Latest / Graymalkin Lane the podcast / X-Men 98: Merry Christmas, X-Men--the Sentinels Have Returned! Script Reading! Plus an interview with Matt Ruff!

Transcript

X-Men 98: Merry Christmas, X-Men--the Sentinels Have Returned! Script Reading! Plus an interview with Matt Ruff! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Graimalk and Lane podcast where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Today we get to record one of my favorite things of all which is the X-Men script read.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're jumping into the worlds of classic X-Men number five.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: with bonus pages from the expansion on that story in class against men number six.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: The writer on this book is Chris Claremont, Dave Cochrom on Pencil's Sam Granger on Inks, who has called on colors Joe Rosen on letters, and Marvel Wolfman is the editor of that story.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_13]: I'm Chad Anderson, I will be playing your narrator today.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_13]: I'm Seth Martell and I'll be playing Cyclops and Chussman too.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_22]: I'm Harry Scaram, I'll be Storm Betsy Wilkford and Sentinel D-III.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_25]: And Elizabeth, uh, I'm Sean Rouhani.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_25]: I'll be playing Wolverine, Chessman one and Ned Buckman.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: I might do, then I will be playing Colossus and the state sauce of the Sentinels Sentinel A-One.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_10]: Kevin Janari and I will be playing Nightcroller, Russian man, and Sentinel B-five.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_10]: Yes, I'm my battleship.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Sean Beverage and I'll be playing Banshee, Stanley, and Technician.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_15]: I'm Justin Wilder, I'll be playing Professor X, civilian man, Sentinel A seven and Chris Claremont.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_20]: I'm Lisa Wilder, and I will be playing Jean Grey, random guy, and Bonnie Wilford.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_19]: I'm Diana Martinez, I'll be playing Ania Marcova, Makarura.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_19]: Marco Rova, I mean, we just throw in vowels.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_19]: I'm Amanda Scepton and Sentinel A-Three.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: Good morning.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: I am Scottie DeGieftain.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: I will be playing Steven Lane, Jack Kirby, Sentinel D-seven, and Russian man too.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hello, everybody.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I am Chapman Blake and I will be playing Dr. Peter Corbo and Sebastian Shaw.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is a story where the X-Men really start to catch their stride.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is where Claremont and Cockroamps start to take off.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: It goes crazy from here.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's begin with Colossus in Prison of the Heart.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: And what records just as we concluded at Colossus month on my show in July, this is a lovely story.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: He knew everyone by face and by name and his hometown, the Ustordinski Collective.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: One thousand two hundred thirty seven souls in New York.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are eight million.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: The tallest building he had ever seen was eleven stories and it seemed to tower over the Siberian landscape.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Here it wouldn't even be noticed.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: He'd swam in Lake Baikal, the largest enclosed body of water in the world, but never a real ocean.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Never flown in a plane, he was a farmer.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: He thought that was all he'd ever be until he met Charles Xavier and his life was changed forever.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Then, he was Piotr Nikolaivic Rasputin.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now he is Colossus, mutant, ex-man, hero.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: He has been places seen and done things that he never even dreamed of.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: It still doesn't seem quite real.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: But he is still a young man away from home for the first time, which is why, on occasion, he visits Little Odessa.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: To hear the words, taste the food, experience a sense of the land and people he misses so.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: On a beautiful summer day, Piotr sketches two men playing chess while watching civilians interact on a beach.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's in a red-colored shirt and blue pants.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_19]: Suddenly, however, whether you're doing, let me go!
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: A girl's voice, speaking Russian, screaming, she's being kidnapped.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus looks over a railing to see two men in suits using chloroform to force a woman into an orange sedan.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: As the car speeds off, Colossus jumps over the railing.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: His reaction is automatic, as is the drivers.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus lands on the back of the speeding car and swiftly shifts into metal form.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_08]: He's trying to pitch me off.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: Fortunately, the streets are too crowded for him to build up much speed.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: I can easily hold on, but the longer this takes, the greater the chance of someone being hurt.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: A psychic switch is thrown in the young Russians' mind, and in a flash of energy, flesh, and blood, bone, and sin you instantly transform to organic steel.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Super strong.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: He punches through the hood of the car.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Virtually invulnerable, a fired bullet bounces off of him.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: The driver floors his accelerator, swirving wildly, sickeningly, into an alley, and into a wall.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Wham?
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_11]: That's got rid of the fool, not a reverse out of you.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: But Colossus picks up the car and shreds the engine, crying.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: The driver runs for it.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus sees the woman passed out in the back seat.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: She has short blonde hair, a headband, a yellow blouse covered in red flowers, and blue jeans.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_11]: Leave her, we can't fight this little monster.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_11]: Let's get out of here!
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: They are the criminals, yet they call me a monster, would she?
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: Better, I think, she not framed out.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_08]: She looks as young as me, and so beautiful.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_08]: She's waking up.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Klasa shifts back into his flash form, his red shirt now ripped open, and a few concerns civilians have closed in.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_19]: Get away from me.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_19]: Leave me alone.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_19]: I won't go with you.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, you're not one of them.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: You're shirtless reps.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: Don't be afraid.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_08]: Your abductors have run away.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: You're safe now.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_19]: You saved me.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: You needed help.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: I gave it.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_15]: Nice set of moves, fellow.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_15]: You done real fine.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_15]: Too bad though.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_15]: You didn't nail the bumps along with their wheels.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: After making sure the young lady is unheard and giving his statement to the police, Pielder returns to the boardwalk where the men he was drawing are still playing chess.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_25]: Is your bag figured you'd be back for it?
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_13]: It's blasphemy to watch.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_13]: Look a peek at the fix.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_13]: Hope you don't mind.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_08]: They're not scary.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: The heck you say?
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_08]: They're a real talent.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_08]: It is nothing.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_08]: A sketch for my little sister Iliania home.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: My pencil can create farther better pictures of this land than my poor words.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: These are lucky girls.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh am I. And behind Peter, who slings his bag over his shoulder, Ania is waiting, carrying a purple duffle bag.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_19]: In all the confusion, we were not introduced.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_19]: I am Ania Makarova.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_19]: Future dispute.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_08]: There is no need.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: Who were those men?
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_08]: Why did they attack you?
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_19]: In America, criminals do not seem to need a reason.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: Oh, she's hiding something, but that is her business.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_08]: I was glad you killed.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: I'm afraid it is late.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: I must be returning home.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh, no!
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_19]: You can't leave me.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_19]: You mustn't.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_19]: Not tonight.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Peter is baffled when on your grabs his arm, but soon she drops her bag and strikes an ornate ballet pose against the backdrop of the concrete city.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: You are a dancer.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_19]: However, did you guess?
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_19]: It was the youngest prima ballerina in history of the kid of ballet.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_19]: I have come to New York for the freedom to dance to be the fullest extent of my talent.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_19]: In a way, I never could in linen grad.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_08]: You dissected?
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_19]: No, not like that.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_19]: Not the way you mean in Russia, my heart was in a cage.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_19]: I had such feelings, such yearnings, such glory within me, without any means to give them voice and artist.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_19]: A true artist cannot be told how and when and where to perform.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_19]: I must follow the light of my heart wherever it leads.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh!
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Ania is shocked at the speed of the subway car pulling in, but they board the train together.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_19]: Impossible.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_19]: It cannot lie.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_19]: It looks into another's heart and tells me who is through.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_19]: Tonight, I make me debut.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_19]: And if all goes well, my future is assured.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_08]: And that's what you want?
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_19]: Of course.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_19]: I answer my hair.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_19]: Ania, you may never be able to return home.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_19]: The world is my home.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_19]: Besides Piotta and the Calovitch, you are one to talk.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_19]: How is it that you are in America?
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_08]: I am a student parent to prove.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_19]: You are so lucky.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh, that accent is going crazy.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_19]: You're so lucky.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_19]: My father sent those men to drag me back to my cage.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_19]: He never understood my heart.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_19]: I don't either sometimes.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_19]: I love him, but I'm glad my leaving hurt him.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_19]: My heart is the sternest of task masters.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_19]: It's a defect and I did.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_19]: It's a play hockey today.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_19]: When I should be practicing or resting, it tells me to sit close to you, trust you, though we hardly know each other.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: I am through there.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh yes, my champion, my hero.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: And she is flirting with him so hard, but I'm kind of guessing Colossus just gave her a high five and then walked her over to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Metropolitan Opera House.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: The season premiere of the renowned Handel Company, a new ballet, their newest star.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: Onya addressed in a pink bodice and massive tutu, performs with shirtless men and skin-tight clothes.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: Peotr, having changed to a green button downshirt, watches from the wings.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: And there is a man in a horned costume with a hand on his hip, and he's just staring at Peter.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: I assume this is one of the dancers from the show, just hanging out on the wings, but a sugaring image.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: The room erupts in thunderous applause, Peter claps with them.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: Bravo, bravo, uncoord bravo.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: And after the show, she tells him to wait, saying she'll be about a minute, changed it on her way, quick as she can, an hour passes.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: To Peter stands outside as the streets grow empty.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Until it last, onya emerges, dressed in a white pant suit with a black jacket her hair pulled up.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: She carries a massive bouquet of flowers.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Stull?
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_19]: Onya?
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_19]: I wanted to look my best for you.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_19]: It's been ages Peter, I know I'm
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_19]: So sorry, I couldn't get away.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: That's all right.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_19]: I don't mind.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Peter has a drawing waiting that he made of onya dancing.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: In pencil signed with his last name at the bottom.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Onya pucks a single flower from her bouquet to give to him.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: I have something to add to your collection.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: From my heart to yours.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_19]: And here my bear keeps it in return.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_08]: This is very sudden.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: Things are happening so fast.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_19]: Perhaps too fast?
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_19]: I know, I don't care.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: And they share a kiss.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_19]: Piotr Rasputin's first kiss, perhaps.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the next morning.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh, again, my bear.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_19]: Goodness.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_19]: We've walked the entire night away.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_19]: All the way back to Brooklyn.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_19]: Will you stay with me, Piotr, in the Kylovich?
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_19]: today and tomorrow and forever after the rest of the days of our lives.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: same as before and suddenly there are three more men and this time they have guns any trouble leave on your loan go now while you still can I ask nicely no we take gas and the order changes back to his steel form shredding yet another shirt didn't yesterday teach you bullies anything I don't believe it I thought the race go vending me out and we're drunk lying
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_08]: is a friend of mine might say, not hardly.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_08]: If you know what's good for you, don't come back.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus slaps the man and they swiftly run away, he turns back to Ania and sees how frozen with fear she is.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: He changes back to his human form.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: You're truly safe now, Ania.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't feel bothered you.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: Ever again, Ania?
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_08]: Amen.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: A monster.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_08]: A mutant.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_08]: Like you, I was bored with a special talent.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yours is to dance.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_08]: Mine is to change my body as you have seen.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's horrible.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: Why?
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: How many different?
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Before fleeing in tears, Ania wads up the drawing, Piotr made and throws it in his face.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_19]: You lied to me, this sees me pretended you're a human when you are not.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: Is that what your heart says?
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_19]: My heart feels betrayed.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_19]: If it's wrong about you, it could be wrong about everything.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: Will you deny the truth or feelings?
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: On you, please, look into my heart, a man made a steal.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: has no heart.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: For six full panels, Pewder doesn't speak.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: He watches on your leave.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: He picks up the drawing.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: He takes a spot against a railing to think.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's there in the morning with the joggers.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the afternoon is a family passes with a balloon.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: And in the evening, when a couple on a date walks by, then he rips the drawing in half, drops it and walks away with only one thing to say with no one there to hear him.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: You are wrong.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: And now, X-Men, Ninety-eight.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Still only twenty-five cents.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: On the cover of the all new all different X-Men or fighting Sentinels, two massive robots redesigned as veritable giants, the size of King Kong, stand to top at a skyscraper.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: One clutches cyclops in his hand while the mutant fires an optic blast at the robots chest, Wolverine rips through the Sentinels headplating sending a series of sparks cascading away.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: The other sentinel bitch slaps Colossus to the ground while fending off a lightning blast from storm, the weather got us aloft with her cape billowing behind her.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: Nightcrawler runs up the sight of the building itself.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: The caption tells us, the sentinel's are back, enough said.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: The heads of the same five X men adorn the top box along with Banshee.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: The world glows green behind them, and nice work Dave Copper.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is a beautiful cover.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Previously in the X men,
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: Their teammate Thunderbird laid to rest, the X-Men have just fought off Kirok the Damned.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: The housekeeper, Mware and the Tiger, has come to live with the team, because Professor X plans an extended leave of absence after a series of nightmares.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: An unbeknownst to the X-Men, an evil man named Stephen Lang, has repurposed the mutant hunting sentinals from the plans of Oliver and Larry Trask.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: and is having them rebuilt under his government-funded brainchild, project Armageddon.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Stanley presents the uncanny X-Men in Merry Christmas X-Men, the Sentinels have returned.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: We all been on the X-Men dressed for a snowy winter day enjoying the Christmas lights and Rockefeller Center.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: The massive tree glows brightly against the gold of the building as dozens of ice skaters enjoy themselves.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: The X-Men stand grouped together on the sidelines.
• 13:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops wears a shirt and tie under his orange and blue coat with brown gloves.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus has a black coat and orange snow hat.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Nightcrawler, using an image inducer to make himself look like arrow Flynn, smiles in a red coat and blue turtleneck.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Banshee, in a cap coat and pants, all the same shade of blue, falls over Moira and McTaggart, who's in a form-fitting red suit and bell bottoms, a white fur lining keeping her neck warm.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Moira's in this issue, but she never talks, just saying.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Wolverine has hair wild wears green checkered pants and open green jacket and an orange scarf and he's staring openly a Jean Grey who has not a gorgeous blue fur lined coat with a hood and an ornate design.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: It extends all the way to her feet.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: But not to be outdone, storm her white hair flowing in the snowy breeze wears a gorgeous white fur.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: And if you squint on this first page and this is confirmed in the handbooks and on the Marvel wiki, you'll notice Nick Fury, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and Dr. Doom out there ice skating.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: And in the coming pages in the crowd, if you look for it, you can find Matt Murdoch, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and even Dave Cockram himself, his future wife, Pady Greer, Chris Claremont, and Julius Schwartz in the crowd.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Christmas in the Big Apple.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: A quiet time for once, the time of joy and beauty, a time when people can relax and forget about default and layoffs and garbage and politicians who couldn't care less.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: In short, it's a time for love, and the X-Men are right in the thick of it.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Midtown's a fairy kingdom this year, a magic land of light and color of carols begun in St.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Pats and spreading out among the Fifth Avenue crowd.
• 15:08
  [SPEAKER_20]: Scott Storm, all of you, can you believe it?
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_20]: A white Christmas for the first time in years, New York's got itself a real honest and goodness white Christmas.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_20]: Isn't this no beautiful Aurora?
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_22]: In its way, Gene, but I can't help remembering that on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, the snow is white.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh, brother, it's Christmas.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_20]: You know, Aurora, these are times when I think you're as bad as Scott.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_20]: And you should see what I have to go through to get him to let his hair down once in a while.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_13]: Very funny little lady.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_13]: I thought all you had to do was smile.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_13]: Anyway, Kurt and Peter seem to be enjoying themselves.
• 15:43
  [SPEAKER_20]: Mr. Summers, you're gift for understatement boggles the mind.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: As Santa Claus accepts donations in the Salvation Army bucket nearby, two lovely girls catch the eyes of Peel to Rasputin and the disguised Curtin Wagner, a burnette with red earrings and an orange-frock named Betsy Wilford of Chris Claremont's real-life girlfriend, and a strawberry blonde and a cinched green coat named Amanda Seften.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_22]: Amanda, I think we're being followed.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_19]: That's it here.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_19]: Do you hear me screaming for a call?
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'll feed this in, my nephew in the app.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_09]: If you don't hear from us again, don't worry.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Merry Christmas, old.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: And on that note, my boils, more in order to be moving on ourselves.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: We'll be showing each other the sight in New York.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_20]: What about you, Marine?
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_24]: What about me, Miss Gray?
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_24]: I got no use for Christmas.
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh, well, have a nice time anyway.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_13]: It's got a Jean walk away for a private moment.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_13]: Strange man, Wolverine.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_13]: We've been together almost a year, and I'm still not sure he'll work out.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_13]: But then I was sure about Alex and Lorna, and they tried to kill us.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_20]: Stop it, it's Christmas Scott, and you've been tearing yourself apart over Alex for weeks.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_20]: Can't you just this once give it a rest and kiss me?
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_20]: Didn't you hear me big love?
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_20]: I said kiss me.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.
• 16:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: As Scott stands there stiffly, Jean wraps her arms around him and plants one on him.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: And just behind them, you can see Stanley and Jack Kirby walking by both smoking cigars.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, Stan, you know who they were?
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I tell you, the never used to do that when we had a book.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: God, Jack, you know these young kids, they got no respect.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops and Jean take the elevator to the sixtieth floor, stepping inside for dinner.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops helps Jean remove her coat, revealing the full floor length black dress with a plunging back line.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_13]: Her red hair gorgeous on her shoulders.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_13]: Miss Gray, I have a tell you that you are beautiful.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_20]: Not tonight.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_13]: Well, you are.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_20]: My turn now.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_20]: Do you love me, Scott?
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do I?
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love you.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_20]: I'm glad.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: As we said a night of joy, such a pity it couldn't last.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: The two heroes look up and see two massive settinals tearing the roof off the building.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: The crowd scatters an panic.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: What?
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Something huge is outside.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: Taring at the roof.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jean!
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh my god, no!
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_20]: No, it can't be them!
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_20]: Not them!
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: But it is!
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: As Cyclops lashes out with an optic blast by flipping up the lenses of his sunglasses, Jean blows with psychic energy, pink telekinetics manifesting around her head, as she pushes against the Sentinel.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_14]: Prepare to face your doom, mutants.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_14]: For the sentinels, after return, main mission programming requires capture of mutant entities, cyclops, and Marvel girl.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_14]: Resistance is useless.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_14]: We are equipped to negate the powers of all the X-Men.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_14]: He's right.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_14]: My eye beams aren't even slowing down.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: Maybe not.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: What if he's referring to the old X-Men?
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_20]: The ones they fought back in nineteen sixty-nine?
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_20]: It could be that this ugly doesn't know my telekinetic powers a lot stronger now than it was then.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_13]: Beautiful move, Jean.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_13]: The Sentinels outside the building.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_13]: Now I can let him have it full power.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_13]: Got him.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: A massive optic blast rips through the first Sentinel with a spacao.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: In other words, scratch one Sentinel.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: The problem is, there's two of them.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: As the second Sentinel grabs Jean around the waist, it simultaneously hits Cyclops with a concussive blast.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Savannah!
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_19]: Thermanyl dysfunction recorded from Sentinel A-seven.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_19]: This unit forced to take extreme action against mutant Cyclops.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_20]: God, the Sentinel's blast!
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_20]: Scott didn't have a chance!
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_20]: Sentinel, if you killed him, I'll...
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jean Spainting sounds.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Sentinel Silence is Jean with a face full of knockout gas.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_19]: This unit has killed him.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_19]: Mutant.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_19]: His power was too great for this unit to cope with alone.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_19]: Sentinel A three to main mission and returning with captive Marvel girl via ultra linear lead events at target locus Rockefeller Center necessitated termination of mutant life entity Cyclops message ends.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: But Cyclops is alive, which goes to prove that even a Sentinel can make a mistake.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_13]: Just, whole body feels on fire.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_13]: I- I- I- Good Lord, the Sentinels lift off.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_13]: It's shifting the wreckage.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_13]: Throwing me off the roof.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_13]: The radio mast.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_13]: Um, it's by only hope.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_13]: I only pray at hold.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_13]: It's- it's got.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_13]: Because if it doesn't- it's sixty stories down to the street and no Banshee to catch me as I fall.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_13]: It held.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_13]: But only by a thread.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_13]: I move an inch and this whole mess is gonna give way.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_13]: So I stay where I am and hold on.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_13]: But for how long Scott, how long?
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Backtrack a minute now and witness the arrival of some rather unique wreckage right on radio city's doorstep.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: The remnants of Sentinel A seven crashed to the ground, a Sentinel boot and a Sentinel head among them.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: But Banshee waits below and with a sonic scream, tears the clothes right off of himself, revealing his costume underneath.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Run for it!
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone finds some cover fast!
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like the whole building's coming down!
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's no building, friend!
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: See, it's preserve a soul!
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's a centennial!
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: No time for subtlety banching me, Boyo!
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: The centennial's are hot and mutants again!
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Scott and Jane are going to need all the help they can get!
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Boyo!
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ian's star-point-knock-rolling classes!
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: What are them?
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because if the centennial's are back!
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Banchy, what is a centennial?
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: To a mutin' auroro, centennial is another name for death!
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: As then she takes to the sky with another sonic scream, Wolverine grabs his ankles.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Meanwhile, Storm summons a blast of lightning, summoning her costume with it.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_22]: More than you can ever know, human.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Benchy has changed grips, grabbing Wolverine's hand, but soon three more sentinels blast out of the air at them.
• 21:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: Saints, it's time, they just popped out of nowhere.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: Target, Code of Acts, Banshee, neutralized.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: Banshee is shot out of the sky with a Zam, leaving Wolverine to fall, proceeding with acquisition of second target.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: Code of Acts Wolverine, that's it, Bob.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Come on in close, where my claws can reach ya.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: As Wolverine hacks through one sentence on another, slaps him through a building, whammy!
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_22]: Sentinel D seven disabled Sentinel D three initiating appropriate punitive response.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_22]: But if Banshee thinks Storm will remain away from the heart of this battle, he's mistaken.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_22]: Wait, hanging from that radio mask.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_22]: It's Cyclops and he's about to fall.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_22]: Don't be afraid, my friend.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_22]: You are safe now.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_13]: Storm grabs Cyclops's wrists and moves them to the ground below.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_13]: A bunch of them nailed Banshee and Wolverine.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_13]: Just pluck them out of the sky.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_13]: And there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_22]: Ah, Scott, these Sentinels are they large metallic robots?
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_13]: Of course they are.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_13]: Why?
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh no.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_10]: Sentinel A three reported your life functions terminated Cyclops.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_10]: It seems A three was in error said error will be corrected now.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_10]: No, our programming is specific and binding.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_10]: Mutant all who resist us must be destroyed.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_22]: Well, I am Storm Monster and I resist you and I will not be destroyed.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Avoiding a blast from the Sentinel, Storm's eyes turn white and sizzle with energy, clouds and wind gather.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_10]: female, this unit is programs to deal with all mutant powers, this unit morning, morning, when velocity increasing, turbulence threatening systems overload.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_22]: You are only a machine, Sentinel, and how can a mere machine stand against the power of storm, the power of a rampaging hurricane?
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: And as the sky is a wash with lightning, down below a certain blonde rider watches with his girlfriend, Q. Chris and Bonnie Wilford.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_20]: Chris, look up in this guy, do you see it?
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I see it, funny, but I don't believe it.
• 23:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: A hurricane, a freaking hurricane floating, seventy stories above Rockefeller Center.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And in the eye of that hurricane, one slight wind-correst woman who molds this tempest as a master sculptorist molds her clay.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh my god.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh, for pity's sake stop!
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_13]: Before you destroy this entire city!
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: And at her command, the storm dissipates as quickly as it manifested.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Sentinel lies in pieces.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_22]: It is done.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_22]: There was no need for worries, God.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_22]: I have total control over my abilities.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_22]: Nothing was harm saved the Sentinel.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_13]: So I see, but if Professor X were here, I'm sure he, good, good, good Lord, the professor.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_13]: He doesn't know about these new Sentinels.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_13]: He's got to be warned.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Nice thought, Scott, but you're a bit too late.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: As our scene shifts down time half a day and south of thousand miles to a private yacht trolling the Bahama out islands.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's here that Charles Xavier has come for his vacation here that he's come to ask an old friend for help.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: aboard the ship, Deja Thoris, named for the fictional princess of Mars, Xavier sits in a red shirt and orange cap holding a fishing pole.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, don't know Charles, if I didn't know you better, I'd figure this as some sort of practical joke.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the binary system you described isn't MISAR-A, or, as of our prime, or Duns a name, face a Charles, StarCourse charted over half the Milky Way, and your binary isn't anywhere to be found.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: in your mind.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you saying I'm insane?
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just tired as all.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think you should seek professional help.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: What the?
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: A bite, man?
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's one way of putting it all right.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: The water below the ship churns and core bowl initially thinks it's a fish.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: This man is a two-time Nobel Prize winner.
• 25:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's not a fish.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a Sentinel.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: There is none of the water with a fishing line tangled in his hand.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yankee, the fishing pole, right out of Xavier's hand.
• 25:48
  [SPEAKER_08]: Charles.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_08]: Xavier, I have come for you.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_16]: A Sentinel.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_16]: That's impossible.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_16]: Minemental defenses should have shielded me, but they haven't.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_16]: Very well, Sentinel, you have found me, but you'll find that capturing me is another manner altogether.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_08]: Danger, danger, mutant, mind, blast, penetrating shields.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: This unit is unable to compensate in time.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: This unit is falling.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Xavier lashes out with a massive mind blast, and the Sentinel falls sending the ship plunging forward in water.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_16]: Consider yourself lucky, Sentinel, that mind blast should have destroyed you.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_16]: It seems that my dream must have sapped my powers far more than I thought.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_16]: I've done my best Peter, the rest is up to you.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've given us time, Charles, and with this little hydrofoil amined, time is all we need.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I designed this baby myself.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing to float, can catch her when she's running.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And right now, she's running fine.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do me a favor, though.
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Watch out for our tin playmate, while I call in the air force.
• 26:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: But then Charles is assaulted by another vision from space, a bizarre alien figure backing toward him.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Images, words, never tasted colors, never smelled.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Worlds beyond imagining, crashing together and dying so many images.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: And through them all, a terrible aching need and a face.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now we don't know yet, but shh, it's LaLondra doing her best helped me Obi-Wan Kenobi your my only hope routine.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Noooo!
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Made a!
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Made a!
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Any stick shit!
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: What?
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Charles!
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lord!
• 27:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: That scream!
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The poor sod's gone totally round the bend!
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Corbowe would have done something, but he never got the chance, because the Sentinel is back blasting the ship apart from beneath, with a spritam.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the Sentinel soon grips Xavier, flying away, and leading Corbowe stranded in the water among the wreckage.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: You cannot escape us.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't impact for me, Defunder.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have much air in my lungs.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can't tell how far it's a surface inside.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Long starting to burn.
• 27:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Made it!
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what about Xavier?
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Charles!
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Charles!
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_08]: Sentinel A-One.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_08]: Two main mission.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_08]: Returning to base.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_08]: By ultra-linear and leave sensors indicate solar radiation, nearing Sentinel.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hoor and levels.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, what's bad, Chum?
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your two hundred miles from land, and if no one heard your made-a, it's gonna be one long swim.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Meanwhile, Manhattan's newly opened South Street Seaport.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Peter and Kurt walk with the flight attendants on an impromptu double date.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: This must be wonderful to fly across the world, Elizabeth.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_22]: Passengers fly, Peter.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_22]: We fly attendants walk up and down the aisles.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_19]: Oh, tell me Amanda!
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_19]: What's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_19]: Why, Kurt?
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_19]: Whoever said that I was nice.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_19]: A woman after my known heart, among other things.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Good lord.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: But nearby, lip, lip, lip, lip, lip, lip, youton contact established.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Colossus sees a poster of Anya Makarova, the famous ballet dancer, in this setup to a story that will take decades to find out the details too.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Unless you listen to the earlier part of this episode, of course.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: The Hendell Billy.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_08]: I have not seen Anya since the morning she ran away from me.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: I hope she is well.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_22]: You know Amanda, I can't have feeling we've met before.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, place the face.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Amused and I crawler Coilie thinks, because it's the first one.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_09]: An illusion generated by my image inducer.
• 29:17
  [SPEAKER_09]: How would she react to the real me?
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_09]: I've only just met her.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_09]: Why is that answer so suddenly so important?
• 29:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, we have one wireline.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_22]: Are you cats?
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_09]: We assist the authority sometimes to tickles, but I hope very much to see you again.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_19]: On that night, crawler, my blue and fairy elf, you can bet your life.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: That night, forty miles north of Manhattan at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, while night crawlers storm and colossus hone their powers to take some of the edge off their frustration and growing apprehension in the danger room.
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Beneath the mansion,
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Q the image of Nightcrawler, climbing walls, storm blasting, lightning, colossus wrestling, a huge metal door.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops sits in the professor's study using his mutant detective sensor system, Saribro.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: To search for the slightest sign of his missing friends and teammates.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Q image of Cyclops with a Saribro helmet on sending off as many spiraling brain waves as he can muster.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: At that moment, in a secret chamber within the Venerable Fifth Avenue mansion that is itself home to the infamous Hellfire Club,
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: We zoom in on an image of Sebastian Shaw with sideburns but that belonged to a beard but seemed to be missing the mustache and chin parts addressed like a powerful dandy from the seventeen hundreds in a frilled shirt tight red vest colored black jacket and a black bow to tie the ponytail at the back of his head
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: and Lady Tessa, in simple white earrings, a dog collar and a black cinched corset that leaves little to the imagination.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: The stand behind a computer is a hellfire guard, looks over data, and a mysterious man named Ned Buckman stands nearby, his head covered in a hood, more on this guy in classic X-Men number seven.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: We'll get there in a few months.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_06]: That in ways, Mr. Shaw, you've streamed the powerful, but our shields can block them out.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The X-Men, searching for their lost compatriots.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're a mutant, Shah.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there any chance of you being protected?
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: None, Mr. Chairman.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to the personal shields issued to the mutant members of the Council of the Chosen.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: All proceeds according to plan.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If Stephen Lang does his part, the X-Men will soon be eliminated as a threat to us.
• 31:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Credulous, simple ten.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_25]: Should Lang succeed, not merely those heroes will be destroyed, but you, Sebastian Shah, and your fellow mutants as well.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: Time cut now, four days up the line, to twenty December, nineteen seventy five.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: A Sunday in New York, except this isn't New York.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: In his secret space station, Stephen Lang and his aides view the captured X-Men.
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Vanshee in costume, Wolverine, shirtless, and Jean, still in her black dress, are strung up like bugs on the wall while medical equipment analyzes them.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: Nearby, Professor X is in a stasis tube, a metal helmet blocking his powers.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Sentinels are standing guard.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: understood technician.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, make do with the mutants we've got.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, sir, is this Wolverine immune?
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: His readings are nothing like the others.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's something else that he is, but um, mutants don't know whatever the Wolverine is.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: He isn't human.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: Leng holds up Wolverine's mask examining it.
• 32:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Keep it up up and I'll do nothing mutant.
• 32:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: Those Kramala shackles are unbreakable.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_20]: Where's your swastika-ling?
• 32:51
  [SPEAKER_20]: You don't look dressed without it.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm no Nazi, this is great.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_20]: Just a man doing his duty.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: Following orders, huh?
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: If you like you, mutant kind, are the enemy, I'm to find a way to destroy you.
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: Why start with the X-Men?
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because the X-Men have been the most effective mutant to opposition to the Sun's thoughts.
• 33:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because you, Cyclops, and Xavier are the heart and soul of the X-Men.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: Had out the heart and the body dies, destroy the X-Men and the Sun's souls are unbeatable.
• 33:23
  [SPEAKER_20]: You sad, pathetic, screwed up little man.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_20]: Do you think the X-Men are that easily beaten?
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes!
• 33:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Lang, backhands are across the face.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: Stack!
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: Inspiring Wolverine to pop his claws and break free from his restraints.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: Rack attack.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And surprise, he doesn't have his gloves on.
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: The claws come right out of his wrists.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: And you're not surprised on this because you've been reading comics for years, but this is the first time the readers have ever seen this.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: And wow.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_24]: That tears it, Bob.
• 33:50
  [SPEAKER_24]: You can dump on me in Banshee all you like, but what you beat on a lady, that's when you answer to the Wolverine.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: So they can mute fools.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's only one.
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: As the technician responds, laying bolts.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Wolverine slashes an arm in a head off of T-twenties, sprang and the technicians run for it.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_24]: Hey fellas, where's the fire?
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_24]: I thought you wanted to refouse a bit.
• 34:27
  [SPEAKER_24]: I tell ya.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_24]: I could show you the exercise.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_24]: No takers, huh?
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_24]: Too bad.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_24]: And I thought you clowns had guts.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: And after Wolverine Freeze Banshee and Jean, who tries to rip her long skirt off of her dress feeling constrained by it.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Wolverine decides to assist gripping the skirt and ripping it off at the upper thigh, like just below the naughty area, rip.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_24]: That all take no trouble, Red.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_24]: All you gotta do is.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_20]: Hey, not so blasted short.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_20]: Thank you very much, I think.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: And yes, you heard, right Wolverine, while making the dress in many skirts, send the word taint.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: He turns away with a very slight grin.
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_24]: Any time, Red.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_24]: Okay, group, times a wasted.
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_24]: Let's get out of here while we got the chance.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not without Professor X. Hi, lady.
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: We can't leave Charles here.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_24]: You got a better idea.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_24]: Look, he's crippled and unconscious.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_24]: How are we going to carry him a fight?
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_24]: Huh?
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: We find a way Wolverine.
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Is that clear?
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: The points have moved one of my darlings.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm afraid it's out of our hands now.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then she's right.
• 35:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: A new Sentinel bursts through the wall.
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Then she hits it with a sonic screen, making the head bolts explode.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Buck, buck, buck, but moreched it.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Buck, buck.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: It seems like what is something.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: But more sentibles are right behind it.
• 35:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've got this one.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: YouTube head out the other door.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'll cover you.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Move it, both of these.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're popping out of the woodwork.
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: True or words were never spoken.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: The trio faces five sentibles.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Q the X-Men cartoon music for the third time this episode.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Asonic scream takes one, Adam Antium Clause take another.
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Jean Grey glowing red hits two more with telekinetic bursts.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, lardy.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Take him.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hit him with everything you've got before they can react.
• 36:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's our only hope.
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Way to go, Irish.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_20]: No, something's wrong here, Benchi.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_20]: Our powers are chopping these sentinels to bits.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_24]: Listen, Red, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, you know?
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hey!
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_20]: Wolverine!
• 36:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: Behind you!
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: The fifth sentinel grabs Wolverine in a fist.
• 36:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's got my arms bent.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_24]: No leverage.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_24]: Ah, can't slash free!
• 36:35
  [SPEAKER_20]: I've got some of faster, he'll be crushed.
• 36:37
  [SPEAKER_20]: Focus all my telekinetic power into a tight beam mind blast.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_20]: Try to fuse the sentinels computer brain, done it!
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: The sensible drops Wolverine and falls backwards right toward Jean Grave.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Does that?
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh no, it's toppling right for me.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh time!
• 36:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jane, have no fear less.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Punch his ear.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Irishman bolts forward, grabbing Jean, and lighting it off with a scream.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_20]: Cutting it a little close again on chimistic acidity.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's not any way to talk.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Save you, didn't I?
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Grab a hold, Shardy.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're busted out here, and nothing between Heaven and Hell is going to stop us.
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: With no choice they leave Professor X behind, Banshee grabs his two companions and flies forward with the Sonic screen as the technicians clutch their ears.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: But as he bursts through the wall, want a bet Banshee?
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: So near Banshee and yet so far,
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: Back on the ground, New York is close enough to see on a clear day tantalizing, unreachable.
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: If only your friends knew, but perhaps it's better that they don't.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cyclops and Nightcrawler, with fresh cups of coffee, sit at the computer, still searching for their friends.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_09]: Anything, Cyclops?
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_13]: Hmm?
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh, okay, I didn't hear you come in.
• 37:38
  [SPEAKER_13]: No, there's nothing.
• 37:39
  [SPEAKER_13]: So, we both scanned the entire world twice over, and there's not a sign of them anywhere.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_13]: No, them, no defensive shields, nothing.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_09]: Cyclops, Scott.
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_09]: You've been working for days straight with no rest, precious little food you're burning yourself out to my friend.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_13]: I know what I'm doing, I crawler.
• 37:55
  [SPEAKER_13]: When I want your advice, I'll ask for it.
• 37:58
  [SPEAKER_13]: GAYO!
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_13]: So, Reber is flashing intruder alert.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_13]: There's someone coming over the back wall.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_13]: Stay here, Kurt.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_13]: I'm going to check.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_13]: Bamf!
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_13]: Kurt!
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_13]: Where'd he go?
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh, wait a minute.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_13]: I can see our intruder's face on the monitor, and I know who he is.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_13]: He's Dr. Peter Corbowe, an old friend of the professor.
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Minutes later, the freezing Corbo is wrapped in a blanket holding a steaming cup of coffee in uniform Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, and Nightcrawler gather round, while you're in McTaggart and Orange and Red is with them.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_13]: He says he's here to help us, and I've taken the liberty of briefing him on all that's happened.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_13]: And the gist of it, Dr. Corbo, is at Cerebroke.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_13]: I can't find them.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_13]: Not even a residual trace.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_13]: And the only way for that to happen is for Gene and the others to be dead.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_13]: I don't accept that.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_13]: But what other choice have we?
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_13]: It's like they vanished off the face of the Earth.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's it!
• 38:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's why the Sentinel was so worried about solar flares.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't you see Cyclops?
• 38:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're not on Earth at all!
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Good back to Banshee, Gene, and Wolverine.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: After bursting through the wall of the Sentinel base, they find themselves floating in orbit in outer space with full view of Earth beneath them.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Da, da, da, da.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: To be continued, da, da, da, da.
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: All right, we open today on a delightful story about Peotor Rasputin.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: The artist trying to find his way in the big city, thinking about his hometown, and he needs a girl from back home and goes through it a little bit.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Mr. Duman, what was it like to play Peotor in this story?
• 39:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: It kind of shows us what makes Colossus so special.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's nice that they're finally clashing him out in the future retroactively.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: At what do you think he sees in Anya Makarulva?
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: He's colossus.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_08]: He likes pretty girls come on.
• 39:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so funny watching him do things like he'll just wait outside her like his belly studio for hours, walk across the city for hours.
• 39:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: This character loves the idea of love and I literally avoid.
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: He waits all day while thinking about his heartbreak before, you know, tearing the photo at the end.
• 39:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a heartbreaking.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Twenty-one-year-old mevelates, you know.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: Demand, how could you?
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_19]: I mean, I can't help it.
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_19]: I was drawn that way.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_19]: She's kind of just like an idiot girl and also, you know, as a theater major, I know this girl.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_19]: She's gonna fall in love with like the hot straight guy who comes in and then as soon as he has like the tiniest bit of, how could you how dare you?
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_19]: Maybe Daddy was right, like girl, get out of that late school, go to therapy.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so very like, I follow my heart.
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: She's emphasizing that so hardcore.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: It turns out her heart is also bigoted.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_19]: Yes, and ethical and terrible.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: The journey for Colossus kind of facing anti-mute and depression in this soft story before we see the sentence and it's a tack.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's kind of a jarring tale and I think it's really beautifully done titled Prison of the Heart, by the way.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_15]: I just feel like it speaks to how much he misses home.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_15]: He was pretty abruptly taken from his home, taking from his family and just to be wandering the streets of this slight reminder of his homeland.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_15]: It just kind of warms you up about, you know, classes is more than just the big strong metal guy that hits things and then he's crushed.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, and even that moment before, you know, she's still unconscious in the backseat and he's like, oh, I better change.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: She might not like me this way.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: You know, like he already knows in advance how that's going to look big.
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: I he's clearly experienced this before.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: At least you're a dancer.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Did, uh, yeah, do you know this on your macarova type?
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_20]: Yeah.
• 41:24
  [SPEAKER_20]: Yes, I think it goes hand in hand with the theater kid kind of perspective, but there's a lot of like especially in the ballet world.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_20]: I compare like ballet and modern dance world to like the ballet world is I want to be the best in the room and the modern dance world is I want to be better because everyone in the room wants to like we want to be better together like that's kind of the the vibe and so I feel like
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_20]: she sees him as like an opportunity and something that she wants, but then when it could reflect poorly back on her in any way, she's like, no, no, no, I have my image to uphold.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's crazy to me that not only is this story seated in the original book, right?
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Claire doesn't tell it until the classic X-Men issue many years later, but we've also never seen this character again.
• 42:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: She's got this dad in Russia trying to get her back.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm wondering if this is Colossus's first kiss question mark, which is interesting to consider as well.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: She also has this moment where she's like, sorry, I was hours in the dressing room, everyone was giving me so much attention.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: I just couldn't make it out here any sooner, and then she gives him one flower.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, here you go.
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_25]: She's a lot.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_25]: You know, I think we're overlooking the fact that while it was tragic for Colossus to deal with this bigoted heartbreak, he's still got his fellow chess players to get his pack.
• 42:35
  [SPEAKER_25]: You know, that was touching to see how they saved his stuff and everything, you know, love is not lost.
• 42:40
  [SPEAKER_25]: Humanity.
• 42:40
  [SPEAKER_21]: Yeah.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_21]: They were of his art too.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_21]: Like that's great to get on the street every now and again.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just draw from my little sister.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that great.
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of starts.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's something about this story that has always stuck with me.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I completely forgot about like how much we get of Ania and their kind of their adventures off together.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: The thing that sticks with me is the the panel sequence in which you watch him stay in place and the time shifts around him.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like it's a classic comic outline, I could say, but it's it's the first moment that like classes really clicked for my brain where I was like, oh,
• 43:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: This guy is a, is a puppy dog.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's the puppy dog who waits at like the door for his owner all day at work and then it's first up at honest feet as soon as he gets in and that was the first one where I was like, ah, that is what people, okay, that is why he's the Harvey Soul.
• 43:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: When I was doing my classes research and all the listeners will have heard the classes trial by this point, this story and the other two kind of classic X-Men stories that feature him, the one where he's in this avid land and has the three-some with with with with Dariel and Fahy and then the one where he goes back to Russia and has kind of held accountable for defecting.
• 43:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Those are these are the three stories that made me kind of love this character when I was reading him front to back.
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: a really, really delightful to hear that read out loud.
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is a crazy huge X-Men story.
• 43:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's so much going on.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Let's first off talk about the crazy guest stars.
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: We've got Dr. Doom like Matt Murdock.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: We've got Lois Lane and Clark Kent running around in the background like cameos.
• 44:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: But you'll only notice if you look or read like the interviews by the creators who started working everyone.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: And this is also one of those classic things where we see the creators, not only putting Stanley and Jack Kirby in,
• 44:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: but Claremont and his girlfriend in Cochrome and Payee Greer are all here as well.
• 44:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've been a kind of a reader most of my life.
• 44:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I even watched those old fantastic four cartoons from the night, I see old, but they're from the nineties.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: But like they were always introduced by Stan.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it's like, hi, true, but leave her.
• 44:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I've watched mall rats.
• 44:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how many times.
• 44:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: The fact that I could just like, oh, good.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I get to play Stan.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is amazing.
• 44:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is my life.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is amazing.
• 44:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I always loved the element that like the first time Stan and Jack appeared in a comic.
• 44:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think it was like fantastic for number eight something like that.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: So the idea that the Marvel is the world outside your window has always been there.
• 45:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: They have always done that and it's just fantastic.
• 45:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I love the the Chris and Dave kept it going years later.
• 45:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Awesome.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, Marvel also has a running thing in the comics, particularly fantastic for some Spider-Man, where Marvel Comics exists as an entity in universe, and they have like a thing where the superheroes will tell their publicists about their adventures, and then the comic books are produced within the world that people can read.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: So it's a really funny thing.
• 45:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: In fact, if you looked at the last champion script read, we see Ice Man reading an issue of the X-Men, while hanging out with the champions, which is, you know, delightful in its own way.
• 45:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to play Jack Kirby?
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it was interesting.
• 45:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: Your jacket is a lot more private than Stan was.
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I had to go do some hunting to find some voice interviews and try to do that.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: I sort of got it and sort of didn't, but it was, you know, I also tried to do something I thought that would be, you know, entertaining.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I can imagine the two of them having that kind of, you know, banter that you might have in like the sixties comic.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a fantastic four issue where the fantastic four go to heaven and meet God, and God appears to them in the form of Jack Kirby drawing comic books, which is amazing.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: But there's a lot of Canon interviews way back when two were Stan and Jack would go for like a public interview together.
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Someone would ask a question, Stan would give like a five paragraph answer, and then Jack could be like, yeah, what he said.
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, there's like another relationship worked.
• 46:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: They didn't always get along.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: We also got to see Chris Claremont put himself in the book.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to read for Chris and Dave Talkroom here?
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_15]: Oh, man.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_15]: I feel like I had it.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_15]: I was practicing it this morning and then game time.
• 46:29
  [SPEAKER_15]: I was like, that's not it.
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_15]: I feel walk it off Justin.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_15]: Just, you know, you'll get it next time.
• 46:34
  [SPEAKER_15]: It's cool because it's just, it's like the holiday special.
• 46:37
  [SPEAKER_15]: You know, it's the big jam band issue where we're gonna put everybody in all these guest stars, appearances, and there's the music in the background.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_15]: It just, it felt like it had and Rockefeller Center.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_15]: It's got the lights.
• 46:48
  [SPEAKER_15]: It just felt like a celebratory issue in so many different ways.
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_15]: And that made it a lot of fun.
• 46:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we're going to stay on cameos for just a minute while we're on this topic.
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: We get to see, and again, this is a retroactive edition.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: We get to see the revelation that Germaine Shardos is playing Amanda Scepton and Kurt is playing the role of Arrow Flynn.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: These two were
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: siblings growing up, but they're not blood related.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: So it's okay.
• 47:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: The romance is fine.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're not going to go there.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: But I think of this, like they know who each other are, but they're not, but they're also playing like a massive role play game by pretending.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: They don't know who the other person is.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's how I read their interchange here.
• 47:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Demanda, you have to play a second horny woman.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: I know your man just haven't had it.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, it wasn't like to play Amanda here.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: All right, so first of all, I love Amanda.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_19]: I love the fact that she is very much like Batman, where Jimin seems to be like the what she puts on.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_19]: She wants to be like the flight attendant having fun traveling the world and she took that from that quote being like, oh, you got out.
• 47:47
  [SPEAKER_19]: Also, I don't have to follow my mother down the winding winks, my mom's terrible.
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_19]: I also think that she uses it a little bit of her magic to be like, you kind of know who I am, but you don't know my face, which I think is also kind of interesting that again like she like puts that like that much on.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_19]: Also, I love I just love the fact that like she uses the term day triper as her name, which is not only like day triper, flight attendant, the song, but also like a little bit of a play on night crawler is super fun.
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_19]: Amanda is great and that she is like, hey, remember how we didn't get to fuck as kids?
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_19]: that now that we're doing.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: Kevin, what's your take on the night crawler side of this relationship?
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_10]: I mean, I don't know that he recognized his her physically, because if he's just a little bit of a horn dog and jump enough to anybody, but I think there's a sense where there are hearts.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_10]: No, each other.
• 48:36
  [SPEAKER_10]: And so that's why, and I love that they've added this little bit that Claremont came back in the last six minutes and added this little bit more to it, because I think it just gives so much more going on with what night crawlers that period was thinking.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I totally read it as him knowing, though.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's like, oh, I wonder if she recognizes me this strange woman that I've never met.
• 48:55
  [SPEAKER_10]: Like, you put on the French outfit and you're like, who am I now?
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_10]: Now it's so international.
• 49:00
  [SPEAKER_10]: Hello woman at the bar.
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_10]: Is that a wedding ring on your finger?
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_10]: I've never met.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_10]: Like, it's very bad energy.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_10]: Who knows, maybe this is where the games they used to play back in the day, who knows?
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_10]: Maybe you pretended to be Earl Flynn back then and rescued her.
• 49:12
  [SPEAKER_19]: Yeah, no step brother.
• 49:13
  [SPEAKER_19]: I'm caught in the washing machine.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_10]: Let me swing down in my rope with my sword.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned for the inevitable trial of Night Crawler, Rodrigo.
• 49:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I love him very much.
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Another cameo, and this is also from the classic X-Men edition, we get to see the Hellfire Club work did.
• 49:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Lady Tessa makes an appearance without speaking, but the infamous character Sage that we very much love, who is a huge part of the backstory of Professor X himself, as well as the character Sebastian Shaw and the character Ned Buckman.
• 49:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, the only time you would have recognized Buckman, and there was a recent reprint of that first Hellfire Gala where Lord of Shantel gets killed by the Sentinel at the end.
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Ned Buckman is the villain in that story.
• 49:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: I would love to hear from Chapman as Sebastian Shaw and Rouhani as Ned Buckman.
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to jump into the world of the Hellfire Club for just a page?
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's a little deep dive of some research obviously Sebastian Shaw is based on like the the trio of a hellfire club members.
• 50:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've got Sebastian Shaw based on Robert Shaw who got Donald Pierce on Donald Sutherland.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: We've got Henry Lee Lynn based on horse and whales.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I did a little deep diving.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: It took a
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: took a bit from my brain to connect that name to Captain Quint from Jaws and such because that's his most probably his most prolific appearance at this point in pop culture.
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Don't think too many people are watching the book in years.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's a he's a fantastic person who's super fascinating.
• 50:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: He had like ten kids.
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: He basically was like, I'll take any job to support them because I've so many college fees, but he lived in this like tiny town up in Ireland where he was beloved.
• 50:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: So basically I was I was reading all that and being like, well,
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think this is, I think it's likeness based on Robert Shaw.
• 50:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's personality based on him at all.
• 50:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's much more of his character than he plays.
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I kind of, I pulled a bit from some people in my life that I know that are kind of some slimy businessmen, things like that.
• 51:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: People that I've touched in the theater world and had
• 51:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: different interactions with then various producers and staff.
• 51:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, it kind of pulled from my real life there and got some kind of extra slimy characters from my past that I wrapped up into this kind of smooth talking as a back-shin shot.
• 51:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I also, I stuck away from the accent because to me, he's easy.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: We know from the hell of our early odds, I believe, that he's from Pittsburgh.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to have him kind of stick away from the accent despite everyone else kind of dipping into it.
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because to me, like as much as he dresses up in the garb he keeps his hair and kind of low ponytail all that stuff to me.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: He seems like the kind of guy who's like, all right, I'll play the game.
• 51:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'll put on the uniform.
• 51:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'll walk the walk, but there's a part of me that's not going to let me fully dive into the the the full period piece of it all.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: So how is capitalism as a character in a very real way?
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the interesting piece of including him here specifically is he's the person who's funding the new contract with the government to build sentiments to hunt mutants, although he is a closet of mutant himself, allyying himself with bigots in this like illuminati sex club, right?
• 52:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Ronnie, I'm assuming that Buckman's not a character you are familiar with.
• 52:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's very limited appearances, but did you enjoy playing this hooded figure?
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_25]: Yeah, no.
• 52:12
  [SPEAKER_25]: Research didn't come up with much about him and I wasn't sure what his background was or anything truthfully, but I was I was almost tempted to just keep the the Russian accent train going for no reason and arbitrarily
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_25]: just all of the sentinels in Buckman, all Russian accents.
• 52:26
  [SPEAKER_25]: But no, it was definitely a fun character to play and, you know, curious about that whole group of people, you know, I'm at.
• 52:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: We'll get there in just a few more script readings.
• 52:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that's good.
• 52:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it doesn't mean that the Buckman of the Hellfire Club.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: We also have the first appearance of fan favorite supporting character Peter Corbot in this issue.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's a professor x is fishing body.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love how smart it tells us he is, but then he's like, oh, there's a fish biting on the line.
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: It makes me less so hard.
• 53:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Chapman, what was it like to craft the voice for Peter Corbot?
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I modeled him mostly because when I first got to him and my read through, right off the bat, he reminded me so much of bones from a Dr. McCoy from the Star Trek original series.
• 53:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's got that kind of like.
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Jack of all trades, serious, but dry wit.
• 53:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so a lot of it was kind of me going through some old bones and spark footage because to me that's such a good comparison to the friendship between Charles and Peter who's like this man of the people kind of guy.
• 53:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: So that's kind of where the the sound itself came from.
• 53:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: And one thing I wanted to, I'm sure the Patreon listeners will know from the interview about kind of his various exploits, but for those of us who have not maybe gone through all of his appearances,
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: uh, I took a look at his first appearance with StarClorone to just kind of dabble into see like what is what why did he get to this famous uh, super doctor astronaut Peter for the level, shout out to Jane Miles, but how did how did he kind of reach this Zina?
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, what does he start at?
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: And in his first appearance, he's got this orbital uh, solar array, which I thought at first was going to be like, oh, a satellite with some solar panels.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people are, people are working on that now.
• 54:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Apparently Japan is doing a whole bunch of stuff with that.
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: But no, he has a nuclear reactor orbiting the sun.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that is what he uses to shoot his good college roommate Bruce Banner with.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: So at that point, I was like, oh, from day one moment one, he hit the page.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's balls to the walls, adventure man, uh, sixties, fifties, action hero kind of, uh, James Bond almost.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then he just kind of does that in the background, well, we're else is having these kind of massive ventures.
• 54:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, by the way, let me show up with a rocket ship and
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: and bounce around a bit, my fishing boat, and I'll take my friends on.
• 54:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, I just kind of, I wanted to pull from that classic actor and then kind of pair it with that, uh, that bones inspiration.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: The fishing boat, Nate, well, I'm gonna see my, uh, my episode with Derek Nichols and Dan Gilford, my friends, uh, we have a long conversation about climate science as we talk about Peter Corbot, but his ship is named for Deja Thoris, who's the alien princess, as Professor X is on the boat, having visions of an alien princess.
• 55:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: What's it, the landers out there in space?
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Justin, you got to return as Charles Xavier in this issue.
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's going through some stuff.
• 55:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to play Charles here?
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_15]: I mean, it's always fun to bring back Charles into undercut him with, you know, seething hatred, but admiration for what he does.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_15]: I love that he's just like hanging out with the boys.
• 55:22
  [SPEAKER_15]: You know, I'm on the boat, but I'm also stressed out calling up my friend to his very impressive on my speed dial and just hanging out on the boat.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_15]: Just go through my mind stuff and tell me that I'm not crazy.
• 55:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: He is having these crazy visions.
• 55:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Shiar are on their way, and then of course he's blasted into space, poor guy.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: He gets his little helmet put on.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we're gonna finally jump into the action of this story.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: There was a lot going on with the X-Men, the fight choreography is really fun here, and the character moments are delightful.
• 55:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: When you combine the classic X-Men expansion with the original, there's a really dense script that we read today.
• 55:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think this has been the longest we've ever done on the show.
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: We've got to open with the very, very hilarious interchange between a gene and storm where this storm's like, back in Africa, the storm's white and genes like storm, you're ruining everything and I already have to deal with Scott.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: God.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_20]: Well, I just love getting to do Jean with hair on a store.
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_20]: Like I just feel like we've created a little bond together and it's so fun and my love doing it.
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_20]: So like getting to hear like the reactions back and forth is just really fun for me.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_20]: Jean in general this issue, I was like, okay girl, see you have some savage lines in there and I'm into it.
• 56:34
  [SPEAKER_20]: Like she was not holding back and choose like kind of a coming into her power like both emotionally and physically which I thought was really fun.
• 56:41
  [SPEAKER_20]: I was just impressed with her.
• 56:42
  [SPEAKER_20]: I was like she's standing up for herself and also like Scott said he loved you and you said cool good to know.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_22]: Thank the scene of her apparently going off while this one dude is like this black chick is just glowing out here.
• 56:54
  [SPEAKER_22]: What's going on?
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_22]: What's happening here?
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_22]: Wow, we need kind of more of that happening comment.
• 57:02
  [SPEAKER_22]: But again, I always love coming on and doing a bounce back and forth with Alicia when we get our storm and gene scenes because those are like very fun.
• 57:10
  [SPEAKER_21]: I like the report.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have a very hard time believing this storm doesn't know what a Sentinel is earlier.
• 57:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're like, we did it for a year and she's like, what's this kind of
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: What kind of training are they doing at this school?
• 57:19
  [SPEAKER_22]: Like, are you not in the danger room with them?
• 57:22
  [SPEAKER_22]: Is this not a part of the programming for the training?
• 57:24
  [SPEAKER_22]: What's what's happening here?
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_22]: What are we doing?
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_19]: That curriculum.
• 57:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we got to talk about Jean and Scott here.
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: I dated this girl back when I was quote unquote straight, who would always be like,
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you think I look pretty tonight?
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, yes, you look very pretty.
• 57:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And she's like, so you do think I look pretty.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, yeah.
• 57:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then she's like, really?
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, yes, you look really.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, oh, good, good Lord.
• 57:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Stop with the compliment fishing.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jean is giving me very that with Scott, who she's trying so hard to convince to pay attention later.
• 57:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Wolverine just shreds her skirt off.
• 57:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: And she's having some feelings for these two men.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: I would love to hear from Alicia.
• 58:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then
• 58:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Seth thought what it was like playing these characters.
• 58:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then Sean, we got to talk about that iconic skirt rip.
• 58:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: My words.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_20]: Yeah, I mean, I like I feel like Jean, I was confused by her because she was like, Scott, hello, I'm here at Kiss Me and he was like, no, and she was like, yeah, no, I'm gonna make you kiss me.
• 58:20
  [SPEAKER_20]: And then I'm gonna make you tell me, love me, but then I'm just gonna be like,
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_20]: Thank you for that.
• 58:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: So it was, it was an interesting dynamic between the two of them that I don't know that I've seen as often from June.
• 58:32
  [SPEAKER_20]: So it was kind of fun to get like a side of her that was different.
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_13]: And Seth, yeah, I'm going to say that he's still just consumed that his brother trying to kill him, which maybe is a fair preoccupation.
• 58:42
  [SPEAKER_13]: He had a rough last issue, but he does really dwell on stuff.
• 58:46
  [SPEAKER_13]: It was nice not to be picked on by the narrator this whole episode though.
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Derrier was annoying, this episode.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Jean, that line where Jean goes, Mr. Summers, you're gift for understatement boggles in the mind.
• 58:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: My single favorite line in the whole script today, I think it's amazing.
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, Rouhani, let's talk about the skirt rip my word.
• 59:04
  [SPEAKER_25]: I did not expect that from Wolverine, but I guess to be fair, he's only been with him for a year at this point, so he's still feral.
• 59:11
  [SPEAKER_25]: I would have thought him to be a more honorable gentleman than that, but...
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_20]: I thought it was like, that's tactical.
• 59:18
  [SPEAKER_20]: He's like, you got to make it as short as possible.
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_20]: So you can have the largest stride with your run.
• 59:23
  [SPEAKER_20]: You know, like, he's like, you got to get your skirt up?
• 59:25
  [SPEAKER_20]: Okay.
• 59:26
  [SPEAKER_25]: But he's got a short clause.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_25]: Like, he tears it with his hands.
• 59:29
  [SPEAKER_25]: There.
• 59:30
  [SPEAKER_25]: But what did the clause have to do with him saying, team, that's something.
• 59:34
  [SPEAKER_25]: Nothing, darling.
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's just good lord.
• 59:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: Gene and Gene is like, oh.
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: I know there's different robots, but I'm so turned on right now very that we also get this iconic I mean Wolverine is a fucking amazing fighter in this issue kind of for the first time.
• 59:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're really seeing him kick ass, but okay, so a little background stuff and we'll delve more into this as we get more into Wolverine's character.
• 59:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: There were conversations about Wolverine not actually being a mutant and they were even discussing for a period of time.
• 1:00:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe he was like an actual Wolverine
• 1:00:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: who had been hyper-revolved by the high-abolutionary into a man form like one of those Knights of Wondergork characters.
• 1:00:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: So when the stuff is pinging on Wolverine, this is a hint that he has a very mysterious background.
• 1:00:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: We don't know quite what he is.
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then we get him popping his claws out of his wrists for the first time in history, right?
• 1:00:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: Or out of his knuckles, and Banshee reacting with shock.
• 1:00:26
  [SPEAKER_25]: Um, yeah, I mean, I never thought, obviously, you know, unfortunately, I never got a chance to really delve into comics as a kid, but so my whole education was was the show.
• 1:00:35
  [SPEAKER_25]: And, uh, yeah, I guess I've been so spoiled with Wolverine and his claws coming out of his outfit and not thinking of, well, there must've been a first time that everybody else sees this and that must be a pretty terrifying sight to see.
• 1:00:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think this is Wolverine's eighth appearance.
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: He had like three in the incredible Hulk, and this is his fifth issue of X men, right?
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: So pretty new for the character still.
• 1:00:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, shocking thing for kids reading comics at home, right?
• 1:01:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: This guy's got blades in his hands.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_25]: Yeah.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_25]: And he doesn't even say ow when they come out.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_25]: Like, they still have to hurt, or I know he heals, but come on.
• 1:01:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Ben, she also got some great powerhouse moments in this episode, which is so fun.
• 1:01:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: I love how Claremont will divide the team up into different pieces, right?
• 1:01:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, ooh, these three are up in space and those are down there.
• 1:01:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: On this mission, that part always excites me as a reader.
• 1:01:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like playing Banshee today?
• 1:01:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's always fun being Banshee, you know, just, I've been, I feel like as I've been doing this more and more, I've been refining my Irish accent.
• 1:01:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: kind of been great, but I love the, uh, there's a little bit of, he gets to be sarcastic at laying for a second.
• 1:01:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's like, oh, we're honored.
• 1:01:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: You could grace us with your parents, sir.
• 1:01:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just like, just give him more character.
• 1:01:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love it.
• 1:01:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: He just used as much as, as, you know, back, obviously in the seventies, but like, it's still fun.
• 1:01:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's so much fun.
• 1:01:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, he's a great character.
• 1:01:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's so much potential.
• 1:01:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then I think the last character we have to talk about is the iconic supervillain Stephen Lang.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, Lang, of course, goes on later to upload his brain into a master mold.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: That master mold gets combined with Nimrod into the character bastion.
• 1:02:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: So Lang is a character that goes on to exist in the comics, at least his consciousness.
• 1:02:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Scotty, you've got this delicious Disney supervillain voice for Lang.
• 1:02:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's so great.
• 1:02:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: I have then to come up with a lot of head cannon for Steven Lime, which has been interesting.
• 1:02:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: But I, in the last issue we talked about, and I feel like he was kind of on the fence.
• 1:02:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: He wasn't really like committing to like, I'm gonna be a great supervillain.
• 1:02:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: Now, now he's won.
• 1:02:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: He's like, okay, I'm gonna lean in.
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm gonna lean into this.
• 1:02:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: I did love, I also was trying to find some ways to underplay.
• 1:02:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: I really had a lot of fun when he was like, me and Nazi?
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: No.
• 1:02:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: That sounds very wrong.
• 1:02:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: Three slaps due to cross the face.
• 1:02:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that he is incredibly jealous of Jean.
• 1:02:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know why.
• 1:02:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: I do know why, but you're looking very, he does very much have that, like, I'm very mad at Jean because I would like to, I would like to be Jean.
• 1:02:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's how I, that's why he's laughter.
• 1:02:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's, that's really the only, that's why the only energy I come up with there.
• 1:03:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not sure if the diversity in Russian accents and the diversity in Sentinel voices, there was a whole, my word, that was delicious.
• 1:03:10
  [SPEAKER_25]: I will watch a whole sitcom of just centenels.
• 1:03:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Dooms like intern Sentinel voice from Alabama like there was and then we had like a Kevin and Kevin and Herums like sentibles were so nerdy they were like the chess club side of the sentibles just I just want to know who like Lang is basically these voices off of like what voices actors did he hire to get to
• 1:03:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: I guess it doesn't have a lot of friends.
• 1:03:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: You're like, right?
• 1:03:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: You literally killed the only other person that helped him with this thing.
• 1:03:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: So we just gives like that, but the more more Steve than I had got me.
• 1:03:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: He literally said, I'm going to make this one the no, anyone.
• 1:03:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And someone's going to bless us.
• 1:03:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: And this one's going to be super bitchy to gene for me.
• 1:03:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's like the dolls that his parents wouldn't let him play with growing up, which is amazing.
• 1:03:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now I got to do a huge sentinel's trial or episode a couple of years ago Scotty and Justin were with me for that.
• 1:04:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: We talked a lot about these guys.
• 1:04:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: These are the death machines.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: These are propaganda symbols used by a government to literally hunt down.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're funded by the United States government to hunt down a subpopulation.
• 1:04:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: which in the twenty twenty-five conversations that we're having about ice and other things is deeply painful and uncomfortable, but we love a good set in those stories.
• 1:04:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: These are always the ultimate supervillain for the X-Men to face even more than Magneto or Saber II with their name of the others because these are the things that are supposed to wipe out the diversity that they represent.
• 1:04:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Quariment took all the stuff from the sixties and like made the special pieces really special and the sentinel stories are the ones that really amplify the X-Men up to the characters that we love today.
• 1:04:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Will Beverage.
• 1:04:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: There were a couple of things I did want to call out from the episode we didn't get to really discuss.
• 1:04:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: There is a tasteful butt shot for Banshee when they're fighting the settinals and I love that moment.
• 1:04:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like, oh, look at that shape.
• 1:04:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Leave a lot of fantastic.
• 1:04:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: And a two voice actor callouts I want to do.
• 1:05:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Justin, your Claremont is perfect.
• 1:05:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Don't change a thing.
• 1:05:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was thinking like, how would I do it?
• 1:05:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it turned out to just be, what if Hank Hill was from Minnesota not Texas?
• 1:05:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: And, um, Amanda, as, as Ania Makaroba, oh my god, you brought so much like like the part where she's breaking Peter's heart, you did, you humanized this evil person in a weird way and I really loved it.
• 1:05:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: You were fantastic and don't change the thing about yourself.
• 1:05:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really want to write a modern story where Peter's doing great and he meets Ania and she had to marry some Russian guy, her dad married her after she got like seven children and she's so fucking miserable.
• 1:05:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: It would be amazing.
• 1:05:38
  [SPEAKER_13]: So another fun recording.
• 1:05:39
  [SPEAKER_13]: I love hanging out with
• 1:05:40
  [SPEAKER_13]: with you always an enjoyable time in September.
• 1:05:43
  [SPEAKER_13]: I have no idea what I'll be doing.
• 1:05:45
  [SPEAKER_13]: So just if you'd like to follow me and my R on Instagram at SC Martell, I'm sure I'll be drawing something other at that point.
• 1:05:52
  [SPEAKER_13]: So you can check it out there.
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Seth and I are also doing a monthly story in our newsletter now, which is so fun to do together.
• 1:05:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: I always love teaming up with you, my friend.
• 1:06:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hi, you're my favorite artist.
• 1:06:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm Jim and Blake.
• 1:06:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:06:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: This has been a wonderful time as always.
• 1:06:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: I am in the tentative planning stages of maybe a project coming up.
• 1:06:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: So keep your eye out on the the X pod space.
• 1:06:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe there may be a new one popping up towards the end of of twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six.
• 1:06:21
  [SPEAKER_25]: I first fall shout out to everybody.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_25]: You guys are all killed with your performances Seth.
• 1:06:26
  [SPEAKER_25]: I got a little bit of Kevin Conroy Batman vibes from from your sideclops, which was a cool here.
• 1:06:33
  [SPEAKER_25]: So to give him a little extra dimension beyond just being kind of the nerdy leader.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_13]: Oh, thank you.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_13]: He doesn't deserve to be that cool though.
• 1:06:42
  [SPEAKER_25]: And Gene, honestly, everybody, you guys, it's such a great job.
• 1:06:44
  [SPEAKER_25]: I mean, you can find me on some of the social media, just my name, Sean Rohani, and yeah, feel free to connect otherwise other than that, I'll just be continuing to voice act and happy that the video game strike is done, so getting back into games and stuff and doing what I love.
• 1:07:01
  [SPEAKER_20]: Well, I love being here.
• 1:07:03
  [SPEAKER_20]: So thanks again for having me.
• 1:07:04
  [SPEAKER_20]: Oh, I don't have any other thoughts other than you guys all rock.
• 1:07:07
  [SPEAKER_20]: And I love doing this and it brings me so much joy.
• 1:07:10
  [SPEAKER_20]: If you want to follow my cosplay and dance journey, you can follow me at Wilder moves on Instagram and TikTok.
• 1:07:17
  [SPEAKER_20]: And I'm also one half of the all new all different ex-wife podcast.
• 1:07:21
  [SPEAKER_20]: We did a little revamp this year.
• 1:07:23
  [SPEAKER_20]: So check us out.
• 1:07:24
  [SPEAKER_20]: And you can find us on the internet at
• 1:07:27
  [SPEAKER_20]: The XY podcast that's T-H-E-W-I-F-E has an X-Men X-W-I-F-E.
• 1:07:33
  [SPEAKER_20]: You need the X for X-Men.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_20]: Let me do it again.
• 1:07:35
  [SPEAKER_20]: The white podcast.
• 1:07:36
  [SPEAKER_20]: The white podcast.
• 1:07:37
  [SPEAKER_14]: The white podcast.
• 1:07:38
  [SPEAKER_14]: You get it.
• 1:07:38
  [SPEAKER_14]: It's new.
• 1:07:39
  [SPEAKER_14]: I'm taking over.
• 1:07:40
  [SPEAKER_14]: It's not a bad experiment anymore.
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_12]: Fuck the X-Men.
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_12]: All right.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_12]: Well, Chad, you had to keep all that in.
• 1:07:44
  [SPEAKER_12]: So anyway, it's the XY podcast.
• 1:07:46
  [SPEAKER_12]: And there you go.
• 1:07:46
  [SPEAKER_12]: I'm not going to spell it again.
• 1:07:47
  [SPEAKER_15]: They haven't eaten.
• 1:07:48
  [SPEAKER_15]: Hey, I'm the other half.
• 1:07:50
  [SPEAKER_15]: I'll spell it.
• 1:07:50
  [SPEAKER_15]: D-H-E-X-W-I-F-E podcast.
• 1:07:53
  [SPEAKER_15]: Spod B-O-D.
• 1:07:55
  [SPEAKER_15]: Shut up, Justin.
• 1:07:56
  [SPEAKER_15]: This is fun.
• 1:07:58
  [SPEAKER_15]: Frequency that I listened slash participate to these.
• 1:08:01
  [SPEAKER_15]: These are the voices of these characters.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_15]: Sorry, ninety seven.
• 1:08:05
  [SPEAKER_15]: Sorry, the animated series.
• 1:08:06
  [SPEAKER_15]: Sorry, I'm going to like these are the voices that I hear in my head when I read the comics.
• 1:08:11
  [SPEAKER_15]: So thanks, Chad.
• 1:08:12
  [SPEAKER_15]: And thanks to all of you for your wonderful work.
• 1:08:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Fraga, I forgot to call out the little image of cyclops with the cerebral homodon just like trying as best to sense second quiz.
• 1:08:23
  [SPEAKER_19]: Hi, I'm during the martini.
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_19]: You can find me across most social media at the main martini, especially on the known cash app doing my little baking show to me my ex treats.
• 1:08:35
  [SPEAKER_10]: Kevin Canary and then very dark times this feeds my soul like you can't understand.
• 1:08:40
  [SPEAKER_10]: I needed this a lot lately and and it brings me great joy.
• 1:08:44
  [SPEAKER_10]: So thank you all for that.
• 1:08:45
  [SPEAKER_10]: Sorry, I'm getting a little emotional.
• 1:08:46
  [SPEAKER_10]: Hopefully I can come back and join as many times as you will hear me on and gray mockingly because this is just a beautiful gift.
• 1:08:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: So thank you anytime, every time.
• 1:08:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: I am a similar regular guest on Grimmouth and Lane, so you can catch some of those other things we do in the trial episode.
• 1:09:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: I have a blue sky count that I am reactivated, talk about some things related to what I do in my professional life as a data scientist and expert on AI and occasionally mixed in with some content about Xman stuff in comics, because I find those things really interesting, so please follow me there.
• 1:09:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, lastly, I'm Chad Anderson.
• 1:09:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: I keep my own social media private guy kiddos, but this group is welcomed.
• 1:09:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: Follow me.
• 1:09:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: Just ask my social media is mostly Instagram these days.
• 1:09:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: It is a grandma can underscore lane.
• 1:09:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, there's a lot happening in the world right now.
• 1:09:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: I've been releasing a series of little vignettes about the red skull at the end of every episode.
• 1:09:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: So watch for another one of those at the end of this today.
• 1:09:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's been so helpful to just kind of
• 1:09:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: process through fascism.
• 1:09:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: The theme of the red skull has been writing along with us.
• 1:09:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: I hope you're enjoying and finding those educational.
• 1:09:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Also, stay tuned in the latter half.
• 1:09:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're doing a lot of magic content on the show in September.
• 1:09:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I have an interview with the author Matt Ruff immediately following this.
• 1:09:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: He is the guy who wrote the Lovecraft series and Marvel has a lot of Lovecraft.
• 1:10:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then in the next episode after this, we will be talking all about Marvel's magic rule book.
• 1:10:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a series called Mystic Arcana.
• 1:10:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: My handbook friend David Sexton, who spearheaded that book, will be joining me as well as my dear friend Michael Elliott, will be back for that episode.
• 1:10:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Over on the Patreon this month, we are doing some of Marvel's most problematic characters.
• 1:10:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: So please watch for one featuring the character in Baku, the Mani, immediately after this,
• 1:10:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's a black African man in a guerrilla costume.
• 1:10:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Marima Agadalea, a stormfame, and Dotona Conday are joining me for that.
• 1:10:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: And later this month, Dementa, Martini, and a harem scammer joining me for a character episode on Big Bertha.
• 1:10:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we'll be talking all about her.
• 1:10:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'll be surprised by the others, but we've had a really fun time putting these together.
• 1:10:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
• 1:10:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for this group of people who I am just delighted to see so many of you this week enormous hugs.
• 1:10:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: We will see you all back here next week, but stay tuned immediately after four hour interview with Matt Ruff.
• 1:10:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: Be right back.
• 1:10:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: Everybody, thanks for sticking around for the second half.
• 1:11:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: I am so honored to be joined by the incredible writer Matt Ruff here with me today.
• 1:11:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: Matt, I recently told a few friends that I was bringing you on it, like, jaws drop.
• 1:11:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: They were like, how did you get Matt Ruff?
• 1:11:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm so excited to have you here.
• 1:11:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the show.
• 1:11:13
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, thank you very much.
• 1:11:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: And yes, the answer to that question is you emailed me and asked politely and that's generally all the things.
• 1:11:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: So now I became a familiar with your work initially because of the release of Lovecraft lovecraft country, the television show a few years back, which that inspired me to go back and read your lovecraft.
• 1:11:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: books and it opened up my eyes to a whole universe of things that I kind of wasn't aware of as a consumer of the horror and science fiction and comic books across my life.
• 1:11:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's so many themes explored in your writing that are so resonant to almost everything I've ever read.
• 1:11:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: If I'm frank, if I'm honest, frankly,
• 1:11:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: I was lucky here with folks a little bit of your origin story as kind of a cosmic nerd fan turned into author and tell us how you how you developed this interest in the world of HP Lovecraft.
• 1:12:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, I mean my story is actually kind of weird and complicated the way and one of those people who came out of the womb wired to tell stories I decided I wanted to do this for a living when I was about five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence teaching myself
• 1:12:16
  [SPEAKER_26]: how to write tell stories and it was always long fiction that I was drawn towards even when I tried to do short stories I would end up stringing in together and creating sort of a mini soap opera.
• 1:12:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: So by the time I got to Cornell University I was ready to write something I could hopefully actually sell in my first
• 1:12:32
  [SPEAKER_26]: published novel Pony Hill was my senior thesis in creative writing and one of my teachers was a novelist Alice and Laura if you liked my work she said, you know, you finished this here's the name of my agent in New York you should send it to her and see what you can do and that one act of kindness sort of justified my entire tuition.
• 1:12:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it's a good thing it worked out because I, I, not somebody who's wired for teaching.
• 1:12:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: So if, if that had not worked out, I would probably ended up working in a video store with an Ivy League education.
• 1:12:58
  [SPEAKER_26]: But Melanie, Melanie Jackson, my agent, love the book and sold it within six months.
• 1:13:03
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then I was on my way.
• 1:13:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I was not immediately super successful.
• 1:13:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: But I had, every time I, I was running out of money and having to thinking about maybe getting a real job, something would happen that will happen to keep going a little longer.
• 1:13:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: One thing was that my first novel was translated into German, and I was actually more popular in Europe for a while, and I was here.
• 1:13:21
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that allowed me to keep going and eventually build up a back list.
• 1:13:24
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then, you know, my third novel set this house in order, which is a story about two people with multiple personality disorder and their relationship.
• 1:13:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: That got a lot of critical attention, and then my fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, was sort of a critical breakthrough, a commercial breakthrough, and has been optioned multiple times.
• 1:13:40
  [SPEAKER_26]: Right now, Margot Roby is working on doing something with it.
• 1:13:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: Yeah, and then the big overnight success came with Lovecraft country, which I published in twenty sixteen.
• 1:13:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so after thirty five years as the published novel has started to come this overnight success, when that is adapted by drug and PLHBL.
• 1:13:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a person and I've shared my story on the show a bunch.
• 1:13:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: I also consider myself a writer.
• 1:14:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's always been my dream.
• 1:14:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: But it's always been the thing where I have to have the job to support the thing that I'm doing creatively, which is the theme of so many writers.
• 1:14:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: I knew when I was five, I wanted to tell stories.
• 1:14:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's the thing that I hear so often from writers and artists.
• 1:14:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's such a powerful thing.
• 1:14:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: But those skill sets of marketing yourself and forming the connection, the public notice, it's exhausting.
• 1:14:22
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, in my case, I was just one, I was lucky and two, I was stubborn.
• 1:14:26
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I didn't mind being poor in my twenties, which was part of it.
• 1:14:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I was able to hang on long enough.
• 1:14:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: But yeah, so I always tell people, if you have any practicality in you at all, think about what else you will want to be doing that will allow you to keep doing this work.
• 1:14:42
  [SPEAKER_26]: And something will pay your bills, but not leave you so exhausted at the end of the day that you just want to bear.
• 1:14:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: But I was able to avoid honest work entirely and just just keep writing until I got through.
• 1:14:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: But anyway, yeah.
• 1:14:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: So the other weird thing about me is that I have had this weird career where my publishers have been willing to indulge me in doing whatever I want.
• 1:15:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: So I don't really have a fixed genre.
• 1:15:03
  [SPEAKER_26]: Every one of my books is
• 1:15:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: is a different subject in different subject matter.
• 1:15:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: They usually have some sort of fantastic element, but I'm really all over the map in terms of subject matter.
• 1:15:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: The real through line is just I like I like talking about culture clashes bringing characters from different backgrounds together and forcing the interact in ways where they're no easy out.
• 1:15:21
  [SPEAKER_26]: They're not going to
• 1:15:22
  [SPEAKER_26]: magically agree with one another and they can't kill each other.
• 1:15:24
  [SPEAKER_26]: They've just kind of got to learn to get along and work through their differences.
• 1:15:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I also like writing protagonists who aren't particularly like me.
• 1:15:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: I like exploring other people's worldviews and other people's cultures.
• 1:15:34
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I turned out to have a knack for that.
• 1:15:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I enjoy that you have flawed protagonists.
• 1:15:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think that's a really fascinating.
• 1:15:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: And it's a wonderful thing to be able to pursue kind of the creative ideals.
• 1:15:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: So it tells people a little about HP Lovecraft and where you kind of first became aware of this very complicated figure.
• 1:15:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Everyone knows the term Lovecraft, but when you start to look into the man and what he represents and the types of things he did and his impact on things, he's quite a looming figure in American and frankly even world storytelling.
• 1:16:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, yeah, I mean, I was always aware of him.
• 1:16:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: He was he was very large and genre circle that I've always been a fan of for although love craft is is one of those authors who I liked his imitators more than him early on because he he was writing in the nineteen you know the nineteen tens nineteen twenty nineteen thirties and
• 1:16:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: His language is very dense and the other thing is that the pacing is very slow.
• 1:16:28
  [SPEAKER_26]: Like Lovecraft's specialty is sort of slow burning dread.
• 1:16:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: And if the monster shows up at all, it's going to be in the last page of the story and growing up with movies, I was just like, okay, when is something going to happen?
• 1:16:38
  [SPEAKER_26]: And some of Ladder Day, you know, Lovecraft's Ladder Day, imitators were much more able to speed up the pacing in a way that felt more modern.
• 1:16:47
  [SPEAKER_26]: It wasn't until I was older when back and realized what he was doing and learned to appreciate him on his own terms.
• 1:16:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: The other thing about Lovecraft famously is that he was a white supremacist and made no bones about that.
• 1:16:56
  [SPEAKER_26]: And this is this is a parent in his fiction, but it is really apparent in the hundreds of thousands of letters he wrote during his lifetime, many of which were published after he died.
• 1:17:04
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so this has been sort of a a difficult thing, I guess, for the genre to deal with that that you have this immensely talented and immensely influential figure.
• 1:17:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: who was also a very flawed human being and kind of an embarrassment.
• 1:17:16
  [SPEAKER_26]: And people have been grappling with this ever since.
• 1:17:19
  [SPEAKER_26]: I never really expected my heroes or my people whose work admire to be necessarily good human beings.
• 1:17:26
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I actually think it's more interesting when people have flaws and try to figure out what made this person tick.
• 1:17:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: But so I was less concerned with this.
• 1:17:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: But a lot of people just really do have a hard time with them.
• 1:17:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so with lovecraft country, the novel actually started out not as a lovecraft of mosh, I wanted to do my version of the expiles where you had a recurring cast of characters having a series of paranormal adventures.
• 1:17:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: And my twist was instead of being about white FBI, just in the nineteen nineties, my story was about a black family who owned up.
• 1:17:55
  [SPEAKER_26]: a travel agency in nineteen fifty Chicago and published a fictional version of the green book called the safe negro travel guide and the idea was that the son of the family at a customer was a researcher for this book who was going to drive around America looking for hotels and restaurants that serve black customers and doing research and then he would get caught up in adventures and he was also a black nerd who loved you know genre fiction so if he saw monster running across the road he would know what the rules were and how to deal with that and it was going to
• 1:18:22
  [SPEAKER_26]: talk about supernatural horror, but also the more mundane horrors of life in the Jim Crow era.
• 1:18:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: And Lovecraft came into it because I needed a bridge between supernatural horror and racism, and he's perfect for that.
• 1:18:32
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I also wanted to talk about the difficult position of black nerds, particularly in the in the nineteen fifties era, where you were in love with a genre that didn't love you back and was often openly hostile to you.
• 1:18:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: And again, Lovecraft's really iconic about that, where
• 1:18:47
  [SPEAKER_26]: There he's got, he's got black fans too and they struggle with the fact that he didn't consider them to be fully human.
• 1:18:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: So that just seemed like a really rich thing to work with.
• 1:18:55
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I actually initially pitched this as a TV series idea back and I think, two thousand seven, two thousand eight and either because I was too soon for that idea or because I was just the wrong person to be pitching it.
• 1:19:06
  [SPEAKER_26]: I didn't get any takers so I decided to reimagine it as a book that
• 1:19:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: turned out to be successful beyond my wildest dreams and that the book came out and things had changed suddenly where I started immediately getting a lot of attention and then I got a call from Jordan Peel who was really excited and wanted to do something with it and things kind of took off from there so yeah so that is that is the short version of how I got involved with Lovecraft and Lovecraft Country.
• 1:19:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, researching Lovecraft is one part of the journey that you take, right?
• 1:19:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: You have to be intimately familiar with this person and his world and what he represented and his writing and his letters and his relationships, but also creating the world that he existed in, right?
• 1:19:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Understanding the mindset of this kind of oppressive way of thinking this very Aryan way of thinking the idea that the bloodline is sacred, you know, et cetera, et cetera,
• 1:19:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, in your series, you posit that only the pure of blood are able to access this kind of power set.
• 1:20:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: But there were white slave owners who owned black people, raped black people, had children through black people.
• 1:20:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: And the idea that this group of black people because they have this power, they're able then to take it and use it against their oppressors.
• 1:20:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: The big
• 1:20:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: The threat throughout your series is the constant presence of racism and the way that the law and the police force are using racism.
• 1:20:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: That seems to be the underlying horror, even though we're looking at themes of cosmic horror along the way.
• 1:20:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a beautiful thing to capture that and Jordan Peel really plays that up of course in his version of the story where it's that looming presence of the always the danger of the cops or being spotted in the wrong place.
• 1:20:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk to people a little bit about what it was like to open yourself up to this idea and then painting this painting this across the nineteen fifties American landscape which is also a very complex time.
• 1:20:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: Actually, first one thing I would say so it's not me positive that it is the it is the white villains in the book who think that way absolutely My own thought was that you know that was that that idea that the blood has power was their notion, but it didn't necessarily hold true or if it did it didn't necessarily work the way that they thought
• 1:21:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: So, yeah, I mean, for me, it was just sort of fascinating getting into the era of the nineteen fifties.
• 1:21:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: I had read a book by James Lowing called Sound Downtown, which is sort of about the secret history of white supremacy and it, one of the things that fascinated me about it was that we tend to think of
• 1:21:29
  [SPEAKER_26]: racism is a southern phenomenon, but in fact, low and toxic extensively about the fact that it was just as it was just as prevalent in the north, but it expressed itself differently.
• 1:21:37
  [SPEAKER_26]: We're in the south.
• 1:21:38
  [SPEAKER_26]: It was about sort of continuing the exploitation of black labor in the aftermath of slavery.
• 1:21:42
  [SPEAKER_26]: The north just didn't want black people around.
• 1:21:45
  [SPEAKER_26]: And you know, but at the same time, didn't want to admit that.
• 1:21:47
  [SPEAKER_26]: So we're in the south.
• 1:21:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: You had extensive signs telling people where they were and weren't welcome.
• 1:21:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: In the north, it was more covert.
• 1:21:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: You might find a sign saying, well, it's only, but more often, you would just drive up to a motel and suddenly the no vacancy sign would come on.
• 1:22:00
  [SPEAKER_26]: Not only were you being discriminated against, but you were sort of being gaslit.
• 1:22:04
  [SPEAKER_26]: And like, oh, no, you know, we, I'm sorry, we just don't have a room for you.
• 1:22:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: So you were made to feel like you were crazy on top of everything else.
• 1:22:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: That sense of creeping paranoia is very lovecraftian where you kind of are constantly getting these signals that you're not wanted in a place that it's dangerous and that violence could break out in any moment and that wearing on you and trying to figure out how to find your way and that was what I what kind of dreaming to the story and what I wanted to get into and
• 1:22:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Further tying those themes in your sequel back to the ancestry in the slave movement or the slavery where you have escaping slaves who are legends in real, in real myth, but you get to expose them as kind of the archetype for this family.
• 1:22:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: And you have a very complex cast of characters through the nineteen fifties, which I think is great.
• 1:22:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: The diversity among the members of the family, I think is fascinating.
• 1:22:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: And again, beautifully done in the show by Jordan Peel as well.
• 1:22:56
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, I should also mention to you that like we really need to name check me should green the show runner who did the did the big heavy lifting on the show like Jordan it wouldn't it wouldn't have happened without Jordan, but me she was really the driving force of the series.
• 1:23:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
• 1:23:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: Yeah, I mean to me, I just I loved that it was like the kind of story I love to tell but also just getting to explore this sort of these little forgotten patches of history.
• 1:23:17
  [SPEAKER_26]: I'm not so much a message guy, you know, it is very tempting.
• 1:23:20
  [SPEAKER_26]: I think for a lot of people if you dive in this to sort of, you know, have some sort of rich underlying message statement for me.
• 1:23:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: I really prefer to focus on characters and the relationships and let any sort of deeper themes emerge organically.
• 1:23:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: If I find myself trying to say a specific thing, I find I end up stepping on.
• 1:23:35
  [SPEAKER_26]: The more psychologically realistic choices that people make and I've just preferred to focus on that on the characters and how they deal with their their individual problems and challenges.
• 1:23:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: And the other thing about writing this sort of story is that I think when you tell people you're writing a book about racism that it just sounds like it's going to be really dire and suffering suffering suffering trauma trauma and
• 1:23:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: My thing was always no, it's about finding your way about these smart intelligent people, you know, are facing these enormous challenges, but they're resourceful enough to figure out a way to make you get through to the next day and to overcome the obstacles in front of them.
• 1:24:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I wanted to, that is a kind of story that is fun to read and fun to tell, even as you're dealing with these really heavy themes and horrible things happen, but folks find their way through that kind of adversity.
• 1:24:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that kind of is a story that you can sort of read without wanting to slip your wrist when you're done.
• 1:24:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, well, and there's a density to the trauma, obviously, but that's our history.
• 1:24:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I think one of the things that's nice, and as a reader of both of these books and I've read other others, but we're focusing on Lovecraft today, obviously.
• 1:24:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: I've read a thousand books, and I had no idea where any of your characters were going, which was really fun for me, because it really opened up this kind of new world, the unexpectedness of it.
• 1:24:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: But also, you really definitely weave in all of the different Lovecraft themes, as each character is on their own kind of heroes journey along the way.
• 1:24:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I want to talk a little bit about Lovecraftian themes and because I'm doing a show about comic books and kind of people applications there I'm going to be doing a little bit of Marvel comics implementation just so my readers have that kind of touching point when people hear Lovecraft
• 1:25:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: the first thing they think of is catholou.
• 1:25:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: And Lovecraft is very well known for this idea of cosmic horror, right?
• 1:25:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's this idea that we can tap into these great beings from other realms, kind of showing that humanity in its way is kind of insignificant almost, if you will.
• 1:25:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: And these great beings that exist just over the threshold, if you make the deal with them, how does that go for you?
• 1:25:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because ultimately what they want is not what you want, right?
• 1:25:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're using you as a vessel to create something else.
• 1:25:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Marvel has a lengthy realm of elder gods, one of them is called Schumagaroth, which is the big eyeball surrounded by tentacles.
• 1:25:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's all these giant massive monsters just ready to kind of invade our realm if you open up the dimensional barrier, just enough.
• 1:25:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: And there's always these fausty and bargains that are made.
• 1:25:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: You want to talk to people a little bit about Kathulu and this idea of this extra dimensional cosmic horror and how it plays into both Lovecraft and in your stories.
• 1:25:59
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's funny.
• 1:25:59
  [SPEAKER_26]: I mean, I think my general take, like, on Cathedral, I think that a lot of this had to do with the fact that I talk a little more about this in the second novel, Destroyer of Worlds.
• 1:26:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: This Lovecraft came of age at a time when astronomy was really figuring out just how big the universe was.
• 1:26:16
  [SPEAKER_26]: And by extension, how insignificant human beings were.
• 1:26:19
  [SPEAKER_26]: And this was a real shock to a lot of people to discover that, yes, we are this little tiny ball in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:26:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: There's surrounded by this vast universe that renders us insignificant and I think lovecraft sort of it drove a lot of people crazy trying to deal with that in his thing was like one of his themes is just how little we matter and that and then he posits beyond that that there is this hostile universe with much larger forces that care nothing for us and so the yes the big thing with Thulu is that once upon a time God's ruled the earth and
• 1:26:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: And in some future turn when that when the stars are right, they're going to come back and wipe us all out.
• 1:26:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: And yes, they have their followers and their cultists, but those people are diluted because if if they'll come into your into your world, your world is over as you know it.
• 1:27:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: So and I think it almost seems to play on the idea of like, Satan worshipers in an odd way.
• 1:27:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, I mean, I think what the other thing it feeds into with him is his sense of, I think, sort of racial supremacy, like he had that he was an oddly pessimistic white supremacist where he believed that, you know, white Europe was the pinnacle of human civilization for now, but that in this time, and this is the forehead layer, everyone.
• 1:27:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: Oh, yeah, no.
• 1:27:28
  [SPEAKER_26]: Although, yeah, we can talk about his thoughts on Hitler, but basically, yeah, lovecraft was very, very, you know, caught up in this idea that that European civilization, white civilization was in decline.
• 1:27:38
  [SPEAKER_26]: And, you know, he would make these noises about it.
• 1:27:40
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, we're first we're going to go down fighting, but that at some point it was going to fall and be replaced by some other civilization, like he thought maybe China, maybe Japan.
• 1:27:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: And, you know, they would have their turn in supremacy and then they would be knocked off and so on.
• 1:27:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it would go on until the human race died out completely and then the earth would go on and you know, through this uncaring universe.
• 1:28:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: And the idea that it didn't have to be that way that you could just different cultures could learn to work together and appreciate what each had to offer.
• 1:28:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: It was just never was not something that occurred to him or that he took seriously.
• 1:28:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: And he's not the only writer from that period.
• 1:28:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: I've heard talk this way.
• 1:28:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like I remember reading Robert Heinlein when I was younger and he also had this thing where yes, if we we meet some culture in space sooner or later, there's going to be a big fight and there was this this idea that only one guy can be in charge and we wanted to be us because we know we're the good people, but our time may be limited here.
• 1:28:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: So
• 1:28:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: A lot of what he's writing about, I mean, with Thulu breaking, you know, these alien monsters breaking and part of what he's talking about is just the decline of the West and the sense of, you know, that my preferred civilization, my preferred culture is already weakening and going out and, you know, here, you know, it's coming soon and that things are going to fall.
• 1:28:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what drew him to that.
• 1:28:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: But part of it, I think, is just he, he came from this weird family where both his mother and his father ended up in mental institution for both the same reason.
• 1:29:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: It seems like his father, I think, had syphilis and may have given it to his mother.
• 1:29:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: So I think he was very concerned that his blood was somehow tainted.
• 1:29:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: He worried that, you know, like
• 1:29:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: a lot of racist that he was not the Aryan Superman.
• 1:29:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: He was out on the fringes and that he too had been contaminated in some way by this alien culture that he feared.
• 1:29:20
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I think that fed into his general paranoia.
• 1:29:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: It made him very miserable.
• 1:29:24
  [SPEAKER_26]: It made him very unpleasant in some ways in his own life.
• 1:29:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: But it also because he fed this into his fiction, it actually worked really well at making
• 1:29:32
  [SPEAKER_26]: you know, horror stories.
• 1:29:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: Part of what's interesting about him is that even if you reject this worldview is utterly that sense of dread and that sense of fear of dealing with a hostile other is something you can sort of repurpose and still use and learn from.
• 1:29:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: You know, like that my favorite love craft story is the shadow over in Smith, which is this guy is on vacation and
• 1:29:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: spots in this town for the night and spends, you know, sees this town that has made this unholy alliance with these demons who live in the sea.
• 1:29:58
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so the traveler sees too much and when he's ready to leave the bus it's supposed to take him back to you to the big city breaks down.
• 1:30:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: And when night falls, the whole town comes out to try to hunt him down.
• 1:30:09
  [SPEAKER_26]: And the traveler's white, there's a racist subtext here and that, you know, the people of the town have been mating with these creatures for this alien race.
• 1:30:17
  [SPEAKER_26]: So there's this not very subtle reference to race mixing.
• 1:30:20
  [SPEAKER_26]: So it's a racist story in some ways, but it's also one of the most effective tales of attempted lynching I have ever read and with just a little tweaking it becomes a very creepy story about a black traveler who stops in the wrong town after dark.
• 1:30:32
  [SPEAKER_26]: So that's the kind of thing with lovecraft that I try to sort of borrow and repurpose for the novel.
• 1:30:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: But that idea of cosmic insignificance I think is interesting because we can zoom that down to like an individual human soul as we are aging across time and realizing how little we matter at the end of the day.
• 1:30:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Or the idea on a macro scale of, you know, we've been this plan has been around for billions of years and our time thus becomes insignificant.
• 1:30:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: But even the fragility of human life, a meteor hits the earth and suddenly it's an ice age and we're all wiped out anyway.
• 1:31:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's almost like this, this need to find a reason to exist.
• 1:31:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when you boil that down to the levels of sanity, I think that's also really fascinating.
• 1:31:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: So there's another piece of Lovecraft where there's a strong theme related to the idea of kind of forbidden knowledge.
• 1:31:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: You find the ancient text, the
• 1:31:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: Necronomic on or in Marvel comics things like the Dark Hold and you read a single spell and it's like you're making some sort of deal.
• 1:31:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: You are giving something to receive something and often the cost of what you're giving is greater than the thing that you are receiving.
• 1:31:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then these ideas that cults form around that is a very interesting theme as well.
• 1:31:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk about the theme of forbidden knowledge?
• 1:31:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, this was sort of the thing that I had to grapple with.
• 1:31:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: When you write a story like Lovecraft Country that wants to be honest about history and true to history and true to the motivation of the people in history, but you also want to play with magic.
• 1:31:52
  [SPEAKER_26]: There is this challenge that, and to me, it's epitomized by the X-Men where
• 1:31:56
  [SPEAKER_26]: If you give superpowers to oppressed minorities, they cease to be oppressed minorities and become something else.
• 1:32:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: And the thing you're trying to comment on oppression, suddenly it doesn't quite work.
• 1:32:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like the metaphor breaks a little bit.
• 1:32:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so I wanted, I needed to find a way in the noddle to allow magic to exist in a way that wouldn't alter the scope of history.
• 1:32:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: I wanted to tell a story that could really have happened.
• 1:32:17
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's just that we didn't hear about it.
• 1:32:19
  [SPEAKER_26]: But I want to still at the end of the day, like the main shaping aspects of racism are, yes, wealth, power, historical,
• 1:32:26
  [SPEAKER_26]: reality.
• 1:32:26
  [SPEAKER_26]: My solution to this was just to go to use this forbidden knowledge trope.
• 1:32:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like, yes, magic exists, but it's very dangerous to use.
• 1:32:34
  [SPEAKER_26]: And the more you try to do with it, the more likely you are to destroy yourself.
• 1:32:38
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so in the book, you know, the the sorcerers called the sons of Adam, they they use what they call the language of Adam, which is this mystical alphabet that somehow gives them power.
• 1:32:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it's
• 1:32:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's implied.
• 1:32:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like they found God's tools, but they're not as smart as God.
• 1:32:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so if you mess around with them, yes, you might be able to perform miracles, but you can also, you're more likely to blow yourself up and burn the house down.
• 1:33:00
  [SPEAKER_26]: But you know, it's like if standard routes to wealth and power aren't enough for you, then this is this is an additional avenue that you could pursue that may well destroy you.
• 1:33:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that allowed me to bring in magic and have miracles, but not break the reality and not turn my characters into Superman because I didn't want to do that.
• 1:33:20
  [SPEAKER_26]: either.
• 1:33:20
  [SPEAKER_26]: What's interesting, the HBO series leaned more into the power of Edge Fantasy side of things, which I a perfectly valid choice and kind of interesting, but you can sort of see at the end of season one of the series, it already is having an effective reshaping history.
• 1:33:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: There, it's more about, yes, that you have this primal power that white people have taken from black folks, and now we're taking it back, and it's like, I get the metaphor, but that
• 1:33:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: that sort of going to lead you into alternate history in a way that is interesting, but it wasn't what I was trying to do in the novel.
• 1:33:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: The novel, I was like, no, it's these people facing these incredible situations and just having to roll with these supernatural occurrences.
• 1:33:57
  [SPEAKER_26]: But at the end of the day, they're still going to wake up in a recognizable America.
• 1:34:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it's not that we've solved racism or we've solved evil.
• 1:34:04
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's just like we've shown that these characters are tough enough and smart enough and resourceful enough that you know, they're going to be all right, whatever the future throws at them.
• 1:34:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: That was sort of why my main reason for doing that is just I needed to make magic too dangerous to use consistently so I didn't break the world and I was trying to create Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's smart and I think that's a strong theme in fiction as well We can see this played up in a lot of different ways modernly the most recent Netflix series of the fall of the House of Usher is very much that it's the Faustian bargain a person who makes a deal for power and it's passed on to his children and then eventually that power comes back to claim them to
• 1:34:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: We can even see it in stranger things.
• 1:34:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's this realm just underneath us all.
• 1:34:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: If you open it up and there's certain monsters that'll be by certain rules.
• 1:34:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when you're in that realm, the rules are different than they are in this realm.
• 1:34:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Always a science kind of to be understood.
• 1:34:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Another theme in Lovecraft that we see quite frequently is this idea.
• 1:34:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we've referenced it a little bit, but the purity of the bloodline or the idea that we inherit things from our parents.
• 1:35:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: You've talked about Lovecraft's parents going mad a little bit.
• 1:35:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a strong theme in our history of the kind of obsession with the virtue of women, and specifically a lot of laws created by white lawmakers that kind of protect the honor of their women to be owned by them, even though they are openly disrespecting and raping women that they own of another race.
• 1:35:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of things that are deeply baked into those themes
• 1:35:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: But when you look at kind of the creatures that lovecraft is often creating as subhuman, there seems to be a stand-in for the fact that they could be African-American, which is also an unpleasant read.
• 1:35:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: But if the subhuman creatures sleep with these white pure women, look at the types of horrors that it creates, is a theme that I see when I look at a lot of lovecraft writing.
• 1:35:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I know I'm framing that under a particular lens, but there's a lot of these kind of sub-races and the idea that women can be corrupted seems to be a theme through that as well.
• 1:35:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: How would you interpret that theme through Lovecraft?
• 1:36:06
  [SPEAKER_26]: This is not actually a theme I get much from him.
• 1:36:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: I think even when he's talking about interbreeding between races, it's less about women, you know, oh my god, look at what you know, look at these women being solid.
• 1:36:16
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's more like, I think it's more personal for him.
• 1:36:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like, it's like no, like the character in the protagonist in shadow over ends met the
• 1:36:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: the epilogue, the big twist at the end, it turns out he's actually descended from someone from that town, and he himself is of mixed race, you know, quote unquote, that so he realizes that even though he's escaped at one end, there's going to come a point when he will devolve or evolve into one of these creatures of the ocean, and he is going to go back to Innsworth and go into the water and become one of them.
• 1:36:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: But it's not, yeah, love crap really was not.
• 1:36:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: You didn't write about sex at all.
• 1:36:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: He was, you know, I don't think for him that was a big theme.
• 1:36:56
  [SPEAKER_26]: It was much more of a personal thing.
• 1:36:58
  [SPEAKER_26]: He was worried about what was under his own skin, not he wasn't worried about what women were doing.
• 1:37:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: So, but the idea of kind of the Aryan race versus the sub-races that are created.
• 1:37:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk about that?
• 1:37:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: I mean, obviously this is a this is an obsession people have, but it's a broader theme than that is that this is one of those things where you end up where people often end up reflecting the impulse of the people they they disagree with where yes, there is this this belief in the purity of the area in race, but you also see people responding to that by taking great pride in their own ancestry and
• 1:37:29
  [SPEAKER_26]: I think that's fine, but it's it's the opposite side of the same false coin.
• 1:37:34
  [SPEAKER_26]: I don't expect to be held accountable for, you know, the bad acts of my, my ancestors, particularly my distant ancestors, but I also don't really, I can't really claim virtuous credit for things that people who came before me did.
• 1:37:46
  [SPEAKER_26]: I think it's healthiest just to see like the story of how you got to be where you are is it's a cool story and and you know you're you're around to this world or this you know this part of the world is a fun story to tell and you know everybody's got it but at the end of the day we're ultimately responsible for what we do with the circumstances we find ourselves in
• 1:38:04
  [SPEAKER_26]: There's only so much answering you can do for the things that went on in the past and that works for both, you know, the things you would not want to be responsible for, but things you might like to claim.
• 1:38:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: So I think at least in terms of my fiction, I would, I would be very suspicious of that.
• 1:38:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: I recognize that this is a thing that motivates people and people in dire circumstances you can sometimes pride is all you have.
• 1:38:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: So I am much more sympathetic to people who are poor or in a bad space.
• 1:38:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: You want to say, well, yes, I have nothing or I am hunted, but at least I've got this thing I can claim.
• 1:38:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: But that is exactly the kind of thinking that sort of drives racism in the South, for example, where it's like, yes, the beneficiaries were the rich landowners.
• 1:38:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: But it was the poor, the poor farmers who had nothing, he said, well, but at least I'm white.
• 1:38:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so I at least lured it over somebody else.
• 1:38:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I don't know, I just, that's speaking of devil's bargains.
• 1:38:55
  [SPEAKER_26]: I just think that's a thing you should be wary of if you think about it.
• 1:39:00
  [SPEAKER_26]: So that would be my thing.
• 1:39:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm a social worker.
• 1:39:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: I planted the social worker.
• 1:39:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think they conceptive like generational trauma and the way that it impacts here, right?
• 1:39:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like the things that impacted my parents impacted me.
• 1:39:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: My grandparents, for example, coming of age during the Great Depression, which resulted in my parents being raised with like a particular type of scarcity model, you know, on the market that they were raised on, which then impacted my upbringing.
• 1:39:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I think when you see your parents come from a particular place, the ability to have wellness, I think, is kind of a privilege.
• 1:39:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when we're brought up in systems that tell us we are broken or different,
• 1:39:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's a couple different ways to read that, but I'm absolutely here for the multiple ways of viewing kind of that same conversation.
• 1:39:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's really interesting.
• 1:39:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Lovecraft also loved a monster.
• 1:39:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: He loved to create these crazy monsters.
• 1:39:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Again, we each talk stranger things like the Demagorgan, or we go to Marvel Comics, and you open up the dark dimension, and there's these things called mindless ones that exist on the other side, or the Ungarai that fight the X men as they pass through the Karen.
• 1:40:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: What are some of your favorite lovecraftian monsters?
• 1:40:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: I'm absolutely shade, but I think Phil is kind of amazing because he's sort of the quintessential.
• 1:40:07
  [SPEAKER_26]: He is the lovecraftian monster that everyone knows.
• 1:40:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of creatures that seem to have different types of power sets.
• 1:40:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: The ones used in your books, do you want to talk about some of the creatures you create for your novels?
• 1:40:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: I wanted everyone of my protagonist to have their own chapter and their own weird tale to live through and I wanted to take sort of not just love crafty and story ideas, but sort of classic horror tropes and reimagine them with a black protagonist in that era and sort of give them a chance.
• 1:40:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like in a case of being, you know, be careful what you wish for where my protagonist, Atticus and his uncle George are big fans like wouldn't be great to read stories where we were the heroes and it's like, yes, well, here you go.
• 1:40:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: Everybody gets their own horror story to live through, so it's like, okay, I need a haunted house story.
• 1:40:47
  [SPEAKER_26]: I want to, and I came up with a Jacqueline hide story, and it was, it was partly like, what stories would I like to play with?
• 1:40:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then in turn, like, how do I, you know, what can I do with that in the setting?
• 1:40:57
  [SPEAKER_26]: So for example, the second chapter of Lovecraft Country brings to the witchhouse.
• 1:41:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: Atticus is friendly.
• 1:41:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: Tisha comes into you a surprise windfall and decides to buy a house for herself and of course to get a really good house.
• 1:41:09
  [SPEAKER_26]: She's got a buy a house in a white neighborhood.
• 1:41:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: And she gets it in suspiciously good deal because the house turns out to be haunted.
• 1:41:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: So she's living in a haunted house in a white neighborhood.
• 1:41:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: So the ghost doesn't want her here, but also the neighbors don't want her there.
• 1:41:21
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then because she
• 1:41:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: there's no way a black person's getting a mortgage in the nineteen fifty she's buying this on contract which means she's got no equity in the house so if she cuts in runs and defaults on her payments she loses everything so she's kind of stuck and it's like how is she going to figure this out how is she going to and and her solutions to figure out a way to play the ghost off against the angry neighbors and she comes off keeping the house and and then her sister Ruby is I have this sort of jackland hide story where Ruby
• 1:41:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: I will I will let you read to get the full details on this but she comes into this potion that lets her transform herself into a white woman and there's a devil's bargain associated with that but that came about in part because I there that came about part because I need to solve a technical question where or a practical issue which is that I had made up my mind that all of my viewpoint characters were going to be black and
• 1:42:11
  [SPEAKER_26]: I needed a way to show what the white villains were doing when they thought they were by themselves.
• 1:42:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so I'd like, okay, well, what if I do a Jacqueline High to let one of my characters pass as white and get a glimpse into the inner circle of what's going on?
• 1:42:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I picked Ruby because she was not the kind of person you would expect to fulfill that role.
• 1:42:27
  [SPEAKER_26]: And she ended up becoming one of my favorite characters.
• 1:42:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: And particularly not just her herself, but her relationship with Caleb Bray's wife, the principal villain of the piece.
• 1:42:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so a lot of it was that was just just picking picking different themes I wanted to play with or or things that suited what it needed to do and then you know another example.
• 1:42:46
  [SPEAKER_26]: There's a there's a story very near the end where.
• 1:42:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: Montrose attic is his father I wanted to tell the story of how his.
• 1:42:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: his father died in the Tulsa race ride of nineteen twenty one and my way of doing this was to have him and Atticus going to quest to find something and they end up in this house talking to a different ghost and the ghost the ghost is going to give them the information but in in exchange it wants to hear a story that will move it like that
• 1:43:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: the thing about being dead, this ghost reveals that there's no feeling, there's no taste, there's no anything, and it wants to just feel something again.
• 1:43:19
  [SPEAKER_26]: So it forces Montrose to tell this horribly traumatic story about how his father died.
• 1:43:24
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so these sort of lateral thinking things, the thing I do a lot, it's like, okay, I need to, I need to have this thing happen.
• 1:43:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: What weird way can I set up to make that practical and make it work?
• 1:43:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: And again, I seem to have a knack for this that helps me get, make it work.
• 1:43:37
  [SPEAKER_26]: But that's the other thing about writing fantastical stories as you have a lot more angles to bring these things in when you want to.
• 1:43:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like seeing this brought to life?
• 1:43:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, there's a lot of themes that are latched onto that tell stories from a particular angle to see the book that you wrote kind of owned and honored and celebrated in this way, but also have some things go very different than they did in your book.
• 1:43:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: What was it like to see that brought to life?
• 1:43:59
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, first of all, it's amazing.
• 1:44:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: The thing I will remember until the day I die, I got to go down to the shooting when they were shooting the block party scene.
• 1:44:06
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so for two nights, they shut down this stretch in southwestern Chicago.
• 1:44:11
  [SPEAKER_26]: They'd turn the entire street into the nineteen fifties with signage and dozens of old cars and
• 1:44:17
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I'm standing in the middle of this, looking at millions of dollars of production costs thinking, I'm my gosh, so it was like, you know, the sorcerers or apprentices, like this, all this because it was weird little story.
• 1:44:26
  [SPEAKER_26]: I thought I could in my head.
• 1:44:28
  [SPEAKER_26]: So that was, it was a wonderful experience.
• 1:44:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I had always hoped I would be the kind of person who, you know, would not be territorial about fiction and, you know, like, it's like, I've got my versions of story at home.
• 1:44:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: What gets done with it on the screen is not my concern.
• 1:44:42
  [SPEAKER_26]: But you never know until you're there how you're gonna react.
• 1:44:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so I was very happy to see that yeah, I was fine with, you know, Misha Green doing her own take on this.
• 1:44:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I actually liked the fact that they did a lot of things differently.
• 1:44:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: Particularly as the season goes along, it begins to diverge more and more from my narrative.
• 1:44:57
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that was fun to see.
• 1:44:59
  [SPEAKER_26]: And my biggest disappointment was that it didn't get a second season because I had this idea that, you know, I have more books that I want to write.
• 1:45:06
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I knew that the where I wanted to carry the story was very different from the where I, where Misha would want to carry it.
• 1:45:12
  [SPEAKER_26]: the idea of having these two very different interpretations of the same basic straight together would have been a great thing to see and a great proof of concept and it's rare because of the reality of the way intellectual property works.
• 1:45:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's just because it's fell out the way it did.
• 1:45:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: I hadn't finished everything I was going to write so it would be progressing at the same time and you know we would
• 1:45:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: I just thought that would have been amazing, but it didn't pan out unfortunately.
• 1:45:34
  [SPEAKER_26]: But yeah, no, it was wonderful seeing the different choices they made and contrasting it.
• 1:45:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: And, you know, there's a rich discussion to be had just about, you know, the things that were different.
• 1:45:45
  [SPEAKER_26]: But to me, it was like watching, it was sort of like watching an alternate universe work.
• 1:45:49
  [SPEAKER_26]: Everything's kind of recognizable, but it's still different.
• 1:45:52
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's like, okay, that's kind of the house, but it's not quite what I imagine the winter pass will look like, but you know, but it's like, yeah, but it's just very cool.
• 1:45:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: which brings us to another theme in Lovecraft, which is the idea of the alternate reality, right?
• 1:46:03
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is the thing that comics and particularly modern shows.
• 1:46:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's so many Dr. Strange, multiverse of madness, spider, man, across the spiderverse, right?
• 1:46:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's all these different versions of realities.
• 1:46:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Marvel has a long-running title called What If.
• 1:46:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's taking a question about if the character made this decision instead of that decision.
• 1:46:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk about Lovecraft and his use of alternate timelines?
• 1:46:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: I actually can't think of any obvious examples I've been doing that.
• 1:46:29
  [SPEAKER_26]: I'm sure, and I'm sure that something obvious will occur as soon as I stop talking.
• 1:46:32
  [SPEAKER_26]: But yeah, no, I can't personally think anything would love to have with that.
• 1:46:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I think it is fun to play with, obviously, as I said.
• 1:46:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then the last one I want to talk about is kind of this idea of super science.
• 1:46:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: We look at something cosmic or horror or dimensional, and it's just a science we don't understand, right?
• 1:46:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's always the magic versus science.
• 1:46:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: If I can create this device to calibrate the right thing and set it to the right frequency, then I can build a car that can drive through this other realm, right?
• 1:46:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's these fun ideas related to science.
• 1:47:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk a little bit about Lovecraft and your work with the idea of cosmic science?
• 1:47:06
  [SPEAKER_26]: I mean, it's kind of ties into the same idea with the forbidden knowledge where, yes, it is a, first of all, it's just a very convenient plot device to allow people to do things that they couldn't normally do.
• 1:47:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so the classic example of this in Lovecraft country is the, this sort of teleportation machine that
• 1:47:22
  [SPEAKER_26]: Henry winter as a high room winter has created and it's it's it's it's just one it's set out in somewhere in the middle of I think it's the middle of the Wisconsin woods there is this what looks on the outside like an observatory and then you go inside and it's
• 1:47:37
  [SPEAKER_26]: If you're initially like a planetarium and you can set these, you know, there's this giant array of numbers and by switching the numbers, you can switch between different perspectives.
• 1:47:46
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then what it turns out is you're not just seeing photographs, you're actually seeing alternate worlds and places that you can travel to and there's a door that you can go through.
• 1:47:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so my one of my characters Hippolyta finds this and issues.
• 1:48:00
  [SPEAKER_26]: She is a sort of frustrated astronomer.
• 1:48:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: She's somebody who wanted to be, you know, she wanted her heroist, Clark Thumbau, the guy who discovered Pluto.
• 1:48:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: And she wanted, she wanted to be the discoverer of the ninth planet.
• 1:48:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: She would love to, you know, be an astronomer herself, but she's a black woman in the nineteen fifty, so that's just not in the cards.
• 1:48:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so when she comes upon this sort of planetarium slash teleportation door to other worlds and just falls in love with it and, you know,
• 1:48:25
  [SPEAKER_26]: consequences ensued.
• 1:48:28
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that kind of thing, yeah, it's a lot of fun to play with and it lets you again do things and bring in.
• 1:48:35
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it also plays into the fear people have about science extending our reach in ways that we're not ready for.
• 1:48:40
  [SPEAKER_26]: And that's another way of dealing with that.
• 1:48:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: Guess the world is changing.
• 1:48:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: The world that's coming to be even if even if it doesn't destroy itself is going to be very unfamiliar to the one I grew up in and you know this is a theme you mentioned earlier where yes that part of coming to grips with your own mortality is just realizing yes we not only is your life going to be insignificant but the world that is going to come after you is probably going to be one that wouldn't even have a place for you because it's going to be so different and and talking about science could be a way of getting at that.
• 1:49:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, my show is about the X-Men primarily.
• 1:49:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: We do a lot of academic discussions about themes in them, but the X-Men were created in the nineteen sixties as a net version of a very common superhero team theme that existed at the time.
• 1:49:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: But what really made these characters special is it's a different evolutionary line, evolutionary line of humans.
• 1:49:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's this world that hates and fears them, right?
• 1:49:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Spider-Man's about responsibility and fantastic force above
• 1:49:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: family, but the X-Men are about what's it like to not be the people in the system of privilege.
• 1:49:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: And as that theme is interpreted over the decades, it really starts to shift.
• 1:49:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: In the nineteen seventies, the civil rights movement, second wave feminism, even this kind of post world war, excuse me, post Vietnam generation and the idea of PTSD, start playing into the themes more.
• 1:49:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: And in the eighties in the era of Reaganism, you start them, you see them start to fight Christian nationalists.
• 1:50:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: And
• 1:50:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's literally a group of super villains in the eighties called the right.
• 1:50:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's green suits of armor with the Reagan smiles painted across them, stunning down people.
• 1:50:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Their main theme is always the Sentinels, which is the death robots authorized by the government to hunt them.
• 1:50:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: And these themes of kind of concentration camps, et cetera, kind of always being present.
• 1:50:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now a lot of the theme is related to fascism and it's kind of always been present but this idea of kind of privilege of systems of privilege and place against people in minority statuses is always a through line and there's a reason these books are latched on to but by people from kind of diverse groups.
• 1:50:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: So we talked a little bit about the themes of kind of xenophobia and an organism if you will.
• 1:50:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you want to talk a little bit about lovecraft thoughts on Hitler?
• 1:50:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: also interesting.
• 1:50:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: Well, I mean, this is, it's actually, yeah.
• 1:50:52
  [SPEAKER_26]: So the thing, the letter you want to read, if you want to know, the Lovecraft slots on Hitler, like he, one of Lovecraft's fans was a very young Robert Block, the future author of Psycho who had sixteen wrote Lovecraft to fan letter and Lovecraft being a Lovecraft, he wrote back and they established a correspondence.
• 1:51:11
  [SPEAKER_26]: And very early on, Block asked
• 1:51:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: You know, he asked Lovecraft to comment on the political situation in Germany and Lovecraft may be not knowing that Block was Jewish gave him told him what he really thought, which was that, you know, he Lovecraft Lovecraft was an addition to being racist anti-Semitic, but here he had a problem and that a lot of his friends were Jewish.
• 1:51:30
  [SPEAKER_26]: He was married to a woman who was Jewish for a while.
• 1:51:33
  [SPEAKER_26]: He adopted a more liberal form of anti-Semitism where there was no biological basis for hating Jews.
• 1:51:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: The issue was purely cultural.
• 1:51:40
  [SPEAKER_26]: So basically he would say there's no problem with Jews per se as long as they don't act to Jewish or as long as they're as long as they're properly assimilated.
• 1:51:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: I don't think he would use that term but that would be what he meant.
• 1:51:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: So his attitude towards Hitler is that, well, the Germans have gone totally overboard in the way they're dealing with this.
• 1:51:57
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's ridiculous, but you can understand why they might want to put a break on this.
• 1:52:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: And he felt they should dial it back and just, the humane way to deal with this would just be to have some sort of test that Jewish people could take to prove that they were properly assimilated.
• 1:52:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: And even if they failed it, if they were too Jewish, you wouldn't want to take their property away, we just prevent them from certain employment like they couldn't be teachers, they couldn't work in media.
• 1:52:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: And Lovecraft talks about this like it's a minor thing to just, you know, shut people out of the public sphere.
• 1:52:24
  [SPEAKER_26]: And then, you know, as he's talking about this, he just throws in on, you know, as an aside, you know, black people are different.
• 1:52:31
  [SPEAKER_26]: There there really is a biological basis and anything you do to keep them down and keep them away from power is totally justified.
• 1:52:37
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's a very revealing letter in a lot of ways.
• 1:52:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: It for one thing just shows how lovecraft dealt with reality of reality of what people were like when he was forced to.
• 1:52:46
  [SPEAKER_26]: Like he didn't have any black friends.
• 1:52:48
  [SPEAKER_26]: And if he did, I think what he would have done there too.
• 1:52:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: He would have found he rather than question the whole idea of racism.
• 1:52:54
  [SPEAKER_26]: I think you probably would have found a way to split the difference.
• 1:52:56
  [SPEAKER_26]: They say, well, they're not all bad, but let me explain why you still gotta keep some limits in place.
• 1:53:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: And so
• 1:53:02
  [SPEAKER_26]: And it's also an answer to the question, there is this myth that Lovecraft became more liberal and that he renounced to him as views as he got older.
• 1:53:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I understand why people who love his work would want to believe this, but he wrote this letter to Robert Block about three years before he died.
• 1:53:15
  [SPEAKER_26]: So if he had some, you know,
• 1:53:18
  [SPEAKER_26]: moment where he woke up and changed his views it would have had to have happened the three is following that and I just I just don't believe that that would have happened or if it had I have to believe he would have written it a letter about it where he said oh my goodness I have been wrong but I think by the time you get to the AG was when you wrote that letter it's going to take some amazing thing to change your views so yeah it's an experience in my experience as a therapist people don't often change their views unless it's very forced right if you have a set of life circumstances
• 1:53:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: like a cancer diagnosis or a major tragedy or trauma and your family, that's the type of thing that will get you to reconsider review.
• 1:53:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: But otherwise, people in privilege don't often have to challenge their views, right?
• 1:53:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a term called ethnocentrism where the way that I see the world is simply superior and when you have a system that allows you to back that up and you don't ever really have to question it, that's the thing, the minority groups are often being like, can you see things clearly, but people are never going to challenge their views unless they're kind of forced to.
• 1:54:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: And again, I have to comment on this, but we're seeing this in twenty twenty five America where we're seeing a lot of anti immigration, a lot of anti queer rights, a lot of anti transgender.
• 1:54:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's there's a lot of policies that are becoming very trending and we're seeing that shift in a really harsh way in a new direction toward a lot of groups.
• 1:54:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: So these conversations, and I think the education about where some of it comes from is really valid, even though, again, there are multiple ways of seeing this, whether you look at the intention of the writer or the interpretation of the story.
• 1:54:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: And we could look at that in almost anything across time, of course.
• 1:54:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have any thoughts on that kind of modern comparison of these topics?
• 1:54:45
  [SPEAKER_26]: I mean, I think my general feeling about current politics is that I'm I'm one of those annoying people who wants to understand everybody's perspective and and I feel like particularly right now what I'm seeing in both the right and the left and this is partly because I just spent too much time on social media is just everybody wants to assume their way of looking at things is the right thing and
• 1:55:03
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I certainly have my thoughts on what policies I prefer, but even even people who believe things diametrically opposed me, I would more want to sit down with them and get a sense of where they're coming from and why they believe what they believe.
• 1:55:14
  [SPEAKER_26]: Then simply say, you know, simply rank them, you know, or post some, some dunk meme on Twitter to show off your wrong and your terrible and I want you to know that.
• 1:55:23
  [SPEAKER_26]: So yeah, I don't really have a good statement about that.
• 1:55:28
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I would say that in my fiction, one of the reasons I try to avoid specific messages is I just find it's better when I focus on characters and why they believe and let those themes emerge organically because that's the other thing is I want to be able to surprise the reader.
• 1:55:43
  [SPEAKER_26]: If you know from the start what message you want to have, you will never surprise anybody and you will cut off narrative possibilities that are often much more interesting to read.
• 1:55:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:55:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's interesting and I think we can kind of wrap up this part of the conversation with this thought for me and obviously I work really hard to look into diverse populations as well.
• 1:56:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a major part of my own thinking.
• 1:56:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: If we take the idea of flags, right, which people as people assemble around flags,
• 1:56:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: When you hang a pride flag in your yard these days, a pride flag for people who are queer is an automatic sign of safety.
• 1:56:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: I can see a pride flag in kind of an exhale and know that there's someone understanding, but it's also in a way an invitation for violence.
• 1:56:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because people who see pride flags often feel a particular type of rage which in your book, you know, if you look at a similar theme the idea of the green book like I'm going to create this book that shows people of color where they may be safe.
• 1:56:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: That pride flag seems to kind of represent that energy where someone who hangs a Trump flag it doesn't represent the sense of safety.
• 1:56:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: It represents a sense of I share your thinking and there's people who kind of feel at least in my perspective like oh here's a here's a place that I can rally and this is the people who are gonna be carrying guns and kind of share those ideas There's a difference there's a different kind of safety one represents a similar thinking and one represents physical and emotional safety
• 1:57:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's tricky to compare those two because the way of viewing histories from both sides is so vastly different.
• 1:57:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: But like yourself, I am also someone who wants to really understand where everyone is coming from.
• 1:57:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I love that there's multiple ways we can view that same type of thing.
• 1:57:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: We've jumped all over the place.
• 1:57:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: I am an enormous fan of your writing.
• 1:57:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: And again, I'm approaching this from a particular lens, so I appreciate you allowing me to craft those questions in such a way.
• 1:57:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: I know there's multiple ways to view this, but I love your books and I love the series,
• 1:57:34
  [SPEAKER_26]: always a pleasure to chat with people about, you know, my work.
• 1:57:36
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I really appreciate that it resonates with you.
• 1:57:39
  [SPEAKER_26]: You know, ultimately, I'm one of those people.
• 1:57:40
  [SPEAKER_26]: I write the books that I want to read that, you know, nobody else is written yet.
• 1:57:45
  [SPEAKER_26]: So my mainly doing this to just sort of get these ideas out of my head and on paper and see if they work as well as they as they do in my head.
• 1:57:51
  [SPEAKER_26]: But it's always a pleasure when there are other people who kind of get what I'm trying to do who appreciated in some way.
• 1:57:57
  [SPEAKER_26]: So yeah.
• 1:57:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: But at the end of the day, especially these two Lovecraft books, but I get I've enjoyed your other work, are just a banger great stories with tons of twists and turns and a lot of really shocking and fun themes along the way.
• 1:58:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: And very educational, right?
• 1:58:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: They left me wanting to go look into the history of this.
• 1:58:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because Lovecraft's his impact on all types of storytelling for generations, much like Edgar Allan Poe and others, right?
• 1:58:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like we have an occasional writer who are Tolkien, good lord.
• 1:58:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's an occasional writer who comes along and does a variation on a theme that impacts the whole generation of the way stories are told afterward.
• 1:58:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: The Wizard of Oz is another one that comes to mind, right?
• 1:58:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: The idea of shifting narratives.
• 1:58:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, Matt Ruff, I really enjoyed connecting to you today.
• 1:58:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for your time.
• 1:58:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: I will make sure to connect people with you.
• 1:58:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Would you like people to be able to follow you online and do you want to share with anyone what you might currently be working on?
• 1:58:44
  [SPEAKER_26]: So, okay, well, if you, yes, if you're curious about my more about my work, you can find me at buymatruff.com.
• 1:58:50
  [SPEAKER_26]: That's BY as an abyline.
• 1:58:53
  [SPEAKER_26]: And yeah, I just started a new novel.
• 1:58:55
  [SPEAKER_26]: I'm not really ready to talk a whole lot about it, but it is a, it is a murder mystery about AI and bad parenting.
• 1:59:01
  [SPEAKER_26]: It's my sort of my current short version of a description.
• 1:59:05
  [SPEAKER_26]: And I'll be ready to talk more about that as I get closer to completion on it.
• 1:59:08
  [SPEAKER_26]: But I'm really happy with it.
• 1:59:09
  [SPEAKER_26]: I'm really enjoying it.
• 1:59:10
  [SPEAKER_26]: The goal is still to write two more Lovecraft Country books at some point, and carry the story forward to a larger conclusion in, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a
• 1:59:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism, as a special guest tonight talked about a red skull story, and its modern applications.
• 1:59:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are far too many stories that fall into the category of human cruelty, but one staple of oppressive governments, particularly fascist ones, is their willingness to experiment on those deemed less than
• 2:00:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: And these stories are among the most painful we ever have to hear, looking at stories of genocides, or of slavery, or of concentration camps.
• 2:00:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: To prepare us for today's story, I've got to share a couple of real stories from times during World War II in which individuals survived.
• 2:00:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: So you know that in advance, we have talked a lot about human suffering as we've had these red skull conversations.
• 2:00:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: So let me just give my standard trigger warning that there are deep conversations about a few painful things along the way.
• 2:00:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: So as you're listening, please take care of yourself.
• 2:00:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Story number one, I'll share quickly.
• 2:00:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a man named Rawlins Edwards, R-O-L-L-I-S.
• 2:00:38
  [SPEAKER_05]: He was an African American soldier in World War II, who enlisted in the United States Army out of a sense of patriotism and wanting to fight for freedom.
• 2:00:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: And he found himself assigned along with the regimens of other black soldiers for experimentation, but they never really told him what he was signing up for.
• 2:00:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: A group of soldiers were put into sealed gas chambers by the United States Army, and then doused with mustard gas and other chemical agents
• 2:01:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: so that they could see how it would affect the individuals.
• 2:01:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Again, not really any warning.
• 2:01:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Direct quote from Rawlins, they said we were being tested to see what would happen if the Germans used gas on us.
• 2:01:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: We were not told the risks.
• 2:01:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: The skin burned off my arms and legs.
• 2:01:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: The scars lasted my entire life.
• 2:01:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now there were similar experiments done on white soldiers, but the reports are not quite so egregious.
• 2:01:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: Rollins experienced extreme skin pain and breathing issues for his entire life, and it wasn't until years later, in like, twenty- seventeen in an NPR interview, which you can hear if you look it up online, that he had a chance to tell his story.
• 2:01:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: He died a few years after that interview.
• 2:01:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: On the show, we also recently talked about Joseph Mangala and his experimentation on twins and children.
• 2:01:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not going to go deep into that today, but I am going to tell you the story of one survivor.
• 2:01:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: A young girl named Eva Moses Core, KOR, was a Jewish girl from Romania.
• 2:02:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: She had a family of six.
• 2:02:05
  [SPEAKER_05]: And her family was all captured toward the end of the war.
• 2:02:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: She had two older sisters, her mom and dad, and a twin sister.
• 2:02:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when Eva was ten, she and her twin sister, Miriam were taken to Auschwitz, along with their family.
• 2:02:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: And their two older sisters and parents were immediately put to death.
• 2:02:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: The twins were spared at age ten because they were twins.
• 2:02:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: Mengala over the next several months, along with his team of doctors, injected Eva and Miriam with chemicals every day.
• 2:02:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're an entirely sure what was injected, but they were injected with different things to see how they would react differently.
• 2:02:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: Then their blood was drawn in large volumes.
• 2:02:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Eventually they were both injected with typhus as well, which is of course a debilitating disease.
• 2:02:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: And even nearly died, but miraculously both she and Miriam survived.
• 2:02:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Mengala was said to have said,
• 2:02:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Specifically about them both that if they were to die, he couldn't wait to examine their organs to see what allowed them to survive.
• 2:03:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Both girls did survive the camps because they were liberated early the next year, but they did suffer long-term damage from the experience.
• 2:03:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Experiments Miriam, for example, her kidneys never fully developed as an adult.
• 2:03:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: and Eva had long-term health issues.
• 2:03:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: Eva did immigrate to the United States where she dedicated herself to Holocaust education and advocacy and she was a huge proponent of forgiveness and it's effect on healing.
• 2:03:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: She died in twenty nineteen so she had a good long life and among her most famous quotes is quote forgiveness is not for the perpetrator it is for the victim.
• 2:03:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: She does have a TED talk out there you can also listen to if you'd like to learn more about her incredible story.
• 2:03:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, crazy set up, but we're gonna jump into the world of spider woman.
• 2:03:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: Jessica drew nearly end of her first volume of series.
• 2:03:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's nineteen eighty two and it's spider woman forty two forty three.
• 2:03:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: Chris Claremont and Steve Lea Loa give us a really fun spider woman story that has some painful implications.
• 2:04:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: The new hero in Spider Woman comes across a woman named Pamela Cramer, a young black woman, who is being arrested by armed terrorists led by Viper, and the Silver Samurai, who is a character X-Men fans, will recognize.
• 2:04:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Viper identifies Pamela Cramer's father as, quote, the Judas Man.
• 2:04:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: Kramer was a pilot in an all black American Air Force fighter squadron.
• 2:04:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: In the winter of nineteen forty four, he was shot down over Germany and taken prisoner, but he never arrived at his assigned stilog.
• 2:04:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: He and seventy other men and women simply disappeared.
• 2:04:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: On the orders of Hitler himself, they were delivered into quote the tender mercies of the Red Skull.
• 2:04:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: The skull had conceived a plan whereby the Nazis could achieve final victory.
• 2:04:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: A biological secret weapon that would obliterate the allies.
• 2:04:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was a plague, a modern day black death.
• 2:04:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: He modified the genetic mattresses of the prisoners, making them plague carriers immune to the disease, but able to transmit it to others.
• 2:05:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: Most of his subjects died in agony.
• 2:05:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Cramer was his first success.
• 2:05:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Before the process could be repeated, the skull's laboratory was destroyed by Captain America.
• 2:05:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Fury, and Fury's Commando team.
• 2:05:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Afterwards, Kramer was reported killed.
• 2:05:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: That report was in error, fascinating, says Viper.
• 2:05:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: He appears as young and vital today as he was in World War II.
• 2:05:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: The virus requires a catalyst to activate it.
• 2:05:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: I have that catalyst.
• 2:05:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: Once I have Kramer, humanity is doomed.
• 2:05:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: From parent to child, the matrix mutates.
• 2:05:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: The father infects people with the plague.
• 2:05:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: The daughter infects them with the antidote.
• 2:05:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are some crazy battles, there's some fun superheroity shit that happens along the way, but in the end it turns out that the plague in Kramer had been rendered inert.
• 2:05:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Even though he stays young, he gets reunited with his daughter, and we have never seen the Judas Man or his daughter, again, in any other comic book ever.
• 2:05:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is kind of a tangential red skull story.
• 2:05:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: There are some crazy components.
• 2:05:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: I am thrilled to be joined by my lovely friend Alice and parent to talk about this story with me.
• 2:06:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Alice and are you a red skull fan?
• 2:06:05
  [SPEAKER_23]: Uh, define fan.
• 2:06:07
  [SPEAKER_23]: Nope.
• 2:06:08
  [SPEAKER_23]: No, no, don't really, I can't say I care for him.
• 2:06:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, thanks for jumping into the world of spider women.
• 2:06:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: What were your thoughts on this story?
• 2:06:16
  [SPEAKER_23]: I thought there was a lot of shit with the aircar.
• 2:06:19
  [SPEAKER_23]: That was a lot.
• 2:06:20
  [SPEAKER_23]: Um, and the thing is to say that it has really compelling themes, but you do have to get through like five pages of the aircar to get to those.
• 2:06:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: What is you like about the aircar?
• 2:06:33
  [SPEAKER_23]: Why was there an air car?
• 2:06:35
  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't understand.
• 2:06:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's shield.
• 2:06:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: They always have flying cars.
• 2:06:39
  [SPEAKER_23]: It's very of its time, I would say.
• 2:06:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you like spider woman?
• 2:06:42
  [SPEAKER_23]: This is the first spider woman thing I've ever read.
• 2:06:44
  [SPEAKER_23]: I don't know a lot about spider woman.
• 2:06:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, spider woman's great, especially seventies spider woman.
• 2:06:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like feminist superhero icon love her.
• 2:06:53
  [SPEAKER_23]: I will say that this definitely hooked me on it, especially the end with her friend Lindsay.
• 2:06:58
  [SPEAKER_23]: I was enthralled.
• 2:07:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: Uh, X men listeners will wreck perhaps recognize the the name Lindsey McCabe who is a noted queer coded character in a supporting role in some of our favorite stories.
• 2:07:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: Lindsey has some adventures in early Wolverine comics, for example.
• 2:07:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, there's a lot of them.
• 2:07:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: I've been between those two.
• 2:07:16
  [SPEAKER_23]: I think yes.
• 2:07:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: But what did you think of Spider Woman's powers?
• 2:07:20
  [SPEAKER_23]: Um, not very spidery, very not that.
• 2:07:24
  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, the crawling on the walls is spidery, but the electric blasts, not so much.
• 2:07:29
  [SPEAKER_23]: But more, I guess, um, Miles Morales, Spider-Man.
• 2:07:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: Venom blasts before Miles Morales had them.
• 2:07:34
  [SPEAKER_23]: But also what I understand is that spider woman and spider man are completely separated, not at all.
• 2:07:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, no really in no connection, truly between them.
• 2:07:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Their origins are wildly different.
• 2:07:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: This spider woman also has fair amount of powers that make men want her and make women hate her, which is an amazing power.
• 2:07:52
  [SPEAKER_12]: Interesting.
• 2:07:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then we had the Viper and the Silver Samurai.
• 2:07:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know if these are characters that you know, Viper is kind of a bond villainous Silver Samurai is the cousin of Mariko Yoshida and Sunfire.
• 2:08:05
  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm definitely more familiar with the Silver Samurai than I am Viper, but I do.
• 2:08:08
  [SPEAKER_23]: I am aware of both of them.
• 2:08:09
  [SPEAKER_23]: I think when Silver Samurai decides to strip down and just wrestle just to control in the middle of the hideout and then like the guys running they're like, oh Silver Samurai.
• 2:08:18
  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, are you like busy?
• 2:08:21
  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 2:08:21
  [SPEAKER_23]: I'll, like, it's, it's, um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there
• 2:08:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm kind of into it.
• 2:08:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: I like that character a lot actually.
• 2:08:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: He's one of my favorites.
• 2:08:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I have a trial on my show of Madam Hydro if you want to go back and listen.
• 2:08:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a ton of fun.
• 2:08:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: She is an evil lady who is embracing nihilism.
• 2:08:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: So her plot here is let's release this ancient World War II virus that the Nazis injected into this man and watched the plague overrun the earth.
• 2:08:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Wow.
• 2:08:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a very James Bonded.
• 2:08:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's way.
• 2:09:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's very silly.
• 2:09:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: But then we have the backdrop of the story of the Judas man himself.
• 2:09:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: And when we put this in the real world context, it's kind of like, oh, right, like the red skull such an ass hat, even though he's not a big part of this story.
• 2:09:13
  [SPEAKER_23]: Oh, yeah.
• 2:09:13
  [SPEAKER_23]: I think he gets one panel that he actually appears in a flashback and then I don't think he's spoken of again.
• 2:09:19
  [SPEAKER_23]: It's just we're just seeing the remnants of what he's done to Michael Cramer.
• 2:09:24
  [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have thoughts on the Michael Cramer story as presented here and his daughter Pamela?
• 2:09:28
  [SPEAKER_23]: I thought I was really interesting.
• 2:09:30
  [SPEAKER_23]: It reminded me of, I believe it's called the Tuskegee.
• 2:09:33
  [SPEAKER_23]: This is syphilis experiment where they, the American government injected many black men in the South with syphilis, also have the fact that gynecology as a medicine was first developed in practice on black and select women.
• 2:09:46
  [SPEAKER_23]: It also reminded me a lot of a Sam Wilson comic that I read with Matt.
• 2:09:51
  [SPEAKER_23]: They filled a bunch of fleas
• 2:09:53
  [SPEAKER_23]: with this disease and they're going to spread it over the world and they also inject Sam with something that sterilizes him.
• 2:10:01
  [SPEAKER_23]: There's a lot of very similar themes going on, especially mishandling of the body of a black man, like the putting ownership on to him and not taking something away from him.
• 2:10:11
  [SPEAKER_23]: Taking away his right to his body.
• 2:10:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 2:10:14
  [SPEAKER_05]: And then this, you know, there's this one survivor out of all, right?
• 2:10:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is similar to a later Captain America story.
• 2:10:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: The character, I don't know if you saw the recent Sam Wilson movie that came out with the Red Hulk.
• 2:10:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's that character Isaiah Bradley who is the older Captain America.
• 2:10:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's a very similar thing before Steve Rogers got this super-soldier serum.
• 2:10:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a story told about twenty years after this one, even though it's set in the forties, where there's a group of black men who get experimented on first and
• 2:10:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Isaiah Bradley is the one that carries the legacy of that, and then had all those years in prison as a result.
• 2:10:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: So the legacy of that character looms very large in the world of Captain America in its way.
• 2:10:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now this is the result of a Nazi experimentation, right?
• 2:10:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is an American soldier, and I opened with a couple of different stories.
• 2:11:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: I was looking specifically for a story of a black person who hopefully survived experimentation in the concentration camps.
• 2:11:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: But unfortunately, for every story we know of a survivor, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories that we don't know.
• 2:11:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: For every victim that's listed on the walls that are memorials, there are so many more victims whose names are never remembered.
• 2:11:21
  [SPEAKER_05]: So even though there are facts in the history books related to the experiment of Nazis on people of color as part of the stories of victims in the concentration camps,
• 2:11:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: I couldn't find a single specific one.
• 2:11:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: Now, there are a lot of examples of the red skull being a racist asshole in the comics saying, Oh, I imagine.
• 2:11:41
  [SPEAKER_23]: Dude, fuck off.
• 2:11:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: What do you think has happened to the crammers since the story?
• 2:11:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: We've never seen them in the comics again.
• 2:11:46
  [SPEAKER_23]: Well, I hope they lived very, very happy lives and haven't had to deal with all this superhero bullshit.
• 2:11:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's some stories waiting to be told about either.
• 2:11:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: There is superpowers right at their whim.
• 2:11:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: You'd write like something in there.
• 2:11:58
  [SPEAKER_23]: I mean, is he going to age?
• 2:12:00
  [SPEAKER_23]: Is he ever going to die?
• 2:12:02
  [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
• 2:12:02
  [SPEAKER_23]: Is he going to outlive his daughter?
• 2:12:06
  [SPEAKER_05]: Is he immortal or does Pamela have the same thing?
• 2:12:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Or does she have this ability to cure people?
• 2:12:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Is there healing factors?
• 2:12:12
  [SPEAKER_23]: Like there's a lot you can explore there.
• 2:12:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think there's some character stories that could very well make a powerful backdrop for a modern writer.
• 2:12:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: So anyone listening, the cramers are right there.
• 2:12:23
  [SPEAKER_23]: I thought it was really interesting.
• 2:12:25
  [SPEAKER_23]: And if you don't like red skull, he's very not part of it.
• 2:12:28
  [SPEAKER_23]: But I think when you have such evil characters, there are actions kind of ripple out.
• 2:12:34
  [SPEAKER_23]: And so even though he's so tangently, tangently related to this story, he heavily affects it.
• 2:12:39
  [SPEAKER_23]: I also like the parts where Jessica Drew is going over her time in Hydra.
• 2:12:43
  [SPEAKER_23]: and how she's left it.
• 2:12:45
  [SPEAKER_23]: I thought that was really compelling as well.
• 2:12:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, man, those stories get really complicated.
• 2:12:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: I cannot wait to do the eventual trial of Spider-Woman on my show.
• 2:12:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: I really love that character a lot, actually.
• 2:12:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: She's phenomenal and very tangential to the X-Men.
• 2:12:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm finding myself recognizing that I don't understand why this character was named the Judas Man.
• 2:13:04
  [SPEAKER_05]: Judas usually represents the idea of betrayal, but this was a character who was experimented on.
• 2:13:09
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not... I think it's because they're...
• 2:13:12
  [SPEAKER_23]: because he's going to be like the Trojan horse to bring the disease to places.
• 2:13:17
  [SPEAKER_23]: He's like, he's betraying them, but he's not in control of that betrayal because they're going to activate the thing inside of him.
• 2:13:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: But also, I love Steve Leelo as pencils of this.
• 2:13:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think they're really, oh yeah.
• 2:13:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I really enjoy this artist a lot.
• 2:13:31
  [SPEAKER_23]: I like those detective that almost shot that cat.
• 2:13:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah.
• 2:13:37
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's been a while to go back and read these old stories and to put them in this kind of historical context.
• 2:13:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm so joyful, but we just got to hang out in person at the uncanny experience.
• 2:13:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was so wonderful to see.
• 2:13:46
  [SPEAKER_23]: It was so amazing.
• 2:13:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm still glowing and kind of like not ready to go back to life, but here
• 2:13:52
  [SPEAKER_23]: I was really interested by these two issues of Spider-Women.
• 2:13:56
  [SPEAKER_23]: I'm probably going to read more Spider-Women.
• 2:13:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you should.
• 2:13:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: Go back to number one and just read the old seventies.
• 2:14:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: It gets crazy after the stories end, but she has a whole rogue's gallery of villains that are so fun.
• 2:14:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: They're really fun, actually.
• 2:14:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's a group that forms out of this series called The Night Shift.
• 2:14:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: that are just a bunch of weird, weird, like, seventies and eighties.
• 2:14:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, weird, serial killer for themed villains.
• 2:14:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's really fun ones along the way.
• 2:14:23
  [SPEAKER_05]: As I get you more involved in the show, you're doing voices and we're gonna have you on a trial suit.
• 2:14:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna throw you into the world of nineteen seventies, Marvel.
• 2:14:31
  [SPEAKER_23]: It's a really good one.
• 2:14:33
  [SPEAKER_23]: The seventies is a good jacket.
• 2:14:34
  [SPEAKER_23]: A good strong aesthetic, I feel.
• 2:14:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, things get really serious in the eighties, but you know, but that's part of what we love in our colleagues too.
• 2:14:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: All right, everybody.
• 2:14:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: We're going to be back with another Red Skull conversation next time as we jump into some incredible jam game and tell you the stories from Captain America in the early eighties.
• 2:14:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: Allison, thank you for joining me today.
• 2:14:52
  [SPEAKER_23]: Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:14:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: All right, everybody.
• 2:14:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back here next time on Daymote Lane.
• 2:14:57
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
• 2:14:59
  [SPEAKER_05]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
• 2:15:01
  [SPEAKER_05]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
• 2:15:11
  [SPEAKER_05]: Look for us on Patreon, where we are releasing weekly episodes about obscure characters and facts.
• 2:15:18
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• 2:15:24
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• 2:15:26
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• 2:15:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.