raith.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: She was doing her best for the Soviet state.
• 47:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Her slutty best.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: She is serving in certain ways, and I appreciate it.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: So yes, she's she's there in response cap for the next issue goes to Russia In a nice switcheru is there's like a cap calls it an Ebony monstrosity Ebony creature excuse me there is a like Moscow is just being attacked by
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kind of cool looking like dark energy blob.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It has like red eyes and big things and I guess you could argue that it looks like a bear It has bear qualities you might say and so that is sort of like the ongoing background trouble like caparives and beats it up
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it disappears.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: So he's sort of a trouble with Moscow.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then like a lot of it is him interacting with the Supreme Soviet.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I almost forgot which ones we were on.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like some really fun stuff with like with the parade and like the Russians rolling at the pump and circumstance and cap kind of like this weird mix of like him like being friendly toward Vanguard and kind of like posturing.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: But he ends up helping the sprue Soviets.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're fighting this bear as it attacks again.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the bear is sort of like trying its focused on the sprue Soviets.
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: It seems almost disinterested in cap.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he sort of like sinks into it.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like a lot of kind of trippy, like psychedelia stuff.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're basically inside this energy bear.
• 48:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Our big three, our Vanguard Darkstar at Ersa Bager.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: And they are sort of in sort of ethereal forms like projecting this bear.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: to sort of get vengeance and are sort of attacking and fighting.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so Cap goes, he gives a marvelous cap speech and sort of like helps them realign with their heroic ethics as his sort of caps role.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then at the end of the issue, you know, caps back in America, you know, Darkstar Vanguard and Ursar waking up.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: And they're like, oh, we had this crazy dream, this crazy dream that we, we made an energy pair and attacked our and got revenge.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not sure if their powers should work that way.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like an odd mutant circuit, right?
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a team called Team America.
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a bunch of motorcycle guys when they combine all their minds together.
• 49:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can create this like, you know, crazy agent.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like very power-rangers-y, which are sort of odd mutant circuit.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like they combine like Vanguard repels other powers, right?
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or some majors of bear and then Darkstar like feeds on that and manifests it as this giant bear.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of cool what you think of it that way, actually.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, I do like it and it does it does make sense in that like if we were thinking about teams working in sync They could do that.
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, she's got the dark force.
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: She can do goddamn whatever the writer wants her to do It does feel like out of the blue.
• 49:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're like wait what they were just passed out what the fuck is going on There's a really really cool panel I know this has been on a billion times, but where Van guard is throwing his shield and cap is throwing his shield and they're doing a really good East meets West thing in sync.
• 49:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: I also this issue features a lot of as many comics at this time use of blast
• 49:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just think as a as a culture, we need to go back to using Blast as a stand-in for swear words It's really fun for me.
• 49:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then my final thought is I was just really having a laugh picturing Perune with the thickest ancient Slavic accent trying to go undercover as Thor like just like not passing as Dr. Donald Blake at all
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Today, I am giving the fudge sickle or what?
• 50:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right, the American street.
• 50:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love the mutant circuit.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that this, if it happened before, you could do it again.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could figure it out.
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And especially when you review each of their powers out loud, you look.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I see how you're doing that.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a lot.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's wrapped up in a lot of the things that we've been talking about is these three are trying to do the right thing.
• 50:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're trying to do something.
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're trying to figure out what's next.
• 50:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they keep on getting pulled back into these old ways by the manipulations of the state of the state forces, of just this deception of who?
• 50:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: are good and bad guys like we think that we're trying to do what's right we even have reservations of defecting from our country and connecting with these other folks and I just I feel like it really captures a lot of what they're going through as characters and then does a cool power and your team up here for it.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so, Terri Kavanaugh, my friend, is running Marvel Comics presents.
• 51:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's four eight-page stories every issue.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a massive coordinated thing.
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's stories that run multiple parts, and then he would sanction like one eight-page story for certain issues.
• 51:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is kind of where Scott LeBell got his start at Marvel.
• 51:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's writing a bunch of like eight-page stories about characters like Shamrock and Ursa Major.
• 51:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: that are just like the first kind of solo exposure these characters have ever had, but the stories are often really wild.
• 51:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The only other time we've discussed one of these is in the Shamrock episode.
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
• 51:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go back and hear me in train of Pharaoh talking about that weird one.
• 51:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in this one, it's interesting.
• 51:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: We open on the thought, written by Scott Labdell, with a text blurb that says he spent the first few years of his life in the custody of a clan of mountain bears.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: which may be the reason Mikhail Ersu's developed the shape-changing ability that would later allow him to become his country's first sanctioned mutant or some major of the Soviet super soldiers.
• 51:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: This almost seems to be positing that he could change into different forms or different animals, but like he imprinted on a bear.
• 51:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was really spinning out on that man legit legit I when I read the short I was like wait So is the implication that like he could he is one of those mutants who could like turn into any animal or like turn into any one and because he was abandoned as a feral child He got hung up on bears
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: But maybe that explains why his bear form is incomplete.
• 52:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's just doing his like goofy face man bear because he could have if Professor Fobos had been a real teacher Right, I don't know.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I was there like a darker version of this form that you know like there's some interesting components even if it's still bear-themed or they're like is there an Narker side that could happen.
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this story's called Sophia.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't you do you want to tell us about this one.
• 52:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a rough story.
• 52:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like it
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't love it.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not a huge fan.
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: He spent the, you're at the other mountain bears thing.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we open with him in his human form.
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's wearing a white tank top with the Russian hammer.
• 52:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like a lot of, it's like, it tastes you wonder.
• 52:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a treasure star.
• 52:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is Russian.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: He looks fit.
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's looking good and we're happy for him.
• 52:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I, so like right away, you see him on a motorcycle and I kind of hate that.
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know it's really, it's it's small.
• 53:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: But one, it feels like very obvious.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's the Wolverine of the the winner guard or whatever, even though I'm like he's the Hulk, it's silly to think that he's the Wolverine, but whatever you want him to be the Wolverine.
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Onto he can turn it to a bit.
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why would anyone who can turn into a fast moving animal ever write a write a bike?
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 53:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe I'm maybe I'm I got hung up on that.
• 53:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, I don't think he should be on a bike.
• 53:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It feels weird.
• 53:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It feels out of character.
• 53:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: But he's sort of on a break.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's peace on a country road.
• 53:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's having a good time.
• 53:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like,
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is great, fresh air, trees as far as the eye can see.
• 53:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: This reminds me of the old days growing up in these mountains.
• 53:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's the perfect way to spend my vacation from the Soviet super soldiers, enjoying Russian countryside instead of constantly fighting for my life in any given moment.
• 53:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then a child shows up percosiously.
• 53:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Her name is Sophia Iliach Karkova, which is the title of the story is Sophia.
• 53:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: And she has a teddy bear, which would be cute, except Ursa Major, is simultaneously way too friendly with this girl.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like he walks up and is like, oh, such innocence.
• 53:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, he's like, like, just sees a girl and is like playing with her right now.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, picks her up and starts tickling her.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, and like, her parents are like justifiably angry, but right away, her dad is like, I'll have you know, I'm a Soviet official.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, you won't give me this treatment.
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so like, or some age are like flashes, his Soviet super soldier ID card, and then the parents are like, never mind.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do whatever you want to our daughter.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is good and wholesome.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm here with her legs wrapped around your trunk while you carried her around.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's strange man on motorcycle.
• 54:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: He did not introduce himself.
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, like, uh, and so the obvious thing is that he's, you know, like, this interaction causes him to think about retiring, right?
• 54:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, oh, like, I don't know.
• 54:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've had all these conflicts with the, with my bosses.
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's sort of unhappy, you know, like,
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's the guy who has the anger towards the state, but of course as he's sort of thinking about the like higher philosophical issues with his occupation He ends up coming back and finding Sofia's mother like beaten half-to-death and it immediately becomes practical, right?
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like the should I work in this system because of all these valid reasons that it's bad?
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but like actually like this practical example of why it's good for me to do this the captions very caption heavy
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: As a young mutant left to die in these mountains, young Mikhail, young, and young, was raised by the animal kingdom that inhabited the hills.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: He dreamed of a day when he'd be able to walk once again, walk among people.
• 55:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: He thought it would be fun.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was wrong.
• 55:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Humans can be such fools, again, like the Hulk of it all, right?
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: In his bare form, Ursa Major's hypersensis replaces thoughts.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, this I actually think is cool when they're like miles hours footprints perfume trail blood here now carnage like when they when they do kind of like the one man There's a moment later where he's fighting where he's fighting these these these thugs and like the captions are just slice dice Which is also
• 55:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Another thing that I think was probably stolen from a Wolverine issue, but like play is really cool.
• 55:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: He hunts down these, they're like, like, soldiers, right?
• 55:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're like, off duty soldiers, they're just like random thugs.
• 55:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: These, these two guys, they're like, beat the skin up, they like beat this woman up and are playing to like human traffic, this child, or something, like, yeah, there's an implication of kidnapping and worse.
• 56:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 56:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And rate is implied.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, they have names, Arcadean Pauval.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, Sophia's father's dying.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like a panel where he's just sort of like, it's kind of gruesome.
• 56:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Or he is like, please, like, begging and explaining.
• 56:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, so then, Ursa Major just goes crazy on these guys.
• 56:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: He gets to drop out of the Americanism.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: You've made my day.
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love for him.
• 56:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like a lot of panel space devoted to people be like, a talking bear, that's not possible.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, he kills the men as he let Sophia ride on his back.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: My big thought on this issue is Or some minor bring back Sophia.
• 56:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: She's his sidekick boom.
• 56:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean smart, but also you Yeah, you you for a billion reasons.
• 56:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is a you issue.
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: I yeah, there's not a lot.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love about it Very like the loss of innocence and like just when you think you're safe it they're gonna come after you anyway, right?
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's that yeah, it's it's a rough story a little bit
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: And there's a weird, I feel like, I don't know if there's libbells trying to like do something with class.
• 57:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a, like the bullet bureau guys, so if he is dad, he's not like upset that a strange man is trying to do his daughter.
• 57:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like a class thing, right?
• 57:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, he uses the phrase, this, this transient.
• 57:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: when describing Ursa Major, which, again, is not really, I guess he looks, he's doing a first blood thing, but he's not like a, I don't know, it was very odd.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: The implications of why these people were like judging Ursa and that sort of interaction.
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Judging because he ran up and started tickling you, you know, who cares what he's wearing.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love the idea of Sophia coming back just because she imprinted on him like that is why she
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that is the idea of like why you can transform into a brown bear.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like he's begging to be explored of it's like okay well you know I spent the last two years with wolves and now I can do a wolf now I can be a wolf now.
• 57:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do have an episode out there on the character blind faith who's another professor X kind of archetype.
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about this one there, but this is the only place I'm going to really dive into Soviet super soldiers number one.
• 58:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a Fabian DCA's story that's so complicated and the art makes it kind of rough to read and there's a lot of characters.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Basically what we're exploring is if we look at Russia in this time period during the like early 90s kind of crazy era, we have certain heroes in this that are working for the 8kgb as state superheroes,
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: we have others that are operatives of the Russian military and then we have the kind of rebellious heroes who are trying to live among the people fight for the people, okay?
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's three distinctive groups of heroes all mixed together and it draws deep on Marvel lore like way back into like early Ironman because it is wild and there's so much going on.
• 58:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's worthy of a read, but if you take your time, it's gonna take you about an hour.
• 58:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a death book and the art makes it a little confusing.
• 58:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we open with 21 months ago, no one was talking about the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, of military coups or nuclear buttons in the hands of barely experienced politicians.
• 59:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone outside the boundaries of the monolithic communist nation were hoping upon hope that the democratic reforms being implemented in the world's largest country would work and freedom would soon ring across the USSR.
• 59:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Inside that country, a struggle of a different kind was being waged on a level beyond the comprehension of regular working men and women.
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: A war was being waged among the superhuman community, a war to determine how they would operate, who they would answer to, and what their priorities would be.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a war like all wars, which would have winners and losers, heroic survivors, and remembered dead.
• 59:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Only the stakes were higher because it was a war being waged among the super soldiers of the Soviet Union, walking weapons of destruction.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And ironically, the first shot in that war was fired in the United States, brilliant opening, and it's really setting up the premise of the issue.
• 59:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We jumped to November 1992.
• 59:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: This story is called a red triangle agenda, and Fabianicia is a fucking did his homework here.
• 59:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we open on Captain America grieving.
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's trying to get extradiction, extradition for the three mutants who defected and then got sent back.
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So dark star, or some major Vanguard.
• 1:00:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: They fully recognize that the mutant population in Russia is being actively discriminated against, maybe even hunted and being killed, which is true.
• 1:00:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see that in multiple stories.
• 1:00:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: They also recognize that Darkstar, Vanguard, and Orsa Major are being held in Stasis tanks, still in coma after their recent defeat.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: A helicopter lens in Siberia, we meet out of had so many names that you right now.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Felix Ferroff, Dr. Ardcady to Guy, and Zoya Vasilevna.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And two weeks later, there's a telepathic mutant named Blind Faith, again, in a different episode.
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a mutant, a mutant named Concussion, who has energy bursts, a guy named Iron Curtain, who is a big strong bald guy.
• 1:00:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: They manage to escape with three other mutants in stasis and with, with, or some major dark star in Vanguard.
• 1:00:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the government is pissed.
• 1:00:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they hired this really awful guy.
• 1:00:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a terrible design that his name is Firefox.
• 1:00:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think of like cable except skinny grandpa with big guns and he's like very Punisher.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the insane man they've hired to like hunt down and kill the mutants.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the supreme Soviets are also still around.
• 1:01:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: We still have red Guardian, Perun, Sputnik, Bukarin as the Crimson Dynamo and Bich Fantasma's still around.
• 1:01:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they beat the shit out of some environmental activists on behalf of the state and then on behalf of the military and then they have to report into the military who they sarcastically call their propaganda ministers.
• 1:01:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Crimson Dynamo is like their military extension to the team and he's called in and they either want boochering back or they want his armor itself.
• 1:01:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so this is the military sanctioned like ironman guy going to the guy that's working for the KGB basically and saying you have to give your Crimson Dynamo armor back.
• 1:01:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see Crimson Dynamo vilified, not deified.
• 1:01:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a previous defector, the original Boris Belsky defected.
• 1:01:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the new Crimson Dynamo is a shadow-love, which is a bad last night.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he sends the old one booker into New York in order to retrieve the titanium man for Boris Bulsky.
• 1:02:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they make this mission extra hard for him.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see the Crimson Dynamo vilified not deified, they say.
• 1:02:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Project Spiral Doom is activated despite significant cognitive defects in those they have tried it on.
• 1:02:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in New York City, the Crimson Dynamo is attacked by a group called the Green Liberation Front.
• 1:02:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And these are a little titanium man guys who were set up by the KGB to perform acts of political rebellion in New York City.
• 1:02:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they turn on the big titanium man and he gets trapped in like a digitized disc version of himself and his armor gets scattered everywhere and that's what crimson dynamo is gathering together now.
• 1:02:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the green liberation force of front is here, not to be confused with the mutin liberation front of the same time.
• 1:02:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even though the entire like personality card hasn't been activated, they decide to activate titanium man anyway, which causes Bullsky to have like permanent brain damage.
• 1:02:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's like a rebooted too quickly.
• 1:02:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a super intense story, it's insane.
• 1:02:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he goes mad and like annihilates the entire green liberation front.
• 1:03:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we jump back to Ukraine where there's a group of Russian mutants in hiding, and this is where Ursa and the others have now awakened.
• 1:03:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're meeting other mutants named Stensil, who's a bald telepath, who also has a male personality in her mind, and also a named Colonel Krichev and Victor.
• 1:03:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So basically, she just like puts a wig on.
• 1:03:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes she's like, I've got multiple personality disorder.
• 1:03:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think she's cute, actually.
• 1:03:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mentac, who's an old man with a computer brain and the worst haircut, a cybercat, who's a illiteral of a mutant with cat powers that we've met before, so Firefox shows up to kill all of the mutants.
• 1:03:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's tear gas, and he's yet, it's no more running, no more hiding, it's time to die, and he just horribly like brutally hate crime murders this entire room full of mutants.
• 1:03:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: While taunting them and torturing them, and making the masquerque answer questions with a guns to their heads, it's very more like massacre.
• 1:03:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: He chops off hands, he makes people swallow grenades, it's like horrible hate crimes on the page.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Truly terrible in his violence, but some of the mutants escape, and he's like I will kill every mutant to find in Russia to find these ones that have escaped.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we jump to a week later in Novobirsk, Novice Viersk, where the mutants are hiding in apartment.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're isolating themselves.
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a populated city.
• 1:04:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're worried about someone coming after them again.
• 1:04:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're ready to fight back if they have to.
• 1:04:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Redstar military helicopters surround the building.
• 1:04:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: They open fire.
• 1:04:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Darkstar shoots the copters down.
• 1:04:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or some major make sure they're destroyed.
• 1:04:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the cyber cat goes,
• 1:04:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyone ever thought or code of it, how bad he smells when he turns into a bear, so it seems his middle name is Mikhail or Korovich Ursus?
• 1:04:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the miscapes, Ursus back in his naked human form, and blind faith gives them a telepathic prompt to tell everyone to gather and they're going to give a public broadcast, so he's basically making Firefox go before the cameras and be like this is what I did.
• 1:04:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: so it's like a public exposure by this telepath.
• 1:04:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: The mutants form like a little community.
• 1:04:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: They grab a bunch of like less fortunate mutants and they're all in danger so they're hiding in a bunker on the black sea and things are intense.
• 1:05:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're literally being gunned down and murdered.
• 1:05:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're all screaming about what to do and how and it should we run or hide or fight back.
• 1:05:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: and they're talking about all their safe houses and safe places and resources slowly being taken away.
• 1:05:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is such an awful parallel through America 2025, and they again get attacked by a full contingent of military helicopters and Firefox.
• 1:05:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Stintles, personality, like powers that's a little legion energy, like takes over and she eats a bunch of mines of the pilots and so all the helicopters crash.
• 1:05:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Firefox gets all his cybernetics ripped out by a very racially angry van guard, and Blank Faith wants him to to let him live though.
• 1:05:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: It basically Blank Faith's argument is we don't have to height a fight or hide.
• 1:05:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can do both.
• 1:05:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we jump back to Lenin grad.
• 1:05:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know this is complicated, and the supreme Soviets are handling the threat of the new unicorn.
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also have a previous unicorn episode.
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This guy's this really awful creepy like melting zombie dude with like a head dildo.
• 1:05:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I could read very bien writing this team all the time.
• 1:06:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really fun.
• 1:06:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: His
• 1:06:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a moment, for example, Perunis sharing a body with this guy named Valeri's Spile of Ev, who has a wife and like a life.
• 1:06:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Perun keeps refusing to turn back into this guy, so he never gets a day in his own body.
• 1:06:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very the substance, which is how, yeah.
• 1:06:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the new unicorn is going crazy.
• 1:06:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's got this giant third eye growing out of his head.
• 1:06:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It looks like a big penis.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really weird and gross.
• 1:06:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's going nuts and shooting lasers, everyone.
• 1:06:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: everywhere.
• 1:06:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you remember the scientists from earlier, it turns out that these two scientists are Katie Tagay and Zoya Vasilevna are also mutants who can like, you merge their bodies into one electrical person named the synthesizer.
• 1:06:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they end up like recruiting the unicorn into, even though he's this awful super villain into a new military sanction team called the Remont 6.
• 1:06:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: which is unicorn, the new crimson dynamo, and their new leader is like the very broken, mad titanium man.
• 1:06:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also have to have to change it to the remont for the word remont by the way means repair.
• 1:07:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was like a repair unit for the military, like the cleanup crew.
• 1:07:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so the original crimson dynamo is now a public disrescase because of the battle with titanium man resulted in a bunch of casualties.
• 1:07:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so Bucaran has to turn the crimson dynamo over armor back over and he decides to just rebrand himself.
• 1:07:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's a new suit of armor and he's like, no, I'm air strike.
• 1:07:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now he gets rebranded as part of the supreme Soviets.
• 1:07:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they changed their name into the people's protectorate, which is the name it has before it becomes the winter guard later.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the mutants are all pissed and they're in hiding, and basically blind faith gathers six of them.
• 1:07:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Vanguard, Darkstar, Cybercat, Ursa Major, stencil, and blind faith himself, and they're gonna win out their own new super team.
• 1:07:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get the caption, the winds of change already sweep through this Republic.
• 1:07:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We must ride those winds, striking where and when we can, surreptitiously subtly from mutant kind and mankind alike.
• 1:07:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Though we are exiles from the mainstream life, we must fight for the rights of the others to live it.
• 1:08:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our eventual goal for the hope of this great land and its people is nothing short of the unilateral and unequivocal overthrow of the Soviet socialist government.
• 1:08:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you all with me?
• 1:08:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it ends with the beginning.
• 1:08:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that was a lot, I know, and I'll edit around it to make it cohesive, but we basically have a group of mutants witnessing Russian genocide at the hands of sanctioned madmen.
• 1:08:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of the madmen are also getting appointed into government positions, and we now have a group of six basically kind of declaring themselves like anti government overthrow like rebels.
• 1:08:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a crazy story, and there's so much mutant stuff at it.
• 1:08:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just did, I know you have thoughts here.
• 1:08:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, finally, the straw that broke it, right?
• 1:08:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like how many times are they gonna come after as how many times they're gonna manipulate us and do these things?
• 1:08:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, we need our own shadow government team to overthrow them from the inside.
• 1:08:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're teaming up, we're getting all the classics and we're coming back with even some new ones that are coming in from this, this was wild.
• 1:08:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just to end the story with the beginning because you know, the mission has just been articulated.
• 1:09:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we have to fight for the injustices that have been done to these mutants.
• 1:09:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And basically, it's never followed up on it, but it's a huge set of the nobody ever really knows that you think with it.
• 1:09:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the magic of like some of these cold, cold war stories, especially, is like so many writers are using this like bugaboo of the Soviet Union to explore all of our fears about like what America has done or our own issues or our own social concerns is being like, oh, we can explore this in the the our enemy, you know, and like use these parallels.
• 1:09:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 1:09:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's like that.
• 1:09:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: That sounds pretty.
• 1:09:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have to, after, like, here you talk about it also, like, give me it before when we talked on the phone and stuff.
• 1:09:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, man, I need, I need a copy of this.
• 1:09:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I need to, like, really dive all the way in and not just use it as reference, but really, like, read it.
• 1:09:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It really does into the complexity of Marvel's history.
• 1:09:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we haven't even, like, talked about the Black Widow at all, right?
• 1:09:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, today.
• 1:09:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, exactly.
• 1:09:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: We are even talking about that room.
• 1:09:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of stuff.
• 1:09:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Black Widow does show up in the next or some major parents though, which is Daredevil 368 through 370.
• 1:09:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a really fun run.
• 1:09:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, we get to see Ursa and hit like a new green military uniform with like multiple Black stars and red on his costume.
• 1:10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's in New York with Vanguard where they end up battling Daredevil.
• 1:10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Daredevil has just fought a mega red and he's also been shot by the Black Widow.
• 1:10:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And because there's this evil X KGB guy named General Sarkov calling a bunch of shots.
• 1:10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Basically, Darkstar and the others have taken a job working for Sarkov until they realized that he is employing anti-buting guards.
• 1:10:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We do get a cute moment where Ursum Major is looking at the statue of Liberty and comments how when he was a child, he read a band book, Treasure Island.
• 1:10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wanted to be a sailor, but then he had to throw the book away, so no one would see his shame.
• 1:10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: He says, quote, I was a good soldier, even at age 10.
• 1:10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Darkstar is missing and they are working for Sarkov because they need the money and they're sending it back to people in Russia who are struggling.
• 1:10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But over time they realize Sarkov is not only employing anti mutant guards, but he's the one that the who has Darkstar captured.
• 1:10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, or some major turns against the others, they free Daredevil who calls him.
• 1:10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: friend, he says, why do you call me friend, Ersa says in Daredevil says, I was hoping you'd find it less offensive than Bongo.
• 1:11:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ersa says, friendship requires respect, time, trust.
• 1:11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the end, they defeat Sarkov, and it's fine.
• 1:11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Darkstar, this is the era where she dies in the X-Core in the X-Men story.
• 1:11:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a bunch of follow-up.
• 1:11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're going to take
• 1:11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: In Hulk Volume 2 number one, we see Ursa Major as part of the rebranded winter guard.
• 1:11:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: They got that name in an Iron Man comic in 1998.
• 1:11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're sent to Russia, or excuse me, sent to America to retrieve the abomination.
• 1:11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a fight with She Hulk where she gets to call Ursa Major Grizzly Adams.
• 1:11:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: When he flashes out her, she goes, you're gonna make somebody a great rug.
• 1:11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And later she gets to say, I'm shipping you back to Siberia, who give my best to Tigger and Piglet.
• 1:11:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but also I think that this is a little bit of I check back the panel.
• 1:11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's like pieces of her arm missing from that slash like I think he actually got some flesh on a Hulk and she's just trying to play it off some gamma some gamma radiation and this is kind of where we start to see the character turn a little bit more and more savage increasingly.
• 1:12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wolverine first class is following the trend of X-Men first class and uncanny X-Men first class and a weapon X first class None of them were technically continuity according to Tom Breward, but in Wolverine first class seven and eight There's a pretty great Russia story in there that'll cover briefly because it was meant to be in continuity We get a flashback to right after Kitty Pride joined the X-Men
• 1:12:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we see Vanguard, Darkstar, Ursa Major, are trying to get Colossus back to Russia.
• 1:12:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: They've been sent after him for defecting.
• 1:12:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's this creepy mutant guy called the collective there.
• 1:12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ursa Major gets to fight Wolverine.
• 1:12:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also get the following quote.
• 1:12:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Kremlin has long feared the sheer number of super humans in America while our own super soldiers have never numbered more than four or so.
• 1:12:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: A secret program was approved by which Russia's own mutant population would be brought to this facility where they would be bombarded with radiation in the hopes of enhancing their powers.
• 1:12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fregnant mothers were placed in irradiation chambers so that their unborn children might become mutants.
• 1:13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: The fools.
• 1:13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a malfunction in the cooling system.
• 1:13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: The core melted down the irradiation chamber was flooded with beta particles.
• 1:13:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a flash of light.
• 1:13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps one of us used a latent power for we became as UCS now, a collective being more unified than any institution fostered by the state.
• 1:13:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: today we are the Supreme Soviet.
• 1:13:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So radiation babies all got like mutated into one monster called the collective, which is crazy because after mday all those mutant powers combined to form the collective as well, also this sounds a lot like the black woman project I'm just saying.
• 1:13:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting to think about how mutants are being treated in Russia in this way versus how they're being treated in America The layers of you know the prejudice the hate and the fear, but in Russia at least with this program and then later on Obviously you see in other places you see in weapon ecstasy and like this utilization of powers and how do how do you fast tracking You almost even more now where people are trying to mind this as a resource and you know like how do you how do you weaponize people
• 1:14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: whether or not it's willing, you know, like how do you any of put people on this path to basically bolster our stock ability to fight back in this national race to superpowers international.
• 1:14:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have a huge professor, Ike's in Russia before the X-Men reformed story that I want to write one day, but this story certainly lends energy to the story I would like to tell.
• 1:14:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you had any thoughts on that.
• 1:14:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: radiating pregnant mom's story.
• 1:14:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean the fools is about about as light as you can get for that No, I mean I do think it's it's kind of interesting.
• 1:14:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's what you guys have kind of already already said and we've picked out a few times that like you know a lot of people are critical or or feel like it's imperfect the X-Men as metaphor and all that and a metaphor for certain Protected groups in America at all that
• 1:14:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: But it is interesting that time and time again, when we're watching our three Russian mutants like go through continuity, they don't get to necessarily explore the metaphor that way.
• 1:15:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's always like, are they an asset?
• 1:15:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Or are they just persecuted?
• 1:15:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like the Rudolph thing, right?
• 1:15:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: It is Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer written like extreme.
• 1:15:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's not a lot of like them getting to explore what mutant culture would be like or the possibilities of being a mutant in Russia.
• 1:15:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: It is always just, are they weapons?
• 1:15:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Are they on the run, you know?
• 1:15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or do they have a no value to us?
• 1:15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we just get to toss them in the body pit, right?
• 1:15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, well, we'll practice cancer, research on them, or something.
• 1:15:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also, Ursa Major would find Rudolph delicious thing.
• 1:15:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I did want to ask, and don't feel free to not go and do if it takes a long time, whatever.
• 1:15:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: What was the bit about how this was supposed to be in continuity?
• 1:15:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what happened?
• 1:15:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or, yeah, there's just some things.
• 1:15:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a whole bunch of books that had that first class in Signia on it.
• 1:15:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, they just didn't fit perfectly.
• 1:15:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the very simple things, the team are all in like very different costumes.
• 1:15:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're very smartly written.
• 1:15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jeff Parker writes a bunch of this stuff and a lot of cool.
• 1:15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: We good, but according to Tom, it's officially a non-canon universe.
• 1:15:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Although, it fits pretty seamlessly overall.
• 1:16:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think, I think, you know, resources could be made.
• 1:16:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: My show's spent a lot of time on the pre-continuity and we have not done first class.
• 1:16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Simply become, we can't.
• 1:16:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's too much content.
• 1:16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not official.
• 1:16:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so we jumped to she Hulk buying two number 35.
• 1:16:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The winter guard is fighting super scrolls and Ursa Major gets to behead a scroll and the lady liberators are here.
• 1:16:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she'll get to say, hey, Poo, you ready to get this stuffing kicked out of you again?
• 1:16:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he says, I do not recall our last encounter that way.
• 1:16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: She says, well, I'm sure it's hard to remember things being a very little brain, which again, Poo reference.
• 1:16:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he goes, no one speaks so to our so major, and he starts slashing, calling, I don't know, she says like this attack is pretty grizzly, grizzly, get it, and she kicks him in the face.
• 1:16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also in Iron Man director of shield 3435, they're fighting scrolls, he gets to behead a super scroll, which is super fun.
• 1:16:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a reference to the old kind of Russian war.
• 1:16:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk more about that stuff later in the month on the show.
• 1:16:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Over an iron man in the armor wars 1-4.
• 1:17:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if this fits or not.
• 1:17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's there as well, but doesn't play a major part.
• 1:17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Justin, do you want to tell us about Hulk winter guard?
• 1:17:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know I do.
• 1:17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I probably got too fixated on this one throwaway line about a rumor of Ursa Major and she Hulk dating and then started going back through all these other appearances and reading into the banter and like the flirtatious is the the the shy face when she sees him naked that first time like it's it's threaded their man.
• 1:17:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have a board with some string.
• 1:17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, much like I'm going to look like some man with big shoulders.
• 1:17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's got a type.
• 1:17:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm here for it.
• 1:17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad to see it, but but really we're talking about this new crimson dynamo galina nimakovsky and this this I honestly so in in the note in the thought there's a bit of a scene between her and our guy or some major and a bit
• 1:17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: like of a playfulness or an interest.
• 1:17:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly this is kind of all over the place.
• 1:17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's real sweet camaraderie and tenderness between Ursa Major and this new dark star.
• 1:18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The team is getting really amped up.
• 1:18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are going after the presence again and the Vermont 6 which now includes Iron
• 1:18:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Volga Bell and a couple of snow leopards and I'm I'm here for this fight with our Samagers being a badass being able to tear through these guys that the line about being King of all bears like I'm not just a mere bear.
• 1:18:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am the king of all the bears.
• 1:18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like yes Yes, more bear line.
• 1:18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like he's the amp it up a little bit
• 1:18:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other thing that I started to like track through these issues is this idea of them being replaceable.
• 1:18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Ursa Major stays on.
• 1:18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is Ursa Major.
• 1:18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're at to my knowledge, not another Ursa Major.
• 1:18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this idea of other people taking up these mantels and him being the fixture, there's a line from a gulina about being replaceable heroes.
• 1:18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it shows up again across the next few issues about just this, even Ursa Major says, they'll always need a crimson dynamo.
• 1:19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: The history is proven that it's not always you so we'll see then the story continues over in dark star and the winter guard one through three They're really trying to make dark star happen although the original dark stars dead So they're like putting her essence into other ladies who become dark star It's kind of a weird turn like a weird moment of popularity.
• 1:19:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just didn't do one to tell us about that limited
• 1:19:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so this was fun just to see them, especially at the beginning, celebrated his heroes, which I feel like he is not what they get to do, that they often have this moment of trying to do the right thing, but it warms my heart even though there's this creepy voice over from a guy watching of something bad is going to happen.
• 1:19:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We see a variant of a fastball special as
• 1:19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: In his human form and becomes a bear, which I just live in for, as they're getting ready for this fight with Warlord Crang and the agents of Atlas, he's got this dialogue as he lands from this fastball special, you invade my home and call me a beast that doesn't put me in a very cuddly mood, which is ridiculous.
• 1:20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Love it, love it, lean into the bear, own it.
• 1:20:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who was it that threw him in the fastball special?
• 1:20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was like, I look like a gorilla, and I couldn't, I did not remember his name, but he was a part of this other group.
• 1:20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And er, er, so Major calls him eight man and he's like, I'm not an eight man, but he totally looks like an eight man, but I get it.
• 1:20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
• 1:20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 1:20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a news report, someone, again, in the same, like, kind of throw a line.
• 1:20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're asking your first major is dating Black Widow.
• 1:20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So.
• 1:20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: just to see these connections to these sleeping as way through the Avengers, this mini-series has some interesting connections with dire rathes again, which is something that we see throughout the winter guard and Ursa Major's continuity.
• 1:20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're from the earlier conversation about Fantasma, but that's the very end of the time.
• 1:20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, later on, too, I think, right?
• 1:20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But using their technology to up his work and up his skills, there's a really kind of an emotional connection between us and major with this new dark star, kind of giving her a pep talk, reflecting on his relationship with preview, like the original dark star, the original Vanguard, and how these people have died or left,
• 1:21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: All them meaning something to him.
• 1:21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was a nice moment to really see like how he is still carrying them with him and trying to talk these new recruits or new versions of the team through it.
• 1:21:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They'll come up throughout the the many that these characters the fight to continue to be a hero for this country.
• 1:21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And again, this idea of being replaceable, right?
• 1:21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We physically see some of these people replace.
• 1:21:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Demetri is a part of this story, who's being told that even he is replaceable, Vanguard, power surge, and Starlight announced themselves as the new proletariat.
• 1:21:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we have yet another Russian group of heroes.
• 1:21:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Big fight, radioactive supervillains, and Phantasma reveals that she's actually in insane dire-rathed witch, which I don't know.
• 1:21:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a line, there's a line in the third issue as he's about to go and get this moment where he takes down and tames a dragon, but he's holding this giant hammer as a human and he says, I'm the only one our enemies aren't expecting, a badass bear with a hammer and he turns into the bear form.
• 1:22:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He jumps out of the plane and he lands on a fucking dragon.
• 1:22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's so metal.
• 1:22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so bad.
• 1:22:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is, this is McCuylin, his cocaine bear error.
• 1:22:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 1:22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you really think you can withstand the power of Earth's a major, taming this dragon, epic, you know, how cool can this be?
• 1:22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I needed to check out issue three.
• 1:22:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you, if you carry this, check out issue three.
• 1:22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Check out the whole series because it was fun.
• 1:22:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: It makes his power scaling really interesting, right?
• 1:22:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, we see I'm already able to like go toe to toe with the Hulk.
• 1:22:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: He can, he can like rip wounds in shi-hulk, and apparently he can beat a motherfuckin' dragon.
• 1:22:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, he's kind of like low-key, I think people are sleeping on Ursa Major in like the power level.
• 1:22:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, I feel like we're talking on him as being slept on as like an interesting character.
• 1:22:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: But really like, he can fight the Hulk and win.
• 1:22:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's like a strong fucking guy.
• 1:22:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a this is an X-Men team where he's just a really interesting and super fun powerhouse You know in a world of super strong characters.
• 1:23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: This guy's really interesting, right?
• 1:23:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's also using his human form more often.
• 1:23:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you picture him in combat, right?
• 1:23:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he shifts to human form and runs and gets thrown and then it's back into bare form.
• 1:23:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's he's using some some skills That's more often
• 1:23:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So jumping to Captain America, 16 and 17, this is a great run on cap, the work by a bunch of guise in this issue is amazing.
• 1:23:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: The winter soldier has been put into a Russian Gulag for his past crimes, and there's a bunch of superpowered prisoners there, and there's this old, old Iron Man villain called the Red Barberry and pulling a bunch of shots.
• 1:23:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But basically, we get to see there's kind of like a prison fight ring, and Ursa Major is the guy to beat.
• 1:23:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's never been more strong.
• 1:23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like super amped up, drawn beautifully, no silly bear joke.
• 1:23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's, he's in a bunch of kind of random appearances, but we see him kind of prominently explored in a really odd series called Operation Sin.
• 1:23:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's 2015 and Peggy Carter's a big thing, and we get someone who goes back and does like a Peggy Carter prequel in a way, and it fits into continuity pretty well by Katherine Ammonan.
• 1:24:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's 1952, which makes with a Marvelous life scale makes it kind of weird.
• 1:24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, and again, a Woodrow McCord, who is that man on the wall guy, if you know this story, go to Moscow to pick up Tanya Belenskaya, who's the leader of Red Guardian and Starlight.
• 1:24:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're all on a mission, and they meet this little boy who can turn into a bear.
• 1:24:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he introduces himself as Mikhail Yurikovic.
• 1:24:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's never been in a car before, and he guides them into the wilderness, and there's a big hydra base there.
• 1:24:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And McCord is kind of abusive with this kid.
• 1:24:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's kind of an awful guy.
• 1:24:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he has to change into bare form and McCord gets to write him into combat, which is nothing could be getting for this character.
• 1:24:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: McCoy explains that he grew up in the woods by himself.
• 1:24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, the moment I was discovered, I could change.
• 1:24:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was the moment I was cast out to fend for myself.
• 1:24:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was 12 years old.
• 1:24:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was abandoned to the taiga, to the winter, and the cold, and the meager flesh of rabbits.
• 1:24:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the taiga is just like the tundra.
• 1:24:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's some characters from hope that are kind of woven into this mythos, and you don't
• 1:25:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: white know how this changes given his origins with a doctor phobos guy that we talked about earlier, but it's an interesting kind of journey for this character.
• 1:25:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we jump to Tales of Suspense 103104, this is where Black Widow has died and now she's like been resurrected and she's like a younger version of herself in the red room.
• 1:25:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Ursa Major is captured by the red room.
• 1:25:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to reprogram him.
• 1:25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's stuck in full bare form.
• 1:25:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a character named Episolana Red.
• 1:25:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We won't talk about that journey today.
• 1:25:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're the Reds and our whole different thing.
• 1:25:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: By the end of the story, Ursula Major helps shut down the Red Room.
• 1:25:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to notice some things.
• 1:25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's part of like National Hero, right?
• 1:25:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's really amped up his power level.
• 1:25:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then he ends up in prison and then he ends up at the Red Room.
• 1:25:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you kind of don't quite know what's going on with him.
• 1:25:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: I really love this, this run from, uh, Resburg.
• 1:25:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like he's really just using like Ursa Major as not as like comic relief, but like it really is like play it with that moment where it's like, is there a bear on this beach when like Natasha's in the hologram?
• 1:26:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's that like, oh no, you were just in a hologram.
• 1:26:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, he's got kind of like a the dude from Big Lebowski vibe almost just like wandering drunkenly around the red room, not being cooperative.
• 1:26:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's great.
• 1:26:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing him kind of slowly lose control.
• 1:26:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then he's in that weapon X series, not the concentration camp one, the more modern one that went on forever.
• 1:26:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's back with the winter guard and they are working for Russia's version of shield, which is called sickle.
• 1:26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: The director of sickle is Vasily Rosovitch, who's the brother of a mega-red, and they are quote enforcing anti-mutant policies.
• 1:26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're running labor camps, they're manipulating people like a mega-red with nanites.
• 1:26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're murdering promutant military generals, who are also mutants.
• 1:26:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Domino gets to punch Ursa once, but you kind of get the idea that he's here against his own will.
• 1:26:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we finally arrive to Jason Aaron, who wrote Avengers and the series around it for approximately 17 years.
• 1:26:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is so many issues of this run, and Ursa Major becomes a playable character in this in the way that like Gorilla Man and others do.
• 1:27:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in Avengers number 10, this is Volume 8 of the series, which is surely before Raid Katie comes aboard, we'll talk about that in a moment.
• 1:27:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see the last Gulag in Siberia, Ursa Major is back in jail, he's in his bare form, we get this view of him, animal bones and beer bottles are all over the floor, and he has a visitor.
• 1:27:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have here a letter of pardon, signed by the Minister of Justice and the President himself.
• 1:27:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a fool pardon of every crime on your record, even going back years to crimes.
• 1:27:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody called them crimes when we were doing them.
• 1:27:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: More like valiant missions to protect the motherland.
• 1:27:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: What are these supposed crimes?
• 1:27:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Boy.
• 1:27:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: uh... sir will among other things that says here that you uh... murdered for of your commanding officers and uh... consumed their remains lies slander is lies it was five officers but i never ate the bastards just tore them apart with my mouth was all they yes sir a pardon isn't good enough i want all these ridiculous charges completely expunged from my record of course sir except for the dead officers leave those in good for my rep their vodka on that helicopter you came in
• 1:28:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes sir, I was told to bring a very large supply.
• 1:28:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: For your sake, I hope it's good stuff.
• 1:28:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: And not the toilet brew they've been giving me here for years.
• 1:28:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: So where are we headed, soldier?
• 1:28:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Directly to the Kremlin sir, the others will be waiting.
• 1:28:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Eh, it's about time.
• 1:28:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Tell me private, they gonna let us do it right this time.
• 1:28:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Keep the politicians out of our fur for a change.
• 1:28:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm told his Excellency has taken a great personal interest in this project.
• 1:28:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just bet he has.
• 1:28:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: So who the hell else is Moscow suddenly remembered his still alive?
• 1:28:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it turns out that Dmitry Bukarian is back Darkstar Vanguard, Vostok, Chernobyl, Parune, and the mysterious Red Widow.
• 1:28:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a giant battle with both the defenders of the deep led by the Submariner and the Avengers.
• 1:28:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ursula Major gets to fight like King Crab, who's a big crab monster guy.
• 1:28:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: He also gets to bear hug Thor who says, GAH!
• 1:28:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you bathe in vodka, Beast?
• 1:28:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the next issue, Black Panther is hosting, and this might be one of the best, or some major issues ever, the single one.
• 1:29:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Black Panther is hosting an international summit of heroes that Avengers mansion.
• 1:29:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sunfire, Sabra, Captain Britain, Collective Man, Arabian Night, Shaman, Ursa Major.
• 1:29:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So different nationalities, different countries, and Ursa Major is very hungry, and says.
• 1:29:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: How damn pathetic, the Panther dangles is shiny toys in front of you lot, and you all start lining up to kisses by brandiam ring.
• 1:29:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Come put your hand near my mouth, kitty cat, and see what happens to it.
• 1:29:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: The winter guard doesn't need your help or your intel, and we sure as hell aren't about to give you hours.
• 1:29:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: The collective men with spurs be wary, the bear is quite drunk, and the Black Panther replies, with all two perspectives the major, this is exactly the sort of territorial thinking that led our two groups clashing to the fight to save Hydropolis.
• 1:29:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I failed to see how an ongoing adversarial relationship would be beneficial to either the winter guard or the Avengers.
• 1:29:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Especially as name wars attacks continue.
• 1:29:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Details are sketchy, but just three days ago there was to get another incident off the coast of Alaska where... Ah, ha!
• 1:29:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: So now we finally come to it.
• 1:29:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: You didn't just bring us here to bask in your coronation and need to view scraps from your table.
• 1:30:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: You'll need something from us.
• 1:30:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Shaman says, Major Earth is having you been listening, we all need each other here.
• 1:30:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, he doesn't.
• 1:30:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's the black Panther.
• 1:30:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: He never needs anyone or anything until now.
• 1:30:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he says, Earthus, you're out of line, stand down or... Tell me, I'm wrong, Tachala.
• 1:30:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't know what happened in Alaska.
• 1:30:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you?
• 1:30:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, I do not.
• 1:30:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you?
• 1:30:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know there's a very conspicuous absence from this all-inclusive summit of yours.
• 1:30:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why is there no one here from the United States?
• 1:30:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: The country with more superheroes than I've got ringworms, yet not a one of them is sitting at your table.
• 1:30:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not every or dear friend kept in Rogers.
• 1:30:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Quite here is not so popular with his own government these days.
• 1:30:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have a problem, Lord of Endsure, a very big star-spangled problem.
• 1:30:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just don't know how big yet do you, and you want us to help solve it for you.
• 1:30:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, allow me to say your holiness on behalf of the entire Winter Garden, all the good people of Mother Russia.
• 1:30:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kiss my furry ass.
• 1:30:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: An Arabian night says, this is why you never invite a bear to the party.
• 1:30:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Enough damn talk.
• 1:30:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: What the hell problems is that they're solved?
• 1:31:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain said you're way out of line verses and uh, collective man says sit down or the collective man will sit you down.
• 1:31:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You imputed panda.
• 1:31:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: You bunch of blundering half-wints want peace on earth.
• 1:31:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Then let's make it happen right here.
• 1:31:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm all every last them one of you.
• 1:31:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then you stay that hell out of the winter guards way.
• 1:31:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's your peace and I'm starting with you your holiness.
• 1:31:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: What do you say to that?
• 1:31:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Black Panther response by pushing a button and teleporting Ursa Major back to Siberia.
• 1:31:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a moment afterward, and this is really telling, and let's talk about this.
• 1:31:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: A radiant night says, ah, you should have punched him.
• 1:31:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've never seen a verified a panther.
• 1:31:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sabre says he definitely had a coming.
• 1:31:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain says Ursa's was KGB.
• 1:31:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's no drunken buffoon.
• 1:31:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was all quite intentional.
• 1:31:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was goating you.
• 1:31:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good on you for not taking the bait to Charlie.
• 1:31:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Black Panther says, when I extended an invitation to the winter guard, I'd hope the crimson dynamo would attend.
• 1:31:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, I imagine they sent us a major very much on purpose.
• 1:31:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: It appears we will find no allies in Moscow.
• 1:31:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Collective men says, I hear it's this new red widow who's calling the shots and Arabian night, damn red room, every monster they turn out is somehow always worse than the last.
• 1:32:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sabre says that corner of the globe is in a fair bit of chaos right now.
• 1:32:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are our thoughts on this portrayal of or some major?
• 1:32:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: A really amps it up to like a deliciously delightful threat.
• 1:32:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how many ringworms does he have?
• 1:32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's got all the power.
• 1:32:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's got all the power in the situation.
• 1:32:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's calling the shots.
• 1:32:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's pushing.
• 1:32:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you know, you want to do this?
• 1:32:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to fight?
• 1:32:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to go?
• 1:32:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you?
• 1:32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?
• 1:32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm this guy.
• 1:32:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's just so confident in what he's doing.
• 1:32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that they call it out because you can feel it in his dialogue.
• 1:32:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: like they label it for you.
• 1:32:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: How many ringworms?
• 1:32:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd say nine.
• 1:32:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's more ringworms than there are superheroes in America, so there must be several thousand five.
• 1:32:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he's involved, it's practically throughout the rest of the run.
• 1:32:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get to see him fighting vampires.
• 1:32:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: he eventually does turn on the red widow who's kind of this evil mysterious lady.
• 1:32:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, you could talk more about red widow if you'd like.
• 1:32:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we also get him like giving Intel to gorilla man when they meet in a zoo in transia for their like private meeting, the bear in the gorilla meeting.
• 1:33:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at the very end, when the winter guard is fighting in Avengers Mountain, trying to capture the She-Hulk, this is the story where she gets turned into that big red gamma monster in Russia, like as a red room bomb.
• 1:33:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's electrocuted and her son Major goes for the record, grilled Hulk smells like a Siberian tire fire.
• 1:33:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if this is his ex lover, that makes it even weirder, that move it.
• 1:33:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a weird appearance of him in some other places, but this is a really fun run, especially that single issue.
• 1:33:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Ryan, do you want to talk to us about how you came on the book at this point?
• 1:33:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: The winter guard is trending a little under Jason Aaron's pen.
• 1:33:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, and I feel really, no, I was, I was really stoked.
• 1:33:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I had actually, I just worked with Jason on a, uh, Sturgeon Simpson book, so we had kind of like collaborated and I had like worked off of some of his outlines.
• 1:33:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it was kind of cool to get to do that a little bit more like for the big show for Marvel.
• 1:33:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: They, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they
• 1:33:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: They brought me on to do a winner guard book, but the big problems that, because the black widow movie was coming out, Alexey, Red Guardian, and Yelena had to be like main characters, which is the only reason that's a problem is because the winner guard already has like way too many people on it, so we decided to like sideline two people right away, and
• 1:34:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we just wanted to, you know, I mean, the editor Sarah Brunstead from the beginning wanted to do like a a spy thriller like, you know, a post Cold War obviously, but a classic like none of these people trust each other and for us a major I was like really jumping off of.
• 1:34:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, obviously, I'm leaning into Jason's portrayal of him.
• 1:34:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: But that, that tales of suspense, like 103104, like, that's where I'm kind of, like, think I'm thinking of him in that mind space of responding to that, right?
• 1:34:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like, he went through that experience and now he's here with this winner guard.
• 1:34:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: In the run, you know, it's a classic spy run where, like, nobody trusts anybody and the winner guard is sort of from the get go at odds with the Russian government.
• 1:34:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: They are supposed to be working for, like, Crimson Dino is supposed to be in charge of the team.
• 1:34:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: And there's like 10 crumbs and dynamos out there, you guys, I went back to Jamaica.
• 1:35:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the other thing that I love about I'm very glad Jason did that.
• 1:35:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: He brings back it's it's a much more for the war once Ursa Major is with like versions of the characters He actually knows he's not getting stuck with some random calling himself Vanguard
• 1:35:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, he is, so in my book, he is sort of Yelena's lever, I guess.
• 1:35:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: He from the beginning is like, hey, it's bullshit that this Redwood O'Chick is like telling us what to do.
• 1:35:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like we're taking orders from the state again.
• 1:35:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's dealing, he's playing up his drunkenness a lot, but it's also like he has to, because it's the only way he's allowed to criticize, right?
• 1:35:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: If he's a drunken buffoon, he can talk shit all the time to his handlers and be critical with his bosses because no one takes some seriously,
• 1:35:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: He could show up at the Avengers and bait everybody and be this belligerent half-animal monster.
• 1:35:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was sort of always the one in the team across the four issues, who Yelena is trying to be like, hey, what Red Guardian and I are doing is actually better for the world, like aren't you sick?
• 1:36:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, he's sort of like one step behind Yelene.
• 1:36:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, aren't you sick of being used by the state and superhero teams?
• 1:36:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, America does something and then you have to hurt a bunch of people and do a bunch of fucked up stuff.
• 1:36:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, isn't this bad, shouldn't there be a better way?
• 1:36:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so, he's like, he's definitely, I'm playing him.
• 1:36:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm writing him as legitimately, you know, having struggles with alcoholism and that side of him.
• 1:36:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I do think it's like 100% like he's embracing that for the sake of cover and coping with this with this team.
• 1:36:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's going through some stuff, and there's like years before the lead up here, Red Widow, by the way, we have the Black Widow in the White Widow.
• 1:36:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red Widow is like a version of Black Widow, but like super villain scary version.
• 1:36:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's been given like a super soldier serum.
• 1:36:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And later she has like a she hoped, like upgrade, where she can give herself a shot and Hulk out.
• 1:36:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's kind of an interesting mysterious character who has kind of odd alliances.
• 1:36:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a major does get a couple moments under you.
• 1:36:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: He references Krikoa when he yells, what would you have me do?
• 1:36:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where would I go?
• 1:36:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not fit to frolic on Xavier's island like other mutants.
• 1:37:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least this gives me a chance to do some good for my people.
• 1:37:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And later in issue 2 Yelena tells him, you know what it's like to dirty your hands on some oligarchs orders and then suffer on his behalf.
• 1:37:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Soldiers spy superheroes, whether we cheat or play fair the monsters that run the world are the only real winners,
• 1:37:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right, yeah, we're going through this and like even the stuff that I hadn't fully read like prepping for that book I'm like damn like he he really has just been like fucked up and used and made to pay for it over it over again Of course when we first meet him in Aaron's run He's like playing up that he's a cannibal drunk monster in a ghoulog, you know, and then we most recently get him Spencer Aquaman's currently writing Iron Man and he's in some of the last a couple of issues where the winter guards showed up
• 1:37:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're recording this in May, it'll come out in July, so it'll be a little out of date by the time it's released.
• 1:37:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they are tacking the Country Dagestan, Red Widows of the Leader.
• 1:37:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or some major gets to y'all to Iron Man.
• 1:37:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would open you like a sardine to an American and Iron Man gets to say, Ersa Major is it wrong that part of you wants to cuddle you?
• 1:38:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not that drunk, Iron Man.
• 1:38:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He also calls him Comrad Ruxbin, like Teddy Ruxbin at one point.
• 1:38:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Edd.
• 1:38:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rad Ruxbin is so fucking good.
• 1:38:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Comrad Ruxbin, Spencer, you're a very good writer in general, but you deserve the Eisner for Comrad Ruxbin.
• 1:38:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as he's dropped out of the sky or some major falling to the ground yells Russia hasn't been communist for a long time And that's or some major.
• 1:38:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting to analyze this character as a powerhouse as a soldier His relationship with his country and heroism is interesting this kind of dark journey and then his overall relationship with mutants Which is never quite solidified into anything dark star has been in the X-Men orbit, but Vanguard her brother and her
• 1:38:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, like, as we've been talking, I've really been thinking about the tragedy of like, what if he really was a mutant born with a much cooler power?
• 1:38:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then, you know, he just didn't get the proper training.
• 1:38:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, he's like sort of feral.
• 1:38:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, it, you know, this is the kind of thing that you never get to explore with a character like, like, me tail, but it would be, it would be dope to like, explore that actually knows.
• 1:39:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: His power isn't just turning into a man bear.
• 1:39:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like something more to it.
• 1:39:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: His connection to nature or his feral abilities.
• 1:39:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: But on the other hand, maybe we're totally wrong and maybe the best thing about him is that he's just, he turns into a man bear, and that's really cool.
• 1:39:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: But no, I think he's a cool way to explore like a microcosm for this like Russia America conflict in the Marvel Universe and what it means for these characters in general, because he is sympathetic, but also can be kind of bad.
• 1:39:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: He could make a really fucking cool character on a team.
• 1:39:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a ton of potential.
• 1:39:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And really even his connection potentially to stars, right?
• 1:39:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's named for stars, which is something we've never explored ever in the comics.
• 1:39:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: My least favorite thing is when they crack all the bear jokes, although they're cute.
• 1:39:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just gets really old when you read it all at a row.
• 1:39:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: The She-Hulk ones were pretty rough.
• 1:39:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's kind of bummed out.
• 1:39:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, no, we can do better.
• 1:39:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why so much when you the poo?
• 1:39:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you know, I had a passing knowledge on our subject before, but especially whenever we go through an entire continuity of character and you really get to see the shades of things represented in multiple stories and the way that they build off each other.
• 1:40:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: difference between how America treats its mutants, the United States treats its mutants, and Russia treats its mutants.
• 1:40:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And also to your point, Chad, to be on a team and to get to explore what he would be without the usual trappings that we always see in with, right?
• 1:40:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It feels a very,
• 1:40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: the team, right?
• 1:40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he is the muscle.
• 1:40:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is leaning into the the ferocity and the the bestial form.
• 1:40:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there's what other roles could he play with people that he is experiencing for the first time?
• 1:40:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: How would he play with mutants that are larger?
• 1:40:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, human colossus interacting beyond just, you know, like a passing scene of that being a different scale of fight, you know, Ryan to your point of, we don't know the upper limits of
• 1:41:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: because he's always hooking out even more and more and doing more ferocity.
• 1:41:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do we test that?
• 1:41:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would push that even further.
• 1:41:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love the idea that this character could fit almost anywhere.
• 1:41:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could put him on the brotherhood of evil mutants and it would make sense.
• 1:41:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could put him on X-force and it would make sense.
• 1:41:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could make him dazzlers, fuckboy, and it would make sense.
• 1:41:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's like a truly crazy number of places.
• 1:41:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: He could be the bouncer at a bar, right?
• 1:41:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's anywhere this character could fit as long as you honor his history.
• 1:41:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: but there's a number of really strong potential, the visual on him alone is incredible.
• 1:41:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a character that has a ton of ton of potential.
• 1:41:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm super fond of him, and this was a really fascinating journey for me as a researcher and as a host, and when you compare this character to Polossus, it's even more interesting.
• 1:41:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to hear any final thoughts before we wrap up, but we're going to put this out on the Patreon initially for subscribers on July 10th, we'll release it on the main show in the fall.
• 1:41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will see you all at the uncanny experience like next week for those of you that are listening.
• 1:41:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll be there.
• 1:41:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be there doing uncanny type things and teaching a class and having fun, so see me there and say, hey, and I'll say, hey, back and we'll have a great time.
• 1:42:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a major, oh man.
• 1:42:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I love every time that it puts a new character on my map in a different way because I'm excited to see when next we see Ursa Major and how he differs.
• 1:42:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to just really appreciate what he's been through and how it is different.
• 1:42:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's not just a big strong guy, but he is a really big strong guy.
• 1:42:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can find me all over the internet at the X-Wife podcast, THEXWIFE, like X-Men, not former wife, where my wife and I talk about comics.
• 1:42:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We also talk about cosplay and uncanny experiences tying it back to the start.
• 1:42:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: POP POW.
• 1:42:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: What class of you teaching at uncanny this year?
• 1:42:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is an evolution of every one of our classes has been kind of an evolution off of the first one, but much more of a lean into the experience base where we will, I think it's called Crisis Alert,
• 1:42:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: where we are dividing you into teams and giving you scenarios and problems and having you work through them.
• 1:43:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this was part of our class last year, but we almost didn't have enough time to explore it and it seemed to be the one thing that the entire room erupted with excitement over.
• 1:43:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like getting to play as characters and figure out situations.
• 1:43:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm doing a, I'm doing intro to Savage Land 101 from amphibious to Zabu and we've got the fashion panel I'm hosting a few others.
• 1:43:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna be a good time.
• 1:43:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait to hang out my friend.
• 1:43:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna be good to see you.
• 1:43:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will not be at uncanny experience, but I am loving these lesions.
• 1:43:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: You should have me to really, oh man, it's like, it's really easy to get into land.
• 1:43:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh man, yeah, so I'm Ryan Kady.
• 1:43:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mostly write comics, find me on the internet at RYCADY, occasionally at RY underscore CADY.
• 1:43:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a blue sky guy, I'm not an X anymore.
• 1:43:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Plug, go pick up the winner guard.
• 1:43:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: We have a collected edition.
• 1:43:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: The trades called Operation Snowblind.
• 1:43:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's got a lot of her so major, and I may or may not answer the question of how many ringworms he has.
• 1:43:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's more than American superheroes.
• 1:43:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what we need to know for sure.
• 1:43:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
• 1:44:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of Marvel international stuff.
• 1:44:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love when Marvel gets to play and do, like that's one of the hallmarks of Jason's run is that like international crisis world politics stuff.
• 1:44:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: In August on the show Patreon, we're doing all problematic characters and we're going to be jumping around the world and talking about how they got it wrong.
• 1:44:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So many times.
• 1:44:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Stay tuned though we some fun conversations about characters like man ape and the irradiate night, so that'll be a good time All right, everybody.
• 1:44:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
• 1:44:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had such a great time adjusting and Ryan We'll see you all back here next time on the great-mokin lane patreon and now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism as a special guest and I talked about a red skull story and it's modern applications
• 1:44:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The V2 rocket short for the Van Gogh Tunes Vafa to or Vengeance weapon to was developed by Nazi Germany during World War II as the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile.
• 1:44:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Conceived as a weapon of retribution after Allied bombings of German cities, it was designed as at the Piano Munda Army Research Center under the leadership of Venerovon Brown,
• 1:45:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The V2 could travel at supersonic speeds, and deliver a one-ton warhead over 200 miles, striking targets such as London and Antwerp, partly impressive in today's vernacular, but back then it was a big deal.
• 1:45:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's first successful test occurred on October 3, 1942, and it entered combat in September 1944, becoming the first man made object to reach the edge of space.
• 1:45:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: The creation of the V2 came at an enormous human cost.
• 1:45:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: After Allied bombing raids on Piano Munda in 1943, production was moved underground to the middle of the facility near Nordhausen where the work was carried out by forced laborers from the middle-bound door of concentration camp.
• 1:45:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Conditions were horrific, tens of thousands of prisoners died from starvation, exhaustion,
• 1:45:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: and execution during the rocket's production years.
• 1:45:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: While the V2 represented the major technological achievement, its military effectiveness was limited and over 3,000 were launched killing roughly 9,000 people in war.
• 1:46:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: The weapon had no decisive impact on the outcome of the war.
• 1:46:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: After Germany's surrender in 1945, both the United States and the Soviet Union raced to capture the scientists and technology behind the V2 program.
• 1:46:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Under Operation Paperclip, Vaughn Brown and many of his colleagues were brought to the United States where they contributed to the development of the redstone and Saturn rockets for NASA.
• 1:46:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: In contrast, others like Helmut Grootrupe, who were taken to the Soviet Union to work on mission missile design, the V2 thus marked a turning point in history, born from wartime desperation it became the foundation of modern rocketry and space exploration, directly influencing both the Cold War arms race and the space race that put humans on the moon.
• 1:46:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now let's jump to X-Man Volume 2, number 91.
• 1:46:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a red skull in the X-Men story, everybody, and we go deep in continuity here if we want to, my goodness.
• 1:46:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The red skull is back, and he's taken over Doug Lock.
• 1:46:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna talk about what a Doug Lock is in a minute, but I've just got the jump into the story.
• 1:46:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: He makes Doug Lock use his trans-mode virus to take over all the agents on a shield helicopter air.
• 1:47:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Doug Lock is trying to find a way to ask for help to break free from control.
• 1:47:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red skull is braiding the head of Doug Lock,
• 1:47:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at me in maggot, you are disobedient, I will not tolerate such resistance.
• 1:47:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is time you abandon your pathetic attempts to oppose my will or once and for all, none are left to end my plans now.
• 1:47:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: None remain to rescue you.
• 1:47:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are mine to control the clock and through you through the unstoppable power of your extraterrestrial technobirus, the world will finally bow to the red skull.
• 1:47:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: and we get an image of a new cyborg red skull with a giant mech hand that's kind of never followed up on but scary we continue at X-Men 1999 annual number one and it turns out that his final wish with the cosmic cube in his last adventure was for safety and for the power to control the world and the cube granted it it took him to Douglock and the red skull promptly took over him.
• 1:47:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: A board of the hellacarrier the red skull is unimpressed and
• 1:47:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is it.
• 1:47:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is where all those American tax dollars are funneled off too, so freely.
• 1:47:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: The question we're all asking ourselves these days, perhaps.
• 1:48:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shields vented secret weapons program turns out to be nothing more than a new cyborg death lock consisting of parts harvested from the Android known as machine man.
• 1:48:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the plot summary of the M tech line that Marvel is launching around this time.
• 1:48:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a mutant technology, line of books, including X51, Warlock and the Deathlock series that were happening right around this time.
• 1:48:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red Skull wants Mind Control technology devices build, but Douglock breaks control by first waking up machine man, and then activating this new Deathlock to come and kill him directly, kill himself, Douglock.
• 1:48:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a big fight involving the X-Men, Nick Fury, Deathlock, Machine Man, and Douglock kicks off, kicked the Red Skull right off his main skate, right off the mainframe, but the Red Skull's able to escape with a hell of a carrier full of mind-controlled shield agents, and he has this hell of a carrier for like a few years, like this is referenced in multiple stories, please stay tuned in the future.
• 1:48:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to finally conclude here in fantastic 4 volume 3, number 23, which is a Chris Claremont story.
• 1:48:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red Skull now in blue and red teams up with the mad thinker briefly and a surprise attack on the fantastic 4.
• 1:49:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: They disguise the hell of carrier as an aircraft carrier, but the FF has a surprise fifth member.
• 1:49:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: The aged up alternate brief reality, future version of Valeria Richards, who has helped the team survive.
• 1:49:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mad thinker claimed unfamiliar variables, and Red Skull says that's the difference mine now between you and the Red Skull.
• 1:49:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You try to foresee every eventuality, and are therefore limited in your response to the wholly unexpected, whereas I, much like my hated archival, helped man America, have learnt to value the art of improvisation.
• 1:49:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK, I know I asked you to jump out of the deep bed, but let me welcome my dear friend, Philip Lunk, was back to the show.
• 1:49:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Philip high, are you a red skull fan, my friend?
• 1:49:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I haven't run into any iteration of him that has a redeeming quality, so.
• 1:49:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could have tossed you anywhere into the Marvel Universe.
• 1:49:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are one of the rare guests for these conversations who get an X-Men story, but I kind of presume you had no idea what the fuck a doglock was before.
• 1:49:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I correct.
• 1:49:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I might have heard of no political reference here over there, but I had no idea they had merged into a single being.
• 1:50:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Doug Ramsey, Cypher, who's like the protagonist or the antagonist of the age of Revelation happening currently, his power is language, and he forms a bond with Warlock, who is the tech-nark alien, who is a like a mutant, who's broken free of his like aliens, like cyborg programming, basically.
• 1:50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: When Doug is killed by the animation,
• 1:50:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Warlock is grieving and then Warlock dies in another separate mission on genosia.
• 1:50:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the remains of Warlock bond with like dugs and grams and it creates this new being because like a full member of Excalibur for a period of time who has the very uninspired name of Doug Lock.
• 1:50:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I like that for them.
• 1:50:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, Veda, Merge sort of, but not really like a trail, like Sartak, so I'll take it.
• 1:50:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like if you and your bunny both died, but then there was a bunny Philip, like a bunny Philip hopping around afterward, you know, it's like it's a little combination, it's fine.
• 1:50:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
• 1:50:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I could imagine, they're giving me in the basement, so keeping me safe from everything that would freak me out.
• 1:51:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's how that would go.
• 1:51:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: What was it like for you jumping into the deep end of these crazy red skull stories?
• 1:51:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: tried to piece some of the things together, like I knew some of the settings at least of newer island.
• 1:51:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Didn't know much about Excalibur with Colossus and on it.
• 1:51:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have only read a few issues with NightProiler and Brian and Megan and Katie, but it sounds like they're back and having their own adventure and looking for their friend Doug Locke, so that at least had some common elements I could grasp to pull myself along.
• 1:51:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, late night has a lot of continuity layered for sure.
• 1:51:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did you have any favorite moments in the story?
• 1:51:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have really appreciated it and I probably being like guns are obtuse.
• 1:51:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like them.
• 1:51:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're clumsy and have no finesse and he just wallops all these shield agents in a way that they should be able to come out of their like brainwashing.
• 1:51:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: and still be able to have the normal lives.
• 1:51:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, really appreciated that.
• 1:51:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really appreciated Katie going headlong through all those cables trying to free Doug Locke.
• 1:52:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, she's a solution, goes for it.
• 1:52:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even if it doesn't work out how she wanted it to.
• 1:52:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But just like the the gumption of like, he has a plan and it was stick to it.
• 1:52:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Redskill stories are often him like working behind the scenes and like fomenting chaos in the government or opposing as a United States senator or you know doing something like this.
• 1:52:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever he's like in the action and like manipulating technology and like mind controlling it's always such a weird turn for me but he this is like a Nazi war criminal taking over like a government institution of like international peacekeeping force and like corrupting people into Nazis with like alien technology truly crazy sci-fi should
• 1:52:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I feel like the brainwashing sort of goes hand-in-hand for some reason.
• 1:52:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like forever reason, I feel like that vibes with the red skull and the naughty motif of brain people along.
• 1:52:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that felt, I guess, normal in some way.
• 1:52:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: of like I could see this being a thing and some of the imagery of like when he kicks Doug Lock in the face for trying to resist him and it's like it just is very shiny boot.
• 1:53:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that's also some of that imagery of like the the cringy things of like a can't leave this happen in the past and the red is told he does love a boot for sure.
• 1:53:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:53:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The idea of technology in the wrong hands is obviously kind of the through line if we're like reducing this story.
• 1:53:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is, I mean, this is crazy sci-fi, right?
• 1:53:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like Warlock is from the tech-nark who are alien beings who infect organic life with what they call a techno-organic virus, which then allows them to drain the life from that organic life and incorporate it into their own, right?
• 1:53:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The failings are a different thing.
• 1:53:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a space race of failings.
• 1:53:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there are people on the earth who have gotten the techno-organic virus or transmode virus and learned how to weaponize it.
• 1:53:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what the Red Skull has done here.
• 1:53:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a modified virus that allows him to mind control people.
• 1:53:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a different version of this virus and like cables arm.
• 1:54:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like there's a whole bunch of the trans food or techno-organic virus all over the place, right?
• 1:54:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's different versions of this like alien weapon in the hands of humans.
• 1:54:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: whenever we have any kinds of weapons, it's always most scary in the hands of the Nazis.
• 1:54:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and that was at least one good spot about Nick Fury's actions on the hell of care trying to dump the planes, dump the bombs.
• 1:54:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But even Necroiler was like, why do you have so many, which I thought was interesting, and at the end of Fantastic Four, he basically
• 1:54:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: weapons he reloaded the hell of carrier, basically, and then just abskons and with his perloined bombs and weaponry, and it's like, oh, this nothing good is going to come from this.
• 1:54:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and then there's a wide enough so many.
• 1:54:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's this giant missing hell of carrier that runs for like years in the comics.
• 1:54:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy how long the red skull had it has it.
• 1:54:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember I was reading the Avengers in the late 90s and Kurt Bucic ran a poll that was like, hey, I want the Avengers to handle like a bunch of threats that are out there in the Marvel universe.
• 1:54:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like everybody rioted and like, what's the threat?
• 1:55:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I wrote it, and I'm like the Red
• 1:55:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: school still has that look area.
• 1:55:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then they ended up using that story.
• 1:55:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I wasn't directly responsible.
• 1:55:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But that was one of the stories they had been picking up in the Avengers because it had just been happening for so long.
• 1:55:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was driving me crazy.
• 1:55:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in my head cannon, that's why it happened is because you wrote in.
• 1:55:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have that power chat.
• 1:55:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now the M tech line launches after this.
• 1:55:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a big section of Marvel books.
• 1:55:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Deathdephlock is like a future like we've learned how to weaponize a human body by putting a computer in it and turning it into an assassin.
• 1:55:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's very robot cop, but it's way.
• 1:55:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have Machine Man, which is a 70's character, who's like programmed with a human consciousness.
• 1:55:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: His technology in this story is later becomes incorporated with the Sentinels, which is a huge X-Men story that involves like Bastion and other characters.
• 1:55:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have Doug Lock, who gets his own series for a while after this.
• 1:55:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: He, uh, written by I think Louis Simon said if I'm remembering correctly.
• 1:55:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: where he's a little trans-mode bugs money guy like having adventures for a year in a warlock title that I think a lot of X-Men fans have overlooked.
• 1:56:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's some fun history for everybody.
• 1:56:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll probably touch on these characters and some patriouts in the future who knows.
• 1:56:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I opened with this story of this kind of missile that influenced the space race that the Nazis got their hands on and these real world parallels I think are always really interesting, but did you have any thoughts on the vengeance rocket or the V2 rocket I mentioned?
• 1:56:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just sort of the forgotten or like not advertised history of all these scientists who are not these working with that cause, who were then sort of picked up and brought to the US to work on these other projects and get these titles and get these positions of power.
• 1:56:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And anytime I learn about one of those things, it just never feels good.
• 1:56:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like my aunt is
• 1:56:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: has a disease that got renamed because it was named for a Nazi doctor and like some more glad that there's that discussion happening of hey this came from this person who was really a bad person they don't deserve this sort of legacy that they have currently we should change that there's a lot of complicated history in places that we have no idea what the origins of things are it's always interesting to learn and I'm asking right this but how you
• 1:57:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I'm trying to take your like queer joy is resistance to heart.
• 1:57:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, um, living joyfully is an act of defiance as a like motto of mine right now.
• 1:57:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's been supremely helpful in terms of like this doesn't have a whole lot to do with the resistance, but it's also like creating a space in an atmosphere where you're less likely to be sort of sheepled into compliance in a way.
• 1:57:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:57:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: not to let them win in terms of like dominating every aspect of our lives.
• 1:57:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we can have good times together that they can't spoil.
• 1:57:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:57:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm always grateful for your friendship.
• 1:57:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm grateful for your support of the show.
• 1:57:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm grateful every time we get to hang out.
• 1:57:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we get to hang out soon in January, which I'm very excited about.
• 1:57:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be a super great time.
• 1:57:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 1:57:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And your Instagram things are always super fun.
• 1:57:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm always happy to get to join it.
• 1:57:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's to games.
• 1:57:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a fun routine for me to have, so I was appreciate your support.
• 1:58:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, thank you, everybody, for listening.
• 1:58:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope these conversations continue to be in lightening.
• 1:58:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're recording this in early November, who knows what has happened to the world between now and this episode's release.
• 1:58:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But please take care of yourselves, stay safe, and pull your community tight.
• 1:58:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are crazy times.
• 1:58:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Philip, for hanging out today.
• 1:58:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: My pleasure, as always.
• 1:58:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, everyone, for listening.
• 1:58:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back here next week on Grimalk and Light.