Latest / Graymalkin Lane the podcast / Amazing Spider-Man 161-162: And the Nightcrawler Came Prowling, Prowling! Featuring Jason Loo and Andrew Drilon!

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Amazing Spider-Man 161-162: And the Nightcrawler Came Prowling, Prowling! Featuring Jason Loo and Andrew Drilon! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grimmolken Lane podcast where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am thrilled to be joined by two of my very favorite people, Jason Low and Andrew Drill and her hair.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has been way too long since either of you have been here.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so happy we get to hang out today.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got to see both of you in person very recently and was like, oh no, we haven't hung out on the show and forever.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really glad.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is gonna be coming out during a night crawler month.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be reviewing in just a minute, an amazing spider-man 161 and 162.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to presume this was either of your first time reading this.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Prof actually, yes, this is true.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my name.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so this is a fun one.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: This come, this book came out on October, November of 1976, which is not long after night crawlers debut.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the reasons this book is so interesting specifically is the x-men were pretty new at this point.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus are all brand new characters, which means outside of Wolverine showing up in the incredible Hulk initially, Nightcrawlers, the character that gets the first big, like guest arc in another book.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: He has a logo on the cover.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a, this is a big deal.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like a Spider-Man team up, but it's in the main Spider-Man book with Nightcrawlers name right on the top.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me welcome you both to the show.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll have you introduce yourself with your name and pronouns, and I'm going to ask you both the very simple question as we're opening.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do Spider-Man and Nightcrawler have in common?
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fighting this case low e-him of the right of behind a undead iron fist and expenditures.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: The question is, yeah, what do they have in common?
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, they like to climb stuff.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: They like to crawl on walls.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: They do, yes, they have that in common for sure.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's some fun, little moments of them running after each other like squirrels up a telephone pole in this couple of issues.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hi, thank you for having me back on the show, my name is Andrew Drillan, Filipino cartoonist who's based in New York, our test behind Aquaman Yoho Hold on to your hook, kind of cut our comics with my collaborator, Josh Trujillo, bringing back bunker for DC Comics.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: What makes Nik Crawler and Spider-Man similar?
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think they're both very morally centered characters.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Obviously the wall crawling is really cool.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, just to preempt a little bit about my thoughts on this particular crossover, is a really cool precursor to the uncanny Spider-Man series that happened not too long ago.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I think it's really cool to have these characters as both contrast and mirrors of each other.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is an arc during Krakawa where we get the uncanny Spider-Man.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: If any of you read this ice barrier book, it's kind of the conclusion of his couple of year arc on a riding night crawler in different books, but he literally dresses as Spider-Man living as an outlaw, hanging upside down, flip it around, there's a legitimate throughline, and that crawler even used the alias Spider-Man once.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think these two are characters that could get along in a very fun way.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who are some of your favorite characters to see in that color playoff of?
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess the Night Crawler and Kitty Pride.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love your chemistry and an X-Men evolution, the cartoon.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just very awesome high school, platonic relationship that they have.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love it when we have Nightcrawler in Storm in the same room and talking and I also love when he and Cyclops also end up discussing stuff like religion and like bigger themes.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: I always thought Nightcrawler was an interesting conduit to bring sort of a lot of the Catholic overtures of like themes and X-Men into the conversation and like talk about that in contrast to world which is always like bringing with miracles and one of the things just like, you know,
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to hit you with some hot takes.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to see some of your opinions on Nightcrawler as we're jumping into today's story.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you prefer Nightcrawler with Germaine Chardos, Amanda Scepton, or Sarees?
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I don't know.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Andrew is definitely on this, but I can see it.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would say a man was sucked in.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would say anything wrong with it.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel like they have some pretty good chemistry.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really cute.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just in class.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're all like very happy.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did you do a very happy time?
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You just thought they had.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't see anything wrong with that.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nope.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So no one takes it.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, so I have a vague memory of Amanda Sefton, like doing some truly evil stuff.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: We have the mind in way and stuff.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I don't think I can get that out of my head unless, like, I miss remembering.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know if this happened during the war and Ellis run of Excalibur or, but like, I feel like Amanda Sefton's trouble.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when I think of series, I think of how.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's really cool that she brings out the pirate aspect of Kurt's character, you know, swash buckling pirate, except it's like a space pirate type thing.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I have to go with Surrey, I think, as Amanda, you got red flags.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think Kurt prefers Amanda.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a lot of like role play and like games and surprises and intrigue, but with Surrey, she just wants to fuck.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just like, let's go.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, right now.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of that energy.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now watch for a series episode over on the Patreon.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: All the characters that we're exploring this month are Nightcrawler adjacent, including two big ones.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Siries and Margarley Shardos will be over on that channel this month.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're also doing one on the race of BAMFs, which is...
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And check Austin's rejoining me for Azazos.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew, do you prefer a night crawler who can vamp short distances and only places that he can see?
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you prefer when they amp him up and he can teleport from New York to Cairo Egypt with one big vamp?
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I prefer the short distance stuff.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think the character is like a really good example of one that improvises really well.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: And that's more exciting on the page when they have limitations put on them.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I would say short distance, circus acrobatic, Kurt, this my preference.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I agree, and that's more challenge for the hero, adding more stroke over him to get from point A to B.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also, you'll find out later on this issue when you use this teleportation, where it kind of weakens him, it makes him a bit more exhausted.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jason, that crawler as a priest, or as a supervillain.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I guess both friends are the way as a priest and I know he would be a good priest.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like any other priest on the news.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has a very, he's a good moral compass.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You haven't heard as a good guy is someone that you would want on your side.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is a good one.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely agree with Jason.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think my crawler has priest is so interesting and my only wishes like they pushed it further and like exported more because I feel like we've been teased a lot but they never go like all the way with it.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, it sounds like your latest boyfriend Andrew.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like that crawler as a priest.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it, I don't like when, I don't know.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's certain commitments that that requires for the character that take about of the superhero for me a little bit.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like him dabbling in the priesthood.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like a daredevil comic, right?
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where he's like feeling guilt, but also fucking every girl.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's something great about that balance.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't like Mike Kurt as a supervillain, but I love when they give us like an evil alternate Kurt, like the age of apocalypse Kurt coming over for a while was really fun for a night crawler as, these are not stories that have happened yet, but would you rather see him as the headmaster of a class at an Xavier school or the leader of the star jambers?
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, star jammers 100% like like pirate him up.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's let's see.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's see.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Ash Buckling, I think it'll be super fun with him and he was a headmaster and a priest at the religious Xavier school.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: So that's one of the threads.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: I wish had been more explored.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: I got really excited recently during the Krakowat era when Kurt said that he wanted to start a new religion like a mutant religion.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I just thought it was such an interesting idea.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like what would that be?
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: And they kind of did it with spark and stuff, but it felt like it was halfway in the door, like not religion, it's religion, it's not religion, it's a way of living that type of thing.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think, you know, star jammer leader Kurt would be really interesting.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Anything where he's in the leader role really and can like bring his quick wit and also his adorable foolishness to the for you know.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I already know Jason's going to choose Star Jammers.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, they're probably being jealous of Kurt being the leader of the Star Jammers, maybe.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I'd see Kurt being like a really nice leader that everyone would respect.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, you know, like Kurt, a more mature Kurt, maybe 10 years later, like I think you'd make a great teacher.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: That would be kind of sweet to see him as a headmaster.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're noticing the vibes already.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We, with these little conversations start to shake things out, right?
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: We like a superhero nightcrawler.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We like him wrestling with heroism and ethics.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We like him swash, buckling and romansing and like having fun with his teammates.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are the nightcrawler stories that you dislike?
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because this character is often the hard and soul, right?
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: He gets betrayed.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: He gets his literal hope pulled out of him by his mother in a story during Cricoa.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, finds all the kids nailed to crosses in the front lawn at the Xavier mansion and loses his faith in God for a while, right?
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: These kinds of stories are a little rougher.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we're gonna talk all about the drink of what John Goston over on the Patreon, I promise.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: I would name the Austin Azazal like the Draco that whole story arc is it confused me a lot and I felt like there's some stuff with Nightcrawler like the BAMS and stuff which I still don't fully understand like I can't square the way in my head a bit so I think that type of stuff where it's like trying to make more Nightcrawlers
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: like a race of night crawlers or like night crawler brothers and sisters, secret uncovering of like more family members.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think he's really interesting.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a character on his own.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: You know what I mean?
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Just a visual of him and I feel like multiplying it too much dilutes it.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: So like, I really like the demon with a gold heart, like a scary looking character who actually is the kindest sweetest, most moral person you could meet.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: I prefer that type of story to like, yeah, the crazy night crawler family stuff.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have a little crush on night crawler.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think of, I'm like a lot of people, you know, who love Kurt?
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: You know, he's, he's a fuzzy elf.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's a horrible one.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I haven't read every Nightcrawler story.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I've, I think I've curated my reading where I've read.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, the story, just stories I've read.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've, I've pretty much enjoyed Nightcrawler's involvement.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to like this to just piggyback off of Andrew with the truck Austin's as a result story.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's something that I haven't dive into, but only like just kind of skim through and passing.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like that's something that I would not be crazy about.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, we've had conversations in other places about Nightcrawler's crazy continuity.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their retcons that make up his origin, his parented, particularly the asasel stuff.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, those are confirmation conversations in had in other places.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: But do you like a messy continuity story for Nightcrawler?
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: For example, Jason, do you remember Nightcrawler's alternate daughter from another reality Nocturn who joined the exiles and her mom's the Scarlet Witch?
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Things get messy in the X-Men very quickly.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah!
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember reading that back if he didn't have to figure out where, how did she up to?
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what was she in Krikoa?
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or is this something that they've kind of forgotten or just kind of like swept under the rug now?
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's not really around.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: We haven't seen her in a while, but she still exists on this six months.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: She still exists.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew, do you remember that time that Nightcrawler died because Bastion's hand mandatory realized to his chest and then he went to like a mutant heaven where he had adventures as a pirate but then his dad is a little like shared his essence with some demons who took the form of BAMPS and Nightcrawler traded his soul in order to return to Earth but the BAMPS made up his physical body like it's a bunch of BAMPS that just combined together like
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: like like a weird I don't know what what do we call that like a reverse I don't think it's much as fun just stack it up and make it like it's like eight raccoons in a trench coat do you remember that I do I do so that story if I'm correct was drawn by Ed McInnis yeah
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: and written by Jason Aeron.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it was like a flagship story.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think it was relaunched in a number one or something like that.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like the story was trying to just bring him back in a really cool classic way.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I appreciate that about the story.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: But holy crap, it totally leaned into all the wackiest, craziest bits of history.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really admire how Jason Aeron kind of just leaned into those things and found the way to bring the character back into continuity.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: But I'm not a fan of those elements.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Last summer, I did the trial of Colossus on my show and I formed a whole bunch of conversations about Colossus to help make sense of this character and he was a little bit of the challenge for me.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nightcrawler was easy for me.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's messy, but he's easy.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's he's he's storied and complex and complicated, but I really enjoy him.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So at the issue we're about to review, Nightcrawler was not well established yet.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've never met his parents.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Amanda Sefton has not had the big revelation yet.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We barely know what his powers and personality are.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's been the playful kind of heartfelt guy on the X-Men.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jean Grey has just come back as the Phoenix in the books.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they've gone to Ireland and fought Black Tom and Juggernaut.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is very, very new for this character.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a really fun two-part story arc that involves some continuity that's not directly related.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So some of the parts will cover quickly, but God reading Old Spider-Man comics is really fun.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was delightful to put these together again.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Len Ween is the writer and the editor on this book with Ross Andrew on pencils, Mike Esposito on Inks, Gladys Wing on Colors and Erpwitonna Beyond Letters.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a cover here that is really
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good, it's aerodynamic, it's Spider-Man and Mike Crawler fighting over a Ferris wheel.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, Knight Crawler has a history with carnivals.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've heard him talk about that a little bit in the Claremont books at this point.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the battle you demanded is everyone's favorite web slinger struggles for his very life against Knight Crawler.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if that isn't enough trouble, the Punisher's gunning for Spidey II.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew, what are your thoughts on Ross Andrew's pencil on this cover?
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is a Gilcane cover, actually, now that I'm looking at it.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a Gilcane cover.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts on this cover, Andrew?
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I thought it was fantastic.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really love the perspective of it.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's very retiginous.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: It gives a really good sense of scale and height.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I love that the characters are front and center.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then you see kind of displayed out.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: Once you see them both, your eye just kind of wanders out and sees just the epicness of the scene.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I know we're dealing with street-related level characters here.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it's not like cosmic worlds like exploding against each other.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: Anything like that.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: But still being able to make something like this dramatic and still legible.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think it's a really well done cover and I see that it's not only drawn by Gil Kayn I think it's ink by John Romita.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not sure if it's junior or senior probably senior, right?
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's John Romita the fourth.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kidding
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, and I love the logo of Nightcrawler here.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love that Nightcrawler gets his own logo.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so cool to have these characters Push up against each other and I can imagine we're all very familiar with him now as a character design But I can imagine when this first hit the new stands Maybe many people weren't familiar with Nightcrawler and he looked like a new Spider-Man villain
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he looks like a supervillain at the look.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here gives like white light blending down into darker light.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now night crawler is not the first character at Marvel named night crawler.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a demon character that fought Dr.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Strange that's been introduced.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We, I consider doing a Patreon on that guy because it'd be the night crawler, you know, conversation.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did write that profile over on the Marvel appendix for those that might want to go take a look, however.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: The perspective on the cover where we get to the far right and the like cars, the Ferris wheel cars, like the perspective shifts.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really smartly drawn.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: As we open up this book, Metcrawler is reading the news paper.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's upside-down, which is excellent.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: The title of the story and the nightcrawler came prowling, prowling.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we get a second nightcrawler logo inside that is all black letters covered in like a purple hue.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Metcrawler is hanging upside down in the danger room in the middle of the X-Men's training session, which is crazy to me.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're all working out and going around.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Metcrawler's reading a newspaper suspended upside down.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And on the front cover, you kind of don't notice it at first because there's a picture of Spider-Man, but off to the side, there's a little thing that says third sniper victim.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: That crawler has seen news that an old friend of his from the circus, we don't know much about him, that it has been killed in a murder and he's quite distressed.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jason, do you want to talk about the X-Men's workout routine?
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there is a cool hoops hung on ropes to the ceiling.
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some ladders on the side.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a trampoline lockers.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This does not look like the danger room.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just looks like a high school gym.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's the fault of the artist.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wolverine on the trampoline is hilarious and often it's Kurt that's playing pranks on Wolverine but Wolverine gets this playful side like this side that we see with more from the cartoons Wolverine's jumping up and down on that crawler's reading the paper and Wolverine jumps up high and cuts the rope on the who the who the that crawler's been hanging from and
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Necroler is usually pretty playful, but this time he's upset.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, he just read that his friend is died.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he's pretty pissed at Wolverine.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wolverine goes, so now, dear Abby sets you a howling, huh?
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I tell you, Ms.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fit, you've been hanging upside down for so long.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think all the blood is rushing to your bushy little head.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here, let me help you down, and Necroler, like that is not funny.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is mad.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did we get my favorite panel in the entire story, which is Wolverine just got laughing.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is all to my favorite panel.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we've been through a space.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was about the spell.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: So this panel has vibes of like classic mad magazine.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: You've got a rare panel of like Wolverine just his face is broken out into like a wide laughing grin and can't you take a joke?
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it just it's so incongruous to how I see Wolverine in the modern bay.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it's actually so refreshing to see him so happy.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: He, it's, it's so out of character for him.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost bizarre.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can't you take a joke?
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he says, by now, I should.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've been working with one long enough.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Nightcrawler's still there.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to do a German accent today, everybody.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because all my German accents just sound like the red skull on my show now.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's, I don't want you to hear that when we're talking about Nightcrawler.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: For those of you that have been listening to the red skull chats,
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Night crawler needs to, he's going to pick a fight with Wolverine, but Colossus is there to break it up.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then Night crawler rushes out to get some air on his own.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: The atmosphere in this gymnasium has suddenly become stifling, he says, and he wants to go outside.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, most of our issue is spent at a fairground, and there's a lot of really dynamic events happening.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love a lot of the angles.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you two love a fair, like, like, you want to go to Coney Island?
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is this a place that you would enjoy?
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've got to go to a Coney Island, but I like every year I go to the Canadian National Exhibition, which is just like Coney Island, but only for for one month in the summer.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, what do you like about a fair?
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I, well, definitely the rides, even though the rides that they set up at
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: the exhibition are very temporary.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, they, they're not permanent fixtures.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the safety is questionable.
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they can well function, which as more thrill to the experience.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Part of my interview was found in McGuire earlier this month in January is discussing her growing up on the Fairgrounds like her dad would put the machines together and take him apart.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a conversation about this.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's really scare me actually for that reason and also I think it's the machine grease smell I'm very Tacked as not right.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very old factory.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I suppose like when there's like an off smell I'm like oh, and I don't I don't like that like engine the smell that runs all the rides and you're what do you love about a fair?
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Definitely the right like Jason.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love that it's just one of those like human experiences where pretty much if you go there everyone's there to have fun You're all like going around seeking thrills.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: You're all taking selfies pictures.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: You're all leading junk food.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: You know, it's a it's a place for fun And it's a it's a it's a wild place too.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a sense of thrilling danger like
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think one of my favorite things is being like right at the top of the roller coaster just about just as your stomach sinks because it's about to like drop down like I love that feeling of like you know anticipation just as something awesome about to happen I hate it
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really like to what I was 20, but I'm much too old now.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now we go over to Spider-Man.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm the Peter Parker in this next section.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary Jane, who is fun loving, decides to take Peter, who's an old stick in the mud, on a rollercoaster.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But his spidey spent senses going off at the same time, and he is not having fun.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: When they get off, and this is problematic, but it's meant to be playful, I fully understand.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary Jane says, that wasn't so bad.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: He says, yeah, not now that my knees have stopped knocking.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: She says, do you want to go again, then tiger?
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, you want a fat lip, Ms. Watson?
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I don't love this humor, but I do understand it was just meaning to be funny.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't love it, though.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary Jane's like, no, it's a matter of fact, I don't want a fat lip.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go get a hotdog instead.
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: which is a reasonable alternative to those Peter.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always cracks me up whenever we see a superhero holding a hot dog up to their mouth.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We get, you know, Peter Parker give it having his Jennifer Coolidge moment here.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wants this hot dog real bad and then a gun goes off.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a sniper on the loose who shoots a man on the rollercoaster.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a man of color and he gets knocked
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: off the side and everybody's just having a good time, but luckily Peter Parker is there to find him.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Nightcrawler is waiting in the shadows.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: The man who was killed that he saw in the paper was a guy named Eric Hoffman, an old friend from his carnival days, and now it's too late.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: But oh, there's a gunshot going off, and we're meant to believe that this is the punisher who's firing these shots.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, it's a super villain.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna talk about the super villain in a minute, but this is the sniper.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then drops his rifle, and Nightcrawler decides to go after him as he's trying to retrieve the rifle, Spider-Man assumes Nightcrawler is the super villain, and Nightcrawler similarly assumes that Spider-Man was the one that dropped the gun.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we get our classic superhero fight, which we need of course, whenever two heroes meet for the first time.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of like lunges and throes, not real flippy flips yet, but a spotty he uses his webbing to catch curbs tail on against the wall.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's the punch against the wall and then webbing the tail to the wall, which isn't pretty smart.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was surprised like Kurt doesn't use his teleportation as much to get out of that subsidiary.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we'll find out later why he reserves that power.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to give the revelation now?
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, mainly because like he gets exhausted too much by using it.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: When he uses his powers and short bursts, it makes him wear out.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the cops are pulling in and Kurt's trying to keep the gun away from Spider-Man.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's an image of them running side by side along a Ferris wheel.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's really...
• 22:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love that image.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's like one of the best shots in this book.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Just because the way the page is broken down, you have these vertical sweeps down from panel one to panel two.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then panel three is just this arc of the Ferris wheel from the bottom of the panel to the top.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: And following that arc you see Spiderman running up and Kurt running up ahead of him.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it's just it's beautiful page structure.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: It leads you right back up to the top of the page So you can get to panel four on the top right and then go back down and follow the gun as it falls As they fight and I think it's just right an example I know like back then this was probably drawn really quickly, but the storytelling is impeccable
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nightcrawler is recognizing that Spider-Man is not this supervillain, so he teleports away, and Spider-Man's like, well, the hell we get a moment where he goes, he just disappeared in a puff of fire and brimstone.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh man, I've tangled with vulture, rhinos, jackals, and scorpions among others, but full fledged demons.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cops have their guns drawn, and a spidey has to flip away as fast as possible.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: While Knight Crawlier is going to pursue the sniper, but he also realizes that Spider-Man has taken pictures of him.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is Peter Parker's gig, right?
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the X-Men have secret lives and Professor X did not approve this vision, so we're gonna have some problems.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But Andrew, do you want to tell us about the interchange with Spider-Man at the Daily Bugle with Robbie and Yoda?
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to spend a lot of time here, but there's some cute moments.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: Spider-Man comes in a Robbie's working late at night and Spider-Man comes in and they talk about who's really behind the killings.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: Spider-Man's trying to get intel from Robbie and Robbie says that his sources say that it looks like the work of the Punisher, but none of the victims have any criminal record and they kind of established that Punisher tends to not kill innocence.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: He tends to just, you know.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: And so they also talk about Nightcrawler and Robbie does not know who Nightcrawler.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: As fireman describes it to him.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it's interesting because during this exchange, we kind of have like one of like the long arc season arc plots.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: He rear its head as Jay Jonah Jameson peeks in through the door and sees them speaking and assume some kind of shenanigans are going on.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it kind of leads him to a secret drawer where he's keeping a cash of like incriminating photos Spider-Man.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: But find out in the next issue through believer.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is the story where it looks like Spider-Man is killing Peter Parker, who's dressed as Spider-Man, but this is the story where Spider-Man's killing his clone.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody go over and check out my friend Scott Freeze podcast, The Clone Conspiracy.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a Ben Riley reference at a wider story.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jason, are you a Punisher fan?
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: sort of in a way.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was.
• 25:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I told his his logo got this used law enforcement.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about the skull face logo specifically.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like sure there's only he's only been around for like less than 10 appearances at this point.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: He first showed up in 1974 an amazing Spider-Man 129.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is like his seventh and eighth appearance in these issues.
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I was a kid, I was a big G.I.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Joe fan and G.I.
• 26:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Joe being published through Marvel comics and then seeing a stripper here with the gun, that was like a gateway for me to get back more into Marvel.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: What was through Punisher?
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was a few Punisher books when I was like nine.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's some marks I really like, but this is a man with a giant skull on his chest, shooting guns in combat and killing criminals.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now the book goes out of the way to let you know that he is not murdering anyone who doesn't deserve it.
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that if he ever murdered someone innocent, he would turn himself right in, but this is Marvel's version of rainbow, right?
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a really jarring with the skull on his chest.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a really jarring image that we have Spidey versus Metcrawler round two.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of us is in New Yorker friends.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't the other two.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't know.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: So they need on the Roosevelt Island tramway, which this described in the story as newly built.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: Speaking as a New Yorker, the first time I wrote that tramway I was in awe, because it goes over the East River and shows a really majestic view of the city.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I thought it was just a cool little like a place to set a big superhero fight where you have two very nimble agile characters.
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: just going at each other sky high next to a giant bridge.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: So a net crawler and spider man meet each other up there and swing and tumble through the railway.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: As the tramway is sort of like traveling underneath them, they are trading punches and blows.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: uh walking on the high wire as they they fight each other and in the middle of their very tense and crazy fight uh suddenly shots are fired and we see riding uh one of the tramways uh Punisher leaning out with a gun pointed at both of them and that's kind of like the cliffhanger ending to the first issue.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really epic.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a really fun moment where they're running along the machine and Spidey hits Nightcrawler with some webbing.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nightcrawler shows the problem with something like your webbing, my friend, is that it has two ends, and thus it is sometimes difficult to tell who's controlling it.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he yanks it.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nightcrawler knocks Spidey's grip off.
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we also get the image of Nightcrawler at the end fully holding himself up on the wire with his tail wrapped around it.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the prehensyl tail is something they're still kind of working out.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we continue into issue 162, where we have night crawlers still hanging from the wire and Spider-Man on the cover with Punisher on top of a trample of very concerned citizens as the Punisher points two guns at night crawler and Spider-Man.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: These, like all the faces in the window and like the little cable car underneath is really funny to me.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, these are the movie extras who just get paid to like, oh no!
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: for like four days while like they CGI Spider-Man over them in the movie later, right?
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're all after the sniper, but at this point Spider-Man and Nightcrawler think that the Punisher is the sniper and he's trying to after the sniper, so they're having a fight.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're calling him murderer.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are kicking him through the car and dangering civilians very clearly as they try to disarm him.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: there's kind of a little silly superhero fight.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Punisher gets to pin Spidey to the wall once with a couple of daggers that like hit the cloth of his shoulders.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very clear that it's not in his shoulders himself.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, the Punisher has live grenades not, I don't know, live.
• 29:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: The pin hasn't been pulled.
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: The grenade strapped to his very chest, which is intense as well.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the sniper starts firing again.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Knight Crowler teleports away, but this time he needs a rest.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is worn himself out.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: He crawls inside of a little rivet, like a bird and a little tail, and takes a little nap at the girl a little while, as Spider-Man and Punisher realized they're after the same kind of thing.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we follow some leads.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We get some punishable war journal moments where he likes to write in his like Vietnam diary on the side whenever he's adventuring in this era.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we get an incredible interchange with Mary Jane at the as campus of Empire State University.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mary Jane retaliates after Peter Parker ditches her to take some photos during your day.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so M.J. is hanging out with the flash Thompson on the campus lawn making Peter Parker jealous and basically says, well, you know, if you have it whenever you have the time, like you have my number, and she walks off with the flash Thompson and Peter then sees to join the Jamison enter the campus.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's there for his own business as he goes to meet a doctor, Marla Madison, who is an Electoral Biologist.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he gives her a proposition, asking her to help destroy the wall crawling menis called Spider-Man.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's going to build a new spider slayer.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like Marla Madison actually.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jay Jonah Jameson later marries this character.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're married in the comics for quite a long time before she dies and then she comes back.
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew, I assume you and I both have friends that do drag.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: How would you describe Marla Madison's hair if it were a wig?
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: It looks like a very stiff wig.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: It has very clearly defined slopes on both sides.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: It looks like it was made in a mold.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: So, but it's quite striking silhouette.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have to say, very sharp, very iconic.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, she could definitely work the runway.
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's like giving nerd, there needs to be a big reveal under this look.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to work very well.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to go back to the Mary Jane moment for just a minute.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spider-Man was a funny study on the roller coaster, and then he kind of ditched her to go off and be a hero, right?
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now she's flirting with Flash Thompson, she's in all white looking incredible.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's these like pants with like gold buttons up the sides of the hips and like her midrifice exposed and this like gorgeous white top.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's all in white like holding a flower, and you know, Peter and Flash have a complicated relationship.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when Peter walks in, he goes, Hi Mary Jane, Flash.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing besides getting grass stains on your clothes and flesh says we're commuting with nature, Pete, you know, soaking up the rays of the glorious sun and such and marrogens like, look, you told me not to be so possessive.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So here I am.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, ah, they walk away arm and arm.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love this scene so very much.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary Jane, you can get it every time.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Spider-Man gets the phone call by the Punisher, in a pay phone, like they set it up in advance.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: This feels very non- Punisher to me.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: As they go to track down the lead, we're gonna skip through a little bit here.
• 32:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a fight with some weird criminals, and then we finally get the big reveal of the supervillain.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is also the first appearance of Jigsaw.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, this character is a lot.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: So Jigsaw is a classic mutilated face villain in the style of like an old-time like the Dick Tracy type villain he explains that his origin is basically that he was a punk that when Punisher wiped out a gang sometime in the past he knocked this person through a plate glass window thus this figure
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: his face horribly.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: He is called Jigsaw because his face literally looks like it was put together like a Jigsaw puzzle.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are scars that run all the way from his forehead down to his lips.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: It looks quite horrific, especially in an only just Spider-Man comics.
• 33:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then we also, like we have this horrible face on top of the worst supervillain costume of all time.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jason, do you want to tell us about Jigsaw's suit?
• 33:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's terrible.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's yellow and lilac purple it looks he's got like this neck brace a purple neck brace with the shoulders straps it's it's a yellow track suit pretty much with metallic purple boots it's it's an odd choice it's a choice
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this character, I don't like when they do disfigurement stories as like a supervillain origin.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so ugly now.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have no choice to be evil.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's never a through line that I like, but Jigsaw was a shitty person before.
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was a criminal before he became this monster.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And his goal here is I'm going to kill innocents to frame the Punisher, right?
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a bad dude.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jigsaw is not a character that I am fond of, but he is kind of funny.
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: He always just, he's one of those characters that just exists to be cocked, but he wants to cock Punisher instead.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the cut of the energy of this guy.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's also got a little gang of supervillains who were just wearing purple and gold and like have these weird dollar store masks that they got from like party city or something.
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Jigsaw is here.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spider-Man has been chained up hanging from the ceiling in a position that you may find a gay man in the eagle if she go at the right time.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew's position looks familiar.
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's pretty bondage vibes.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's awkward.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Knight-Crawler is back.
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's been following the Punisher because he wants revenge for his friend's death.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Jason, do you want to tell us about the big superhero fight at the end?
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spidey's in chains.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jigsaws got his high-powered gun and Knight-Crawler's here to save the day.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Punisher's had another advantage point.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's shooting down the lilac goons of jigsaw as Spider-Man Chained up he's seeing Nikrawler and and and Punisher fighting in the scene and the spitey just wants to join in the fight and he breaks out of those chains Get a flex moment.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how flex it goes spink spang sping
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the Tussle, all three heroes, Tussle with the lilac guns, as Jigsaw runs to a fire truck tries to make his get away, Jigsaw whenever he's getting defeated is like so surprised.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I already committed full amount as to lure the punish of acting in New York just so I could have my revenge.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: The punish I has to die, he has to, he's either his life, a mine, and this is a fire engine, but it's painted like the prettiest salmon pink you've ever seen.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jigsaw gets a hose, he gets the fire hose, it gets the blast, despite off the top of the engine.
• 35:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, the water pressure's almost unbelievable.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mess line.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: This all basically concludes with Jigsaw getting wrapped up in his own hose, because everything malfunction and the truck collapses or crashes into the wall.
• 36:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: They tie him up in the hose and just leave him there for the police.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: never a great thing, that crawler figures, okay, everything's done and he just gets to tell a poor home and Peter Parker's like, what the hell is my life?
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: God damn it.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: This whole team of is something I would not have expected, but you know, it's Jigsaw's first appearance and it's all three of their first encounters.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a weird caring, but I mean, it works.
• 36:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of fun.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I love that it's like predominantly a spider-man story.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: You can feel it in the tone in the way it's all choreographed, but I love that Len Wien really takes the effort to more for mutate the story here and there to make, for example, when we were introduced to Kurt, we see the danger room sequence and this banter with the X-Men.
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: So it feels like an X-Men comic for the few pages.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: At a whenever we meet Punisher and Seas perspective, the captions call out Punisher's War Journal and have him in his Grim and Gritty tone.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I really admire the effort to kind of bring in not just the characters from like a plot fight fight visual standpoint but also the tone that they carry with them even if like at the end the final fight for example they have to make sure that Punisher calls out that he's using non lethal rubber bullets and like gas because this is a Spider-Man comic and he's not going to be killing people here.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: crazy to think this is 1975 and the punishers already killing people, you know, because it's the post-Vietnam generation, which is there's a wider conversation.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: My show has been taking these little journeys as we do the academic panels every month about like what existed in the 70s.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We've we've delved into black exploitation and second wave feminism and you know Wolverine and Punisher cut from the same cloth in that it's like the Vietnam vets back from the war with PTSD
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: to meet the, you know, unjust world, Captain America comics are shifting, like, more racial diversity being shown, and then we have Knight Crawler.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do we learn about Knight Crawler in this story as his point of first solo outing?
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the most attention this character has had to this point, and it's not an X-Men comic.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the X-Men comic, he's part of the ensemble, but in this area, he gets, we get a lot of his private thoughts, some of his history referenced, and we show a lot of what his capabilities are on the big stage.
• 38:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a big moment for this character.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm actually surprised by how much I feel he's still so under-baked compared to the night crawler I know.
• 38:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like a someone who's read so much night crawler since, you know, sat with all those wonderful Kremont moments and, you know, all the little bits about, you know, religion and the pirate stuff and like all these things, I feel like they're not, those things are present in this early version of night crawler and I still feel like he's still kind of baking as a character.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: which is interesting to see, but I do like that the main elements are there of him being kind of a moral character who's trying to do his best, who looks terrifying, but tries to do good despite it.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he looks very dynamic and to be in a title, like a flagship title, like Spider-Man, to show the readers like that.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here's a new dynamic character that just is exciting.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go read the X-Men true believers.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It goes to show like he's a character that has the potential to be very popular.
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a ton of joy to be had in reading comics, which is one of the counters to this crazy world.
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's 2025.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Life is nuts out there, but it is fun to talk about superhero stories, right?
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have these kind of shifting themes, the idea of punish for being the character that uses violence against the criminals.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a certain part we can empathize with, but then you look at Jigsaw's, the darker version of that is the sniper and you're like, oh no, no, no, that's not okay.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The best part of this two issues is simply Wolverine's gut laugh in the gym.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's my favorite part of everything.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then anything Mary Jane Watson does here.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: She can do no wrong in my opinion.
• 40:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do we have any concluding thoughts?
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you guys doing in 2025?
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are superheroes here, oh stories, feeling for you these days?
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: I just want to call out Ross Andrews Art and how well he renders multiple different types of superheroes like in the same page and I also remember him doing the first major DC Marvel crossover when Superman Spider-Man and I recently this just this week read Morrisson's Batman Deadpool crossover and I'm just having a blast as a comics fan.
• 40:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: feel like, you know, it's been such a year of like wonderful things to read.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: So more than ever, I feel there's so many wonderful things to read.
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm just grateful I get to be a reader and also someone who contributes to, you know, all the entertainment coming out today.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I got to say, I love Ross Andrew's design of Gigsdoll.
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I got to give him credit for making his scars look very consistent through most of the panels.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's looking at his, like, the detail kind of reminds me of, I don't know, early Mignola in a way, despite just, just a line work, just the stitch, the stitching, it looks so cool.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how am I doing?
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, hanging in there, comics is is a great way to escape from from reality.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, there's just so much out there to keep track of and to get lost and enjoy the thrilling adventures.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You two are so happy you're supposed to wonder for people.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me just say like hanging out with you just makes me smile.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: I mean the world the world is crazy, but at least comics are good, you know.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, all comics.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not all is good, but this was fun, this was a really fun one.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we could have really leaned hard into the Punisher Jigsaw theme, but I really wanted to keep this focused on just our friend Kurt Wagner.
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Character, I'm very fond of the next episode coming out immediately after this is going to be the trial of Knight Crawler.
• 42:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So everybody stay tuned next week.
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have a huge academic panel.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be delightful.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I promise.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And by the time the show ends this month, you're going to have a lot of thoughts on this character that maybe you didn't realize.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to delve deep into the simplicity of what makes this character work.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, this is the messy messy continuity along the way.
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is wonderful.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm just grateful to be here.
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for having me always a pleasure to be on this podcast.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so fun.
• 42:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: I want to say Jason, it's really nice hanging out with you.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I have a secret story where I actually met you.
• 42:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: You were at my first Marvel panel at New York Comic Con, sitting next to me when they announced your Infinity Pause book.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, this is the guy, this is the guy, and I was just like, ooh, congratulations, you know, we were all wearing masks back then, but yeah, it was so cool and I'm so happy for you and so excited to see all the stuff you've been doing lately.
• 42:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thank you.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm just happy to be in this very fun, wholesome group grouping that we have here with you and Andrew and Chad.
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And to be talking about this issue with these three cool, very different superheroes that crawler punish her in Spider-Man, like I feel a lot to be reviewing these two issues with you guys in this episode.
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jason, I would love to talk to you a little bit about your current work on Age of Revelation.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: After your epic adventures with Dazzler, it's been fun to see your name pop up in places like where we'll fly night and currently in the new X Vendiers book, which is giving everyone the Danny Moon Star story that they've been waiting for forever, and about working in the current X office.
• 43:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: How you doing?
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: The idea came mainly from, you know, we, I was out to summit and Jed was laying out the ground where it goes up to a very rough outline of what he sees this new future was going to be, X years later, where the world is affected by the X virus.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we have,
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Doug has revelation, the mutant dictator, and we need Danny, we need Sam, we need Roberto, we need to bring this new mutant reunion in this far future, and see how that's going to gel, but they would be an opposite ends, and we have Danny Moonsarhu, who is the leader of the Avengers, and this is a different iteration of the Avengers, because
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: the only surviving Avengers, the only surviving members in this team are all mutants, because if you've been contacted by the X virus, you're either dead or become a mutant, so we have Hawkeye as Hawkeye with six arms, we have
• 44:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're giving us like monster versions.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's how it tells about your shung to your particular.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's so interesting.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's a firmly a man of precision, a man, a master of controlling himself being the human weapon.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now anything he touches can just break into glass.
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he needs to constantly control his his pressure points, just constantly control himself.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So anything he touches does not break.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: The, like all these Avengers are people that are just falling apart and Danny Milingstar is the one that's trying to bring them up and show that their, their still valuable members and the Avengers, she, she is the Ted last of the team.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tell us about variable man as well.
• 45:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was a fun version of this character.
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Scott Lang, what is, uh, the member they got the short end of the, the stick.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: He looks very quasi-moto.
• 45:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: he is able to change your shape of any part of his body, but the thing is he can't get back to his regular state.
• 45:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's always going to look no form in some way.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's going to have an arm that's bigger than the other arm or just definitely not the status quo Scott laying that we used to know.
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Jason, what's a technology?
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, that's what Warlock and his race are.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: This technology virus that has now been implemented revolutions territory, as part of like a communication system in that territory, but we find out in the initial number one that it later evolves with the X virus and it becomes a variant that becomes hostile to the mutant.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So no one is safe from this X virus variant.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Earlier this month on the show, everyone will have heard an interview I did with Shana McGuire where we got to talk about her work on the amazing net crawler during the age of X man event.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's these odd little pocket X man events that kind of all lumped together right there's they just kind of live in the brain this age of revelation has been kind of a fruitful odd little playing ground everything feels kind of disparate it's like a mosaic that doesn't quite fit together, but
• 47:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: interesting version.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really taking it story by story though, and I always love adjacent low book and how much thought you put into how you want to portray your characters.
• 47:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm assuming I will be cheering for my husband Cannonball right through the end of the series.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's gonna be fine.
• 47:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew, tell everybody a little bit what you've been working on over this last year.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been fun to see your name popping up in other places, although it needs to be in more Marvel books in my opinion.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: So, this is the year I actually started doing my first series for DC Comics.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Prior to this year, I had only been doing a lot of short stories, but they put in a faith in me to work on one.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm doing Aquaman Yoho Hold on to your hook, which is a DC universe exclusive weekly series that stars Jackson Hyde.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: as Aquaman, along with Haweya and Dolphin, and a whole host of DC characters that we've reinterpreted for a crazy wild, swash-buckling pirate world.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: I've gotten the pleasure to redesign all of them, as well as mainstays like Superman, Harley Quinn, Poison, IV, Zatana,
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm so excited because I recently got to do an episode, bringing back a classic 1982 character from Aquaman number one called Quispe, who is a fifth-dimensional imp and just like Mr. McSupplyx and Batmai.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: I got to bring in all these,
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: Awesome, like Looney Tunes, super cartoony influences.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I kid you not guys, every panel I draw him in a different style, in a different cartoony crazy wild way.
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm so proud, and I hope you guys check it out on DC Universe Infinite.
• 48:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's all over the world.
• 48:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I recently reread, this was for my netcrawly research.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was an arc in Marvel Comics Presents in the early 90s, where Arcade built a bunch of robots that are based off of the Looney Tunes.
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, holy shit.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's always awesome to bring in those.
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like comics is at its best when you have a lot of, like, just the positions between different styles and flavors.
• 49:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I really love it when we get to really lean into that and show just how wild and awesome things can live together, you know?
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I adore you both.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so happy to see you both.
• 49:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: The follow the show at Grimalk and Underscorland on Instagram, everyone.
• 49:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Check out the Patreon.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The theme for February is going to be Voodoo.
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're leaving it all around Brother Voodoo, and I get to step into a whole area of the world.
• 49:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea.
• 49:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've got some incredible interviews and guests lined up here and on the Patreon.
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So please watch out for those.
• 49:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where can people find both of you?
• 49:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anything specific you want to plug for January 2026?
• 49:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're recording this in November, everyone, and there's this kind of general sense of like,
• 49:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: find me at Jason Lennon makes comics on Instagram and you can also find me on Blue Sky.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, for me you can find me on Instagram at Andrew Drillon and also you can find me on YouTube where I do a lot of instructional videos and live streams where I'm just trying.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hope to see you guys online.
• 50:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is excellent to see you both.
• 50:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's excellent to spend time with you.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you everyone for listening.
• 50:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go read this nightcrawler story.
• 50:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of fun and we'll bring you some smiles.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you all back here.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: As a special guest and I talked about a red skull story and it's modern applications.
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chase Jane Nielsen.
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: A US Army Air Force's navigator from Utah was one of the 80 airmen selected by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Jimmy DuLittle for the first American offensive strike on the Japanese Hall Islands during World War II.
• 50:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their mission later known as the DuLittle raid was conceived in early 1942 as a direct response to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• 50:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nielson already trained as an navigator on B-25 Mitchell Bombers, volunteered for what was described only as a highly dangerous secret operation.
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: After intensive training at Eggland Field in Florida, focusing on unusually short take-offs low altitude flying and overwatering navigation, the cruise board of the aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, in April 1942.
• 51:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: with the unprecedented task of launching medium bombers from a carrier deck.
• 51:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: On April 18th, 1942, Nielsen served as a navigator on plain number six, piloted by Lieutenant William Farrow.
• 51:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: The 16 bombers launched earlier than planned after the American task force was detected by Japanese picketboats, reducing the cruise chance of reaching safe landing zones in China.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nielsen successfully guided their aircraft to Japan.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: where they dropped in sendieries on industrial targets in Tokyo, with fuel nearly as gut exhausted after the long flight, the crew continued westward in an attempt to reach Anakupai Chinese territory.
• 51:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: They instead ran short of fuel and were forced to bail out over Japanese controlled areas, near non-Chang.
• 51:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nielsen survived the parachute landing, but was immediately captured by Japanese forces.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nielsen and seven other captured raiders were held as prisoners of war under extremely harsh conditions, subjected to repeated interrogations and malnutrition.
• 51:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: In October 1942, the Japanese military conducted a formal trial, accusing them of war crimes for bombing civilian area areas, though the airmen had targeted military and industrial sites.
• 52:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Three raiders, Farrell, Hallmark and Spats, were executed, and Nielsen, along with the other surviving prisoners, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 52:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: The group endured solitary confinement, disease, and physical deterioration.
• 52:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: When Wilson remained in prison for 40 months, much of it in near-total isolation, until Japan's surrender on August 1945 led to their liberation by allied occupation forces.
• 52:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: After returning to the United States, Wilson continued serving in the Air Force and later provided testimony about his experience as both a radar and a prisoner, his perspective emphasized the profound cost of the mission, the strategic success of the due little raid in boosting American morale, enforcing Japan to divert defenses, contrast of the severe personal consequences for those who are captured.
• 52:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Historically, Nielsen became one of the best documented voices among the Raiders, offering first-hand accounts of the training, the raid, the capture, and the long captivity that followed, helping ensure that the full human story of the due-little Raiders were preserved.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he was my mother's first cousin.
• 52:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now let's talk about Captain America annual 2001.
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: In the present, Captain America was summoned to the White House by President Bush to discuss a pending threat.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: We flashback to World War II, where the invaders go after a Japanese submarine, looking for the Japanese Sea Floor Defense Plans.
• 53:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're looking for the Japanese seafloor defense plans, but on a nearby submarine, Red Skull is commanding a group of Nazis with Julia Kahnig or warrior women there, and despite Germany's slowly losing the war, as the Red Skull states, due to the deaf heroes incompetent incompetence.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: They are instructed to capture Neymor and find the hidden location of Atlantis, but the captured Captain America instead, Cap is beaten, chained, hung upside down, the Red Skull calls in some cameras, and plans to have warrior women beat him to death on camera for the German public.
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The German people spirit will be renewed when they see America's great avatar rendered helpless by the Nazi soldiers, and when they watch his death killed by a woman, the superiority of a people would be proven again.
• 53:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine what would happen to the American people when they see film of their cherished son and defender begging for his life, and then warrior women whip scape bloody until he's unconscious.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: While he's in his prison cell, FDR considers having to sacrifice America's best asset.
• 54:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a captured Russian woman named Karina Rose, and cap helps her escape, and he
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hitler's vision for the future is the blackest one imaginable.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wants to decide who lives and who dies, who's worthy and who isn't.
• 54:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've dedicated my life to making sure that vision doesn't come to pass.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: When we get back into the present, we get to see that Captain America learns that his actions that day ended up saving the lives of many American soldiers, including that of President Bush himself.
• 54:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me welcome Tom O'Connor to the show.
• 54:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me welcome Tom O'Connor to the show.
• 54:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tom, are you a red skull fan, my friend?
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not at all.
• 54:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh man, I mean, God, like clearly reasons, but like, you know, these days when fascism is just sort of very real and on the rise, if not fully hear, you're already like, how do you expect me to feel about it?
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you a Captain America fan?
• 54:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: I haven't been, typically.
• 54:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: There was the run that Rickerman wondered, dimension z, all that.
• 55:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, with Adam Sola.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I think Sharon was a big part of that, too, right?
• 55:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I know how we feel about generally feel about recommenders work in Marvel, but you know, at the time, like, I was, like, actually really like a lot of remainder stuff if I'm honest.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like, I'm kidding, x4.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like a lot, right?
• 55:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: So through that, I was like, you know, maybe he has a good take on caps.
• 55:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I checked that out, all that to say, that was a cool run.
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: And more at my alley with it being so, like, sci-fi, but, like, other than that, like, cap is nice.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: World War II is such a seminal time in American history, it's affected so many people and you know so much of our modern media, our comic books and everything we've ever read or consumed or experienced in culture has been kind of based on what changed in our parents lives at the time right the boomers came out of all this.
• 55:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any connection in your own family history to World War II?
• 55:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not terribly.
• 55:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: My parents are pretty young and they had me.
• 55:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I think there was just sort of a little bit out of their purview.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like my dad's dad fought in like the Korean war and even then he didn't really talk about it at all.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm just also, although I am a history teacher like military history and like war and stuff is like not my bag completely.
• 56:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 56:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: As a teacher in 2025 alone, how are you doing my friend?
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and as a parent, I mean, we do what I have some things in common.
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh man, it's tough out there.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, because we also live in a very sort of sensitive era, you have to be mindful about what you say, regardless.
• 56:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, as a teacher, I need to be like pretty neutral, and like, you know, sort of where my, you know, political fallings lie, but it's so hard for me not to like make a face or like, you know, take on a tone.
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: What if a student, you know, goes back to their parents and like, oh, do do do do do do do do.
• 56:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then you know some whole like mess comes up like it's tough dude.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
• 56:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, as a therapist, I've been chatting with some folks lately about like how our field is shifting very directly like where we draw the line has to be different than where it used to be because I draw the line at hate speech, but now hate speech is shifting right the divide is different.
• 57:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I heard a commentary in interview recently where someone talked about this is the most formative time in American history since World War, excuse me, since the Civil War, like democracy or the concepts of democracy are under attack like never before, and I think that's a fair comparison.
• 57:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, incredibly apt.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'd like to ask you a question.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know why, I struggle so much with how do people just not see what's happening, how are people being okay, how are people okay with this, how are people even being non-compliance.
• 57:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like to think that I'm fighting my fight through teaching, so I feel like I'm laying seeds.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: They'll take a while for that to bear fruit, but I don't have enough
• 57:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't have a whole lot of time energy to go to a protest to do all these other things.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I think in the fight needs to be fought on many ends.
• 57:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I love that you're doing all these like fascism talks here.
• 57:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's your way of fighting the grid fight, you know.
• 57:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wear different hats.
• 57:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a dad.
• 57:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a therapist.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a civilian.
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a gay man.
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a show host.
• 58:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just really important for me to speak truth.
• 58:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I spend a lot of my life like living very quietly.
• 58:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just, I'm not great at like not sharing my truth these days.
• 58:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I hear you, and what a time now more than ever to let those truths out, you know.
• 58:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that takes us to the story you're talking about planning seeds.
• 58:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Captain America annual 2001 shows Steve Rogers trying to do the right thing, and he ends up captured, tortured, hung upside down, and then filmed, but he ends up doing some things heroically that end up having a long-term impact on a lot of lives, including that of George W. Bush, apparently.
• 58:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: George H. W. Bush.
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: uh... what were your thoughts on on cap's journey through this story and uh... did you like for a moment oh my god will worry room and has that like sort of appeal i felt like this is the first time ever read anything with her in it um... she has a appeal that like we talked about in our unit show episode with demand uh... we're like she's tough she's evil and we should hate her but there's something like i i could see like uh... magnified like read this story or anything
• 58:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: with her in it like two, three decades ago and I was much younger that like you know little gay boy Tom would have like had full some draw maybe not like on her side because she is evil but like you know like to see such a tough woman like beat this shit out of Captain America granted who is you know restrained hung up upside down
• 59:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: already, like, not doing well.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I struggled with, like, you know, seeing, like, oh, okay.
• 59:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: She would, I think, you know, younger me would have been captivated by her, you know, even though disagreeing with her.
• 59:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, this story and in the context of what we got going on today, the annual came out, like, 25-ish years ago.
• 59:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it takes on a whole different context.
• 59:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this annual, I'll see the amount of 2001, which is 9-11.
• 59:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this can't have.
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like a month this came out and story would have to develop after that incident.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's not informed by that.
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: But it's also, I don't know.
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: What I'm trying to say is that like is after the fact this story is like very interesting contextually.
• 59:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: How can you do it in 2025?
• 59:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I kind of already asked, but just check it and it's not an easy time to get by.
• 59:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, as I've told you before, I've deleted the Instagram app off my phone.
• 59:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just, and I don't watch a whole lot of news these days.
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because I try to watch sort of more local news, like what's going on, and I live in Massachusetts, so what's going on more in my community, and they address things that are going on nationally, and internationally, to be so barrage to pay all this horrific stuff that's going down.
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: like it hurts, it hurts my soul, it hurts my mental state, it hurts, and just about every level I can measure, you know.
• 1:00:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's exhausting, and there's a lot going on.
• 1:00:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, one of my mantras is that living joyfully is an act of defiance, you know, getting through the day.
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, like hibernating is helpful sometimes, but like getting out and fighting is helpful sometimes, too.
• 1:00:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that path is for each of us, we got to figure it out on our own way, and we got to figure out where we draw those lines as we adapt to the craziness around us,
• 1:00:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now, I hope you and yours are doing okay too.
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, we're doing our best.
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: My job makes it tough.
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in, like, in the thick of it, working with vulnerable populations here, but I'm tired.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, we're getting mine.
• 1:00:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're getting mine.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's, I mean, the news is full of stories about billing in our pedophiles.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm doing my best.
• 1:01:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's called, but can't even, like, ooh, yeah.
• 1:01:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, my friend, it's great to see you.
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for hanging out any time in all ways.
• 1:01:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And stay tuned, everybody.
• 1:01:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll be back next time with another Red School chat.
• 1:01:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, Chad.
• 1:01:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
• 1:01:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
• 1:01:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: 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.
• 1:01:33
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• 1:01:39
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• 1:01:45
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• 1:01:47
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• 1:01:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.