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X-Men 99 Script Read! Deathstar, Rising! And an interview with Stephen Roman! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

0:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grimmolkin Lane podcast, where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
0:16
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm your host Chad Anderson, we are going to be reading the incredible script from a X-Men number 99, an opening with the story from classic X-Men number 6.
0:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I have an incredible cast of friends and nerds here today, we're going to have a delicious time.
0:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I will be reading the role of your narrator.
0:32
[SPEAKER_13]: I release the Wilder, and I will be Jean Grey in Sentinel L1.
0:37
[SPEAKER_13]: I'm Sam, I'm going to be in the Steenight and Stone.
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Sean Rohani, I'll be Wolverine, Ned Buckman, and Haralda Rivera.
0:45
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm Seth Martell, I will be returning a Cyclops and make my debut as a Gassie Sentinel.
0:51
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Mike Diven.
0:52
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm doing the Russian Double Feature Day, Colossus and Katusa.
0:56
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got to come up with two Russian accents somehow, and also Peter Kerbo.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And then Jacob.
1:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jacob Thompson.
1:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just happy to be here.
1:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll be playing Steven Lang, Billy Ann Sebastian Shaw.
1:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Sean Beverage.
1:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll be playing Banshee, Flaherty, and Jordan.
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So I will also have to come up with two identical, but different accents.
1:13
[SPEAKER_17]: I'm Justin Wilder and I will be Professor X Sentinel and a Postman.
1:18
[SPEAKER_17]: Same voice.
1:20
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm Kevin Canary, and I will be Nightcrawler in Sentinel R71.
1:26
[SPEAKER_15]: Hi, I'm Robin Muffer, and I will be Black Tom Cassidy, and the incomparable the illustrious Jake.
1:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm seeing a free Jake from State Farm, just clarifying.
1:36
[SPEAKER_07]: These sounds hideous.
1:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, um, and I'm Scott Frey and I will be the Iceman Sentinel and Roger Grimsby and a technician.
1:44
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to open with classic X-Men number six.
1:46
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a story from February 1987.
1:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Chris Claremont is the writer, John Bolton is on art, Blinnis Oliver on colors, Tom Orzakowski.
1:53
[SPEAKER_05]: on letters, any incentive, and Terry Cavanaugh are the editors.
1:57
[SPEAKER_05]: This story is called a love story.
1:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's one of those, there's kind of no words.
2:01
[SPEAKER_05]: It's Marvel did like a whole month where there was like no words in the comic.
2:06
[SPEAKER_05]: It was just all images.
2:07
[SPEAKER_05]: This is one of those stories.
2:09
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just all pictures.
2:11
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very pretty.
2:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And we get to just kind of interpret that today.
2:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It is winter in New York City.
2:17
[SPEAKER_05]: The snow is tumbling down, filling the streets, and the roads are nearly empty of cars during the heavy winter storm.
2:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Jean Grey, in blue jeans, and a green coat, walks down the street, her arms loaded with bags.
2:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Her green eyes are focused on the ground ahead of her.
2:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Reaching the door to her apartment, she telekinetically holds the bags in the air while opening the door, floating them into her apartment.
2:36
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the bags comes from Kavanaugh, New York, uh, named I'm assuming for Terry Kavanaugh.
2:41
[SPEAKER_05]: She has made her home in a former artist's loft.
2:44
[SPEAKER_05]: It's comfortable with some flowery metallic statues, and even a grandfather clock, hanging her coat on a hook, Jean empties the bag's telekinetically, putting the items away with her mind.
2:54
[SPEAKER_05]: A few bottles of wine, a box of chips, assorted goods, and an emotionally silent story beautifully and playfully illustrated by John Bolton.
3:01
[SPEAKER_05]: We get three sentences textured onto a wall in the background.
3:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Mutants, bunch of weirdos, who got the nerve to be born from the rest of us slabs, but excuse me, born different from the rest of us slabs with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal men.
3:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Tell the canesis, how those weirdos throw things around without using their hands, or feed, or any physical part of their body.
3:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all in their minds.
3:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Telepathy, how they read your minds, assuming, of course you have one.
3:26
[SPEAKER_05]: The clock chimes at 6 p.m. Bung, Bung, Bung, Gene strips off her yellow shirt.
3:30
[SPEAKER_05]: By the way, no bra underneath.
3:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, telekinesis, and draws herself a bubble bath in the biggest tub you've ever seen in a New York City apartment.
3:38
[SPEAKER_05]: There is an entire shelf next to the tub, filled with bath products and a potted plant.
3:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Clock Chimes again at 6.30.
3:47
[SPEAKER_05]: In a pink bathrobe with a towel around her hair, Jean looks at a picture of herself with her roommate, Misty Knight, both of them painting a wall in their shared apartment.
3:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Misty has written a note.
3:56
[SPEAKER_12]: As a great Janie, I'm gone for the weekend.
3:58
[SPEAKER_12]: Go for broke.
3:59
[SPEAKER_12]: Love your roommate, Missy, P.S.
4:02
[SPEAKER_12]: Scott Bond said he'd be by the pick you up at 730.
4:05
[SPEAKER_12]: Be ready.
4:06
[SPEAKER_12]: Be rude.
4:07
[SPEAKER_12]: Be happy.
4:07
[SPEAKER_12]: It'll be great.
4:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Jean flips on a lamp and opens her calendar on the date December 21.
4:12
[SPEAKER_05]: She's written in cursive.
4:14
[SPEAKER_05]: The word Scott in a heart followed by the phrase, dinner plus.
4:18
[SPEAKER_05]: She runs a finger over the photograph of Scott Summers, a smug smile on his face as he wears his red sunglasses on it.
4:24
[SPEAKER_05]: He has written also in cursive
4:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Gene Telekinetically turns on her record player.
4:30
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't know what she's listening to, but I'm going to presume it's let's get it on by Marvin Gaye from 1973.
4:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Her eyes are glowing with just a little bit of power.
4:39
[SPEAKER_05]: She finds some of Scott's clothes, sunglasses, red, collared shirt, and blue jeans, and she telekinetically animates them.
4:45
[SPEAKER_05]: It almost looks like the invisible man is in the room wearing Scott's clothes.
4:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Jean dances around with this animated figure, holding his invisible hand, then wrapping her arms around his neck and maybe pretends to make out with him just a little bit.
4:57
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the part I'm adding.
4:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Then she rests her head on his invisible shoulder while making the arms of the jacket wrap around her own waist.
5:05
[SPEAKER_05]: The clothes are animated in a way to show off Scott's muscles, arms, legs,
5:14
[SPEAKER_05]: The makeshift man collapses to the floor and Jean climbs the stairs, hands and pocket, a bit embarrassed about herself, still in her bathroom and towel, in her bedroom with green wallpaper and a blue striped comforter on her perfectly made bed.
5:26
[SPEAKER_05]: An enormous poster of the Phoenix and the carpet, a story by Edith Nezboot, a book written for children in 1904.
5:36
[SPEAKER_05]: in the story, some children, by the way, find a phoenix egg on a magic carpet and go on a series of adventures.
5:42
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the second book in a trilogy.
5:43
[SPEAKER_05]: In Gene's poster, the fiery phoenix burns brightly against a black backdrop.
5:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Gene takes the photograph of herself with her loving parents off the nightstand and tuck sit into her drawer.
5:53
[SPEAKER_05]: She lays back on her bed, rolls over, size, and telekinetically closes.
5:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Excuse me, telekinetically opens the closet door.
6:00
[SPEAKER_05]: She animates two dresses to float toward her a white dress and a black one holds them up to herself in the mirror with another size she gets ready for her date.
6:08
[SPEAKER_05]: By the time her date arrives, Ding Dong, she's ready.
6:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Scott Summer stands in the doorway, red sunglasses, white shirt, blue striped tie, nice trench coat with a cinched belt and brown gloves, a fur lined collar at the
6:19
[SPEAKER_05]: excuse me, a furline's collar and black at the top.
6:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And Jean, she's wearing the black dress, gold earrings, gold necklace, the one she will soon be wearing when the sentinals capture her.
6:28
[SPEAKER_05]: The one that Wolverine will rip the skirt off of days later in space.
6:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Scott brought a single rose for her.
6:35
[SPEAKER_05]: She kisses him, he kisses her back.
6:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Jean telekinetically puts on her fancy winter coat, extinguishes the lit candles, and walks back out into the winter storm with her man.
6:44
[SPEAKER_05]: As they walk down the road, telekinetically shielding them from the, she telekinetically shields them from
6:49
[SPEAKER_05]: hours later, the fight between the X-Men and the Sentinels sends a conclusive blast from the apartment.
6:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Chiboum, the window shatters, the lamp falls to the ground, an image of Jean hugging Scott falls off the wall, the glass over the photo shatters, a Sentinel flies by outside as the camera zooms in on the image of the fiery picture of the Phoenix on the poster.
7:12
[SPEAKER_05]: On the back cover of the book by the way, we see Gene and Scott dancing, kissing, and an intimate moment, a single spotlight shining down on them, a massive sentinel looming overhead.
7:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It's eyes a glow.
7:22
[SPEAKER_05]: It's hand reaching out to grab them.
7:24
[SPEAKER_05]: For everything is about to change.
7:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's jump over to X-Men number 99 from June 1976, in a story called Death Star Rising.
7:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops, Storm, Banshee, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, the children of the Adam, students of Charles Xavier, mutants feared and hated by the world they are sworn to protect.
7:43
[SPEAKER_05]: These are the strangest heroes of all.
7:44
[SPEAKER_05]: These are the X-Men, Stanley presents the uncanny X.
7:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Men in Death Star Rising by Chris Claremont with Dave Cockramont Pencils, Fricciara is the Incure Michelle Wolfman, the colorist, Irving Watanabe and Gas Percelledino on Letters and Marvelous Men is the editor.
7:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Previously an X-Men haunted by the nightmares of a bizarre alien temple, Professor X tried taking a leave of absence from the X-Men.
8:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Retreating to the E ship of his friend Peter Korbo, but the nefarious Stephen Lang is taken over the Sentinels from his old colleague, Oliver Trask, and has used government funding to set up a Sentinels production facility.
8:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Project Armageddon, in space.
8:18
[SPEAKER_05]: While one Sentinel captured Professor X, destroying Korbo's boat, the days of Thorus, by the way.
8:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Others captured Banshee, Wolverine, and Marvel girl in a very public attack in New York City on Christmas Eve.
8:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Days later, the three X men have escaped only to find themselves free floating in space.
8:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Meanwhile, the rest of the X-Men with Corbo and Moira McTaggart work to find their missing teammates.
8:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The cover.
8:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The all new all different X-Men LoLos stands out and wide and right over the words Death Star Rising, Banshee, Colossus, Knight-Crawler, Storm, Cyclops, and Wolverines heads adorn the cover box.
8:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It's still only 25 cents.
8:50
[SPEAKER_05]: In outer space, Storm, Cyclops, Banshee, Knight-Crawler, and Colossus are trapped in bubbles of some kind as
8:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Sentinels swarm at them.
8:57
[SPEAKER_05]: One Sentinel hits the Cyclops bubble as he blasts out with his optic blast.
9:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Colossus tries to escape his bubble, pushing his organic steel fists to their limits, yelling, even if we escape the energy spheres of the Sentinels.
9:10
[SPEAKER_05]: How can we survive in the vacuum of space?
9:13
[SPEAKER_05]: We open on Banshee and Wolverine in full costume, engine grey in her shredded black dress, floating in outer space, after bursting through the space station wall in an escape attempt.
9:21
[SPEAKER_05]: A minute ago, they had made it a minute ago, they were smashing their way to freedom.
9:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Banshee's sonic screamed toward tearing sentibles apart like they'd been built of tissue paper instead of steel.
9:31
[SPEAKER_05]: A minute ago, it had been so beautiful.
9:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Stephen Lang, the mastermind behind Project Armageddon, had thought them helpless, but Banshee, Wolverine and Jean Grey had proven him wrong.
9:39
[SPEAKER_05]: They were bursting out of his prison, and nothing between heaven and hell was going to stop them.
9:44
[SPEAKER_05]: but that was a minute ago.
9:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Things have changed.
9:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Then, Sentinels are, excuse me, the Sentinels are on their way.
9:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to ask us to pause here for just a moment.
9:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to check for any notice from Chapman really quickly, now that I have a brief second to pause and no.
9:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so we're going to go ahead and continue.
9:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's go ahead with Sentinels R71.
10:01
[SPEAKER_10]: Alert, alert, mutant captives have breached primary hall of orbital platform, mutants now floating in deep space.
10:08
[SPEAKER_10]: It is imperative that rescue be affected before mutant life function terminate, use at most severe to provide mutants with a temporary environment.
10:18
[SPEAKER_10]: Sentinel R-71 to main mission rescue operation completed pre-liminary sensor scam prisoners indicate life functions operational at minimum support levels all suffering from extreme exposure.
10:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Generating life support bubbles around the mutants, the sentinels bring them back depositing them in front of the smug Steven Lang.
10:39
[SPEAKER_03]: In short, consider yourselves lucky to be alive, but I trust you've learned your lesson that there's no escape from here, not now, not ever.
10:46
[SPEAKER_05]: And back on Earth, with the other mutants, things have also changed.
10:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops looks at the computer banks with Peter Corbow in his green turtleneck at his side.
10:54
[SPEAKER_09]: You say, Benchie Wolverine and Jean arent on Earth, Dr. Corbow.
10:59
[SPEAKER_06]: How can you be sure?
11:00
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not.
11:01
[SPEAKER_06]: That's where cerebral comes in.
11:03
[SPEAKER_06]: I've hooked into NORAD's Valhalla Mountain main data bank.
11:07
[SPEAKER_06]: I never dreamed Xavier had that kind of clearance.
11:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, all that's left to do is ask Valhalla the right questions.
11:13
[SPEAKER_06]: You see Cyclops, according to your records, Sentinels are composed of special alloys, unique circuit elements, strategic materials,
11:22
[SPEAKER_06]: nor addle have a record of those by asking specific questions.
11:26
[SPEAKER_06]: We can discover the origin of those elements, their destination.
11:29
[SPEAKER_06]: Even a negative response will tell us something, eventually with patience and a lot of luck.
11:34
[SPEAKER_05]: An intricate view of computer circuitry in yellow reflecting on Cyclops's face and a prompt search negative.
11:41
[SPEAKER_09]: really get the answer, I expect it, and feared, though my Lord.
11:46
[SPEAKER_09]: The Sentinels are staging in from an orbital platform, shields orbital platform.
11:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Later at the Kennedy Center, later at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Caddra, Florida, a certain rocket launch has been delayed by terrible weather, leading some space man, very frustrated indeed.
12:00
[SPEAKER_05]: A man named Jordan Contax Corbo.
12:02
[SPEAKER_04]: First we get this blasted emergency hurry up launch Christmas week now the whole mission's probably gonna be scrub because it allows the weather It's freak stinkin piece of fog as the technician Jordan gets so stressed out in walks quorbo in a brown trench coat Sorry to be late Jordan got held up by the fog and blame you everyone else Dr. Corbo everything's ready inside these voices
12:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Behind him, the X-Men stand in matching trench coats.
12:30
[SPEAKER_05]: privately, they shed their coats, revealing their costumes underneath, and then they put on spacesuits.
12:36
[SPEAKER_06]: In other pressure suits, X-Men, quick as you can, the staff mustn't see you in costumes.
12:41
[SPEAKER_12]: I still do not understand why we must hide our identities in scope through shadows like criminals.
12:46
[SPEAKER_09]: too many people storm, consider mutants, especially us X-Men, precisely that, and we haven't time to explain ourselves.
12:53
[SPEAKER_09]: You can roll back the foggy summoned to cover our arrival.
12:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Blanked by lightning, she cast her thoughts to the wind and they respond by sweeping the earthbound clouds out to sea.
13:01
[SPEAKER_05]: But now we switch to the evening news report with real life news anchors, Roger Grimm's bee, Melba Toliver, and Harald O'Revera.
13:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Huge Roger first.
13:09
[SPEAKER_07]: But evening, here now the news, a midnight launch is imminent at Cape Canaveral, where the Starcore Project Shuttle, piloted by Project Director Dr. Peter Corbowe, sets lift-off as scheduled, despite unusually heavy and hazardous solar activity.
13:23
[SPEAKER_07]: Haraldow?
13:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well Roger, a widespread epidemic of anti-mutant hysteria swept the country following the Christmas Eve reappearance of the notorious mutant hunting sentinels,
13:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Over the weekend, the Long Island home of federal judge Robert Chommer's noted jurist and outspoken foe of the anti-mutant movement was fire bombed, fortunately no one was home.
13:46
[SPEAKER_07]: However, in light of recent, Thori turned her up to her although, but we have an update on the star core shuttle launch.
13:51
[SPEAKER_07]: As you can see, the team of four men and a woman is now boarding the launch vehicle.
13:56
[SPEAKER_07]: They are to augment Stockholm's international crew, international, interracial, intersexual, something for everyone.
14:02
[SPEAKER_07]: This launch was scheduled with unusual speed by Stockholm, presumably to beat out the increasingly deadly solar radiation storms.
14:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Unfortunately, that speed has left us with no further information on the flight crew.
14:13
[SPEAKER_07]: Any event will be covering the launch in detail after this newscast.
14:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Moba The images on the news show a mock-up of two mutants in orange trench coats being attacked by a group of humans wielding bats.
14:24
[SPEAKER_05]: In front of a shadowy face with glowing eyes and the word mutants written in blood red meant to strike fear in the hearts of humans clear propaganda.
14:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we see an image of Chalmers, the old ally of Boliver Trask from back in the first volume of X-Men in front of his burning home.
14:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And then the five astronaut X-Men riding the elevator up to the star core rocket, and soon the X-Men take their seats aboard the plane, once safe they pull their astronaut helmets off all except Dr. Quart, who all except Dr. Quart Bow, who sweats within his.
14:53
[SPEAKER_12]: By all the gods, it feels marvelous to get this helmet off.
14:56
[SPEAKER_12]: Marvelous?
14:57
[SPEAKER_12]: Is that really the word?
14:58
[SPEAKER_12]: Another second trapped inside this cursive suit, and I'd have started screaming.
15:02
[SPEAKER_10]: Dr. Kobo, Volcha, real crew, be upset that we have taken to place?
15:07
[SPEAKER_06]: Ha ha, you are the real crew, Nikolae.
15:09
[SPEAKER_06]: This is all for show.
15:11
[SPEAKER_06]: A very elaborate and expensive deception.
15:14
[SPEAKER_10]: Which will get you into a great deal of trouble when it is discovered.
15:18
[SPEAKER_10]: You are a good friend, I think.
15:20
[SPEAKER_10]: Here, Dr.
15:21
[SPEAKER_10]: Peter, why do you not remove your helmet, Peter?
15:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you mind it's 10 minutes counting?
15:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Little primary fuel tanks?
15:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But as the ship prepares for takeoff with a... SEEEEEEENST OF CHANG!
15:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Colossus has a panic attack, turning to steel and bursting out of his uniform.
15:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Peter, are you... Go to the below!
15:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Nehrail, what is it my friend?
15:40
[SPEAKER_06]: What's the matter?
15:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Nothing to worry.
15:42
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry, cut.
15:44
[SPEAKER_06]: I did not mean to.
15:45
[SPEAKER_06]: I was afraid, cut.
15:46
[SPEAKER_06]: The afraid.
15:47
[SPEAKER_06]: I sit here inside a rocket, and all I can think of is my brother, Mikhail.
15:51
[SPEAKER_06]: It has pilot.
15:52
[SPEAKER_06]: One of Russia's first cosmonauts.
15:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Mikhail dying, my friend, burning to death on a bike-nour launch pad when he's rocket exploded.
16:02
[SPEAKER_06]: We are so close Mikhail and I.
16:04
[SPEAKER_06]: We were all we had in ever since that day.
16:07
[SPEAKER_06]: I understand Colossus.
16:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Remember that, I remember the Apollo fire.
16:10
[SPEAKER_06]: Look at that again.
16:11
[SPEAKER_06]: I understand Colossus.
16:12
[SPEAKER_06]: I remember the Apollo one fire.
16:14
[SPEAKER_06]: The friends I lost that day.
16:16
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you mind it's one minute and counting.
16:18
[SPEAKER_04]: All systems go.
16:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Bye.
16:20
[SPEAKER_06]: five seconds, and here I go again, away from Mother Earth and into the deadliest environment known to man.
16:27
[SPEAKER_06]: So why do I feel like I'm going home for?
16:31
[SPEAKER_09]: We've come so far, Gene and I come through so much.
16:34
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh Lord, I can't lose her now.
16:37
[SPEAKER_06]: The power of Colossus?
16:39
[SPEAKER_06]: Ha ha!
16:40
[SPEAKER_06]: Here it means nothing.
16:41
[SPEAKER_06]: I am helpless.
16:42
[SPEAKER_06]: I wonder was this how Mikhail's built before?
16:45
[SPEAKER_10]: Through!
16:45
[SPEAKER_10]: Colossus, he looks terrified.
16:48
[SPEAKER_10]: Can't you see how magnificent an adventure this is?
16:52
[SPEAKER_10]: Oh, if my comrades in the Yamax could only see me now.
16:55
[SPEAKER_10]: That would show them.
16:56
[SPEAKER_05]: One, ignition, we have lift on.
17:00
[SPEAKER_05]: One pause, a Chapman, are you on, can you hear me?
17:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I admitted it, but I'm not hearing your spots.
17:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Chapman, once you join, let me know, and we'll... Hello, hello.
17:08
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm so sorry about that.
17:09
[SPEAKER_05]: You're okay.
17:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So we went ahead and already started dovins been doing Corbow, but I'll have you still do shots.
17:15
[SPEAKER_05]: That's him, okay?
17:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's fine.
17:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so when we get there, we'll pause and adjust.
17:19
[SPEAKER_05]: But I'm glad you're in a problem.
17:20
[SPEAKER_08]: I just started running late all, I missed an alarm and then my dog was freaking out and all sorts of stuff was going on.
17:25
[SPEAKER_05]: That's what happens.
17:26
[SPEAKER_05]: We're not upset, buddy.
17:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for being willing to adapt.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of course.
17:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Dad, sorry, would you need to, like, re-record the intro characters to... Oh, I'll add a computer.
17:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I already made a note.
17:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you though.
17:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I appreciate it.
17:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Light, blinding pure white on white, flaring from the base of the gantry, like a fat, like a full, like a...
17:45
[SPEAKER_05]: What is this?
17:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, I got a typo here, that's what's going on.
17:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Flaring from the base of the gantry, like a, like a foundling star turning midnight to noon in an instant, sound, thunder, whip cracking across the cape, a million pounds of thrust hammering at the earth, until finally the star begins to move, slowly at first, but gaining speed with every second rising into the heavens.
18:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And then suddenly, the rocket is gone, the thunder, gone, the light, gone.
18:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Almost as if they had never been, the rocket launches into orbit.
18:12
[SPEAKER_04]: StarCore, this is Capcom.
18:15
[SPEAKER_04]: T plus two minutes.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You are on track on sked all telemetry reading normal.
18:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, in other words, a beautiful flight.
18:22
[SPEAKER_06]: I thought I said that, Corbos.
18:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Is that a type of?
18:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that's a, I don't know.
18:28
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, I like, I like Corbos saying it to Corbos.
18:31
[SPEAKER_06]: I like talking about it all the time.
18:32
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no, that's Canon.
18:33
[SPEAKER_04]: That's Canon, because we don't know where it came from.
18:35
[SPEAKER_06]: Corbos refers to himself in third person.
18:37
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, he does.
18:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, yeah, I will keep it.
18:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Beautiful, beautiful, for the moment, perhaps, but let's shift our attention to another solar orbit to the vast U.N. sponsored research station known as StarCore 1 and we'll hear a slightly different tale on board.
18:53
[SPEAKER_05]: We see several of Corbos employees, including Mr. Hilary and Colonel Demetri Kutakov.
18:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Demetri Kutuzov.
19:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Demetri Kutuzov.
19:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Healerie, it's some flier, mate, Instagram, they're going off their scales.
19:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Who's playing Hillary?
19:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that not then assigned?
19:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Semi, will you take the Hillary character?
19:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's a Mr. Hillary, never mind.
19:13
[SPEAKER_05]: A chat to it.
19:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Will you take Hillary?
19:15
[SPEAKER_08]: Is he also Russian?
19:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Or yes.
19:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, do your best.
19:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no problem.
19:19
[SPEAKER_05]: He's not Russian.
19:20
[SPEAKER_05]: It's Hillary.
19:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not Russian.
19:21
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, gotcha.
19:25
[SPEAKER_08]: Then recalibrate Colonel Kutuzov and fast.
19:28
[SPEAKER_08]: The way old souls acting up were working with no margin for error.
19:32
[SPEAKER_08]: Come on, Dementry.
19:32
[SPEAKER_08]: What's holding up these solar flares?
19:34
[SPEAKER_06]: They are just coming through now.
19:37
[SPEAKER_06]: And they are very bad.
19:44
[SPEAKER_06]: Peter, beyond space, and we are so still alive!
19:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you disappointed, my friend?
19:49
[SPEAKER_06]: Please, cut Wagner, no jokes.
19:51
[SPEAKER_06]: I am not in the mood.
19:52
[SPEAKER_06]: I feel very strange.
19:54
[SPEAKER_06]: I almost wish I was dead.
19:57
[SPEAKER_06]: A mild form of space sickness crosses your body reacting and adapting to zero gravity.
20:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Nothing to worry about.
20:05
[SPEAKER_06]: meantime, I've doubted a lot of you.
20:07
[SPEAKER_06]: I've got a priority message coming through from StarCore.
20:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Early morning now, have a world removed from Cape Canaveral in Starcore, the village of Da Room, a half hour drive out of central Dublin.
20:18
[SPEAKER_05]: A small village off the beaten track, the local farm holdings just now beginning to give way to industrial parks, but still all things considered done, nice place to live.
20:27
[SPEAKER_05]: or die.
20:28
[SPEAKER_05]: It's raining as a man named Flairty, rushes into the post office with an envelope addressed to Mr. Sean Cassidy, CEO, excuse me, care of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, 1407, Graham Alkin Lane, Skarsdale, New York.
20:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all marked for Special Delivery to the USA.
20:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And yes, I do believe by Canon.
20:46
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the first time we see the term Graham Alkin Lane used in the comics.
20:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's for my show, yay!
20:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Flared his red coat and blue cap drip with the rain and the postman, hefting a drag on a pipe is none too pleased.
20:59
[SPEAKER_16]: We'll be shutting the door, you flim and idiot.
21:01
[SPEAKER_16]: There's a winter gale blow and I haven't you noticed.
21:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so sorry.
21:04
[SPEAKER_04]: What name's Flared he almost says less to her.
21:06
[SPEAKER_04]: This letter is for a Chloe into Moine in America.
21:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Some part of it gets him without delay.
21:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Without delay, I understand.
21:11
[SPEAKER_17]: I'll be knowing how to do my own job, thinking about it much.
21:14
[SPEAKER_17]: I've been doing it 9 and 40 years.
21:16
[SPEAKER_17]: Now for the last time, close that flaming door.
21:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, I'm typing notes.
21:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Flairty steps back into the rain.
21:21
[SPEAKER_05]: At first, not noticing the man in shadow.
21:23
[SPEAKER_05]: A man carrying a long wooden shalelly.
21:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Shhh, it's black-toned Cassidy.
21:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But boy jokes don't.
21:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Non-glarities, I am.
21:30
[SPEAKER_15]: Long way from town to mail aren't you Mr. Flairty.
21:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You, you're too late.
21:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You're cousin's been warned, and he'll stop your madlands.
21:38
[SPEAKER_15]: Her, fetish, lawyer, clarity.
21:40
[SPEAKER_15]: My cousin could sooner stop the morning, sudden from rising.
21:44
[SPEAKER_05]: The chalet is shockingly fires a concussive burst, striking clarity in the back, and the lawyer falls dead.
21:50
[SPEAKER_15]: I, cousin Sean, y'all stop black Tom Monchez, at least, y'all die triad.
21:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Manhattan, a most notorious address on that borrows most fashionable of streets.
22:01
[SPEAKER_05]: It is home to the Hellfire Club, whose members number among the richest, most powerful people on earth, a special few of them compromise the counsel of the chosen.
22:09
[SPEAKER_05]: On a view screen, the sneering image of Stephen Lang is providing a detailed report to a group of hooded figures sitting around a horseshoe-shaped table.
22:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Among them, Sebastian Shaw, the black king,
22:19
[SPEAKER_05]: and Ned Buckman, the White King, your mute is on, Jacob.
22:24
[SPEAKER_03]: There are few mutants more powerful than the X-Men, and their outcast status makes them ideal subjects for our experiments, fewer likely to care about their disappearance, and fewer still to come to their aid.
22:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Our aim is to isolate the genetic ex-factor that differentiates mutants from baseline human and ultimately reproduce it at will.
22:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Creating one of the powers we require in anyone we choose,
22:45
[SPEAKER_19]: You have but three prisoners laying, suppose their teammates attempt to rescue.
22:49
[SPEAKER_19]: They have to find them first, Shaw, which is now full.
22:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Should they succeed?
22:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Lang is more than capable of dealing with them.
22:56
[SPEAKER_05]: As the meeting ends, the council disperses.
22:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Lady Tessa, in her black boots corset and collar, collects the robes from Shaw and Buckman.
23:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And, yes, for listeners, that's the character sage who later joins the team.
23:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Shaw wears a black suit, buckman's in brown, buckman leans back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the table, his wrist bent as he argues with Shaw.
23:16
[SPEAKER_19]: I'm not so certain, Ned.
23:18
[SPEAKER_19]: Man is too cocky.
23:19
[SPEAKER_19]: Where's something about him?
23:19
[SPEAKER_19]: I don't trust.
23:20
[SPEAKER_19]: Y'all privileged, but you, Sebastian.
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Our probationary member of Council Anne Club, I am chairman of both.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Lang has performed superlatively.
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I've no more reason to doubt his competence than your loyalty.
23:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Charlie's the room leaving Buckman to his private thoughts.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Poor old top, if you only knew the truth.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Lang's true purpose is the elimination of that mangrove subspecies to which you, Sebastian, belong.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Beginning with the X-Men, and followed by you.
23:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Enjoy this Christmas season old top.
23:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be your last.
23:52
[SPEAKER_05]: 1,347 miles above our household heads, it circles the earth, and to hit, and to hit, wow, and to it have come dictators and dignitaries, physicists and fools, and once upon a lifetime, and once upon a time the Avengers, but that was years ago, before budget cuts forced shield to abandon its space platform, before Project Armageddon.
24:19
[SPEAKER_03]: What's that on the vid screen, mister?
24:21
[SPEAKER_06]: This is Stockholm Eagle 1.
24:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Solar radiation levels are moving into the danger zone.
24:27
[SPEAKER_06]: We're requesting sanctuary.
24:29
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Stephen Lang speaking.
24:31
[SPEAKER_03]: We are at top secret US government installation, Corbou.
24:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And you have four in person now, aboard.
24:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Sanctuary denied.
24:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's do it one more time.
24:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Sanctuary denied.
24:40
[SPEAKER_07]: Dr. Dr.
24:42
[SPEAKER_07]: I think the mutant detector, it's going crazy.
24:44
[SPEAKER_07]: That's what you're talking about there.
24:45
[SPEAKER_05]: But there was a lag just start that again.
24:47
[SPEAKER_07]: Sure, Dr. Lang, the mutant detector, it's going crazy.
24:50
[SPEAKER_07]: That ship out there must be crammed with muties.
24:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Then order out the Sentinel's technician.
24:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure they'll give a crafting guest the welcome they deserve.
24:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And sure enough, three Sentinel's launch.
24:59
[SPEAKER_09]: Head's up, troops.
25:00
[SPEAKER_09]: We've been rumpled.
25:01
[SPEAKER_09]: Bogeys at 12 o'clock high and coming fast.
25:04
[SPEAKER_09]: Everyone into full pressure suits on the double.
25:06
[SPEAKER_10]: But what about Colossus?
25:08
[SPEAKER_10]: He has no precious suit.
25:09
[SPEAKER_10]: If we're hit, he won't stand a chance.
25:12
[SPEAKER_10]: But then we just better pray we don't get it.
25:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Nice, try Dr. Corbob, but no dice.
25:17
[SPEAKER_05]: The sendals are firing, and their third blast hits the ship.
25:20
[SPEAKER_12]: Corbob, Cyclops, the ship's hull is open to space.
25:23
[SPEAKER_10]: Dorm!
25:24
[SPEAKER_10]: Look out!
25:25
[SPEAKER_10]: The energy beam has cut your lifeline!
25:26
[SPEAKER_10]: Help me, someone!
25:27
[SPEAKER_10]: The explosive decompression is pulling storm out of the ship!
25:30
[SPEAKER_10]: I can't get to her in time!
25:32
[SPEAKER_10]: Storm!
25:33
[SPEAKER_10]: Corbone!
25:33
[SPEAKER_09]: Corbone!
25:33
[SPEAKER_09]: Sorry, glasses is suffocating.
25:35
[SPEAKER_09]: Start again, that was my fault.
25:36
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, Corbone!
25:37
[SPEAKER_09]: Colossus is suffocating.
25:38
[SPEAKER_09]: We've no time for subtlety, man.
25:40
[SPEAKER_09]: Get us inside that station and get us inside now.
25:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, Cyclops, but just bear one thing in mind.
25:47
[SPEAKER_06]: We smashed this baby up and we don't go home.
25:50
[SPEAKER_06]: Got that?
25:51
[SPEAKER_06]: So here it goes, nothing!
25:52
[SPEAKER_13]: You're on a bow alert alert target vehicle making on authorized entry into our again in command base these units unable to prevent mutant incursion into main mission securities on translations Steve Lang's Steven Lang's orbital ant hill is being rammed and invaded and there's not a blessed and there's not a blessed thing his sentiments can do about it
26:15
[SPEAKER_05]: back a dam, the StarCore ship plows through the station wall, sending sentinals and technicians flying, but storm was knocked into orbit.
26:23
[SPEAKER_13]: L1 to main mission, and in pursuit of long female mutant as per latest programming, this U-ins mission is to seek out and destroy.
26:32
[SPEAKER_12]: The Sentinel, coming straight for me, and I'm stuck here as helpless as an antelope and a lion's neck, unless.
26:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I am mistress of the wind and storm but what is my power includes the cosmic storm as well a slim hope but if I could only fly on the solar winds and I can testing her power storm finds herself able to soar in space as she evades the sentinel's blast the first major power upgrade for this character and she soon gathers solar energy and projects it outward to stunning effect it's a cosmic storm.
27:03
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, Sentinel, you thought to me an easy target.
27:06
[SPEAKER_12]: You would have slain me without mercy.
27:08
[SPEAKER_12]: Therefore, machine storm gives you what you would have given me and more.
27:13
[SPEAKER_13]: Warning, unit L1 being buffeted by unknown energy matrix.
27:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Met mattresses.
27:20
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you.
27:21
[SPEAKER_13]: I was like, what is that word?
27:22
[SPEAKER_13]: Let me do that again.
27:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Or matrices.
27:24
[SPEAKER_05]: However you just say.
27:25
[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, warning unit L1 being buffeted by unknown energy matrices.
27:30
[SPEAKER_13]: This units memory banks have no data on this phenomenon cannot cope.
27:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Of course not, since it'll be because your makers never conceived of you facing a forced 12th, a forced 12th-gale in deepest space, a gale backed by the full power of the raging sun itself, even though apparently they programmed you to scream like a little girl, the sudden will source and free fall through space, the fearful sound of its scream ringing in Aurora's ears.
28:00
[SPEAKER_12]: is scream.
28:01
[SPEAKER_12]: The fear in it, that sentinel sounds almost human.
28:04
[SPEAKER_12]: Is this how you're on or your power?
28:06
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh fuck.
28:06
[SPEAKER_12]: Can I say, is this how you honor your parents memory a world by breaking the oath you swore so long ago that you would never take another's life?
28:14
[SPEAKER_12]: And yet sooner or later, your duty as an X man may require you to do just that.
28:19
[SPEAKER_12]: Perhaps then it would be better if you ceased being an X man.
28:23
[SPEAKER_05]: And yet again, Aurora, how do you desert friends who need you, though at that moment, we must admit your, though at that moment, we must admit that your mutant comrades seem to be doing well enough on their own and Colossus hurls a chunk of metal through another Sentinel,
28:45
[SPEAKER_10]: Good!
28:45
[SPEAKER_10]: Coulossus is fighting like a man berserk, like a man fighting for devourment he loves.
28:50
[SPEAKER_10]: But pay attention to the job at hand, Nightcrawler.
28:52
[SPEAKER_10]: That Sentinel has captured Cyclops.
28:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, well, Nightcrawler knocks down two technicians on a high ledge, a Sentinel grabs Colossus, striking him with an anaesthetic gas.
29:02
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the gas he sent on everyone, but Nightcrawler grabs an iron pole and splits the Sentinel.
29:08
[SPEAKER_05]: KIDAM!
29:08
[SPEAKER_09]: This analgesic anesthetic gas anesthetic gas will soon render you unconscious cyclops and our prisoner prisoner for the instant sentinel, but you have nightcrawlers pledge that you will not hold cyclops for long Thanks for the assist, my crawler.
29:24
[SPEAKER_09]: I couldn't have held my breath much longer, but you're not in a circus anymore, mister.
29:28
[SPEAKER_09]: That kind of flamboyance can cost us if you're not careful
29:31
[SPEAKER_10]: I have been a showman all my life is so close.
29:34
[SPEAKER_10]: Watch out for this other tin Frankenstein mine friend.
29:37
[SPEAKER_10]: It is in my blood and I'm not about to change for you or anyone.
29:42
[SPEAKER_10]: Bala!
29:42
[SPEAKER_05]: As Cyclops gets to safety, Necroler kicks a Sentinel multiple times in an impressive series of acrobatics.
29:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Wham!
29:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Bic!
29:49
[SPEAKER_06]: Lake roller, quickly, that move we worked out in the danger room.
29:53
[SPEAKER_10]: Excellent closest.
29:54
[SPEAKER_10]: If I fail, it's later thought my last move was flamboyant.
29:58
[SPEAKER_10]: Vator to least is this one.
30:00
[SPEAKER_10]: Each y'all hot out to Olga Cobot.
30:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Nightcrawler, Nightcrawler flips up and leaps down, landing on a metal plank that's perfectly positioned like a teeter-totter and Cyclops in armor and Colossus in armored form is on the other end.
30:12
[SPEAKER_05]: The landing, what?
30:12
[SPEAKER_05]: sends Colossus into the air, and he curls up on himself like a cannonball, knocking the sentinel, knocking the head off a sentinel.
30:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Rickaam!
30:20
[SPEAKER_06]: My dear friend, Conrad Corbut is a dedicated and conscientious artist of the Soviet people.
30:26
[SPEAKER_06]: You should not make fun of Krasso.
30:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Olga Corbut, by the way, was called the Sparrow for Minsk, and she won six medals, four gold and two silver at the Summer Olympics in 1972.
30:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Look her up on YouTube, but back to the fight, Cyclops rips one sentinel open with a massive optic blast.
30:42
[SPEAKER_09]: That's the last one.
30:44
[SPEAKER_09]: Over a dozen centenels scragged in half as many minutes.
30:47
[SPEAKER_09]: This isn't sane.
30:48
[SPEAKER_09]: The danger room gives us more trouble than these steel dummies have.
30:51
[SPEAKER_09]: It's all a bit too easy.
30:53
[SPEAKER_09]: You called this easy?
30:55
[SPEAKER_09]: Compared to the Trask centenels, this model is a walking joke, which it begger us a question.
31:01
[SPEAKER_09]: What's the real threat in all of this?
31:03
[SPEAKER_09]: I have a feeling that sooner.
31:04
[SPEAKER_09]: Sorry, I have a feeling that the sooner we find Jean and the others.
31:07
[SPEAKER_09]: The sooner we'll know.
31:09
[SPEAKER_09]: In gray and the others, what about Storm?
31:11
[SPEAKER_06]: She's a drift out there.
31:12
[SPEAKER_06]: She could be hurt.
31:13
[SPEAKER_06]: Back off, Colossus.
31:14
[SPEAKER_06]: I know how you feel.
31:15
[SPEAKER_06]: You know nothing.
31:16
[SPEAKER_06]: She's our friend, our comrades in battle.
31:19
[SPEAKER_06]: She could be dead and you act as if you do not care.
31:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, close his cares.
31:23
[SPEAKER_12]: You do me great honor, my friend, and I am grateful.
31:26
[SPEAKER_06]: the storm.
31:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, no!
31:28
[SPEAKER_06]: You're here and you're alive.
31:30
[SPEAKER_06]: So it would appear.
31:31
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't believe it.
31:32
[SPEAKER_06]: This is too wonderful to meet through when I saw you blow out the spaceship.
31:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I thought you were truly doomed.
31:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Colossus Grabs Storm and hefts her, Colossus Grabs Storm and hefts her joyfully into the air.
31:44
[SPEAKER_12]: I've always been very difficult to kill young one, but I must admit, I find the sentence easier to survive than your bare hands.
31:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I am sorry.
31:54
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just that I am so glad to see you.
31:56
[SPEAKER_05]: We all are a cyclops.
31:59
[SPEAKER_05]: But cyclops is distracted by a psychic projection of Jean Grey manifesting in his mind.
32:03
[SPEAKER_05]: God.
32:04
[SPEAKER_09]: Images inside my mind.
32:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't.
32:06
[SPEAKER_13]: Jean!
32:07
[SPEAKER_13]: Help us, Scott.
32:08
[SPEAKER_13]: Time is running out for the professor in me.
32:10
[SPEAKER_13]: Can barely hold contacts, panty, and Wolverine are in the B-deck detention cells.
32:16
[SPEAKER_13]: Professor X and I are in the main mission.
32:19
[SPEAKER_13]: But hurry, Scott.
32:20
[SPEAKER_13]: Hurry.
32:21
[SPEAKER_13]: Steven Lang is coming.
32:22
[SPEAKER_13]: He means to murder us.
32:24
[SPEAKER_09]: Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler.
32:26
[SPEAKER_09]: Follow the root signs down to B-deck.
32:29
[SPEAKER_09]: You'll find Wolverine and Banshee there.
32:30
[SPEAKER_09]: Break them free and then join me in main mission.
32:33
[SPEAKER_09]: Move it people.
32:34
[SPEAKER_09]: We've no time to waste.
32:35
[SPEAKER_12]: But Cyclops, that will leave you on your own.
32:38
[SPEAKER_12]: Suppose there are more sentinels.
32:39
[SPEAKER_09]: that I'll handle them storm.
32:41
[SPEAKER_09]: Right now, I've given you an order, obey it.
32:43
[SPEAKER_09]: As for Mr. Stephen Lang, so-called headhunter of this ball of wax, he's mine, X-Men, mine alone.
32:50
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll say this for the last time, people.
32:52
[SPEAKER_09]: Get out of here.
32:53
[SPEAKER_09]: You come with me, Dr. Corbot.
32:55
[SPEAKER_09]: Can't have you running into a stray Sentinel in the dark.
32:58
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, yes, of course.
32:59
[SPEAKER_06]: Look Cyclops, don't you think you're a little rough on them, but I guess you've got more important things on your mind, have it you.
33:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops doesn't have to answer.
33:07
[SPEAKER_05]: He really doesn't have to.
33:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Now let's cut to the B deck where Wolverine is in restraints the position where Wolverine is in restraints that position him on his knees with his arms behind his back and a slightly bent-over position on telling you.
33:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And Banshee is strapped to the wall in metal boots, gloves, and mask and a harness that's
33:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Some smartly anti-mute and bigots named Jack and Billy are taunting them, and Jake has a teeny tiny knife.
33:34
[SPEAKER_15]: Frames given us the app, it looks a kill chance.
33:37
[SPEAKER_15]: Neither of those muties is going to trouble us much longer.
33:40
[SPEAKER_15]: Their fancy powers can't save them now.
33:42
[SPEAKER_15]: Jake, maybe you shouldn't make fun.
33:44
[SPEAKER_15]: You ain't got the stomach for this, Billy.
33:46
[SPEAKER_15]: Take a hat.
33:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Bamf, Nightcrawler teleports in and sucks one in the job.
33:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Wop, storm, blows the other side with a casual wind, wump, and Colossus breaks Wolverine's restraints.
33:57
[SPEAKER_10]: King, King, brave men, facing bound captives.
34:01
[SPEAKER_10]: Let's see how valuable you'll feel against free X-Men.
34:04
[SPEAKER_12]: A hurricane gust of wind should take the fight out of these two.
34:07
[SPEAKER_18]: Leave plumpo for me, darling.
34:09
[SPEAKER_18]: You got a gun, Bob.
34:11
[SPEAKER_18]: Go for it.
34:11
[SPEAKER_18]: Take your best shot.
34:12
[SPEAKER_18]: Then it's my turn.
34:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Wolverine is free.
34:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Snicked.
34:15
[SPEAKER_05]: A moment later, the technicians' body drops in a dead faint.
34:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Elsewhere, Professor X and Gene Gray, still in her shredded black dress, are side-by-side in stasis tubes.
34:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Professor Xave, you're still unconscious.
34:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And Stephen Lang has a gun.
34:29
[SPEAKER_03]: It seems the tracks notes I used to reconstruct the settinals were incomplete.
34:33
[SPEAKER_03]: The sentence, second rate, not that in matters.
34:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I've all the data I need from you, mutants, which makes you expendable.
34:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Your friends may have taken the station, Ms. Gray.
34:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm afraid you won't be alive to share in their victory.
34:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh no!
34:46
[SPEAKER_05]: A metal hatchway bursts off the wall.
34:48
[SPEAKER_05]: The thwome, its cyclops, following up with an optic blast.
34:52
[SPEAKER_09]: Lang is hit should be a lot more alive than you scum free gene in the Professor Corbob I'll deal with Mr. Lang personally.
35:00
[SPEAKER_09]: How does it feel new animal facing someone one-on-one someone who can fight back Answer me Lang answer me Cyclops for pity sake stop you're killing him
35:10
[SPEAKER_05]: answer that's okay yeah type again cyclops throws laying into a wall of machinery brak and then punches and repeatedly did i miss a line of laying dialogue here does anyone have the book open i don't think i did no i've got it here you don't miss that you do not thank you suddenly sky behind you there's someone in the next room what is a jean another sentinel not quite cyclops is hit by his own optic blast Zach no
35:34
[SPEAKER_13]: No, oh no, it can't be you, please don't let it be you!
35:38
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is Ms. Gray, the ultimate irony, the ultimate, undefeatable enemy, this is the harder project I'm getting my dear nut, these rather pathetic sentinels, though I admit, I had hopes for them.
35:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Resistance has the say is futile.
35:53
[SPEAKER_03]: The immeasurable power is being neutralized by my nut unlike your own which means, of course, that you won't be able to warn your fellow X-Men until it's too late.
36:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Take her away my pets, prepare her, because our final act is about to begin.
36:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Storm, Banshee, Colossus, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler all rush in, and their mouths drop open.
36:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Yenshee, all of you, look, I'm looking, but I'm a far, far piece from believing.
36:16
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a joke, is it not, it must be a joke or a nightmare.
36:21
[SPEAKER_05]: On one side, Colossus Storm, Banshee, Nightcrawler Wolverine, and they face off against Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel Beast, Ice Man, and Professor X.
36:31
[SPEAKER_05]: But like back in their Neal Adams design costumes from the 60s, and our Cyclops, Gene Gray, and Professor X are here also confusing, hey everybody, it's Sentinels designed to, excuse me, hey everybody, it's Sentinels designed to look like the original X man.
36:46
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll get there next issue, but the readers must have been very confused at the time.
36:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Sentinels designed with the powers and personalities of the X-Men.
36:53
[SPEAKER_05]: The Cyclops sentinel shouts.
36:55
[SPEAKER_09]: If it is Bella, then the jokes are us.
36:57
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's the kind of joke the X-Men can do without.
37:00
[SPEAKER_09]: Just like we can do without imposterous.
37:02
[SPEAKER_12]: Imposterous, not so Cyclops.
37:05
[SPEAKER_12]: We are the X-Men.
37:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, heck you are, lady.
37:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Says the Ice Man Sentinel.
37:09
[SPEAKER_17]: Agreed, Ice Man.
37:10
[SPEAKER_17]: And these imposteres are the deadliest foes you have ever fought.
37:14
[SPEAKER_17]: So attack my X-Men, show them the same mercy they would show you, attack these impostors and kill them all.
37:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Order the Professor X-Central, and next our cataclysmic 100th issue, a tale of triumph and tragedy, X-Men versus X-Men to the death.
37:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we're going to pause for just a moment.
37:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I need to do two addendums to the earlier portion, give me just a second to pull data up very quickly.
37:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
37:43
[SPEAKER_05]: your patience.
37:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so back with the X-Men 99 announcement, this is you will also include bonus pages from a classic X-Men number seven, also by Chris Claremont and John Bolton.
37:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And then a Chapman, if I can have you do your intro, I'm Chapman Blake and I'm playing Sebastian Shaw and Hillary.
38:02
[SPEAKER_05]: A Chapman are you with us?
38:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, the mute button.
38:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you're good.
38:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Go ahead.
38:05
[SPEAKER_08]: Hey, everyone.
38:06
[SPEAKER_08]: My name is Chapman Blake and I'm playing Sebastian Shaw and Hillary.
38:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so now we can finish once again, accordingly.
38:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Yay, we were finished, that was a busy, all right, all right.
38:16
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, the best part about this group, we have like a cast of 12 here.
38:19
[SPEAKER_05]: I want more of every character.
38:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's so fun to hear all of you read.
38:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want everyone to have like more dialogue.
38:25
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the saddest part of this, but I'm so happy to be here with my friends this morning.
38:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Alright, we have a lot to talk about with this issue.
38:31
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of happening.
38:32
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to open on this classic X-Men story with Jean Grey in her little house, just I, okay, Alicia, what's happening for Jean here because there's so much.
38:50
[SPEAKER_13]: fun tonight, so I'm going to go through all the stages of getting ready and like, amping myself up for what I hope is going to be a very romantic night with my man, you know?
39:00
[SPEAKER_13]: Like, she did it.
39:01
[SPEAKER_13]: She didn't everything shower.
39:02
[SPEAKER_13]: She definitely didn't everything shower.
39:04
[SPEAKER_05]: If you find everything shower for our listeners.
39:07
[SPEAKER_13]: Oh yeah, people don't know and everything showers where you do all the things.
39:11
[SPEAKER_13]: You make sure you shave all your bits.
39:13
[SPEAKER_13]: You wash your hair very thoroughly.
39:15
[SPEAKER_13]: It's like maybe a body exfoliation moment.
39:18
[SPEAKER_13]: You know, you're making sure that you're just pristine.
39:21
[SPEAKER_13]: Head to toe.
39:21
[SPEAKER_05]: This story was added years later in the in the Classic X man edition, right?
39:27
[SPEAKER_05]: So next issue.
39:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Surprise.
39:29
[SPEAKER_05]: The Phoenix Force shows up.
39:30
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is Claremont doing an addendum kind of showing Jean her last day as a human if you will.
39:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Her last evening by herself before she's taken into space.
39:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's a lot happening.
39:41
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got the Phoenix poster on the wall as kind of the backdrop or the illusion for the go ahead.
39:46
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to talk primarily about Jean and dancing with the animated Scott invisible man that she's plumped out to give muscles and she's like, oh, you're so romantic.
40:00
[SPEAKER_13]: It's just that sort of saying she's doing all the things that's the equivalent of like singing in front of the mirror while you're getting ready.
40:07
[SPEAKER_13]: You know what I mean?
40:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Like that's what she's she's living her ultimate girl life for a four telekinetic to Engage this kind of behavior.
40:16
[SPEAKER_05]: It's adorable.
40:17
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very like she's just in love and making this happen.
40:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Who here had you been telekinetic would have done this in like high school or your early 20s probably.
40:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I knew me or after my late 20s.
40:30
[SPEAKER_13]: How tomorrow, right?
40:31
[SPEAKER_05]: My 40s.
40:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Coming home soon.
40:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Q Q to the background of Kevin's apartment where he has the clothing laid out like a boy friend.
40:39
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's like, hey, honey.
40:42
[SPEAKER_05]: don't kind of boyfriend to have.
40:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, listeners before we started, Alicia told us that she had to rush out and run a quick errand and that she threw her bra on.
40:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Turns out you didn't need to.
40:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Jean wasn't wearing one.
40:52
[SPEAKER_13]: All right, I could have just gone.
40:55
[SPEAKER_13]: Side makes me think differently.
40:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Do we have any thoughts on this opening story from the group?
40:59
[SPEAKER_05]: It's delicious.
41:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I do have one thing.
41:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I I mentioned it in our little chat earlier.
41:04
[SPEAKER_04]: There is legitimately a Levi's commercial from the 90s that does this set to let's get it on by Marvin K. Yeah, I may have may have a reference that specifically why I go that song.
41:17
[SPEAKER_10]: I think it's interesting that they have the illusions, like knowing that she comes back like the whole Phoenix saga when they were with the classic X-Men story for them to have the illusion of the poster for Phoenix, her picking the black versus a white dress, all this other stuff.
41:28
[SPEAKER_10]: It almost makes me think that that's, I'm trying to push the idea that she calls the Phoenix tour more than the Phoenix is this like force that it becomes.
41:37
[SPEAKER_10]: It's more like she's manifested it.
41:39
[SPEAKER_10]: You know, it's like that idea of like, well, it's been fake all along.
41:41
[SPEAKER_10]: You just had all this stuff around you and you made that happen.
41:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, and we've said on the show multiple times, the Phoenix is many things.
41:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not meant to be defined, but it's a cosmic force of creation, but it's also kind of genes ultimate potential.
41:53
[SPEAKER_05]: It's almost like gene ascended to Godhood in a way.
41:56
[SPEAKER_05]: So she's like calling on it in her own timeline.
41:59
[SPEAKER_05]: She's communing with herself.
42:00
[SPEAKER_05]: In our next script, we, in our next script, we get to go to the classic X-Men story where it's Gene and the Phoenix Force commuting as like her body with hers away.
42:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're gonna get a lot of that.
42:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Next time we'll have that conversation a little bit more, but very sad.
42:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm always deeply amused by this like 60, 70's trope.
42:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Of like, you see the picture of the person.
42:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I cannot imagine giving like my husband like a framed photo of my face and writing like, with all my love chat at the bottom.
42:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a fan girl headshot.
42:28
[SPEAKER_05]: We just saw this in the Avengers script reads for those that are there.
42:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Like the wasp gives one to Hank, Pam, or like Hawkeye passes one onto the Scarlet Witch.
42:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's this weird, funny thing that we see over and over.
42:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyone ever done that?
42:40
[SPEAKER_17]: You've got to bring it back.
42:42
[SPEAKER_17]: I feel like that we're all going to gift someone a portrait of ourselves this season.
42:46
[SPEAKER_17]: Yes, this is the season of photos.
42:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
42:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't you don't like these the X-Men are no exception people buy a bunch of headshots and then they're usually just collecting us So you got to find an excuse to pass them around I guess oh like when you were single did you just bring one to each day like I just want to get picked this home My resume is on the back I want to hear from Haram and Robin very quickly.
43:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Just what is your one to take on the early gene story the first one we opened with honestly Oh, let's go Haram and then Robin say honestly
43:21
[SPEAKER_12]: Zachary.
43:22
[SPEAKER_12]: Um, honestly, I'm just doing her little girl thing, getting ready for her big day.
43:28
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm misty giving her the apartment is really something for the evening is definitely like that's a girl's girl kind of thing to do.
43:34
[SPEAKER_12]: Like, yeah, if you want to come back here with your man or anything, just let me know.
43:38
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm like, you have the entire apartment to yourself.
43:40
[SPEAKER_12]: So Missy.
43:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Missy leaves in her note, be ready.
43:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Be rude.
43:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Be happy.
43:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Which I love so much, actually.
43:47
[SPEAKER_15]: a few months ago, honestly, I just found the headshot.
43:52
[SPEAKER_15]: I cannot get past it.
43:53
[SPEAKER_15]: It is so crazy to me.
43:55
[SPEAKER_15]: If I got home from a long day at work, my husband was like, here's a picture of me.
44:00
[SPEAKER_15]: I'd be like, I see this all the time.
44:02
[SPEAKER_15]: I love you, but maybe a box of chocolates, maybe something else, something about novel and fresh, exciting.
44:09
[SPEAKER_15]: Not just a headshot that you clearly have not been able
44:14
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm still sorry, has anybody watched Tupka and Birdie before where Speckle has like a headshot of and like the character of Speckle on Tupka and Birdie has a headshot of himself that he hangs in the apartment.
44:25
[SPEAKER_12]: He's very proud of it.
44:26
[SPEAKER_12]: I think he also gives one to Birdie at one time.
44:30
[SPEAKER_12]: He's his girlfriend and it's it's definitely giving that.
44:34
[SPEAKER_08]: No, we may not understand the headshots, but the local Westchester County Kinkos is making bank off of the X-Men.
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a future issue where Wolverine will gift the headshots in my crawler for his birthday.
44:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I love it.
44:47
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes me so happy.
44:49
[SPEAKER_05]: When we close on that opening story with Cyclops arriving, they go off on the date, jeans like shielding them from the range, she's in her dress, and then the Sentinel attack knocks the photo off the wall.
45:00
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, also, oh, there's a weird moment where Jean also is like laying out on her bed, but she puts the picture of her parents away.
45:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Like it's almost like she's going to masturbate, but she doesn't want mom and dad looking at me.
45:10
[SPEAKER_05]: giving me, she puts the picture away in the drawer before she lays down.
45:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I love it very much but let's hear from Seth and then Alicia, the kind of the backdrop for this story is the Cyclops desperation to get back to Gene, Gene calling out for help.
45:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And again, it's going to end really, really sadly in the next issue but what are Cyclops and Gene going through here and any thoughts on this story?
45:32
[SPEAKER_09]: Did you send me first?
45:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, Seth and then Alicia.
45:34
[SPEAKER_09]: The only thing, I mean, it's pretty standard for it's look the most cyclops in gene storage, just with always he's they're they're always so stressed and you know in in peril, but the part that I think that stuck out to me about this particular issue was it almost felt like they were setting up Colossus and Storm to be mildly romantic, you know, he kept saying like he was still worried about Storm and then it felt like they were trying to plan a seed for that and I just didn't get that, but the cyclops in gene stuff felt very standard.
46:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I read the Colossus storm as like very brother's sister in its way like they're very fond of each other.
46:08
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a weird romance for me.
46:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I could almost see storm night crawler working more than storm Colossus.
46:12
[SPEAKER_05]: That's an odd pair for me.
46:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And Alicia, any thoughts on Jean's journey here?
46:16
[SPEAKER_13]: I just think that like you know over the last few issues we've seen that Jean is very desperate for like physical affection from Cyclops and like wants to shake him from his like
46:26
[SPEAKER_13]: serious brain and like take him out.
46:28
[SPEAKER_13]: So I think like having this happen at her apartment, which is away from the rest of the X-Men, I feel like she's really trying to have like an intimate moment with Scott that can be more human than it is like any other time when they're together.
46:42
[SPEAKER_13]: And obviously, um, that's awarded by sentinels.
46:46
[SPEAKER_13]: So...
46:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Jumping to Professor X for a moment, Professor X is unconscious, we don't get a word from him for a whole issue, which is sad because we don't get to hear Justin's voice, but also that man can shut up once in a while.
46:57
[SPEAKER_05]: But we do get one of the many many versions of evil Charles Xavier.
47:00
[SPEAKER_05]: This is one of the earliest ones.
47:02
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a program sent to the whole who is going full mad.
47:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Justin welcome back as Xavier.
47:06
[SPEAKER_17]: Honestly, when I saw that he was in the stasis tube, I assumed the role for a brief second.
47:12
[SPEAKER_17]: So you didn't know you had two versions of Xavier on this episode one, just very sneakily in the background.
47:17
[SPEAKER_17]: I love getting to do evil Xavier, you know, like the pronounced evil Xavier versus just the shady in the background, evil Xavier.
47:26
[SPEAKER_17]: It just layers, the man has layers.
47:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And then you got to do a delicious Irish accent.
47:31
[SPEAKER_05]: That was really fun.
47:33
[SPEAKER_05]: You could do anything by front.
47:34
[SPEAKER_05]: That was great.
47:35
[SPEAKER_17]: I mean, I love having the challenge to just try it out because then, you know, there was a couple of times strategically muting myself to just make sure, all right, we have this.
47:44
[SPEAKER_17]: We have this.
47:45
[SPEAKER_17]: Yeah, we're just going for it.
47:46
[SPEAKER_17]: I know the words.
47:47
[SPEAKER_17]: Just go.
47:48
[SPEAKER_17]: Go hard.
47:48
[SPEAKER_17]: He moves fast.
47:49
[SPEAKER_05]: We have the delicious introduction of Black Tom Cassidy.
47:52
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a, this is a set up for the story where he and Juggernaut and there's the leprotons and all of that happening.
47:57
[SPEAKER_05]: That's just a few months away.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Robin, welcome back as Black Tom.
48:01
[SPEAKER_15]: Hello, I'm this was so much fun.
48:03
[SPEAKER_15]: I will say I said to my husband earlier today.
48:06
[SPEAKER_15]: I was like so I have been cast as a drudgeon or a druid boyfriend and my husband just went Wow, Chad has really tight cast you with these kids
48:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Evil geneticists, like Roma, the goddess floating in the sky, like everyone is a little piece of you.
48:23
[SPEAKER_15]: Literally, it's just like, are the camp, are they over the top and ridiculous?
48:28
[SPEAKER_15]: Obviously, it's a Chris Claremon climbing, so it's perfect for me.
48:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Any thoughts on this, like, shallayly murder from Black Tom?
48:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyone a big Black Tom fan here?
48:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, yes, I am.
48:42
[SPEAKER_05]: officially by the way Black Tom officially has made his debut on Dreamholk and Lane which makes them eligible for a trial when he's ready.
48:48
[SPEAKER_03]: I love my super villain boyfriend.
48:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's amazing.
48:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I think when Juggernaut started paying for his health care bills, like it was really important.
48:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of us were like so in love with Mystique and Destiny and then like all we get booed version two.
49:01
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a gay porn star named Carl Mark Kainmarko that I wouldn't
49:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And then let's go through this kind of litany of also over the top supervillains, continuing Jacob Thompson, welcome as a Stephen Lang.
49:14
[SPEAKER_05]: You read that just deliciously, my friend.
49:17
[SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to capture that role?
49:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, thanks.
49:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I get really excited by X-Men villains, and he's kind of the poor man's Cameron Hodge.
49:24
[SPEAKER_03]: This is before he went on to become the Falling Sue Special Little Boy.
49:27
[SPEAKER_03]: The only one to maintain his individuality, so he went through a lot of great body horror transformations which are really popular with X-Men villains.
49:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just like how they're just so obviously sexually obsessed with their ex-men of choice.
49:39
[SPEAKER_03]: He moves around a few times.
49:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, he's no Cameron Hodge, but he's got because he's a big emo.
49:44
[SPEAKER_05]: He's giving very Steven Miller from the Trump administration, which is the human post you all, the human column.
49:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Like Seth Meyers does a thing whatever he does Steven Miller on the show, that's show the picture and it's like like evil music like laying in the background it's very funny to be And then we jump over to the world of the Hellfire Club.
50:02
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a bonus page from the classic X-Men story.
50:06
[SPEAKER_05]: We have a lot of Hellfire Club content in the future, but we see laying directly working with this group, which includes Ned Buckman.
50:12
[SPEAKER_05]: who, as far as we know, is a human at a high level.
50:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And then Sebastian Shaw, and again, Sage was kind of in the background as well.
50:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Sebastian Shaw is like the mutant who's profiting off of like building weapons to hunt mutants.
50:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I would love to hear from from Rihani as Ned Buckman, what are your thoughts on this character?
50:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Using words like old top as he kicks his feet up on the desk and his wrist is bent.
50:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the dialogue alone made it clear that I should just go for a mid-Atlantic type of, like, just really ham it up, so I tried to honor that, but it's fun to, it's always fun to have any kind of villainous character, like, like, have such a specific tone, you know, or accent or whatever it is.
50:55
[SPEAKER_05]: We will be coming back to that character and what happens to him in the next episode where we have the Hellfire.
51:01
[SPEAKER_05]: The very first Hellfire Gala is the classic X-Men story.
51:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, the Jean Phoenix thing isn't for two months I said earlier it was the next month, but yeah, the next one is the the next one is the Hellfire club Gala and then we have Chapman back as I love your voices Sebastian Shaw so much my friend You got to talk last time about the inspiration for this character.
51:19
[SPEAKER_05]: What was elected play Shaw here?
51:20
[SPEAKER_08]: I love his relationship with Ned because it really exemplifies the fact that Shaw, especially early on, exemplifies his power as a sort of punching back almost in order to take all these hits on the chin to play the pasty to this Ned Buckman character, waiting to get his point to really flip the script and take over the Hellfire Club, and really like reflect that whole, I can take as many punches as you want to throw at me, I'm just going to wait for my moment to turn
51:48
[SPEAKER_08]: twice as hard with all of the strength you've poured into me and be ready to just take on your role entirely.
51:53
[SPEAKER_08]: And so there was a lot of like, there's a lot of him at this point, especially with Ned still in the scene where it's a lot of simmering.
51:58
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a lot of like, I know I can do this, but I still have to sit on my heels in order to not essentially blow the timing of this takeover.
52:06
[SPEAKER_08]: And so it's it's it's it's fun to play that kind of like just that that that master mind that you don't expect.
52:11
[SPEAKER_08]: The master mind who's going to use the hammer rather than the chisel and it's going to find the right moment to really just
52:18
[SPEAKER_05]: There aren't, there's these classic X-Men pages either to seed upcoming stories or to kind of further develop character moments during the issues and it's been really fun to add these in.
52:27
[SPEAKER_05]: It gives a certain energy as we build toward the Hellfire Club, recipe revelations coming, and then we got Lady Tessa waiting in the background.
52:34
[SPEAKER_05]: She gets some speaking lines next time, as well as Emma Frost, because we'll be jumping again to the Hellfire Gala.
52:39
[SPEAKER_05]: So everybody be prepared for that.
52:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And then Sean, you also got to do her Aldo Rivera.
52:43
[SPEAKER_05]: That was incredible, my friend.
52:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to watch a couple videos because it's been so long since I've heard his voice and I forgot how much of a cartoon character He sounds like just as his normal self, especially when he was younger So I just tried to sprinkle some of that in but hopefully I did it just as I adore your Wolverine I could listen to you read Wolverine all day long.
53:09
[SPEAKER_05]: It's so good.
53:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I just was sad you didn't get more lines
53:13
[SPEAKER_18]: Well, I'll add one more right now.
53:15
[SPEAKER_18]: He's never had an everything shower, and he never will.
53:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe that's true, actually.
53:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Shame everything.
53:25
[SPEAKER_05]: He does the all of the time.
53:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And welcome back to Scott Free, who got to play real-life journalist Roger Grimsby.
53:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I just posted a photo in the chat.
53:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Scott, welcome back.
53:35
[SPEAKER_05]: First is Roger, and then as a Iceman, the evil version, the Central version.
53:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
53:39
[SPEAKER_07]: No, thanks for having me.
53:41
[SPEAKER_07]: Roger Grimsby just went for that kind of 1940s through 70s news anchor kind of voice that they all seem to have that people don't actually speak like anymore.
53:52
[SPEAKER_07]: And I mean, Bobby, you know, I'm voicing Bobby over on your champions read throughs.
53:57
[SPEAKER_07]: And this was actually a really refreshing experience because unlike the champion scripts, this one not insane.
54:02
[SPEAKER_07]: And it was, uh, it was a fun, fun time.
54:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I'm going to ask Haram to respond to this specifically, but we got the Roger Crimson V line to augment the StarCourse International crew, international, interracial, intersexual, something like that, watching your react on camera.
54:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Haram, thank you so much for watching, I know I didn't
54:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I love watching you react on camera.
54:34
[SPEAKER_05]: You and Robin both, Robin, did you have any thoughts on that line?
54:37
[SPEAKER_15]: Honestly, um, terribly offensive, absolutely hilarious.
54:41
[SPEAKER_15]: I love it, head of a 10.
54:42
[SPEAKER_15]: It's ridiculous.
54:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Melba Toliver, who's referenced here, is also a real life news anchor, but she didn't actually have any lines, but you could look her up.
54:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Also references to the real life Olga Korboot.
54:52
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's a lot of playful antics between the X-Men in this issue.
54:55
[SPEAKER_10]: I haven't talked to us a little bit about a night crawler's journey here I mean, I love to this for night crawler obviously because he gets a lot of play with the kind of new X-Men out of this
55:05
[SPEAKER_10]: Because, you know, obviously the real established people who've been getting a lot of play to this point are trapped.
55:10
[SPEAKER_10]: So you get a great storm, colossus, and night crawler kind of interaction.
55:14
[SPEAKER_10]: And I think in just a very few bits of writing, Claremont got to show their personality differences as they react to this kind of situation.
55:21
[SPEAKER_10]: really fun to see and I think it starts to flesh them out as full characters for like the real first time, not counting like the classic X-Men redo stories.
55:30
[SPEAKER_10]: So I thought that was really kind of just enjoyable and it was also fun to play to be like, classes is going through something but night crawlers still can't stop being so excited that he's going up into space.
55:40
[SPEAKER_10]: Like there's something so funny about that, you know, he cares about these other characters but he still's like, come on, let's celebrate.
55:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Dorm is having a panic attack from claustrophobia.
55:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Colossus is having a panic attack from his brother's death.
55:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops is having a panic attack because his girlfriend's missing.
55:54
[SPEAKER_10]: And that color's like, we can't stop him.
55:57
[SPEAKER_10]: And I love that.
55:58
[SPEAKER_10]: I think I love that.
55:59
[SPEAKER_10]: But for me it was delightful.
56:00
[SPEAKER_10]: Everything about it was delightful.
56:01
[SPEAKER_10]: But I also love seeing the kind of relationship, the caring that's happening between the desk group of X men here as they're doing it, you know, the danger, but how they're looking out for each other and they really feel more of a team in cyclops.
56:13
[SPEAKER_10]: Kind of is almost like what the hell are you people doing, but like they're starting to gel, and I like that.
56:17
[SPEAKER_05]: We did the trial or the Colossus themed month on my show back in July and I have a whole Patreon episode on my Kyle Rasputin that's very detailed and really delves into kind of the cosmonaut, history, and Russia, but this is a, this is a real, a scene from X-Men 99.
56:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And then, uh, Will's Pratashio brings the character of my Kyle Rasputin into the comics like 15 years later as an Omega Mutant, uh, but what's, uh, what's Colossus going through in this issue, my.
56:42
[SPEAKER_06]: too much.
56:43
[SPEAKER_06]: He's always going through too much.
56:45
[SPEAKER_06]: That course all that boy just let him smash things.
56:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk about his journey here at all?
56:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean
57:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And then back to Storm, who gets to be Cosmic Storm for the first time.
57:04
[SPEAKER_05]: We've already seen her as crazy, powerful, but she can do this in space.
57:08
[SPEAKER_05]: In the current form books for readers, Mariaha has really amplified her up to, like she's beyond her Beyoncé era and now she's in her goddess, like goddess of space, era.
57:17
[SPEAKER_05]: We saw her on a raccoe doing similar things.
57:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Cindy, our herm talked to us about Storm's journey here.
57:21
[SPEAKER_12]: So, I'm first off loving seeing her get this power up here because there was a couple years ago that I had to argue with somebody over storm status as no-mega level mutant because they didn't think that she had, like they didn't think that she had it.
57:37
[SPEAKER_12]: They didn't think that she deserved that status.
57:39
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm like she didn't
57:40
[SPEAKER_12]: do like everything in regards to manipulating the weather patterns of earth as well as in certain instances in space.
57:49
[SPEAKER_12]: She's deserving of that title to do this like trying to argue me down on this as if he was like more knowledgeable of and I'm like you've never had a comic.
57:58
[SPEAKER_12]: Get out of my face at this point.
57:59
[SPEAKER_12]: Anyways, I really like seeing her journey here.
58:02
[SPEAKER_12]: I really like seeing her like kind of first off
58:06
[SPEAKER_12]: whatever panic that she was going through, just to get that big boost of power out there, but also seeing her empathy for the Sentinel during her scene, like, oh, this Sentinel is just as human as any of us, kind of weird in a sense, but also like it just shows how much of a
58:23
[SPEAKER_12]: I guess emotionally attuned that she is and it was interesting seeing her consider leaving the X men because of that because of not wanting to take any other lies because of that promise that she made to her parents.
58:35
[SPEAKER_12]: So it was, this was very interesting.
58:37
[SPEAKER_12]: Also, I just want to talk about the space suit because I remember Arthur Adams did the cover for it or in the classic X men issue number
58:45
[SPEAKER_12]: I thought that she was the only one who had like the core set of thing going on with her space suit because if if you guys go look the cover she looks so Come to you in that space suit.
58:54
[SPEAKER_12]: You have to go and look at it.
58:56
[SPEAKER_12]: Otherwise, I kind of wish we seen a little bit more of it.
58:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we also have Banshee here of course not so Banshee Wolverine and Gene got a lot of time in the last one where they're up in the space station captured this one kind of Banshee jumps out to do the Sentinel attacks, but we also got Sean doing some delicious accent work as the the postman getting murdered.
59:17
[SPEAKER_05]: We wait were you postman or flarity.
59:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I was flarity.
59:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah, you excuse me as flarity over there what what was it like for you Sean being part of this episode.
59:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a lot of fun.
59:25
[SPEAKER_04]: These are always just fantastic.
59:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a great way to spend time with friends, of course.
59:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But when I get the scripts from you, I was like, okay, which character is my playing?
59:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I have more than one character that means I'm gonna need more than one voice.
59:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, you gotta figure that out.
59:38
[SPEAKER_04]: But then also a flarity is Irish.
59:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Banshee is Irish and it's like, okay, can I do two different Irish accents?
59:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's see.
59:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have no idea and I've been meeting to say Robin, how is my Irish accent?
59:54
[SPEAKER_15]: My Irish accent turned into my Moira McTagra accent halfway through, so I have not much great to stand on for a critique, but it sounded good to me.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thank you very much, too.
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Flarity was specifically based on I'm ranking on the actor's name, but he was bearished and sell me in Game of Thrones, and he was a rampad Joe in Dairy Girls, so like I was specifically basing it on that.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Like can I pull that off?
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, because I still miss Catman every month.
1:00:24
[SPEAKER_05]: uh... and then let's talk about some character voice work for a moment uh... uh... might do then uh... chaplain did our incredible voice of of of peter cobao last night we had a brief delay today so chaplain thank you for being patient do you've been jumped in at the last second doing cobao but you're your cobao excuse me your cobao gave very like venture bros yeah it's kind of
1:00:42
[SPEAKER_06]: Stanley, Jim is venture on Bargain to a one a little bit or so fun.
1:00:47
[SPEAKER_06]: You had a good time.
1:00:48
[SPEAKER_06]: I can tell.
1:00:49
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_06]: Any other thoughts you want to share on Corbot?
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, he's living his best major Tom life going home back to space just for clarity sake.
1:00:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Jordan the voice of Jordan was specifically based on proxams.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Really well, let's see.
1:01:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, and we had our community.
1:01:07
[SPEAKER_05]: We had our very nerdy, like her, her little circle sentinals again this episode.
1:01:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I love the robot voice is just getting nerd nerd nerd.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes me so happy.
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, let's go out in this episode.
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we end with the introduction of the ex sentinals.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, do we have any thoughts on the debut of the evil robot, ex men?
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It always seems like such a gimmick.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes it such a good cover.
1:01:27
[SPEAKER_03]: But man, did they level robot duplicate in the ex men?
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Have it in Florida or there too?
1:01:32
[SPEAKER_05]: The robots will see them next time.
1:01:34
[SPEAKER_17]: I for a while, I was toying with the like, okay, can I make my professor Xavier voice robotic?
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_17]: Can I merge those two?
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_17]: And then the decision from the group which is like, no, there were just really good voice replicants.
1:01:46
[SPEAKER_17]: And it sounds like the actual character.
1:01:48
[SPEAKER_17]: We don't have to get robotic with it.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I think you had to do it that way, because the characters are confused.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_05]: They're like, oh, is it really Professor X attack?
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess, right?
1:01:55
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got to be legit.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, can I say, like, you know, it's hard for me to believe that the characters would be confused based on the things that Sentinel Professor X was saying, like, you know, say, kill, kill, like, I feel like that'd be a pretty dead giveaway for then.
1:02:11
[SPEAKER_10]: Maybe, yeah, maybe not, I don't know.
1:02:15
[SPEAKER_10]: I will say it's very 70s of them to have robot duplicates.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_10]: That was like a big thing in the mid 70s of having, like, whether it was, like, the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman or Wonder Woman, all this TV shows had it.
1:02:27
[SPEAKER_10]: There was, you know, a lot of horror movies and things of, like, robot duplicates.
1:02:30
[SPEAKER_05]: So it was a big theme.
1:02:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And the readers are like, wait, Cyclops and Gene are in different costumes.
1:02:34
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's, it's kind of funny.
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't know what's going on.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, the last one I have.
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm very, very quickly.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Robin, oh, Aaron, please, I'm sorry.
1:02:41
[SPEAKER_12]: I was about to say this is also the time period that the Terminator was coming out.
1:02:45
[SPEAKER_12]: So yeah, of course everybody was like big on that robot to the kids.
1:02:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Robin, you're you're being Scottish doing a Southern accent.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I think is the equivalent of most Americans doing a Scottish exercise.
1:02:57
[SPEAKER_15]: I am so glad I can get my revenge.
1:03:00
[SPEAKER_15]: I'm very proud of myself.
1:03:01
[SPEAKER_15]: No, thank you.
1:03:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I must go on the cowboy from the south.
1:03:03
[SPEAKER_15]: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
1:03:15
[SPEAKER_05]: So when, uh, when Colossus picks up Wolverine and throws them, it's called a fast ball special.
1:03:19
[SPEAKER_05]: We get a different power circuit here where night crawler jumps on a teeter toddler to launch Colossus up what's this power circuit called.
1:03:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't think we've ever seen it again.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the core butt.
1:03:32
[SPEAKER_04]: see smash instead of seesaw.
1:03:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I think there's got to be something like there's like a circus like there's like a circus equivalent of this somehow like a like a like a like a human cannonball version there's some sort of launch.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know listeners.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you think?
1:03:48
[SPEAKER_05]: What's the what's the circuit called?
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_12]: It's not called the flying grace and special, but that's a whole different thing.
1:03:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Like the flying cosmonaut, like there's there's there's there's some sort of fun, I don't know, trapeze reference or bro's catapult.
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:04:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:04:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so for the group here, again, I'll edit this out.
1:04:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyone who wants to do any shout outs, any moments in the story that you love any callouts you want to do for other people before we start doing our transitions.
1:04:15
[SPEAKER_10]: Can I just say the the pressure speech Jacob that you pulled off for lying when he is so just like so excited about everything he was saying just cracked me to fuck up Yeah, I don't have to say the same Jacob your language was incredible the delivery top here We miss you Scottie we miss you Scottie to geese though Scottie normally does lying for us, so we do miss you, but yeah, Jacob that was lovely
1:04:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for not being here, Scott.
1:04:41
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm gonna say, Scotty's Ling will take you to dinner and then surprise halfway through the meal.
1:04:46
[SPEAKER_08]: You've been poisoned, it's a big whole thing.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_08]: And then Jacob's is just gonna be like, hey, welcome to dinner, I'm going to shoot you and then I'm going to continue eating dinner because I don't have time for this.
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_17]: Other shoutouts?
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_17]: The villainy throughout this episode was just all the villains, yeah.
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, the hell, the hell the hell the hell fire club scene like the the table discussion was like I was like This is grimy and I like it all the narration scenes in the opening number the the gene getting ready for her date Whoever did the narrator's voice was fantastic at that
1:05:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, documented you, Chad.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, thank you.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
1:05:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Getting text popping up, but I guess my apologies.
1:05:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I sometimes I'm multitasking, but yes, thank you very much.
1:05:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I love doing the narrator voice.
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_05]: That's really fun for me.
1:05:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, I, I like having the sound effects mixed into the, like descriptions.
1:05:37
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes me happy.
1:05:39
[SPEAKER_10]: And I say to a high point was Billy with the one line of being scared or being bullied by the other, was it Billy who's being bullied by Jacob or whoever the other character was.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, he had that little knife.
1:05:50
[SPEAKER_10]: Yes, he had the little knife right in the play, so scared.
1:05:52
[SPEAKER_10]: I love it though.
1:05:53
[SPEAKER_05]: He's scared of the mutants as soon as they are powerful, but like when they're strapped out, it's, oh, we got banshee in the diaper too.
1:05:59
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to talk about banshee in the diaper.
1:06:02
[SPEAKER_15]: that panel is too much.
1:06:04
[SPEAKER_15]: It's too much.
1:06:04
[SPEAKER_15]: It's just too much.
1:06:05
[SPEAKER_15]: I opened this to look through it and I was like, this is the panel where I'm, what the, what is this on?
1:06:11
[SPEAKER_15]: It's insane.
1:06:12
[SPEAKER_15]: If you are listening to this, please go and look at classic X-Men number six.
1:06:16
[SPEAKER_15]: You need to see this panel for yourself.
1:06:17
[SPEAKER_15]: It is mind-boggling.
1:06:19
[SPEAKER_15]: The things you will see.
1:06:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Not only is Robin correct about that, I would like to point out that, uh, so he's wearing he's in manacles at his feet and hands.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_04]: He's wearing this weird, diaper thing, but he still has the striped arm wings.
1:06:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Like his striped wings are still on.
1:06:33
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a grand striped reaction.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_05]: It's where we find that they're like Wolverine's claws and they were part of him all along.
1:06:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Getting flaps and this like we got Wolverine's like bent over pond like bondage position as well.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Like length, length specifically requested that.
1:06:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I specifically requested too.
1:06:56
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, everyone, delightful time as always.
1:06:59
[SPEAKER_05]: This just makes my whole day.
1:07:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I had such a joyful time with each of you.
1:07:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for getting up early and I'm so glad.
1:07:05
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to put this out the first Monday in November.
1:07:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Listener, stay tuned.
1:07:10
[SPEAKER_05]: On November on the show, we're starting to do themed content very consistently.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So whoever gets the trial that month we're doing themes around that kind of moving forward for a little while, we're going to be doing kind of a...
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Vash is a month.
1:07:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I had no member on the show.
1:07:23
[SPEAKER_05]: We're opening with Lang and and the Hellfire Club and things like that.
1:07:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Immediately following this watch for an interview with the Incredible Steven A. Roman who wrote the Chaos Engine trilogy where it's X-Men and the like cosmic cube books.
1:07:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really excited about this interview.
1:07:39
[SPEAKER_05]: There's going to be a lot of delicious content.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're going to close them on that with the trial of Baron Helmet Zemo.
1:07:44
[SPEAKER_05]: So, watch for that.
1:07:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we've got a courting episode over on the Patreon, opening with the Friends of Humanity with Philip Kennedy Johnson and Ken Christ.
1:07:51
[SPEAKER_05]: So stay tuned for all of that.
1:07:53
[SPEAKER_05]: You can follow me at Graham Alken, underscore land on Instagram.
1:07:56
[SPEAKER_05]: most readily.
1:07:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And then as we are wrapping up, I'll call everyone out.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_05]: If you have any final shoutouts, where can people find you online?
1:08:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything you want to plug?
1:08:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Does anyone need to leave first?
1:08:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyone want to hear you?
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we'll just go down the list.
1:08:07
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's open with Haram and then Kevin.
1:08:10
[SPEAKER_12]: Hi there, everybody.
1:08:11
[SPEAKER_12]: And once more, I am Haram Scaram Cosplay.
1:08:13
[SPEAKER_12]: At least I cannot wait for whatever comes in the next issue because I know that me and you at a storm and jean have a really, really intense emotional moment during the last moments there.
1:08:24
[SPEAKER_12]: but you guys can find me at Harem, at Sterem Cosplay, on IG, Harem, Skerem Cosplay, and TikTok, I think.
1:08:32
[SPEAKER_12]: Um, yeah, pretty much that.
1:08:34
[SPEAKER_10]: I am Kevin Canary, and talking about things I'm looking forward to coming up, by the way, is the cover to the next classic X-Men by Art Adams, where they're all fighting each other.
1:08:41
[SPEAKER_10]: There's one of the best covers I've ever seen in my entire life.
1:08:43
[SPEAKER_10]: But if this is coming out in the beginning of November, you've just missed me at New York Comic-Con and just missed me in a community theater production I'm doing that just ends the same weekend.
1:08:52
[SPEAKER_10]: So I have nothing going on after that other than a break.
1:08:55
[SPEAKER_10]: But you can find me on Instagram, a K.A.
1:08:57
[SPEAKER_10]: Canyre and I hardly post anymore, but you know, maybe there'll be some silly costume photos.
1:09:02
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's go chat, man, and then dovin'.
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_08]: My name is Chapman Blake.
1:09:04
[SPEAKER_08]: You can find me on most social medias at either Chapman C. Blake or Chapman Carter.
1:09:09
[SPEAKER_08]: Since the last time we did one of these things, I've done a lot more work on getting my own podcast up and off the ground.
1:09:16
[SPEAKER_08]: So go ahead and check out subtextment.
1:09:19
[SPEAKER_08]: This SUB to EXT MEN on pretty much most social medias.
1:09:24
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm off Twitter X because obviously, but all the others you can probably find me and look for content coming out on there starting at the top of the next year.
1:09:32
[SPEAKER_08]: 2026.
1:09:33
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to go into the app and approach.
1:09:36
[SPEAKER_05]: If you want me to put you in contact with Steven Aero, then let me know.
1:09:38
[SPEAKER_08]: We'll do.
1:09:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I like doing.
1:09:40
[SPEAKER_06]: You can find me on Instagram where I never post at Wambarber or my shop's page at Godship the Queen Barber.
1:09:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And if you're in the Salt Lake area and want a haircut and want me to just do a bad Russian accent at you for an hour.
1:09:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, hit me up legit.
1:09:53
[SPEAKER_05]: That's where I get my haircut and he talks and rushing the whole time.
1:09:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Chad, let's go ahead and shake up with him, beverage.
1:09:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Jacob Thompson.
1:09:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Follow me on Instagram where I post far too much for fitness and cosplay content at Jacob Raleigh.
1:10:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And I look forward to meeting a lot of you at Comic Con.
1:10:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll be skilletwar.
1:10:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, beverage.
1:10:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, I'm, uh, you could find me on Instagram at cool beverage that's B. E. V. E. R. I. D. G. E. Um, I post a lot of like my costuming stuff, but also pictures of my dogs.
1:10:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, the next convention you'll see me at is Twin Cities Khan, which is happening the 8th and 9th of November here in Minneapolis.
1:10:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Other than that, you can find me at, uh, hot comics and collectibles in rich field Minnesota.
1:10:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's go Alicia and then Justin and then Rahani.
1:10:33
[SPEAKER_13]: I'm Alicia Wilder, it's always a pleasure to be here.
1:10:36
[SPEAKER_13]: I enjoy these so very much y'all bright in my day.
1:10:39
[SPEAKER_13]: If you want to follow my cosplay, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Wilder Moves.
1:10:47
[SPEAKER_13]: I am also one half of the Xwave podcast.
1:10:49
[SPEAKER_13]: So if you want to see what we're up to, we are at the Xwave podcast that's T-H-E-W-F-I-E. Nope, I did it again.
1:11:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Keep all that, keep all that, keep all that.
1:11:07
[SPEAKER_13]: Pointing, all right, here we go, I'm going to do it.
1:11:08
[SPEAKER_13]: I'm going to do it all again.
1:11:09
[SPEAKER_05]: At least you're canceled.
1:11:11
[SPEAKER_13]: I got to go.
1:11:11
[SPEAKER_13]: I am at least your wilder, just kidding.
1:11:13
[SPEAKER_13]: You can find us at the X-WF podcast, T-H-E-X-W-I-F-E, as in X-Men, not former life.
1:11:21
[SPEAKER_13]: Bye.
1:11:21
[SPEAKER_17]: Yeah, we've been playing around with the episode formats and tackling different topics and having a blast a bunch of people coming on and it's been a fun time.
1:11:29
[SPEAKER_17]: And I'm Justin, the podcast that we struggle to say the name of.
1:11:34
[SPEAKER_15]: Why are we?
1:11:35
[SPEAKER_17]: The other half, and that's primarily where you find me.
1:11:38
[SPEAKER_17]: Is there post and comic stuff?
1:11:40
[SPEAKER_17]: I love it too.
1:11:41
[SPEAKER_17]: Stay tuned, stay tuned through the upcoming sequel, the ex-husband podcast.
1:11:45
[SPEAKER_13]: This implies that, but like I even wrote it down on my footer because I keep messing it up.
1:11:55
[SPEAKER_13]: I wrote it and I still did.
1:11:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's go Rahati and then Scott.
1:12:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, yeah.
1:12:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, always a pleasure to hang with you guys on this amazing podcast.
1:12:05
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Sean Rohani.
1:12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find me just as my name on Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky.
1:12:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I might not know that you found me because I'm terrible at all social media, but feel free to reach out.
1:12:17
[SPEAKER_07]: and Scott Scott free on Instagram and blue sky.
1:12:22
[SPEAKER_07]: Same name, I have my own podcast.
1:12:25
[SPEAKER_07]: We're talking about Ben Riley, clone conspiracy.
1:12:27
[SPEAKER_07]: So if you like really confusing Spider-Man stories, your man, Robin and then Seth.
1:12:32
[SPEAKER_15]: Hi I'm Robin and it's been a pleasure as always being here if you want to check me out and social media you can find my drag account on Instagram, October, underscore, fist spelled like the month and the thing at the end of your hand.
1:12:44
[SPEAKER_15]: And if you want to fame me on blue sky you can check out my personal account red rested Robin with a Y.
1:12:51
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'm Seth Martell if you want to follow some
1:13:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, such a joy to hang out with you all today.
1:13:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Just true.
1:13:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Like joy points.
1:13:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so happy to be here with you all.
1:13:06
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
1:13:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Everybody.
1:13:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for listening.
1:13:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned for the interview with Steven A. Roman.
1:13:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Any final shoutouts before we wrap up from the group.
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you all back here shortly.
1:13:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Do a quick shout out just because of the day that we are recording this.
1:13:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, happy birthday to multiple man himself.
1:13:20
[SPEAKER_04]: James Arthur Madrox.
1:13:21
[SPEAKER_04]: His birthday is given in his first appearance.
1:13:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So I and I made sure to make a note of that on the calendar.
1:13:26
[SPEAKER_05]: that day he was born to doctor held him up by his feet, spanked his little button, made the first doop.
1:13:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Alright everybody, let's see you back here just a few of it.
1:13:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grimoque and Lane podcast.
1:13:39
[SPEAKER_05]: We're queer friends and allies, Gavin, to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
1:13:45
[SPEAKER_05]: We are going to be opening November on the show, talking all about fascism.
1:13:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I know that that's a light and fluffy topic, especially in America 2025 these days.
1:13:54
[SPEAKER_05]: But we're kind of leaning hard into that topic, particularly fascism in pop culture.
1:13:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Our comics, for example, are full of fascism.
1:14:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Marvel Comics very first issue of Captain America on the cover we have Steve Rogers punching it off Hitler right in the face and we've been kind of defining the enemies of mutants and other heroes as ultimately fascist as the lowest kind of measure of evil in the Marvel universe.
1:14:22
[SPEAKER_05]: The red skull being one primary example of that.
1:14:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're going to be opening today by interviewing the incredible author of the X-Men Chaos Ingentryology novels from about 20, of course, that jury I go or so.
1:14:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I found the ever-alusive, difficult to find online Steven Roman.
1:14:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so happy to have Steven here with me today, Steven, hello.
1:14:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the Great Vulcan Main Show.
1:14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks very much, Shadow of Glad that you've thought of tracking me down, do we discuss such a light topic in the Solidarist approach?
1:14:52
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think it's nice to be able to have heavy topics in lighthearted ways, so I promise we'll laugh a lot this much.
1:14:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, absolutely.
1:14:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Everybody's stay tuned.
1:14:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, Steven, I want to open by just having you tell everyone a little about yourself.
1:15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Start as a comic book fan, decide to get into a small press comics, basically digest, zeoroxing, self-stapling comics back in the late 80s, and start at that with a character called Laurel Oye.
1:15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: who was inspired by 1970s horror comics like Vampirella, Satan of the Devil's Daughter, things like that because I was very much into Marvel horror titles at the time, so I'm a Bronze Age kid.
1:15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: From Lorelie, then took it to a full-size comic that had some success in the early 90s, but then the market collapsed.
1:15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: with diamond comics starting that with the distributor wars and so lore like comes back every now and then when I can afford to put out an issue but in the meantime i got into writing prose became an editor for a company called Byron Price visual publications in the mid to late nineties
1:15:50
[SPEAKER_01]: As it turns out, that company had a spinoff called Byron Price Multi Media Company that got the license to the Marvel Comics characters when just about when I was joining up.
1:16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So they had started a novel program with I believe it was Diane Dwayne's Spider-Man novel, the Venom Factor.
1:16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I eventually as an editor became a little bit involved with that by actually first writing a short story for a Spider-Man anthology, then filling in for an author whose manuscript had been rejected on a Spider-Man novel that was aimed at eight to 12-year-olds.
1:16:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I completely rewrote the book.
1:16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't change the cover of it because the cover had already been printed,
1:16:39
[SPEAKER_01]: a couple of years later, the publisher Byron Price came to me and he had the estimate license.
1:16:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, the movie's coming out, we wanted to do these books, the author who was supposed to write these books quit.
1:16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a title, and we have some bad guys,
1:16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to write them?
1:16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went, okay, that's how I really got my start as a novelist writing three X-Men novels called Chaos Engine that we'll be discussing today.
1:17:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And from there, I've sort of danced in and out of self publishing and getting professionally published as an author and a comic book creator through the present day.
1:17:12
[SPEAKER_05]: That's excellent.
1:17:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I would love to jump back to your kind of comic book origins for a minute.
1:17:16
[SPEAKER_05]: What books did you throw up loving?
1:17:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Did you have a relationship with the
1:17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: My relationship with the X-Men was like with a lot of other Marvel characters, and that I was one of those cliched Marvel zombies, where I bought everything that was Marvel.
1:17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether or not I was a fan of it, I bought it out of a sense of loyalty.
1:17:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I read the X-Men from when Claremont and Kalkrum took over the title and followed it through for
1:17:47
[SPEAKER_01]: 10 years.
1:17:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost my guide to dropping a series after a while was if I skipped an issue and didn't realize it.
1:17:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized that I was just buying out of habit.
1:17:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I was more of a fan of Spider-Man.
1:18:10
[SPEAKER_01]: X-Men was just something that I read, but I wasn't a 100% fan, so when I got the X-Men novels to write, I had to go back and not only read comics that I owned, but I had to fill in gaps so that I could catch up with the then current continuity.
1:18:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's a lot of continuity and a lot of characters and a lot of goes, I'm the continuity specialist, right?
1:18:33
[SPEAKER_05]: The longer it goes, the more complex it gets, but X-Men is a lot a lot.
1:18:38
[SPEAKER_05]: There's so much craziness.
1:18:39
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's a thing that exists in the Marvel Universe called the Cosmic Cube.
1:18:43
[SPEAKER_05]: It's thinking of it a little like you get the, you know, Neil Degress Tyson toss that talks about how we're all made of like star stuff.
1:18:49
[SPEAKER_05]: It's, it's kind of a cube.
1:18:50
[SPEAKER_05]: You gather some star stuff and you project your thoughts into it and it manipulates the world around you to kind of match your consciousness
1:18:58
[SPEAKER_05]: almost a sort of virtual reality that overlays the real reality, but it ends up kind of taking a toll and there's all kinds of rules about how it works.
1:19:07
[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of the stories end up with cosmic cubes becoming sentient.
1:19:11
[SPEAKER_05]: They're connected to the beyonder and all these other things in Marvel Cosmos that we've been talking about.
1:19:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, the red skull is infamously connected with the cosmic cube very specifically.
1:19:20
[SPEAKER_05]: We get that old story where in Captain America, the red skull has been revived.
1:19:26
[SPEAKER_05]: He gets the cosmic cube and the first thing he does is wish for a giant golden suit of armor.
1:19:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And then cap knocks him in the ocean and the red skull sinks to the bottom.
1:19:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, this book really revolves around the idea of the cosmic cube.
1:19:40
[SPEAKER_05]: You open your book, Stephen, there's three parts, of course.
1:19:44
[SPEAKER_05]: We jump from three different major characters having the cosmic cube kind of inner row with the X-Men being the feature.
1:19:51
[SPEAKER_05]: So, Dr. Doom, Magneto, and then the Red Skull.
1:19:53
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll talk about the progress of these stories.
1:19:56
[SPEAKER_05]: But we kind of open with the premise of, while the X-Men were out of reality,
1:20:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Doom got a hold of the cube and started switching things around to kind of match his idea of what it would be for a perfect world.
1:20:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And we have the X-Men operating from other world in order to try to kind of revamp reality if you will.
1:20:16
[SPEAKER_05]: But a lot of our characters are trapped in the reality.
1:20:19
[SPEAKER_05]: The main focal point character for your books seems to kind of largely revolve around Betsy Braddock, who is kind of moving from reality to reality, how did you initially come up with this premise of the shifting supervillains with the reality altering powers?
1:20:34
[SPEAKER_01]: As I said earlier, the original author and I forget who it was, I think it was, I think Byron's approach was to match a comic writer with an author.
1:20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So that the comic writer would come up with a plot, the author would actually carry out the writing of the books.
1:20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It might have been Joe Kelly at that time.
1:20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.
1:20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I came along, all I was told was the authors had bailed on the project.
1:20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So all we had was the title of the chaos engine.
1:21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the fact that it was going to be Dr. Doom, Magneto,
1:21:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we call that a Professor X and Magneto's Rage Baby.
1:21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, uh, that might be a thing.
1:21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw that.
1:21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, got why.
1:21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, well, because it was a popular character.
1:21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wanted to use it.
1:21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: What surprised me was when I sat down with the Marvel licensing division.
1:21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: who were very nice guys who was run by two guys named Mike Thomas and Steve Balling.
1:21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Great guys, always willing to listen to ideas, always willing to take chances with stuff.
1:21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sat down with them and at the time on slot was being pushed by Marvel but not them and by Byron because I think it was like pro-mutter at the time was in control of the company.
1:21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: and there was a known Nazi promotion mandate at the company so that you couldn't say reprint Captain American number one and have the foster in the back when Hitler's getting punched in the face.
1:22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So he didn't want the red skull.
1:22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a promotion of Nazi ideology that he didn't want to have happen.
1:22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: When he left the company, when he sold the company, that mandate came off.
1:22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Marvel licensing said to me,
1:22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: we're really not cool on onslaught.
1:22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We think he's kind of a lame character how bit using the red skull.
1:22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, okay, that makes a lot of sense because we already knew it was going to involve the cosmic cube.
1:22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So the red skull, who is right at the beginning of it, should be the guy who gets his hands on it.
1:22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So my approach was the X-Men come back from outer space on an unnamed mission because I had to get them off world somehow.
1:22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Doom is used to cube to change the world into the way he wants it to be.
1:22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: How he's always thought about it.
1:22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I picked up the thread that Claremont had put in the X-Men comics that there was a sort of weird attraction between doom and storm.
1:22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, okay, so then they're married in this reality.
1:22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's used the cube to heal himself where I sort of veered from most of the other X-Men books that have been published at the time was I wanted to use siloq because she wasn't used in any of the other books, which was an editorial decision by
1:23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: booklines in house editor who never really cared for the character and his response was we already have Jean Gray so we don't need silo.
1:23:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought that's what appeals to me the fact that she's not being used and that Marvel at that time was letting me sort of have a free hand at what I could do with these books.
1:23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the sort of setup for it and then it was just a matter of setting down with them and working out the particulars of how the story could progress.
1:23:37
[SPEAKER_05]: You do a lot of really interesting narrative choices as you write all of these books, but each of the three of them kind of build a different world.
1:23:44
[SPEAKER_05]: You're building a completely different reality shaped by the ego of one kind of mega-low, maniacal person, that you have to build the world around them, right?
1:23:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Where do each of the characters fit?
1:23:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Where do they land?
1:23:56
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to focus a lot on the third book, which is of course.
1:23:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Talk about all three, but the premise of kind of rebuilding these worlds in a way that conflict still exists and seeing how much worse it can get is a really odd parallel.
1:24:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I think for America 2020.
1:24:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, we're good there we get there at the end too.
1:24:14
[SPEAKER_05]: you just switch perspectives, you know, each chapter is told from the perspective of Roma or Siloch or Gambit or Cyclops or Storm or the featured villains.
1:24:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I love how it jumps around and you have to kind of piece these worlds together from these different snippets.
1:24:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a very smart narrative decision.
1:24:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I love a book that makes me pay attention, right?
1:24:34
[SPEAKER_05]: It helps if you know all these characters in advance.
1:24:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't imagine picking this book up is not having red
1:24:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Doom is a scinty or aroma.
1:24:45
[SPEAKER_05]: He has been an outcast in his government, and he rises to ultimate power.
1:24:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, he has armor and tech and tremendous amount of ego, and he wants to rule the world, and he's a very clear narcissist with like a bend for cruelty, but he's not Hitler, he's not the red skull.
1:25:03
[SPEAKER_05]: However, there are still concentration and internment camps in the world that he builds, and he's still definitely an oppressive force to rise against.
1:25:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Making Storm his wife alone, the removal of Will, right?
1:25:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Which is a strong form of kind of assault.
1:25:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Talk to me about the world you built around, Dr. Doom.
1:25:22
[SPEAKER_05]: He's a difficult character for people to grasp, I think.
1:25:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my approach is with bad guys, especially these comic book bad guys is you can't just present them as one dimensional so it can't be doom being an asshole all the time because there has been through his history quiet moments where you can actually see sort of the man behind the armor where he won't completely put aside his ego
1:25:50
[SPEAKER_01]: but he'll realize that for the moment, there's something he needs to do.
1:25:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so much for the greater good, but it will affect him in a positive manner.
1:25:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It just happens to work out for other people.
1:26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: My approach to him was he's always played the approach of the world would be a better place if he were in control because he knows what to do.
1:26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what the cube allows him to do is try to show that.
1:26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: he's looking at the moment and how the world he has it functions under his rule, but he can't be completely in control because not even doom has enough will to master the cube to that point.
1:26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a tenuous dictatorship in terms of it's a thread that could break if he doesn't pay attention all the time.
1:26:46
[SPEAKER_05]: And you do also knows in your book that it's temporary that it's taking a tool that it's only going to last as long as he does, but the cube is showing him basically.
1:26:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's kind of this longer term, like, how do I maintain power or keep the world reshaped?
1:27:01
[SPEAKER_05]: What's the best version of this?
1:27:03
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's almost like he'd like you said he didn't think it through to the end, right?
1:27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, because well, that does fall back on the typical supervillain approach of, they're in the moment.
1:27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got what they wanted to do.
1:27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the old, the dog that caught the car.
1:27:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now what you do with it.
1:27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a plan.
1:27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But he hasn't looked at it beyond generations to see how the world will continue after him.
1:27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Which then becomes a question of, does he fear not having a legacy?
1:27:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And what steps can he take to try and sort of lock it in?
1:27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But you really can't.
1:27:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's a smart narrative choice because we've seen other writers do this since then there's a there's an infamous story by Jonathan Hickman called the secret wars where doom forms a new battle world and it's basically the god king of of the area and eventually it falls to pieces.
1:27:50
[SPEAKER_01]: dictatorship aspect of it that the world is fine as long as you obey.
1:27:55
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows that there are factions out there that are opposing him because he can't be 100% in control of everyone's will.
1:28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the problem that Doom is always faced whether he's sorcerer's supreme or he said somewhat God is that the power is always bigger than him.
1:28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: In the middle is the ego.
1:28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's doom and then is ego which is bigger than him but the power always outweighs it.
1:28:17
[SPEAKER_01]: he's never able to always bring all three together.
1:28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He's never as big as he thinks it is.
1:28:23
[SPEAKER_05]: And he ends up making the world better for some.
1:28:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
1:28:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Others end up in the camps, right?
1:28:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's certain people that end up thriving and others that end up suffering, which is not that different from the world he came from.
1:28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, one could say that there's something about payback to political rivals who are being touched into cash.
1:28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm not saying anything.
1:28:43
[SPEAKER_05]: You can already see some of the themes I'm drawing on now.
1:28:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's jump to your second book where Magneto gets the cube.
1:28:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Magneto is a very different kind of character.
1:28:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Magneto was a Jewish person who was put in concentration camps, who saw his family gun down, who was on the Sonder Commando.
1:29:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And now a lot of his story in World War II has been revealed in the comics.
1:29:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Since this book was published, if you would read Magneto Testament, it's a brilliant and painful example of that.
1:29:12
[SPEAKER_05]: But at this point, we very much strongly had the Claremont story of Magneto or Eric surviving the camp and then losing his daughter.
1:29:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And then he becomes kind of the revolutionary for the mutant cause willing to do big things.
1:29:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Now some people like to compare.
1:29:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Magneto and the Red Skull or Magneto and Hitler or Magneto and Dr. Doom, but he comes from a different kind of lens in that he represents minority groups in a different way, right?
1:29:41
[SPEAKER_05]: We also see lots of stories where Magneto rules, Magneto, in house of M, Magneto as the Lord of Genosha, or as the Messiah on Avalon.
1:29:49
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a story we see played out with this character quite often again.
1:29:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Tell us about crafting the world that Magneto built with
1:29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear I had when I went into a book was that Magneto's a deeper character than Doom and I thought it could be a really heavy character driven book, but maybe too much because he's worth exploring because he has that conflict that he wants to rule the world, but he knows what an extreme that can go to having lived through the Holocaust.
1:30:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And having lived through the Red Skulls world.
1:30:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll just give me the Dr. Dooms Cosmic Cube World, too.
1:30:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:30:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So he knows that.
1:30:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the way I played it was there's an old comparison.
1:30:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You may have heard it that Magneto is Malcolm X to Xavier's Martin Luther King.
1:30:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's a modern comparison.
1:30:42
[SPEAKER_05]: It's interesting though, because Claremont, when he first came up with the backstory for Magneto, based Xavier and Magneto off of Monarchum Began and David Bengurian, the leaders of Israel in its formation, which is an interesting thing.
1:30:57
[SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, in more modern interpretations, we see that Malcolm X comparison quite often.
1:31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was being tossed around in the late 90s, too, because that's what I picked up on.
1:31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the idea was, it's an ideological difference.
1:31:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a political difference.
1:31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So Magneto wouldn't be a 100% dictator to the level that doom would be certainly not to the red skulls level.
1:31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There is,
1:31:24
[SPEAKER_01]: a bit of compassion to him.
1:31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He still sees himself as the superior race, and that mutants are almost superior.
1:31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It was to play off of that, and the twist of the book was, now I've made the world say for mutants.
1:31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So does that make Charles the bad guy now?
1:31:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he and Silac are working to destroy the cube and turn the world back to where it was.
1:31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So Charles, we have our paradise,
1:31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: more of a licensing like that idea that now with something Xavier had to think about.
1:31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was my approach to it was yes, magnetos a dictator in terms of humanity in general, but there's still a depth to him that you wouldn't find in a duomer of red skull.
1:32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's when I brought up the idea of his wife and his daughter being alive, I thought that the entire book sort of hooked onto that, that yes, it's a bigger story about the cosmic cube and how it's affecting reality and how the world will be a bad place if it's not.
1:32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: fixed but it's really under that the story of this man who's gotten what he wants and now he's seeing it torn away from him when he thought that he finally found a level of peace from for himself if not for the world.
1:32:40
[SPEAKER_05]: You work in a lot of characters on the periphery, from Viper to the controller to, you know, Opaluna Saturnine, giving various perspectives.
1:32:49
[SPEAKER_05]: So in this world, you are a mutant and you have a place of privilege, but humans become kind of the disenfranchised class of the last week.
1:32:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Now Magneto is not the tyrant in the way that Dr. Doom was by any means, but there's still kind of a lot of injustice that surrounds the world itself.
1:33:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Now I'm going to come back and we're going to go through some of the layered pieces of these, but I want to shift to the third book because then we have the red skull getting the cosmic cube in the third book.
1:33:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you thought either version of reality before was bad, boy is this one very different.
1:33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The red skull has the biggest vision of the three because when the book opens you find out that it's not just a Nazi regime, it's a star spanning empire with a starship landing on a distant world and basically the Nazi show up to tell them how things are gonna be and now we're gonna kill people just to make a point.
1:33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And Cyclops is front and center.
1:33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The way that I pitched that tomorrow,
1:33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was surprised that they agreed to it was if there was one thing that Cyclops had shown during his time with the X-Men is that he was really good at following orders from Professor X. I said, if you take that to the extreme, it'd be a good Nazi and they went, okay.
1:34:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The understanding was it wouldn't stay like that forever.
1:34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was good enough to prove my point that this was just how bad things had gotten for the X-Men.
1:34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: that even their members are willing of being turned over because the skull has the strongest will of the three villains.
1:34:23
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, there's a thing with telepaths and comics often where to completely rewrite someone's mind takes more effort.
1:34:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But if you can take an idea that's already there and just whisper, make it a little bit bigger, right?
1:34:33
[SPEAKER_05]: So Cyclops always has had that need to please the father figure kind of
1:34:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's fighting for this cause and there are other mutants that is side and others that are fighting against him, of course But the Red Skull's world is a harsh place.
1:34:52
[SPEAKER_05]: It seems to lean almost heavily into the famous Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle Where is this idea that the there's a world where the Nazis did conquer everything and they want to expand that and expand it more So it goes through across space other realities all kinds of things
1:35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: By the time we got to the third book, it wasn't my Thomas and Seabailing in control of licensing department, it was sort of chaotic at that point, so I got away with a bunch of stuff in the third book just because no one was really paying attention over at Marvel and they kind of nodded their heads and signed off on it.
1:35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a harsher book because I thought you can't downplay what a red skull world would be like you can take it as far as you can because their comic book characters you can't go full reality as to what that would be like on screen as it were but you can make it a very ugly very nasty dangerous world to live in with this complete madman who knows exactly what he's doing in control.
1:35:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, so Cyclops himself is one interesting parallel for this because in all three realities, he just wants a simple life with his wife, Jean.
1:36:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, you write Jean is very exasperated by him all the time, which is not very often right through, which I think is very fun.
1:36:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Like Scott, you love me, right?
1:36:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm beautiful, right?
1:36:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, over here.
1:36:14
[SPEAKER_05]: But then you have characters like Storm and Wolverine who have very different places in the world.
1:36:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Storm begins, for example, in the first book as the Queen right next to the room, but by the third book, she is an African woman, so she's relegated to plus a mutant, so she's this kind of lesser species.
1:36:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Like get out.
1:36:32
[SPEAKER_05]: You're not welcome here for energy.
1:36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I liked exploring silox just because it hadn't been done in the books before.
1:36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Part of all the research was taking notes from the comics as to things that could be done.
1:36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: The idea that at one point she was what?
1:36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The Shantu's at a club that wore and owned in the comics.
1:36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought that was a different aspect of her character.
1:36:51
[SPEAKER_05]: You have her first appearances back in the Captain Britain books by Chris Claremont.
1:36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:36:55
[SPEAKER_05]: We initially meet her as a charter pilot and then she comes up with a super model right after that.
1:37:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it that the Captain Britain stuff is just weird, but it appealed to me just because of the oddity of I think the Marvel UK line, but it really became focused when Alan Moore and Alan Davis took over the character, having read the books you can see that I really went full bore
1:37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: into that mythology of the Captain Britain core in order to try and make the books work because the cosmic cube isn't just affecting the world, it's affecting the multiverse.
1:37:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, so we've got a lot happening at the Starlight Citadel in the other world and the Captain Britain core working in and out alongside Rome, I'd open to Saturn, I and others and they all have their own agendas and crazy to some course.
1:37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I like playing around with those just the oddity of it.
1:37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was Betsy just to, because I hadn't seen that sort of depth and like I said, Japan used in the books before.
1:37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was sort of an open field to just play off of things that I'd seen in the comic books.
1:37:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That gave me a lot of fun to work with.
1:38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The relationship between Rogan Gambit was another thing that I hadn't seen taken as far as I pushed it, especially in the first book.
1:38:08
[SPEAKER_05]: kind of the final arc of the book, Gambit gets revived in other world.
1:38:12
[SPEAKER_05]: They bring him back.
1:38:13
[SPEAKER_05]: There's this moment where Rogue sees his soul and says it's so beautiful.
1:38:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't always, especially when I did the first book, they had sort of always in the comics danced around the relationship.
1:38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of, are they in love?
1:38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they not in love?
1:38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is that actually going?
1:38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what I set up with that first book was I wanted him to make a sacrifice.
1:38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I was surprised that Marvel agreed when I said, and I want to kill him.
1:38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: and they said, okay, but it was with the understanding that it being a licensed property.
1:38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're done, you have to put the toys back where you got them.
1:38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to revive him for that third book in order for the trilogy to have a pay off.
1:38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the first one, it was I really wanted to have him just finally come out and say that he loved Rogue.
1:38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And what effect then his death
1:39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: because at that time I made my email address public so that you could write to me and tell me how you thought of the book and I got one email from a guy who had read that book and said he wanted to let me know how much it meant to him because his father died the year before, his uncle had just passed away about a month before he read that first chaos on your book
1:39:34
[SPEAKER_01]: help him get through that period.
1:39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's stunning.
1:39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it also made me realize that as an author, sometimes you can just get it right that you can actually reach that audience member.
1:39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can do that, if they can feel what you felt as you were writing it, then you've done a good job.
1:39:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they're really smart books.
1:39:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's talk about kind of the stacking of this.
1:39:53
[SPEAKER_05]: So you begin with the first book.
1:39:55
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a period of time between the first and second, a period of time between the second and third, right?
1:40:00
[SPEAKER_05]: People have time to react.
1:40:01
[SPEAKER_05]: You're hearing news.
1:40:03
[SPEAKER_05]: The editorial is changing.
1:40:04
[SPEAKER_05]: All of this is going on in a backdrop of crazy stuff going on at Marvel editorial through bankruptcy and shifting allegiances.
1:40:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And a lot of creators were pretty unhappy through a lot of this time.
1:40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: The first book, like I said, Marvel licensing very easy to work with, they were very enthusiastic.
1:40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They had seen all the previous novels since 1994 through under the Byron Price Program.
1:40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So, very easy to work with, they understood what things were doing, they liked, they enjoyed working with me.
1:40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I was easier to get along with.
1:40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: When they agreed to the first book that was great, we got it through and they were very happy with it.
1:40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: When the second book came along, oh, and the first book sold very well because we timed it just as the first X-Men movie was coming out.
1:40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So it sold
1:40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that was about the time Bill Gemma's came along.
1:40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: He fired the licensing department.
1:41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So we lost my time in the city building who had been willing to let me do what I thought need to be done with these books.
1:41:08
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, they didn't even sit him out of creative freedom rather than this like super tight editorial direction that came out.
1:41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It was even crazier than that.
1:41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We had about a year left on our license at that time.
1:41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I got sort of put in charge of the license at that time.
1:41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I had pitched was the chaos and gentrylogy, but that then the other books in that we had left over that were Spider-Man and I think another X-Men trilogy and a couple of other things.
1:41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: the way I wanted to leave the chaos and utility was that the world hadn't been completely healed and that gambit was still dead and that this would be a theme that carried through all the rest of the books for that last year of licensing and then I would come back and write the last book in the license and fix everything and marvel at more licensing at the time when that sounds great it's crazy you're taking chances that's fine.
1:42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: then they got fired, so then it all got scaled down to, I had to finish the story in three books.
1:42:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And for context for folks, the first book came out in 2000, the final book came out in 2003.
1:42:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We delivered the second book, Licensing got fired, and then it sat there until they figured out who was going to now be in charge of the book over at Marvel, and as it turned out, Bill Gem is put his personal assistant in charge of Marvel Licensing.
1:42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: No editorial background, no publishing background as far as I know.
1:42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just, he put her in charge, and she completely rejected the manuscript.
1:42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We got it back, and it was, got it, just got it.
1:42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely gutted to the point where I went, what the hell is this book?
1:42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I've showed it to Byron.
1:42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not pleased because he wanted that book out.
1:42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The first one it sold, you wanna get the second one out.
1:42:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, he set up a meeting where I would go over with our in-house editor, who is Dwight John Zimmerman, who'd worked at Marvel, who'd worked at top's comics, and now he was working over for Byron Price.
1:43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, he was my editor in-house on the book.
1:43:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We went over, Byron said to me, Dwight will talk to her, you can just play the angry author.
1:43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: We went over to discuss it.
1:43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: What came across was they weren't so much edits as personal choices that she was-
1:43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it was a lot of that and didn't really do anything to help the story then at one point she said let me show you what I think this book should be like and she walked out of the room and I turned to Dwight and I went what the hell is this and then I heard something hit the table next to me and I turned and it was a copy of ultimate spider-man number one that had just come out Brian Michael Bendis and she said it should be like this and I said that's a comic book
1:43:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, that's about one teenage boy.
1:43:50
[SPEAKER_05]: This is about a super villain revamping the universe.
1:43:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So she held firm that it should be like ultimate spider-man.
1:43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And we came out of the meeting with, well, nothing's gonna happen now.
1:44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We went back and Byron said, how did it go?
1:44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, here are the choices.
1:44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go ahead, publish the book with all the changes that she makes, but you'll have to take my name off the cover because I won't be associated with it.
1:44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can figure out some other plans for this.
1:44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: and he went, oh no no no, the first book sold, you have to have your name on it, here's what we'll do.
1:44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll wait her out.
1:44:22
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a revolving door at Marvel.
1:44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure she won't be there.
1:44:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And six months later, she was out.
1:44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So then we resumitted the manuscript as I had written it.
1:44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we were told that we had to meet with the new controller of not so much licensing, but who was going to be in control of this book.
1:44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So they said, well, lunch date, we went over to have lunch
1:44:45
[SPEAKER_05]: was this your first time meeting Chris?
1:44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:44:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So he said, okay, he's a big personality.
1:44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, okay, I've read it.
1:44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not bad.
1:44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my problem with it.
1:44:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It reads too much like the first book.
1:44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So that it was, I forget how I wrote the first draft.
1:45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But the first draft, I guess, played a little more like Magneto was more of a heavy than Doom.
1:45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: and Claremod started bringing up what he had done with Megato and his background in his Holocaust history.
1:45:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, it should be more like that.
1:45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, there are elements of it that work.
1:45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why you put Betsy as a singer at one point, a nightclub, and I went, oh, that was Scott Loughdale.
1:45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone.
1:45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So he gave me a bunch of notes.
1:45:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't completely tear the book apart, but it needed another draft and he said But the biggest problem you have now is you're dealing with the guy who created the expert and I thought I could swear Stan and Jack and Len and Dave had something to do with this, but okay, they still did
1:45:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I went back and I went over his notes and he had a point he it did play too much like the first book and it did need to be more in depth.
1:45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So the depth of character that you see in the Magneto book is because of Chris Claremont pointing out where this thing needed to go.
1:46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The overall story he wasn't going to really fight me on.
1:46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just the characterization of Magneto and it worked out to be a much better book because of that.
1:46:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:46:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But then they dumped him at Marvel.
1:46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: The third book was delayed because then there was nobody.
1:46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely nobody to hand the third book to four about six months or so.
1:46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I believe it was CB Sobalski.
1:46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And he kind of just signed off on it and went, okay, it's fine.
1:46:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how the third book came up.
1:46:31
[SPEAKER_05]: So the opening of your first book, I'm going to take a moment for this.
1:46:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's going to read your acknowledgments out loud because this is a time capsule for you perhaps, but this is from the year 2000.
1:46:41
[SPEAKER_05]: While it's often been said that writers work in a vacuum, this project in particular wouldn't have gone anywhere without the hard work of people who shared my dedication to making this one of the more unusual X-Men pros adventures you're ever liable to come across.
1:46:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Thus, I'd like to thank the following folks.
1:46:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Without their help in the creation of this series, I might have been still been sitting around in a dark room contemplating my
1:46:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:47:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Byron Price for coming up with the initial concept and then allowing a loose cannon to see how far he could run with it.
1:47:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Mike Thomas and Mike Stewart, who were willing to go with an edgier approach for this series and who provided some much appreciated input to help get it started.
1:47:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Dwight John Zimmerman for his editorial guidance managing editor Clarice Levin for keeping everything on track Bob Larkin for providing such an incredible cover painting.
1:47:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Mark Buckingham for once again proving why he's one of the most talented artists.
1:47:26
[SPEAKER_05]: in the comics industry, Mike Revillis for his wonderful covered design, Alex Gadden, Frank Roman for answering all, ex-questions put to them by a writer who hadn't read more than a handful of the bazillions of ex-men comics released in the past 10 years.
1:47:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Howard Zimmerman for Kabitsing Above and Beyond the Call of Duty, the folks at xman.com and webmaster's Victor Moore, code name siloq, Christine Feliciano, the inner psyche, and J. Logan Miller, children of the Adam, who sites provided a lot of information on the ex-universe in general,
1:47:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Followed by a poem from Edgar Allan Poe from the Raven.
1:47:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
1:48:05
[SPEAKER_05]: So we have this kind of beginning of you in that spot.
1:48:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we jump to book two.
1:48:11
[SPEAKER_05]: where the forward is simply, given the times that's elapsed between the publication of the first trade paper backpack edition of X-Men Dr. Doom, and this volume, and the major changes the X-Men have undergone and their comic book titles during the past year should be noted that this story arc takes place between the events of X-Men 99 and X-Men 100.
1:48:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's simply very, very simple beginning, followed by a Mary Woolenstone goblin quote from the vindication of the Rights of Man,
1:48:36
[SPEAKER_05]: No man chooses evil because it is evil.
1:48:39
[SPEAKER_05]: He only mistakes it for happiness.
1:48:41
[SPEAKER_05]: The good he seeks.
1:48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought applied very well to Magneto.
1:48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
1:48:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And then finally in book three we very simply open with for the expanse.
1:48:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for your patience and for your encouragement.
1:48:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we jump to a John Milton quote to open the book and death grinned horribly a ghastly smile to hear his famine should be filled, which is the red skull opening.
1:49:04
[SPEAKER_05]: At the end of it all, the final page, another Edgar Allan Poe quote, act upon a dream within a dream.
1:49:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Take this kiss upon the brow and imparting from you now this much let me a vow you are not wrong who deem that my days have been a dream yet if hope has flown away in a night or in a day and a vision or in none is it therefore the less gone all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
1:49:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason I wanted to spend a little time on that is I see a lot of creators who come in with wide eyes who are so excited to do the work and then the business of it all just stacks and the joy your roads and it's like look like they're making so hard to do the job that I love doing so much.
1:49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: As I said, there was such chaos itself over at Marvel.
1:49:49
[SPEAKER_05]: One might say it was a chaos engine.
1:49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
1:49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just that there was really no end to thank because there was no end to shepherded.
1:49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The books were sort of an afterthought that added that Marvel management just sort of started to approach as it's just a pain in the ass that they have to deal with because we're still there.
1:50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, the third book was such a mess because, oh, actually there was an editor for a little bit on that third book at Marvel because we sat down with Bill Gemis and some of the editors, I forget who is there because they wanted to cancel the license before the third book came out.
1:50:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I went over there with Byron and Dwight and Howard Zimmerman, who was our senior editor and Byron's lawyer, so that Byron could stay to case for it, and they said, well, who can we get to edit the book over here, and whoever was with Jim is went, what about Bobby Chase, who they had just fired, and Jim is here's a sponsor, she's got plenty of time now.
1:50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe she took a run at it, but she didn't, yeah, I think she, she edited the first draft and then they kicked her out too.
1:51:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Bobby, who's gone out to become infamous in the industry over at DC?
1:51:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
1:51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was no one to thank for those second and third books.
1:51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: They're Marvel found a way to sort of suck the fun out of the books as I went along.
1:51:13
[SPEAKER_05]: That happens to far too many people who want to tell good stories.
1:51:17
[SPEAKER_05]: It's still happening these days.
1:51:18
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, I've befriended a lot of the writers of the more recent group of X-Men novels.
1:51:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Some of them are some of my very dear friends now, and they're contract.
1:51:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Pulled away, things got canceled, series revamped, or canceled early, and it happens all the time.
1:51:32
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd love to hear about your connection to Edgar Allan Poe, if you would.
1:51:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a horror fan.
1:51:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess so.
1:51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that author sort of starting out wanting to be literary.
1:51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So using quotes that you think apply to the material.
1:51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen authors on licensed books who sort of get their heads up their own asses about how they approach a license that they'll better it by taking it in directions that it shouldn't be.
1:51:55
[SPEAKER_01]: My job was to find a way to tell an interesting story without crapping on the characters as they existed.
1:52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So adding Poe, the Wilson craft Shelly,
1:52:05
[SPEAKER_01]: quote, was my aspirations for making the books literary, but also just because I thought they worked really well with a material.
1:52:14
[SPEAKER_05]: What type of research did you have to put into historical context?
1:52:17
[SPEAKER_05]: For characters like Dr. Doom, Magneto, Red Skull, so much of this is delving deeply into fascism, right?
1:52:24
[SPEAKER_05]: All of these characters are
1:52:25
[SPEAKER_05]: are created well, 40s for the Red Skull, but this early 60s for the others in this kind of world work to generation where we had a very clear idea at the time of what evil meant.
1:52:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The the artist look I ever got working on the trilogy was I was in a bookstore and I woke up to the counter and the guys stairs at me.
1:52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: as I'm handing him a biography on Hitler and the rise in full the third Reich.
1:52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm dressed all in black.
1:52:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's just what is that?
1:52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was my research.
1:52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going through those books in a space for the Red Skull to try and be as accurate as possible in a comic book setting without going full bore horror show with the reality of those times.
1:53:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I want to talk a little bit about identity.
1:53:08
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the really interesting themes for me as you stack the three books up next to each other, taking a character like Magneto, do more of the red skull.
1:53:14
[SPEAKER_05]: The idea of the world shifts a little around me and I adapt accordingly, right?
1:53:19
[SPEAKER_05]: What I've just talked about storm and cyclops earlier, like their shifting identities, it must have been a fascinating challenge for you as a writer to kind of figure out where each character would land in each place.
1:53:30
[SPEAKER_05]: as you try to build the arcs toward a conclusion.
1:53:33
[SPEAKER_05]: They're very smartly written Steve and I was really impressed.
1:53:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Part of the trick with me, I have a friend who's a writer.
1:53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He says that there are two types of writers that he knows as he goes around called plotters and pancers.
1:53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And the plotters
1:53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: puts everything in detail and they plot it to with an inch of its life and they stick to that plot.
1:53:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And the pants are make shit up as they go along.
1:53:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Those books are pants or books because Marvel allowed me to, I gave them plots for what the three books were.
1:54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the rest of it was just me making stuff up based on the material as I'm reading as I'm going along.
1:54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just based on the logic of a character how would they respond to this setting.
1:54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: If there is one thing that humanity is good at is assimilating to bad things.
1:54:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, I had that realization a couple of days ago when I was working on a short story for something else where I had monsters in New York and it's two years after it happened.
1:54:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized New Yorkers would find a way to acclimate to that so that it's a world.
1:54:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just the characters are influenced by the world around them and by the logic that I saw presented in their characterizations in the comics.
1:54:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Which brings us to the 2025 conversation, right?
1:54:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I am a gay man, I am a therapist in my day job.
1:55:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm also the father of two children, one of whom is gay.
1:55:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, everything happening around us is happening in real time.
1:55:07
[SPEAKER_05]: We live in Salt Lake City.
1:55:08
[SPEAKER_05]: A month ago, there was a person killed at the No Kings Rally in her last shooting.
1:55:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And then a few weeks ago, as we're recording this Charlie Kirk was assassinated just 20 miles down the road, it's crazy time to be alive.
1:55:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm kind of asking myself these questions about like, who do I become based on my identity as these things are shifting around me?
1:55:28
[SPEAKER_05]: The baseline for evil has always been fascism, but here it is on the rise all around us, and it's almost hard for people to recognize, which you write in that crawler in your book.
1:55:36
[SPEAKER_05]: taken from the lightning force group that that Claremont created where there's an evil Nazi version of Excalibur that exists in another reality.
1:55:45
[SPEAKER_05]: But that crawler in your book is the one that has the change of heart that kind of turns against the other Nazis in the third book, at least, which of course for Kurt Wagner is the best approach.
1:55:56
[SPEAKER_05]: But when we see shifting identity and what it takes to stand up and make change, I think that kind of
1:56:01
[SPEAKER_05]: idea of heroism and evil and what it takes to protest and be strong and rise up.
1:56:07
[SPEAKER_05]: There's so many things.
1:56:08
[SPEAKER_05]: What are your thoughts on American 2025 in this context, my friend?
1:56:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's scary that a country could be so willing to accept ignorance and hatred as a standard in politics and not reject it and actually try and take steps backwards to regress us.
1:56:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we want to call it far right, but it's really kind of like white supremacy in in an odd awful way under the lens of Christianity right it's a it's a cross not as fast again.
1:56:38
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a painful thing to realize.
1:56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it may even go beyond that.
1:56:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a country that's rejecting science and logic emotion.
1:56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the comment, empathy is a sin.
1:56:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the direction the country has taken, which is frightening because you never thought especially as America will be celebrating, not so much, it's anniversary next year, that we could be so dedicated
1:57:04
[SPEAKER_01]: to ignorance and hatred as a lifestyle that we should turn on the other, whether it's immigrants or gay people or trans kids or whatever it is, people of color disabled people.
1:57:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Disabled people.
1:57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just how how did we get there in the past 50 years?
1:57:27
[SPEAKER_01]: In my lifetime, I'm in my early 60s.
1:57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen this country go from John F. Kennedy with dreams of tomorrow to regressing almost to the Stone Age and being proud of it, that we don't accomplish things, that we don't get things done.
1:57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But as long as we hate somebody, that's okay.
1:57:45
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as the other person is suffering, that's okay.
1:57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm shocked and revolted by how the country has turned.
1:57:51
[SPEAKER_05]: It's painful.
1:57:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, as comic fans, we try to find joy and create nerdiness, but I'm trying to educate it at the same time.
1:57:59
[SPEAKER_05]: So framing these kind of silly conversations around characters has been an interesting lens to combine all parts of my identity into one place.
1:58:08
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's important to kind of see things for what they are.
1:58:10
[SPEAKER_05]: and the shifting reality from book to book for your trilogy, ending with the one with the red skull, right?
1:58:17
[SPEAKER_05]: You may live in the doctor doom time and think, it can not get anywhere.
1:58:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we go to the magneto time where the mutants kind of are on the rise.
1:58:24
[SPEAKER_05]: And the humans are like, no, we won't be oppressed.
1:58:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we shift that to the other direction, it turns into fascism across the universe, which is kind of a way parallel.
1:58:35
[SPEAKER_01]: is it's the undertone of eugenics being played out between almost a period and then the Nazi regime.
1:58:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:58:45
[SPEAKER_05]: It's on.
1:58:45
[SPEAKER_05]: So do you call much about how your books were received?
1:58:48
[SPEAKER_05]: What's the legacy of them been for you as the writer and maybe even in your career?
1:58:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, nothing.
1:58:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem with the Marvel books had in general was even when they were at their most popular time from, because they
1:59:06
[SPEAKER_01]: and then there was to jump to the multimedia company had folded around 99 and then these X-Men books came along, post multimedia.
1:59:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were never really reviewed, they didn't really get any attention in the press, no matter how well known the authors were.
1:59:25
[SPEAKER_01]: at the time.
1:59:26
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, what I see online now is people who are discovering the books not knowing that 30 years ago there was a line of Marvel novels that ran for about 10 years.
1:59:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So the responses that I see online are that the two high points for the X-Men books seem to be chaos engine and the original trilogy of Christopher Golden, the new Empire that started the X-Men line.
1:59:52
[SPEAKER_01]: For me personally, it hasn't done anything other than, as I tell people, the books, according to my, the managing editor at the time, told me that the three books in their various printings equal 250,000 copies in print.
2:00:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So she said, so that means you're a bestselling author.
2:00:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So okay, it's a shingle that I can hang over my desk that I'm a bestselling author, but it hasn't really paid out with anything, which is fine.
2:00:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that the Marvel now was really
2:00:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Expand fans who've discovered them are overall happy with what I did with the characters.
2:00:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They're confused by that note in the second book about the continuity that they take place between Expand 99 and 100.
2:00:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That was because the previous line editor in house had said, oh, you have to tell the fans when the books take place.
2:00:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, but they're out of continuity.
2:00:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said, no, you have to do it.
2:00:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I stuck that in and then it turned out the fans told me that made no sense.
2:00:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Where I had stuck those books and I went,
2:00:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just out of continuity books.
2:00:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a separate line.
2:00:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not canon.
2:00:51
[SPEAKER_01]: None of these books are canon.
2:00:52
[SPEAKER_01]: People who find them enjoy them.
2:00:54
[SPEAKER_01]: What's depressing though is I still have copies that I take to comic book conventions to try and sell.
2:01:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And people go, oh, X-Men books.
2:01:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And they'll open it up and go, oh, but it's a book.
2:01:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they'll put it back.
2:01:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So since it's not a comics, not a graphic novel, they're not interested in actually reading a book.
2:01:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's another thing that disturbs me about the direction of the country.
2:01:13
[SPEAKER_01]: The lack of interest in actually reading.
2:01:17
[SPEAKER_01]: the books did well for what they were.
2:01:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I had fun doing them, fans discovered them and enjoy them, so it's a good enough legacy.
2:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does your career been like since?
2:01:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I've mostly self-published my last licensed material a couple of things, an original final destination novel in 2005, based on the movie franchise.
2:01:35
[SPEAKER_01]: that not so fun with the fans just because the books had to be 90,000 words in length, which is way too long for something of that franchise.
2:01:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So it meant it was a heavy characterization novel in a franchise where people are looking for the glorious death possible.
2:01:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So some fans like it, some fans hate it.
2:01:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It was okay.
2:01:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I've done a couple of licensed comic books for a small publisher.
2:01:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, I have a publishing company called Star Warp Concepts, where I publish Loreline, the comic character I started with, and a character called Pandora's Yback.
2:02:08
[SPEAKER_01]: who is a teenage Goth who spent 10 years being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic because she sees monsters, but it turns out she actually has a gift that allows her to see the disguises that monsters use when they go out in society.
2:02:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That has gotten some good response.
2:02:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a quiet existence as a writer and make most of my living as a copy editor.
2:02:31
[SPEAKER_01]: for book publishers.
2:02:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure, sure.
2:02:34
[SPEAKER_05]: People's ability to transform their careers from one thing to the next and the adaptability of creative people is one of the things I find most fascinating.
2:02:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm also a writer.
2:02:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's incredible to hear your stories.
2:02:45
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope it's been fun for you to revisit some of this information.
2:02:48
[SPEAKER_05]: I really appreciate the time and talent that you put into these books and for this interview itself.
2:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Please do what you can to try and make the world a better place because the way it is, it shouldn't be as dark as it's becoming.
2:03:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have to find the way toward the light as please shade as that sounds.
2:03:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there has to be a better tomorrow.
2:03:07
[SPEAKER_05]: So this month on the show we're going to be spending a lot of time talking about.
2:03:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Fascism and Nazism in pop culture, which is fascinating.
2:03:14
[SPEAKER_05]: There's Nazi horror, there's Nazi sci-fi, there's Nazi altered realities, there's all kinds of things, but in our comics, to repeat, it's kind of the baseline of everything that our heroes, Captain America, to the X-Men and everyone in between are rising against.
2:03:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's complicated to take down a character like the kingpin, where you can have a certain amount of empathy for a character like the green goblin.
2:03:36
[SPEAKER_05]: But when it comes to the red skull, there is no, there ain't no empathy.
2:03:40
[SPEAKER_05]: when we don't try to understand it at all.
2:03:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I was thinking, Roman, thank you for your time today.
2:03:44
[SPEAKER_05]: What a joy to meet you, my friend.
2:03:46
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope to cross paths again.
2:03:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Chad, it was great taking with you and I'm glad you reached out.
2:03:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It was fun time.
2:03:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Fascism in November and then in December, we're talking all about eyeballs.
2:03:56
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's going to get, it's going to get really silly.
2:04:00
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to shut the year.
2:04:01
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, Steve, we're going to have a thank you for your time.
2:04:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks everybody for listening.
2:04:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Take care of yourselves.
2:04:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Be bold.
2:04:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Live joyfully.
2:04:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Be safe.
2:04:07
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back here next time.
2:04:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism, as a special guest and I talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
2:04:19
[SPEAKER_05]: In the 1930s, Heinrich Himmler became fascinated with what he imagined to be the remnants
2:04:25
[SPEAKER_05]: of a superior Germanic race.
2:04:27
[SPEAKER_05]: He sent teams of SS men with tape measures and calipers to remote villages in Norway, convinced that tall blonde children there might be the living descendants of an ancient Aryan master race.
2:04:41
[SPEAKER_05]: This pseudo-scientific obsession with the ubedermench, perfect human envisioned in Nazi racial ideology, fed into one of the regime's strangest and most sinister social experiments.
2:04:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, we've talked about Himalur on the show before, but he had a lot of dealings with not only human experimentation, callous murder, and really cruel things, done even to children, but he also was very involved in eugenics.
2:05:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Himmler believed that by identifying encouraging and controlling the birth of these quote, racially valuable and quote children, that the Reich could actively shape the physical and moral characteristics of future generations.
2:05:18
[SPEAKER_05]: So in 1935, Himmler founded the Levin's Born program.
2:05:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Now if you've watched the show, the man in the high castle, you will have seen this directly referenced.
2:05:26
[SPEAKER_05]: This was originally presented as a charitable network to support children of SS officers, but in reality it became a state-backed breeding program.
2:05:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Encouraging unions between SS men and women deemed racially quote valuable.
2:05:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Special homes were established where these mothers could give birth and secrecy, away from stigma with their children raised under strict Nazi supervision.
2:05:50
[SPEAKER_05]: In occupied territories, particularly Norway, the program went further, thousands of women,
2:05:56
[SPEAKER_05]: were pressured or enticed into relationships with German soldiers, their children were marked out as assets of the right.
2:06:03
[SPEAKER_05]: The program included incentives such as financial support, medical care, and anonymity, making it a peer benevolent while simultaneously serving the regime's eugenics goals.
2:06:14
[SPEAKER_05]: The scope of the project was chilling.
2:06:16
[SPEAKER_05]: By the war's end at least 20,000 children in Germany and 12,000 in Norway had been born in
2:06:24
[SPEAKER_05]: That's 32,000 children that we know of.
2:06:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Some were infants abducted from occupied countries, taking from their families because they fit the Nazi racial standards.
2:06:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Many of these children were handed over to German foster parents, their names and identities deliberately erased to assimilate them into the ranks vision of the future.
2:06:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Others who remained with their mothers often faced life-long stigma.
2:06:45
[SPEAKER_05]: After 1945, women who were branded as quote-unquote German horrors were publicly humiliated and their children bullied, ostracized, and sometimes institutionalized simply because of their Aryan origins, which they did not choose.
2:07:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Documents from the SS show meticulous records of births, parentage,
2:07:04
[SPEAKER_05]: and racial evaluations, reflecting the program's clinical approach to what was essentially social engineering and an obsession with what they deemed to be the perfect human specimen.
2:07:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Historians have noted that psychological trauma endured by both mothers and children was profound and long lasting with some survivors recounting that they only discovered their true origins decades later.
2:07:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Because if you got 32,000 kids, they've gone on to have kids, who've gone on to have kids.
2:07:30
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're not even mentioning a single individual here, but this is a significant portion of population in certain regions.
2:07:37
[SPEAKER_05]: What began as a fanatical obsession over mythical Oregon ancestors left behind a generation scarred by the regime's attempt to manufacture a master race.
2:07:45
[SPEAKER_05]: a stark reminder of how ideology can intrude into the most profound aspects of human life.
2:07:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And now we're going to jump into the crazy origins of Captain America, and when you view it from this lens, it's rough.
2:07:57
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're going to go to a really brilliant limited series, little known, I think.
2:08:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Written by Fabian Niseezo with Art by Kevin McGuire, Adventures of Captain America from 1994.
2:08:07
[SPEAKER_05]: We open on a flashback to World War II, young Steve Rogers goes to see a World War II propaganda film on November 4th, 1940.
2:08:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And in it, he sees hints of the deadly unreal threat of the red skull.
2:08:19
[SPEAKER_05]: A German scientist named Dr. Abraham Erskine has defected it from Germany and has partnered with the American military for the super secret project rebirth.
2:08:30
[SPEAKER_05]: create a super soldier serum.
2:08:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Now remember the Aryanism of it all and now we have a German scientist in America trying to create a human specimen.
2:08:37
[SPEAKER_05]: So we'll come back to this in a little while at our conversation.
2:08:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Operatives have been selected to receive the procedure and it only succeeds one time on a young soldier named Steve Rogers who
2:08:47
[SPEAKER_05]: was a 98-bit pound-weekly interned into the perfect specimen of the project, an Olympic-level athlete who now evokes Aryan ideals, blonde, blue-eyed, muscular.
2:08:56
[SPEAKER_05]: The only problem is he's dressed in the American flag.
2:09:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And again, given recent conversations, you all know that the Red Skull ends up in a cloned version of this man's body, which also makes this a crazy cut-versation.
2:09:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, the project could not be replicated because of Viterraise, and because a German spy who wanted to steal the serum killed the scientist or scheme, the only man who knew the formula.
2:09:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Overseas in an old stone room adorned with swastikas, the red skull is operating affairs, he wants the secrets, so he sends in his super power operatives, the death squad, or Doss Wernerk Tum's Kamantos, including Saurar Spritza, who basically just has acid jets.
2:09:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Darazon Morder, a torturer known for yanking out teeth, and Blitzkrieg, who has an electricity suit.
2:09:41
[SPEAKER_05]: All of them are rejects and failures from Nazi's own super-soldier experiments.
2:09:45
[SPEAKER_05]: The Red Skull employs a woman named Cindy Glass, a deep cover agent who wears white robes with a swastika on the hood, and she is Captain America's friend slash girlfriend and gets revealed as the secret Nazi agent at the end.
2:09:58
[SPEAKER_05]: At the end of the shoot 3, we finally see the Red Skull, the looming threat show up.
2:10:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Allow me to introduce myself to Harakapatan.
2:10:05
[SPEAKER_05]: My name is Darol Shadel, but you can simply call me the man who killed Kapatan America.
2:10:10
[SPEAKER_05]: All of his letters that are seized are case in this.
2:10:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So Kapatan America, say, with a K at a K. After killing his own agent for failure, the Red Skull rents
2:10:19
[SPEAKER_05]: It is my time, here my words, Americana.
2:10:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Use your eyes to see the glory of the right.
2:10:23
[SPEAKER_05]: We are everywhere.
2:10:24
[SPEAKER_05]: We are everything.
2:10:25
[SPEAKER_05]: We are everyone.
2:10:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And you, a poorly, a poor, godly, clad-sop, a puppet of the capitalist naran who continues to believe that they are in the way of the future.
2:10:36
[SPEAKER_05]: In America, in America, you're Nazi pig.
2:10:39
[SPEAKER_05]: You'll never crush the spirit of the true fighting American.
2:10:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And so Captain America and Bucky are taken to a concentration camp in Germany, which is not a story we've ever seen done anywhere else.
2:10:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't think they are stripped and washed and processed and dressed in these stripes and bound in their cells.
2:10:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And then they get visited by Hitler himself who plans to parade them in front of the German people to show their inferiority.
2:11:03
[SPEAKER_05]: The Red Skull is dressed in black armor and listens to the cheers of the people as he prepares to face Captain America in arena combat.
2:11:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I live because of you.
2:11:12
[SPEAKER_05]: You live because of me.
2:11:14
[SPEAKER_05]: We are brothers and spirits, if not in flesh.
2:11:16
[SPEAKER_05]: You shall be able, allow me to be cane, allow me the honor of killing you.
2:11:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Carrying a red shield of the black swastika on it, the red skull wields a mason, a sword, and he fights the hero, and Bucky escapes the cell and frees the prisoners, and who raid the armory.
2:11:32
[SPEAKER_05]: they get attacked from a tank.
2:11:34
[SPEAKER_05]: On one of the tanks, Bucky paints the letters a die Nazi scum on the side.
2:11:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The red skull kills Cindy Glass to hit cap where it hurts.
2:11:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And when cap and Bucky escaped, the red skull puts a gun to his own head, recognizing his failure.
2:11:46
[SPEAKER_05]: But then decides to spare his own life.
2:11:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Better to live with my failure, there will always be a tomorrow cap to America, and the files of my hatred will burn for a million tomorrow's to come.
2:11:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, as a quick aside, this book came out around the same time as the Excalibur Weird War 3 Special, where Red Skull is weirdly dressed in the same get-up, and there's a whole story about Hitler.
2:12:09
[SPEAKER_05]: We're not going to cover that on one of these, because stay tuned for a Patreon and November on my show, where we're going to talk all about the Nazi Excalibur story.
2:12:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Alright, let me welcome my very dear friends, Steve Dudes, to the show, Steve, are you a Red Skull fan, my friend?
2:12:21
[SPEAKER_14]: Hello, I would not call myself a red skull fan.
2:12:25
[SPEAKER_14]: Uh, I am very familiar with his exploits.
2:12:28
[SPEAKER_14]: I've known a number of red skulls from the communist red skull to the nihilist capitalist red skull to the ones who just wanted to destroy everything or have a cosmic cube.
2:12:36
[SPEAKER_14]: This is an interesting red skull to me, uh, one that I haven't had before.
2:12:39
[SPEAKER_05]: You have not read this story, Steven, I have both deep marble nerds, and this is our first time for both of us reading this particular, what makes this a banger of a title, because it's pretty fucking good.
2:12:47
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay, so first off is really good.
2:12:50
[SPEAKER_14]: This is a Marvel graphic novel level prestige comic.
2:12:52
[SPEAKER_14]: What can I say?
2:12:53
[SPEAKER_14]: Fabian, you see as a one of my favorite writers.
2:12:55
[SPEAKER_14]: Maybe the best Marvel writer in the 90s at this time.
2:12:58
[SPEAKER_14]: And Kevin McGuire really blew me away with the line work on this.
2:13:01
[SPEAKER_14]: I think it's really top notch and special note has to go to the colors from Paul Mounds, which do a lot of storytelling in this.
2:13:08
[SPEAKER_14]: There's a particular moment that I really love where
2:13:10
[SPEAKER_14]: So a lot of the stories told with like blues and greens that are very atmospheric and watery and there's a highlight of yellow to give like warm light at night and also to bring out Steve Rogers's blonde hair, you know, emphasizing the area nature of this American hero.
2:13:22
[SPEAKER_14]: Red is reserved for the red skull and there's a great moment where they're outside of a bar called Smith's Diner and the word Smith is in blood red.
2:13:29
[SPEAKER_14]: And of course, you know, Johan Schmidt is just a German way of saying Smith.
2:13:33
[SPEAKER_14]: There's a lot of like really good emotional residents going on with the colors in this.
2:13:38
[SPEAKER_14]: Really phenomenal piece of comic's craftsmanship pages are very well balanced.
2:13:42
[SPEAKER_14]: All the panel work is very, very strong.
2:13:43
[SPEAKER_14]: I wish that they could have kept the same team throughout.
2:13:45
[SPEAKER_14]: But as far as the comic goes, it's really, really well put together and really fun.
2:13:50
[SPEAKER_14]: A excellent retelling of Captain America's story, his origin, and also a streamlining of the Red School character who was originally like a American industrialist
2:14:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead of moments from this series, there's a lot of things that make it really great.
2:14:07
[SPEAKER_05]: It captures the energy of the war really well.
2:14:10
[SPEAKER_05]: It gives it love of the superhero bend.
2:14:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Bucky's great, cap is great, but it really shows the danger of the Nazi machine.
2:14:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Both on American soil and overseas with how different that plays out.
2:14:21
[SPEAKER_14]: There's a couple of things that I think really stand out for the story.
2:14:24
[SPEAKER_14]: Among them is the emphasis, as subtle as it is, on the idea that Captain America is a Nazi eugenics experiment, you know, like the reason that he exists is because he's the apotheosis of a process that developed the death commandos and the red skull previously.
2:14:38
[SPEAKER_14]: and that the doctor, Erskine, who develops this final perfect man, once he meets, you know, the blonde-haired blue-eyed Steve Rogers in America, is something that only comes to fruition.
2:14:48
[SPEAKER_14]: He develops the Viterase that perfect a process after he comes to America, which to me does not necessarily imply that defection was anything more than a way to continue the perfect man process.
2:14:58
[SPEAKER_14]: It's very dark, and it's clear that Steve Rogers doesn't see himself as a perfect man.
2:15:02
[SPEAKER_14]: He walks at that idea when the Red School suggests it, but the US government certainly does.
2:15:07
[SPEAKER_14]: They're very at odds and there's a lot of propaganda in here that also feels very kind of heavily handed sinister on the part of the U.S. government.
2:15:15
[SPEAKER_14]: Sinister sinister you say another you know sorry very very important not to mention that man's name unless he's to walk out of the shadows at me.
2:15:23
[SPEAKER_14]: The pun name always calls him, but I think that's a really strong standout part is that this emphasize is very much the the perfect man eugenics nature of the Captain America experiment with the red skull claiming that their brothers and really treating him with the honor that he doesn't even show Hitler.
2:15:38
[SPEAKER_14]: Also, I think it really stands out that Agent X, Lieutenant Glass's
2:15:43
[SPEAKER_14]: Nazi persona in America is very clearly a clansman's hood and cowl just with a swastika on the head.
2:15:50
[SPEAKER_14]: And when Captain America is presented with a choice of weapons in the arena to fight the red school, he most effectively uses a whip.
2:15:56
[SPEAKER_14]: I don't know what we're saying with that one, but I think it stands out that American atrocity is on display here as well as subtle or unsuttle as it may be.
2:16:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know that that's an area of Captain America's origins that we've really seen acknowledged on the page.
2:16:09
[SPEAKER_05]: The fact that the man responsible for all of this is a German defector who is in a way a eugenicist like how we unlock the ultimate human potential.
2:16:20
[SPEAKER_05]: He left the country.
2:16:22
[SPEAKER_05]: That's an odd thing to consider in a way.
2:16:24
[SPEAKER_05]: It's also important to note by the way, Abraham Erskine in the comics is canonically Jewish, which makes it also deeply uncomfortable.
2:16:32
[SPEAKER_05]: I character worthy of longer conversations and we really only see him brought up in books that explore Captain America's early origins which is like an occasional issue of cap and there's a number of kind of Nazi doctors or eugenicists from Arnhem Zola to weirdly Nathaniel Essex who was connected there to even there was that weird guy and like the Avengers the goodness Avengers the initiative there was like like Baron Blitz Schlager whatever his name was there's
2:17:01
[SPEAKER_05]: They're hearing the, oh, yeah, well, Strucker's not the science as so much as the asshole.
2:17:07
[SPEAKER_05]: But yes, but so hearing me tie this into the real lead in this one program.
2:17:10
[SPEAKER_14]: I'm generally aware of it, although I haven't done a lot of detailed research on it.
2:17:16
[SPEAKER_14]: I think it is good to bring it up in this particular context, especially with the.
2:17:20
[SPEAKER_14]: heavy emphasis on physicality and fitness that we see here because we see Steve get his 4f card and be shocked to find that he's not good enough for the American military.
2:17:32
[SPEAKER_14]: I think it's really interesting that among the people he's selected,
2:17:35
[SPEAKER_14]: which maybe this is the first time that I've ever really seen other candidates alongside Steve in this way.
2:17:41
[SPEAKER_14]: One of them is a Jewish egghead.
2:17:45
[SPEAKER_14]: Another one is a black athlete who has a knee problem and that's the only thing holding him back and one is just like a straight up bigot.
2:17:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And then it's ties into the Captain America truth, red and truth, white and black or whatever that's what's called where we have the story of Isaiah Bradley being experimented on.
2:18:03
[SPEAKER_14]: In this one, it's Jake Windmere, but Steve Rogers in his thought bubble narration makes it clear that he thinks that it's obviously Jake, the black athlete who is going to be the next captain of America because he's the most physically fit of all of them.
2:18:17
[SPEAKER_14]: He's clearly the one who can hack it better than anybody, but through a series of circumstances, especially owing to the bigot hodge, everybody else fails to join, so it falls to the guy who fits into the
2:18:29
[SPEAKER_14]: the mythic narrative of the Nazi ideal, right, is this blonde hair blue-eyed kid who maybe isn't the person who's most worse having the job, but ends up being the only perfect candidate left because of his courage.
2:18:42
[SPEAKER_14]: I think that is interesting how that plays into the idea of the breeding program in itself.
2:18:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Operation Rebirth.
2:18:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
2:18:50
[SPEAKER_14]: It's also, yeah, exactly, Project Rebirth, which they do twice.
2:18:52
[SPEAKER_14]: They Rebirth, Project Rebirth in this very book.
2:18:55
[SPEAKER_14]: It's also interesting to note that the Jewish candidate Firmance, Harmon Firmance, notes that he is a hemophilia and the bigoted Hodge assumes that he is a homosexual.
2:19:05
[SPEAKER_14]: as a result, and becomes violent.
2:19:07
[SPEAKER_14]: That's American ingenuity for you.
2:19:08
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of comic book stories about the Germans attempt to recreate the Super Soldier serum, which Arnum Zola did, right?
2:19:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Like he just copied Caps Blood and gave it over to Red Skull.
2:19:18
[SPEAKER_05]: But characters like Vittalham Lomer, who's the masterman, this obsession with arganism is so parallel to like American racism that it makes absolutely deeply uncomfortable.
2:19:30
[SPEAKER_05]: The idea of this perfect soldier and it's
2:19:32
[SPEAKER_14]: At the time the original Captain America comics came out, Americans were, and to this very day still are, very obsessed with eugenics.
2:19:38
[SPEAKER_14]: eugenics were a very popular idea in the early turn of the century America, as was Nazism, among political elites.
2:19:45
[SPEAKER_14]: A lot of America was very, shall we say, complicit in these ideas and in developing them.
2:19:50
[SPEAKER_14]: I mean, I think it's not controversial to say that the very seat of the idea of the X-Men is something that comes from the...
2:19:57
[SPEAKER_14]: the eugenics ideas in the air of the idea that there was this progressive idea of evolution that genes would always get better and stronger and more fit.
2:20:06
[SPEAKER_14]: And I don't know, there's there's certainly a way to interpret Darwinism that falls very much in line with the idea of eugenics, and we do see it a lot in American science fiction and fantasy pulp comics, especially those science fiction that leads to things like the X-Men.
2:20:20
[SPEAKER_14]: It's something that I think we all really have to wrestle with.
2:20:23
[SPEAKER_14]: You know, our
2:20:24
[SPEAKER_05]: American superhero comics because it's kind of baked into the fundamental premise but also the hypocrisy because the people doing the eugenics Don't match the fucking eugenics that they're trying to obsess over which makes me crazy on a hipster.
2:20:36
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, and it's not like Jack Kirby was thinking about Nazi ideals when creating either of these teams, you know
2:20:42
[SPEAKER_14]: There's a lot of rebellion and there's a lot of turning the idea on it's head that is also baked into the concept.
2:20:46
[SPEAKER_14]: The idea of Captain America being the Red Skull's superior in every way while being the idea that Hitler would have liked to have created under his own power is very powerful.
2:20:58
[SPEAKER_14]: And it's what makes the Red Skull so bitter the cane to his able as he says here, you know, is he is a physically hideous.
2:21:05
[SPEAKER_14]: ugly and morally weak man in every way he is Captain America's inferior as much as he thinks of himself as as the superior person and this is why he offers Captain America a chance right he doesn't want to let this guy die he wants to see him join him he wants to see him join the right
2:21:21
[SPEAKER_05]: In November on my show, we're doing the trial of Baron Zimo, and the patrons that are going to accompany that over on the patron channel, there's going to be one on Masterman and Warrior Woman, there's one on the Friends of Humanity, there's one on the evil Nazi Excalibur, and then there's one on the hate manga, which is the clone Hitler, and these are serious conversations, but these are also the backdrops of the common books that we love, these are like the measures of evil in every story, and they've all fought the X-Men, which is...
2:21:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Fuck Mary Kill, we have the three rejects in the death squad.
2:21:51
[SPEAKER_05]: A sour sprits of Arizona's on-boarder and Blitz Creek.
2:21:54
[SPEAKER_14]: Oh my god, that is, I mean, of three Nazis, acid guy, acid guy, yank your teeth guy or electricity guy.
2:22:02
[SPEAKER_14]: All right, all right, fuck your kill.
2:22:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's really okay.
2:22:06
[SPEAKER_14]: But let's griff because electricity is a little, that's a little erotic.
2:22:09
[SPEAKER_14]: I can get with that.
2:22:10
[SPEAKER_14]: I'm not really a person who likes things like teeth being pulled or anything like that.
2:22:14
[SPEAKER_05]: We're just going to kill them all, buddy.
2:22:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not going to make you answer.
2:22:16
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, yeah.
2:22:17
[SPEAKER_14]: I would rather kill them all.
2:22:18
[SPEAKER_14]: I'd say if I had to marry any of them,
2:22:21
[SPEAKER_14]: You know, and at least, you know, you could just keep them in a corner.
2:22:24
[SPEAKER_14]: I don't have to hear them, but we've got to go into that one side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to the side more to
2:22:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I got to make him just sound ridiculous, otherwise this gets way too serious.
2:22:54
[SPEAKER_05]: The conversation then shifts to America 2025, all of this is kind of on full display, but in a unique kind of Christian nationalist way, my dear friend, how are you?
2:23:04
[SPEAKER_14]: Oh, I'm, I'm doing great, you know, I just got to see a good friend of mine when I was out in Salt Lake City, hang out with him and it's how's been, we went to a few day bars.
2:23:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Deep is referring to me, we got to hang out, it was lovely.
2:23:14
[SPEAKER_14]: I really hate the political situation and I feel like it needs to end as soon as possible.
2:23:20
[SPEAKER_14]: How that happens is not up to me right now, but I will say that if we had a real-life Captain America, there wouldn't be a President of hate manga right now.
2:23:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, my mantra in life right now is creating joy as an act of defiance, and I'm going to live by it every day.
2:23:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
2:23:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to speak truth.
2:23:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Doing stuff like this, but we're going to smile our way through it.
2:23:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been turning a lot of people on to the Jamed Amitase and Mark Urnull runs of cap through these conversations, which is really delightful.
2:23:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I love to see a lot of people reading this stuff.
2:23:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Steven's delightful hanging out with you anytime and every time.
2:23:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for your time today.
2:23:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for having me.
2:23:51
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you so much.
2:23:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much everybody.
2:23:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned.
2:23:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Take care of yourselves.
2:23:55
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back in a second.
2:23:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
2:23:59
[SPEAKER_05]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
2:24:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
2:24:11
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2:24:17
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2:24:24
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2:24:25
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2:24:33
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