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X-Men Battle at the State Fair of Texas! With Jordan White and Alanna Smith! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grimmelkin Lane podcast, where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: I am thrilled to be joined by two of my favorite guests, Jordan White and a lot of Smith are here.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's been a long time since I've seen either of you on the show and how fun and heavy both here.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let me have you book and introduce yourselves.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Tell everybody a little about what you're currently doing at Marvel.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: And my first intro question today is, what's your favorite thing to eat deep fried?
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna be spending some time at the county fair today.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, let me welcome a lettuce lift back to the show.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, hi, how are you, my friend?
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm good.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having us.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Alana.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I work in the Avengers office at Marvel as an editor.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: I work at a bunch of stuff, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, a bunch of the like magic Avengers adjacent books, so it's a whole smattering of things.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And deep fried thing, do Zeppily's count?
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like is it just, they are fried.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're kind of a thing unto themselves.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what a Zeppily is.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's it's like balls of fried dough like you get them at state fair and they're covered in powdered sugar and they're probably very unhealthy So they call those they call those funnel cakes out here.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So no, no, they're bigger.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, the the zeppellies are like chunks.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like a structure.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's more like individual like big chunks of dough that they have deep fried.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Cause fun.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a funnel and you and you drizzle it out.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's a very different thing.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is more like they've made like like a snowball of dough and just plopped it into a deep fryer and then covered it in powdered sugar.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: It tastes very similar to a funnel cake, but it's less crispy like it's more doughy.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, okay.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not a big funnel cake fan.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think I would like it for a bit.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, if you don't like one, probably not the other.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so hard to write dough, too, but like not again, more little individual.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's like Ben Yees, but I think Ben Yees are fine.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, okay.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let me welcome Jordan, why I've liked it the show as well.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hi, Jordan.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hi, how's it going?
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: I am currently working on the venom-related titles, as well as also spider-quen, and Hulk, and a handful of other things, and a giant secret project I can't talk about at all.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's one that I haven't had in decades, but looms huge in my memory, which is because I will go to those like street fairs and whatnot, and they do have funnel cakes, and they do have fried dough, but they don't have what I used to be able to get in Connecticut at those fairs, which is fried dough, but instead of powdered sugar on it, they would put some very simple tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wow, that is not where I expected that to go.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's amazing.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know this is like an audio medium, but I recoiled in shock because I was expecting you to say like cinnamon or something like that.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: No, no, it's like a, it's like a pizza.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's not because it's just, it's just a Parmesan cheese, not like the stuff that's like mozzarella.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's not mozzarella.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's like the fried dough equivalent of like a savory crepe.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so good, and I have not had it probably since I was like 12 or something.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I miss that, but also big mention for corn dogs, which I don't need anymore now that I don't eat meat, but I do miss them.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're great.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I spend a lot of time going to like county fairs growing up.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: I grew up in Missouri, my dad used to make grapevine baskets and travel around a county fairs, and we would like go there in the summers.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: But even as a teenager in Southeast Idaho, we would like get annual passes to like the county fair every year.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Idaho has a lot of potato shit, right?
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like it's like potatoes everywhere.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: The county fair for me was in Blackford, Idaho, which literally has like a giant potato museum.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: You can like go like tour the potato museum and eat potatoes.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I remember getting scones most fondly and scones come in many forms, but like the Navajo taco form of a scone is my favorite, which is like the, you put all of the like fixings on top, right?
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like beat like chili and cheese and sour cream and you're like cutting into the scone delicious.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: So what am I favorite?
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, favorite things.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so good.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Deep fried everything is that fairs, though, right?
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like you see everything all the time.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Alanna, would you choose a deep fried Oreo or a deep fried Twinkie?
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oreo.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I like deep fried Oreos a lot.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's probably my second favorite.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, okay.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Jordan, a deep fried collade or deep fried Coca-Cola.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have always wanted to try a deep fried Coca-Cola.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have always wanted to try it, but they do not have it up here in New York.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: mechanically, how does that work?
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: How do you defy a liquid?
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it depends, though, for collated, it's the powder.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Deep red color collage, you put in a pocket of something, right?
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, you, you, like, you bake it into some sort of dough.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's deep fried beer and deep fried butter and all kinds of things.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just have to have a receptacle for the thing in which to fry it and then add flavor again top.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, because deep fried, deep fried cook is really, again, it's really just more fried dough and then they drizzle coax here up on it, basically.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: And that sounds great.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: You guys have a favorite fair food or a fond memories of going to fairs as kids.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I really like big pretzels.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like you can't go wrong with a big pretzel.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, like you can, if you have the cheap frozen ones, you can go wrong.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I actually like them just with salt.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Very basic.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I think they don't need anything else personally.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, but I did go to a fair amount of fairs as a kid, I think.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, pardon, double entendre, little fair fair amount of fairs.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's there's rickety rides.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Those rickety rides that they set up that that are kind of scary, but uh, I recently had Sean on McGuire on the show who talked about like, assembling fairs wheels with her father at age.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my god.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like crazy.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Would you eat another big one?
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Would you eat a donut burger?
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have done that.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: I did that at a Sylvester Stallone movie marathon.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: when we were there was a copland burger at the alamo draft house made out of two donuts and it was a burger on it.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: So today friends, we're going to be jumping into the 80s in our review in the latter half where we're going to be talking about the uncanny ex men at the state fair of Texas.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now, if you heard my interview at the beginning,
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: beginning of March, which just released before we're recording this everyone.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't interview with Jim Salacrop who wrote this book and we talked a lot with Jim and Glenn Hurdling all about like Marvel's weird parody titles, Kool-Aid Man, and all these weird like Marvel's stuff that we're happening in the 80s.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: So if you heard that we talked a little about this book but we're going to be jumping into this kind of non-canonical world in the latter half.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I want to spend some time catching up with Jordan and a lot at the beginning here about everything you guys are doing.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're doing so many great things that Marvel right now, Jordan, we miss you in our X-Men books.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're doing fine things but we miss you regularly and I think everyone will agree.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm going to just jump in with some questions related to the books you're currently producing and let's just spend some time celebrating what's happening there.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Actually, Alana, first of all, do you have any idea how many books you've edited at Marvel at this point?
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, like, I think too many to count.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: If we didn't take a normal Wiki, the answer for you is 1,404 as of today.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that sounds right.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it helps that a lot like when I, when I was assisting Tom Brevort on his book, Tom has like the one of the biggest workloads in the office.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: So very quickly, my name is open a ton of ton of books.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think I actually have a lighter workload now that I'm,
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: a solo editor that I did when I was assisting Tom, but it doesn't surprise me that the number is that high.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I remember them all.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: George any guesses on your number?
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: I've been doing this for 18 years, so I really have no idea.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Was it today?
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: As projected, 2,533.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, well, I gotta say, that's, I feel like that's not nearly enough, if a lot is already at 1400.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: I should be further away.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: You should have assisted Tom, is that why you should die?
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: I got I got up my workload.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: I got I got it out of my output.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so Jordan, let's start for you and Scott for if you're listening this one's for you.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: How is the about the decision to make Mary Jane Watson Venom?
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, absolutely.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, we were when I came on to the Venom books.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was in the middle of all you things.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think of them as separate runs.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: So his previous run where it was about Eddie Brock doing this weird time travel stuff and all this great great fascinating like cosmic he warped stuff.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: But, uh,
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was already planned that that was going to come to a head with the story that ended up being Venom war and he had more, he was interested in doing but he was like, but I would want to do something totally different.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so he hit on the idea that we should come back with a new Venom and have it be a mystery who it is and we didn't know who it was going to be at that
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: We had ideas for who it would be but we didn't have really no who it would be But we wanted to have it be that there would be a like selection of like oh There's like five characters or four characters that one of them is Venom.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Who's the all new Venom?
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: We went to a dinner during a Marvel summit with myself, Al.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm trying to remember who else was there Nick low Zebb Wells because he was writing amazing spider-man at the time and
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a couple of people there and I can't remember who, but we were ringing up that subject going like, well, let's talk about what the options are and we were throwing out all sorts of names like, oh, what if it was JJ on a James and I don't know, I don't know, what if it was like this, like, what if it was was Luke Cage, like, which was one of the thoughts, you know, what if it's all these different people.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't remember whose idea who brought it up first, but like kind of a lot of the best ideas, I think it started out a bit as a joke.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, what if it was Mary Jane?
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it was like, ha ha, that's ridiculous.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: But Al very quickly was like, no, but hold on.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's something there.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I've got things to say about that.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I've got, you know, I've got, there's meat there.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, pretty quickly in that dinner.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: It went from something we laughed about to something we were very serious about.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we were all very excited by it.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then it just became coming up with who the, all the red herrings were going to be.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think you're likely aware there's a substantial amount of queer readers that read the Spider-Man symbiotes as a sexual relationship with a breakup and then the symbiotes bonds with Eddie and now the symbiotes bonded to Mary Jane and there's a literal panel in the new, we're recording this in early March everyone.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a new book, a panel in the new book that just came out amazing Spider-Man where the symbiotes coming off of Mary Jane and she's like,
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not Eddie Brock, and this is the equivalent in the X-Men world of like if we found out that Emma Frost was fucking cable who's like the son of psycho.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of fucked with your head a little bit and it's like I think it's it's like the decision that never should have been made and I love it
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Mm-hmm.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a blast.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a blast.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, I do want to say you did say from Peter to Eddie and most people would agree with you But I do always like to point out that according to people like me who are me I do consider deadpool back in black canon, which says that he had the symbiote between the two of them and in my head in my canon in the way that it works for me is I actually have this thing worked out where they rubbed off on each other that part of the reason the symbiote became as crazy as it was was because
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: It first touched Deadpool during secret wars and then again in this place and some of his crazy rubbed off on it and the reason That Deadpool loves Spider-Man so much is because the symbiotes affection for him rubbed off And we have had flashbacks in my dad in my dad pull run to before before any of this happened and there's no sign of his
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm doing the fair amounts of Deadpool reading lately for things in April on my show.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's all about gay cowboys.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: May on my show's dedicated to the wasp and the wasp right after divorcing Henry Pym is in the secret wars where she sleeps with Magneto.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: But then there's a Deadpool series modern where wasp also sleeps with Deadpool.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: Deadpool secret secret wars.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's what I'm saying.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: That if you ask me, that's canon.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's how secret wars really happened.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then it unhappened by the end of it.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: But it didn't really unhappened just everybody
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have interviewed all viewing a few times.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've also interviewed Sam Humphrey's, a lot of Smith, you've got to tell us about the twisted world of the Kiluminati, my word, one of Mess.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's great.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's honestly like, that series has been a blast, but it is a lot to keep track of.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I am regularly impressed that our series artist Tone Lima just makes it look so easy.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, there's a lot of artists who would get very, like, understandably.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: like confused about who's who who's on panel at any given time, like who needs to be where, because it's like new Avengers is a team of like, you know, six people, depending on who's around and then Kaluminati is like just as many.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so you have so many pages where they are all there.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so that definitely took some advanced tracking, but I really, I really, really love that series, um, readers of your unfamiliar in new Avengers, the
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kaluminati or dark versions of the original Illuminati, but it's like the mad magazine evil awful awful twin versions of Yeah, so like there's an evil professor accent and evil mr.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Fantastic, et cetera, and it's delicious
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and they've all got their own, their own name, Dr.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Strange's double is Guru Strange, and he's a weird hippie kind of creep.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's like a lot of their worst qualities have been dialed up to like past 11 and like exaggerated in these characters.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, so we have a lot of fun with them.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, and I think the, my favorite aspect of those characters is that the Mr.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic double and the Iron Man double have like this enduring bromance.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, they adore each other.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's like very sweet even though they're absolutely the bad guys and have killed a lot of people and need to go down But like you know, they've they found love on the battlefield I guess it's kind of moving and it's way and it's it's not really their fault They were created like this, but the the fun of the series is that like other characters would care that it's not really their fault that they ended up like this The people we've assembled on new Avengers do not care
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're like, no, they have to die and we can't tell anyone else about this because if like Mr.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic came but like found out he'd be like I have to protect my my special double and like make life better for him and they're like no, he's gonna kill everybody if you do Like we're gonna kill him first
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: the evil submariner's hilarious.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's this little goblin creature that I think comes back as a much bigger sea creature thing and I think he was imperious Rex.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think that was his name or something close to that.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm drawing a black because he's been dead for a bit spoiler.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, so so that's just been really fun and I think it was fun to like any year when a new event vendors movie came out Like we were able to do something so weird and different than like what they were doing in the film Like like really leaning in to having fun in the way that only the comics can Because we really wanted to give people an experience that they can't get from the movies the movies are great But I don't think they would be as unhinged as that series is so people should definitely read it.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a blast
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, and they are, they are calling themselves Avengers because Bruce Fanner told them they could.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm so old.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: And their carnage previously wasn't a vendor in the access in the access event.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that makes it.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: That makes it.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, how?
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so a couple of big swings you're both taking with characters, the Scarlet Witch.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of like, oh, why is this not happened before?
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, but what a great swing and I love Steve Orlando's writing always tell us about that decision.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so when we knew that Doom was losing the status of sorcerers supreme by the end of one world under Doom, there were a few different discussions about what what we could do next.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think at a retreat, we kind of all agreed that they given like Wanda's had a series for this long and has kept getting more and more powerful.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: It kind of made sense for her to hit that point where it was her.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we had talked about doing something like like a contest for like the sorcerer's supreme.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the more we thought about it, the more we were like, if Wanda's in it, it's just going to feel obvious that she is going to win.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, so we decided, um, you know, a way to kind of short circuit that and just get right into the meat of things.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think we had also had like some contest storyline recently before that.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: And we were like, is it too soon?
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I forget which one.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: We decided to just kind of drop you right into like, she's here.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's the sorceress Supreme.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's living in the sanctum sanctorum.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And also strange was still stuck in Asgard.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: So that was the other element was like, we had sent strange to Asgard to do, because he got tricked by doom.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: So Dr.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Strange went to ask us not having a midlife like that.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Daredevil too, it's always always a midlife.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: But so he goes to as guards try to become their source or supreme kind of for impure reasons.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like he's kind of hoping he can bring that power back into feet doom.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: But then at some point it came up that Al was severing the connection between Earth and the other nine realms.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so at that point we were like, would it be kind of fun if Strange got stuck there and had to like now actually do this job that he kind of got for the wrong reasons.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: So he was stuck, so he couldn't come back and do it.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I want to kind of make sense.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: So she has been chosen by the the cloak of levitation and the Ayavagamoto basically.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: They have some sense and they came through her last door, which appears to anyone who is in dire need.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so she feels very protective of them and she feels like if they chose me, I don't need anyone else's approval, which rubs the Vashanti either wrong way and they're gonna react strongly to kind of being circumvented.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I really feel like it's the culmination of what like Steven the whole team have been doing on Scarlet Witch for all these years because I think Wanda has kind of gone past the point where she feels redeemed and almost to overconfidence.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think we're going to see like, is that going to work out for her or not, who could say?
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, is she really like, is it really okay to brute force this or is there going to be consequences?
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: brute force referring to the
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: I adore a Steve Orlando comic for many reasons, but he's Steve writes deep lore in the way that I was writing deep lore.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's playing some random country that hasn't been mentioned since a comic book in 1946.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, hey, I've met it.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I was going to say you're like brute force won't be in it.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: But given it's Steve, who knows?
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think it could be.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Jordan talking about another massive swing, Philip Kennedy Johnson, who's one of my favorite people in the whole world, writing Hulk as like the walking dominant monster hell lord across the earth and infernal Hulk right now.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I know it's really up to some huge things.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Talk to us about the swings you're taking in Hulk.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, this Hulk series, when it started, it was, you know, banner and Hulk hate each other in such, but the ongoing plot was that there's this, yeah, this, this, well, this bad guy called Eldest, who is the eldest offspring of the mother of all horrors from a zillion years back in time.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: And, and so this eldest was trying to, because because the mother of
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's making great use of all the mythology that Al set up in in mortal Hulk because of all that it was trying to get Hulk in order to free the mother of all horse.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, at the end of the incredible Hulk series, it succeeds except when it gets there it finds out the mother of all horse has been locked away for so long that it's basically
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: She's basically like mindless and and and can't do anything and so I'll just consumes its mother becomes the new mother of all horrors and then takes over Hulk's body has literally torn Bruce Banner out of the Hulk's body physically in a really great disgusting double-page spread that Nick Klein
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: nailed.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: And now is this infernal Hulk is this this Hulk who is the trying to amass the armies of of horrors on earth and control them and augment them and take over everything and return the planet to the darkness from which it once escaped.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: And meanwhile Bruce Banner is somewhere going this is not my problem, this is not my problem, this is not my problem, this is not my problem,
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm really excited to watch the build on this.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's been a really fun and unexpected whole creed.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: A tangential question, another amplification.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're seeing the character Hela become the new, uh, no lord of darkness or whatever, which is sweet and bad.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Great.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the Queen in black, which is such a great build.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have a weird sweet spot for like the old 60s Marvel games, and she's one that people forget about a lot, you know.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: So this is actually inspired by Marvel rivals.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: They were, they did a storyline that involved, but their version of it had Hela and Null working together and her becoming that there.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so we heard that about that.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we were like, that's a really interesting idea, but we want to put our spin on it.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: We want to do it very differently than they do it.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: So there's currently a Null mini series that is dealing with this.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Basically what we, what we established is that
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: When Eddie Brock beat Null, he became the King of Black and Null was dead.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: And during Venom War, Eddie Brock lost the title of King of Black.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: And a lot of people have wondered, who's the King of Black now?
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: And what we are saying happened is there was no one on the throw.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Null is the god of nothing.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so in the absence of a King of Black, he came back to take that title.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so that was like a thing we kind of teased for a bit.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Null is coming back.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: But then we reveal in Venom 250 that yes, Null is back, but he's been locked in a cage and Null and Tela is draining his power and taking his throne.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's where the Null mini-series starts.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: We get to see a bit of setup there and it's all leading to this queen and black.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: storyline that we're going to be doing in a little bit in I think July and it's going to be super fabulous.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Al's masterminding it and it's really, really epic and fun.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's going to be a great trailer to it in public book giveaway day issue.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's going to have that.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's going to have some build up to Spider-Man 1000 and it's also going to have a build up to the upcoming parts of Philip Kennedy Johnson's Hulk story as well.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: So that is a free comic that you have to get on the
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: This will come out in April, so yeah, everybody's got a couple of weeks to go prep them.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, uh, a lot of this is kind of a tangential X-Men one that I'm going to ask next.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, in Steve's book, uh, the astonishing Avengers Infinity comic.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, there were some really fun deep swings with, like, characters like the fucking phone range you're showing in a couple of inches.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Amazing.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I was really pleased to see a character that, uh, that I'm really fond of, the, uh, the living pharaoh show out.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: as kind of a big bad and then get a big application into the living testament.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: What was it like editing that character?
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's a fun thing.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had to figure out who it was first because a lot of Steve's cuts are a little deep for me, but I think it was really fun.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, like, I tend to encourage Steve to lean into that, because I think, you know, sometimes it's fun to see these, you know, characters we haven't seen in a while, come back and be reinvented in a interesting way.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think French has got Archie, Archie Diacono, who was our artist on that, did a really cool design update where he looked.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: He looked so creepy and weird.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, and that was our, like, mystery box for that whole run was him emerging from that monolith.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, like, I really enjoyed it.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was a blast.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's just, we got to do, like, that's just one example of like, all the weird things we got to do in that run because it wasn't a traditional, like, print comic.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, like, I kind of just let Steve go crazy and like, lean into all of his weird instincts.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's a very fun series as a result.
• 23:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: I actually have if you're if you're a big Steve Orlando fan, if you haven't checked out Venom original sin either as an infinity comic or as the print edition of it you should definitely check it out it's super fun and slight spoiler the stuff that he established in there is going to be relevant again shortly and Venom stuff so you definitely should check that out.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I got one more question for each of you.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of yours is serious and Jordan yours is silly.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, a lot of what's it like being the editor of a Captain America title in 2026 America?
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: We've been having a lot of conversations on the show about the topics of
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Fascism as a queer person.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a therapist.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a queer person.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a the father of a queer child and we've been leaning a lot into the show if you're listening until what we're calling the red school chats.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: We've been talking a lot about fascism and like just the way it's hitting heavy.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Captain America's a controversial name right now.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like putting this new book together.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think it was helpful in a weird way that I was the assistant editor in 2016 when we were doing Captain America, Hydro Steve, Secret Empire, and like, I think there are a few things that we could do that would be more controversial than that was.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: So that kind of inoculated me a little bit, but it is, it's tough, like it's a tricky thing because I think we do everything we can to tell really meaningful stories with.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: with Captain America.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think we usually get to tell those meaningful stories we want to tell.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it is, it is a heavy weight.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like it, it's one of those things where and this is weirdly specific.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: But like, when you have to, you have to outpace real life events in a weird way because if something happened in a random deadpool issue that was kind of close to something that was happening in the world, it's not as much of a hot button if we add
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: accidentally do something in Captain America that ends up happening while that book is on the way to the printer, because I remember an interrupting very briefly.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: I remember watching Julia Louis Drive has to do an interview about V. If you guys remember that.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, V. was like just telling the most ridiculous possible stories When the first Trump presidency happened they had did she's like we had to stop to show because everything we thought of was like not as Yeah, it was actually happening anyway
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, that's exactly it and I think because it has America in the title, it's got more it's seen as more of a commentary even if we're just doing comic book stuff that we didn't even fathom would become real life stuff.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you have to be like kind of proactively careful in a weird way will still making sure you're not like pulling your punches or avoiding stories you want to tell.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's interesting that you've brought the red Hulk in as like this old classic like military man who's just, you know, bomb the shit and train this old Like it's an interesting counter.
• 25:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a bold move.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think it helped that he was in like during the one world under Doom status quo like that very a messed him up like do messed him up So like we had a very good spot to pick him up and like have him have a little more like fire and brimstone and his belly that he usually does and like
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: really, really go hard on this lot of various situation.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, I think really he was just a character that she was interested in using probably as a foil to cap as a patriotic character on like one side of the idea of that.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think Red Hulk is kind of a foil for how they both think about loyalty to their country in extremely different ways.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's a really fun conflict to see play out.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think Red Hulk is like an entirely on sympathetic character all this time, but like, again, I think a lot of this is him reacting out of trauma, but it's like, maybe don't bomb a lot of area out of trauma perhaps.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: But do messed everybody up.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like you took over the world, it was scary.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like so, you know, you can kind of understand how that would push someone to a paranoid extreme.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think I think for all that it's been very weird in general to work on Captain America for the past 10 or so years like because it's been a weird 10 or so years like I think it's still it's still very rewarding it just comes with an additional weight that you have to kind of keep in mind.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate the word inoculated.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that was that was a little bit of space.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, Jordan, what is it about Jeff the Land Shark that people can't seem to get enough of and would you own Jeff yourself?
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh And what own Jeff?
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think he's his own little guy.
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's a questionable.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's a questionable question.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, he's so adorable.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's of such a fun character to work on and he's just he gets into trouble but he's got a good heart.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's like he's like Calvin and Hobbs mix together.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely, and I mean, yes, first of all, thank you, like I feel weird that you're asking me when Elana edited the book he came from.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: I did, I did, little known fact.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, he's so, so adorable.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: And would I, would I quote unquote own him?
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's say in the manner that Kate or went on him.
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Um, and I absolutely, he would be a great quote unquote pet slash friend.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's a little bit halfway between the two, I think.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: What, the, the race of shark men, they're like intelligent, right?
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think that is unclear because in West Coast Avengers, they pretty much just mindlessly stampeded and then left Jeff behind.
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: So maybe they don't get to be like human intelligence level.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think I think Jeff kind of communicate those.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: So who knows?
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, sure.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, again, we did when we did his Venomore one shot.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: We had a lot of fun with him and the symbiot that he had like communicating and arguing over what they wanted to eat.
• 28:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jeff wanted to eat all snacks and the symbiot only wanted chocolate snacks and they ended up eating all snacks with chocolate port all over them So that makes total sense Speaking of which they went to Coney Island not exactly a state fair, but like not decimals
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I have a fun anecdote about Jeff, actually.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: So when we first introduced him in West Coast Avengers, I won't name names, but there were definitely people who were concerned the book was becoming too silly because of the inclusion of Jeff.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And ultimately, we were able to keep Jeff and it wasn't a problem.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: But because of that, it's been extremely funny for me to see how he is exploded.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's one of those things where you really, you really don't know the value of a random thing you're throwing into a comic until years later, sometimes.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I wouldn't have if you had told me he was in like a video game and like people know who he is.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I would have been like, are you kidding?
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like what?
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like why?
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: How?
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: Dude, millions of people know Galacta.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Galacta is the character that I did in an assistant editor themed one shot.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's really millions of people know her now.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I just want to set the record straight because I've definitely seen Jeff called an industry plant and I just want to be clear the powers were against Jeff Jeff succeeded on his own merit and on just creators trying to use him over and over again.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it was a killer was a Kelly it was Kelly, but I think it was also Guru hero.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think Guru is putting him into things.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's true.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it was a team, team effort for sure.
• 30:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent, excellent.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: I adore having you both here.
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: What fun energy we're cultivating?
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're now going to jump into the world of the uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now my book is, our my show is firmly set in 1976 right now with the reviews that we're doing, but we're just throwing in some random things because we're doing themes.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this is gay cowboy, but we're ending the month.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: with the trial of the raw-hide kid, which is a really fun thing, and we're going to jump into the world of the state fair.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now, I talked to Jim Salacrop about this in my interview with Marvel in the mid-80s, was doing a lot of, like, let's partner with various things.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mark Greenwell was behind a lot of this.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: This was like a special book that they did for the state fair of Texas.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like it literally has the Dallas Times Harald stamped on the cover,
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: the ads that are inside are like spider-man advertising local businesses which is really crazy and I think the PDF I sent you guys had the ads included like spider-man advertising the local hot tub store.
• 31:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: There were other books coming out around this time.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean Marvel was producing Star Wars and Spider-Man and his amazing friends are on TV and this is October 1983.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the books that were parallel to this in the X-Men world
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: uncanny xman 174 where like mastermind is back to taunt cyclops in battle in prior and over in new mutants ate it's the first appearance of magma in the same month that this came out but marbles also putting out books like spiderman at the stampede in calgary and
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Spider-Man in Captain America in like an EPA comic for like the environmental protection agency comes out the same month.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the X-Men are at the literal Dallas state fair and on the cover, we get to see a giant statue, uh, animatronic, his name is Big Tech.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: So if you guys have ever heard of Big Tech before, oh, Big Tech, you can look it up on YouTube.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a bunch of history about this guy.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: This, this, this,
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: 55 foot tall animatronic statue was originally created as a Santa Claus.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's this little town in Texas and people would drive in the 1950s to see this giant fucking Santa Claus.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, the first year he was out like his pants kept falling down and all these things happened.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: The owner put him in a chimney the second year or if you're
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: and then like at a certain point the novelty of the Santa Claus just wore off.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: So a guy got the statue and redesigned it as a cowboy and then they've had like features added throughout the year.
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: So he stands.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: He moves at this point.
• 32:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: He can wink.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: He says things like how do folks?
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's me, big text and he like waves his hand.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: They got to polish him up.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's one really horrific video on YouTube from several years ago where an electrical fire started and the big text's head
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: And during Colbert, during Colbert, they put a mask on him.
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this is a big thing.
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like at the Dallas State Fair.
• 32:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is apparently huge for the locals.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: When we look at the cover of this book, it's the X-Men interacting with big text.
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the line up here is the classic Cyclops Storm Colossus Wolverine Nightcrawler.
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Kitty Bright is here in her brief phase as the character aerial.
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this is when she's aerial, not sprite, but long before Shadowcat.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have a brand new mutant on the cover that's only appears in this issue.
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a character named Danny Wiley.
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is a the gayest character I've ever seen.
• 33:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's a white adanus with a centaur body and the prettiest wings.
• 33:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's giving very my little pony, uh, but also at a gay club in the 80s, perhaps.
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now that I have like looked up photos of big text, I'm looking at this at a whole new light.
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: But getting very difficult with dummy.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, honestly, I think it's delightful.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like they're all they're all surrounding big texts, who has his arm out stretch dramatically, and they're all fighting this beautiful winged horse man.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: And except for Wolverine, who kind of looks like he's not sure what's going on at the bottom.
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: The horse man is very fascinating to me
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't put them on the horses back, but then I'm like, does that even make sense?
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, why do I think that?
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why do I think that would be better?
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if they're on her.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: It kind of looks like you're in Worldington with a horse body.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: So it's like, it's like a sentar man, but especially if you look later in the movies, the movies are coming out of his human shoulders, which again, I was like, that's not right.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, what am I basing it on?
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: That I think that's not right.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, what experience do I have with flying sentar man?
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: He shouldn't have wings.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's he says centours don't have wings.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: He wants to fly.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's his secondary mutation.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just the way things work.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I do not believe this book is technically canon, but this character Equus, which is a horse mutant, is out there somewhere if someone ever wants to use him.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: It feels like something that Steve Orlando is going to just make it to a comic if he hears this.
• 34:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, Steve, if you're listening, please put him in like, I'm looking at the copyright.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're just saying, but just says copyright, Marvel Comics doesn't say copyright.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's the state fair.
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I feel like we can bring him back at any time.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we, we open on the way.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hold on, I'm sorry, quick question.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I know you're saying you don't think it's continuity, but if it was, what issues would it take place between?
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, well, this is red, uh, I'm Kenny Xman 174.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, that's when you said it came out, but that's not when it takes place.
• 35:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think it would happen right around the same time.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: But as the handbook, my handbook brain has not, like, like, Lyme itself, specifically with where this would be.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: I do think it fits into the title at that point, though.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, this is then at the height of their popularity.
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, you know, they're, they're part of the team.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's before things get really dark in the very near future with the mutant massacre a couple of years.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know,
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we just realized Cyclops is knocking down the Texas flag.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Which I'm surprised they were able to do that.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh sure.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's trying to hit the horseman with his eye beams, but he has hit the Texas flag and it is falling.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that color has this tail wrapped around big Texas arm as he waves.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's delicious this whole thing.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a lot of great stuff going on.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm aggravated and I'm sorry.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm already aggravated on page one page one and the cover that they keep coloring his belt yellow and it's just like for almost entire comic.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: It makes me.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, Cyclops.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, especially when you said that very cost you so we open on the X mansion.
• 36:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: and the X-Men are all grouped together in the danger room with Professor X and Kitty up in the booth and they are running an exercise called the Circle of Death.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: We see big text again on the front cover or on page one.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this is Jim Salacrop plotting David Craft writing, carry Gamble and Alan Copperberg on pencils, chick stone on Aynx Rick Pollock Parker on letters Marie Severan on Colors which is crazy and I talked to Jim about that a little bit.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: and John Ramita is the cover artist on this book.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Cyclops is the leader and he is blasting things storm is putting whirlwinds out.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Colossus is always the punching bag.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Some giant metal contraption is hitting him with a bomb sound.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wolverine is hacking cannonballs out of the air, night crawlers teleporting to avoid lasers.
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we get to open out a fun little danger room sequence.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: with kitty feeling a little bit out of place.
• 37:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, oh my goodness, everyone is so fast and strong and I'm just so young and I don't know what to do.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Professor X reminds us, this is Cerebro and we have to detect evil mutants.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Magneto is out there, right?
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is 25 issues before the trial of Magneto.
• 37:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, obviously, it's very much set up as let's introduce all their powers so they can all talk about what it is they do.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: The one that stuck out the most to me was Colossus because I think it's really ridiculous that his brag is, I could now change my body to steel in a split second and I'm seeing they're going, why weren't you steel to begin with?
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, what do you like, St.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: you just were like, let's see how long I can go without all.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: I did it and also kitty being like, oh wow, they got through that so easily.
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: All I can do is face.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Dude, all you can do is not be hurt by any of the things they just faced.
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: You would have been fine in this particular case.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: If we jump a little later in the issue, we get a full-page ad about the X-Men as it's explaining who they are, and I'm going to read this one out loud.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Colossus.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yes.
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Peter's power is to transform his body into an arm and form of organic metal getting in superhuman strength.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Nightcrawler, his real name is Kurt Wagner.
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: His power is teleportation.
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: He has to think of being somewhere, and bam, he's there, sure beats high air fairs and faster too.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's so many words under that color.
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Storm, her real names are Roman Roche.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: He has the bow to control the weather.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ariel, that's a pretty coat.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the codename with Kitty Pride, the youngest member of the X-Men team.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Cyclops, his relapse scott summers.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: His power is the ability to shoot powerful beams of force from his eyes.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's why he wears a special visor to absorb the beams.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: What the hell does that mean?
• 38:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Wolverine, five feet three inches of pure dynamite, would best describe him.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's terrible.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: No ceiling factor, no cloth.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's terrible description.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's also only one inch taller than me, which is delightful.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: I knew he was short, but like, I feel powerful now, knowing that.
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: So cerebral has detected a new mutant at the state fair of Dallas.
• 38:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: So now we immediately cut to the fairgrounds where we see a brand new mutant standing outside the horse bar.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this guy loves the horse bar.
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he's really wants to just spend all of his time here.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Here's the place I want.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh no, that's Maggie to walk you up to the horse part.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Inside we see a little blonde kid tending to the horses.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: His name is Danny Wiley and he and he's approached by a magneto who's wearing a full purple trench coat and orange hat to conceal his identity in public over his costume.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: it's really, it's really, it's really weird storytelling choice to have him because you're saying it's Magneto, but if you didn't read the page before, it does not indicate that it's Magneto, and in fact they play it like it's a big reveal, except that they just told us that Magneto is going to try to come get this guy.
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: So the fact that they like literally hide his face for a couple of pages worth of story, it doesn't make any sense.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Daniel Wiley, why do you
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's nice to meet someone who finally understands and likes horses too.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know what it'd like to be misunderstood.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Your father was a scientist.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: He retired from government work after some accident he'd never talk about and started the horse ranch outside Dallas where I was born.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was the happiest kid alive.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: I loved horses.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you still do?
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: I dreamed of really being one and then that night I couldn't sleep.
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I felt strange.
• 40:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: I went out to be with the horses when suddenly I felt sick.
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: We get this bizarre image of his shoe with the foot at it turning into a hoof that's thing bursting the shoe apart.
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I had changed into a centaur.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: I let the horses loose.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: I ran with them.
• 40:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I flew and then you found your, you could return to your normal form and will.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: But you knew you could never be happy.
• 40:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: Again, as an ordinary human correct.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, now I'm too scared to be what I really am.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: A lot of, is this a good orgen story?
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's great.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's, I think it's, you know, what more do you need?
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mutation sets on at a weird time.
• 40:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you were like a young, a young horse boy, wouldn't she love to become a horse?
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think that's it's, it's beautiful.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's really beautiful.
• 41:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I do remember the queer men who were like, I'm not kidding.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I first, who I am, and also I have a big horse.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do want to add, we're painting a very quirky picture of this.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think the art in this issue is like beautiful.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I think it looks like this is like a legit X-Men comic that they cooked up for the for the county fair.
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: This image of this way, ripping out of his clothes and discovering his beautiful naked horse body.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: They made this poor artist draw so many horses for a state fair book like like like a one time.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of horses there.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's incredible like like it's really like even the the danger room pages are like
• 41:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: gorgeous they look great like it's just very good classic art though I do want an inside baseball thing on this page where he is bursting out of his horse body all these little arrows that are pointing you from panel to panel are referred internally as arrows of shame.
• 41:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because it means that you didn't position your panels in a way that the reading order was automatically clear and now when we do comics with a lot of digital stuff we can change that pretty easily, but you know back in the day these were physical pages they were stuck with it so like if the reading order wasn't clear enough they'd add these little arrows and it's and you never want to have the arrows like it means that something went a little wrong with the layout, but it is always fun to see them and these older like again art in this book is beautiful so it was kind of surprising to see them here.
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Two things about this scene that I want to bring up and there really things we don't see kind of one one is the fact that they very explicitly both times we see him transform both here and later in the book they show explicitly that his clothes are destroyed.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: like very much gone all destroyed and so then he's like yeah, you see you change back and I was very much like what happens then He just turns back into a naked boy and then has to like run and hide.
• 42:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I guess apparently and the other thing is the part you quoted G. Mr. Nice to meet someone who finally understands and likes horses too I want to see the scene where Magneto is pretending he loves horses
• 42:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Where is that scene?
• 42:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, horses are so good.
• 43:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you need to see this big island rise.
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: The things describe it.
• 43:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, absolutely.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: So McGuero returns to his sinister looking airship outside, removes his costume, magnets his head over.
• 43:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: His head over, his helmet over to himself.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he's like, well, I'll get this horse boy to join my brotherhood of evil mutants.
• 43:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, yeah, wait.
• 43:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: And take over the world.
• 43:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: What is it about?
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: This said to her that will make you rule the world.
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why is he so determined got to get this guy got to get this guy so the Xman land at the state fair and they have to split up into teams because this gives us a chance to showcase all of the things that the state fair that you might possibly want to do cyclops and storm go to the age of steam exhibit Wolverine and nightcrawler.
• 43:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: had over to see big text himself.
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Colossus and Ariel, Colossus is like, as long as it's just like, I can't do a Russian accent.
• 43:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like the one that's going to be as long as it has been since, as it has been since I left my country.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm always odd by your automobiles.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: He says,
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: I eventually end up Irish.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what happens with all of my accent work.
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then they go check out the cotton bowl, which is the big game.
• 44:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: No, no, but hold on, hold on, not true, not true.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: What happens is Professor Xavier explicitly says, there's too much to see in one day and they have to come back the next day.
• 44:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: And they put in a panel that's a little caption that says the next day.
• 44:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I just want to point out that that was 100% added later.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, now I'm seeing accept professor Xavier, but every other character is wearing the exact same clothes.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, he's actually wearing the same clothes.
• 44:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think they're just colored differently.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: They just colored them differently.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody else is wearing the same clothes color the same way.
• 44:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And maybe they colored them differently to make it look like it was the next day out.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we get some wild dialogue, but this is my favorite in the whole issue.
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Magnetos returned in his little purple coat and orange hat costume.
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's now taking Danny to the cotton bull for the big game.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mr.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: It sure is, well of you, to take me to the cotton bowl, Daniel just consider it a gesture of friendship from a fellow horse lover.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't like that horse lover is one word.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: I can't, I don't know what, I don't know what I don't like about, I'm not going to be like, I'm not saying I'm thinking of something specific.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's just something about that.
• 45:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't like it.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a couple of guys who are really stunned by how Buff Colossus looks at his like Texas sweater.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's, there's some really fun things.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then Xavier, of course, detects that Magneto is there, Magneto realizes Xavier is there.
• 45:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: And now everyone to the cotton bowl immediately, we must have a big fight.
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Is this before or after their history has been established?
• 45:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, Magneto and Charles, this is established at this point.
• 45:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: It has.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, they just don't want to go for it here.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, so Magneto quickly convinces Daniel, like the X-Men not only want to kidnap you, they want to win slave use, so we have to fight him.
• 45:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kitty faces through all, and Magneto chucks the whole motorcycle at her.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: for some reason she's wearing her costume with a coat over it.
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody else is wearing civilian clothes, but she's just like literally, she has her mask on.
• 46:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like she's wearing her, her aerial mask just out and about.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then we flip the page to one of the most jarring things I've ever seen in a comic book.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Jordan, tell us about this professor.
• 46:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: his head is massive.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a it's a really weird word search inside of his head.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I guess he's he's thinking about these x words that rhyme.
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so and sadly none of them is hox, but they are they are socks.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Fox.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, one of them is pox.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Sox pox and box.
• 46:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: But I really wanted there to be a hox hidden in there.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we could say this is where it came from.
• 46:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is where it's like, it's like a, you know, word search where there's just ox over and over, which is intriguing.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've never seen something.
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's also smiling in the weirdest way, right in the middle of the word search is just x x x.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, good point.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's so weird.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so weird.
• 47:24
  [UNKNOWN]: It's so weird.
• 47:24
  [UNKNOWN]: It's so
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Daniel was afraid of Kitty and he runs back to the horse barn where the X-Men are waiting, but also that's where Magneto has shown up in his own costume.
• 47:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: And now we have the epic fight of a lifetime.
• 47:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Magneto says look out Daniel they're attacking and has told him that these are the evil X-Men that are here to get him.
• 47:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so he moves to defend Daniel by luckily for him.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of metal in a barn.
• 47:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: So he is summoning every horse shoe, every hammer, every nail.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: And like, well, he's pretending that that's their attack.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's pretending to be sending.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes, yes, you're right.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: So he's throwing all those at himself and then she'll choose hammers and nails.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: which is kind of great.
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I love that.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, and then, uh, you rips out of his clothes.
• 48:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he rips out of that big needle, but our boy, our boy Daniel, uh, rips out of his clothes, uh, into the, the horse angel that he is.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: You were right about them.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm fighting beside you, Magneto, the charge into battle, noble, equity.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he does.
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: He does charge into battle.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: He is kicking with his rear feet.
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's got his hit Wolverine something good.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's kicking at Cyclops.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: He rear's up and almost triples Professor X.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: It is wheel chair, which is really something.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's committed.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Knight Crowley teleports onto his back.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Magneto does one of the best things I've ever seen him do in a comic book.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Jordan, how does Magneto defeat Wolverine?
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: grabs him by the claws using his magnetism and just sticks him into the sealings.
• 48:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: The sound effect, Sean.
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm trying to think if that would work.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Does physics make sense on this?
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, he would just slip back out, right?
• 49:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah,
• 49:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: We get some, but just by the man, Spider-Man adds, and then we get another jarring image of Professor X.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: His president, like he's the president of the hair club for men, giant forehead.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's not smiling here so much, it's just like, ew.
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like he's holding word hunt.
• 49:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, word ballooner he is yelling word hunt and that is what he wants you to do in this word search because we have a second one You got to look for state for a Texas all the X men's names and then horses and barn like
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wolverine is struggling to free himself from the ceiling where he has been placed.
• 49:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, multiple X-Men are made of metal, so Colossus is also just picked up by Magneto and hurled through the roof, not into the roof.
• 49:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Duped steel man, you presented him with a tempting attack for a living magnet.
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: it is it is really a source of eternal entertainment that the Xman have so many metal people and their enemy is a metal controlling guy.
• 50:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, see that but it's not like Magneto doesn't casually just pick up people all the time as well.
• 50:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: So like true, I guess it actually he could just do this to all the Xman.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: just by their belts.
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you've never seen this, please find it on YouTube later.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will send it to you both.
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's an old fantastic four cartoon from like the early 1970s where they fight Magneto.
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's the campiest, silliest, like voice acting.
• 50:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And Magneto is like robbing the bank.
• 50:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's like he's like convinced the fantastic for to go into the bank and rob it for him So that no other robber could possibly rob and then they realize Magneto's evil and the way they defeat him Magneto, so Mr.
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Fantastic draws a gun on Magneto and Magneto's like I will take the gun from you.
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: What?
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: my powers are not working.
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: I guess I better be arrested then and then read Richards is like silly Magneto.
• 50:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I painted this to look like a gun, but it's really made of wood and Magneto's like, no, you've defeated me.
• 51:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so amazing.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: I loved it.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't even a high-tech solution.
• 51:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: He went really low-tech for that.
• 51:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have to find it the whole of the
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, if we're putting aside the idea that he could just pick up people because again, we've seen him do it Like he just picks up people and makes them fly sometimes, but if we put that aside then Colossus could have defended himself by Be human human.
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: He could have just gone Oh, and He was dragging about how quick he can do it at this time.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: He doesn't do it
• 51:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I think my favorite bit is he throws Colossus through the roof, and then there's like a wide shot, and you can still move her even in the background, stuck into the ceiling.
• 51:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: So Ecclus fully just stops Cyclops in the spine, like it's kind of a rough move, and then he's flying through the ceiling after Magneto, who has exited the horse barn with Colossus, Wolverine then falls to the ground, and for some reason has to
• 52:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a full image of grabbing cyclops around the middle.
• 52:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's it's I guess he's still falling from being kicked.
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I have to know what I don't know why.
• 52:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what I'm saying.
• 52:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I can see it.
• 52:14
  [UNKNOWN]: It's not making it.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 52:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I actually don't know how cyclops got in the air to be kicked in the spine.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't make any like like if if you think that the bed slightly more sensical and not it doesn't make sense, but slightly more sense it would be that he's kicking cyclops off of the ground and we just don't see him in contact with the ground and then Wolverine is picking cyclops up because he's so injured, which I guess is possible considering the weird post.
• 52:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's fine by a gay centaur.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, the page again and there's another ad professor x wants you to name the animals.
• 52:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: The answers are on the same page, which I always hate.
• 52:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: but there's just a bunch of shadow and I'm not going to have to name them.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a little what's okay.
• 52:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like a rabbit and an elephant in an ape.
• 52:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Number five, I would not know what the hell this is without the key.
• 52:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a bulldog.
• 52:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, God, I was going to say bulldog actually.
• 53:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Really wild.
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: You get a bunch more Spider-Man ads.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: and then Colossus crashes back down to the ground through the roof and almost lands on Professor X in his wheelchair, but night crawler is able to bamf Xavier out of the way in time.
• 53:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Are we am I reading this correctly?
• 53:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think so.
• 53:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's correct.
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, we'll check out the strike.
• 53:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think it must have, right?
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now we have Magneto, Exus, and Storm up in the sky.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: And apparently it's night time very suddenly.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, no, I guess it's been night since they've been in the
• 53:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, okay, Jordan, do you want to tell us about this battle as equist realizes that Magneto is evil because how could you, you almost injured the horses in the horse barn horses, who cares about any on the horse horses, he blew it, you blew it Magneto, you, this all this guy he ever wanted was to be nice to horses, he said, you are a deceiver and he fully grabs Magneto by the neck and a chokehold.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just Kelli.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kelli.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kelli.
• 54:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kelli.
• 54:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Kelli.
• 54:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kelli.
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: or did it, or did it, it didn't.
• 54:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: This was confusing and I didn't understand that it was kicking him until, yeah, I'm explicitly say it in the next time.
• 54:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: The color, the color in the scan is a little tricky.
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: The boot kind of blends into the background, I think.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I saw the foot there, but I just thought it was just standing there.
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't realize it was, it was meant to be getting an impact on him.
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, because then then you say it was storm, but he literally, Daniel congratulate storm going like it was I like how you did that you made it kick him and she's like I didn't do that I thought maybe Cyclops did that but then the animatronic a week and the real animatronic does a week like that but maybe it also blind
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: It made it new Magneto with that guy who didn't do good things to horses.
• 55:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, Xavier turns to Aquas.
• 55:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: But, won't you join a statue?
• 55:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Aquas.
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: It'd be an honor to join the X man, but your life seems to wild.
• 55:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I prefer staying Dallas in peace with my horses.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: We understand and we gladly accept your invitation to see more of this wonderful state fair and we end on the week You guys this is a good time.
• 55:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is a this is a fun 1983 comic.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: We close with a cyclops The this can I say you has it done, but it's a dot to dot to complete his visor with the speech bubble I am cyclops whatever you're doing.
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm here to stop you now
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: What are our thoughts on the X-Men visit the state fair?
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Had I ever if you read this before?
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, absolutely not.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't even know what existed.
• 56:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I knew we did a lot of stuff with newspapers because I remember reading a lot of comics in newspaper.
• 56:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, weird little inserts that they do here and there.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And, but I had no idea this existed.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: How are we feeling about this book?
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the potential of Equus, a new X-Men member, perhaps?
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I just want to leave this course this course.
• 56:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's a horse lover, one word.
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: It didn't show up on Cricola.
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's it's too late.
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh, I want equis coming back with like an army of horses to get revenge on Magneto.
• 56:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I want.
• 56:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, it's he's been twisted by vengeance over the years.
• 56:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's like he really didn't like horses and he told me that he did.
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, here's, but here's, if you want the tragic part, the tragic story is that he wasn't on the list of 198.
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: He lost his centaur abilities in MD.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Clearly, he must have been devastated.
• 56:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: And did he, did he then get them back?
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Did he go through the trials in Krikoa to get his powers back?
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Gail Simone is writing Calico who is a queer horse loving mutant.
• 57:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Her power is her horse basically.
• 57:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Why not bring this character back?
• 57:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: He can be Bobby's new twink boyfriend.
• 57:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's so much potential.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: So true.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: So true.
• 57:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
• 57:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
• 57:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is this is like an off topic thought, but I was reading there's a legit bullpen bulletin at the end of this like a full like, you know, written thing.
• 57:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: They mentioned the official Marvel comics try out book, which I am now obsessed with and like really want one.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 57:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
• 57:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that's the book.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: If I remember correctly, that's the book that Mark Bagley won.
• 57:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that launched Mark Mark Bagley's career.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
• 57:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's so cool.
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
• 57:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I did not know that and I'm really excited to learn this piece of lore, but I'll up people aren't going to have it in front of me so I'll read it real quick and say they're plugging a new project.
• 57:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's said it's called the official Marvel Comics Tri-out book.
• 57:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: It'll answer all the questions you ever had about exactly what a comics writer, pencil or ink or colorists and letter were do.
• 57:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: They'll also give you a chance to try your hand at all of those disciplines under actual working conditions.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: The book is huge printed on the same paper that comics are as created on the same sizes are originals.
• 58:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Each page offers you the chance to become a comics creator or proof to prove or improve your
• 58:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's so cool.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: I want one so bad.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's see how much it is.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: $34 on eBay.
• 58:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: $34.
• 58:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Not bad.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: I could acquire it.
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I could acquire it.
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I won't.
• 58:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think they did a second version of it years later that was not the same success.
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, this was in the early 80's Mark Bagley, like one his career through this.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's amazing.
• 58:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is so cool.
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, the original one has Spidey and Doc Gock on the front.
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then the 90s one has the new official marble try out book has the experiment on the front very, very cool.
• 58:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think this issue is a delight.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think for like like a random like one shot for a state fair with a in a collaboration with the newspaper like I think there was a lot of work put into this like a lot of genuine thought like it is it is a high bar of quality.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think for all that it's it's pretty absurd like everybody go jump to you.
• 58:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: and look for the video of BigTex's head on fire.
• 59:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I saw the still pictures.
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was fair of time.
• 59:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it was a good time.
• 59:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's fun in part because of how cheesy it is and because of because you can see what they're doing.
• 59:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, like all the parts where they're describing the fair and trying to make it so casual.
• 59:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: When they're like, you could possibly see it all in one day.
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: We better come back tomorrow.
• 59:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: it's so it's so fun and funny and like yeah you know when Marvel does these custom books you know sometimes there is that clunkiness and sometimes that clunkiness can be the fun of it I think at one point I don't remember if it happened I have a memory of the collected editions folks trying to do a trade of a bunch of like 80s and 90s custom books like this but like having legal problems that they couldn't do them
• 59:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: That surprised me because like it's big text copyrighted and like we I don't know if we could reprint this without drama.
• 59:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I texted Steve Orlando while we were recording that we have a lot of love for you in this episode and we do a direct challenge to bring back equis and his response is like they'd let me.
• 1:00:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: He knows I'd let him track record of letting him.
• 1:00:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: You can't can Wanda and Equist Hangout.
• 1:00:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, maybe.
• 1:00:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, what a deep pull that would be a delightful time with you both.
• 1:00:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: I really enjoy laughing with both of you.
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: The world is such a crazy place.
• 1:00:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so difficult to just gather and create content like this.
• 1:00:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: What a beautiful refuge after a day full of trumpet therapies.
• 1:00:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Really happy we got to hang out today as we're wrapping up where can people find you both anything you want to plug for April 2026?
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let's go Jordan then Alana.
• 1:00:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, you know, like I said vennem books Hulk books and it definitely check out the the comic giveaway day free issue that has both Queen and Black and Hulk in it as well as the amazing Spider-Man and also other marbles other Freak it's three comic book day slash comic giveaway day depending which company you're talking about
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: but there's going to be all sorts of great stuff.
• 1:00:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: First Saturday and May, every year, free comics definitely go to your local comic shop.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Check out the free books and then buy something as well.
• 1:01:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Aside from that, I do have a podcast.
• 1:01:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's on kind of a bit of a break right now, but it's a podcast called Nature Trail to Hell, where we watch horror movies.
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: The most recent season we watched, we watched all of the paranormal activity films, and then a handful of other found footage or films that were kind of tangentially connected to it.
• 1:01:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a, it's a really good time.
• 1:01:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Me and my friend Stefan, the concept is that I have watched a lot of horror movies and he had watched very few of them.
• 1:01:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we watch horror franchises that he has not seen and go through them one film at a time and have a grand old time talking about excellent excellent to see you, my friend.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, that's mostly where you can find me online.
• 1:01:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: In April, I have a few fun things coming up, so we're launching Captain Marvel Dark Past, which is a Captain Marvel mini series by Paul Jenkins and Lucas Warnick.
• 1:02:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just had a call on the show and he talked about how excited he was.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been really fun.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's kind of flashing back to a period of time where Carol was like a journalist, like wearing the blackness marble costume, but it's also like her and the president trying to unpack like what the event she's remembering like meant and what it means for the future.
• 1:02:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there is also punching, it's not all reflective, but it's, it's really fun.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the first issue, I think is coming out, let me see, I think it's April 1st, so that's easy to remember.
• 1:02:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then I think the second issue of our alias 20 25th anniversary series is coming out that month and that's also Sam Humphrey's yeah so that's also Sam Humphrey's why my buddy new Avengers collaborator and heraldoborges on art.
• 1:02:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Alius is one of those things that is very, very hard to do because it has such it's such big shoes to fill, but I like I've been just so delighted to see what has come out of that, but I think it's great, like I think I think people who really love the classic Alius will really enjoy this this current run and it's red band, so we get to swear and show blood, which is very exciting.
• 1:03:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, so yeah, definitely pick that up as well.
• 1:03:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Excellent.
• 1:03:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: If either if any book has either of your names on I know I'm going to enjoy it every time I keep up the quality excellent work as a fan and as a friend at what a thrill.
• 1:03:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Follow the show at Grimochen under score lane on Instagram most prominently.
• 1:03:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: The next episode coming out of after this we're still leaning into the western theme but this time we're going crazy time travel.
• 1:03:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: I guess on that episode of Jeremy Whitley and B Earl and then stay tuned for the trial of the raw height kid at the end of the month.
• 1:03:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: On personal news my my next graphic novel is coming out my graphic memoir game Mormon dad is available pre-order in April I'll be doing some of the concert get this summer So watch for me at some of those all post announcements up on the show board Thank you everybody for listening.
• 1:03:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you to Jordan and Alanna to Verjoining for this crazy episode and we'll see you back here next week on a gray muffin link
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: and now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism as a special guest tonight talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: In January 1942, senior officials of the Nazi government gathered at a villa on the Vonsey lake outside Berlin for what became known as the Vonsey conference.
• 1:04:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: The meeting was convened by Ryan Hardhadrick, a leading figure in the SS and chief of the Reich
• 1:04:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Fifteen representatives from various branches of the Nazi state attended, including officials from the SS, the Interior Ministry, the Justice Ministry, and other administrative agencies.
• 1:04:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: By the time of the meeting, mass killings of Jews had already begun in Eastern Europe through mobile killing units and early extermination facilities.
• 1:04:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: The purpose of the conference was not to decide whether Jews would be murdered, but to coordinate how different arms of the German government would participate in what the Nazis called the final solution of the Jewish question.
• 1:04:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: During the meeting, Patrick presented plans for the systematic deportation of Jews from across Europe to extermination centers in occupied Poland, a surviving protocol of the meeting, wrote a recorded a chillingly bureaucratic discussion of population numbers and logistical questions.
• 1:05:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: officials reviewed estimates that counted roughly 11 million Jews across Europe and discussed the process of transporting them eastward toward their deaths.
• 1:05:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: The language used in the document avoided explicit references to killing, instead employing euphemisms such as evacuation and, quote, appropriate treatment, a particularly dehumanizing way of making all this happen.
• 1:05:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: The meeting demonstrated how the Nazi regime sought to align multiple government agencies behind a single ideological objective, turning genocide into a coordinated state project.
• 1:05:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's bizarre to think of these government officials all just sitting down and having this be their meeting agenda.
• 1:05:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: The Vazi Conference, and Vazi, by the way, if you want to look it up, everyone is filled W-A-N-N-S-E-E.
• 1:05:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: The Vazi conference illustrates how the Nazi leadership relied not only on coercion, but also on ideological commitment and administrative cooperation among its officials.
• 1:06:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: The participants were not forced into attendance.
• 1:06:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: They were senior bureaucrats who largely accepted the regime's goals and worked together to implement them.
• 1:06:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: At this point, it's people put in power
• 1:06:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: In that sense, the meeting reflected a system in which belief, career ambition and loyalty in the regime helped sustain policies of violence, rather than a spontaneous eruption of brutality.
• 1:06:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: The final solution was carried forward through an organized collaboration among officials who willingly participated in the machinery of the Nazi state.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's a so-vriggedy getting.
• 1:06:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to jump into the world of Avengers standoff, a salt on pleasant hill, omega number one.
• 1:06:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the culmination of a really, really fun, Nick Spencer story in which Maria Hill, the agent of shield who I adore, has obtained a cosmic cube and is using her own form of a final solution using the auspices of her power.
• 1:06:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let's take everyone who is a supervillain, in order to keep the streets safe, we're kind of wiped their identities, give them cover identities, and then put them in a prison, making them think that they're just a little happy innocent civilians.
• 1:07:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's not the same, but a trusted government official doing something really awful.
• 1:07:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is a crazy event that leads into the Steeval Rogers event ahead where the evil Hydra Captain America has been created by the Cosmic Cube to be loyal to Hydra, which then leads to the secret empire event where Hydra rules the United States for a period of time.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: At the end of the pleasant hill event, criminals have been tossed into prison against their wills, their minds taken over by public, the cosmic cube in the form of a small human child, which is the allegory of the AI that's been reprogrammed by Nazis to achieve.C, which is a bizarre thing.
• 1:07:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now in this power gap, the red skull has assembled followers in a bar full of skinheads with a swastika on the wall.
• 1:07:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Sin reports there are Sin his daughter, reports there are close to 50 most they recruited from fascist and neo-Nazi organizations in the area.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're not much to look at, says the red school.
• 1:08:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: No decent training only a couple killers in the whole bunch.
• 1:08:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh wait, that's crossbows.
• 1:08:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: much to look at.
• 1:08:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: No decent training only a couple killers in the whole bunch says crossbones and the red school replies, when I was looking for an army, we're looking for believers.
• 1:08:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: He indicates the hydros symbol on the wall.
• 1:08:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: When Baron struck a broadest back from the east, referring to Hydra, which has its own wild history, it sounded like madness to me.
• 1:08:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't recognize its beauty or its magnificence.
• 1:08:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's resilience in the face of time.
• 1:08:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what having the ability to overtake minds with such ease has taught me?
• 1:08:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because remember, this version of the Red Skull still has Charles Xavier's brain.
• 1:08:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: The emptiness of it, the true submission, it's voluntary.
• 1:08:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you want to rule the world, you cannot simply break it, you must change it.
• 1:08:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I see in my soul the coming revolution.
• 1:08:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I see the destruction of the old systems and the birth of something new, something better, stronger.
• 1:08:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: cut off one head into two more short tickets place and so I will share this vision with the ones gathered here.
• 1:09:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will not use my telepathic powers to combat them to join us instead.
• 1:09:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will inspire them and they will serve us willingly.
• 1:09:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: After them many more will come.
• 1:09:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: We will challenge them to prove their devotion and once they have done that, a new nation would have been born and
• 1:09:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, it'll hydra and criminals start blowing shit up and do it all kinds of evil things and then that classic hydra symbol of the skull surrounded by the tentacles is normally green, but we rebrand it in red here.
• 1:09:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let me welcome my friend Morgan Ward from the Beauty and Studies podcast to talk to me about this crazy story.
• 1:09:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Morgan are you a red skull fan, my friend.
• 1:09:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a loaded question, isn't it?
• 1:09:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the answer is no.
• 1:09:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's decidedly not.
• 1:09:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Every person I've ever asked is like, what?
• 1:09:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do love me a good Captain America story though, so I think that maybe that's a good way to frame it.
• 1:09:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I enjoy him as a story convention.
• 1:10:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: What's your relationship with Captain America comics?
• 1:10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Catherine American homics are kind of just like true blue to me.
• 1:10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like that's that's the the good old staple.
• 1:10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I actually really like Nick Spencer stuff.
• 1:10:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: His Sam was like some of the first stuff that I remember reading because it's right around when I started becoming a comment creator.
• 1:10:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's how young I am.
• 1:10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, so like I remember secret on Pyro really well because I remember being like, what?
• 1:10:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like watching the MC movies and then all of a sudden I'm like, and he's doing what now?
• 1:10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I had a teacher actually who, um, like, got me into like, understanding comics is like a academic text.
• 1:10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: She would like use Captain America comics as like the touchstone that is kind of what brought them into into like my whole worldview and then like most of like my online branding is around
• 1:10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: play on Bucky Barnes.
• 1:10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I have a good fondness for Capp and all of his outings.
• 1:11:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now, an expenser, brilliant writer.
• 1:11:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've never interviewed him, but you know, the American government has done something really awful with the prison system.
• 1:11:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: It creates a power gap and then the Nazi propaganda is ready to watch it and take over everything.
• 1:11:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: What were your thoughts on jumping into this world of pleasant hill, which is a very smart storytelling with a ton of really fun superhero
• 1:11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so fun.
• 1:11:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed this issue.
• 1:11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really like your intro love like reframing.
• 1:11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is like a final solution.
• 1:11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I actually thought was so interesting because it's like not how I was actually reading it.
• 1:11:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was literally reading it as like much more just like a commentary on the princess system rather than like a jedocidal commentary.
• 1:11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I think that like what Spencer does with Maria Hill is so interesting where it's like she she like believes that she's right and she thinks that like she's doing something good.
• 1:11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: But just like removing all of the criminals off the streets.
• 1:11:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in doing so like to Maria Hill, there's like no concept of the fact that these criminals can also have agency, you know, or that they can have like they deserve to have agency.
• 1:12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: child like cosmic cute is something that's like feel so like like paramount or that she's like yes of course like that's what you do and I think like we see that in our government of like our government doesn't see that like prisons like she's prisons is just like a holding cell and like doesn't see them as like a place for reform which is like what I believe I believe like prison dreamy of laser reform and you know it gets a little wishy-washy when we're dealing with like people like the bear like barren zemo it's like
• 1:12:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're cartoonishly evil and it's like is there a path for redemption for barren semo?
• 1:12:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't know, but for like crossbones like maybe like maybe you could have like rehabilitation I don't know for like all the other kind of like tertiary thugs that COVID is like keeping in her little pleasantville Like perhaps there is a world where they can come out and they can see no's okay And like that's like the ethos of like Captain America, too It's like that's like the point of like Cap's cookie quartet which like dead pool name drops early on I think it's like why we have Bucky Barnes is the one that like finds COVID because it's like Bucky is the one that goes in the path
• 1:12:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's really interesting though, I brought up that like, so there was years ago there was like that Twitter AI that was like analyzing human behavior and then it quickly very turned into like a fascist Nazi program if you remember this era of history.
• 1:13:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not that long ago, I almost wonder if that inspired the story a little bit.
• 1:13:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: This cosmic cube who is in the form of a child gets influenced by hydro propaganda very quickly.
• 1:13:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he's not moving to the right, but he's loyal to Hydra specifically, and then takes Steve Rogers, who is the, you know, American propaganda, the symbol that stands for American values, and then Helmet Zimo, who is the child of the Nazi geneticist.
• 1:13:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And like makes them best buds, makes them best buds and like loyal to Hydra.
• 1:13:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like we cover this a little bit if you listen to everyone too with my trial of Helmet Zimo last November.
• 1:13:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: We had a big academic panel about this guy, but this is really interesting.
• 1:13:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then we see the red skull finding his followers among the skinheads and the neonazi bar, which is just like, oh gross.
• 1:14:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let's give them a cause to believe it, right?
• 1:14:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: happens like that's what happened.
• 1:14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I almost had happened, but I'm like, oh, like that's what happens.
• 1:14:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what's like actively going on.
• 1:14:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you get into like the online world where like all of these like we're all these young people are being radicalized and are being turned into
• 1:14:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: that far right fascists and neo fascists.
• 1:14:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it doesn't necessarily happen in bars anymore, but it happens on forums, it happens in discords and happens in group chats.
• 1:14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just like, I like, you know, I mean, there's great research out and journalism out there.
• 1:14:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: People who've like done the work to be like, yeah, you get one really isolated teenager and you tell them like there's somebody else that's like at fault for why you so isolated and a couple steps later you have a neo fascist like it's exactly how Hitler rose to power frankly, right?
• 1:14:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: And basically how Trump rose to power, which isn't uncomfortable to reckon with.
• 1:14:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love getting to see my, my core three, Sam C'mon miles hanging out fighting.
• 1:15:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love those those are my kids.
• 1:15:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are those like that's top three top three.
• 1:15:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love what Sam and I was going to do something where is he?
• 1:15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I miss my Latino king.
• 1:15:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but like, I think the thing that I love about this issue so much is that like this feels like a superhero comic, like it's a thing that like I don't get to talk about a lot of like my own show because I feel like so often,
• 1:15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: not really like a superhero book in the way in like a way that feels very classical or the stuff like we're talking about at least it's like when we get a good Avengers book like this is like super heroes fighting for the righteous like they're gonna punch some people but they're gonna do it with like a with flare and they're doing the thing that they believe in you get a rallying speech like Steve's Avengers assemble moment is so good like that's a sub and love about like Nick Spencer's cap stuff is like he writes a good superhero book
• 1:15:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: that makes you feel excited about the promise of the super.
• 1:15:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think about the super hero as a very American idea and a very American myth.
• 1:16:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's something about this that feels exciting to me and we're like, yeah, we're doing something.
• 1:16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're fighting people.
• 1:16:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're like, it is great.
• 1:16:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no, maybe that's me buying into the propaganda of it all.
• 1:16:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: When I was doing my summary, I think I reminded you that this was the Red School with Xavier's Brain.
• 1:16:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you were like, oh, I didn't know that actually.
• 1:16:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: You've never endured that story.
• 1:16:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a series of comics called Uncanny of Engers.
• 1:16:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it's after Cyclops murders Charles Xavier and then this happens in the Rick Remender.
• 1:16:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is the same character from the Rick Rick Remender run.
• 1:16:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this is after so that issue one opens with like the red skull cutting open Xavier's brain and drafting it into his own and this is still that red skull.
• 1:16:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: But later Steve Rogers is going to beat this man to death.
• 1:16:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like that's a that's a part of the story that's going to follow.
• 1:16:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's crazy.
• 1:16:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have read, so actually the recommender stories were actually the very first X-Men books I have read, which is why it took me so long to become an X-Men fan because I was like, what is this?
• 1:16:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I just completely, I don't remember that at all.
• 1:17:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, this is the red skull post read on slot from the access event, if you follow the chronology.
• 1:17:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I opened with the idea of the bureaucracy of the Nazi machine.
• 1:17:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: These, you know, world leaders who sit down and they're just printing out numbers and plans to, like, mass exterminate people on paperwork, which is a really jarring ugly thing.
• 1:17:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's happening in different places around the world, in times in history.
• 1:17:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: But it's happening around us now.
• 1:17:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you have any thoughts on that opening and then I always ask my guest here how you do it in 2026, my friend.
• 1:17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think my brain's going here because I'm a little, uh, a word season, Oscars piled, but like it was making me think of.
• 1:17:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen one battle after another chat?
• 1:17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
• 1:17:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Incredible movie.
• 1:17:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can't wait for it to end best picture next week.
• 1:17:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It will watch me be so funny.
• 1:17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do you be so wrong when this comes out of the neighborhood?
• 1:17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, there's like, there's like a group in that movie.
• 1:17:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's...
• 1:17:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: a far-right neo-fascist group called The Christmas Adventures Club.
• 1:17:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And those scenes are like my favorite scenes of the movie because they're just, it's just a group of white nationalists, but they speak with it's like same bureaucratic, where they like they sound like they're news anchors and it's like so chilling and like so uncomfortable because they're just so frank about how they're talking about like how they need to go to like send in the assassin to go kill this like girl that's at the center of the film.
• 1:18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like that was like where my brain was going with those things thinking about like the bureaucracy of
• 1:18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: these like state sanctioned killings.
• 1:18:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like I was just thinking about that movie and how it's like so relevant for our times.
• 1:18:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's a moment where like the military official play by Sean Penn says make me a reason to go invade the sanctuary city, which is like just so uncompromising.
• 1:18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, oh, oh, just find a reason you're just going to go create a problem because you have a vendetta tickle and that's just a thing that happened It's like the same thing of it's just like you have these people these fascists in power Who just don't think of every other people is human and it's the thing that's like the most upsetting to me about the world that we live in right now It's I cannot fat them how there are people in this world that look at other people and don't see them
• 1:18:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will never understand a bully, and this is that times a thousand.
• 1:19:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're talking a lot about living well and learning from history, and, you know, we're getting by and we're doing our best form community, and I appreciate smart and talented friends who are willing to come and talk to me about topics like this.
• 1:19:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we got silly, we got silly last time in our show, and now we get to get serious, but it's wonderful to see you this morning.
• 1:19:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for your time and talent, it's my appreciate.
• 1:19:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Take care of yourselves, everybody.
• 1:19:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Living joyfully remains an act of defiance.
• 1:19:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Stay safe out there.
• 1:19:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'll see you back here next week.
• 1:19:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm very happy with it.
• 1:19:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm blue.
• 1:19:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm very welcome, ladies.
• 1:19:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
• 1:19:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
• 1:19:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: 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.
• 1:19:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Look for us on Patreon, where we are releasing weekly episodes about obscure characters and facts.
• 1:19:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a great way to participate with the podcast for only just a couple of dollars a month and it helps support what we are doing here.
• 1:19:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Also, the best way you can help
• 1:20:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Grimmulkin Lane is by sharing and liking and subscribing but also please leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
• 1:20:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.