0:00

So, Jay, the Wolverine with the X-Men

0:02

in the stuff we're covering right now

0:04

is a stroll, right? Right. Then

0:07

where'd the actual Wolverine go? Well,

0:10

at some ambiguous time when the X-Men were in

0:12

space in the past. Wolverine

0:15

went off on a side quest. He

0:17

does do that, but no. Apocalypse kidnapped

0:19

him. Apocalypse is working with

0:21

the strolls now? Nah, he

0:23

wanted Wolverine as a horseman. WHAT?!

0:27

THEME MUSIC

0:37

I'm Jay Eddington. And I'm Miles Stokes.

0:40

And we are here to X-Plain the

0:42

X-Men. Because it's about time someone

0:44

did. Welcome to episode 463 of Jay

0:46

and Miles, X-Plain the X-Men, where we walk

0:49

you through the ins, the outs, and

0:51

the retcons of comics' greatest superhero soap

0:53

opera. And welcome back to the

0:55

X-Men proper. Well, the X-Men proper

0:57

and some stuff related to the X-Men proper. I

0:59

don't know, it's our podcast. The

1:01

X-Men proper and one scroll. Uh,

1:05

yes, yes, we'll get to that. But also some

1:07

Gambit stuff. So, we've

1:09

talked about this briefly, but at this point

1:11

in continuity, Gambit had an ongoing series, which

1:13

actually went for a decent amount of time.

1:17

It was written by Fabian Asieza. It was actually

1:19

super fun. But we're not covering it because it's

1:21

really barely relevant to mainstream X-Men continuity at all.

1:24

Or rather, we're not usually covering it because today we're going to

1:27

be looking at the Gambit 1999 annual. It's

1:31

true, and also some X-Men stuff. Part

1:33

of an event called The Shattering. So,

1:36

we'll get to that, but boy howdy

1:38

does all of this come from a

1:40

fair bit of continuity. Oh

1:42

yes, yes it do. So,

1:45

let's talk about what happened, as we often

1:47

do, previously on X-Men. Since

1:51

Alan Davis took over as the primary writer

1:53

of the line, the X-Men have gone from

1:55

one bizarre adventure to another across dimensions and

1:57

timelines and solar systems. But

2:00

not Bizarre Adventures number 27, that was an

2:02

important X-Men story, but not directly related to

2:04

this. But during this time,

2:06

the X-Men's lineup has been a mostly traditional

2:09

one. Professor X recently

2:11

returned from a not particularly legitimate government

2:13

prison in the aftermath of Onslaught. We've

2:16

got long-time X-Men Storm, Wolverine,

2:19

Rogue, and Gambit. We

2:21

have long-time former X-Men,

2:23

more recently X-Calibur members, Nightcrawler,

2:25

Colossus, and Shadowcat. And

2:28

newest X-Man, Marrow, a

2:31

sewer-dwelling Morlock who grew up mostly

2:33

in another dimension and was formerly

2:35

an anti-human terrorist. We

2:37

don't actually need to worry about most of what

2:40

they've been up to, other than to say that

2:42

it's all made Professor X increasingly bitter and grim.

2:45

But a few things from those adventures do

2:47

bear mentioning. A while

2:49

back, under complicated

2:52

and bizarre circumstances, we found out

2:54

Gambit's big dark secret, as did

2:56

the X-Men, or most of the

2:58

X-Men. He had, albeit

3:00

unknowingly, been responsible for assembling the

3:02

team of supervillains who perpetrated the

3:04

mutant massacre. Murdered thousands

3:07

and thousands of Morlocks. You

3:10

know, Marrow's people. And

3:12

during this, Gambit did manage to save the

3:14

life of a young Marrow. But

3:16

Marrow is still oblivious to this fact,

3:18

and he's still pretty guilty about the

3:20

whole thing. I mean, justly. Totally.

3:24

When the X-Men found this out in

3:26

a mock trial in Antarctica, run by

3:28

Magneto, who was disguised as a bondage

3:30

viking, it's a whole thing. Rogue,

3:33

furious with Gambit, abandoned him in the

3:35

snow, and the X-Men flew back home.

3:38

It turned out that this particular

3:40

dickory was partly because Rogue had

3:43

accidentally absorbed Gambit's own self-loathing, but

3:45

like, still, cold. In

3:48

more ways than one. But uh,

3:51

anyway, Gambit survived, in part because

3:53

of a gaseous green lady he'd

3:55

apparently made some kind of deal

3:57

with in exchange for her assistance

3:59

with... Since

4:01

then, she's been inhabiting his body and

4:03

threatening to murder anyone Gambit got too

4:05

close to, particularly rogue. And

4:08

anyone Gambit told about her existence. Also

4:11

Gambit related, on one of

4:13

the team's recent interdimensional adventures, Gambit's

4:16

powers got weird and he accidentally

4:18

seriously injured Mero. He

4:20

did get her to an alien medical pod,

4:23

which not only healed her, but also gave

4:25

her much better control of her mutant powers

4:27

of constantly and randomly growing nasty looking bone

4:29

spurs from every part of her body. And

4:31

also made her boobs a lot bigger. Uh,

4:34

yeah, weirdly it kinda did, you know, cuz

4:37

bones? So

4:39

there you have it, a lot of

4:41

Gambit related stuff, cuz after

4:43

all, it be Gambit's

4:46

world share, we just livin' in it. And

4:49

so of course we're gonna start out with

4:51

the Gambit annual from 1999, With or Without

4:53

You, written by Fabian Neseza,

4:56

penciled by Walter McDaniel, inked by Russell

4:58

Green and Koblish, colored by Gina Goering,

5:00

and lettered by Richard Starks and Comi-Craft.

5:04

Now we open in

5:06

a danger room under deeply bizarre circumstances. Gambit

5:08

is standing with a glowing green bone sticking

5:10

out of his chest, saying, That's

5:13

funny, doesn't hurt a bit. It

5:16

does, however, explode immediately when he gets it out

5:18

of his chest, which seems like

5:20

it would be really difficult given that it appears

5:23

to be, to have just gone straight into his

5:25

sternum, but you know, what ifs. So,

5:28

in Gambit's solo series, his powers have

5:30

been getting weirder and weirder. They've been

5:32

getting more powerful, but also a little

5:35

odd. Like, he just accidentally charged a

5:37

giant bone that was impaling him and

5:39

blew it up and then was fine.

5:41

He also, you know, based on the

5:43

giant bone and the coloric gloat seems

5:45

to have access to a

5:48

line of Home Depot giant skeletons that won't

5:50

exist until the far future. Oh,

5:52

like the glow in the dark versions? I

5:54

love those Home Depot giant skeletons. There's a food

5:57

cart pod in Portland that has one of those

5:59

just year round, just presiding over it. I mean

6:02

the way to do it if you have one is to

6:04

keep it up year round. Oh

6:06

yeah and you can like give it different outfits for

6:08

the different holidays. It's like my mom has this little

6:10

plastic statue of a goose next to her front door

6:12

and she dresses it up for different holidays and you

6:14

can do that but like with a skeleton. Aww that's

6:17

very cute. It is

6:19

very cute. It is a very cute plastic

6:21

goose as plastic geese go. Good

6:23

for it. So professor

6:25

X thinks this is all pretty weird

6:27

that like Gambit and Marrow were sparring

6:29

and Gambit got stabbed with a giant

6:31

bone and it blew up and he's

6:33

fine. So he figures maybe Gambit should

6:36

go talk to Beast. Did you figure out what the

6:38

hell's going on? Unfortunately for

6:40

Gambit this interrupts a

6:42

critical training exercise namely marathoning all

6:44

of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on

6:46

VHS. Okay like

6:49

that show was on when seasons

6:51

of television were much longer. That

6:53

would have been hundreds of episodes.

6:55

That would have taken forever. Yeah

6:58

that's why it's such a critical time like he schedules

7:00

it out. It's like Danger Room sessions. I

7:03

guess so. It's

7:05

actually pretty great. Professor X knocks on

7:07

the door of the boathouse where Gambit

7:09

is staying on Spoicendivul Cove which

7:12

is the same boathouse that Cyclops and Jean used to

7:14

live in before they fucked off to Alaska. And

7:17

there's this wonderful pair of panels. We see

7:19

Gambit as there's a knock on the door

7:22

flipping over the back of the couch and

7:24

basically parkouring to the front door. There are

7:26

all these little shadow versions of him to

7:28

show the motion of his flip across the

7:31

panel. Which is deeply excessive. Oh

7:33

it's so gloriously excessive for someone who

7:35

was just binging Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

7:37

But then he opens the door on

7:39

the end of the panel and Professor

7:41

Xavier starts to come and you can

7:43

just see the front of his hover

7:45

wheelchair come into the panel where Gambit

7:48

was parkouring. It's a wonderful wonderfully paced

7:50

pair of panels for something utterly inconsequential.

7:52

That's the thing with these Gambit comics

7:54

like are they important? Are

7:56

they critical to continuity? Well I mean no.

8:00

fun? Oh god yes they're fun! I

8:02

mean it's fucking Fabian Nisieza! He's delightful

8:04

especially when he writes Gambit! And

8:07

Gambit is kind of a fundamentally silly character too.

8:10

Like for all that he is is is full of

8:12

feelings and angst and all of that stuff, he

8:15

is he is just like deeply goofy.

8:18

He is a thief that wears metal boots everywhere

8:21

he goes. Um excuse me he is

8:23

a teeth Miles. Oh a teeth you're absolutely correct

8:25

thank you Jay. So

8:28

Professor X is an asshole about this as

8:30

he is for much of the surrounding issues

8:32

and we're going to get to more on that shortly. But

8:35

uh the testing in question that that

8:37

he orders Gambit Gambit too mostly involves

8:39

being suspended in a big clear

8:42

tube of liquid as does like most

8:45

things in the Marvel universe. Oh

8:47

yeah well I mean how are you going to run tests

8:49

on somebody if they're not suspended wearing very little clothing in

8:52

a big tube of liquid? Like I can't think of any

8:54

other way to do so. I like

8:56

to think that's a really extended

8:58

collective practical joke being played by

9:00

the Marvel universe's super doctors. Oh

9:03

yeah they're just like uh yeah no you got

9:05

it stripped out of your skivvies and be in

9:07

glowing green liquid that's the only way we can

9:09

figure things out about you. In the meantime they

9:11

they're just analyzing the blood sample they took beforehand.

9:13

Yeah and they're just like and then they call

9:15

each other afterwards and was like yeah I got

9:17

him to stay in the tube for like three

9:19

days this time. At least

9:22

we got to look at his Gambit abs. Yeah

9:24

but we could do that anyway it's not like I

9:26

mean it's Gambit he probably wears shirts maybe a third

9:28

of the time. Well also his

9:31

pink breastplate that is part of

9:33

his superhero uniform has built in abs.

9:36

Oh I guess those are technically also Gambit's

9:38

abs. Right no he he owns

9:40

them too. Yeah yeah no there's

9:42

this is now making me think of the play variations

9:44

on the death of Trotsky and I'm not going to

9:46

take that further because there are some tangents that just

9:48

aren't worth it. But um they

9:52

decide they they they determine with the

9:54

help of Moira McTaggart who's video calling

9:56

in from near island that Gambit apparently

9:58

has two different encephalograss signatures in

10:00

a highly elevated level of biokinetic energy.

10:03

And they decide to try to interface

10:05

with whatever is producing that energy by

10:07

gently shocking him, which produces

10:09

a fart ghost.

10:12

Or what we termed a fart ghost somewhat

10:14

earlier is a ghostly green lady who emerges

10:16

from Gambit's body. And

10:18

we've seen her before. She's actually

10:20

only had five appearances before this, despite

10:23

having been around for about a year

10:25

across X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and the Gambit

10:27

solo series. She's shy. She's

10:30

shy. That's probably why. No,

10:32

this is a lady, a fart ghost,

10:34

that Gambit encountered in Antarctica when he

10:37

was stranded there. And

10:39

we know almost nothing about that. All we know is that

10:41

he made some kind of deal with

10:44

her in order to survive despite being

10:46

stranded in Antarctica. And she's

10:48

been inhabiting his body and telling him that

10:50

she'll kill anyone that he mentions her to,

10:52

especially Rogue. So that's not great. All Rogue

10:54

knows is that Gambit's been very distant. She

10:57

doesn't know that he's had a fart ghost

10:59

inside him that would murder her if Gambit

11:01

wasn't distant. Ironically, the first thing that the

11:03

fart ghost tells the rest of the X-Men

11:05

there is that she hadn't meant to be

11:08

a threat to anyone. She

11:10

follows that up by saying she's quite willing to

11:12

adapt and zaps the others there, or Professor X,

11:14

Mero, and Rogue, unconscious, and possesses

11:17

Remy, who comes

11:19

to his senses in a hotel

11:21

in Manhattan, Indiana. Manhattan,

11:23

Indiana? Okay, listen, I know

11:26

this is a very common thing. I mean,

11:28

you have, like, Ithaca in all sorts of

11:30

states. You have, there's the Brooklyn neighborhood and

11:32

the Hollywood neighborhood in Portland where I live.

11:34

But it's very confusing, America. Come

11:37

on. Should there just only

11:39

be allowed to be one place with every name? Should that be

11:41

a thing for people, too? Like you can't duplicate

11:43

a name? Well, that would

11:45

be really hard. You'd end up

11:48

with, like, online handles where someone

11:50

would be XXMiles69XXAstrisk or something. Oh,

11:52

God. Just on your birth

11:54

certificate. Fart goes 9000. Fart

11:58

goes 9000. Oh, that was a great

12:00

90. band. Now upon waking

12:02

up in in Manhattan, Indiana, Gambit

12:04

immediately gets a flash of memories from someone

12:06

else. This is a teenage girl named Mary

12:08

Purcell and what he gets is that she

12:11

loves her sister and that she apparently spontaneously

12:13

combusted inside of a car at a gas

12:15

station. And Gambit's pretty

12:17

sure this is not a vision so

12:19

much as a memory, something that's already

12:21

happened that he's getting in his brain

12:23

from the brain of the fart ghost.

12:26

And at this point Fabian says that

12:28

establishes that the most important teeth skill

12:30

is in fact research. Gambit

12:32

has known the Dewey Decimal System backwards and

12:34

forwards since he was six years old. Oh

12:37

I can just imagine him like having

12:39

to parkour through a big field of

12:41

those like laser things that you can't

12:44

go through or you trip the alarm

12:46

and like needles are shooting out of

12:48

the wall and there's a big swinging

12:50

pendulum and he's flipping all around it

12:52

while just you know telling his thief

12:54

dad where he would find a cookbook

12:56

by someone from Ethiopia. The combination of

12:58

the the teething around and the the

13:00

general thieves guild vibe and libraries

13:02

is giving me some major starless

13:04

sea feelings but that

13:07

aside he

13:09

is he also knows how to work up a

13:11

microfiche machine. So he heads to the library to

13:13

comb through old newspapers until he finds an article

13:15

about Mary Purcell dying in a car explosion. And

13:18

I want to note here there's there's a kind of a very

13:21

very subtle continuity error that I wouldn't have caught if

13:23

I weren't reading on a screen where I could zoom

13:25

in and that is that the

13:27

newspaper the Manhattan Weekly Register is subtitled

13:30

New York's finest daily newspaper. Oh

13:32

no no I mean that totally makes sense to save

13:34

on costs they just print the same issue seven days

13:36

in a row. No

13:39

no Miles this Manhattan is

13:41

in Indiana. Yeah what

13:43

the hell okay I go back to my

13:45

previous point this is what you get when

13:47

you have cities with the same name in

13:49

different states you get multiple newspaper based continuity

13:51

errors that you have to zoom in on.

13:53

What if what about when you have cities

13:55

that are named after geographical locations that aren't

13:57

cities like Lebanon, New Hampshire? I

14:00

mean, I guess that's more okay. I feel like you

14:02

should at least change the spelling, at least put an

14:05

unnecessary umlaut somewhere in there, like it's a hair metal

14:07

band. Like

14:09

Milwaukee and Milwaukee. It's

14:11

true, I do work in Milwaukee with an IE

14:13

at the end, that's accurate. It's

14:15

a fine place. There's

14:17

an antique mall that has a bunch of old action figures in it,

14:19

that's pretty fun. You can

14:21

also change the pronunciation like Cairo

14:24

and Caro, but that

14:26

isn't nearly as effective in a comic book, of

14:28

course. Yeah, this

14:31

Manhattan in Indiana is

14:33

actually pronounced Man-ha-t-on. Man-ha-tan.

14:37

Man-ha-tan! Oh, that's a

14:39

good name, that's fun to say. The

14:42

ghost that walks like a man-ha-tan. No,

14:44

not the ghost that walks, the island that walks like a man-ha-tan.

14:46

The fart ghost that walks like a man-ha-tan.

14:50

What were we talking about? Libraries.

14:54

Oh, of course. Now, after the

14:56

library, Gambit heads to the police department where

14:58

he scams his way behind a desk so

15:00

he can download the coroner's report on Mary

15:03

Purcell's death. And he

15:05

learns Mary had been ill for most of her life in

15:07

and out of hospitals until her death by apparent spontaneous combustion

15:09

as a team, which Gambit recognizes as

15:11

having been her mutant powers kicking in. Yeah,

15:15

that's the thing. Like we've seen this with Chamber

15:17

and a few other mutants, but mutant power

15:19

manifestation, it could be pretty traumatic and also, you

15:22

know, fatal, or at least turn you into

15:24

a fart ghost. We should say,

15:26

by the way, because we haven't explained the

15:28

fart ghost thing, she's a green ghost that's

15:30

very gassy. She just looks like

15:32

a cartoon fart, like a sexy lady cartoon fart,

15:34

which I don't know, there's probably a lot of

15:37

people on the internet and into exactly that. This

15:40

raises some questions. Like, would a fart ghost be

15:42

a ghost

15:44

in fart form or the actual ghost of

15:47

a fart? Well, that means the

15:49

fart must have died. Like how do you determine whether a

15:51

fart's living or dead? You

15:53

know, there's actually a

15:55

point in this comic that might

15:57

answer that. Okay, well,

15:59

let's. Let's get to that. Let's

16:02

get to this metaphysical definition of

16:04

true life of Fart kind. Well

16:07

it might. It doesn't necessarily. It doesn't actually

16:09

explicitly mention Farts, but it's possible that

16:11

Farts are among the phenomena that it

16:14

technically covers. I'm really glad we provide

16:16

this service to the world, Jay. I

16:18

mean, if we didn't,

16:20

who would? Fart ghosts? Complicated

16:24

and problematic for reasons that again

16:27

you're seeing throughout this issue. So

16:30

true. So Mary's

16:34

now adult sister recently moved back to Manhattan and

16:36

Mary wants Gambit to go see her, so he

16:38

does. And the sister tells Gambit that Mary believed

16:41

she was a mutant and someday what she was

16:43

going through would make sense and maybe even change

16:45

the world. And after

16:47

this visit, Gambit and Mary finally

16:49

connect and converse directly. Gambit

16:52

asks Mary what she wants now that

16:54

they're in closer touch, now that they're

16:56

conversing more. And Mary responds,

16:59

to be acknowledged Remy. I want

17:02

for all the world to know who I am and

17:04

what I went through. I want

17:06

the opportunity to make my existence a

17:08

worthwhile thing, but I

17:11

need your help to do that. And

17:14

so she explains. Alright, I got a plan. Check

17:17

this out. Here's what we're going to create.

17:20

New life Remy. The melting

17:22

of the physical plane of reality and

17:25

sentient bioenergy. Sounds

17:28

pretty good, I guess. Weird

17:31

sex. Maybe.

17:33

So yeah, they

17:35

merge minds because they're very much

17:37

telepathically integrated at this point. And

17:40

Mary shows Gambit a bunch of

17:42

weird, cool beings who exist on

17:45

various bandwidths of the electromagnetic spectrum,

17:47

all of whom just want to be

17:50

acknowledged by the world around them. So

17:52

again, they don't specify the nature of

17:54

all of these beings and it is possible that some

17:56

of them are living farts or the ghosts of farts.

18:00

Could there be some of each? It's

18:02

possible. I mean, it's fairly open-ended. Okay,

18:05

open-ended because of course. Oh, I wasn't even

18:07

shooting for that. Dang. There

18:10

you go. I got your back. I'm

18:12

just that good. What were

18:14

we talking about? The electromagnetic

18:16

spectrum and whether fart ghosts are on it. Oh

18:19

yeah, right, of course. So

18:21

this list of creatures dwelling in

18:23

energy states and wanting acknowledgement apparently

18:26

includes malice, which really interested me.

18:29

Oh, malice, the psychic being that doesn't have her own

18:31

form and so possesses other people? Yeah, that's actually a

18:33

really cool addition. It also includes

18:35

the hulked villain who has the excellent name of

18:37

ZZAC-66. That's

18:40

two Z's and A and two X's. I

18:44

kind of want to change my name. I don't know. Miles

18:46

is a pretty good name, but ZZAC-66. I

18:49

mean, you could always change your middle name or hyphenate or something. Oh,

18:52

that's true. Miles Lee ZZAC-66 Stokes.

18:54

Or just Miles ZZAC-66 Lee Stokes.

18:57

Oh, just merge it all together? No, no, I might

18:59

have your first name be hyphenated, Miles ZZAC-66. I

19:02

never thought about hyphenating a first name. The

19:05

sky's the limit. Anyway,

19:08

what Mary wants is to do a reproductive

19:10

suicide pact wherein they will both die creating

19:13

a new hybrid being. And

19:15

Gambit's like, I didn't ask for this, you're

19:17

not my supervisor. Which

19:19

is good because that would be an absolutely

19:22

inappropriate ask from a workplace supervisor. God,

19:25

I really would. HR complaint waiting to happen.

19:28

So speaking of bad HR, back at

19:30

the mansion, everyone comes to and decides

19:33

to do some detective work in Antarctica

19:35

where Gambit presumably acquired his fart ghost.

19:38

And Beast describes her here as

19:42

an energy wavelength composed on a

19:44

neurosynaptic bandwidth, which is some really

19:46

delightful nonsense. They got

19:48

to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Pretty

19:51

much. And they

19:53

bring Mero, who still doesn't know what actually

19:55

went down in Antarctica and won't find out

19:57

this issue. And

19:59

I really love it. I like the narration here

20:01

because Mero, of course, is a big fan of

20:04

Gambit at this point. Like, he's been very nice

20:06

to her. He was the one responsible for healing

20:08

her in a way that gave her control over

20:10

her powers and made her conventionally attractive. So

20:13

she just really doesn't get

20:15

what happened before. Mero,

20:17

who wasn't there, wonders, why

20:20

don't they ever talk about it in front of me? What

20:23

did Gambit do that was so bad that they judged

20:25

him so harshly? And

20:27

some of them made questionable decisions too? Jeez,

20:30

didn't they take Mero into their group? She

20:33

was a human-hating terrorist when they first met

20:35

her. She's also

20:37

the one that realizes the telltale signs

20:40

of something she's seen before. Apparently

20:42

Gambit, in his time trying to

20:45

survive in this Antarctic fallen science

20:47

base that Eric the Red ran,

20:49

there was no food. And so

20:51

he was just gnawing the plastic

20:53

off of wires, the insulation, eating

20:55

seat cushions, because that was

20:57

it. Welcome to

20:59

the wonderful world of survival, Doc. What

21:02

a kick in the head, huh? And

21:04

all this does for Mero is make

21:07

her sympathize with Gambit even more. She

21:09

has also been through some rough, rough

21:11

survival-based shit. But that's not

21:13

the only thing they find. Rogue finds

21:15

Gambit's survival horror, save point

21:17

style tape deck diary. And

21:20

Gambit's narration is mostly just sort of

21:23

a sardonic narration about his horrible crimes

21:25

and how awful his current situation is.

21:27

He's pretty good natured about it all.

21:31

I think this really works because as the

21:33

X-Men are searching for signs of Gambit and

21:35

how he got this ghost like embedded in

21:37

his brain, trying to figure out what's going

21:40

on, they're listening to the journals in the

21:42

background, hoping it will give them some clues.

21:45

But it's all Gambit being like, yeah, I deserve this.

21:48

Well, but also it's very

21:50

clear just how desperate he got, just how

21:52

close to death he was, how much he

21:55

was suffering. And Rogue feels

21:57

awful about this. All the X-Men feel

21:59

incredibly uncomfortable. about this because even though

22:02

it was Rogue's decision, augmented by Gambit's

22:04

self-loathing that she absorbed, to abandon Gambit

22:06

there, they all went along

22:08

with it. And I like that this

22:10

is acknowledged. I like that that plot

22:12

point that was weirdly just papered over

22:14

almost immediately is really being addressed here.

22:17

Yeah, that was fucked up. It was

22:19

fucked up and this is the way to do it.

22:21

I'm reminded of Avengers Annual number 10, years and years

22:23

and years and years before this.

22:26

Oh god, when they finally acknowledge all the

22:28

Immortus shit. Yeah, and Carol Danvers calls all

22:30

the Avengers out. I'm like, dude, I was

22:32

in a horrible situation where I was clearly

22:34

brainwashed by a dude who was having sex

22:36

with me. Like, none of you did anything.

22:38

What the fuck? I so appreciate that Chris

22:40

Claremont wrote that annual to just address this

22:42

plot point that had not been okay when

22:44

it happened. Yeah,

22:47

so in addition to

22:49

the recording, Beast finds a security

22:51

video and the security video shows

22:53

someone none of them had realized was

22:56

there and that is Magneto. Magneto

22:58

in this video is hanging out with Ferris the

23:00

Robot Butler talking about how they're going to destabilize

23:02

the X-Men. And

23:04

in the background is a containment unit full

23:06

of fart ghost. Also

23:09

the video has footage of Magneto putting on

23:11

the Eric the Red helmet that was the

23:13

bondage Viking he was disguised as during Gambit's

23:15

trial in Antarctica. And this

23:18

is how the X-Men find out that Eric the

23:20

Red was was actually Magneto this time. Right.

23:23

They're like, oh, that weird bondage Viking that but

23:25

Gambit on trial was really Magneto? Well, it makes

23:27

as much sense as anything else ever has with

23:29

Eric the Red, I guess. Man,

23:31

Magneto's ripped. Magneto is

23:33

ripped. It's true. Probably

23:36

because of Magneto was ripped. Magneto

23:38

was ripped. Oh, that's there's your gym

23:40

shirt right there. Mero

23:42

points out that maybe Magneto's attempt to

23:44

stabilize the X-Men has in fact backfired

23:46

and drawn them closer together because they're

23:48

all working together to help Gambit. And

23:52

the other X-Men are sort of like, yeah,

23:54

maybe. And also

23:57

Mero is very, very pinupy now.

24:00

and she's drawn in very pinupy ways, and

24:02

I don't know how to feel about that other

24:05

than sort of mildly sad. I

24:07

do like her being written as just so

24:09

almost naively optimistic about Gam, but at this

24:11

point though, she has

24:13

really tried to turn over a new leaf to

24:15

be this new self in this super transformative way.

24:18

She's gotten rid of all of her bitterness and

24:20

aggression, and whether or not we

24:22

agree with the decision to have Marrow have transformed

24:24

in this capacity, I think Alan Davis in

24:26

his plotting and Terry Kavanaugh in his scripting, they sell

24:29

it pretty well. Well, my

24:31

issue isn't even that she's attractive

24:33

now, it's that now that she's attractive, she

24:35

gets drawn like a pinup rather than like

24:37

a person who's moving and interacting with the other people

24:39

in the panel. Oh, well, well,

24:42

that's true. So around

24:44

this point, Professor X is able to psychically

24:46

connect with Gambit as Gambit talks to Mary,

24:49

and the X-Men blaze into the rescue, slapping

24:51

Gambit in a metal harness designed to separate

24:53

him from Mary with the apparent side effect

24:55

of rapidly killing them both. Whoops.

24:59

Mary Farts explains that she

25:01

deliberately came between Gambit and the X-Men,

25:03

especially between Gambit and a rogue, because

25:05

she was mad at all of them

25:08

for abandoning Gambit. She really does seem

25:10

to feel a great deal of sympathy

25:12

for this guy whose body she's inhabiting.

25:15

Or was inhabiting. And Gambit figures

25:18

he's not really up for the suicide-packed

25:20

mating situation, but he can at

25:22

least maybe give her a new lease on life via

25:25

a charged card, but instead it just

25:27

blows her up. Fucking

25:29

oops. Yeah,

25:32

so that's the way the climax is resolved.

25:34

Gambit tries to save Mary herself so

25:36

she can maybe have a happy future, and

25:39

it doesn't work, and

25:41

she's dead, and Gambit gets additional

25:43

regrets to add to his pile. So

25:47

later we get sort of an epilogue

25:49

of Gambit putting flowers on Mary's grave

25:51

and rogue coming to apologize for ending

25:53

him in Antarctica. That's kind of nice. Although

25:56

interestingly, Gambit's eyes are green instead

25:58

of red briefly on this page. Ah,

26:01

it's that classic explain the X-Men game

26:04

coloring error or subtle plot point.

26:07

I feel like it's gotta be a subtle plot point

26:09

here. I would think so. Yeah,

26:11

I mean he does in fact mention his red eyes

26:14

at some point earlier in this issue. And

26:16

gambitize are actually the detail I find less compelling

26:18

on this page. The other one is a really

26:20

nerdy one, which is that on

26:23

Mary's grave we can see the start of her date of

26:25

birth. Which is sometime in the 1970s and

26:29

and this is a rare concrete date

26:31

in the Marvel Universe. Ah,

26:33

that is rare. Yay. Or

26:36

concrete date range. We

26:39

can use that to figure out how old Franklin Richards is.

26:41

Wait, no we can't. Nothing,

26:43

nothing can tell us that. So

26:46

there we go. We finally have resolution to

26:48

this plot line that's just been farting around

26:50

in the background of X-Men for the better

26:52

part of a year. And

26:55

it kind of goes out not

26:57

with the flatulent bang, but with

26:59

a slightly farty whimper. God, I

27:01

just keep doing it. It's actually very sad. I

27:03

just can't stop thinking about it. She literally goes

27:06

out with a bang. Like gambit blows her up.

27:09

Okay, well, that's true. It's a fully muppet

27:11

worthy death. It is, it is. So

27:14

yeah, I guess that frees gambit up to

27:16

actually talk to Rogue about things and indeed

27:18

that'll work out a little better for them.

27:21

But now that the error is cleared, let's move on to

27:23

Uncanny X-Men number 372, Dreams End Chapter 1, Rude Awakenings. This

27:29

issue is plotted by Alan Davis,

27:31

scripted by Terry Kavanagh, penciled by

27:33

Adam Kubert, inked by Matt Bannion,

27:35

colored by Liquid, and lettered by

27:37

Richard Starking's and Kamikraff's Sida Tamafante.

27:39

So Dreams End Chapter 1. We

27:42

should disambiguate here. This is

27:44

not Dreams End, the last chapter of

27:47

1998's Hunt for Xavier event. This

27:49

is not Dreams End, the event itself

27:52

from the year 2000 where Moira McTaggart

27:54

dies. Uh, no, this is right in

27:56

between in 1999. This

27:59

is a two-parter. called Dreams End,

28:01

that is the beginning of the

28:03

semi-official, the shattering X-Men event. They

28:05

just really like saying Dreams End

28:07

in X-Men. Well, in this

28:09

three-year span, too, like, I would understand if

28:11

it were a title that got reused every

28:13

five to ten years. The fact that

28:15

they do it three times in three years is just

28:18

silly. I mean, I say

28:20

they should have just kept going. We should have

28:22

had a Dreams End story every single year from

28:24

1998 to the present

28:26

day. Forget Fall of X, it's

28:28

Dreams End. Forget Age of

28:30

X-Men, it's Dreams End with sex police.

28:33

Anyway, the X-Men are woken up in

28:35

the middle of the night in this

28:37

Dreams End as the alarms in the

28:39

mansion go, a-woo-ga, like a cartoon's wolf's

28:41

eyes are, you know, bugging out due

28:43

to the presence of someone very attractive

28:45

nearby. As this happens, as the X-Men

28:47

all, like, dart into action trying to

28:49

figure out what's up, we see them

28:51

all in their sleeping gear. So we

28:53

learned that Colossus sleeps in very traditional

28:55

collared pajamas. Rogue sleeps in a flannel

28:59

overshirt. Shadowcat's

29:02

in a lacy nightgown. And

29:05

Nightcrawler is in pajamas that have, like,

29:07

a pointy sleep cap, which is, yeah,

29:09

like, the kind in, you know, the

29:12

night before Christmas that dad has.

29:15

Well, we've seen this

29:17

before. We've seen Nightcrawler go out in his pajamas

29:19

before with the cap. I love

29:21

that! Is he because he doesn't want to mess up his hair,

29:23

or does he just really want to be an elf? I

29:27

think he's just, he's just cheerfully eccentric.

29:29

He is cheerfully eccentric. I love that

29:31

about Kurt. I don't know, maybe the

29:33

tips of his ears get cold. Oh,

29:35

I mean, that makes sense. Like, when it's cold out, I'll

29:38

pull that hat you made me years ago down over the

29:40

tips of my ears, and they're not even pointy. Eventually,

29:43

they get through the flashing lights and

29:45

the screaming sirens to face

29:48

down what is setting off the alarms. And it

29:50

turns out it's actually just Charles Xavier. This is

29:52

a test he set up, and

29:54

he says they were too slow, and he's disappointed

29:56

with them, and presumably hands out demerits, although he

29:58

doesn't officially do that on panel. Okay,

30:00

I know you meant that like the origin of

30:02

it was a machine that Xavier made, but the

30:04

way you phrased it initially made me think that

30:06

Xavier was just sitting there in his wheelchair just

30:09

going, OOOOHHHH! Like flipping the light switch

30:11

on and off and on and off. Yes,

30:13

good. What a fucking bag

30:15

of dicks. So why

30:17

did Professor Xavier wake them up in the middle

30:19

of the night to yellow wuga and flip the

30:21

lights on and off? It

30:24

seems the simplest way to prove a

30:26

point and avoid a lengthy debate about

30:28

intensifying our training regimen, Nightcrawler.

30:32

Okay, listen, I know the Professor Xavier is

30:34

an extra jerk thing is leading to like

30:37

a major plot point and this is all

30:39

very planned, but I look at this and

30:41

I'm like welcome to the demerit era motherfuckers.

30:43

Forget the shattering, it's demerit

30:46

town. And...

30:49

They start off, you know, immediately with

30:51

training session after training session as the

30:53

X-Men get more and more exhausted and

30:55

make more and more mistakes. And

30:58

one of the things I really like about the way the issue handles

31:00

this is all of

31:02

these training montages, which is, you know, the

31:04

X-Men getting more and more tired and talking

31:06

about it and Xavier just pushing them harder

31:09

and harder, they're all not two-page spreads because

31:11

that implies it's one great big image across

31:13

two pages, but all the panels cut across

31:15

two pages unevenly. Yeah, that's a two-page spread.

31:18

It's just not a two-page splash. There

31:21

we go, two-page spread, not two-page splash. And

31:23

so we just turn the page

31:25

again and again and again and it's just pages going

31:27

across from the left side of the left page to

31:29

the right side of the right page. It really, in

31:31

a surprising

31:33

kind of innovative way, does

31:35

get across the overwhelming

31:38

constancy of these training sessions. They just

31:40

do not stop. You don't get page

31:42

breaks. You don't have the luxury of

31:44

page breaks when Professor X is pushing

31:47

you this hard. And

31:49

because this is the X-Men, this

31:52

time actually Storm, not Shadowcat, gets a new

31:54

costume. So like, um,

31:56

take a drink, but have it be a

31:58

wise and spiritual drink. A

32:00

classy drink. Whatever

32:03

the drink is, it should probably have some crème de vielette in

32:05

it because Storm's new costume is

32:08

a lightning bolt edge cape and a

32:10

purple one-piece with long sleeves. That's right, she

32:12

is incorporating a new color into her wardrobe.

32:15

Well, she'd been wearing purple for a little bit since

32:17

the miniseries, but yeah, more of that

32:19

now. Although this costume will sometimes be

32:21

purple and sometimes be black and sometimes

32:23

it'll have long pants and short sleeves

32:26

and sometimes long sleeves and no

32:28

pants, just the like bathing suit part. It's

32:30

got some variation. It's even inconsistent within this

32:32

individual issue, but it's a pretty good look.

32:35

I mainly like the lightning bolt borders for

32:37

cape. They're all jagged and badass. Maybe

32:40

it's modular and she's just trying out variations on it.

32:43

Well, that could be. That could be. Kind of

32:45

like the Grant Morris and Frank Whiteley era, where

32:47

the X-Men had different versions of their uniform as

32:49

long as they were all leather and or ribbed.

32:52

Exactly. Xavier is

32:54

being just awful to everyone, but

32:56

he does open up just a

32:58

little to Storm, saying this is

33:00

all required to get them into

33:02

the condition they need to survive.

33:05

And this is kind of consistent. I mean, the

33:07

X-Men have been through some shit. Xavier has been

33:10

through some shit ever since Onslaught, when he almost

33:12

killed his team. It's been

33:14

one failure after another. One

33:16

of the most recent things is they endeavored

33:19

to save the Skrull home world from destruction.

33:21

When they were sent back in time, they

33:23

failed at that. He's just getting more and more

33:25

bitter, and all he knows how to do is just

33:27

lock down tighter and tighter on his students. There's

33:30

one hint that there's something else going on,

33:32

and that is when Xavier asks Storm if

33:34

she's noticed anything unusual about any of the

33:36

team lately. This will

33:38

be relevant. But we're

33:40

still in two-page spread land. As the

33:43

X-Men fight robots and silhouette along the

33:45

top panel of one two-page spread, there

33:47

are 16 full panels

33:49

below that. I like two-page

33:51

spreads on toast. Yes,

33:54

exactly. And

33:56

in these panels on toast, Xavier

33:59

demands that Marrow push

34:01

her powers harder than she has, learn what she

34:03

can really do these days, and force

34:05

herself to absorb the bone horns that she's

34:07

always had on her face since we met

34:09

her into herself. And

34:13

she can't. So he goes from

34:15

kind professorial advice mode to angry demand

34:17

mode demanding that she try harder and

34:19

harder. And Qbert draws this

34:21

amazingly. Her face goes from calm

34:24

and passive, the screwed up in

34:26

concentration to utter agony while she

34:28

sweats and screams and does

34:31

in fact start to absorb those

34:33

bones into her skin under

34:35

her skin until the pain is

34:37

too much and they pop right

34:39

back out. And

34:42

for Gambit that is it. He is furious and

34:44

he swings himself up to the control room to

34:46

confront Xavier. But like

34:48

with a panache as he's described as

34:50

having in the comics recovering today, he's

34:52

swinging in on a rope but his

34:55

legs are kicked out like at head

34:57

level around his arms that are holding

34:59

the rope like he's channeling himself forward

35:01

with the sheer power of his crotch.

35:04

Wait, the way you're describing it makes it sound like he's

35:06

going ass first. No,

35:08

he's going forward. It's just he's doing

35:10

the splits like high splits. Oh,

35:13

like so his butt is

35:16

like up in the back and his legs are around

35:18

his arms in that direction not like turned

35:20

in a halfback somersault. Right,

35:23

no, his crotch may not be the

35:25

foremost part of his pose but clearly

35:27

it is the power behind it all.

35:30

You know, Gambit, he's got he could

35:32

charge cards but he's also got mutant

35:35

dexterity, mutant charm and mutant crotch propulsion.

35:38

And Gambit points out what people have had

35:40

to point out over and over and over

35:42

again to Charles Xavier over the years, which

35:44

is that they are in fact adults and

35:46

Xavier is taking his own fears out on

35:49

them. And like

35:51

the bag of dicks he's been this

35:53

whole arc Xavier replies. to

36:00

be with the X-Men. You are free

36:02

to leave." And

36:04

as Gambit wanders off pretty

36:07

angry, Nightcrawler pops

36:09

a brief question about some of the training

36:12

maneuvers they were doing. Xavier's

36:15

reply is kind of worse. Your

36:18

feelings are unimportant, Nightcrawler. This

36:21

is an exercise in teamwork, and you

36:23

are not a tactician, so I expect

36:26

you to follow the plan without improvisation.

36:29

And Shadowcat at this point jumps in

36:31

to defend Nightcrawler. Whoa,

36:33

that's way out of line,

36:35

Professor. Kurt proved himself a

36:37

great strategist when he led

36:39

Excalibur. Excalibur was a failed

36:41

experiment. You must learn to

36:43

work together as X-Men once again. And

36:46

when Shadowcat objects to that, he kicks her

36:48

out of the training session. Okay, Kitty, do

36:50

you still have that Professor Xavier as a

36:52

jerk windbreaker you used to wear? Because, uh,

36:54

good chance for it right here. And maybe

36:56

the speech balloon? Or maybe the speech balloon

36:59

itself. Maybe she just carries that around. I

37:01

mean, I have one hanging in my in my

37:03

living room. It would be appropriate here if only

37:05

we weren't an audio medium. I think we should

37:07

probably stay an audio medium. Yeah,

37:10

it really never stops being relevant, though.

37:12

Like, it's good to have one around.

37:14

It is. And he's being such a

37:16

dick. Like, there's this one panel of

37:18

the art where he's angrily clasping his

37:20

hands in front of his face and

37:22

scowling furiously at the X-Men. It's so

37:24

intense. The angle of his eyebrows is

37:26

sharp enough to fucking cut glass. So

37:29

the X-Men leave that night in

37:33

general exhausted and upset, go to talk

37:35

to him. And he lets Storm in,

37:37

but tells everyone else to fuck off and go to

37:39

bed. It's a good thing they probably already had dinner

37:42

or he'd send them to bed without it. And

37:45

Storm's only report to the X-Men afterwards is that things

37:47

are worse than she thought and it's time to call

37:49

in Jean Grey. Which they do

37:51

in X-Men number 92, Dreams End

37:53

Chapter 2, Pressure Points. Plotted by Alan

37:56

Davis, scripted by Terry Cavanaugh. Pencil by

37:58

Jeff Johnson, inked by Cam Smith. Colored

38:00

by Marie Javans, Becton and

38:02

Hicks, I'm not sure what their first names

38:04

are, they probably have them, and Lettered by

38:06

Richard Starkey's and ComiCraft. The

38:09

art's pretty good, it's pleasingly clean and bold. Some of

38:11

the faces are a little weird, but you know, my

38:13

face is a little weird sometimes, that's fine. It

38:15

reminds me intensely of Carrie Nord. Yes,

38:18

I would agree. So, Jeff Johnson,

38:21

I looked him up, he drew a bunch

38:23

of Wonder Man, but perhaps more importantly, he

38:25

drew an issue of Dinosaurs for Hire, which

38:27

was a Malibu. Yeah, it was a Malibu

38:29

comic. You know, Marvel bought Malibu, so technically

38:31

in the Marvel Multiverse. I was

38:33

gonna look up what it was about, but I just

38:35

wanna let the mystery be. Dinosaurs

38:38

for hire. It's

38:40

professional dinosaurs, I assume,

38:42

and you can hire them to do

38:44

what dinosaurs do, so like, I don't

38:46

know, honk? They do

38:48

honk those dinosaurs. Is that like

38:50

that one thing? That's why we call them honkers. Yeah,

38:52

it's not like that one thing in first edition Dungeons

38:54

and Dragons, where you could be like a fighting man

38:57

or a magic user or whatever, but if you were

38:59

an elf or a dwarf, then that was your class,

39:01

just elf or dwarf. Like if you're a dinosaur, oh,

39:03

you're a dinosaur, what do you do? Well, well, I'm

39:05

a dinosaur. Well, that or

39:07

dinosaur is a job in context of this,

39:09

and so there are people who are dinosaurs

39:11

for hire, sort of like the heroes for

39:13

hire are, you know, people who are professional

39:15

heroes who hire out their services. These

39:18

are not just dinosaurs, these are professional dinosaurs. Okay,

39:20

so like they get home and they take off their pterodactyl wings

39:23

and their big sharp teeth and just sit down on the couch.

39:25

And they're just some guy named Steve, yeah. Some

39:27

guy named Steve. Steve,

39:29

dinosaur for hire, we salute you.

39:33

Anyway, Scott and Gene are indeed

39:35

called in, Cyclops and Phoenix. They

39:38

drive in in this adorable tiny little

39:40

yellow car, wearing their civilian clothes, and

39:43

they talk about how, God, no matter how

39:45

many times they leave, they just keep coming

39:47

back to this place. They

39:49

talk about whether they even should have left in

39:52

the first place since Xavier's been having such a

39:54

hard time for so long. Interestingly, it's Gene who

39:56

wonders that more Cyclops is a bit bitter at

39:58

returning like he was really into the life they

40:00

were building in Alaska. Something

40:03

that's really consistent about the two of

40:05

them, and this is, it's funny because

40:07

Scott is portrayed as the one who always

40:10

goes back, whose sense of obligation to the X-Men pulls

40:12

the max, that Gene is really the one who is

40:15

into superheroing as an identity. Like Scott

40:17

is the one who's perpetually like, you know, we

40:19

could move out and do other things, it's okay,

40:21

and then gets dragged back in because of

40:23

obligation. Yeah, he was like a

40:25

news journalist for about five minutes. He seemed to

40:27

really like it. You

40:29

know, there's a really sad bit where

40:31

he's talking about, you know, his dream of them having

40:33

a life and just mentions some

40:35

dreams die of neglect though. Oof,

40:38

Scott, your life is terrible, by which

40:41

I mean, I'm sorry, you're a summers.

40:44

Well, they head in and we open up

40:46

to a big two page spread of all

40:48

of the X-Men arguing while Gambit prepares to

40:50

leave and Marrow tries to leave with him

40:52

and Shadowcat wonders if they all should leave

40:54

and Wolverine says Xavier has lost it. Cyclops

40:58

is a little concerned at all of this. Are

41:01

you all out of your minds? Hypnotized

41:03

by Mesmero maybe or bewitched by Celine?

41:07

To which Gambit responds. Perfect,

41:10

just perfect. The teacher's pets are here

41:12

to save the day and show us

41:14

little tadpoles how to behave. Forget

41:17

it, summers. The crazy old

41:20

goat's all yours. Tadpoles.

41:24

And Gambit, the tadpole, motorcycles

41:27

off into his solo series leaving

41:29

a very disappointed Marrow behind to

41:31

be taken care of by Colossus.

41:33

And there are actually some tie-ins

41:35

to the shattering event in Gambit's

41:37

solo series, but they're really only

41:39

barely relevant and we have to

41:41

make some form of progress in this podcast, so we'll skip

41:43

those. What we will say is

41:45

that the only thing that they establish is that

41:47

this is in fact Professor Xavier, he has not

41:49

been replaced by something else. Correct.

41:53

Well, Xavier, like he talked to

41:55

Storm alone, first talks to Jean alone

41:57

and then to Scott. And we the reader.

42:00

aren't any more privy to those conversations than

42:02

the rest of the X-Men are. And

42:05

while they're talking, the rest of the X-Men

42:07

talk among themselves. And starting with Rogue and

42:09

Kitty and pulling in

42:11

Nightcrawler and Colossus decide that they're going to

42:14

go on a road trip. It's

42:17

actually really adorable. They just get

42:19

to be friends and be excited

42:22

about a vacation. And

42:25

they split up in a couple of different groups.

42:28

Colossus and Mero go to Boston. And it's

42:30

adorable because Mero's been living in the sewers

42:32

and with the Morlocks for a whole life

42:34

and then in another dimension. And

42:37

she's really freaked out about the idea of going

42:39

to another state like by car because she doesn't

42:41

have a passport. Yeah,

42:43

like for a character that is

42:45

directly responsible for the murder of

42:47

dozens of innocent humans, she's

42:50

gotten to be so cute. And I don't

42:52

just mean her appearance. I absolutely don't mean

42:54

her appearance. She's just so, I don't know,

42:56

naive and hopeful and weirdly innocent. Yeah,

42:59

yeah, she is. And that's something

43:01

I actually really enjoy about her

43:04

characterization, that her interactions with the

43:07

world above have been so minimal

43:10

and so tainted

43:12

by fear and by

43:15

prejudice against mutants.

43:18

That she just

43:20

really has never come in contact with a lot of

43:22

what most of the X-Men think of as normal life.

43:25

Exactly, yeah. And

43:27

well, we'll get to see more of that because

43:30

the plot will follow her and Colossus in

43:32

some of the issues. The

43:34

plot will also follow Rho, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler

43:36

who head off to New York City. And

43:40

Storm, Scott, and Gene agree that everyone taking a

43:42

break is a great idea. Even when

43:44

Professor X shows up to call everyone who's going on

43:46

a road trip quitters and cowards, and

43:48

basically telling them, I built

43:51

this team for a purpose, a purpose which

43:53

has not changed, and I can build another

43:55

in your place. Go on then,

43:57

and stay gone. And he

43:59

does. stop there. He then tells Scott and Gene

44:01

that they should just go ahead and fuck off and

44:04

retire like they wanted to and tells

44:06

Wolverine, who's totally dedicated to staying with

44:08

Xavier, that he should leave too. Remember,

44:11

Xavier was inside Wolverine's mind recently and

44:13

apparently his takeaway was Wolverine's an animalistic,

44:15

horrible person who I don't understand at

44:17

all and can't sympathize with and I

44:20

can't trust him and don't want him

44:22

here. So, yeah,

44:25

the X-Men have

44:27

largely disbanded. So

44:30

that's terrible. Speaking of X-Men

44:32

who are far away and have effectively disbanded,

44:34

what's Bishop been up to? So

44:37

there's been a very minor B-plot, B-standing,

44:39

of course, for Bishop, across both of

44:41

these issues of Uncanny X-Men and X-Men.

44:43

So the last time we saw Bishop,

44:45

he and Deathbird were stranded in space

44:47

for a while. He thought the X-Men

44:49

were dead. They were in the Team

44:52

X-2001 shot briefly. And at

44:54

this point, Bishop has rejected Deathbird's

44:56

offer for him to be her royal

44:58

consort when she takes the Shi'ar Empire

45:01

back over. So she's pretty

45:03

bitter about this but does agree to

45:05

try to take him back to Earth.

45:08

In this case, by using a scanner that

45:10

scans for, you know, Earth stuff, which turns

45:12

out to be a big humanoid asteroid

45:14

in the sky, which is actually the living

45:16

monolith from 1985's Marvel graphic novel number 17

45:18

where he got thrown into space by Thor

45:21

one time. They don't know that so they

45:23

just check it out. And it turns out

45:25

this is a trap that Deathbird has arranged because

45:27

she sucker shoots Bishop in

45:29

the back and he gets taken away

45:31

by some of her allies back to

45:34

Las Vegas, which will lead

45:36

into his solo series, Bishop

45:38

the Last X-Men. Another series, which while

45:40

quite enjoyable, we won't be covering because

45:42

it barely interacts with continuity whatsoever. So

45:44

wait a minute. Wait, that doesn't have

45:47

anything to do with the X-Men. Uh,

45:49

I bet this other plot line does though. You're

45:52

right, but at this point, at least it's pretty

45:54

oblique. So remember

45:56

Renee Macum and

45:58

Nina the Little Oh

46:01

yeah, Nina the Manite was imprisoned with

46:03

Professor X after Onslaught and they helped

46:05

each other escape. She's the little girl

46:08

with giant eyes and ambiguous powers who

46:10

imprinted on Xavier like a telepathic baby

46:12

duck. And Renee Maycomb

46:14

is a former geneticist from Genosha

46:16

who's been protecting Nina ever since

46:18

then. Also important,

46:20

Nina has an adorable stuffed bunny named

46:23

Harry. Oh yeah, she's

46:25

pretty adorable herself too. Like giant eyes

46:27

aside, she also has bright pink skin

46:29

and pigtails and talks like a widow

46:31

girl. Now, Nina

46:33

is freaking out despite the fact that things

46:35

have been calm for weeks. She keeps on

46:38

saying they're coming and she telekinetically smashes the

46:40

room and then disappears. Next we

46:42

see her, she's in a big metallic facility

46:44

with a group of strangers. There's a large

46:46

round boy suspended on metal tubes, a kid

46:48

who looks like a green Bart Simpson from

46:50

space, two pale girls wearing black and purple,

46:52

one of whom has a snake body, and

46:54

a guy with a skull face and horns,

46:56

and these are the other manites. Yeah,

46:59

and we still don't know exactly what

47:01

the manites are other than kids who

47:03

don't look like normal humans and have

47:05

powers, but yeah, they teleported her here

47:07

for help. They actually remind me a

47:09

lot of the Warpees from the old

47:11

Captain Britain and Excalibur comics, which Alan

47:14

Davis also had a strong hand in

47:16

creating. Yeah, likewise. Yeah.

47:19

So apparently all of these manites have had

47:21

scary visions lately. As Nina

47:23

almost excessively adorably puts it.

47:27

Something really, really bad is coming.

47:29

I can't picture it, not sure. More

47:32

like I feel it sort of behind

47:34

my eyes, inside my thinker, like a

47:36

jumble of colors or something. Ugly,

47:40

rotten, smelly colors.

47:43

Jay, should we just all refer to our brains

47:45

as our thinkers from now on? Yes.

47:48

Okay, thinkers it is. Well,

47:51

there's another new manite who's just

47:53

a little baby, a little pink

47:55

kiddo named Beautiful Dreamer, unrelated to

47:57

the Morlock named Beautiful Dreamer who

47:59

is also in the surprisingly enjoyable

48:01

live-action X-Men spin-off The Gifted. So

48:05

apparently this baby had the same vision

48:07

and hasn't woken up since the dream.

48:09

So Nina tries to use the telepathic

48:12

powers that Xavier helped her

48:14

learn to connect to Beautiful

48:16

Dreamer, but all she sees

48:18

is a demon head surrounded

48:20

by fire screaming, die, die,

48:23

die. Wow, uh, metal?

48:26

Yeah, I think that's the thing, is Beautiful

48:28

Dreamer just fell asleep while listening to like

48:30

a really sweet heavy metal album and it's

48:32

actually fine. Uh, but Nina doesn't know much

48:34

about heavy metal having spent a long time

48:36

imprisoned in a place without such amazing things.

48:39

And so she figures she should really find

48:41

Professor X or the X-Men right now to

48:43

get some help, which doesn't

48:45

work because when she tries to reach

48:47

out through her psychic rapport with Xavier,

48:50

his mind is surrounded by an astral

48:52

big spiky ball. Ouch.

48:55

It's like an evil katamari. So

48:57

Nina manages to connect to the next nearest telepath

48:59

who happens to be Jean Grey, as she and

49:01

Scott and Logan are trying to figure out what

49:04

the hell to do about Charles Xavier.

49:07

And they mentioned to Nina that, um,

49:09

sorry Professor X is, uh, not available

49:11

right now, but if you're looking for

49:13

X-Men, well, Cyclops says, we are the

49:16

X-Men. And

49:18

that will take us into the astonishing X-Men

49:21

miniseries. Not the ones from Angel Apocalypse, like

49:23

The Next One, which is a central part

49:25

of this plotline, The Shattering, aka

49:28

Demerit Town. So there

49:30

we go. I know this all ties

49:33

in very heavily to some really important revelations

49:35

later, but I don't like

49:37

reading about Professor Xavier being so mean. It

49:39

makes me sad. Well,

49:41

he's at least being mean for a greater

49:44

purpose, I guess. Yeah,

49:47

but we don't know that yet. He's just being mean.

49:49

At least all the X-Men get to go on vacation

49:51

and probably not have anything bad or risky happen to

49:53

them while they're there. Not Scott

49:55

and Jean and Wolverine. They don't get vacations. They

49:58

get a miniseries. That's the opposite of the- vacation.

50:01

And what you get listeners are questions.

50:04

McGroovy80 asks on Tumblr, a team-up story

50:06

I've always wanted to see is Cyclops

50:08

and Daredevil, who I know are two

50:10

of Jay's favorite characters. What

50:12

would be the premise and who would be the

50:14

villains of a Red Glasses Bros miniseries? So

50:17

you already know I have a lot of

50:19

feelings about the mutant metaphor and mutations as

50:21

disabilities and superpowers as disabilities which is very

50:24

very relevant to Daredevil and I think

50:26

that could make for a really interesting point of intersection.

50:29

Plot-wise, one point where it

50:31

would have been very cool to see them connect was in the

50:33

wake of the Phoenix Five when Scott was essentially on the run

50:35

from the law. Oh yeah, where he'd gotten

50:38

the Phoenix Force and done some good stuff for the world

50:40

but then became an outlaw and accidentally killed Professor X. Yeah

50:43

and in addition

50:45

to being a defense attorney who specializes

50:47

in superhumans, Matt Murdoch has

50:49

had direct experience both with doing terrible

50:51

shit while possessed and

50:53

with how terribly awry good intentions can swerve

50:56

and I think there's a lot about Scott's

50:58

situation there that would arouse his interest in

51:00

his sympathy. Oh yeah,

51:02

okay so what sort of stuff would

51:04

we see in a story like this? So

51:06

I was I was I was really not fleshing these

51:08

I was just sort of coming up with premises. Another

51:10

one off the top of my head,

51:12

another vector of overlap is of course Misty Knight

51:15

who is friends with and generally part of the

51:17

same loose confab of street level New York City

51:19

heroes as Daredevil and she used to be Jean

51:21

Grey's roommate. Oh

51:23

and didn't Scott date Misty's friend Colleen Wing

51:25

for about five minutes when it seemed like

51:27

Jean was dead? Yeah she gave him a

51:29

key to her apartment then he talked about

51:33

Jean the whole date and then they got kidnapped

51:35

by Arcade. It was a bad date. The

51:38

moral of this story? Don't date Cyclops. Right

51:42

and Wolverine is another potential connection because

51:44

he and Daredevil do team up sometimes

51:47

and the potential social awkwardness

51:49

of that three-way dynamic is pretty

51:52

delightful. Three-way dynamic? Not

51:54

that kind of three-way dynamic. Oh

51:56

fine. Although speaking of dynamics something

51:58

else I feel pretty strongly about, not

52:00

for overwhelmingly concrete

52:03

reasons, is that

52:05

Daredevil and Cyclops would probably be friends,

52:08

but probably not much in the way

52:10

of superhero teammates or do much in

52:12

the way of superhero team-ups together. Although

52:15

I gotta say, that said, Cyclops' immensely

52:18

perfect geometric control of his optic blasts

52:20

could be really fun in a fight

52:22

between him and Daredevil villain Bullseye. True,

52:25

true. I also think that Scott and Matt

52:27

have pretty compatibly dry senses of humor. Legit.

52:32

An anonymous listener asks on Tumblr, I

52:34

was watching X-Men 97 and I was instantly

52:36

struck by how recognizable Sunspot was as a

52:39

civilian before we saw his name or his

52:41

powers, even though in theory he looks like

52:43

an ordinary teenager. Who are

52:45

some other human passing X-Men that are equally

52:47

iconic and recognizable out of uniform and civilian

52:49

clothing? That's a really good

52:51

question. And Jaywin, we were

52:53

creating our notes. You came up with an answer

52:55

that I loved and totally agree with. I

52:58

mean, I think we've actually been asked something similar

53:00

to this before. And my

53:02

answer remains any of the original

53:04

New Mutants, largely thanks to Bob

53:06

McCloud's extremely distinctive character designs. Yeah,

53:09

we have to give so much credit to Bob McCloud.

53:11

I mean, obviously we love Bill Sankiewicz as an artist

53:13

and his run on New Mutants is like some of

53:15

the greatest comics, I would say, ever. But

53:18

Bob McCloud was a phenomenal character designer.

53:21

All of those kids are so distinct

53:23

visually and in terms of their vibe.

53:26

And they're distinct enough visually that almost

53:28

every artist afterwards who's drawn them has

53:31

stuck with pretty close to those original

53:33

designs, at least in terms of their

53:35

relative proportions and appearances. It

53:37

gets a little weird with Sunspot in that his lightness

53:39

or darkness of his skin has been portrayed pretty differently

53:41

in his hair along with it. But

53:43

there are still at least a couple iconic versions of

53:46

Sunspot and the one in the cartoon, I agree, is

53:48

absolutely one of them. Aside

53:50

from that, I mean, I

53:52

would say Gambit, Banshee, depending on

53:54

the era when he's not being

53:56

drawn super generically, Boom Boom and

53:58

Honey Badger slash Scout. all totally

54:00

recognizable in their civvies. I

54:03

mean, Quentin Quire for obvious reasons. He

54:05

always wears his civvies. He only occasionally has a superhero

54:08

costume and when he does, it's boring. Storm,

54:11

who again has just a very distinctive

54:13

appearance. I

54:15

mean, Wolverine. Only

54:17

he has that hair. He and also

54:20

Beast sometimes. He and also Beast and

54:22

also Magneto sometimes. Wait, shit. I'm

54:26

going to go ahead and say Quicksilver because,

54:28

again, really distinctive hair. It

54:30

would probably be cheating to say Cable

54:32

and Domino because they have such distinctive

54:34

like non-standard facial features. Domino

54:37

is not functionally human passing. Oh,

54:39

that's true. That's a good point. Yeah, strong

54:41

guy. I don't know. He's

54:43

just so large. Yeah, I guess not. Strong guy.

54:46

Okay, so there we go. So a few

54:48

different X-Men and basically all of the nine

54:50

main nine new mutants. I'm

54:53

going to give one more and that's going to be Jubilee and

54:55

my reason for that is not that

54:57

she has a specifically distinctive appearance, but

54:59

that she has a specific distinctive civilian

55:02

uniform. True as well.

55:05

And with that. J and

55:08

Miles, Explain the X-Men is recorded in Forest

55:10

Hills, New York and Portland, Oregon and produced

55:12

by Matt Hunter who also arranged our theme

55:14

music. You can find more of Matt's work

55:16

at moon-talk.bandcamp.com New episodes

55:18

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Podcasts, Spotify and at explainthexmen.com. Check

55:23

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55:44

week in the pages of X-Force Odysseus

55:46

Indigo does what he does best. Whatever

55:49

the hell that is. Thanks

55:58

for watching. And

56:04

it's basically just Gamble... Gamble?

56:07

That's his name, Gamble. That's like... GAMBLE should be

56:10

a thing. Oh, it should be. Although

56:12

Gamble would be like Storebrand Gambit, like Dr. Thunder. Yeah.

56:15

Anyway.