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Bonus Patreon Release: Shinobi Shaw! With Alyssa Wong! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Green Mulk and Lane Patreon channel, where I get to join with creators and mega fans and talk about characters that don't often get the focus that they could or should or deserve.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would deserve an interesting word when we talk about a character like Shinobi Shah, but we're doing the Pride Month special this month on this show so we get to do this.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: at LGBT, it character each week.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is Shionobi Shah, who I consider bisexuals.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're putting him into that chaotic bisexual category.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Although we will let his recent creator Alyssa Wong determine that.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I suppose, the most recent writer of Shodobisha, what a genuine honor and joy to have a listen here with me today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alyssa, you may know from their work on so many incredible titles.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Most recently, the incredible book, Saila.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a pleasure to have Alyssa on the show a few months back, talking about that with Leah.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alyssa, welcome back to Graham, welcome late in this morning.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hello, hello, thanks for having me.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: How are you in June 2025?
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a crazy time in our country.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is a crazy time.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm exhausted.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's probably the best way to put it.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But one way that I've been battling my exhaustion has been making things for my friends.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I've been going to a lot of conventions.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Recently went to a Star Wars convention.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And people keep giving me these beaded bracelets, like the Taylor Swift style, keep beaded bracelets.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so,
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I realized that I have too many put on one arm so I had to wear them on both arms at the convention so I was like I want to make some for my friends and that's been a really nice chill kind of activity that I can do well thinking about story or even just thinking about nothing which has been fantastic.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: that is a wonderful thing.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I always have like a story bringing in the back of my brain somewhere.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when I'm walking, that's when, some people say they get inspiration in the shower, but when I'm walking, you're doing something mindless, my brain is always working on some sort of details.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a therapist by trade, so I have to turn that part of my brain off when I'm doing therapy because otherwise,
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a good vision when I'm focused on other people, but when I'm playing games with the kids or whatever, I'm like, oh, I got to go right this down.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hang on, I'll be right back.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know what that feeling is like.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a crazy time these days.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I keep talking about in therapy sessions the art of dissociation.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: How we are all just surviving by pretending things are fine.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, that's what we're doing our best to get by.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And here we are.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love the term, the art of dissociation that is very real and so it's in this combination I think of looking at the world and thinking I have to get things done and I have to be on it I have to help my friends I have to organize I have to but also you have to rest like not just your body but also your mind so sometimes you just got his own and you know make bracelets or take a walk and think about story
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like that's what they want.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: They want us to dissociate and shut down.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So creating, even the show, writing stories, promoting, pushing people forward, giving narrative to things.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think is an active defiance in an odd way.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll see how that gets redefined in the coming years.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's so important to not lose our joy, even though we got to just lay down and rest some times.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're absolutely right.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's been an intense, it's been a intense time, it's been a lot of fun and so sometimes for me I think about the work that I do I think I'm just out here writing my silly little stories what you know what am I doing but something that I've been really touched about is that people will sometimes come to me and say you're working it's everything to me you're working
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: got this really beautiful letter from someone saying your work saved my life.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was very intense.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a huge honor and very intense.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think about the kind of impact that these stories have outside of myself sometimes.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's never planned that way.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: because a lot of the time for me, these stories are also from people like an active survival.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I write about the things I'm thinking about both consciously and subconsciously.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a fun puzzle to figure out a story, but also everything that you've been thinking about, everything that's been building your brain.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just avenue to build that out and to explore it through people who are not you.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've had that same experience, I wrote a memoir and I produced a couple of other works and I've had people who've read my book who've reached out like the super help to say my life like that's a humbling thing.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lee and I were both at the uncanny experience last year and I think it was super nervous about interacting with a lot of X-Men fans.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a super X-Men convention and I I got to know her pretty well through the show already, but we hung out in person that day and I watched several people walk over and talk about like how much X-Factor meant and how much representation meant and you leave just kind of melts at a little bit.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I walked over and I was like, I know you were nervous to come here, but I hope the feeling you're leading with is like you're still going to be having these experiences like 40 years from now.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's still going to be people walking up and saying that book that you wrote about those queer characters gave me hope.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was it's the same for you.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're putting so much representation and storytelling in.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting though, this subconscious of storytelling.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: At this point, when this comes out, I just put out a one-page story for Pride Month.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: My friend Seth Martell, and I drew a little story about the character Gray Malkin from the X-Men.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I wrote a little one-pager about he and his boyfriend deciding like the mutant affairs are too complicated and they moved to subterrania.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, we are accustomed to the shadow.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is where we thrive.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am going to go to a new place and build a new space and we're going to live down here.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's this cute little story and when I finished I was like, oh my god, everyone's leaving the country and everyone's going somewhere else Like I didn't even realize what I was channeling when I was writing this little tiny thing I'm sure you have moments like that all the time in your writing where something works itself out through your characters Well, absolutely.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I was thinking about themes in my writing and one thing I've discovered that I write a lot is Angry 15 year old girls, and I shot it
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think that in actuality, something that I find myself writing about is people who are afraid to connect with other people because they're scared of themselves.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you see that in Deadpool, you see that in dialogue, you see that in Dr. Afra.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just really in
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: tense, but intriguing thing that I'm always thinking about.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, why are we scared of ourselves?
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are the stories that people have told us and why we should that why we should be afraid of ourselves?
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And how true are those stories?
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that I found myself writing about a lot is
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're often like a sort of angel and devil on your shoulder characters.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I lots of great example because she has great crow who's like, I believe in you, you can be the person that you want to be.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Keep off told you you're just a weapon, but you're so much more than that.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know that you can be the person that you dream of, rather than the person that you're afraid of.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then Shinobi Shaw, on the other hand, is like, I don't know, I think it's great that you kill people.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's hot.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's exciting.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why are you scared of that?
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a theme I noticed in your writing, though, Alyssa.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if we're just talking deadpool in siloque, and I'll just use these two, although I think this theme moves into your other books as well, both of these characters are complicated.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're they're crazy assassins, right?
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like they've got a lot going on.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't done pulls more crazy.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's siloque.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: When they get home to their romantic partner, be it Valentine or Greg Crow, they both just kind of get to shut off.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to be anything for anybody and they're finally themselves.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm watching that theme, and I think that's such a beautiful thing.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, my show's named after the concept of found family, right?
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the ability to just exhale sometimes is so important.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could talk like this for the whole hour, but I'm going to upstairs in the direction of Shinovi Shaw for just a minute.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is 1991 and everything is changing at Marvel Comics.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the era where Chris Claremont is leaving the books.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Xman Volume 2 got launched, so it's blue and gold.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And all the teams, except for Excalibur, got kind of shuffled around, right?
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Peter David, who just passed, Reston Peace Peter, brought in all new characters into X-Factor.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have Professor X returning to the X-Men in a prominent way to kind of match the cartoon energy that was getting ready to happen around that time as well.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, it's interesting because we saw a lot of the old guard returning to previous places.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in the character of Shinobi Shaw, we have the opposite.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we first meet Shinobi, he's taking out the old guard.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is wiping out his dad.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's the character of privilege.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: His dad is Sebastian Shaw, the colonialist, the horribly racist.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's the guy within the mutants that's turning on the mutants for profit, right?
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's a...
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: there's an uncomfortable industrialism to this character, but he's kind of magical as a super villain at the same time.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi is not a character we've ever seen before, but as he comes in he's like, dad, you're out of this.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to cover the first appearance quickly, and then let's talk about your connection to this character.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We first make Shinobi an X-Factor 67.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is right when the mirralin saga is wrapping up.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Baby cables just been said into the future.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Old cable is now leading the new mutants, changing them into X-Force, right?
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like everything's shifting in this new kind of MTV generation.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And right there, we see Sebastian Shaw in his Swiss Shaleigh, learning someone has bought his company out from underneath him.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who could do such a thing?
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in Mach Shinobi, saying that would be me pops Shinobi.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: For as often as you see me, I'm surprised you remember your own son's name.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi is in a green trench coat with a pop collar, black tie, white shirt, blue vest, cinched pants that the waist ankles the flare out in the middle.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: How could you do this to me, Shinobi?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've taken the life blood from my very veins.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have any idea what you've done?
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: My companies were not solely a means of capital gain.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were the legitimate front-eye employed in my worldwide covert mutant operations.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, more.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was born to dirt, and I struggled to gold.
• 9:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my life, I've sought a position of power and stature.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you've taken that from me.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You presumptuous, arrogant, upstart.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Remember that word at a minute?
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would sooner see you dead than lose all I've worked toward.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he punches Chernobyl.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, Sebastian's powers, or he absorbs kinetic energy, turns it into physical strength.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: He throws Chernobyl into the furniture.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: He takes him by the throw and squeezes,
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But surprise, Shinobi has mutant powers, and his dad doesn't know.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: He says, I can control mine, molecular, good lord.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: My molecular density.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he can do all kinds of things with this.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: He can peek into the girl's showers room.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: He can take a crowbar to the chin.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: He can also induce massive coronary seizures.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And those are all direct lines of dialogue.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's demonstrating what he can do with his powers.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: He drives his hand into Sebastian's chest.
• 10:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: His father cries out in pain.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jeez, that must hurt.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of which, do you think this is my power?
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much more like my uncle, Leeland's, that you're not my real daddy.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Remember that for later as well.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk all about that, kid, actually.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian says, I'll kill you for this.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I rather doubt that Dario, he blows up the entire building, his clothes are blown off in the wreckage over Sebastian's corpse, Shinobi Shaw stands naked and says, by the way, Dad, you're fired.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is an introduction to a character that I am not sure has ever been quite as magical as that very first time, but he is a ton of fun.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alyssa, where were you in 1991?
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what are your thoughts?
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: The introduction of Shinobi Shaw.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh god, I can't, I feel like I shouldn't say where I was in 1991, which makes it sound like I was in jail, but um I was 13, uh, it was not a good year for me.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh no.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know, being 13 is so hard.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: When?
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember one month this came out?
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I could look it up.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so curious.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I desperately want to know because I think Deadpool was possibly also 1991.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think Deadpool was 89, but I'll check that out.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my bad.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it says it was released in April 1991.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK. And are you talking Deadpool's first appearance or are you talking Deadpool number one?
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually curious about both.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Deadpool's first appearance, I think, the new mutants number 98 in December 1990.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: The number Deadpool number one, the first single issue, was in 93.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is going to date me for sure.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't alive yet, so I was still, I guess, fetal to non-feetal, but what that, I mean, but I'm sorry, but what that means is that Shinobi and I don't exactly share a birthday, but it's pretty close, which I kind of love, honestly.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on this first appearance?
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: This kind of overthrow of his father through murder and explosion.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He stands there naked while taunting his dad,
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's perfect.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's flawless.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's an incredible intro.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Also, I hate Sebastian Shaw.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it makes me, it makes me very happy.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so dramatic.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so showy.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: My editor Darren Shen says, when I was talking about sidewalk and about lot and about emotion with my editor, one of the things he said was, think mellow drama.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't think of anything more melodramatic than rolling up on your dad by his company out from under his feet and exploding his house while talking to him naked.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean that's pretty, that's pretty great.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: By the way, Dad, I'm a mutant and also are you by a real dad?
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, that's so many bombshells.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I adore, I adore Shinobi.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited to talk about this character.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is it about Sebastian Shaw that you hate?
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what's not to hate?
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's yeah, there's so many things to hate.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so I came in to, I think I encountered Shinobi for the first time, while reading Jerry Duggins Verrotters, which is an energetic low key hilarious, which by the way picks up on this initial line of dialogue about maybe Harry Leland is my real dad.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: No one's ever mentioned that again before Jerry Duggin brought that back.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so good.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love Marauders.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that I think it was like he was having Shinobi and Sebastian were having God like breakfast or just having a conversation and I think Sebastian's like, are you gonna kill me?
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And Shinobi's like, I haven't decided yet.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I love I love this son.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's perfect.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why do I hate Sebastian?
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's not to hate about Sebastian?
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's such an asshole.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't love him murdering.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Was it kiddie pride of Marauders?
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he killed Kitty and tossed her off the boat, yep.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her friend is, I was like... And then she got her Killshod, knuckle tattoos.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love her so much.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I also love Emma.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: But also, let's talk really quickly about the whole, like...
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the big thing is like...
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I also hate it because he's racist as hell.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, let's talk about the whole, like...
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had a half-daphony son and I named him the Japanese word for Ninja.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, are you kidding me?
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bro!
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bro!
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Come on!
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ninja Shaw.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was gonna bring up Shidovi Shaw as a name.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It certainly sticks in your brain, but yeah, as a as like a white colonialist naming his half Japanese child Shidovi.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy to be it is crazy Like Shidovi Shaw isn't a great name.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, is it a horrendous name?
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one thing we don't know about this character.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've never learned who his mother is.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think his mother must be a Japanese woman.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Harry Leeland also a mutant dies with Nimrod and Sebastian's left to raise Shinobi.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we don't exactly know what the complex origins of these characters are or how it all connects.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But at some point, Sebastian got his hands on Shinobi.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, the word shock kind of means like thick it or woodland it's got kind of these old American feels because you know shot descents from I don't know slave traders and colonialists and then Shinobi so like the the ninja woodland
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: not me.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's wild.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a wild name.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a wild name.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Had the marble trading cards as a teenager and on the Shinobi Shah card, if you read the power section and if you remember I work on the handbooks years later, so I like file all this stuff away.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Under his power section, it said that Shinobi had the power to control his molecular density.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I read it as molecular destiny.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember as a kid, there's a teenager.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would bother me.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember for weeks and weeks being like, what the fuck does that mean?
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your molecular destiny.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was until I was preparing for the show that I remembered that.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, it's density.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: That makes way more sense.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember texting my editor as I was writing, I'm trying to remember what script it was.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was writing this dialogue script where he shows up first time and I was like, I have this crazy idea, but I don't know if they're gonna let me do it, so I'd written so much like really clean, really fun, bright stuff, in general, for Marvel.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Including, I was writing alligator Loki, which is all ages.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, can I cut a guy in half with Shinobi like his body and my editor was like, ah, um, good question, write it and we'll find out.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then let me get away with it.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: This guy who lunges at him with a knife and he moves his molecular density around.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where is destiny?
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where is destiny?
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: The guy falls halfway through him and then he changes his density again to just cut the dude in half, which I am so surprised that let me get away with
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that is beautiful.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really interesting for me when I stack up similar power sets.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: If I put, you know, Gene and Emma and Kenan and Betsy all together, how does their telepathy work differently?
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's always an interesting game for me to play.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we do phasing characters, kitty phases and disrupts electronics.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you know the character, Loa, she phases and whatever she passes through like discord braids behind her, right?
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, the character Neophyte from the accolades.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: When he phases, he'll pop in one place and then like superspeed to the other place where he's exiting.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi has the phasing, but he also has the density control.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, he can make things heavier or kind of snap things in half in that way, which is interesting as a counter to Sebastian's powers already.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an impressive power set when it's used correctly.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love it.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's so much fun stuff you can do.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to write more, more Shinobi.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love, I love that man.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi shows up in uncanny X-Men 281 through 283.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's in a, quote, luxurious penthouse apartment.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is where the first time of many sitting in a speedo on a red chair in a hot tub, and next to him is Trevor Fitzroy, who is so queer-coated, as well, although he gives major insel from the future energy.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a real character.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: New Trevor Fitzroy is wearing all pink and white.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also, there's a Butler serving them oysters and snails.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're surrounded by gorgeous women in bikinis.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: and gorgeous men and speedos.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a whole crowd of them, and Shaw comments on how, quote, a king must not allow his energy level to diminish.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fitzgerald wants him to join the upstarts, and Shinobi offers some of his father's sentinals, because he has access to the company now and his dad was making sentinals.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Fitzgerald is like, no, actually, I have a bunch of sentinals from the future already.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And those sentinals are sent to wipe out the rivers and Donald Pierce
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And these are the sentals that end up killing the hellians and putting Emma Frost into a coma.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a whole story here.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, when, uh, fifth story says I have sentemals, Shinobi goes, yes, but they're smaller than mine.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remind you that I've already eliminated my own father in accordance with our master plan.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Sebastian Shaw was worth 50 times his weight in Revers.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we learned these men are part of a group called the Up Starts.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And basically, it's kind of a rich spoiled board society of like mutant airs, if you will, who are just kind of creating chaos and murdering people for like metaphorical points that serve no purpose.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, Judd McKay recently brought the Up Starts back under Fitzgerald's command.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now they're murdering people for profit on YouTube, basically under Fitzgerald's.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was perfect back then.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just this kind of patch of really awful people.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And uh, everything is being run or tallyed by a character named The Games Master, who's one of those mysterious telepaths.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's an omnipathy seems to exist on kind of an uh, an overall kind of global level as an astral being.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a few of these really strange characters that I want to sort out when I tell stories.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've got a lot of telepath and astral played ideas
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Shinobi Shah comes back in 282 with Fitzroy, who has knocked Emma into a coma.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also brings back the severed head of Donald Pierce, and he drops them into Shinobi's bedroom to show what he's done.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was no reason to drip motor oil all over my very expensive satin sheets such Shinobi.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then Fitzroy pulls out a knife and cuts the upstart ring off of Shinobi's finger.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And a story that doesn't kind of really play out.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: We jumped a 283, Fitzgera goes after the X-Men, but Shinobi's agents capture him and put power blockers on him.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi's in very tight pants.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's trying to show off his ass for sure.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he laments that he might have bled to death if his sentinels hadn't reattached his finger.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and then he tells Fitzgera that the game's master has shut him down, then Shinobi blows up Fitzgera's building.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: This isn't over yet, boy, it's very that energy.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the rivalry between these two is kind of the storyline that launches the upstarts, which is a group that goes on to include some really terrible characters, including the Fenris twins, Fabian Cortez, the like wormwood to Magneto in Avalon, and Sienna Blaze, who is the chaotic, kind of captain planet fracking the ecosystem super villain, just a terrible group of people all around,
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the last member is Greg and Creed, who is the Donald Trump, like child of Saber Tooth and Mistique, that ran for president, just a truly abhorrible group of people.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on this upstart light up?
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel we're being like there's so much worse and current upstarts.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they actually genuinely are.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's such a, it's such a gross and despicable group of villains that I think it's immediately compelling because you want to see these dudes eat shit.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, in 1999, there's a note that says the Upstart's were founded as an escapist fair of the highest order.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: A brief respite from the sheer tedium inherent and massive wealth and power.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, for one say, that if we're not going to enjoy our perpetual game of one upmanship, then why bother?
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a Shidobisha quote.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are motivations.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Their motivations are ridiculous.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Using to take particular delight in this like Shidobi sitting in a hot tub at like,
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you thinking about?
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a recurring gag for this character.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wants nothing more than a hot bath and a bunch of like sexy people to feed him grapes.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty peat.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, so it's funny.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to a Jed McCay about Shinobi.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was also reading X-Men, of course.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I recently recorded with Jed, and he also referenced this conversation.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, that's so funny.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, yeah, I'm thinking about it.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: using Shinobi and he sends me that that panel of Shinobi in the hot tub with Trevor and he was like if your reference for I think you're too extra then like you are hella extra and I was like this is incredibly this is so queer and this is a lie that I think of all the time and Jen is like he's
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've actually never seen Shinobi interact sexually with anyone.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on his sexuality is he is he both men and women or does he just like having pretty people around because I can even read this character as asexual if I put them on us.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, that's true.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think this dude buys hell.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, I 100%, I mean, I'm seen by, but I'm also biased.
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what can I say?
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I love him.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, I love him like that's not a straight man.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, not one bit.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: picturing like him putting his job at out.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you want to work for me, I'll pay you well, but you have to be under 8% body fat between the ages of 24 and 30.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And be willing to like wait on me in a hot tub all day every day in nothing but a bikini and never complain.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's that's the job.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I can think of workshops.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty good.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's something interesting about if we look at Sebastian Shaw, who's this for profit military guy, right?
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like a industrial guy.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: What separates Shinobi out from his dad?
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian's clearly worse, but Shinobi's also terrible.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm thinking about it and part of it, honestly, is I'm like, I hate Sebastian, that dude is so awful.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's so racist and I don't think I can say that about Shinobi, but I also love that Shinobi is living his best awful life, you know?
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, dude is exhilarating.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is having fun with it is I think the biggest thing.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, when I think about Sean, I'm like, Sebastian, Sean, like, is that dude happy?
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely not.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shnobis is a chaotic evil for profit evil where Sebastian is like profiting off the backs of slave labor kind of energy it is different for sure We get recurring gags of the game's master likes to have like a telepathic conference with all the upstart so whatever they're at they get yanked in right so with the with the Fenders twins you always see them like laying next to each other in bikinis Weird sexual relationship
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi almost always drinking alcohol or like sitting in his underwear.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's one scene in Ankani where he's pulled into a meeting.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's literally pouring champagne, literally holding a rose in his teeth when they call him into the meeting.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you're like, what's happening here?
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: In X-Men Volume 2, 21 through 23, which is Nisi is doing the big kind of revanche story.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Should Obi is also involved here.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Shinobi's in his penthouse in Tokyo.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are scantily glad men and women everywhere.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's sitting in towel and he's meeting with a guy named Lord Neoran.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi's drunk and he wants to the assassin, Kuanan, or excuse me, Canon, or
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is when she is trapped in her British body, and gets the legacy virus shortly after this.
• 25:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Betsy is occupying the Asian Ninja body wearing the bathing suit and combat everywhere.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, should I be trying to make a deal with Klan Yoshida?
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I'll put them into new heights as long as you do this thing for me.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: He also meets with Matsuo Terayaba, who is, I've got a full episode of that guy.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is, I've got a full episode of that guy.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Razey would.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi is actually wearing clothes in issue 22 and he faces through the wall at a Japanese cocktail lounge to meet with Matsuo Tatsuo, Lord Tatsuo, who is the father of Opel Tanaka, like Iceman's girlfriend.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have an Opel Tanaka episode up there too.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Lord Nyoran, he's called an irresponsible fledgling young industrialist and accused of knowing Western ways, but Shinobi cares very little for traditional power lines.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, look, my mother remains separate from your madening schemes.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: She suffered enough at the hands of my father.
• 26:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So again, we get referenced to his mom being Japanese.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nyoran punches him, Matsu Utelezin, like, in your pick-on little way Shinobi, you are nothing more than a pampered child playing an adult game.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: three women in bikinis washing him beast and gambit attack and they're asking about the upstart.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: He says it's just a small little club I'd dabble in.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: He stands up, he's naked, beast looks at him and says, in your current state, small little and club are not words which should be combined in the sentence.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's a really funny read.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: 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
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I didn't know about that.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my god.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so funny.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my god.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when you, when you consider Shinobi's connections to Canon and Matsuo and Lord Njorn, I know you're getting ready to do some of this exploration in the upcoming sidewalk books, but do you have any comments on kind of that through line?
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, oh, this is so hard to say without that spoiling anything.
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's,
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I'm sorry.
• 27:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like I can't I'm like I can't there's so many things I can't say But yes, we are gonna talk about it.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think great crow's gonna learn a little bit more They're all there's so much I can't say I think that history that history is definitely coming back It is definitely a significant plot point and it's definitely something that is haunting Zylock as well throughout this whole art.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The renacession only supports what you're saying.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, of course renacession I'll be some more I mean
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like any chance I get to write Chanel be out.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing it.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing it.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's a spoiler technically for any anything But if I if I'm pitching something.
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't think that's a spoiler.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's just a that's just a hint Like that's just fact
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi shows up again in super soldiers number seven where we learn he's producing genetically superior poppies for the drug trade.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's back in the chair of the child's play crossover written by NECAzo, which is the ex-force new mutants.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is where the ups starts are tasked with capturing former members of the new mutants and aliens.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Shinobi, again, rogue drinking a bottle of wine, the game's master's like dude, you got to do more.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like you killed your dad once, I'm not even sure he's dead.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you want points and you want to stay part of this, then stop being so lazy.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: basically.
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Shinobi says, I could literally rip the heart out of anyone I please.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I am a young man with more delicate interests in mind, but he does end up forcing kind of a confrontation between Vance Astrovic justice and his own mother.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you recall Vance in a moment of soft defense murdered his father who was abusive and ended up going to jail for it.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he gets like justice and fire start involved in employment, working against Shinobi's words, quote, the human cattle.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We also get a huge moment for Shinobi in X-Men, volume 229, where he's decided to reactivate his father's interests in the Hellfire Club.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like a next generation.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to go into basement and dress in sexy clothes and manipulate the events of the world.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like my dad did for all those years.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he pulls Archangel and Silok in, and this is Betsy Braddock.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are both heirs to the club as well, and we also see Lady Tessa or Sage working with Shinobi here, but also kind of working against him.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has these two mutants captured, dressed in Hellfire outfits, and Shinobi references how he and Warren knew each other when they were kids, because they would both like have to hang out in the Hellfire club, while their parents had secret meetings in the basement, basically.
• 30:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: He asks them to join his inner circle,
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he reveals he is a mutant.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: He calls himself a lady man, a lady's man, and not a lady man.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a different thing.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: The lady's man.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Silok hits him with her psychic blade.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we see memories in Shinobi's mind of Sebastian's screaming at him, hitting him, berating him, talking about how his mother coddled him.
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: As the X-Men leave the narration turns to Shinobi.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's quote.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: For years, he's scampered about the halls of this mansion, always wanting to know what his father did in the basement below.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: always thinking that since he could never find it anywhere else, the key to happiness had to be down there.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then he grew up, he opened the door, and he walked the halls of the intercircle, the halls of power.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But all Shinobi Shah has found as a room that is as cold as barren and as empty as he is.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, of harsh narrator, first of all.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we can still be kind of referenced in trying to reclaim Sebastian's journey in some ways here.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have thoughts on his connections to the Hellfire Club?
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm always interested in family, legacy, and how that affects people.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can't say, especially with bad narrative, that there is no effect.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think history is so interesting, not only in terms of inheritance in this case taken by force, but also in how the Hellfire Club plays and his father's abuse plays into who he is now.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we get a nice peek behind the like sexy playboy, uh, uh, imagile he projects.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that abuse will destroy you.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody reacts differently to it.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Turn turned me into a therapist.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Turn me into a writer.
• 31:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So look at I say.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I think that you can draw a direct line in terms of, you know, taking over the Hellfire Club but also you can draw a direct line from his father's behavior while he was part of the Hellfire Club to who he became the 4-he blew up that building with his dad inside, to where he is now.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whether or not it's seeking, quote unquote, empty pleasures, although I'm kind of like, how empty is it really?
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are certainly increased motivations for murdering his dad, added here, like there's a lot going on.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can also see this character knows his time with the upstarts coming to a close, which happens during that child play crossover.
• 32:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: He brings justice in as his agent and has a quote where he's like, I always love seeing the middle class move up.
• 32:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: A few issues later when the X-Men attack him in its X-433, he's in a bath, and he literally says to them, why is it that all you ex groups seem bent on breaking into my home every time I'm in the bath?
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, what are you not in the bath that's my question?
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: When he betrays the upstarts, he has no choice but to leave the group, which really launches him into this kind of brief era in the mid-90s of trying to make the Hellfire Club happen.
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: In X-Men and you'll three, he lures storm into the Hellfire Club, sedates her with some roses that he sent to her, and then like has another mutant kind of change her mind to so that she'll see him in a sympathetic light and join with him.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's really trying hard to convince her, he says to her,
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've now set my life on a shining path to lead human and mutant kind together in peace toward the new millennium, and I want you at my right hand as I do so, and she says the transition from Renegade to Messiah as a little hard to accept should it be, but even notes like the honey almost drips from your tug.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's like we can change the world, we can work together, we can take over, we can end war, poverty, famine, we can make it work for mutants, but he's dragging her, so that's not great.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also working with Kendra the crazy external lady and there's a new inner circle introduced as his Hellfire club who are often used one of them is benedict kind Who can manipulate your nervous system one is read the page who has sonics that can alter your brain and one is benizier cow or who speeds diseases up basically
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Storm kicks all their asses, and then we see these characters back in night thrasher where Shinobi has some dealings with Duane Taylor.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see him in Generation X annual 95 where Emma's little sister Cordelia's trying to get it into the Hellfire Club.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see them in a Spider-Man team up number one.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: where there's another plot for Shinobi's Hellfire Club because they are challenging his rule.
• 34:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in this case, he in order to prove his superiority, he sends some assassins after Jay Jota Javasson of all people.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the X-Men and Spider-Man attack, and you know, Shinobi gets out of it for sure.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is where he learns Tesla's working against him.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also in Excalibur 96.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's another Hellfire Club story involving Brian Braddock.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we meet his aide Marine, who just wears lingerie.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So again, it's very his dad coded.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: My assistant must dress, dress sexy.
• 34:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: The last time we see him is in X462, where he learns that Sebastian is still alive.
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he hires two bodyguards.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've never seen these characters ever again, but I loved them.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: One is clear cut, who's this cool-looking swordsman.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one is mind-meld.
• 34:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: who is, looks like a transgender character.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have blue skin, and their power is to like switch bodies in minds.
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like this character could like swap Betsy and Canon back, like just like trade their minds into different bodies, right?
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's the power.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this happens with X-Force.
• 35:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi hires a guy named Dr. Graves to experiment on Karma's little missing siblings, Leong and Nagawa, and he wants to remove their mutant powers so that he can learn how to transfer them to humans.
• 35:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the most ability thing.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, X-Force attacks, spiral shows up, and Chino-B sells the kids to spiral, where they get taken to the body shop and turned into crazy assassins, and that's followed up in on a different story.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The shop also, Chino-B also kills the doctor that he had hired, uh, before getting his house, his ass kicked, and then boom, boom, blows his house up.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of the end of his Hellfire Club era before we get to the Krakawa era just before.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have any thoughts on Chino-B in this era of the books?
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dude keeps blowing up houses.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, well, this time it was boom boom.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's fair.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's fair.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna say like I guess if you're gonna If you're gonna go out and style then then why not blow up a house?
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's gonna sound really bad out of context, but
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 36:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that I mean, that's that's solid evil.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is solid solid evil.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have a very self-spot for for karma especially after my friend Trong wrote this beautiful karma like Wrong.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has become one of my favorite people.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We text all the time.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have so and Trong came back and did an episode with me on Karma's evil uncle.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
• 36:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the truck trunks amazing.
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know you guys knew each other.
• 36:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I love, I love trunks.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's funny, when I was talking about making bracelets, one of the things we do is I'll call trunks and we'll like talk shop and I'll make bracelets.
• 36:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, I, I just love, I adore trunks.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a very different way that I adore Shinobi.
• 36:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, I think that, yeah, I know, this is, this is, this is bad shit.
• 36:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I also think it's an interesting chapter in history as a character.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Shinobi dies off panels, Sebastian comes back and kills him, and then he's resurrected by saline during that crazy, necrotia event along with Harry Leeland.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: They both attack Sebastian Shaw and Donald Pierce together.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we also get to see Shinobi strangles Sebastian in this arc while danger cuts off Shinobi's arms, but there's like a TO virus.
• 37:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian, Puncher Shinobi, and calls him a disappointment.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then in the last days of mutants, Matt Rosenberg did that series right before Krakow, where he just blew everything, X-Men up to pieces.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: We learned that Emma Frost is like manipulating minds and the opposite national emergency are here.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's like a one-page thing where she reunites the upstarts and makes them killed in nasty boys and fight the X-Men.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: and Shinobi rather than be mind-controlled.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is what happened.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: He puts his hand in his own brain, and kills himself rather than submit to her control.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's died a second time here, Nikrosha, and then his death before his resurrection on Krikoa.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Any thoughts on the untimely deaths of Shinobi
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so funny.
• 37:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that you're like, hey, to give me thoughts about this dude beef in it.
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have massive respect for just our hand-in-head.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd rather die.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love a character who says no in the most like balls of the wall kind of way.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he doesn't like telepaths, but also Emma work with his dad, right?
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, rather than be controlled by you, I'd rather die.
• 38:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's an interesting narrative already.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have Jerry Duggen.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi is resurrected on Krakowa, Sebastian tries to convince him because Shinobi's got some brain damage or like his memories have been altered.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, he's these mean evil X man and killed me.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was Kate Pride and Emma Frost specifically Shinobi.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Shinobi is like, wait a minute, it wasn't that me that killed you.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Sebastian brings Shinobi in and makes him the red bishop of the new Hellfire trading company, which at the time is responsible for helping administer the Kercone drugs to places around the world and to aid mutant refugees.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi also brings Fenris in as like his little agents.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're his little, I don't know, war crime buddies.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like the
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Harry Leampon comes back.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Harry Leampon is a character.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people are super fond of.
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like the reasonable member of the original intercircle.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm mutant with density control powers, and it turns out he is Shinobi's real father.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian says in Marauder's 26.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi, your mother was a friend to both Harry and I.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: She wrote about money for a baby saying he belonged to one of us.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought I was doing the right thing, taking you in as my own, but what did I know of fatherhood?
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was disastrous for both of us.
• 39:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I suppose, especially you, Harry, meet your bastard, Shinobi.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Harry Hugs Shinobi, who is so uncomfortable, we see Shinobi working in Madrepoor a little bit.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the end of him in the Krakowen era, except he learns his dad is working with Orcas, so again, Foxe Veschenja.
• 39:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have any thoughts on the Marauder stuff before we jump to Salak to conclude?
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm a big, broader fan.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big, Jerry fan.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I love, I don't know, I love baby daddy drama.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I, one of the things I really love about that particular moment where it's like surprise, here's your bastard son, is that Lee Wins like, yeah!
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hell yeah, which is I'm sure not the reaction that Sebastian was hoping for and I think also with Shinobi growing up with Sebastian having a dad who is you know, who's willing to also literally embrace him has got to be one of the most scary things in the world.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry about that.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's good.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's got to be one of the most scary things in the world, especially if you grow up knowing that family is a source of danger.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have been abused by your family.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Having suddenly being like, here's additional family and they want to love you.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is something that you wouldn't necessarily trust.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is something that is very scary.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I love, I love this part of Shinobi.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jerry's Marauders really expands the cast, and I love when writers can just kind of tie in X-Men continuity, and we just get to enjoy it as fans, right?
• 40:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Christian Frost is used here, Calisto, like there's so many healing moments for characters, even mask that awful character from the more luxe is it here.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which brings us up to Shinobi Post, Fracua, kind of back to his old ways.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's, he's of a certain age now, right?
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a little older.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's rediscovering his love of hot tubs and anarchy.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a pose.
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: The incredible writer, Alyssa Long, uses them in the new siloque volume.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here's a quote from Alyssa, as narrator.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi Shah, mutant upstart corporate demon consummate hedonist.
• 41:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: His family fortune is only matched by his ambition.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't let the pretty face fool you.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just another weapon in his arsenal.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Alyssa, perhaps my most important question today, Fuck Mary Kill, a mutant upstart, a corporate demon and a consummate hedonist.
• 41:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, you can't do this to me.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, okay, we'll kill.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hit me with it again.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: The three parts of Shinobi Shah.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, uh, kill corporate.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we fucked the hedonist, right?
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, I think so.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think so.
• 41:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like marrying a hedonist can go either way, especially if they have a lot of money.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like you're going to hit an age where you're like, I don't know if my, I don't, if you're lucky, you'll hit an age where you're like, I don't know if my joints are going to let me get into this hot tub anymore.
• 42:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like fuck the upstart because it's because it's dangerous, but marry the hedonist because you'll have a lifetime supply of oysters.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, and hottubs.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I love when a writer smartly shows us what matters about a character by telling the story about the character, rather than just putting it on the page.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are exploring kind of a complete blank slate when it comes to kennel and we have some stuff with her later adult life as a ninja assassin and all the crazy with Matsuo that you're showing us images of her childhood where she is this kind of assassin and training which is very black widow right black widow in the red
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: makes up its kennel on with the hand.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Having to make really difficult decisions.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when you show a siloq in the modern era, she's all action.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: She is a soldier.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's an assassin.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: She can't sit still.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cyclops has to suspend her from the team to take her vacation.
• 42:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But her soft spot is mutant kids.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we get to see that very clearly.
• 43:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when Shinobi learns of aim, auctioning off mutant children, he puts out a direct tip to siloq to rescue them.
• 43:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: A siloq attack Shinobi and his hot tub.
• 43:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: He demands that he join her in saving some of these kids.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they go to a place called the Cleaver Club, which is an underground place where rich people are betting on kids in a combat arena would truly terrible, a human trafficking, awful.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shinobi kicks ass.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's manipulating his density.
• 43:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is cutting people in half.
• 43:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: He crushes a hand.
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Salacaster rescue the kids.
• 43:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we get Shinobi, telling about his childhood friendship.
• 43:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: question mark with a very creepy kid named Ty Hanover who becomes a really creepy super villain called the taxologist.
• 43:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to talk about your creation of the taxologist and how this story uniquely pushes what you're trying to do with silo.
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was thinking about what kind of villain I wanted to build for silo.
• 43:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: By silo I mean both Canon who obviously is my girl but also Betsy.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like who is a good fit for her and I thought rather than having a combat or
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: villain because she is this peak assassin.
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody like a high profile stalker, somebody who claims to know her and her past better than she does.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: When that's a ready source of discomfort and I would say insecurity for her is is really cool.
• 44:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So more of an emotional villain as well as a villain villain for sure.
• 44:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We know your love of body horror.
• 44:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We got to talk about that when I had you on the show.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: This this man pins siloct to the wall like she's a bug in his collection.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a
• 44:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so his whole thing is he's like I collect Genetic anomalies because I have this very rare genetic condition and my my session started when I just felt so alone I think feeling alone is actually a big theme in this book in general So he's like, oh, this creature is like me and whether that's
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whether that's a rabbit with the, was a pebble of a virus that makes one grow carrot in out of their faces, which is like the OG origin of the jack-lip, or like sheep born with two heads, because he's got all this family money, but he's a very isolated child.
• 45:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: He starts collecting these things and eventually builds his museum full of all kinds of all kinds of these very natural genetic rareties.
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when he sees sila,
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: He learns about her whole like two in one, you know, two in one Betsy you kind of like body switch stuff and she and he's like that is fascinating and that makes you a one of a kind of specimen he becomes obsessed and so When Ken and breaks into his mansion she finds his horrifying museum but like her old costumes like a bunch of pieces like pieces of memorabilia from her past and he does eventually catch her and pender to like a butterfly portboard.
• 45:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is gross.
• 45:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I love the taxonomist because he's just a guy.
• 45:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's a guy with money, right?
• 45:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you want a super villain, there's a guy with you and get much bigger than a guy with money.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's the Shinobi connection.
• 46:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Being a kid whose parents are like being a kid, whose dad and like family is connected somehow to tie handover's family and being these weird, like, awkward rich kids and having that uneven relationship.
• 46:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in another example, like Hellfire Club-wise, of these horrible parents raising entitled children who go on to do horrible things, right?
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's interesting when you look at Shinobi's character connections in a lot of different ways.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: The text on them is the Hellfire Club.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Betsy Braddock, her parents.
• 46:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: part of the Hellfire Club, right?
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And her dad was like crazy scientist also.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Kenan, who's kind of largely separate from that, she's from the hand.
• 46:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her connections come from her big trauma.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know you're working in these stories about her childhood friend, but Suki coming back.
• 46:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're also working in these, she's like haunted by her memories or trauma has taken like a literal psychic form.
• 46:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: While she's also handling the memories of her daughter, that she lost, which was explored in the early part of Cricoa in the Fallon Angel series.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: children to spiral who was involved in canon's transformation as well.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some really interesting painful connections between these two, but it sounds like they're going to kind of end as allies, which is interesting.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean it's messy and I think there's one thing that I think can and can understand.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's having a past that you're not proud of.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that Shinobi as he is now would not be proud of that.
• 47:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he would ever apologize for it, but I don't think it's
• 47:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: what he would consider his best moment.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I also, I mean, we've talked so much about childhood trauma here, and that's a lot of what this book is about in general.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a bit in trying to remember which episode, uh, sorry, I'm trying to remember which issue, but there's a bit where, uh, should know being gray pro, start to go toe to toe, should know he's, like, on split flirt, also huge asshole.
• 47:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, oh, you didn't, you didn't tell her about,
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: me, or sorry, she didn't tell you about me, did she?
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that magical night we spent together the birth of Krikoa.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they did hook up.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Denobi and Jerry Crow hooked up.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I've only, no, no, no, uh, Shinobi and, uh, cutting.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know, I know I'm busy.
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, listen, listen, listen, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, I was like, I want tension everywhere.
• 48:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want, like if, if Shinobi shows up on the page, I want everybody to want him, even if they hate themselves
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the best part is he knows that.
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I'm here to have a good time, not a long time.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he feels like to me, like somebody who's like, I have this much life in me.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't know how long it's going to last, but I'm going to have the best time possible.
• 48:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also, if I die, I've been resurrected twice already.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the interesting things for me was Shinobi and we want take time to dive deep into this is like, what he considers morally over the line.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like his father's action, Sebastian's actions clearly over the line.
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like childhood kids getting sold to aim over the line.
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there was a certain point where he also sold kids.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It'd be interesting to if he becomes like a featured character somewhere on a consistent basis to kind of explore his thoughts about his history.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also really want to learn more about his mom, about his connections with Harry, after Krikoa, and what that looks like.
• 49:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: If there's any, maybe he's just like, leave me alone, man, you don't know me.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really, really interesting character, I'm excited to see what you continue to do with him.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: As we're wrapping up our conversation, Alyssa, what thoughts show up in your mind as we kind of have this focus discussion about a character?
• 49:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, many people give a lot of thought to, you know, Shinobeshah.
• 49:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: to know by Shah.
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well one thing that I really love about him is that he's mixed like he's mixed race and so my so I was instantly like that's my boy yeah he's awful but that's my boy and I love that he doesn't apologize for that because I feel like you get that a lot of times in
• 49:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: and that's a whole lost trope.
• 49:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you get to a lot of times with mixed race characters.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're like, I'm torn between worlds and I have a lot of guilds and I don't know who I am.
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like this guy's like, I know who I am and I simply don't give a shit.
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm too busy here having a great time.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that he is so much fun because he's absolutely out for himself and I love to write characters who are out for themselves.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, yeah, he's like, this is over the line, but also like the the child trafficking in the siloq, but he's like, this is that a line, but also, I don't want to deal with it.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you go deal with it.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Siloq's like, you're coming with me.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the reason he goes with her is because of her, not necessarily the kids.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really interesting as well.
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I gave the warning and that's all I needed to do until Sylaik shows up to force him.
• 50:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's that's interesting on its own.
• 50:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like him.
• 50:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like his kind of moral complexity.
• 50:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I like that he's kind of unrepentant.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's he's a fun villain.
• 50:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sebastian Shaw's also a fun villain.
• 50:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But a horrible horrible person should have he has some interesting redemptive qualities.
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here's the final thing I'll share.
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was unsolicited, but back when I worked on the Marvel Handbooks, I really wanted to transition into writing comics full-time.
• 50:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is right before I came out in my life, kind of capsized for a little while, but I wrote four original books and pitched them to Marvel editors without the ask.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the books that I wrote, this was in like 2010, was a book called Dark X-Men, before Dark X-Men was a thing, because the Dark Avengers were such a big deal around that time.
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: was in the X-Men Utopia era, and I wrote Shinobi Shah, leading a team of mutant villains.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of on their pretending to be heroes, Art Necro was on his team, told was on his team.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was really fun writing this guy, and his ability to control his molecular destiny.
• 51:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed this character, and it was really fun to explore this.
• 51:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Early invitation, and you can say no, and I'll delete it if you want.
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I would love to have you and Trong on together, and we could talk about Susan Hatchie, whose karma's like rich and titled The Evil Sister.
• 51:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: That would be, that would be a lot of fun.
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I would love that.
• 51:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: That would be so much fun.
• 51:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe later this summer, that would be really fun to have the two of you on together.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: While we were chatting here, I messaged Trong, and I said, all right, I texted Trong and said, I'm recording with Alyssa Wong, we're talking about how great you are, and he replied with Oh, M.G.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.A.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
• 52:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, it's wrong, we love you.
• 52:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love you, Trong.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: My aim is to... What a genuine joy, it's such an honor to have your time today.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so appreciative.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you're doing any concept coming.
• 52:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to put this out at the end of June.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where can people find you online and is there anything you want to plug as far as appearances or books outside of, of course, you're amazing work on silo coming up this summer?
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll thank you.
• 52:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm going to be at Galaxy Con Raleigh and I think the summer.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I'm doing any other cons.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did a bunch of cons last year and they were so fun and I love them so much, but also I'm like, I'm even I need to get ready.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not, yeah, they really are tiring.
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like the small cons.
• 52:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really love FlamCon.
• 52:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really love the uncanny experience.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you can go to the uncanny experience sometimes, my favorite con ever, it's X-Men focused.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's small, it's wonderful.
• 52:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's super queer focused.
• 52:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You should sort of... Oh, it's so fun.
• 53:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what you said about Leah being nervous about this.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I definitely felt that because, you know, the X-Men are a really big deal.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when I said, yes, to writing the dialogue book, I was really nervous.
• 53:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, are people going to be really mad at me?
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are they going to be me?
• 53:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And everybody that I've talked to has been so kind and just excited, I'm very grateful for that.
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, theme silence.
• 53:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're a phenomenal talent.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll follow you anywhere and it just it's such an honor to know you personally.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was the thank you so much.
• 53:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody listening.
• 53:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can follow the show at the Grameleton underscore lane on Instagram.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I keep making it on social media.
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Private because I got kiddos.
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I listen.
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're welcome to follow me if you'd like.
• 53:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to watch for the show in July on the show, we're doing a full month dedicated to the character, Peot of Rasputin or Colossus.
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every house out of the Patreon and the main show will be celebrating classes.
• 53:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So on the main show, our next episode will be a script reading of X-Men number 97.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And including an interview with the incredible and delightful Patey Cockrome, the widow of Dave Cockrome.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It patees just the loveliest.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's 83 and blind and tells so many hilarious fucking stories.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really great, including their first meeting where she saw Dave in the marble offices at the copier, walked up behind him and slapped his ass and said, nice ass, and that's how they first met.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, so funny, that's so funny.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then over on the Patreon you can watch for an episode all about Mikhail Rasputin with my friends Mike Seriyako and Michael Celice.
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you everybody for listening, thank you so much to Alyssa for being on the show, we will show you all back here.
• 54:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Next time on the Great Vulcan Lane Patreon channel.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism as a special guest and I talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Thuel Society, also called the Thuel Guessel Shoft, was founded in Munich in 1918, though its roots go back earlier in folk nationalist and occultist currents in Germany and Austria.
• 54:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It emerged from the German and Northern, a secret nationalist society, via the splinter grip led by Rudolf von Sybotendorf, who styled himself the Baron von Sybotendorf, and art student Walter Nowhaus.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Thulcite claimed mythic origins in the concept of Thul, or Ultima Thul, a legendary northern land, thought in aerosophic circles to have been the ancient homeland of the Aryan race.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Their ideology mixed German nationalism, anti-Semitism,
• 55:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: mythic racial theory and occult or pseudo-scientific speculation, for example, runes, Aryan prehistory and mystical geography, and will likely end up talking about some of those things in future anecdotes on the show.
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some of the weirdest elements adopted by the Nazis came via these thule society and related occult nationalist streams and thought patterns.
• 55:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: The use of symbols
• 55:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: was retasked by these groups as sacred emblems pointing to racial purity and cosmic destiny.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mythic or semi-mithic claims about lost northern lands like hyperboreas, thool, Atlantis, about Aryan's super origins, about mystical blood and soil like the blootenboden, all found reinforcement in thool linked apocryphal lore.
• 56:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: That said, many of the occult claims about ritual magic, secret initiations, or supernatural conspiracies are either exaggerated, speculative, or postwar myth-making.
• 56:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The historical record supports political activism, cultural nationalism, racism that has less concrete evidence for widespread magical rights, or occult conspiracies at the level sometimes claimed.
• 56:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But boy, do we see a lot of them in our comic books?
• 56:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: After World War I in the collapse of Imperial Germany, the full society played a key role in political agitation in the Bavaria area, opposing socialism, communism, and Jewish influence incubating early nationalist anti-Semitic groups, and having members or associates who would later rise in the Nazi movement.
• 57:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: However, its direct institutional power waned as the Nazi Party gained dominance in the 1920s, it was never formally part of any Nazi structure, and Hitler himself probably never attended its meetings,
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: After the Nazis came to power, many such occult or vultish groups were sidelined or absorbed, and the full society in modern culture kind faded away.
• 57:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But no surprise, in recent decades there's been a resurfacing or fascination with the full society in fringe ideologies, conspiracy theories, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist circles.
• 57:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: In myths, lost Aryan homeland, a cult secret society, sacred symbols, are recycled and online in extremist propaganda.
• 57:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also groups like the White Order of the Fool in the U.S., which arose in the 1990s, explicitly evoke the name, aiming to revive or adapt some of the Aryan supremacist and occult ideas.
• 57:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: These revivals tend to be more symbolic and conspiratorial than the original's mixture of cultural nationalism, political activism, and esotericism.
• 58:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: They show how once obscure a cult myth can feed modern, extremist identity, especially in digital subcultures.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, now we're going to jump into the world of Captain America, 445 through 448.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain America died except he didn't.
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now a full blood transfusion has saved his life resetting the super soldier serum in its optimum state, giving him the youthful Olympian body.
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's accustomed to.
• 58:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the man who provided the blood transfusion while the red skull, who was living in a clone body of Captain America.
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's all dressed in black and silver here.
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: How does it feel to discover you owe your life to a man you've hated for half a century, he says.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cap punches him in the face, red skull, bitch slaps, and we were never survive Rogers if you do not choose your battles more carefully than this.
• 58:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mind is my own, but my body was cloned from yours.
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ordinarily, I am at least your physical equal, and since you are apparently still healing and not up to primer, I am your better, your master.
• 58:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: You will survive only by staying aware of that fact.
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Red Skull's working with Sharon Carter, it's confusing.
• 59:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: He saved Steve because he needs Captain America to defeat a mutual foe called the Kubikot.
• 59:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: K-U-B-E-K-U-L-T.
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a group of neo-Nazis who want a free A-L-Fitler's consciousness from the cosmic cube that the Red Skull wants trapped him in.
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have formed the new world-like, and they've begun transforming entire military units into, well, Nazi units, with the ultimate goal of bringing Hitler back.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain America, Sharon Carter, are working with the Red Skull to get the cube out of their hands and then cap saves the life of the Red Skull in a key moment.
• 59:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the Red Skull gets the cube and he traps Captain America inside it.
• 59:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Steve begins living out his earliest memories as a hero.
• 59:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: How utterly perfect, my ultimate plan Rogers and you walked right into it almost literally, the moment I made you an unwitting prisoner of the cosmic cube.
• 59:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have far from alone within its six walls.
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now that the cubicot has unleashed its limitless power,
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: The mind of Hitler helped captive inside Giants to take charge of the cube and change the world into one I have no hope of ever ruling.
• 1:00:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hitler was the full captain of America was first forged to defeat.
• 1:00:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why else would I allow myself with my greatest enemy?
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: When Sharon Carter questioned the Red Skull, he hit her across the face, but soldiers attacked the Skull found the cube powerless against them.
• 1:00:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: leaving Sharon to protect him until the school used weaponry to burn the soldiers alive.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: He punch Sharon again, he called her a cow before cap freed himself from the cube and beat the shit out of the school threatening to bad him with his shield and a really jarring image actually.
• 1:00:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But instead somehow he cut off the skulls arm because he threw his shield which I don't think that's how his shield works.
• 1:00:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the skull disappears inside the cosmic cube itself.
• 1:00:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll pick that story up next time.
• 1:00:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was a lot.
• 1:00:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know my friend, Lauder Lorenzler, who's joining me today is thinking, what the fuck did I set up for?
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lauder, I'll welcome them.
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you a red skull fan, my friend?
• 1:00:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I texted you earlier, I think the red skull is the second best villain with a red skull after his own daughter's sin.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, that's my order right there because sin and then red skull.
• 1:01:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am not a captain of America guy.
• 1:01:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You reached out and we're like, hey, do you want to talk about the red skull?
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's these four issues of Captain America.
• 1:01:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I will do this for a chat.
• 1:01:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will I will fall on this sort and I loved these issues.
• 1:01:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were actually really fun.
• 1:01:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mark White, who knew?
• 1:01:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Mark White, who took over the run right after Mark Room All died.
• 1:01:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've been covering those stories slowly on my show over time, as we handle the red skull stories in consecutive order.
• 1:01:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the cubicle, I mean, it is scary.
• 1:01:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I, you know, I think people who are familiar with my work know that I'm a long-term Buddhist teacher and author, but I heard it twice.
• 1:01:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: My parents were both Jewish before they began setting Buddhism and my
• 1:01:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: their parents were Jewish and so it was like I was raised just close enough to the holocaust that my mother's mother imparted so deeply into my mom that they were coming back that my mother always says to the stay you know everything's fine but just remember your Jewish because the Nazis are going to come back.
• 1:02:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's always like there's something just intergenerational trauma.
• 1:02:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why is that just says anytime you see something like this, this feels very fucking real.
• 1:02:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that there is always going to be some group out there.
• 1:02:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes they're more empowered by political rhetoric than others.
• 1:02:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not going to go down this rabbit hole right now, but you understand what I mean.
• 1:02:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: To actually like carry on the idea of white supremacy.
• 1:02:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's fucking scary to see just how accurate this feels.
• 1:02:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's weird.
• 1:02:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're weird dudes, but they don't seem
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, the Tsar that they couldn't actually just exist as something in our world.
• 1:02:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's open with where I started the show, the Thul Society.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if this is an area of research you are at all familiar with that.
• 1:02:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a literal Thul Society that exists within Marvel Comics, and there are branches of the Thul Society, which is kind of the mystical elements of Aryanism, and the way that
• 1:02:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 1:02:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see kind of this weird anti-vaxxer culture these days and these like odd conspiracy elevations about Democrats and I don't know eating babies and pizza ovens or we don't whatever.
• 1:03:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: This idea of like really fringe insane ideas gaining traction.
• 1:03:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a established history of that and many many people willing to believe anything that makes them feel special.
• 1:03:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we compare that to the cubicle to this kind of modern society who are lashing onto the old ideas of Hitler wanting to bring him back.
• 1:03:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's jarring, and then you compare it to the real world, right?
• 1:03:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:03:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it feels like the idea of keeping the dream alive is something we talk a lot about in the X-Men side of things.
• 1:03:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here, it's like the perverted inverse of this.
• 1:03:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like we're keeping the dream alive, but the dream is vengeful hatred.
• 1:03:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's into everyone, really.
• 1:03:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the anti-global majority.
• 1:03:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a fucking bizarre story.
• 1:03:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like why does Sharon Carter get roped into any of this?
• 1:03:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, Karen at this time has been believed to be dead for a long time.
• 1:04:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, yes.
• 1:04:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot going on, but the story is that she's working with the Red Skull to revive Cap because they need his help to stop the Hitler-run cubicle from destroying the planet.
• 1:04:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the story.
• 1:04:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a little bit, what a cruel fucking thing to do to Steve Rogers.
• 1:04:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a little bit like, Sabre tooth bringing Wolverine back with his own blood, just so he can hunt him down and kill him again.
• 1:04:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's a rough, like, I'm better than you are, ha ha, you know.
• 1:04:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's yet the whole like the red skull of it all is so fucking bizarre that his master plans hey first of all as you noted I'm you I mean your body with my mind and you're not a full strength and I can beat the shit out of you Also, I need your help so you should help me and also I'm gonna take advantage of your good nature and then I'm gonna imprison you in a cosmic cube And I'm gonna try and make you fight Hitler by rewriting your history I mean that's essentially what he does throughout this arc of like he brings back Bucky he brings back his
• 1:04:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know Steve Rogers mom he brings makes Sharon Carter her previous self and brings back all this is the this is the reality Steve's living within the cube everybody yes thank you that this is all happening within the cube he saves the professor of skiing who you know died right after he made the super soldier serum
• 1:05:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like he does all of the things right and he gets to live in this perfect reality in the cosmic cube and then he is subconscious basically says this isn't real this isn't right and whatever you find behind that door, it's not actually going to be Hitler you need the real threat is the present day version of carrying on the stream which in this case is the red skull and we see Captain Roger Captain America burst out of the cosmic cube to fight the red skull at the very end do you think Hitler was behind that door?
• 1:05:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: that's complicated because Hitler has multiple clones in the Marvel Universe.
• 1:05:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's right.
• 1:05:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a certain point where you know how like Magneto and exade your have like a rage baby that's onslaught.
• 1:05:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I do.
• 1:05:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Red skull.
• 1:05:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I had to suffer that.
• 1:05:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:05:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: The red skull and like Hitler have a rage baby that's like the hate monger it's like a it's like a psychic entity that just gets like summoned and turns people into Nazis it's it's a really it's it's so hit there's kind of out there all the time there's all these all the time It's he's the backdrop of the Marvel universe in an odd way
• 1:06:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, we have a couple really jarring images.
• 1:06:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of them being cap severing the red skulls arm with his shield, which I don't know how that fucking works.
• 1:06:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a razor blade.
• 1:06:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, uh, the image of Caplay popping his head up against the red skulls or his shield up against the red skulls head.
• 1:06:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, cut his head off jarring.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it like shows you how far you pushed cap.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's intense.
• 1:06:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is.
• 1:06:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's two things here.
• 1:06:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like Steve Rogers is
• 1:06:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: apparently being driven to murder by basically being given a reality where everything went well for him.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't quite understand, but like I think there is something of realizing of the present day version of the thing that I've been fighting my entire life is standing right on the other side of the door and he just goes off.
• 1:06:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why he goes off more this time than any other time to the red school?
• 1:06:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do not know.
• 1:06:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he also as he cuts off the red skulls arm with a shield, he hits the cosmic cube.
• 1:07:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what actually is a giant scatau, a full-page spread of just magical, whatever cosmic energy the cosmic you is, and then they're both gone.
• 1:07:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The red skull like lives in the cosmic cube for a while and then like orbs its energy and then Kang the conquer gets involved.
• 1:07:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get there.
• 1:07:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just stay tuned everybody.
• 1:07:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, stay tuned everybody.
• 1:07:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just the whole thing of like this is a really powerful shield.
• 1:07:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It can cut someone's arm off and can destroy a cosmic cube.
• 1:07:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's sort of like, you know, you need either like a gene gray or a skull or just like capped shield.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Any of those can hurt massive energy source reality bending thing of a cosmic cube.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone that I've had on the show thus far for these conversations has had an impact in their life from World War II and is feeling impacted in modern day America.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I really appreciate you sharing your family story letter that was nice to hear and connect with you over how you do in these days as a parent, as a host, as a wellness practitioner,
• 1:07:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I will say this, you know, because I always should about the sort of epigenetic sort of trauma of the of the Holocaust that at this point it feels like, you know, I think a lot of us parents are dedicated sort of re-parenting.
• 1:08:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I've been taking even though, you know, again, primarily I teach Buddhism and, you know,
• 1:08:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: do Buddhist things.
• 1:08:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also have started taking my daughter to like the children's program at the local temple just so that you know we can have like a new education together and she can be exposed to things that are not through this lens of trauma and it's really funny because you know she's too so I'm like oh can you explain the story of Perum to my daughter but also like me because I never really got the full story.
• 1:08:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really fun to relearn and reconnect to that heritage without a lot of the baggage.
• 1:08:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, of course, we are in the backdrop of, you know, some, I live in New York, there.
• 1:08:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a very mixed place that I live in terms of ideology.
• 1:08:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, some cubicle people could be like down the street for me, for all I know.
• 1:08:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's one point where the police showed up at my door because they perceived a threat to the Easter.
• 1:08:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Celebration here in town and it was just the juice that actually they showed up at their door in that is pretty hard They got an earful down the road, but like most of it's talking to are going through this kind of sensation that the circles are growing smaller right like I know more people being affected.
• 1:09:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm seeing more examples of it in my day-to-day life And that's that's scary in its own way.
• 1:09:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah
• 1:09:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that there's something about being in a small town like mine where it's like there's no avoiding me and there's no me avoiding people with a very different ideologies so we have to be in conversation and I think that's the only way that healing actually takes place that we break out of those bubbles and I mean we used to say like reach across the aisle but I would just say like just have normal conversations humanized one another and not villainize one another and I think that's really it's just a powerful thing that has to happen one by one.
• 1:09:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: in these small communities that we'll live in.
• 1:09:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And gradually, I think that can have a larger ripple effect and to decrease the hatred and some of the things that we actually see that are pretty damn scary that are in this come book from Backwin.
• 1:09:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, whether we are talking about Tusk or the Soron's hit roast or the cube cult, I'm always happy to hang out with my friend.
• 1:10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am grateful for your intelligence and your light.
• 1:10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if anyone was like, wow, this was, this was pretty serious of a lot of, like, you know, where it's premise, you know, that go back to our previous work together.
• 1:10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you just said, you know, Chad came on my show for a great episode of X-Men Horse Cubs called the spit roast of Sauron, which is just dumb and he had me on to talk about tusk.
• 1:10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure that I would have to give it a relis.
• 1:10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure he's very high brow conversation about the dark writer tusk.
• 1:10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those, if you want, we're fun stuff from us.
• 1:10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's a place that's fine.
• 1:10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Luke.
• 1:10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me out again and again.
• 1:10:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, everybody.
• 1:10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening to Carrierselves.
• 1:10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We will see you all back here next week.
• 1:10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bye-bye.