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X-Women 1! With Seanan Maguire and Preeti Chhibber · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Great Malkin' Lane podcast.
0:10
[SPEAKER_05]: We're queer friends and allies gathered to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
0:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Except once in a while, I take a little tangent into an unexpected space.
0:21
[SPEAKER_05]: We're celebrating the incredible Janet Van Dyne, the lost this month on the show.
0:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we're doing a little bit of a women's history month.
0:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Over on the Patreon channel, we're gonna be covering the male villain characters who fall into the category of the only girl on the team.
0:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I have some incredible episodes out with some incredible friends opening in the month with a vapor from the UFOs with my friend Molly Laser joining me.
0:42
[SPEAKER_05]: We're closing the month out with the trial of Janet Van Dyne, the wasp.
0:45
[SPEAKER_05]: I am thrilled to have two friends returning to the show today, the incredible shot in the guire, the lovely, free to chip her.
0:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Both of whom are acquainted, I've learned.
0:53
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're gonna be talking about a comic book that at the time I had invited these two, I had never read before.
0:59
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a Chris Claremont 2010 book called X-Women.
1:02
[SPEAKER_05]: It is the only book to ever have the phrase X-Women on the title.
1:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And I did not read it until yesterday.
1:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And boy am I sorry.
1:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me see what you've all introduced yourselves with your name and pronouns, if you would.
1:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And let me hear your early opinions on the art of Milo Minara, who we're gonna talk about as we open the show today.
1:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Love you, welcome, pretty chiver back to the show.
1:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, pretty great to see you.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, I'm pretty chiver, pronouns are she, her.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a little here's what I'll say.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that there's their choices made that were not uncommon.
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think in in comics that didn't account for how boobs work a lot of the time and it's actually so funny because that was like a long for a long time that was my frustration with era certain areas of comments are like that's not a boobster.
1:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's taking me out of the fantasy
1:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, that was, it was a little, I was thrown by some choices, some costume choices.
2:07
[SPEAKER_05]: My words.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: As I was reading.
2:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Shot a McGuire also look back hello my friends.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, I'm Sean and McGuire, pronouns are she, her and the art of Milo Manara.
2:18
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was in middle school, I had a copy of the ElfQuest role playing game book.
2:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Hmm, I remember this book.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've never got to play the game, but my friend Steve Perrin helped write the system, so I got to feel very fancy and everything was wonderful.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: In the book, as part of the character generation section, they included silhouettes that had been drawn by Wendy Peaney, that you were supposed to trace over so you could design your own elf-class characters because it was a comic first.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a visual thing.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So there were all of these functionally mannequin, male, and female body, where they were just drawn in the heart outline with no clothing.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Just tits an ass and all of that and you were supposed to draw the clothing on top of them.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, in eighth grade, would sit there tracing these silhouettes and then
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: drawing my clothes on the little naked bodies.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like Milo Minara has made an entire career out of doing exactly what I was doing in eighth grade.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But no one was paying me or putting my naked elves and skin tight suits on the cover of comic book.
3:20
[SPEAKER_05]: So, okay, let's talk about women in comics just for a moment.
3:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Women have the different eras in comics.
3:28
[SPEAKER_05]: We're talking about female characters specifically, female creators take up their own space and female artists and even more specific space.
3:35
[SPEAKER_05]: But historically, the comic book industry is dominated by men drawing women.
3:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And there are eras of history in which we see women dressed in ways that women would not choose to dress.
3:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, there's an interesting thing because in the, I don't know, the 2020s, I have a queer show.
3:52
[SPEAKER_05]: We love women.
3:53
[SPEAKER_05]: We love women being sexy and sexual.
3:55
[SPEAKER_05]: When it's like on their terms, right?
3:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Silox wedgie costume.
3:59
[SPEAKER_05]: It's never what I'm gonna love, but I celebrated.
4:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Kitty Prides, clunky costume designs.
4:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I am here for it.
4:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Anytime storm looks stunning in anything, I'm here for it.
4:08
[SPEAKER_05]: But there's times when characters are drawn in an extremely sexual way that just
4:16
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's interesting as the host of this show.
4:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll do deep research knives on every issue.
4:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And we've had conversations about lots of different artists.
4:23
[SPEAKER_05]: For example, I've never met Greg Land, but a lot of his covers look like they are traced directly from like the video covers of like a pornography something, right?
4:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Women with arched backs and boobs out in hip spread.
4:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we've got artists like Butch Guise who drop with in much more like their fashion
4:39
[SPEAKER_05]: models, like they're all on guard.
4:40
[SPEAKER_05]: For the long-term listeners of my show, Teenie Howard and Connor Goldsmith joined me for an episode where we talked about the artist Justiniano, who drew a particular issue of what if with Jean Grey as a teenager in some extremely sexual positions and then later he got arrested for child porn and it's really uncomfortable.
4:57
[SPEAKER_05]: This art almost gives me that feeling, which is Iki.
5:01
[SPEAKER_05]: It's mostly the mouth.
5:04
[SPEAKER_05]: The women
5:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are they like, why are the mouths all open?
5:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so, because there's little what's he's tracing, have them making that fake.
5:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, but you guys like Lars and the real girl haven't seen it.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Same.
5:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Lars and the real girl's an incredible comedy about a man who is in love with the blowup doll.
5:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Like to him, she is real.
5:25
[SPEAKER_05]: It's his wife.
5:26
[SPEAKER_05]: There's also some, oh goodness, there's some comics about this, too.
5:30
[SPEAKER_05]: The comic book plastic is about a, like a serial killer who is in love with the blow up doll.
5:35
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a weird theme.
5:36
[SPEAKER_05]: All of my luminaries art looks like blow up dolls, like all of them.
5:39
[SPEAKER_05]: But the interesting thing, it's a little refreshing because the figures are more live.
5:42
[SPEAKER_05]: We're in the early 90s, even early 2000s.
5:44
[SPEAKER_05]: You get such cheese cakey, triple D breasts, and all of the women here are very slim.
5:50
[SPEAKER_05]: But almost prepubescently slim.
5:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And then drawn in
5:53
[SPEAKER_05]: very uncomfortable shots with like their asses out constantly.
5:56
[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's a weird journey with my X men characters.
6:00
[SPEAKER_05]: This is not my Rachel Gray.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I'm saying it was like there's this it's just I'm like scrolling through it again and it's so it's so funny because if I was looking at this with another lens it is also like aggressively like queer in the way they interact and like the way their bodies are with around each other.
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels that way
6:19
[SPEAKER_05]: It's giving very less being porn a lot.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, very, very sickly.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is actually why it doesn't really read as queer for me because we're still when I look at the art, we're still tracing porn.
6:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still tracing bins magazine.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have seen lesbian porn that was made by lesbians, four lesbians, and it does not look like miles like the snow.
6:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But the lesbian porn that is made by straight men, four straight men really, really does.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't read queer, I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't read queer for me because I don't feel like these women necessarily see each other as anything other than a way to obtain more male attention.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sorry.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have what I meant was,
7:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think we'll have to be true though, truly.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but it's using visuals and it's using for, like, how should I say this?
7:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is voyeuristic and it isn't authentically using that space in a way that I think what I think we're agreeing on that front.
7:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is, yeah, it is that sort of lens that is frustrating.
7:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like frustrating to, to read and engage in.
7:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Reading Emma Frost at the Hellfire Club in her sexy uniforms, celebrate absolutely, but that weird early 2000s trend of putting like pornographic covers of Emma Frost on a kid-friendly book.
7:37
[SPEAKER_05]: That one makes me more uncomfortable.
7:39
[SPEAKER_05]: This one makes me uncomfortable most of the time.
7:42
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not like, ooh, this is great fashion most of the time, although there are some really beautiful linework.
7:47
[SPEAKER_05]: So let me give a brief presentation on my Laminara, and then I put together a little PDF of his alternate marble covers.
7:52
[SPEAKER_05]: We could talk about it just a little bit.
7:53
[SPEAKER_05]: There's one
7:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Maluminara is one of the most distinctive and polarizing figures in European comics emerging in the 1970s, and gaining international recognition through collaborations with creators like Hugo Pratt and Federico Felini.
8:07
[SPEAKER_05]: His art style is immediately recognizable, fluid line work, soft water color palettes, and an almost sculptural attention to the human form, particularly the female body, which he renders, according to this article,
8:18
[SPEAKER_05]: with a blend of elegance, sensuality and idealization.
8:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Works like click and Golovara cemented his reputation for erotic storytelling that straddles fantasy, satire, and psychological exploration.
8:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Critically, Manara has been praised for elevating erotic comics into the realm of final illustration with compositions that echo Renaissance painting and cinematic framing, and I can
8:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Framing, however, he's also sustained criticism for hyper-sexualization and objectification of women, especially in later controversies, such as his variant cover from Marvel's Spider-Women, which drew widespread international bad backlash from Marvel because of a particular exaggerated pose.
8:58
[SPEAKER_05]: As a result, Manara occupies a complicated position in comic history, celebrated as a master draftsman and visual stylist yet frequently debated as a symbol of the mediums tensions between artistry, sexuality, and representation.
9:11
[SPEAKER_05]: He did a bunch of variant covers from Marvel in the early 2000s when he was very elderly at this point, and then he did one issue with Chris Claremont, which gets repurposed from an Italian book called Ex-Manorigazza.
9:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Origazza from April 20, 2009, and it's called Ex-Women One.
9:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Here, it comes out in September 2010.
9:30
[SPEAKER_05]: So in these variant covers, Sean and some of your favorites are here, the Scarlet Witch and Mike Crawler, do you have thoughts on some of Menara's work here that you like more than others?
9:39
[SPEAKER_05]: And are there some that you hated these alternate covers?
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so on the alternate covers, which you did send out, but my laptop is 100% full.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So I cannot keep anything open.
9:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Unless I am actively using it like we have hit the point where I get alert every time the computer tries to restart informing me that it can't restart have so many external drives my friend I understand exactly so I had to reopen it.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: really my issue.
10:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not saying that the man can't draw or that he doesn't have, he's got great watercolor control.
10:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually am kind of saying that the man can't draw because my being able to trace those elf quest templates did not mean I could suddenly draw like Windy Pini.
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if he can draw.
10:25
[SPEAKER_00]: much as with Greg Land, I have been able to identify specific poses that he has represented in porn magazines.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a lesbian.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to look at naked women.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of porn magazines from the era that he was very active in because I preferred the body type that was represented in, uh, girly mags of that time.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I have actually been able to go, oh, look, it's Ms. March.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so can he draw?
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: He can definitely lightbox and he can water color.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, I don't really have any strong opinions about the way that he has represented most of my favorites because he hasn't.
11:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I like the wasp cover and the Medusa cover the most.
11:07
[SPEAKER_05]: The Medusa cover in particular, I think is gorgeous.
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the wasp cover is a really interesting poe.
11:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm posing as weird.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, so with the posing on the wasp and actually Kurt, if you wanted to locate those, you wouldn't look at the porn magazines of the time, you'd look at the Cirque du Soleil Flyers.
11:28
[SPEAKER_05]: This silo covers really pretty too.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I think.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think the coloring is beautiful, like I think there is a way with the water colors that it looks striking and is interesting and unlike other things that you are are other comics other other, you know, covers there's something very unique about the approach to coloring.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: night crawlers one of my favorites.
11:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do love seeing night crawlers like truly terrifying because we get sexy Kurt a lot actually, which also obviously love.
11:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But I like seeing night crawlers sometimes with that like terrifying visage of the, you know, that aspect of them coming through.
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are pieces and, you know, he is very clearly very talented in, in some respects.
12:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, in the era of second wave feminism that was hitting comics in the 70s, the two female lead titles.
12:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, after we got like the night nurse and the cat and Shannon the sheet of all in the early 70s, which we've talked about on the show.
12:21
[SPEAKER_05]: But we get Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, in this like bathing suit with big boobs in a sash, but it's really wonderfully written by Chris Claremon, a lot of it.
12:30
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we get spider woman, who is kind of a drag queen to be in some ways.
12:34
[SPEAKER_05]: She's giving very lesbian energy.
12:36
[SPEAKER_05]: There's like a big thick black wig.
12:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I picture Carmen, Carmen and Fentino drawing this character.
12:41
[SPEAKER_05]: No, in the early 2000s, Bendis gave her Jessica Drew a big kind of new burst of energy with, she was a scroll and she joined the Avengers.
12:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And there was a lot of making fun of that bright red or yellow pattern on her chest that goes over her boobs.
12:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And then there's an arrow that points directly down to her private.
12:59
[SPEAKER_05]: just for classic costume.
13:01
[SPEAKER_05]: In this infamous cover, and you can look up my nominara spider woman, everybody, it is as if Jessica Drew is climbing over a wall on top of a high building.
13:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And the camera is just so that it's like on her back.
13:15
[SPEAKER_05]: But like her legs are spread, and the spandex is in the world's biggest wedgie.
13:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It's super deeply uncomfortable cover.
13:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I dislike it very, very much.
13:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is probably what my nominara
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when this dropped, I remember like, I, and it was so wild because I do think it was at that time where like, it was unnecessary, it felt too, too, like, that is what I remember most.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like, why?
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why?
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Why was this something that we needed the character to be doing in this way?
13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just, I think that was the biggest thing.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what I remember most of just being like, the seams so like, we didn't need this.
13:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it makes me angry.
14:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't like it.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I can absolutely see that and it kind of feeds back to what I was saying about queerness and how it reads as being entirely drawn form in.
14:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a friend, good friend.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a pole dancer and she does aerials and she has the platonicly most amazing ass I have ever seen on a living human rather than a comic book character.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: That God, she's a cosplayer because her butt is so remarkable.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like what these artists are trying to draw.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And she photographs it a lot because that is her life's work is her butt.
14:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could show you 30 pictures of my friend, my actual living human being friend, showing off her butt and being amazing about it.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is not objectifying because she did it to herself.
14:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Jessica Drew, can I do have a point?
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I swear you're making a face here.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: but Jessica Drew cannot choose to show you her butt.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment, the moment that the cover represents, there is no reason for her to be choosing to show you her butt.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not someone she's dating in the comics at that point in time that she might find on a rooftop.
15:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There's not someone she's trying to seduce in the comics that she might find on a rooftop.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: She's just pausing to go, look, I have the most anatomically impossible ass in history.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: means she's showing it to the reader and the reader should not need to see Jessica Drew's but by that point in time.
15:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so we're going to like let we'll comment on the art as we go.
15:27
[SPEAKER_05]: There's some images and themes in this comic but that are a little rough.
15:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to do the summary of our issue kind of loosely as we go.
15:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I am not worried about the specific plot points of the story, but I'm happy to have you point out whatever you guys would like as we go through this story.
15:44
[SPEAKER_05]: This feels like uncomfortably Marvel method.
15:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Marvel Method is like when you get a summary, the artist like does their thing and then the writer comes back and tries to make a story happen out of it.
15:54
[SPEAKER_05]: It feels really, really disjointed and it's, I don't know, this doesn't feel like Chris Claremont to me.
15:59
[SPEAKER_05]: First of all, I know he can write some sexual and even problematic.
16:02
[SPEAKER_05]: ways with women sometimes, but we celebrate him as like a really strong powerful feminist writer a lot of the times.
16:09
[SPEAKER_05]: The cover alone on this book, just it's four blow up dolls dancing a little fairy circle.
16:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's super bizarre and I hate their mouths.
16:19
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm just coming ever to eat that a hundred times.
16:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all that made me so uncomfortable.
16:24
[SPEAKER_05]: And he thoughts on the cover.
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I like making a face because same.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the same reaction or I was like, why, like, why?
16:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Why did I agree to go on this podcast?
16:35
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What keeps getting me is like, I am totally fine with sexy characters.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I am totally fine with her being sex, sex, sexy, sexy, sexy sex bombs.
16:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You do you, but it has to make sense and none of these blow-up dolls make sense.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are not the characters.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: What I was going to say before when you were showing the variant covers is
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: none of my favorites are there because he did not paint any of my favorites except for Kurt.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That first person that is supposed to be Scarlet Witch, that's not one to maximum.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: That's someone in cosplay.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Body types are wrong, the expressions are wrong, and the way in which most of them are posed is not in character.
17:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is how I feel about this cover.
17:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So in 2010, Marvel was kind of going through a little bit of a feminist resurgence for many years.
17:18
[SPEAKER_05]: They had not been a lot of solo-led female titles.
17:22
[SPEAKER_05]: There were a lot of male titles, and usually the female titles were written by men almost exclusively.
17:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So we have a kind of a push in this era for books.
17:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And some of Marvel's biggest, most consistent female stars are characters that we still see featured now.
17:37
[SPEAKER_05]: More modernly, we get characters like Black Cat,
17:39
[SPEAKER_05]: who's had a lot more future in the last few years, iron heart, you know, there's several, but back in the 2010s era, we get Black Widow and She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Moon Girl, Squirrel Girl, Spider Woman, Electra, Hellcat, like all of them were getting books around this time.
17:55
[SPEAKER_05]: This is also the same year that X-Men volume four launched where we had an all-female group of X-Men.
18:02
[SPEAKER_05]: If you guys remember, that was like a big thing because there had never been one of those before.
18:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And it was storm, and almost the same roster that's actually in this book, with some other characters added in and out.
18:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And I fondly remember that title, although it kind of fizzled out after a little while.
18:16
[SPEAKER_05]: I assume editorial control took the reins and the quality of the book seem to diminish over time as different storylines moved in and out.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so funny because again, I remember being so excited by a lot of the books at the time.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's why some of the stuff you're like, why is this happening in tandem?
18:34
[SPEAKER_01]: With all of this other great stuff that's going on, because there was really, really strong work happening.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And fun story happening at that time featuring women, which was nice.
18:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think I got marble and limited for the first time, maybe that, and I was like, I read everything.
18:51
[SPEAKER_05]: So my plan here, as I'm going to introduce little pieces of the plot, and then I'm going to ask you some non-secular questions.
18:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I would love to hear your thoughts on the story or the art as we go, but we don't have to, we don't, wherever the conversation takes us is excellent.
19:06
[SPEAKER_05]: So we open on a Madra Poor, but then we get a very quick flashback.
19:11
[SPEAKER_05]: It looks like Rogue has invited several of her female friends, Storm,
19:20
[SPEAKER_05]: to spend a week long vacation with her at a house that she just inherited in Kirino's Greece.
19:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Mike first question, is who the hell did Rogue inherit this house from?
19:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Her family is in Mississippi, her parents don't like her, didn't mistake leave it behind.
19:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe Avalanche had a house that he signed over to Rogue?
19:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know, any thoughts on how Rogue got a house in Greece.
19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's got to be mystique.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Mystique killed off one of her identities, and at this point, she's just listing Anne Marie is her next of kin on absolutely everything.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So that poor woman is probably inheriting such delays every 15 minutes.
19:54
[SPEAKER_05]: We open on the X-Men fighting the military in Madre Poor.
19:59
[SPEAKER_05]: We get lots of like little fairy poses, I don't know.
20:03
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very sexualized, a storm with lightning and siloque with her telekinesis and rogue grabbing a tank.
20:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Then we see, they're their rescue Rachel Gray.
20:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And Rachel is wearing the worst thing I have ever seen anyone wear in a comic book of all time, maybe.
20:20
[SPEAKER_05]: This is not my Rachel.
20:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Rachel is chronically queer and dating Betsy Braddock in the comics now for those of you that have read, but this costume is a lot.
20:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Pre-the, what are your thoughts on the Rachel Grey costume?
20:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And do you like a mini skirt yourself?
20:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Cause this is the mini skirt I've ever seen.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny cause Kitty asks, like, what's with that outfit?
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: She asks the question, which I was thinking and Rachel's like, comes with the job.
20:46
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What job is she doing?
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
20:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, she has been kidnapped by some sort of like slave traders who are like using some sort of drug to take control of her powers.
20:59
[SPEAKER_05]: They're doing it to Emma Frost too.
21:01
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to learn it a while.
21:02
[SPEAKER_05]: But I presume they made her dress like this.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Still the so strange of like, I mean, it looks like a bathing suit bottom.
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like one of the like bottoms of a bikini basically.
21:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It is that short.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
21:14
[SPEAKER_05]: All the costumes in this are bananas.
21:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And the two of these two have a bond.
21:22
[SPEAKER_05]: There's always like been a queerness to their relationship, which I love.
21:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we get the other thing that I hate most in this book.
21:28
[SPEAKER_05]: We get the mouths.
21:29
[SPEAKER_05]: But then we also get a lot of close-up shots of like, I don't know, sex dolls with open mouths, but also like tears leaking out of their eyes and or blood leaking out of their nose.
21:39
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a recurring theme in this book that I don't want to spend time analyzing that I hate it.
21:44
[SPEAKER_05]: very, very much.
21:46
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
21:47
[SPEAKER_05]: The telepathy of all of this is really odd when Kitty gets blasted by a blaster.
21:52
[SPEAKER_05]: She's phasing the X-Men are trying to get away and the plot is already so much.
21:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so Marvel Girl has been abducted.
21:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Their house is destroyed.
22:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Misty is going to be pissed.
22:01
[SPEAKER_05]: And the guests survive thanks to Silox telekinesis.
22:04
[SPEAKER_05]: The X-Men track the kidnappers back to
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Not really, I am not anti-major poor.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently I'm just here to be the pill today.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, so when I was in college, I did a dual major in folklore and herpatology and herpatology is of course the study of reptiles and amphibians.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the time when I meet new people and they tell me where they're from if they are from anywhere outside North America, I know what kind of snakes and lizards are there and I can talk to them about the native wildlife of where they come from.
22:40
[SPEAKER_00]: The Madrepoor, I have never gotten the feeling that anything existed there outside of a small city.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Lot-Viria, I can tell you what is likely to be out there.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They have actually put effort into developing it as a country outside of a backdrop.
22:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But Madrepoor just feels like a studio set to me.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is kind of crappy for a whole bunch of reasons.
23:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So...
23:00
[SPEAKER_05]: It's one of Claremont's favorite lokal's he uses.
23:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm aware.
23:04
[SPEAKER_05]: It's so many comics.
23:05
[SPEAKER_05]: So so many Wolverine stories are here, of course.
23:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so the X-Men get hit by a mysterious ray and they lose their powers.
23:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So they have to escape falling over a waterfall out of the air, but the powers are gone.
23:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's lots of like lesbian hugs and grabbing onto like phallic vines and like sliding down mud slides and falling into the water and saving each other.
23:28
[SPEAKER_05]: This is like a six-page spread of these women just grabbing each other and then we get me we get to meet the villain of the piece in the middle of all this who's kind of a Anazi lady named Baroness Craig and now her outfit.
23:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I love it's I think it's giving lace-pret top boob window like high-waisted pads.
23:46
[SPEAKER_05]: It's giving Sebastian Shaw as a drag queen I'm I really into the various creague look Pretty do you like a waterfall?
23:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd what were you thoughts on this sequence?
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, why did it start to fall like that?
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was tracing lesbian part.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, gosh.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, my every response I'm going to have to everything is going to be why.
24:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I do, I mean, I love Claremon and I love, I often love the stories and even here I was trying to find the fun parts and then consistently taken out by the why of it all in real life.
24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw many amazing waterfalls in Iceland.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: which were very cool.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got to go behind one, which was a very, very fun experience.
24:30
[SPEAKER_05]: My husband and I just vacationed in New Zealand and did some great great hikes to some gorgeous blue blue waterfalls.
24:38
[SPEAKER_05]: It was a really lovely one.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes so badly.
24:40
[SPEAKER_05]: there were several images in this comic that made me deeply uncomfortable.
24:44
[SPEAKER_05]: One of them is in the waterfall sequence where kitty captures storm upside down.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm talking about.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it like like red?
24:51
[SPEAKER_05]: It's red.
24:52
[SPEAKER_05]: It's they're they're ready to it's it's it's very sexual it's gross.
24:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't like it at all.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just lesbian porn.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know I keep saying that, but that is straight up what's going on here.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this episode is lesbian porn.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a wife.
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I did manage to pull the issue back open.
25:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm looking through the water fault that the fall sequence, everything from when they lose their powers, to when they all die horribly in the rest of this issue is in the afterlife.
25:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Because.
25:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry you don't survive the fall that we see kitty take with no injuries at all, no bruises.
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I'm pretty sure that during the months flight sequence, she snaps her spine at least twice.
25:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, Sean, you pointed out this is very surfaced lately, and it is giving, uh, what's the biggest show zoom-manity, which is like the sexualized like aerials and stuff.
25:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
25:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
25:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
25:46
[SPEAKER_05]: No.
25:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but there's no reason these women would be sexy right now.
25:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they barely survived the escape.
25:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Kitty loses consciousness as badly injured has a little head bandage.
25:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And when she awakens, they are on a small boat blowing into a guy named Captain Dave, who apparently they bailed out of some trouble at some point.
26:03
[SPEAKER_05]: They don't have their powers, but Rachel did download all that information into Kitty's brain.
26:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And the woman that abducted them as a woman named Baroness Krieg, who has also captured Emma Frost in a plot to drive like China and India to war,
26:16
[SPEAKER_05]: so that she can benefit from the profits.
26:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know, it's fine.
26:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, when we flashback to Greece, there is a scene where Kitties on the jet ski and phases it through the wall of a ship.
26:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Startles are made, startles are Butler serving lobster, and then sores over the bed of the gay couple.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's so horrified that a gay couple was there that she loses control of the Gap Jetsky and goes over it into the water as soon as she lands Oh dear didn't expect to run into anything like that.
26:45
[SPEAKER_05]: She says my ex-boyfriend Iceman would never
26:50
[SPEAKER_05]: You're blushing, kitty.
26:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Never mind.
26:52
[SPEAKER_05]: She's giggling.
26:53
[SPEAKER_05]: The crazy.
26:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Then we get an image of the five of them real housewife style going up for a night on the town in the flashback.
27:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you either of you have one of the looks on this page where they're in there little fashion gear going out?
27:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Is there a one that you would wear?
27:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that little red dress that kitty has on and I like the blouse that rogue is wearing.
27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like those are cool.
27:14
[SPEAKER_05]: is this image will be the cover of my book.
27:16
[SPEAKER_05]: This is art that I enjoy.
27:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I like that.
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this is sweet.
27:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Sean, and do you like Kitty's pink dress?
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
27:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also feel like that is supporting my assertation that all of this is trace, because if you look back at the fashion catalogs of the time, which again, I like girls.
27:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to collect those.
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought that Tyra Banks was really cute when she did runway walk.
27:43
[SPEAKER_05]: So the jet ski over the gay couple, the gay couple are here.
27:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It's very one of them is older, one of them is younger, but they're like asking Kitty to dance, but also kind of touching her inappropriately.
27:56
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
27:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I have some straight girlfriends who love to go dancing with the gay boys and they get a little handsy with me.
28:02
[SPEAKER_05]: They're, they're, it makes me uncomfortable.
28:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Storm takes to the microphone and we have kitty in caption written by Claremont saying, Aurora, even cut loose with a surprisingly faithful rendition of Proud Mary.
28:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm surprised she even knows who Tina Turner is, let alone being able to perform just like her.
28:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Girl, Aurora Monroe can do anything she wants, and of course she fucking knows Proud Mary by Tina Turner.
28:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Do both of you have a go-to karaoke song?
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Depends on whether I want lesbian's to buy me drinks or not?
28:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, the answer is yes.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I just do when you're good to mama from Chicago.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh!
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good one.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I do.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The yeah, yeah, yeah, zero is always fun.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Or part of your world from the little, little mermaid.
28:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
28:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Excellent choice.
28:45
[SPEAKER_05]: I go to lately.
28:46
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't do a lot of karaoke, but I do perform at the band.
28:48
[SPEAKER_05]: My go to lately has been uninvited by a lot of people.
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good one.
28:53
[SPEAKER_05]: A little gender play, but my favorite I'm your man by Lana Del Rey is another one that I can like belt the pipe saw in a little bit, which is fun.
29:01
[SPEAKER_05]: The women get druged, they blow up the place.
29:04
[SPEAKER_05]: We get more crying.
29:06
[SPEAKER_05]: They're taken captive into some sort of bizarre harem, but they all have head injuries.
29:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to skip through some of this Emma Frost doesn't capture it.
29:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's it's very it's a very bizarre story.
29:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, the technology fails them.
29:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Kitties running a fever.
29:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I still can't put together all the information that Rachel put in my brain.
29:26
[SPEAKER_05]: She says, uh, and then they get taken in by a group of cargo cultists who take them and Captain Dave prisoner and because the women don't have powers, apparently they've forgotten how to fight at all.
29:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And now they have to just be maids and sex slaves and like workers for these people.
29:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I hate this section, almost more than anything in the book.
29:46
[SPEAKER_05]: The characters don't feel real.
29:48
[SPEAKER_05]: The cultists put like, 88 or helmets on skulls as like warnings like we're in the walking dead.
29:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we get several pages of these women bound and gagged in like bondage porn while a man in a creepy 88 or jacket and like open fur vest and his wife who's like a topless woman with a jacket covering her nipples and a sailor cap.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Who I don't think has any dialogue?
30:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And she's jealous of Storm because Storm in captivity is flirting with this man.
30:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And then, okay, the worst image in this whole book is a siloque feeding the pigs.
30:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know why I hated so much, but I hate it.
30:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of colonialist and racist is all hell, like just this whole idea.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the most unracist thing there is that it's the it's not the white girl that the chief fixates on which you would kind of expect from that era.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But making sidewalk feed the pigs like that.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: She's got no pants on pigs are filthy.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't care if you want them in string bikinis for the whole episode.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That is how you did a zoonotic sexual sexually transmitted disease without having sex
31:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, okay.
31:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Now we have the Princess Leia effect.
31:09
[SPEAKER_05]: The Princess of the Realm gets captured by job of the Hut and dressed as slave Leia.
31:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is a very long-term running plotline for storm.
31:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Buy Claremont in many, many issues.
31:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, it happens when she's taken by Dracula and Dr. Doom, or that one annual where Arkham the Magnificent takes her to his realm.
31:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Now let's pause here for just a second.
31:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I was doing an episode of my show at academic panel about mine control and women in comics.
31:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And I read three books from an old line of fantasy novels called The Kingdoms of Gorge, O-R.
31:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I read one that this man, I'm not even gonna go look it up if you want.
31:47
[SPEAKER_05]: He wrote one book called The Slave Girl of Gore, written from the perspective of like a 70s feminist who gets taken to another planet and like raped and enslaved.
31:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And he gives her all this dialogue that's like, back at home, I could recite poems and drive my mazerati and get my daddy to buy me anything I want.
32:05
[SPEAKER_05]: But here I've learned my real place at the rod of my master and it's gross.
32:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I hate so much.
32:11
[SPEAKER_05]: So when we lead into the Princess Leia fantasy, it's fun.
32:14
[SPEAKER_05]: But we tip it just a little too far and it's Ikie Ikie.
32:17
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to talk about storm being taken before this awful cultist and her nipple plaats over her gorgeous lacy dress.
32:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
32:27
[SPEAKER_05]: What are your thoughts on this storm
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: it is completely unrealistic for the climate and area that they are in.
32:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, sexy is fine, but you're not going to get gauze like that to stay that clean and that transparent in this environment with the level of tech that we're shown them having.
32:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I like the headpiece a lot.
32:46
[SPEAKER_00]: the implicit violation of the outfit itself, because you know someone had to put that on her.
32:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're having to fasten on those nipple clamps, whether or not she has approved of it.
32:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It means that there is assault even if they don't touch her other than that point.
33:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So everything about this sequence was awful.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Just everything about it was awful and uncomfortable.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And like when he's like the thrill is in the chase and she's like, okay fine, if I fight harder, will you free my friends?
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, uh,
33:14
[SPEAKER_05]: storms in this sexy outfit taken before the cultist.
33:18
[SPEAKER_05]: He says, if you're not going to serve me, I'll serve myself.
33:21
[SPEAKER_05]: She says, I'll serve you all right, and hit him in the head with a water picture.
33:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Then she sarcastically says, oh dear, are we out of water?
33:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Why don't I go fetch some?
33:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And tries to climb to safety.
33:30
[SPEAKER_05]: He comes after her and says, ooh, you've got spirit.
33:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I hate spirit, but I do like you.
33:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And she says, could things get any worse?
33:37
[SPEAKER_05]: The wife in the chat.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she does have dialogue.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, my bad.
33:42
[SPEAKER_05]: She cuts the vine and storm goes, oh, God is.
33:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And falls into the cultist arm.
33:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And he says, oh, God is indeed.
33:48
[SPEAKER_05]: And isn't this your lucky day to fall into the hands of your very own living God?
33:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Hands off, she says, he tries to run against my religion.
33:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm afraid.
33:57
[SPEAKER_05]: And they both fall in the water.
33:59
[SPEAKER_05]: He positions himself directly over her.
34:01
[SPEAKER_05]: I have you now, my lovely, released my friends
34:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh no, my precious, you can't do that.
34:07
[SPEAKER_05]: The thrill is in the chase.
34:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And if I fight all the harder, then we have a deal.
34:11
[SPEAKER_05]: This woman has survived as a combat specialist team leader with no superpowers.
34:16
[SPEAKER_05]: She has a trained ninja.
34:19
[SPEAKER_05]: I hate this sequence so very, very much.
34:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Ugh, I, like, this is the only part I'll slow down for in the book.
34:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And it still makes me angry.
34:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Do we have any thoughts?
34:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And Prithi looks like she just ate some garlic.
34:30
[UNKNOWN]: Can we see?
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it was just upsetting.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I like don't even know what to say.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just upsetting because they try to save it like get that when he's like, we have a deal.
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: She slams his face into the water.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's supposed to be this like, look, she got him, but that was, it's not enough.
34:45
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's giving rapists who like sit to play exactly.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's not, it's, it feels like they were trying to be like, no, don't worry.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like she's still strong.
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So where are we like the X-Men?
34:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We do.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We love action.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a thing.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like I love like we keep saying like sexiness and comics has it's like it's great.
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's wonderful when it is when it makes sense when it's when it's not just panels and panels and panels of it in a way that doesn't make sense and so it's just off putting
35:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Betsy in quannins body is dressed in like a very stereotypical like dragon lady green dress.
35:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So 70s?
35:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Shopsticks in the hair, but still ass hanging out all the time.
35:26
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a moment where Roe gets a baseball bat to protect some children, which is kind of fun.
35:30
[SPEAKER_05]: And then again, a bunch of hyper-sexualized stuff.
35:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Apparently this co-leader can fire Ibeams?
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, where did that come from?
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, did I miss, I had to go back because I was like, did I miss something?
35:43
[SPEAKER_05]: The military is attacking.
35:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Rachel and Emma are still being controlled by Baroness Krieg.
35:48
[SPEAKER_05]: The cultist agrees to help them.
35:50
[SPEAKER_05]: The plain lurch is at a point and rogue falls in his lap and he legit tries to kiss her and she says, I am not in the mood and he says, well, that will change.
36:00
[SPEAKER_05]: God damn it, the rapiness of this just makes me angry.
36:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Sean, were you pleased to see Emma Frost?
36:06
[SPEAKER_05]: because I'm guessing no, even though you love her.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I am pleased to see her frost because she is somehow, yeah, Emma Frost is just being Emma Frost.
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: She's just wearing her costume.
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: She's just sitting there.
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: She's actually drawn like a person deserving of respect and no one is trying to rape her.
36:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm delighted that Emma is here.
36:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So Baroness Krieg has assembled some sort of cerebral device, Rachel and Emma are kept in like cerebral helmets with the X on them, very similar to what Professor X was wearing in Grant Morrison's comics for their representation of cerebral at the time.
36:39
[SPEAKER_05]: She is
36:39
[SPEAKER_05]: planning to drive the world to war.
36:41
[SPEAKER_05]: She's got telepathic powers.
36:43
[SPEAKER_05]: She's gonna shut, like, kill Emma Frost.
36:46
[SPEAKER_05]: There's some ships in some underwater battles and the X-Men get their powers back, but they lose them again and there's a battle with the Baroness who tries to escape, but Kitty faces the torpedo ship and the Baroness's shirt gets blown off.
36:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I was like, are you kidding me?
37:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That was, if I had been holding a physical copy, I think I would have put it down.
37:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And then Storm who can do anything Ice Man can do, just flash freezes the Baroness in a bizarre image where she's covered in Ice Storm and Ice Man both being Omega's but Storm can do anything Ice Man can do then we get a single image which also Emma Frost comes out.
37:23
[SPEAKER_05]: They she punches the barreness was that necessary.
37:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm a no, but it wasn't enjoyable damn I broke a nail and then she kicks the woman They make peace with the cultists.
37:34
[SPEAKER_05]: They make peace with Captain Jack and then they all go out dancing together
37:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And we end with all of them in little tiny skirts with their asses out, including Emma Frost, dancing with this rapy cultist storm, this is not how I would see this adventure ending.
37:51
[SPEAKER_05]: They would just kick his ass.
37:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what's happening here, friends, but that's the end of our story with them dancing in the pirate ship.
37:58
[SPEAKER_05]: And you thought something's on the conclusion.
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even to the end, Emma is the least sexualized person here.
38:04
[SPEAKER_00]: She's not an attorney skirt at the end.
38:05
[SPEAKER_00]: She's in skin type white leather pants, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for Emma to be wearing.
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: If she wasn't drawn like a blow up doll, mouth wise, I would be fine with every representation of Emma Frost in this comic.
38:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Preethy any final thoughts before we lay X women to rest?
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, even in that last panel, that man is grabbing Storm's wrist and she's like trying to run.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, why?
38:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
38:30
[SPEAKER_05]: The best thing in this book is the opening page where we get the quote, where mutants born different from baseline humanity with an enhanced genome that gives us superpowers.
38:39
[SPEAKER_05]: You piss us off at your peril.
38:41
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a clear outline I can get behind.
38:43
[SPEAKER_05]: The rest of this book I never want to read again.
38:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, even again, in that last panel, do we need to be seeing rogues but crack?
38:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we be seeing Rachel's butt cheat.
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You can draw them in the sexy little outfits without showing more ass than would be appropriate for me to stand up and flash on camera.
38:58
[SPEAKER_05]: So let me ask you some questions based on themes from this issue and wherever our tensions take us is completely okay.
39:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Do I either of you have a go-to sexy outfit?
39:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And if so, what is the occasion on which you enjoy wearing it?
39:13
[SPEAKER_05]: What I'm out of town locally here, I'm a therapist.
39:16
[SPEAKER_05]: So being part of the queer community, but also a dad and a therapist that a public figure makes it a little bit weird.
39:21
[SPEAKER_05]: But when I'm traveling, I love to put on a pair of skimpy shorts on a tank top and show off my biceps and my ass and shake it on the dance floor a little bit, right?
39:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like maybe like 10 years ago when I was like living in New York.
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm like pajamas.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, if I'm not wearing pajamas, I'm pretty unhappy.
39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very much a mall golf.
39:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been a mall golf since I was a teenager.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Mall golf does not have a timeline on it.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do have a couple of good corsets and short dress combinations that I will break out for the right convention or to go to a club.
39:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it is fun to go and dance sometime.
39:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also fun to run into people I know who are like, you have knees.
40:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Have I ever been on a jet ski?
40:03
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a no-me.
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, yes.
40:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it terrifying?
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that it's terrifying.
40:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that the most realistic thing in this issue may be kiddie going ass over tea kettle off her jet's off her jet ski.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very easy to do that.
40:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you are in the water with a jet ski that is no longer being operated by a person.
40:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I have done a fair amount of snowmobiling.
40:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't think it's the same, but likely a little similar, I think.
40:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I remember snowmobiling at 15 for like six hours.
40:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And like, you have to grip the pedal the whole time.
40:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And I remember for like two weeks afterwards, like my grip muscles, I could extend the fingers of my hands.
40:40
[SPEAKER_05]: It was deeply painful, but I'm not a big action sports guy, which will surprise no one.
40:45
[SPEAKER_05]: My next question, what is your relationship with your own cry face?
40:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Everybody's got a cry face.
40:50
[SPEAKER_05]: We get a lot of cry faces in this issue.
40:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I probably cry like one of Milo's girls.
40:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I am one of those people who will just start weeping silently and can keep doing that for like 30 minutes.
41:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that I'm pretty what I cry.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that I am silently leaking and people really don't know what to do with that.
41:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wish we all saw it less.
41:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I call that my dysregulation cry.
41:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I have PT to be.
41:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's times when you just kind of you're not, you're just numb, but still cry.
41:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like it was a little bit too hot.
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mind is just full red face, like trying so hard not to cry and just furious that it's happening.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The Alps.
41:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to do like an art gallery where I just take a picture of everybody's cry face.
41:32
[SPEAKER_05]: There's something beautiful about the vulnerability of a cry face, said the therapist.
41:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't make my clients cry everyone.
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I used to, you know, for a long time because I lived in New York for so long.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I would cry on the subway, well, like, like, pride on the, in public multiple times, but like when like reading or like listening to something, and it would like make you cry, I would just be crying on the subway, and you're just like, nobody look at me.
41:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
41:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, and then have either of you ever seen lightning strike or been close to a lightning strike.
42:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Can we hear the story?
42:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, my dad's side of the family runs carnivals.
42:07
[SPEAKER_00]: We got stuck in a very early storm and one of the Ferris wheels.
42:11
[SPEAKER_00]: A lightning bolt.
42:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I saw lightning hit a tree once.
42:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It was me.
42:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Far away, but it was cool.
42:16
[SPEAKER_05]: I was pretty young.
42:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I was like eight years old.
42:18
[SPEAKER_05]: uh, I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks where there's these big expanses of land of these huge thunderstorms that would roll in and I do remember lightning had a tree once, uh, which was startling in its power.
42:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a scary ass noise.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually seen it like hit something.
42:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you like lightning?
42:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Pretty.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's beautiful.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's something very very beautiful about it and I like the visual of it.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I find it quite interesting, but also it's always really scary.
42:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, and do we have any thoughts on sex dolls?
42:48
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm just kidding, don't answer that one.
42:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Just go read this book, everybody.
42:51
[SPEAKER_05]: You'll get all the sex dusts.
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, well, I think that sex dolls, actually, they absolutely have a place.
42:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to be having sexual contact with a human shaped thing, but you don't have a consenting human available, there is absolutely nothing wrong with turning to that sort of sexual aid.
43:09
[SPEAKER_05]: A guaranteed Deadpool has several issues where there are sex dolls featured in... Oh, probably not.
43:15
[SPEAKER_05]: If not prominent.
43:18
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just, it's kind of an ongoing feature.
43:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, if you were to form an all-women's X team, who would be your go-to characters?
43:26
[SPEAKER_05]: If you got to write your dream team of all female presenting X men, I mean, Sean and I know Megan is on your team.
43:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, probably, but I was was trying not to go first for once.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, it's pretty over there.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: We're making a face because she's actually writing hers.
43:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's going on?
43:41
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
43:43
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm not.
43:44
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that I can I can say.
43:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking.
43:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, who and I want?
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because I I lean more on the you like what I'm doing stuff.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's often more on the Avengers side of of the roster than it is on the expense side.
43:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Um,
43:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like tactically Ms. Marvel come like on and rogue would be amazing.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that would be such a fun care of people to write together such a different life perspectives, but both just goddamn superheroes.
44:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would be awesome actually putting the two of them together.
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, who would be the most fun to write banter for?
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what I was like, absolutely.
44:22
[SPEAKER_05]: In my brain, I always want to go with two or three really obscure characters, because I just want to develop them.
44:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to put a Amelia vote on a team.
44:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, I want to pick like, I loved when they brought tempo into the Marauders.
44:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, I love seeing that slightly, it's like the suicide squad.
44:38
[SPEAKER_05]: They where you see the character that doesn't usually get to focus and take the spotlight, the songbird and Thunderbolts shows up in this category for me, Ashana, who's on your team?
44:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, definitely Emma Frost.
44:49
[SPEAKER_00]: If I'm writing my dream team, I get anyone I want.
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You you can't keep me away from Emma.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Blink.
44:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I. I love Blink.
44:57
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a period of time where the running joke in the folks I knew was that you could tell who was going to die first on any newly introduced team by which character I fixated on.
45:06
[SPEAKER_00]: and in the same vein, Serpentina.
45:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Serpentina from X-Men 2019.
45:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Serpentina.
45:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It would require a little bit of time travel, which is not that big of an ass.
45:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And I refuse to believe that a woman who's super power is flexible bones dies because you snapped her neck.
45:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That is just not working for me.
45:25
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and Anna on Krakawa, they were just kind of open portals.
45:29
[SPEAKER_05]: So there were a lot of characters from 299 that were showing up in this space, the White Hot Group connects everything.
45:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So there you go.
45:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I can find a way to fit them on, even though it's kind of an overdose of telepaths, I want the kukus.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the kukus.
45:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They are my girls.
45:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Excellent choices all.
45:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
45:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's take a journey into what you are working on currently.
45:52
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot happening in 2026.
45:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I know the industry is changing like right under our noses.
45:58
[SPEAKER_05]: There's so much tension and so much joy that remains in storytelling.
46:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Where are you finding your joy as consumers of fiction and comics?
46:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And what are you working on these days that is bringing you joy?
46:12
[SPEAKER_01]: what I am I'm reading a lot of manga right now.
46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that is sort of where I'm navigating on the comic side of things.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I just binge didn't solve the X after school a couple of weeks ago or a couple months ago and it was perfect.
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like sweet, slice of life, bromance, lighthearted, YA just really wonderful, wonderful storytelling.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one of my working on is there's like a new marvel infinity project that I'm not allowed to say more than that on, but I'm really excited about it.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be really fun.
46:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Saw some character designs.
46:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Strange tales has wrapped up now tales with the.
46:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Strange tales with the.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: With it.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Strange tales has wrapped up.
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, that was really fun.
46:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The roof Friday, funny.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just short of one to helping magical animals.
46:56
[SPEAKER_05]: after a house of harkness that was a good time.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, house of harkness is coming out, though, in print, which is really exciting, the summer.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's really fun.
47:06
[SPEAKER_05]: You've seen the Broadway musical six.
47:09
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the the wives of the Henry VIII.
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, I want to, but no, I haven't.
47:14
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a whole musical number where they're the house of harkstun and it's like, oh, so I just have a house of harkstun.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, but it's coming out in print in July, which is awesome.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I have a supernatural book.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Castiel one shot is out in June.
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's out June, I don't remember what day, but that one.
47:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Who is Castiel?
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Castiel is the angel.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: He's my boy.
47:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He's my disaster angel.
47:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I love, I deeply love supernatural.
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I have, I watched it from like 2005 on 15 seasons.
47:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Were you a buffie head, too?
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Not as much.
47:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
47:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've seen all of Bethany and I do love it, but like I was just after.
47:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I came in to the WB with like Dawson's Creed.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Smallville.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
48:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
48:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I love smallville.
48:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yeah, supernatural.
48:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to write Valentine's One day show like one shot.
48:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm doing a castle book, which is very very fun.
48:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that I'm consuming, I am loving the power fantasy by Kieran Gillen.
48:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it is one of the most brilliant deconstructions of how superheroes would actually work that I've ever seen.
48:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Although, you know, Kieran is always a delight.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never read anything by him that I didn't enjoy.
48:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, for reasons, I don't fully understand.
48:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I recently did a full read through of Adam Warren's Empowered.
48:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
48:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, talking about characters in sexy poses and sexy situations.
48:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very easy to look at empowered and think, oh, that's just bondage born.
48:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be, um, Omaha, the cat dancer, but without the funny years.
48:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you read it.
48:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, it is very much dedicated to kind of pin up and cheesecake aesthetic.
48:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But it manages to be less regressive and offensive than the issue we just talked about.
48:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, um,
48:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So that brought me a lot of pleasure surprisingly.
49:00
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of creating, I just had a book come out yesterday when we're recording this called Owens of Chaos.
49:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the first print magic the gathering novel in seven years and I am enjoying writing for magic the gathering.
49:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think more than I have enjoyed working on any other IP, uh, there are guardrails just as tight as there have been anywhere else.
49:19
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not that I get more freedom.
49:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that it's this big, beautiful multiverse with deeply invested fans that most people don't even realize is going on.
49:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you find the continuity difficult to navigate in that world?
49:32
[SPEAKER_00]: not really.
49:33
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know how to check a wiki, you can keep track of the continuity more easily than you can with the X-Men, because it's just a little time travel is not really a sentence.
49:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You hear very often in magic.
49:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we kind of keep that to a minimum.
49:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am having a wonderful, wonderful time there, and then comics wise, I've got a project with boom that's going to be announced later this year, and I also cannot talk about that really.
49:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am genuinely
50:02
[SPEAKER_00]: good time.
50:03
[SPEAKER_05]: So I want my listeners and I brought this up on the show before but I want you to think of the world of acting for a moment.
50:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Someone moves themselves to Hollywood and they think they're very talented and you have to kind of break into the industry but you can't get a part unless you have like a screen actor's guild card but also you can't get the card unless you've had a speaking part and you just have to kind of break your way in and there's a lot of corruption and you finally get the big audition you finally get the big role and maybe it was a fit or maybe it was a flop but regardless you got to get the next role after that and then the one after
50:32
[SPEAKER_05]: that a career is built off of a lifetime of decisions.
50:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And the comics industry is very much that for writers and for artists.
50:39
[SPEAKER_05]: As writers for both of you, keeping that hustle alive and building those relationships and watching the work dry up and then watching it come back in and moving to different studios and launching yourselves into different universes.
50:50
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a hustle and I'm super proud of any times I adhere people who are super talented, finding ways to keep making it work for them.
50:58
[SPEAKER_05]: How is the hustle in 2026 for you both?
51:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very, very tired.
51:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like hustling.
51:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like trying to sell myself to people.
51:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think anyone does, but I find it distressing and I have trouble sometimes not getting very bitter and very angry because there are people whom for reasons of race or gender or just positioning the hustle is a much
51:24
[SPEAKER_00]: more straightforward process and it's hard not to take that personally.
51:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So the hustle is tiring.
51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to keep writing from magic the gathering.
51:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would say tired is is a good word to use.
51:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think what sucks is consistently.
51:49
[SPEAKER_01]: low like it's it's like there's so much cool story and so much exciting stuff to be done, but then it's so hard when you're like I need to work on like six projects at the same time.
52:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's a difference between uh the worries we'd like to have like do they like my work and do they find equality and can I pay my rent?
52:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's the very different realms are both of your D&D players.
52:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
52:12
[SPEAKER_05]: What's your go to race class character type in Dungeons and Dragons?
52:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like Sorcerer.
52:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I've only I played Baldur's Gate for the first time Baldur's Gate 3, which I was very excited about But I've only ever been in one D&D game that I've been playing since that we started in pandemic and I'm a rogue half-fling
52:31
[SPEAKER_01]: which has been really fun but we recently my local kidlet shop here started an author D&D thing which has been really fun where we do it and the kids show up when we play D&D sort of live with them which is really exciting and I'm like trying to oh I'm a mouseling I'm like a mouseling paladin oh my my kid we play my kid is a rat living that's a word I know I hate dungeons and dragons
52:56
[SPEAKER_05]: I learned to open world concept, but we sit down to play.
52:59
[SPEAKER_05]: My husband is an amazing DM.
53:01
[SPEAKER_05]: It's wonderful.
53:02
[SPEAKER_05]: But we'll start combat.
53:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And I will take 30 seconds for my turn, and then we'll take the equivalent of 25 minutes each for their turns, because they have to look up all the spells.
53:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
53:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just like, this is so much math involved.
53:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't prepared for how much math there was going to be.
53:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Sean and the sorcerer role in particular seems very complicated.
53:23
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you love about the sorcerer role?
53:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the flexibility, you know, once you figure out sorcery points and it took me about a year of playing a sorcerer very consistently before it clicked.
53:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But once you figure out sorcery points, you are the most versatile type of castor without being dependent on your GM remembering you the way that wizards are.
53:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I have one wizard, her GM is a great GM, but fairly regularly forgets that I don't get spells unless she puts the spells in the loot that we find.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So, supposedly, the big advantage of wizard is you can learn anything.
53:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can learn anything if you get access to it.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not being given access.
53:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, my sorcerer is over here throwing around acid balls, because she divided fireballs were not exciting enough.
54:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to feel better about the amount of math and D&D, take up magic to gather it.
54:11
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know.
54:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard stories and it's so funny because I'm so interested in the novel, because I think the story.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I would enjoy the story aspect a lot.
54:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the game play might be beyond me.
54:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Next time we're at the same convention, come find me.
54:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll loan you a deck.
54:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You will absolutely hate it, but D&D will seem so much less map oriented afterwards.
54:32
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been giving a lot of thought to my choreography in comics.
54:35
[SPEAKER_05]: lately, characters move sets and help people write them.
54:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Both of you have written magic characters, if we use just the Scarlet Witch as an example, do you use these types of templates when you're writing like fight scenes for these characters?
54:46
[SPEAKER_05]: If it's wander versus agat the hardness, are you putting in like D&D roles or use using spell slots?
54:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Like energy points in your brain as you as you plot that type of choreography?
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: no.
54:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I need this kind of magic to happen.
55:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be using my little pony.
55:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I pose out every single thing I write and have for my entire career.
55:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I have the third largest collection of my little ponies in North America and so they just go through whatever's going on to make sure everyone is still in the places that I need them to be spatially.
55:19
[SPEAKER_05]: What were your toys as kids like 8 to 12 era?
55:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, what were the toys you were obsessed with?
55:24
[SPEAKER_05]: It was, it was he-man in the masters of the universe.
55:26
[SPEAKER_05]: But I was also collecting Shira and the kids at school would tease me and call me gay.
55:32
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, on the playground, because I liked Shira toys, but I mean, it was fair.
55:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, it was a fair read.
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: My little pony, I got my first my little pony and when I was three, four years old, and I never looked back.
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We did my little pony with Barbie, but also teenage mutant Ninja Turtles was a big one because I will, it was like the samurai Leo, and then they had the talking turtles that came with these little strips that went through their shells and when you pulled to the strip through their shell, it sounded like they were speaking, and it was really cool.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So they'd all get played with the end obviously like Spider-Man on all those little action figures.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all like one thing like they were all part of the same play for some reason.
56:18
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a fortnight appeals to the kids because all children have been independently inventing fortnight since the beginning of the past.
56:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I love history and analysis.
56:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Two of my favorite channels that are bringing me a lot of joy these days.
56:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Matt Baum has the sewers of Paris.
56:31
[SPEAKER_05]: If anyone likes to listen to that show, it's also a YouTube channel where he talks about queer representation.
56:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had Matt on the show.
56:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been on his show.
56:37
[SPEAKER_05]: He'd great.
56:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Great history always.
56:39
[SPEAKER_05]: It teaches me a ton about the television I was watching growing up.
56:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I also really love the channel Secret Galaxy, which is someone just kind of going through the intense history of like 80s, cartoons, and products, and it's really brought a lot of light to my childhood.
56:51
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm planning some themed months on my show coming up where I've been looking into things like garbage, pale kids, and like the gross out era of like Nickelodeon slime.
56:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Like there's so many pieces of my childhood that have become so fun to analyze.
57:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, my last question for both of you, and then we'll start to wind down, is there an
57:07
[SPEAKER_05]: epic run of comics or a couple that you think of that are just perfect front to back.
57:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Some people might bring up the watchman.
57:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Some people might bring up the dark phoenix saga.
57:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Ms. Marvel, the launch of Kamala Khan, is a perfect like I put that on my list that the volume one no normal is.
57:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a perfect book.
57:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I think they know it's an Adrian Aldofa is the Elfona.
57:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Elfona.
57:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Elfona.
57:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Excuse me.
57:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sana Aminath as the editor and it's so, it was, it was revolutionary.
57:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so good.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I revisited it now.
57:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I revisited it all the time.
57:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Willow is incredible.
57:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The art is incredible.
57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like every piece of it is so good.
57:45
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say run, I think it has to be a piece of a greater hole.
57:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not going to say like the wicked in the divine.
57:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I truly do think that the wicked in the divine is pretty much perfect.
57:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is a contained series.
57:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's closed.
58:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I would have to go if we want super hero comics, grant Morrison's new X-Men run.
58:05
[SPEAKER_00]: That was to me, pretty much perfect in all ways.
58:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It reworked a lot of things.
58:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It, uh,
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: recontextualized a lot of characters in ways that made them more interesting going forward and more exciting to work with.
58:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If we are not just sticking with superhero comics, I'll go with the first quest in elf quests.
58:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, volume is one through four.
58:25
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a story to tell, they told it beautifully, they executed it magnificently, and they introduced me to the concept of bisexuality, which was very important to me as a teenager, and then they kept going.
58:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I in Xmen runs there's there's a few that come to mind, but they're often a little bit controversial.
58:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I think when you see a writer that has an opportunity to introduce the idea in the team and then take it to kind of full fruition, which so often doesn't happen because
58:53
[SPEAKER_05]: uh, things get canceled or amended or altered along the way or events get put into place.
58:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Recommenders uncanny x-force.
59:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I think is a pretty solid run.
59:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, the Craig Kyle Christopher Yoskron on that like x-force assassinations squad from the early 2000s.
59:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Chris Claremont's the brood saga where it's the the ones where they're lost in space having the the you know, the the outpost with the aliens taking over them.
59:16
[SPEAKER_05]: There's so many excellent stories.
59:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Do any other X-Men books come into mind for either of you as like things that you feel like were very well executed.
59:22
[SPEAKER_00]: The initial Judd Winnick exciles I thought was just absolutely better delightful.
59:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
59:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Very good representation of the concept.
59:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I do feel like exciles kind of lost its way as it went on.
59:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But while it was happening, that short one and done.
59:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it is.
59:38
[SPEAKER_00]: little self-serving because I know I was part of the event, but I truly do wish we had had more than 30 seconds to sit with age of X man and all of the fascinating ways that it reimagined these characters.
59:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Leo Williams did such a magnificent job on that Vita Alaya.
59:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we had all of these opportunities coming out of age of X man and then the second it concluded was like, bam, slate wipe or hicmons here.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I just, I really like that
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I like Age of X-Men.
1:00:05
[SPEAKER_05]: My first interview with you last January made me like Age of X-Men more, like hearing your fondness for it, made me really excited.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, oh, I like this more than I thought.
1:00:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So thank you for that.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You're welcome.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_05]: A preview of the others to show up.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you mentioned it.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The X-Force assassins, I think, is so fun.
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Fun and it's being easy.
1:00:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Excellent spending time with you both.
1:00:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so grateful for for delightful relationships with friends that come back on the show I'd love to have you back again some time.
1:00:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll reach out.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I know you don't get a lot of say on what we review So I always appreciate your willingness to come on.
1:00:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I had Rex Ogle and Andrew Wheeler on for the first time recently and the issue they got Excind was Maddie Blosseteen's power packi terms number one, which is a late 80s book where all the heroes are elephants and they're like this is what we say
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_05]: It's well, he got for it.
1:00:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think the last time I was on it was also a weird issue.
1:00:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I vote next time I come, I want to do like a straw.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I do, I do chronological, but the three is I have like voice actors and that we do wear a little tangential in this guy.
1:01:09
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll give you a good book next.
1:01:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just something with more clothing would be nice.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I truly, when I invited you for this, had not read this issue.
1:01:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to be, not that I wouldn't have still invited you, because I think you both have brilliant things to say on any topic, but yeah, I'm sorry.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's okay, just if you ask me back, please a little bit less porn.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to make this face the whole time, just like,
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no, I, we've had a few of those, but yeah, this was an uncomfortable book.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_05]: If you've read it, you know what we're talking about.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, uh, Preethy and Shannon, wonderful to see you both.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Please let people know where they can find you.
1:01:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And anything specific you want to plug from May 2026, uh, the, uh, Grey Mocking Lane show, uh, you can find most easily.
1:01:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Grey Mocking underscore lane on Instagram.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I have two really fun announcements.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Immediately after this, the next episode is going to feature Miss Marvel number one, a book from the mid-70s, featuring Carol Danvers and Annie Nissente and Paul Jenkins are teeming up with me on that one, which is going to be an incredible time.
1:02:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Paul is currently writing Carol Danvers in the modern book and Annie of course is one of my all-time favorite guests.
1:02:11
[SPEAKER_05]: At the end of the month we're doing the trial of Janet Van Dyne and it made 2026 is the release of my next comic book.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_05]: The graphic memoir adaptation of my memoir game Mormon that is out.
1:02:22
[SPEAKER_05]: The art by Remi Burke is beautiful.
1:02:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I put this book together five years ago.
1:02:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm a big story.
1:02:27
[SPEAKER_05]: streamly proud of it, but having someone else draw my life was a wild journey and we we've had a tremendous opportunity to publish with graphic moondi.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_05]: All of the early reviews that are coming in are stellar and I just got to read the book for the first time, just like this week and it exceeds all of my expectations.
1:02:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't wait for you all to read it.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_05]: It's gameworm and dad.
1:02:45
[SPEAKER_05]: It's available for order on Barnes and Noble and other such sites.
1:02:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll be doing some of the concerts this summer so please watch my show feed for announcements.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can find me mostly on like blue sky and Instagram and Tumblr these days that run with Scissors.
1:02:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned my castle book, which is out in June that's supernatural castle number one and it's from Dynamite.
1:03:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the order cutoff is early May.
1:03:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say.
1:03:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So it might be too late, but hopefully your store has it.
1:03:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then House of Harkness out in print in July.
1:03:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and this as of yet unannounced marble thing, which I think is coming.
1:03:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say sometime the summer.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have this exact date, but I think it's a summer.
1:03:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Can you give us a one word non-descript hint?
1:03:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Marvel has snipers.
1:03:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked.
1:03:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I was like, how's your snipers?
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I did ask.
1:03:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I said to anyone.
1:03:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I'm doing this and can I say, and they were like, you can say that you're doing something.
1:03:42
[SPEAKER_05]: You work to be like yellow.
1:03:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be like, ooh.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Red.
1:03:49
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
1:03:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Watch for it.
1:03:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm hoping that means scarlet because there's a certain character.
1:03:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I love to see you right And over to your shots.
1:03:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Mom, I'm in the middle of a podcast.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
1:04:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so for me is actually one of the few beautiful gaps in my pub schedule this year, and I still don't get to sleep.
1:04:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I will be at the American Library Association convention in Chicago.
1:04:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm going to be there too, yay.
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, neat.
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I.
1:04:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Be gentle.
1:04:15
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
1:04:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, if you found me funny at all or just want to see if I say lesbian porn every two pages for an entire book, I don't, but you, I might, you know, it's like looking for the locked out sponsor, please pick up the copy of Owens of Chaos.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, apart from that, I have no books out in May.
1:04:54
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been spell my name, you can find me everywhere around the internet.
1:04:57
[SPEAKER_05]: It is excellent to see you both.
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for the laughs and the smiles even as we covered some weird content.
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And hey everybody, we are here to celebrate your queerness and your sexuality and your kinkiness and your nerdiness.
1:05:07
[SPEAKER_05]: If you have a sex straw that you want to dress up in Rachel Gray's little red mini skirt, you go to town.
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_05]: This book was a weird one and I regret reading it so it's rarely something I say on my show because I try to love everything I read but yeah this one was a rough journey um it thanks everybody for listening please take care of yourselves uh living joyfully as an active of the defiance in these crazy times stay safe out there we'll see you back here next week on the Grand Walk and Lane podcast.
1:05:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism, as a special guest tonight talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_05]: During the Second World War, German scientists explored a range of advanced and sometimes highly speculative weapons.
1:05:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Among them, a concept that later became known as the Sun Gun.
1:05:54
[SPEAKER_05]: The idea originated with engineers associated with the German rocket program, including those working under Herman Oberth.
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_05]: That's OBERTH, if anyone wants to look him up.
1:06:03
[SPEAKER_05]: He was a pioneer in rocket tree.
1:06:05
[SPEAKER_05]: The proposal, imagine placing a large reflective device in orbit, something like a concave mirror that could concentrate sunlight and direct it toward targets on Earth.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_05]: The concept was rooted in real physics at least in principle, a sufficiently large mirror could reflect and focus solar energy.
1:06:21
[SPEAKER_05]: and early designs imagine structure miles across positioned in space and maneuvered to aim concentrated beams of heat.
1:06:29
[SPEAKER_05]: In theory, such a device might be used to ignite fires, damage infrastructure, or disrupt military positions.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_05]: The plan also assumed the development of orbital platforms and long duration human activity in space.
1:06:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Ideas that were far beyond beyond the technological capabilities of the time.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_05]: In practice, the sungun remained entirely theoretical.
1:06:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Germany did not possess the means to launch or construct such a structure.
1:06:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Nor the materials or energy systems required to operate it.
1:06:57
[SPEAKER_05]: The concept circulated as part of broader research into future weapons and spaceflight, reflecting a willingness among scientists and planners to think far beyond the immediate constraints of wartime engineering.
1:07:10
[SPEAKER_05]: It was one of the many ideas that blurred the line between scientific ambition and speculative fiction.
1:07:15
[SPEAKER_05]: After the war allied forces examined German research facilities and recovered documents related to advanced weapon projects like this orbital mirror.
1:07:25
[SPEAKER_05]: While the sungun was never close to realization, it became a lasting example of how wartime research would stretch into imaginative territory.
1:07:32
[SPEAKER_05]: It also hinted at directions that later space programs would explore in more practical rate, ways even if the original vision remained firmly in the realm of theory.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Now we're going to jump to Captain America 700, one of those giant anniversary issues and we're just talking about one particular story.
1:07:48
[SPEAKER_05]: This is an old Stanley Jack Kirby story that they kind of repurposed that's never been seen before.
1:07:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's, I don't know, they do their best.
1:07:57
[SPEAKER_05]: some makes sense of this old one.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Tads America is fighting the garrishly clad soldiers of the Red Skull in one of Tony Stark's labs.
1:08:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Red Skull has infected a shield agent with a virus that's going to spread unless a cure is found in time, and another agent is using a dangerous experimental gun stolen from shield, and the Red Skull is watching from afar, monitoring his arch nemesis.
1:08:20
[SPEAKER_05]: When a general reports into the scroll, he stabs a knife into a desk.
1:08:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Silence, give me a moment or choose your coffin.
1:08:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I have underestimated the captain for the last time.
1:08:29
[SPEAKER_04]: He respects only strength, only combat very well, send the brawler.
1:08:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Captain America defeats Batrock, the Leaper, and combat, and then learns that the skull's real mission had been to shut down.
1:08:41
[SPEAKER_05]: All-life-modeled decoys around the globe, compromising shield missions.
1:08:45
[SPEAKER_05]: The skull is once again defeated.
1:08:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me welcome my friend Karen Charm to the show.
1:08:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And let's this is perhaps Karen Charm's life model decoy and I just can't tell the difference on camera.
1:08:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Karen, welcome to Grey Mulk and Lane.
1:08:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you a red skull fan, my friend?
1:08:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Not particularly.
1:09:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I do like,
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_03]: the way Jack Kirby draws him in his slouchy jumpsuit.
1:09:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I think like sort of like the the Matt thinker and the red ghost also have the same kind of wardrobe.
1:09:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Driking imagery really great symbol of evil and a great villain generally but I can't say that I've really
1:09:22
[SPEAKER_03]: personally, gravitated to many.
1:09:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think you're probably well aware and maybe listeners are I'm like pretty firmly X men and everything else like larger Marvel fan beyond that, but the captain America stuff and pretty limited on even though you've gotten me to read a bit more than I ever have before in my life.
1:09:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we just bring her together for sure.
1:09:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
1:09:46
[SPEAKER_05]: You recall red skull at any of your X men stories?
1:09:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the one that first comes to mind is the axis when he took Xavier's brain.
1:09:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Trying to think beyond that, I don't really know.
1:10:01
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a few here and there.
1:10:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, there's that a acts of vengeance one with Magneto.
1:10:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Which is actually in a Captain America book, but it's infamous.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Magneto kicks red skulls ass.
1:10:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Karen, before we move on, how would one tell if another were a life model decoy or not?
1:10:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the only true ways to make it explode.
1:10:22
[SPEAKER_03]: It does make me think of the great Reviver song, Reviver as a Pacific Northwest punk band from about 10 or 15 years ago, but they were a song called LMD and it's sort of like relating like sort of,
1:10:37
[SPEAKER_03]: moving through the world like as like a closeted trans person is acting like a life model decoy and sort of like moving beyond that is like sort of attaining your true your true identity.
1:10:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do like of that.
1:10:51
[SPEAKER_05]: I need not to be confused with LCD who is Albert.
1:10:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.
1:10:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I felt the whole thing was pretty fun.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I love this Jack Kirby era.
1:11:04
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to tell exactly when it was drawn, but does feel closer to his Captain America run, which I have read like Captain American Falcon, like all that stuff.
1:11:13
[SPEAKER_03]: When we did the dead ring or episode, I got to and thooze about how much I love the cap annual number four, which some of the elements towards the end of this did remind me of that like the little brain device that Nick Fury has just like.
1:11:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, yeah, that's the kind of mind that would come up with Mr. One and Mr. Two.
1:11:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Mr.
1:11:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Wooden, Mr. Two, go back to the peepers episode of Everybody For More On Those Guys, although I think we're going to be reviewing that comic on my show in the relatively near future.
1:11:42
[SPEAKER_05]: It's in the late 70s and we're kind of firmly sitting around 1977 on Graham Allkin Lane right now, so we'll get there soon.
1:11:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to tell anybody a little about your comics origin story?
1:11:52
[SPEAKER_05]: How you found the X-Men?
1:11:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Who are your characters?
1:11:55
[SPEAKER_05]: What are your eras?
1:11:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, sure, um, so as a kid, I think, um, of a certain age where it was almost like, you know, I came into the world and I was put on a conveyor belt and that took me right into the emergence of the Ninja Turtles as a major cultural force.
1:12:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think from there, like mutants that led me to, it was kind of, I
1:12:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was like, Ninja, teenage Vietnamese Ninja Turtles and baseball cards led me to X-Men and Marvel cards, because they're like mutants, they're trading cards.
1:12:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I fell in love with all of Marvel through the cards and then as sort of like, I could, whatever I could grab my hands on.
1:12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And then that sort of deposited me into a comics reading age right around when the age of apocalypse is kicking off.
1:12:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe a little before, like, Joe Madderera of taking over on Kenny Xman really caught my attention.
1:12:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was sort of my era, 95 up all the way through Grant Morrison, wrapping up New Xman.
1:13:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And that point I was like in high school.
1:13:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was like very sophisticated.
1:13:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, well, this is a
1:13:06
[SPEAKER_03]: a perfect end for the X men.
1:13:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So I shall be to do and move on to other things.
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but in that time, I really loved like pretty much everything.
1:13:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I was fully hooked on all the stuff happening in X men and, um, and, um, I was always kind of tangentially keeping tabs on it like an X partner or something.
1:13:26
[SPEAKER_03]: But like, what are they up to these days?
1:13:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, um, around when, um, Jean Grey
1:13:35
[SPEAKER_03]: This is my cue to come back and start picking up combat skin, which again was for two of this because it was only a few years before House of Ex and Powers of 10, start coming out.
1:13:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got to meet all of you, lovely people in the X-Men, X-Twitter community.
1:13:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Karen is an enormously talented artist, a proud trans human, a queer icon.
1:13:57
[SPEAKER_05]: They have been on street road on my show.
1:13:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I've got multiple prints of theirs on my wall.
1:14:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Including of the stranger and Franklin Richards, and I have a new proposition for you that I'll share with you afterwards That I think is going well.
1:14:07
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll share it with you live on the show.
1:14:08
[SPEAKER_05]: How would you like to do an ant made for by wall?
1:14:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Ooh, that'd be fun.
1:14:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, but I want like Spider-Man number one.
1:14:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Like she's 105 years old at me.
1:14:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Like not yes, goodbye to me
1:14:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I actually just read a Spider-Man number one for the first time in the past month or so because I had never actually read the Ditto stuff says like, well, maybe I'll try it out and I was like, wow, Peter Parker is kind of a horrible burst.
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
1:14:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I'm out.
1:14:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I like leaning hard into Marvel concepts and the origins of things talking about characters like Aunt May and Willie Lumpkin like really make me smile because you know, I love a 60's check and Aunt May is the ultimate 60's check in that she's the first one from the first spider ran unless you count Sue Storm, Sue storms the first one I suppose the official one.
1:14:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, when we're reading X-Men comics, it's really not on me as I've been doing analytical research for the last few years.
1:15:02
[SPEAKER_05]: How much the threat and rise of fascism are kind of the constant undercurrent of threat in the comics.
1:15:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Whether it is deeply religious leaning organizations like the right or the church of humanity or the purifiers, or slightly more well, I should put the right in their own place.
1:15:17
[SPEAKER_05]: or slightly more political organizations like the right or operations, zero tolerance, or just straight up hate groups.
1:15:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Like the friends of humanity, which disguises themselves in certain kinds of ways, to the point where it gets to like, cult level warship at a certain point.
1:15:33
[SPEAKER_05]: All of these are kind of derivatives of the hate.
1:15:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And the red skull and the axisament takes the form of that against mutants with Xavier's brain, which is like the ultimate hate crime went to take the dream and interrupted in that way.
1:15:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you have thoughts on this kind of ever-present threat?
1:15:47
[SPEAKER_05]: The Sentinels, I think, by the way, are the arch nemesis of the expert?
1:15:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think it's what continues to not to say that it's always like 100% politically relevant, but it gives them the grounds to be like, that seed is there.
1:16:05
[SPEAKER_03]: for the proper tending.
1:16:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, and it's what makes them much more interesting to me than some of these superheroes that mostly just go around and stop muggers, which sort of gets in this whole like carceral thinking, whereas mutants, there is the, you can read an underlying liberation sort of drive behind the whole, it's like protecting community and
1:16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, fighting against this, I mean, the classic line world that fears and hates them.
1:16:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's when that hate and fear finds power and becomes the, um, yeah, the force that will just will not let you live.
1:16:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, like we'll not let you be.
1:16:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And as queer friends these days, we certainly know what that looks like in a real world space as we look at history and look at what's happening around us.
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Now I opened in a kind of sillier space today talking about the unrealized idea of the Nazi plot for the sungun.
1:17:07
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what your relationship with silver ages, but if you read old X-Men and Avengers and Daredevil, et cetera, there's always like Iron Man comes in like, oh, I just invented the videos, videos, scary.
1:17:17
[SPEAKER_05]: If I point at this direction, it will show us everything.
1:17:19
[SPEAKER_05]: It's happened in this room in the last three days and you're like, what?
1:17:22
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not the next one, it's just, there's been these weird devices, a Spidey's always coming up with shit.
1:17:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you have any weird relationships with old Marvel tech?
1:17:32
[SPEAKER_05]: We see some reference to this Jack Kirby story today.
1:17:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's all stuff that I love like just the just it's almost like the drawing comes first in a way or it's like the drawing is completely separated from what it's supposed to do, but just like this amazing mass of lines and shadows and there's just like here's what do we need the story to do and
1:17:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I really just love it.
1:17:55
[SPEAKER_03]: It does make me think maybe less 60s, but a bit later on, I love the shroud gun for me.
1:18:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Turnals, I'm not like a really big eternal fan, but just like it's like a weaponized t-shirt cannon, essentially.
1:18:09
[SPEAKER_05]: The first and great, well, not the very first.
1:18:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, the cosmic cube, but then what's the annihilation device?
1:18:16
[SPEAKER_05]: The universal and, oh god, the ultimate
1:18:22
[SPEAKER_05]: lapsed it out of existence.
1:18:23
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like bailfire from the wheel of time.
1:18:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Karen, who are your old-time favorite comic artists?
1:18:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, boy.
1:18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think that Chris Petralo's work has sustained the fires of my soul for a very long time back from when I first started reading way back in 1993, 1995, up until now and he's like his style is continued to evolve and find new ways to be really exciting and fresh.
1:18:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I just bought a whole stack of back issues and a lot of it was 90 stuff with like a I really loved shoot why am I blanking the X for stars Adam Plina and like Jeff Matsuda stuff but more recently I love Pepe LaRaz Federico Vincentini's work and that's what I've been most excited about just this past few days is that he's going to be drawing X
1:19:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you're a very talented artist in your own right, my friend.
1:19:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
1:19:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Please meet my final question.
1:19:22
[SPEAKER_05]: How are you holding up in 2026?
1:19:23
[SPEAKER_05]: These are crazy times.
1:19:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Really, sort of put nose to grindstone.
1:19:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I would, you know, trying to keep making work, keep paying bills, making sure to leave the house when I can and touch base of friends.
1:19:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I really appreciate you extending your hand to me.
1:19:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I have me talk for a little bit with you tonight.
1:19:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to make sure that I don't neglect to shut out a Matthew Wilson who's the colorist of this couple of pages may read.
1:19:53
[SPEAKER_03]: It was really cool to see that more modern style that still fits with the sort of flat late 60s, early 70s, mid 70s kind of thing that Jack and Frank the Inker are laying down.
1:20:08
[SPEAKER_05]: So
1:20:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no, it's very, very well done.
1:20:10
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, everybody, who knows what's happened and in the world, we're recording this in early April, times are crazy.
1:20:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Please take care of yourselves.
1:20:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Living joyfully remains an act of defiance in these crazy times.
1:20:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Karen, it's such a joy to gather with you today.
1:20:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for taking the time.
1:20:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
1:20:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Have a good one.
1:20:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't let the best who's praying you down.
1:20:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And don't let the bed bugs bite.
1:20:29
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back here next week, everybody.
1:20:32
[UNKNOWN]: Bye-bye.
1:20:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
1:20:35
[SPEAKER_05]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
1:20:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
1:20:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Look for us on Patreon, where we are releasing weekly episodes about obscure characters and facts.
1:20:53
[SPEAKER_05]: 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.
1:20:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, the best way you can help
1:21:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimmulkin Lane is by sharing and liking and subscribing but also please leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
1:21:09
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.