April 30, 2025 • 59 mins
Join us for the inaugural episode of Uncanny Book Club and explore one of the most influential storytelling sagas in comic book history.
Please note — due to some minor audio issues we decided to upload episode 1 and 2 at the same time. If episode 1’s issues are too bothersome, we hope you’ll give a future episode a go.
In episode 1 of the show we’ll be covering Giant Size X-Men #1 through X-Men #95. In this episode we discuss the formation of a new team of mutants (Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird), their rescue of the old squad from the island of Krakoa, their mission to stop Count Nefaria, and their first major loss.
Uncanny Book Club is a biweekly read-along through Chris Claremont’s 16-year long X-Men run, which includes some of the most iconic X-Men stories.
Whether you’re revisiting these stories, are reading it for the first time like us, or just want to ride along for the discussion — we hope you’ll join us every other Wednesday. Have feedback or questions for the show? Email uncannybookclub@gmail.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I'm Isaac Faderspiel, andjoining me is the second
Angriest Canadian we'll get tointroduce today, Mr.
Adam Ward.
Hello, everyone.
Hello, hello.
How are you doing tonight?
I'm doing swell.
I'm excited to talk aboutcomics.
Who isn't?
I was going to say, I appreciateyou saying I'm the second
Angriest Canadian that we'll betalking about, because of course
(00:32):
we're going to be talking aboutWolverine.
Everyone's favorite AngryCanadian.
I hope he's your second favoriteCanadian in this call.
I mean, like, both are prettygood.
Both are pretty good.
But, you know, only one of youhas a healing factor.
That you know of.
True.
All right.
So, in this podcast, we aregoing to be exploring Chris
(00:55):
Claremont's legendary run,Riding the X-Men, which the two
of us are actually reading forthe very first time and hope
that maybe you'll join us onthis adventure.
Before we kind of get intothings, would you like to...
Like I've skipped like a briefoverview of your comics history.
What are you into?
What do you like to read?
(01:16):
What's your deal?
Yeah.
Um, I've been reading comics onand off for probably like 20
years now.
Uh, maybe that's an overexaggeration.
It was maybe, maybe, maybe atleast a decade for sure.
And I started reading Deadpoolcomics really were my
introduction to, I think theformality of comics.
(01:39):
And that was mostly digital,yo-ho, and transitioned over to
a great comic shop in myhometown at the time.
And now I have probably four orfive boxes filled with a variety
of things.
So I will admittedly say Ialmost religiously just read
(02:00):
Marvel comics with some dabblesin image and a couple Dark Horse
comics as well, but mostlyMarvel.
And I've really gravitated, as Ithink many people, towards the
big names.
Spider-Man.
I love anything written byJonathan Hickman.
(02:21):
I will read religiously hisAvengers and New Avengers run.
It's probably my favorite of allthe runs that I've read.
As far as X-Men go, it's mostlynewer, I will say, that I've
consumed.
with the beginning of Krakoa,modern Krakoa, and not what
(02:44):
we'll be discussing today.
The first Krakoan age.
Yeah, exactly.
And with some dabblings outsideof that, like X-Force I've read,
Deadpool, as I mentioned, andthen I've read sporadic X-Men
comics of the years.
What about yourself?
Yeah, sure.
So I think I have a little bitless comics reading experience
(03:09):
than you when it comes to justthe number of years.
I don't think I had everactually read one until I was at
college.
But, you know, college is a timefor experimenting.
And, you know, my friends tookme to the comic book store and,
you know, things just sort of,you know, spiraled out from
there.
But for me, yeah, I tend to...
(03:31):
like you, stick mostly toMarvel.
One of my roommates at the timewas really more of a DC guy, so
I've read some of the, I guess,kind of the really good Batman
books that everyone kind ofpoints to as like, hey, you
gotta read these, LongHalloween, etc., etc., things
like that.
But apart from that,specifically X-Men is kind of
(03:55):
where my interests always lied.
They were sort of my...
favorite growing up when lookingat like oh you know the x-men
animated series i would watchlike the the probably two vhs's
that we owned way too many timesprobably burnt them out um and
(04:15):
yeah i guess when it comes tolike things off of my shelf or
kind of things that i've read uhi've read a decent amount of
x-men already um specifically ifwe look at like Grant Morrison's
run with New X-Men kind ofonward, I've read a decent
number of things likeAstonishing X-Men, the Uncanny
(04:38):
X-Force, a number of otherthings.
And then most recently finishedreading quite a bit of the
Krakoa era comics.
Just wrap that up and sort oftrying to work my way up to
present time.
Yeah.
You mentioning the X-Men TV showreminds me of, I think that must
(05:02):
have been my first, I think,true exposure to X-Men.
Aside from the side-scrollingX-Men game that used to exist on
the NES or SNES, whichever one,it was mostly found in arcades,
if you've ever played that.
You know, I think I might have,but probably it would have been
(05:25):
a while at this point, I think.
We will kick things off withGiant Size X-Men number one,
which was written by Len Wine.
But before we kind of get intothat, just to set the stage a
little bit.
At the time that this issue cameout, the X-Men had not received
any new characters.
content in around five years.
(05:45):
They were instead just sort ofreprinting past issues.
Giant Size X-Men number oneserves as a kind of soft
relaunch of the series with awhole new cast.
The way that things began iswith Professor X going on a bit
of a recruitment spree.
So he's stopping by Storm,Colossus, Banshee, Thunderbird,
(06:06):
Sunfire, Nightcrawler, andWolverine.
And he's recruits them all tocome to his cause, join them,
brings them over to New York,you know, normal things that
people do.
The first character that weactually spend a little bit of
time with in the book isNightcrawler.
And out of everyone, heactually, I went and counted,
(06:27):
has the longest introduction outof all of these.
So he has three whole pagesdedicated to just him.
And interestingly, we actuallydon't get to his signature power
in his intro.
There's no bamfing around, butthere is crawling, and it is the
night.
And what I found interesting washim just sort of aggressively
(06:51):
diving into the crowd and tryingto fight a bunch of peasants,
and he's about to be staked.
It's not the choice I would havemade.
It was very strange.
UNKNOWN (07:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:04):
And maybe it was just the time.
Admittedly, I don't know whatsmall town...
Was he in Germany?
Where was he exactly?
Yeah, he was in Winseldorf,Germany.
Like, I would be very curious toknow if that setting, the way it
was kind of portrayed in thebook, is reminiscent of how that
(07:28):
time actually was in Germany,given...
They basically looked like whatI would imagine the peasants and
mobs of, say, Dracula time wouldbe like.
They're treating him kind oflike a Dracula.
They are treating him exactlylike a Dracula.
(07:48):
I am looking at a panel, and wedo have someone that's sort of
in a business suit with a tie.
It's somewhat modern, but theirattitude is very peasant-like.
I will say...
aesthetically he looks so goodhe does and he looks very close
to there's not like a lot ofchange between this and like a
(08:10):
modern Nightcrawler I meanobviously there's a lot more
like detail it's especiallynoticeable when you see how
other characters look like someof them look very reminiscent of
how they do now right butthere's a scene in this book
where we see Beast appear on thescreen and who is off with the
(08:33):
Avengers at this point.
And he looks so rough comparedto many of the other designs
that we see.
And we'll kind of see, like, aswe obviously progress through,
not just the giant-sized book,but into the actual meat of the
run.
And Nightcrawler specificallyjust looks so, so good.
(08:55):
Like, coloring, everything.
It's so good.
Yeah, Beast fell on hard times.
He is missing 200 pounds ofsomething that I think people
are used to seeing him with.
He's really trimmed down, andI'm pretty sure even trimmed
down compared to what he wouldhave been in his pre-Blue Run on
(09:18):
Duncanny X-Men before ChrisClaremont's run.
In fairness, it is established,I think, through comic history
that Beast specifically goesthrough many mutations that
change his appearance.
I liked his cat appearance, butI'm a cat fan.
(09:38):
Like just in general?
Well, he like he had like thehumanoid beast.
I think there's like the thestereotypical like when you
picture Beast, you picture himas like whatever.
But then I think it was probablyI think it was Grant Morrison's
run.
He is very suddenly kind of haslike a cat face.
thing going on where he's a lotmore cat like I'm looking this
(10:00):
up I think I know what you'retalking oh yeah you think this
is your like your your I look Ijust really like that run of
X-Men oh god you both liveaction that I'm seeing here of
beast is just so off-putting areyou a beast with glasses or no
(10:21):
glasses who that stuff I thinkwith glasses Yeah, I'm there
with you.
I like nearsighted beasts.
I think the beast design thatwill always stick out in my mind
is pretty much the X-Menanimated, where he wears kind of
like the tighty-whities.
Definitely shirtless.
Yeah, definitely shirtless.
He does leg day all the time.
(10:42):
That's the beast that I imaginein my head.
Yeah, I mean, like, if I closemy eyes, that's probably the
one, too, but...
But, anyway.
Cats are great.
Anyway...
Kurt looks great.
And I loved his introduction andthe amount of time that they
kind of devote to him comparedto some of the other characters
(11:02):
compared to some of the twopanel people.
UNKNOWN (11:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
But anyway, that is not Wolverine.
He gets his own two pages.
But with him, we kind of seeProfessor X just walking into
somebody else's place ofbusiness and stealing their
employee.
Kind of a kind of a ballsy moveby him.
Yeah, it was really strange tome reading it because the
military general, I think, iswho he is or, you know, whatever
(11:28):
the government agent that iskind of there.
Wolverine is a bit standoffishat first and isn't really
interested in talking to Xavier.
But the government agent islike, oh, well, the higher ups
are very interested in what hehas to say.
But by the end of it, he's like.
What do you think?
What do you mean when you'rejust going to take him?
(11:48):
What did he expect was going tohappen?
Why did he imagine Xavier wasthere?
Just to talk.
I'd be curious to kind of knowthe off panel discussion that
occurred as he's like probablysitting there waiting for, you
know, Logan to march into theroom.
Maybe he's just mind nudgingpeople.
Like, you want to take thismeeting with me.
Could you call Wolverine in?
(12:09):
We have business to discuss.
I didn't even think about that.
That's a good point.
I mean, they do make mention tohis appearance in the incredible
Hulk, which was his firstappearance in comics.
And I think it's very important,obviously, as, as we discussed
this, this is like not theWolverine that we all know
today.
(12:29):
Right?
Like there was, it was verybureaucratic Wolverine.
Like he's very much, I work forthe government and I'm, I'm a
government agent.
And at one point, he even sayssomething to the degree of,
well, sure, I'll join the X-Men,because it beats sitting in an
office waiting to do something.
Yeah, I'm just imaginingWolverine kind of has his desk
(12:52):
job.
He's getting yelled at for nothaving his TPS reports in on
time.
He's like, I'm so sick of this.
I just want to be in the field.
And I think later on, like way,way, way later on, this is
essentially...
the canadian version of likeweapon x or at the very least
(13:14):
like alpha flight i think it'salpha flight yeah uh and for
those who don't know alphaflight is basically like a
government op and they createtheir own sort of superhero team
with very canadian caricaturesof heroes basically puck comes
to mind there's others that arenot coming to mind, but Huck for
(13:39):
sure comes to mind.
Oh, and Sasquatch.
What did you think of his look?
Well, speaking of cats and howpeople look, Wolverine, I
believe when he was in the Hulk,did have also a cat thing going
on.
I just want to make it clearthat that's not the Wolverine
for me.
I prefer him without thewhiskers, but I mean, he looks
(14:03):
pretty good.
There's a little bit of a tweakin how his mask and stuff is
proportioned, but he looksfairly similar, I guess, to what
I'm kind of expecting when Ithink back of the X-Men and
particularly the animatedseries.
Yeah, I'm looking at a pictureof it right now.
It's definitely more tiger-like.
(14:26):
He has kind of like the blackstripes that kind of come onto
his stomach.
Yeah, you're right.
It is definitely more...
cat like the brown belt is kindof weird it has such a giant
buckle on it too I like the bigbuckle he should probably
exchange well if he were like anAmerican hero he would probably
have like a big like state ofTexas thing going on there but
(14:50):
probably for the best that he'sCanadian uh yeah a true Canadian
treasure um interesting thoughwe also really do not get a
clean look at what Wolverine'spowers are.
Very true.
At this point, I think it's justthe claws and it's ambiguous as
(15:10):
to is that him?
Is that the suit he's wearing?
I think the only one that wereally truly get a clear
representation of their powers Ithink is I guess Storm,
definitely.
And Colossus.
Yeah, and Colossus.
I mean, it's hard to not showthat.
He turns into metal.
(15:31):
Spoilers.
But moving on, the next on thelist is actually Banshee, Sean
Cassidy, who is only in twopanels.
Professor X meets him at theopera and goes back to what is
described as his shabby quartersand takes him back to New York,
(15:51):
I guess.
I particularly enjoy later onwhen he's asked to join the team
and he's like, I'm too old forthat.
This is a young person game.
I can't just join them.
Yeah, and I do like how he'sinstantly ribbed into like, oh,
you're scared.
I get it.
You can't keep up with the youngpeople because you're scared to
join a team.
And then he's like, oh, fine,I'll join.
(16:12):
A lot of bullying in thesebooks.
Yeah, a lot of peer pressure toget the results that they're
looking for.
And then we meet Storm, right?
In Africa.
She has around two pages ofintroduction, and I do have to
say it is a little bit rude tokind of go to somebody's home
(16:33):
and tell them that they're not agoddess.
I think Professor X is kind ofcoming off as a bit of a jerk.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, especially the way theyintroduce her, which is not just
as like a goddess, but like anindividual goddess.
who is legitimately helpingpeople, right?
Like, we are introduced to herat a time when these people who
(17:00):
are seeking help with food,they're offering to slaughter
chickens and pigs if it meansshe will bring rain to the land.
She's like, nah, don't do that.
Like, you clearly need this morethan I do.
I'll make it rain.
It's no big deal.
(17:21):
And then Professor X shows upand basically tells her that
she's not living to her fullest,which, you know, might be true.
You know, especially when youconsider all the things that she
goes on to accomplish.
But it's not as though she wasjust like sitting there not
helping people.
She's not slumming it likeBanshee.
(17:41):
Yeah, or living it up in like afine Japanese castle like
Sunfire.
Speaking of which.
Sunfire is another two panelintroduction I think to be fair
the two panel people arecharacters that have already
been introduced in previouscomics it seems Sunfire's intro
is kind of weird and he kind ofhas this hostility throughout
(18:04):
this book and just like beingvery hostile towards Xavier and
everyone I'm not really evensure why he decided to go along
with this yeah and I mean, itkind of gets called out, right?
Like, we see him eventually,right, as they're going to
investigate the disappearance ofthe original X-Men, as we'll
(18:28):
talk about.
And he...
No, I'm not going.
I don't want to go to thisisland.
Where the original X-Mendisappeared.
Yeah, but then three panelslater, he just randomly shows up
again.
It's like, what are we doinghere?
It's actually changed my mind.
I think he just wants people tofight for him.
Oh, you think so?
Yeah, he's just walking awaywaiting for them to call and be
(18:49):
like, no, don't go.
Please stay.
We need you here.
Yeah, I'd be curious, andforgive me for not knowing this,
but I'd be really curious toknow what his introduction was
like prior to this, if he was infact introduced in past X-Men
comics.
(19:10):
It does seem like things maybedid not go well between him and
Xavier.
Maybe we'll have to look intothat.
I will also note, too, becausethis is another thing that was
on my mind reading kind of theintroductions and then them
getting to, you know, theX-Manner and everything.
It's just, it's clear to me,Xavier is just recruiting people
(19:33):
to help him with this mission,right?
This odd job.
But it's never like, hey, You'renow my X-Men.
That's who you guys are now.
You're the X-Men.
It's just, hey, you're coming onboard.
You're a mutant.
I was able to find you.
I'm recruiting you to come andhelp me because my experienced
(19:57):
team of mutant superheroes havebeen captured or whatever.
They don't really know.
And The way he treats them inthis comic is as if they've
signed up.
They're part of the team now.
Yeah, I mean, he doesn'tnecessarily come off as great in
(20:20):
a lot of these early issues.
No, he doesn't.
That'll be interesting to keepkind of monitoring and
exploring.
So who else do we get on theteam?
Next up is Colossus.
And technically, this is also anintro for his sister Ileana,
though she does go unnamed.
(20:40):
But with his intro, we see himtransforming into his metal form
and picking up his sister as atractor that is driving itself
is about to plow into her.
His introduction, I think, isthe most wholesome, right?
Like it's him on his familyfarm.
He clearly feels a devotion tohis family.
And he turns to his parents andhe's just like, I don't know
(21:04):
what to do I'm torn right likehe's he's trying to figure out
what the best path forward isthis seems like a good
opportunity for him he feelsthat desire for something bigger
than probably being a farm boyand his parents to their credit
and like I even made a note anote here his parents are
(21:24):
incredibly loving and are justlike go do what do what's in
your heart It is.
He's actually, if we look ateveryone just kind of as a
whole, he is the only one thatactually has kind of a human
connection to anyone else.
Like everyone else is eitherjust like a loner or just
secluded or being worshipped asa goddess and not necessarily
(21:47):
having kind of like that humansort of connection of like
you're my friend and peer orfamily.
So that is also an interestingthing to sort of keep in mind
going forward as I think evenlater on, they kind of
referenced themselves as allkind of being loners.
Yeah, and even his familyconnection as the story kind of
(22:10):
unfolds over the next severalissues, I think comes into full
view.
And I really love Ileana, likeas a character.
Yeah, magic is the best.
So cool, man.
Going into, what is it like?
What's the word?
Stop Pandora.
Limbo?
Limbo, thank you.
(22:31):
Yeah, into Limbo.
And just being the child andgetting trained by Doctor
Strange, which is an awesomecharacter.
Definitely.
And then we get the probablymost forgettable character that
is introduced in this patch.
Rude, but yes.
Next up is Thunderbird, who alsogets two pages, and we see him
(22:52):
sort of wrestling down abuffalo, or bison, And yeah,
he's kind of another person thatProfessor X just sort of bullies
and is like, oh, OK, you're justnot like you're just not like a
man enough.
You're not strong enough.
I get it.
And then he decides, OK, I'llshow you and decides to come
with him.
(23:13):
Yeah, he definitely took thebait.
It's unfortunate.
I had to like look upThunderbird outside of what was
presented in the book to reallyunderstand what was mutant about
him.
And even the material thatexists outside of that is very
thin.
I truly believe this characterjust was not given the time of
(23:36):
day and flushed out in a way as,I mean, you won't get to why,
but from my understanding, it'sjust kind of the run-of-the-mill
super strength, endurance,speed, the lower-tier Superman
effect that we see a lot ofcharacters kind of get when they
are just there.
But you're right, Professor X isa total jerk.
(23:57):
It is one small step abovenudging people with his mind
into joining his team, butstill, not a great look.
Psychic coercion.
But from there, Professor X getseverybody kind of assembled
together, gives them newuniforms that for some of them
look the same as their olduniforms, but these ones are
(24:19):
made by Reed Richards, sothey're fancy.
But from there, they sort oftell them the story of, hey, the
original X-Men have disappeared.
They went to Krakoa to try andlocate a new mutant that was
detected.
From there, everyone sort oflike suits up, heads over to the
island.
They split up into teams of two,eventually find the missing
(24:39):
X-Men, a Marvel girl, Havok,Lorna Dane, Iceman, and Angel.
But there is a bit of a plottwist here.
The new mutant is not on theisland.
The new mutant is the island.
And it was draining the lifeforce of the original X-Men.
And it actually sent Cyclopsaway in order to lure more
(25:02):
mutants to the island so itcould keep draining them for
food, essentially.
It's funny knowing what we know,right?
Now.
about Krakoa and its connectionto mutant kind and its portrayal
here.
And you can, you can really seeit.
(25:22):
At least this was a takeaway forme.
There are like these subtletiesthat.
Kickman clearly picked up fromChris's run ultimately and
brought forward into that modernage of X-Men.
Right.
Um, Also interesting,admittedly, I do not know much
(25:44):
about the previous stories up tothis point, right?
And as you said, like in thebeginning, there's been a
five-year gap.
This original team isn't evenlike the original X-Men, right?
Like Lorna wasn't an originalX-Men, was she?
Neither was Havoc.
Not for like the very beginningof their run, but I, and I don't
know if they were necessarilyalways full members, but Lorna
(26:06):
and Havoc were both involved orwould sort of go out.
But that's something that Ilearned kind of after the fact.
And when I was reading this forthe first time, I was like,
wait, why are they here?
Probably good to note for thosewho are unfamiliar with the
characters.
Havoc is Alex Summers.
(26:27):
That's Scott Summers' brother,Cyclops.
Lorna Dane, her codenamePolaris, is the daughter of
Magneto.
Spoilers.
Spoilers.
Is that not known at this point?
At this point, she doesn't evenhave the name Polaris.
That's why they keep calling herLorna Dayne.
Damn.
(26:48):
I did not know that.
I'm pretty sure that they don'tknow that she's Magneto's
daughter.
But I think that also might beone of those things that sort of
has flip-flopped into like,you're Magneto's daughter.
You're not Magneto's daughter.
You're Magneto's daughter again.
I think they're pretty solidlyin that is Magneto's daughter
(27:08):
territory right now.
I mean, how can she not be?
She literally has the samepowers.
Yeah.
It's Magneto's daughter.
Spoilers.
Sorry about that.
Before we move off that a littlebit, I was actually kind of
happy to see Lorna because I dolike her in the Krakoa comics,
the modern run, I guess, whenshe's just sort of like a coffee
addict and drinking coffeeconstantly and wearing
(27:30):
sunglasses.
So she has not developed thosequirks yet.
There is a great comic withLorna in it.
I believe it is an X Factorcomic that came out like in the
all new era, if I'm correct.
(27:50):
Yes, all new X Factor is whatit's called.
And Polaris is like one of themain characters in this book
alongside Gambit andQuicksilver.
Who else is it?
Warlock, Cypher, and Danger.
Like that's the crew, like themain team.
It is so good, man.
I...
Loved reading this book.
(28:11):
It came out originally in 2014.
Yeah, it was part of All NewMarvel.
If you haven't read it, I highlysuggest it.
All right, I'll have to writethat down.
That's going on the list.
That sounds great.
It's a great team.
There's also a cover that I needto show you because it's, well,
the topic of Cat has come up alot in this, and I'm going to
(28:34):
send it to you right now becauseyou need to see it.
Well, you send that over.
Everybody does a big battle.
X-Men new and old start fightingthe island of Krakoa, who sort
of manifests this monster islandsort of creature.
And Professor X even sort ofjoins the fray psychically.
Eventually, some cool comic bookscience happens, and Storm
(28:58):
supercharges the magnetic powersof Lorna, and she reaches down
into the Earth, and then...
somehow the island sort of justgets shot up into space and
everyone, uh, kind of has to,you know, dive into the ocean
and then survive a weirdwhirlpool.
And eventually they find theirway back into their jet.
(29:19):
And, uh, on the way home, Icemanposes the question of what are
we going to do with 13 X-Men?
This is a hilarious questiongiven where the X-Men go, right?
Like it, It becomes such a largeschool for mutant kind.
And the cast of X-Men expandsexponentially and arguably has
(29:45):
probably the largest supportingcast of all of Marvel, right?
Like when you think about thenumber of characters that have
powers.
Now, not all of them are X-Men,right?
But they exist in thebackground.
They're there, right?
And the Krakoa era is a goodexample of that.
A literal island full ofmutants.
(30:06):
But here you have Iceman.
Oh yeah, 13 members.
What are we going to do?
We've never had this manybefore.
We have to stand on the jet.
They also have a giant schoolslash mansion that they live in.
It's like, oh man, there's noroom.
Where are we going to house allthese people?
He's really thinking about thelogistics.
(30:26):
And then we get the...
the revelation here of the teambreaking up.
We do.
Do you want to just jump intoissue 94 or 95?
I mean, we may as well.
It kind of stems right fromthis, right?
Yeah, essentially.
I mean, issue 94 sort of picksup exactly where We left off and
(30:47):
we kind of get an immediateanswer to Bobby's question or
Iceman's question.
And essentially we are lookingat a mass exodus from the team.
Sunfire, to no one's surprise,decides he's done with this and
that he hates mutants and hehates all of them and he just
wants to go home.
So he leaves.
(31:08):
But then in addition to him, allof the old members of the X-Men
besides Cyclops also decide toleave.
And one thing, so I knew wewould essentially be seeing that
kind of like swap from like teamA to team B.
The one thing that I wasactually surprised in was Jean
(31:29):
Grey leaving as well.
Yeah, that's very fair.
And this is like, I think veryclearly Marvel girl Jean Grey,
which is I think very differentfrom the Jean Grey a lot of
people probably are associatedwith.
It's It does, I think, pose thedilemma that we see happen with
(31:50):
Cyclops, right?
Where he becomes torn.
He loves G.
And she asks him to come withthem.
And he toys over this idea.
He's torn about what to do.
Where is he going to go?
What is his purpose, right?
He's been the leader of theX-Men.
That is what he's been trainedto be.
And I think that personalturmoil...
(32:14):
Playing out the way it plays outis really the crux of Scott
struggling to come to terms withthis change that's happening
around him.
Interesting, though, and beforewe move on, I have to, I love so
much reading Sunfire not onlysaying that he doesn't want to
be on the team, but he tellsXavier to never call him again.
(32:37):
It's like, there's only badhabits.
Don't contact me.
I do not want to be involved.
Please leave me alone.
I don't know what happensbetween this and, again, those
Krakoa-era comics, but he's alot more cordial in modern day.
All right, so we have this bigshift.
We have a new team.
All of the old members, what arethey going to go do?
(32:59):
A lot of them are just like,we're going to go live our lives
now.
They're going to get jobs.
Which is so funny given the factthat probably to this point it's
established that they've beenostracized for being mutants and
they're not generally welcomedin society.
Now, most of them, like, havepowers that are maybe not
obvious.
Like, their mutations are notsurface level.
(33:22):
But even still, like...
The most obvious one is Warren,Angel, but I would assume he can
sort of tuck those in a littlebit or wear a really big jacket.
But he's also rich and does notactually need to work.
That is true.
Yeah, he's a rich boy.
Everyone else is good to go.
So we end up getting...
(33:43):
Cyclops stays, as I said, andhe's going to lead the team.
We have Wolverine deciding hedoesn't want to go back to
working in a very formalcapacity as a government agent.
We have Nightcrawler deciding tostay.
Storm decides to stay.
And it's important to, I think,to note, like, this is two days.
They've been X-Men for two days.
(34:04):
They had zero training.
It was just like, hey, I'vetrained this old team for years
and they're a well-oiled machineand they know how to work
together.
But you guys, you can probablyhandle this too.
I mean, they couldn't, but goodluck.
We do see Banshee again kind ofallude to the fact that he wants
(34:27):
to leave.
You know, you can call me.
I'm here to help.
This is a young man's game.
He is smoking a pipe.
He is pretty old.
Do you know how old he is rightnow, like in this moment in the
story?
I would assume just middle-aged.
He says he's getting gray hairs.
I mean, he looks rough, but Ithink that's just how he looks.
(34:50):
I don't want to feel that way assomebody who's closely reaching
middle age.
I can't do this.
I'm too old.
I've got like a few gray hairsthat you can count.
I have all of my gray hairs aredefinitely in my beard.
They make us more handsome,though.
It's wisdom.
Every gray hair is an ounce ofwisdom.
And like, I mean, into hiscredit, he decides to stay,
(35:12):
right?
We have Xavier basically belike, it's not true.
You know, like you're animportant member of the team.
You have a lot to offer us.
And it doesn't take much for himto basically kind of get elbowed
here into staying and he becomesan important member of the team
like he's not like uh you knowwhat we kind of saw with with
Sunfire who you know kind oflike leaves and comes back like
(35:34):
he becomes a very important partof this composition yeah I
actually was a little surprisedabout that as well like he's one
of the people that because Iknew not everyone would stay and
but when I look back and likethink of the X-Men like I
haven't typically like thoughtof Banshee I was a little bit
(35:54):
blind going in and thought, oh,he's going to be one of the
people that leaves, though,right?
I knew of Banshee before I readthis.
He's actually featured in X-MenFirst Class, if you've seen that
film.
And he's portrayed as being muchyounger, obviously, in that
case.
Aside from that, though, I don'tknow that I've really read any
(36:15):
stories where he was an integralpart of the team.
Yeah, I mean, I did know...
of him but thought that he wouldbe sort of like a side
character.
I do remember growing up we hadlike a little action figure
Banshee that had like his littlewings but it also had like a
whistle on like the back of himand you could just like I don't
(36:37):
know for some reason hold anaction figure in your mouth and
like just blow through a whistleand make an annoying noise that
your parents definitely hated.
I mean I imagine that's how theX-Men felt every time they used
his powers.
I think actually Wolverine doesmake a comment about it.
Um, in that, in that first giantsize issue of like, God, could
you cut out that racket?
(37:00):
So we, we do see, um, as Imentioned, Jean tells Cyclops,
he's she's leading asks, askshim to come.
And we see him kind of like gooff into the woods.
Right.
Is it that that's about the timewhen he's like really
contemplating what to do.
I think he stares through awindow.
Yeah.
You're probably right.
UNKNOWN (37:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
I think I'm misremembering.
And he, he has that back andforth thought of, do I go with
the love of my life or do Istay?
And you know, this is why I'msupposed to be.
He decides to stay and hebasically takes this new group.
We see John stay as well.
And they, they start trainingfor weeks, uh, in the danger
(37:42):
room, right?
Like that's basically what weend up seeing.
They're, they're trying tobecome a in sync, uh, They're
trying to become a team beyondjust, you know, a group of
people that were broughttogether because they were
mutants.
Yeah, and I think the book kindof alludes to like, hey, they
might be overdoing it a littlebit.
(38:02):
And eventually what we see isactually Thunderbird gets like a
minor leg injury and it turnsinto like a whole argument
between him and Cyclops andlike, oh, Cyclops is a terrible
leader and, you know, you don'tlisten to anyone's criticism and
they sort of just like go ateach other until Professor X
(38:23):
kind of breaks things up.
And that kind of transitionsinto, I guess, sort of the meat
of this little story arc.
So essentially what we'relooking at for these two issues
is how Nefaria has infiltratedNORAD HQ at Valhalla Mountain
and is more or less just kind ofholding the world hostage with
(38:45):
an arsenal of America's nuclearweapons.
And he's going to launch themall unless he gets his big
payday.
Beast, who was not blue andfurry the last time he was an
X-Men, is on the Avengers andkind of calls in and is like,
hey, can you handle thissituation?
We're busy.
What I'm curious about is like,what are they doing that they're
(39:07):
too busy for like a world endingnuclear event?
Not exactly something that youwould pass on.
But here we are with him passingon it.
Were you familiar with CountNefaria before this?
No, this is my firstintroduction to him.
So a little background on CountNefaria, as I also was very
(39:30):
unfamiliar.
He's like the leader of acriminal organization called the
Magia, but he's basically justlike a rich Italian, and he uses
that wealth and power to be avillain.
To create animal-man hybrids.
Yeah, as we'll see.
(39:51):
It's like the Annie-men is whatthey're called.
Also hilarious that he just senta letter in the mail to some
employee inside of thisbuilding.
And he just opens it up, notknowing who sent it to him.
A mysterious package sent to asecret government facility.
(40:15):
And at no point in time is thispackage looked at.
They just bring it in and heopens it up.
It's basically a button.
And what is it?
He presses the button.
Yeah, it's a big red button andit just says press me written
below it.
This is why we have to do all ofthose fake emails.
(40:40):
email phishing scams that likeeverybody's company's IS IT
department sort of sends out totry and catch you this guy
should probably not have thisjob I mean there were multiple
layers of failure right in thatpackage getting delivered number
one and then making its waythrough what I imagine they must
(41:04):
have some sort of scanningprocedure And we're not just
bringing packages in from likewho knows who to the inners of
this, uh, you know, governmentfacility.
That's basically NORAD.
Someone should have caught this.
Somebody should have caughtthis, but you're right.
He fell for a phishing scam andthen he brought in this legion
(41:27):
of animen, which are exactlywhat it sounds like.
They are half human, half animalhybrids.
Um, Not willingly.
Not willingly.
He's a bad guy, so he did turnthem into animen without their
consent.
He is a mean guy.
(41:47):
And he's basically, like,holding this over their heads.
Like, if you are not going to dowhat I'm telling you to do, then
you're not going to become humanagain, is essentially what he's
getting at here.
Though I'm pretty sure at onepoint in time he says something
to the degree of, these are notmen, these are animen.
But then later acknowledges thatthey're human.
(42:10):
Transformed into animen.
You know, now that you mentionedto me that he's just like some
rich evil guy, like part of hismotif makes a lot more sense to
me where he's got like themonocle.
He's got a big cane.
He's smoking.
Like it's all kind of comingtogether for me.
I'm just going to read veryquickly an excerpt here from his
(42:30):
Wikipedia page because it willcontinue to feed into this image
that we're building.
So apparently in one of hisfirst instances, he encounters
the Avengers in Avengers number13, and he lures the Avengers to
his castle on the pretense of acharity event and threatens to
take control of America.
(42:51):
I feel like we don't see a lotof Count Nefario these days.
I was very unfamiliar with him.
It's, yeah, I mean, I'm not, Ithink it's probably for the
best, if anything.
It's interesting to, you know,we get someone like him who does
like show up a few times in thecomics and like across different
franchises too, where he'sfighting the X-Men, he's
(43:12):
fighting the Avengers.
And then we also have like othervillains that they've already
introduced, like Magneto, whohas that kind of like 50 year
staying power on the other hand.
I mean, there is a cleardistinction between the two,
right?
Like, I mean, One is just astereotypical bad guy who's like
a Bond villain.
(43:33):
You know, not to push shade onBond villains.
A lot of them are verymemorable, but...
You're just trying to drag thispodcast back to cats.
But cats.
If this was a cat, then heprobably would have had that
staying power if he just had alittle bit more feline in his
design.
Was there even a cat?
(43:53):
And a man?
Yeah, I think there's some kindof like tiger situation.
He...
Actually has kind of similarmotif as Wolverine.
Yeah, the ones that I distinctlyremember, there's a frog who has
an interaction with, I believeit's Nightcrawler.
There's a gorilla, a bird, thecat, and I think that might be a
(44:15):
dragonfly.
We're kind of stretching animala little far.
They're getting a little iffywith that term.
There's a fly, fly man.
a pest of some sort.
Anyways, we get the gist ofthese are poor souls who've been
blackmailed essentially andturned into these creatures and
(44:35):
now they're inside of Norad HQat Valhalla Mountain and they
have the nuclear arsenal thatthey are holding over the world
and his plan is to hold theworld hostage and demands that
they just, every nation just paywhat they could pay.
It's not like a set amount.
It's just...
(44:56):
That is nice.
Whatever they can afford to pay.
It's almost like that scene inAustin Powers.
Dr.
Evil's trying to figure out howmuch money everybody should pay.
And he at one point asks for amillion dollars and they just
laugh at him because it'snothing.
So what happens next?
After that, the team arrives intheir plane, hits some road
(45:17):
bumps.
It gets shut down just a littlebit.
Everybody sort of like dives outand...
the people that can fly help thepeople that can't fly to the
ground, except for Colossus, whojust sort of like headfirst
dives into the ground, which Ithought was kind of odd.
Like, why not at least feetfirst?
Like, you know, but he'sColossus.
He does what he has to do.
(45:37):
I wonder how he knew that hewould survive that.
You know, that's a greatquestion.
I mean, he was hit by a tractor,but tractors do not go that
fast.
They do have some good mass tothem, but I imagine falling from
a jet and just diving headfirstinto the ground is maybe a
little bit more force.
(45:58):
We also get a bit of insightinto Nightcrawler's powers here,
where he discusses that he can'tjust simply teleport because of
physics that his momentum wouldcarry with him.
So if he's falling at a highspeed...
If he suddenly teleports thatmomentum will carry with them.
(46:19):
I would imagine, and maybe thisis just reaching, you know,
comics here, but could he notlike just teleport himself to
like a lake, like some water orsomething to like slow his
impact or even like teleporthimself.
So rather than hitting theground, he's almost like going
up into the air, you know?
Yeah, I think I wondered theexact same thing of like, what
(46:42):
if he just teleported himselfupside down and then he shot
back into the air?
But I think it's one of thosethings where we're not supposed
to actually think about this toohard.
And I think that maybe, I mean,does this power even get like
retconned a little bit?
I don't.
Or maybe he gained some sort oflike control over it.
I feel like he's done thingssimilar where he hasn't had to
(47:05):
worry about like.
The physics, the physics of itall.
I think you are probably nailinga very important part on the,
uh, on the head here, which is,you know, this is our first
encounter with nightcrawler andwe're building all of these
interpretations based off of,you know, like years and years
and years of lore that had beencrafted over decades.
(47:28):
All right, so they get down.
They all survive.
They get down.
They eventually get into thebase.
They fight their way through alittle bit, have to fight some
hypnotized humans as well as theanimen.
Thunderbird and Banshee are bothknocked unconscious when I
believe a big gorilla throwsThunderbird at Banshee and the
(47:50):
team decides to just leave themon the ground and continue ahead
because, I mean, they're workingagainst the clock.
When they actually think thatthey arrived too late and that
everything is doomed, there'slike a weird moment where
Professor X is like, God, stopbeing an idiot.
It's not doomed.
You destroyed some computer orsomething fighting with the
(48:13):
animen earlier.
The nukes aren't going to gooff.
And it's like, okay.
That was just kind of like aweird anticlimactic thing,
but...
The reason why he's reaching outto him is because Professor X
needs the team to go backbecause the two knocked out
people that we left behind arein a bit of a trouble situation.
(48:35):
So Count Nefaria is trying toleave via one of the military
jets and Thunderbird jumps onand starts just sort of like
beating into it.
You know, Banshee tries to tellhim to jump off.
He can take care of it with hissonic scream.
Professor X says, pleads withhim, like, please jump off.
And Thunderbird is sort of justlike in a rage, I guess, and
(48:59):
just kind of keeps tearing intothe plane.
And eventually it explodes.
And I believe on the cover ofthis issue, it does kind of give
that teaser of, you know, not ascam or whatever.
An X-Men dies in this issue.
Yeah, it's a quite biglettering.
They are definitely drawing outthe fact that there is an X-Men
going to die And I can imaginethis being quite shocking when
(49:23):
this was released, right?
Like, talk about a cliffhanger.
If this is, like, coming out ina comic shop or, like, on
newsstands back, you know, whenthis was released, like, that
would have been a huge...
No, I can't imagine an X-Men hasdied before this.
No, I would think this is thefirst instance.
(49:43):
It's also important to, I think,note, so the reason that they
felt like they were on aclock...
wasn't just this threat of, youknow, is he going to launch
nuclear weapons around theglobe?
What the general informs theX-Men of when they arrive is
basically that once thisprotocol is started to launch
(50:06):
these weapons, right, there's apoint in time, and I believe
it's like 50 minutes after it'sactivated or something, there's
a point in time when there's nopoint of return.
So once they reach thatthreshold, the bonds will go off
regardless, which is a terriblydesigned system.
But that's why there's thisimpending drastic time limit
(50:31):
where they have to try to getinside and stop this.
To be fair, this is also a basewhere they're just pressing
random buttons that arrive inthe mail.
So it does kind of make a lot ofsense.
This is very early days ofNORAD, I guess.
So we have this big explosion.
We lose Thunderbird, RIP, and ithas a massive impact on the
(50:57):
team.
They especially note thatCharles Xavier, because he had
this psychic link withThunderbird when this explosion
happened, that he essentiallyfeels the impact.
He feels every bit of pain.
that Thunderbird experiences,the difference being that he
(51:18):
just doesn't die.
Yeah, I think that'll be one ofthe other interesting things to
sort of monitor going forward islike, how does this affect the
way that he's essentially kindof leading the team, not
necessarily in the field, but ishe going to be more like
(51:38):
protective?
Is he going to be like hesitantabout certain situations.
Like how does this change hisapproach?
What was your, you know, nowthat this is kind of like the
true start of Claremont's run,like what did you think about
these first two issues?
Overall, I felt like the giantsize issue was a little bit more
(52:03):
enticing.
There was kind of that likemystery element to it.
There's sort of that likeexcitement of meeting these new
people.
And then I think, you know,we've joked around a little bit,
but like Nefaria is not thecoolest supervillain and, you
know, not all of them can be,but I thought it was, I guess,
just fine.
(52:23):
Yeah, I think that's a fairassessment.
I, I agree.
I think the, obviously theseeing the X-Men come back after
five years is a huge moment,right?
And they're coming back with afresh team.
they are capitalizing on thepopularity of characters that
were introduced elsewhere likewith wolverine and and coming in
(52:44):
with like a lot of interestingideas right like you have
nightcrawler colossus storm likethose characters are especially
now the impact that those threecharacters alone have had on
x-men storytelling and marvelstorytelling as a whole is Storm
becoming queen of Wakanda,marrying T'Challa, it's
(53:10):
incredible the trajectory thatthey end up having through the
course of their comic history.
And this is the nexus of it all.
And to see kind of like thisbeginning and knowing where they
end up, it's incredible to seeand experience reading for the
first time.
And even as we kind of see overlike the coming issues, like
(53:32):
Storm especially is apowerhouse, man.
She's so powerful.
Even the way she handles Krakoa,right?
Like her supercharging Lorna ishow they defeat the problem.
And even her here, she'sincredibly powerful, saving the
team.
Having these fresh faces really,truly breathes new life into the
(53:56):
X-Men and really breathes newlife into the stories that they
can tell.
I think going in with CountNefaria is such a lame duck, but
it's also done in a way becausethey are inexperienced, right?
You're not going to go in andhave this team of inexperienced
(54:19):
fighters have have a bigshowdown with a memorable
villain that we kind of knowtoday but i think it was
probably more common back thento have characters like this
that were maybe a little bitmore grounded not that being a
aristocrat who makes half menhalf animal hybrids is grounded
(54:41):
but it's a different kind ofvillain than you know like we
end up seeing where it's likeStill, I think the storytelling
that's taking place is more thathuman versus mutant versus where
we've seen mutant on mutantviolence that ends up taking
place in later stories.
And as we'll kind of see, thecrux of this still is very much
(55:06):
this hate that exists betweenmutant kind and humans.
And I think that's very clearlyat play here.
And Count Nefaria just doesn'tlike mutants or X-Men at all.
Well, they're not part animal.
Yeah, that's true.
(55:27):
Although Beast might be partanimal, as we've discussed, kind
of a cat man.
But he's an Avenger.
He gets a pass.
I think all that definitely, andI think kind of like building on
that, another way to sort oflook at it is, you know, we are
dealing with an entirely newcast of characters and if I
(55:48):
guess like every issue we'resort of like introducing like
here's a new villain as wellthat's sort of just it's a lot
of information to sort of takein and you can only do so much
info dumping so them going toNefaria who has sort of you know
he's been featured in a fewother stories up until this
point does make a lot of senseas just You know, you go with,
(56:10):
you got something new, you gotsomething familiar.
It's, I think, also, like, avery important pretense that the
characters that we're seeingaren't flushed out, right?
Like, even looking atWolverine's interaction as, you
know, like, I think at one pointhe literally says gent or gents
instead of, you know, thistraditional broodish Wolverine
(56:35):
that we all know and love,right?
This, you know, hey there, bub.
Wolverine that we all know.
I think we do get a bub though.
Yeah, we do get it.
I think one in this, by the endof the story, we do get a bub.
But that's not where we start.
And so you can see that ChrisClaremont is like very clearly
having to build these charactersand make them more than how they
(56:58):
were portrayed in Giant SizeX-Men, which in fairness was
very plain.
Right.
Like there wasn't thepersonality of these characters
hadn't been developed yet.
And so he was given this blankslate, so to speak.
And you see him trying to kindof create the, the, the meat of
(57:20):
the story and the meat of thesecharacters rather than, than
just being cool powers on a coolbody.
Right.
So we see this.
As I mentioned, this impact thatis probably likely going to be
playing out over the comingissues of the death of
Thunderbird, the first majordeath of an X-Men.
I guess we'll kind of see whathappens, right?
(57:41):
I imagine we're going to see animpact on Cyclops specifically
as the leader, the impact thatthat might have had on Xavier,
and then overall for the rest ofthe team.
Yeah, I think they, I mean, it'sbeen at least longer than two
days for them at this point, buteveryone, I would assume has
some sort of like hesitancy oflike, do I want to stay here?
(58:05):
Is kind of the leadership ofthis team in the best hands?
Do we trust Xavier?
Do we trust Cyclops?
Do we trust each other?
And I think it'll be interestingto see kind of what that tension
ends up being.
Yeah, it's definitely beenweeks, right?
Because they had all thattraining that took place in the
danger room.
(58:25):
So this is a well-establishedgroup of people at this point.
Yeah, and I guess we'll find outwhat happens in the next issue,
which is issue...
96.
96.
So I guess we'll pick it upthere in the next episode.
Thanks for joining us, everyone.
And we hope we'll see you forthe next episode.
Read comics.
Bye.
(58:46):
Read comics.
Go to your local comic bookstore.
If you enjoyed this podcast,don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review, or share it with afriend.
Hello, and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I'm Isaac Faderspiel, andjoining me is the second
Angriest Canadian we'll get tointroduce today, Mr.
Adam Ward.
Hello, everyone.
Hello, hello.
How are you doing tonight?
I'm doing swell.
I'm excited to talk aboutcomics.
Who isn't?
I was going to say, I appreciateyou saying I'm the second
Angriest Canadian that we'll betalking about, because of course
(00:32):
we're going to be talking aboutWolverine.
Everyone's favorite AngryCanadian.
I hope he's your second favoriteCanadian in this call.
I mean, like, both are prettygood.
Both are pretty good.
But, you know, only one of youhas a healing factor.
That you know of.
True.
All right.
So, in this podcast, we aregoing to be exploring Chris
(00:55):
Claremont's legendary run,Riding the X-Men, which the two
of us are actually reading forthe very first time and hope
that maybe you'll join us onthis adventure.
Before we kind of get intothings, would you like to...
Like I've skipped like a briefoverview of your comics history.
What are you into?
What do you like to read?
(01:16):
What's your deal?
Yeah.
Um, I've been reading comics onand off for probably like 20
years now.
Uh, maybe that's an overexaggeration.
It was maybe, maybe, maybe atleast a decade for sure.
And I started reading Deadpoolcomics really were my
introduction to, I think theformality of comics.
(01:39):
And that was mostly digital,yo-ho, and transitioned over to
a great comic shop in myhometown at the time.
And now I have probably four orfive boxes filled with a variety
of things.
So I will admittedly say Ialmost religiously just read
(02:00):
Marvel comics with some dabblesin image and a couple Dark Horse
comics as well, but mostlyMarvel.
And I've really gravitated, as Ithink many people, towards the
big names.
Spider-Man.
I love anything written byJonathan Hickman.
(02:21):
I will read religiously hisAvengers and New Avengers run.
It's probably my favorite of allthe runs that I've read.
As far as X-Men go, it's mostlynewer, I will say, that I've
consumed.
with the beginning of Krakoa,modern Krakoa, and not what
(02:44):
we'll be discussing today.
The first Krakoan age.
Yeah, exactly.
And with some dabblings outsideof that, like X-Force I've read,
Deadpool, as I mentioned, andthen I've read sporadic X-Men
comics of the years.
What about yourself?
Yeah, sure.
So I think I have a little bitless comics reading experience
(03:09):
than you when it comes to justthe number of years.
I don't think I had everactually read one until I was at
college.
But, you know, college is a timefor experimenting.
And, you know, my friends tookme to the comic book store and,
you know, things just sort of,you know, spiraled out from
there.
But for me, yeah, I tend to...
(03:31):
like you, stick mostly toMarvel.
One of my roommates at the timewas really more of a DC guy, so
I've read some of the, I guess,kind of the really good Batman
books that everyone kind ofpoints to as like, hey, you
gotta read these, LongHalloween, etc., etc., things
like that.
But apart from that,specifically X-Men is kind of
(03:55):
where my interests always lied.
They were sort of my...
favorite growing up when lookingat like oh you know the x-men
animated series i would watchlike the the probably two vhs's
that we owned way too many timesprobably burnt them out um and
(04:15):
yeah i guess when it comes tolike things off of my shelf or
kind of things that i've read uhi've read a decent amount of
x-men already um specifically ifwe look at like Grant Morrison's
run with New X-Men kind ofonward, I've read a decent
number of things likeAstonishing X-Men, the Uncanny
(04:38):
X-Force, a number of otherthings.
And then most recently finishedreading quite a bit of the
Krakoa era comics.
Just wrap that up and sort oftrying to work my way up to
present time.
Yeah.
You mentioning the X-Men TV showreminds me of, I think that must
(05:02):
have been my first, I think,true exposure to X-Men.
Aside from the side-scrollingX-Men game that used to exist on
the NES or SNES, whichever one,it was mostly found in arcades,
if you've ever played that.
You know, I think I might have,but probably it would have been
(05:25):
a while at this point, I think.
We will kick things off withGiant Size X-Men number one,
which was written by Len Wine.
But before we kind of get intothat, just to set the stage a
little bit.
At the time that this issue cameout, the X-Men had not received
any new characters.
content in around five years.
(05:45):
They were instead just sort ofreprinting past issues.
Giant Size X-Men number oneserves as a kind of soft
relaunch of the series with awhole new cast.
The way that things began iswith Professor X going on a bit
of a recruitment spree.
So he's stopping by Storm,Colossus, Banshee, Thunderbird,
(06:06):
Sunfire, Nightcrawler, andWolverine.
And he's recruits them all tocome to his cause, join them,
brings them over to New York,you know, normal things that
people do.
The first character that weactually spend a little bit of
time with in the book isNightcrawler.
And out of everyone, heactually, I went and counted,
(06:27):
has the longest introduction outof all of these.
So he has three whole pagesdedicated to just him.
And interestingly, we actuallydon't get to his signature power
in his intro.
There's no bamfing around, butthere is crawling, and it is the
night.
And what I found interesting washim just sort of aggressively
(06:51):
diving into the crowd and tryingto fight a bunch of peasants,
and he's about to be staked.
It's not the choice I would havemade.
It was very strange.
UNKNOWN (07:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:04):
And maybe it was just the time.
Admittedly, I don't know whatsmall town...
Was he in Germany?
Where was he exactly?
Yeah, he was in Winseldorf,Germany.
Like, I would be very curious toknow if that setting, the way it
was kind of portrayed in thebook, is reminiscent of how that
(07:28):
time actually was in Germany,given...
They basically looked like whatI would imagine the peasants and
mobs of, say, Dracula time wouldbe like.
They're treating him kind oflike a Dracula.
They are treating him exactlylike a Dracula.
(07:48):
I am looking at a panel, and wedo have someone that's sort of
in a business suit with a tie.
It's somewhat modern, but theirattitude is very peasant-like.
I will say...
aesthetically he looks so goodhe does and he looks very close
to there's not like a lot ofchange between this and like a
(08:10):
modern Nightcrawler I meanobviously there's a lot more
like detail it's especiallynoticeable when you see how
other characters look like someof them look very reminiscent of
how they do now right butthere's a scene in this book
where we see Beast appear on thescreen and who is off with the
(08:33):
Avengers at this point.
And he looks so rough comparedto many of the other designs
that we see.
And we'll kind of see, like, aswe obviously progress through,
not just the giant-sized book,but into the actual meat of the
run.
And Nightcrawler specificallyjust looks so, so good.
(08:55):
Like, coloring, everything.
It's so good.
Yeah, Beast fell on hard times.
He is missing 200 pounds ofsomething that I think people
are used to seeing him with.
He's really trimmed down, andI'm pretty sure even trimmed
down compared to what he wouldhave been in his pre-Blue Run on
(09:18):
Duncanny X-Men before ChrisClaremont's run.
In fairness, it is established,I think, through comic history
that Beast specifically goesthrough many mutations that
change his appearance.
I liked his cat appearance, butI'm a cat fan.
(09:38):
Like just in general?
Well, he like he had like thehumanoid beast.
I think there's like the thestereotypical like when you
picture Beast, you picture himas like whatever.
But then I think it was probablyI think it was Grant Morrison's
run.
He is very suddenly kind of haslike a cat face.
thing going on where he's a lotmore cat like I'm looking this
(10:00):
up I think I know what you'retalking oh yeah you think this
is your like your your I look Ijust really like that run of
X-Men oh god you both liveaction that I'm seeing here of
beast is just so off-putting areyou a beast with glasses or no
(10:21):
glasses who that stuff I thinkwith glasses Yeah, I'm there
with you.
I like nearsighted beasts.
I think the beast design thatwill always stick out in my mind
is pretty much the X-Menanimated, where he wears kind of
like the tighty-whities.
Definitely shirtless.
Yeah, definitely shirtless.
He does leg day all the time.
(10:42):
That's the beast that I imaginein my head.
Yeah, I mean, like, if I closemy eyes, that's probably the
one, too, but...
But, anyway.
Cats are great.
Anyway...
Kurt looks great.
And I loved his introduction andthe amount of time that they
kind of devote to him comparedto some of the other characters
(11:02):
compared to some of the twopanel people.
UNKNOWN (11:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:05):
But anyway, that is not Wolverine.
He gets his own two pages.
But with him, we kind of seeProfessor X just walking into
somebody else's place ofbusiness and stealing their
employee.
Kind of a kind of a ballsy moveby him.
Yeah, it was really strange tome reading it because the
military general, I think, iswho he is or, you know, whatever
(11:28):
the government agent that iskind of there.
Wolverine is a bit standoffishat first and isn't really
interested in talking to Xavier.
But the government agent islike, oh, well, the higher ups
are very interested in what hehas to say.
But by the end of it, he's like.
What do you think?
What do you mean when you'rejust going to take him?
(11:48):
What did he expect was going tohappen?
Why did he imagine Xavier wasthere?
Just to talk.
I'd be curious to kind of knowthe off panel discussion that
occurred as he's like probablysitting there waiting for, you
know, Logan to march into theroom.
Maybe he's just mind nudgingpeople.
Like, you want to take thismeeting with me.
Could you call Wolverine in?
(12:09):
We have business to discuss.
I didn't even think about that.
That's a good point.
I mean, they do make mention tohis appearance in the incredible
Hulk, which was his firstappearance in comics.
And I think it's very important,obviously, as, as we discussed
this, this is like not theWolverine that we all know
today.
(12:29):
Right?
Like there was, it was verybureaucratic Wolverine.
Like he's very much, I work forthe government and I'm, I'm a
government agent.
And at one point, he even sayssomething to the degree of,
well, sure, I'll join the X-Men,because it beats sitting in an
office waiting to do something.
Yeah, I'm just imaginingWolverine kind of has his desk
(12:52):
job.
He's getting yelled at for nothaving his TPS reports in on
time.
He's like, I'm so sick of this.
I just want to be in the field.
And I think later on, like way,way, way later on, this is
essentially...
the canadian version of likeweapon x or at the very least
(13:14):
like alpha flight i think it'salpha flight yeah uh and for
those who don't know alphaflight is basically like a
government op and they createtheir own sort of superhero team
with very canadian caricaturesof heroes basically puck comes
to mind there's others that arenot coming to mind, but Huck for
(13:39):
sure comes to mind.
Oh, and Sasquatch.
What did you think of his look?
Well, speaking of cats and howpeople look, Wolverine, I
believe when he was in the Hulk,did have also a cat thing going
on.
I just want to make it clearthat that's not the Wolverine
for me.
I prefer him without thewhiskers, but I mean, he looks
(14:03):
pretty good.
There's a little bit of a tweakin how his mask and stuff is
proportioned, but he looksfairly similar, I guess, to what
I'm kind of expecting when Ithink back of the X-Men and
particularly the animatedseries.
Yeah, I'm looking at a pictureof it right now.
It's definitely more tiger-like.
(14:26):
He has kind of like the blackstripes that kind of come onto
his stomach.
Yeah, you're right.
It is definitely more...
cat like the brown belt is kindof weird it has such a giant
buckle on it too I like the bigbuckle he should probably
exchange well if he were like anAmerican hero he would probably
have like a big like state ofTexas thing going on there but
(14:50):
probably for the best that he'sCanadian uh yeah a true Canadian
treasure um interesting thoughwe also really do not get a
clean look at what Wolverine'spowers are.
Very true.
At this point, I think it's justthe claws and it's ambiguous as
(15:10):
to is that him?
Is that the suit he's wearing?
I think the only one that wereally truly get a clear
representation of their powers Ithink is I guess Storm,
definitely.
And Colossus.
Yeah, and Colossus.
I mean, it's hard to not showthat.
He turns into metal.
(15:31):
Spoilers.
But moving on, the next on thelist is actually Banshee, Sean
Cassidy, who is only in twopanels.
Professor X meets him at theopera and goes back to what is
described as his shabby quartersand takes him back to New York,
(15:51):
I guess.
I particularly enjoy later onwhen he's asked to join the team
and he's like, I'm too old forthat.
This is a young person game.
I can't just join them.
Yeah, and I do like how he'sinstantly ribbed into like, oh,
you're scared.
I get it.
You can't keep up with the youngpeople because you're scared to
join a team.
And then he's like, oh, fine,I'll join.
(16:12):
A lot of bullying in thesebooks.
Yeah, a lot of peer pressure toget the results that they're
looking for.
And then we meet Storm, right?
In Africa.
She has around two pages ofintroduction, and I do have to
say it is a little bit rude tokind of go to somebody's home
(16:33):
and tell them that they're not agoddess.
I think Professor X is kind ofcoming off as a bit of a jerk.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, especially the way theyintroduce her, which is not just
as like a goddess, but like anindividual goddess.
who is legitimately helpingpeople, right?
Like, we are introduced to herat a time when these people who
(17:00):
are seeking help with food,they're offering to slaughter
chickens and pigs if it meansshe will bring rain to the land.
She's like, nah, don't do that.
Like, you clearly need this morethan I do.
I'll make it rain.
It's no big deal.
(17:21):
And then Professor X shows upand basically tells her that
she's not living to her fullest,which, you know, might be true.
You know, especially when youconsider all the things that she
goes on to accomplish.
But it's not as though she wasjust like sitting there not
helping people.
She's not slumming it likeBanshee.
(17:41):
Yeah, or living it up in like afine Japanese castle like
Sunfire.
Speaking of which.
Sunfire is another two panelintroduction I think to be fair
the two panel people arecharacters that have already
been introduced in previouscomics it seems Sunfire's intro
is kind of weird and he kind ofhas this hostility throughout
(18:04):
this book and just like beingvery hostile towards Xavier and
everyone I'm not really evensure why he decided to go along
with this yeah and I mean, itkind of gets called out, right?
Like, we see him eventually,right, as they're going to
investigate the disappearance ofthe original X-Men, as we'll
(18:28):
talk about.
And he...
No, I'm not going.
I don't want to go to thisisland.
Where the original X-Mendisappeared.
Yeah, but then three panelslater, he just randomly shows up
again.
It's like, what are we doinghere?
It's actually changed my mind.
I think he just wants people tofight for him.
Oh, you think so?
Yeah, he's just walking awaywaiting for them to call and be
(18:49):
like, no, don't go.
Please stay.
We need you here.
Yeah, I'd be curious, andforgive me for not knowing this,
but I'd be really curious toknow what his introduction was
like prior to this, if he was infact introduced in past X-Men
comics.
(19:10):
It does seem like things maybedid not go well between him and
Xavier.
Maybe we'll have to look intothat.
I will also note, too, becausethis is another thing that was
on my mind reading kind of theintroductions and then them
getting to, you know, theX-Manner and everything.
It's just, it's clear to me,Xavier is just recruiting people
(19:33):
to help him with this mission,right?
This odd job.
But it's never like, hey, You'renow my X-Men.
That's who you guys are now.
You're the X-Men.
It's just, hey, you're coming onboard.
You're a mutant.
I was able to find you.
I'm recruiting you to come andhelp me because my experienced
(19:57):
team of mutant superheroes havebeen captured or whatever.
They don't really know.
And The way he treats them inthis comic is as if they've
signed up.
They're part of the team now.
Yeah, I mean, he doesn'tnecessarily come off as great in
(20:20):
a lot of these early issues.
No, he doesn't.
That'll be interesting to keepkind of monitoring and
exploring.
So who else do we get on theteam?
Next up is Colossus.
And technically, this is also anintro for his sister Ileana,
though she does go unnamed.
(20:40):
But with his intro, we see himtransforming into his metal form
and picking up his sister as atractor that is driving itself
is about to plow into her.
His introduction, I think, isthe most wholesome, right?
Like it's him on his familyfarm.
He clearly feels a devotion tohis family.
And he turns to his parents andhe's just like, I don't know
(21:04):
what to do I'm torn right likehe's he's trying to figure out
what the best path forward isthis seems like a good
opportunity for him he feelsthat desire for something bigger
than probably being a farm boyand his parents to their credit
and like I even made a note anote here his parents are
(21:24):
incredibly loving and are justlike go do what do what's in
your heart It is.
He's actually, if we look ateveryone just kind of as a
whole, he is the only one thatactually has kind of a human
connection to anyone else.
Like everyone else is eitherjust like a loner or just
secluded or being worshipped asa goddess and not necessarily
(21:47):
having kind of like that humansort of connection of like
you're my friend and peer orfamily.
So that is also an interestingthing to sort of keep in mind
going forward as I think evenlater on, they kind of
referenced themselves as allkind of being loners.
Yeah, and even his familyconnection as the story kind of
(22:10):
unfolds over the next severalissues, I think comes into full
view.
And I really love Ileana, likeas a character.
Yeah, magic is the best.
So cool, man.
Going into, what is it like?
What's the word?
Stop Pandora.
Limbo?
Limbo, thank you.
(22:31):
Yeah, into Limbo.
And just being the child andgetting trained by Doctor
Strange, which is an awesomecharacter.
Definitely.
And then we get the probablymost forgettable character that
is introduced in this patch.
Rude, but yes.
Next up is Thunderbird, who alsogets two pages, and we see him
(22:52):
sort of wrestling down abuffalo, or bison, And yeah,
he's kind of another person thatProfessor X just sort of bullies
and is like, oh, OK, you're justnot like you're just not like a
man enough.
You're not strong enough.
I get it.
And then he decides, OK, I'llshow you and decides to come
with him.
(23:13):
Yeah, he definitely took thebait.
It's unfortunate.
I had to like look upThunderbird outside of what was
presented in the book to reallyunderstand what was mutant about
him.
And even the material thatexists outside of that is very
thin.
I truly believe this characterjust was not given the time of
(23:36):
day and flushed out in a way as,I mean, you won't get to why,
but from my understanding, it'sjust kind of the run-of-the-mill
super strength, endurance,speed, the lower-tier Superman
effect that we see a lot ofcharacters kind of get when they
are just there.
But you're right, Professor X isa total jerk.
(23:57):
It is one small step abovenudging people with his mind
into joining his team, butstill, not a great look.
Psychic coercion.
But from there, Professor X getseverybody kind of assembled
together, gives them newuniforms that for some of them
look the same as their olduniforms, but these ones are
(24:19):
made by Reed Richards, sothey're fancy.
But from there, they sort oftell them the story of, hey, the
original X-Men have disappeared.
They went to Krakoa to try andlocate a new mutant that was
detected.
From there, everyone sort oflike suits up, heads over to the
island.
They split up into teams of two,eventually find the missing
(24:39):
X-Men, a Marvel girl, Havok,Lorna Dane, Iceman, and Angel.
But there is a bit of a plottwist here.
The new mutant is not on theisland.
The new mutant is the island.
And it was draining the lifeforce of the original X-Men.
And it actually sent Cyclopsaway in order to lure more
(25:02):
mutants to the island so itcould keep draining them for
food, essentially.
It's funny knowing what we know,right?
Now.
about Krakoa and its connectionto mutant kind and its portrayal
here.
And you can, you can really seeit.
(25:22):
At least this was a takeaway forme.
There are like these subtletiesthat.
Kickman clearly picked up fromChris's run ultimately and
brought forward into that modernage of X-Men.
Right.
Um, Also interesting,admittedly, I do not know much
(25:44):
about the previous stories up tothis point, right?
And as you said, like in thebeginning, there's been a
five-year gap.
This original team isn't evenlike the original X-Men, right?
Like Lorna wasn't an originalX-Men, was she?
Neither was Havoc.
Not for like the very beginningof their run, but I, and I don't
know if they were necessarilyalways full members, but Lorna
(26:06):
and Havoc were both involved orwould sort of go out.
But that's something that Ilearned kind of after the fact.
And when I was reading this forthe first time, I was like,
wait, why are they here?
Probably good to note for thosewho are unfamiliar with the
characters.
Havoc is Alex Summers.
(26:27):
That's Scott Summers' brother,Cyclops.
Lorna Dane, her codenamePolaris, is the daughter of
Magneto.
Spoilers.
Spoilers.
Is that not known at this point?
At this point, she doesn't evenhave the name Polaris.
That's why they keep calling herLorna Dayne.
Damn.
(26:48):
I did not know that.
I'm pretty sure that they don'tknow that she's Magneto's
daughter.
But I think that also might beone of those things that sort of
has flip-flopped into like,you're Magneto's daughter.
You're not Magneto's daughter.
You're Magneto's daughter again.
I think they're pretty solidlyin that is Magneto's daughter
(27:08):
territory right now.
I mean, how can she not be?
She literally has the samepowers.
Yeah.
It's Magneto's daughter.
Spoilers.
Sorry about that.
Before we move off that a littlebit, I was actually kind of
happy to see Lorna because I dolike her in the Krakoa comics,
the modern run, I guess, whenshe's just sort of like a coffee
addict and drinking coffeeconstantly and wearing
(27:30):
sunglasses.
So she has not developed thosequirks yet.
There is a great comic withLorna in it.
I believe it is an X Factorcomic that came out like in the
all new era, if I'm correct.
(27:50):
Yes, all new X Factor is whatit's called.
And Polaris is like one of themain characters in this book
alongside Gambit andQuicksilver.
Who else is it?
Warlock, Cypher, and Danger.
Like that's the crew, like themain team.
It is so good, man.
I...
Loved reading this book.
(28:11):
It came out originally in 2014.
Yeah, it was part of All NewMarvel.
If you haven't read it, I highlysuggest it.
All right, I'll have to writethat down.
That's going on the list.
That sounds great.
It's a great team.
There's also a cover that I needto show you because it's, well,
the topic of Cat has come up alot in this, and I'm going to
(28:34):
send it to you right now becauseyou need to see it.
Well, you send that over.
Everybody does a big battle.
X-Men new and old start fightingthe island of Krakoa, who sort
of manifests this monster islandsort of creature.
And Professor X even sort ofjoins the fray psychically.
Eventually, some cool comic bookscience happens, and Storm
(28:58):
supercharges the magnetic powersof Lorna, and she reaches down
into the Earth, and then...
somehow the island sort of justgets shot up into space and
everyone, uh, kind of has to,you know, dive into the ocean
and then survive a weirdwhirlpool.
And eventually they find theirway back into their jet.
(29:19):
And, uh, on the way home, Icemanposes the question of what are
we going to do with 13 X-Men?
This is a hilarious questiongiven where the X-Men go, right?
Like it, It becomes such a largeschool for mutant kind.
And the cast of X-Men expandsexponentially and arguably has
(29:45):
probably the largest supportingcast of all of Marvel, right?
Like when you think about thenumber of characters that have
powers.
Now, not all of them are X-Men,right?
But they exist in thebackground.
They're there, right?
And the Krakoa era is a goodexample of that.
A literal island full ofmutants.
(30:06):
But here you have Iceman.
Oh yeah, 13 members.
What are we going to do?
We've never had this manybefore.
We have to stand on the jet.
They also have a giant schoolslash mansion that they live in.
It's like, oh man, there's noroom.
Where are we going to house allthese people?
He's really thinking about thelogistics.
(30:26):
And then we get the...
the revelation here of the teambreaking up.
We do.
Do you want to just jump intoissue 94 or 95?
I mean, we may as well.
It kind of stems right fromthis, right?
Yeah, essentially.
I mean, issue 94 sort of picksup exactly where We left off and
(30:47):
we kind of get an immediateanswer to Bobby's question or
Iceman's question.
And essentially we are lookingat a mass exodus from the team.
Sunfire, to no one's surprise,decides he's done with this and
that he hates mutants and hehates all of them and he just
wants to go home.
So he leaves.
(31:08):
But then in addition to him, allof the old members of the X-Men
besides Cyclops also decide toleave.
And one thing, so I knew wewould essentially be seeing that
kind of like swap from like teamA to team B.
The one thing that I wasactually surprised in was Jean
(31:29):
Grey leaving as well.
Yeah, that's very fair.
And this is like, I think veryclearly Marvel girl Jean Grey,
which is I think very differentfrom the Jean Grey a lot of
people probably are associatedwith.
It's It does, I think, pose thedilemma that we see happen with
(31:50):
Cyclops, right?
Where he becomes torn.
He loves G.
And she asks him to come withthem.
And he toys over this idea.
He's torn about what to do.
Where is he going to go?
What is his purpose, right?
He's been the leader of theX-Men.
That is what he's been trainedto be.
And I think that personalturmoil...
(32:14):
Playing out the way it plays outis really the crux of Scott
struggling to come to terms withthis change that's happening
around him.
Interesting, though, and beforewe move on, I have to, I love so
much reading Sunfire not onlysaying that he doesn't want to
be on the team, but he tellsXavier to never call him again.
(32:37):
It's like, there's only badhabits.
Don't contact me.
I do not want to be involved.
Please leave me alone.
I don't know what happensbetween this and, again, those
Krakoa-era comics, but he's alot more cordial in modern day.
All right, so we have this bigshift.
We have a new team.
All of the old members, what arethey going to go do?
(32:59):
A lot of them are just like,we're going to go live our lives
now.
They're going to get jobs.
Which is so funny given the factthat probably to this point it's
established that they've beenostracized for being mutants and
they're not generally welcomedin society.
Now, most of them, like, havepowers that are maybe not
obvious.
Like, their mutations are notsurface level.
(33:22):
But even still, like...
The most obvious one is Warren,Angel, but I would assume he can
sort of tuck those in a littlebit or wear a really big jacket.
But he's also rich and does notactually need to work.
That is true.
Yeah, he's a rich boy.
Everyone else is good to go.
So we end up getting...
(33:43):
Cyclops stays, as I said, andhe's going to lead the team.
We have Wolverine deciding hedoesn't want to go back to
working in a very formalcapacity as a government agent.
We have Nightcrawler deciding tostay.
Storm decides to stay.
And it's important to, I think,to note, like, this is two days.
They've been X-Men for two days.
(34:04):
They had zero training.
It was just like, hey, I'vetrained this old team for years
and they're a well-oiled machineand they know how to work
together.
But you guys, you can probablyhandle this too.
I mean, they couldn't, but goodluck.
We do see Banshee again kind ofallude to the fact that he wants
(34:27):
to leave.
You know, you can call me.
I'm here to help.
This is a young man's game.
He is smoking a pipe.
He is pretty old.
Do you know how old he is rightnow, like in this moment in the
story?
I would assume just middle-aged.
He says he's getting gray hairs.
I mean, he looks rough, but Ithink that's just how he looks.
(34:50):
I don't want to feel that way assomebody who's closely reaching
middle age.
I can't do this.
I'm too old.
I've got like a few gray hairsthat you can count.
I have all of my gray hairs aredefinitely in my beard.
They make us more handsome,though.
It's wisdom.
Every gray hair is an ounce ofwisdom.
And like, I mean, into hiscredit, he decides to stay,
(35:12):
right?
We have Xavier basically belike, it's not true.
You know, like you're animportant member of the team.
You have a lot to offer us.
And it doesn't take much for himto basically kind of get elbowed
here into staying and he becomesan important member of the team
like he's not like uh you knowwhat we kind of saw with with
Sunfire who you know kind oflike leaves and comes back like
(35:34):
he becomes a very important partof this composition yeah I
actually was a little surprisedabout that as well like he's one
of the people that because Iknew not everyone would stay and
but when I look back and likethink of the X-Men like I
haven't typically like thoughtof Banshee I was a little bit
(35:54):
blind going in and thought, oh,he's going to be one of the
people that leaves, though,right?
I knew of Banshee before I readthis.
He's actually featured in X-MenFirst Class, if you've seen that
film.
And he's portrayed as being muchyounger, obviously, in that
case.
Aside from that, though, I don'tknow that I've really read any
(36:15):
stories where he was an integralpart of the team.
Yeah, I mean, I did know...
of him but thought that he wouldbe sort of like a side
character.
I do remember growing up we hadlike a little action figure
Banshee that had like his littlewings but it also had like a
whistle on like the back of himand you could just like I don't
(36:37):
know for some reason hold anaction figure in your mouth and
like just blow through a whistleand make an annoying noise that
your parents definitely hated.
I mean I imagine that's how theX-Men felt every time they used
his powers.
I think actually Wolverine doesmake a comment about it.
Um, in that, in that first giantsize issue of like, God, could
you cut out that racket?
(37:00):
So we, we do see, um, as Imentioned, Jean tells Cyclops,
he's she's leading asks, askshim to come.
And we see him kind of like gooff into the woods.
Right.
Is it that that's about the timewhen he's like really
contemplating what to do.
I think he stares through awindow.
Yeah.
You're probably right.
UNKNOWN (37:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:20):
I think I'm misremembering.
And he, he has that back andforth thought of, do I go with
the love of my life or do Istay?
And you know, this is why I'msupposed to be.
He decides to stay and hebasically takes this new group.
We see John stay as well.
And they, they start trainingfor weeks, uh, in the danger
(37:42):
room, right?
Like that's basically what weend up seeing.
They're, they're trying tobecome a in sync, uh, They're
trying to become a team beyondjust, you know, a group of
people that were broughttogether because they were
mutants.
Yeah, and I think the book kindof alludes to like, hey, they
might be overdoing it a littlebit.
(38:02):
And eventually what we see isactually Thunderbird gets like a
minor leg injury and it turnsinto like a whole argument
between him and Cyclops andlike, oh, Cyclops is a terrible
leader and, you know, you don'tlisten to anyone's criticism and
they sort of just like go ateach other until Professor X
(38:23):
kind of breaks things up.
And that kind of transitionsinto, I guess, sort of the meat
of this little story arc.
So essentially what we'relooking at for these two issues
is how Nefaria has infiltratedNORAD HQ at Valhalla Mountain
and is more or less just kind ofholding the world hostage with
(38:45):
an arsenal of America's nuclearweapons.
And he's going to launch themall unless he gets his big
payday.
Beast, who was not blue andfurry the last time he was an
X-Men, is on the Avengers andkind of calls in and is like,
hey, can you handle thissituation?
We're busy.
What I'm curious about is like,what are they doing that they're
(39:07):
too busy for like a world endingnuclear event?
Not exactly something that youwould pass on.
But here we are with him passingon it.
Were you familiar with CountNefaria before this?
No, this is my firstintroduction to him.
So a little background on CountNefaria, as I also was very
(39:30):
unfamiliar.
He's like the leader of acriminal organization called the
Magia, but he's basically justlike a rich Italian, and he uses
that wealth and power to be avillain.
To create animal-man hybrids.
Yeah, as we'll see.
(39:51):
It's like the Annie-men is whatthey're called.
Also hilarious that he just senta letter in the mail to some
employee inside of thisbuilding.
And he just opens it up, notknowing who sent it to him.
A mysterious package sent to asecret government facility.
(40:15):
And at no point in time is thispackage looked at.
They just bring it in and heopens it up.
It's basically a button.
And what is it?
He presses the button.
Yeah, it's a big red button andit just says press me written
below it.
This is why we have to do all ofthose fake emails.
(40:40):
email phishing scams that likeeverybody's company's IS IT
department sort of sends out totry and catch you this guy
should probably not have thisjob I mean there were multiple
layers of failure right in thatpackage getting delivered number
one and then making its waythrough what I imagine they must
(41:04):
have some sort of scanningprocedure And we're not just
bringing packages in from likewho knows who to the inners of
this, uh, you know, governmentfacility.
That's basically NORAD.
Someone should have caught this.
Somebody should have caughtthis, but you're right.
He fell for a phishing scam andthen he brought in this legion
(41:27):
of animen, which are exactlywhat it sounds like.
They are half human, half animalhybrids.
Um, Not willingly.
Not willingly.
He's a bad guy, so he did turnthem into animen without their
consent.
He is a mean guy.
(41:47):
And he's basically, like,holding this over their heads.
Like, if you are not going to dowhat I'm telling you to do, then
you're not going to become humanagain, is essentially what he's
getting at here.
Though I'm pretty sure at onepoint in time he says something
to the degree of, these are notmen, these are animen.
But then later acknowledges thatthey're human.
(42:10):
Transformed into animen.
You know, now that you mentionedto me that he's just like some
rich evil guy, like part of hismotif makes a lot more sense to
me where he's got like themonocle.
He's got a big cane.
He's smoking.
Like it's all kind of comingtogether for me.
I'm just going to read veryquickly an excerpt here from his
(42:30):
Wikipedia page because it willcontinue to feed into this image
that we're building.
So apparently in one of hisfirst instances, he encounters
the Avengers in Avengers number13, and he lures the Avengers to
his castle on the pretense of acharity event and threatens to
take control of America.
(42:51):
I feel like we don't see a lotof Count Nefario these days.
I was very unfamiliar with him.
It's, yeah, I mean, I'm not, Ithink it's probably for the
best, if anything.
It's interesting to, you know,we get someone like him who does
like show up a few times in thecomics and like across different
franchises too, where he'sfighting the X-Men, he's
(43:12):
fighting the Avengers.
And then we also have like othervillains that they've already
introduced, like Magneto, whohas that kind of like 50 year
staying power on the other hand.
I mean, there is a cleardistinction between the two,
right?
Like, I mean, One is just astereotypical bad guy who's like
a Bond villain.
(43:33):
You know, not to push shade onBond villains.
A lot of them are verymemorable, but...
You're just trying to drag thispodcast back to cats.
But cats.
If this was a cat, then heprobably would have had that
staying power if he just had alittle bit more feline in his
design.
Was there even a cat?
(43:53):
And a man?
Yeah, I think there's some kindof like tiger situation.
He...
Actually has kind of similarmotif as Wolverine.
Yeah, the ones that I distinctlyremember, there's a frog who has
an interaction with, I believeit's Nightcrawler.
There's a gorilla, a bird, thecat, and I think that might be a
(44:15):
dragonfly.
We're kind of stretching animala little far.
They're getting a little iffywith that term.
There's a fly, fly man.
a pest of some sort.
Anyways, we get the gist ofthese are poor souls who've been
blackmailed essentially andturned into these creatures and
(44:35):
now they're inside of Norad HQat Valhalla Mountain and they
have the nuclear arsenal thatthey are holding over the world
and his plan is to hold theworld hostage and demands that
they just, every nation just paywhat they could pay.
It's not like a set amount.
It's just...
(44:56):
That is nice.
Whatever they can afford to pay.
It's almost like that scene inAustin Powers.
Dr.
Evil's trying to figure out howmuch money everybody should pay.
And he at one point asks for amillion dollars and they just
laugh at him because it'snothing.
So what happens next?
After that, the team arrives intheir plane, hits some road
(45:17):
bumps.
It gets shut down just a littlebit.
Everybody sort of like dives outand...
the people that can fly help thepeople that can't fly to the
ground, except for Colossus, whojust sort of like headfirst
dives into the ground, which Ithought was kind of odd.
Like, why not at least feetfirst?
Like, you know, but he'sColossus.
He does what he has to do.
(45:37):
I wonder how he knew that hewould survive that.
You know, that's a greatquestion.
I mean, he was hit by a tractor,but tractors do not go that
fast.
They do have some good mass tothem, but I imagine falling from
a jet and just diving headfirstinto the ground is maybe a
little bit more force.
(45:58):
We also get a bit of insightinto Nightcrawler's powers here,
where he discusses that he can'tjust simply teleport because of
physics that his momentum wouldcarry with him.
So if he's falling at a highspeed...
If he suddenly teleports thatmomentum will carry with them.
(46:19):
I would imagine, and maybe thisis just reaching, you know,
comics here, but could he notlike just teleport himself to
like a lake, like some water orsomething to like slow his
impact or even like teleporthimself.
So rather than hitting theground, he's almost like going
up into the air, you know?
Yeah, I think I wondered theexact same thing of like, what
(46:42):
if he just teleported himselfupside down and then he shot
back into the air?
But I think it's one of thosethings where we're not supposed
to actually think about this toohard.
And I think that maybe, I mean,does this power even get like
retconned a little bit?
I don't.
Or maybe he gained some sort oflike control over it.
I feel like he's done thingssimilar where he hasn't had to
(47:05):
worry about like.
The physics, the physics of itall.
I think you are probably nailinga very important part on the,
uh, on the head here, which is,you know, this is our first
encounter with nightcrawler andwe're building all of these
interpretations based off of,you know, like years and years
and years of lore that had beencrafted over decades.
(47:28):
All right, so they get down.
They all survive.
They get down.
They eventually get into thebase.
They fight their way through alittle bit, have to fight some
hypnotized humans as well as theanimen.
Thunderbird and Banshee are bothknocked unconscious when I
believe a big gorilla throwsThunderbird at Banshee and the
(47:50):
team decides to just leave themon the ground and continue ahead
because, I mean, they're workingagainst the clock.
When they actually think thatthey arrived too late and that
everything is doomed, there'slike a weird moment where
Professor X is like, God, stopbeing an idiot.
It's not doomed.
You destroyed some computer orsomething fighting with the
(48:13):
animen earlier.
The nukes aren't going to gooff.
And it's like, okay.
That was just kind of like aweird anticlimactic thing,
but...
The reason why he's reaching outto him is because Professor X
needs the team to go backbecause the two knocked out
people that we left behind arein a bit of a trouble situation.
(48:35):
So Count Nefaria is trying toleave via one of the military
jets and Thunderbird jumps onand starts just sort of like
beating into it.
You know, Banshee tries to tellhim to jump off.
He can take care of it with hissonic scream.
Professor X says, pleads withhim, like, please jump off.
And Thunderbird is sort of justlike in a rage, I guess, and
(48:59):
just kind of keeps tearing intothe plane.
And eventually it explodes.
And I believe on the cover ofthis issue, it does kind of give
that teaser of, you know, not ascam or whatever.
An X-Men dies in this issue.
Yeah, it's a quite biglettering.
They are definitely drawing outthe fact that there is an X-Men
going to die And I can imaginethis being quite shocking when
(49:23):
this was released, right?
Like, talk about a cliffhanger.
If this is, like, coming out ina comic shop or, like, on
newsstands back, you know, whenthis was released, like, that
would have been a huge...
No, I can't imagine an X-Men hasdied before this.
No, I would think this is thefirst instance.
(49:43):
It's also important to, I think,note, so the reason that they
felt like they were on aclock...
wasn't just this threat of, youknow, is he going to launch
nuclear weapons around theglobe?
What the general informs theX-Men of when they arrive is
basically that once thisprotocol is started to launch
(50:06):
these weapons, right, there's apoint in time, and I believe
it's like 50 minutes after it'sactivated or something, there's
a point in time when there's nopoint of return.
So once they reach thatthreshold, the bonds will go off
regardless, which is a terriblydesigned system.
But that's why there's thisimpending drastic time limit
(50:31):
where they have to try to getinside and stop this.
To be fair, this is also a basewhere they're just pressing
random buttons that arrive inthe mail.
So it does kind of make a lot ofsense.
This is very early days ofNORAD, I guess.
So we have this big explosion.
We lose Thunderbird, RIP, and ithas a massive impact on the
(50:57):
team.
They especially note thatCharles Xavier, because he had
this psychic link withThunderbird when this explosion
happened, that he essentiallyfeels the impact.
He feels every bit of pain.
that Thunderbird experiences,the difference being that he
(51:18):
just doesn't die.
Yeah, I think that'll be one ofthe other interesting things to
sort of monitor going forward islike, how does this affect the
way that he's essentially kindof leading the team, not
necessarily in the field, but ishe going to be more like
(51:38):
protective?
Is he going to be like hesitantabout certain situations.
Like how does this change hisapproach?
What was your, you know, nowthat this is kind of like the
true start of Claremont's run,like what did you think about
these first two issues?
Overall, I felt like the giantsize issue was a little bit more
(52:03):
enticing.
There was kind of that likemystery element to it.
There's sort of that likeexcitement of meeting these new
people.
And then I think, you know,we've joked around a little bit,
but like Nefaria is not thecoolest supervillain and, you
know, not all of them can be,but I thought it was, I guess,
just fine.
(52:23):
Yeah, I think that's a fairassessment.
I, I agree.
I think the, obviously theseeing the X-Men come back after
five years is a huge moment,right?
And they're coming back with afresh team.
they are capitalizing on thepopularity of characters that
were introduced elsewhere likewith wolverine and and coming in
(52:44):
with like a lot of interestingideas right like you have
nightcrawler colossus storm likethose characters are especially
now the impact that those threecharacters alone have had on
x-men storytelling and marvelstorytelling as a whole is Storm
becoming queen of Wakanda,marrying T'Challa, it's
(53:10):
incredible the trajectory thatthey end up having through the
course of their comic history.
And this is the nexus of it all.
And to see kind of like thisbeginning and knowing where they
end up, it's incredible to seeand experience reading for the
first time.
And even as we kind of see overlike the coming issues, like
(53:32):
Storm especially is apowerhouse, man.
She's so powerful.
Even the way she handles Krakoa,right?
Like her supercharging Lorna ishow they defeat the problem.
And even her here, she'sincredibly powerful, saving the
team.
Having these fresh faces really,truly breathes new life into the
(53:56):
X-Men and really breathes newlife into the stories that they
can tell.
I think going in with CountNefaria is such a lame duck, but
it's also done in a way becausethey are inexperienced, right?
You're not going to go in andhave this team of inexperienced
(54:19):
fighters have have a bigshowdown with a memorable
villain that we kind of knowtoday but i think it was
probably more common back thento have characters like this
that were maybe a little bitmore grounded not that being a
aristocrat who makes half menhalf animal hybrids is grounded
(54:41):
but it's a different kind ofvillain than you know like we
end up seeing where it's likeStill, I think the storytelling
that's taking place is more thathuman versus mutant versus where
we've seen mutant on mutantviolence that ends up taking
place in later stories.
And as we'll kind of see, thecrux of this still is very much
(55:06):
this hate that exists betweenmutant kind and humans.
And I think that's very clearlyat play here.
And Count Nefaria just doesn'tlike mutants or X-Men at all.
Well, they're not part animal.
Yeah, that's true.
(55:27):
Although Beast might be partanimal, as we've discussed, kind
of a cat man.
But he's an Avenger.
He gets a pass.
I think all that definitely, andI think kind of like building on
that, another way to sort oflook at it is, you know, we are
dealing with an entirely newcast of characters and if I
(55:48):
guess like every issue we'resort of like introducing like
here's a new villain as wellthat's sort of just it's a lot
of information to sort of takein and you can only do so much
info dumping so them going toNefaria who has sort of you know
he's been featured in a fewother stories up until this
point does make a lot of senseas just You know, you go with,
(56:10):
you got something new, you gotsomething familiar.
It's, I think, also, like, avery important pretense that the
characters that we're seeingaren't flushed out, right?
Like, even looking atWolverine's interaction as, you
know, like, I think at one pointhe literally says gent or gents
instead of, you know, thistraditional broodish Wolverine
(56:35):
that we all know and love,right?
This, you know, hey there, bub.
Wolverine that we all know.
I think we do get a bub though.
Yeah, we do get it.
I think one in this, by the endof the story, we do get a bub.
But that's not where we start.
And so you can see that ChrisClaremont is like very clearly
having to build these charactersand make them more than how they
(56:58):
were portrayed in Giant SizeX-Men, which in fairness was
very plain.
Right.
Like there wasn't thepersonality of these characters
hadn't been developed yet.
And so he was given this blankslate, so to speak.
And you see him trying to kindof create the, the, the meat of
(57:20):
the story and the meat of thesecharacters rather than, than
just being cool powers on a coolbody.
Right.
So we see this.
As I mentioned, this impact thatis probably likely going to be
playing out over the comingissues of the death of
Thunderbird, the first majordeath of an X-Men.
I guess we'll kind of see whathappens, right?
(57:41):
I imagine we're going to see animpact on Cyclops specifically
as the leader, the impact thatthat might have had on Xavier,
and then overall for the rest ofthe team.
Yeah, I think they, I mean, it'sbeen at least longer than two
days for them at this point, buteveryone, I would assume has
some sort of like hesitancy oflike, do I want to stay here?
(58:05):
Is kind of the leadership ofthis team in the best hands?
Do we trust Xavier?
Do we trust Cyclops?
Do we trust each other?
And I think it'll be interestingto see kind of what that tension
ends up being.
Yeah, it's definitely beenweeks, right?
Because they had all thattraining that took place in the
danger room.
(58:25):
So this is a well-establishedgroup of people at this point.
Yeah, and I guess we'll find outwhat happens in the next issue,
which is issue...
96.
96.
So I guess we'll pick it upthere in the next episode.
Thanks for joining us, everyone.
And we hope we'll see you forthe next episode.
Read comics.
Bye.
(58:46):
Read comics.
Go to your local comic bookstore.
If you enjoyed this podcast,don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review, or share it with afriend.
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