June 11, 2025 • 55 mins
Join us for another episode of Uncanny Book Club and explore one of the most influential storytelling sagas in comic book history.
In episode 5 we discuss X-Men #105 - 108, where we see Lilandra arrive to Earth to seek help from Professor Xavier, a fight with ex-herald of Galactus Firelord, and an epic struggle against the Shi’ar Imperial Guard and Emperor D’ken as he attempts to use the M’Kraan crystal’s power.
Have feedback or questions for the show? Email uncannybookclub@gmail.com.
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:09):
Hello everyone and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I'm Isaac Faderspiel and joiningme today is my co-host Adam
Ward.
Hey, how's it going?
Pretty good.
So we've got four issues to getthrough today.
An extra jam-packed episode.
Yep, extra jammy.
In this episode, we areexploring Chris Claremont's
(00:31):
Legendary X-Men run as we readit for the very first time.
We hope you'll join us and readalongside or just stick around
for the discussion.
In our previous episode, we sawthe X-Men's defeat at the hands
of Black Tom Cassidy andJuggernaut, as well as their
eventual victory.
We also learned that Eric theRed was the true threat behind
(00:51):
both of their escape fromprison.
Old Eric's jailbreak didn't endthere, and he helped one more
Eric escape imprisonment.
We saw the return of Magneto.
The X-Men also saw anotherdefeat at the hands of Magneto.
But thanks to the arrival ofCyclops, they were able to
escape and fight another day.
The X-Men then raced home asthey realized Professor X was
(01:13):
the real target.
In this episode, we'll bepicking things up where we left
off with issues 105 through 108.
Issue 105 immediately jumps intothe action as the X-Men charge
Eric the Red in their ownheadquarters.
It looks to be a decisivevictory, but they're interrupted
by the arrival of Firelord, aformer herald of Galactus who
(01:34):
has been tricked into believingthe X-Men are the evil ones, and
quickly defeats the X-Men.
We witness a brief flashbackwhere Eric the Red forces
Polaris and Havok to attackFirelord, and then tells them,
hey, all the X-Men are jerkslike that.
We then jump into space whereLalandra Nerimani's pursuers
briefly halt their chase afterlearning Earth has beaten back
(01:58):
Galactus four times.
Professor Xavier is having teawith Jean Grey, her parents, and
Misty Knight when Lalandrasuddenly appears, causing Xavier
considerable distress.
The two establish psychiccommunication and he soon
demands that Jean helps her.
Firelord is tricked intoattacking both Professor X and
(02:19):
Lilandra, but is interrupted bythe emergence of Phoenix.
The remaining X-Men catch up andlend aid, but Lilandra is
eventually kidnapped by Eric theRed, who escapes through a
Stargate.
Phoenix is able to power up theStargate, and the rest of the
X-Men embark on a rescuemission.
So, overall, kind of ajam-packed issue.
(02:40):
Kind of a lot going on in thatone.
SPEAKER_03 (02:42):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of pretense,
right?
There's a lot of build-up goingon, and this kind of feels like
we're getting into some seriousbusiness, you know?
I have to go into this veryquickly.
I was very curious how onebecomes a former Herald of
Galactus.
It kind of feels like a gig thatyou're stuck in, right?
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
It does feel like one of those, you're, you know,
elected to the position, andthen you serve in that role
until you die, right?
I am not super familiar withFirelord.
And when I say not superfamiliar, I mean I have no idea
for who he is outside of thisissue.
SPEAKER_03 (03:19):
I have seen him before in comics, but I do
believe he is one of thosecharacters of a bygone era.
Just not used as often as othercharacters have come to be.
So I went and did a little bitof research here to figure out
how does one...
end their contract withGalactus.
(03:39):
And it's not as complicated asit sounds.
You just put in your two weeks.
More or less, you need to findyour replacement.
And Galactus is just like, allright, see you later, man.
What did you think of FireLord's arrival?
He certainly took the X-Men toschool and I think really showed
how much more powerful he was.
SPEAKER_02 (04:00):
Yeah, this is like the third fight in a row.
Maybe not third fight in a rowbecause the X-Men did beat Black
Tom and Juggernaut.
But like the third time recentlythat the X-Men have just really
been kicked around essentiallyin a fight.
He whooped him way worse thanMagneto did probably.
SPEAKER_03 (04:16):
There is, in fact, a text box in here.
And it says from start tofinish, it's been less than a
minute.
So I don't think Magneto wipedthe floor with the X-Men fight.
In the same way as Firelord,which was just on another level.
SPEAKER_02 (04:31):
But he had to do a little bit more monologuing and,
you know, lording it over them.
Well, and
SPEAKER_03 (04:37):
talk about gullible, man.
Like, he fell for, like, theeasiest trick in the book.
You're, like, two people fromEarth, and I'm going to just
pretend to be in distress whileyou get attacked.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
Yeah, maybe he should have asked for like some
references.
He's got to know a few otherpeople from Earth that he can be
like, hey, man, have you heardof the X-Men?
Are they cool?
How about Eric the Red?
He wears this really sexy armor.
Should I trust him?
He looks super sketch
SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
and makes everybody feel extra uncomfortable.
I just I don't know, man.
It's I mean, like Eric isplaying like 5D chess and I'm
just shocked that a formerHerald of Galactus was just this
gullible.
to not see through it or atleast question it
SPEAKER_02 (05:24):
yeah i do enjoy the cat's paw element of it i think
it's very interesting that heset that up and he's still
trying these little behind thescene things i am interested in
what's it going to be like whenwe next see havoc and polaris
because i assume they'recompletely free of eric the
(05:45):
red's influence now and are justsomewhere I had a
SPEAKER_03 (05:50):
similar thought at the end of these books.
I had the same question.
Where are they?
And when are we going to seethem again?
I do believe we get a mention ofthem in one of the other books.
It may have been issue 107, Ibelieve.
So we get the big reveal ofeverything, which we'll get to.
But that's the last time we'llsee them, at least in this
(06:13):
story.
SPEAKER_02 (06:14):
I love how over the top their dialogue is too, where
Havok is just, great, our ambushhas drawn a witness.
So he's really, really gulliblebecause they're just laying it
on thick for him.
Oh,
SPEAKER_03 (06:29):
Lorna, watch out.
There is somebody there with us.
I can't believe we're going tobe caught.
It's so stupid.
My other question for you is,It's Lalandra, right?
Is that how you've been sayingit?
Lalandra?
SPEAKER_02 (06:48):
I believe so.
I don't know what I saidearlier, but Lalandra.
SPEAKER_03 (06:54):
Lalandra.
Lalandra.
Lalandra.
That's how I would say it.
So what do you think of herdesign?
Because we've now kind of seenthe helmet.
We've now seen her without thehelmet at this point.
SPEAKER_02 (07:04):
Yeah, I mean, the Shi'ar are very...
distinct in their design i don'tlike it like i don't like the
weird like hair thing they havegoing on i do appreciate their
obsession with that motif justas like a societal thing where
they want to be like super uppercrust and think they're better
(07:27):
than everyone else so i enjoylike that aspect of it of you
know they're really committed totheir themselves i suppose but
it just looks
SPEAKER_03 (07:35):
so odd Yeah, it is very strange.
And I felt that way through theentire four issues until we get
a bit of context to theirappearance, which I believe also
happens in 107.
Just that they're bird people?
Yeah, that they're basicallyavian.
Yeah.
Which I don't know that Inecessarily took that away from
(07:58):
their design initially.
And then once I read it, I waslike, okay, yeah, I guess I can
kind of see it.
But...
Even the Emperor's design, tome, doesn't immediately jump out
as bird-like.
There's certainly no Aarakocra.
Not everyone can be a Jarnathan.
For those who don't know, thatis basically a bird person in
(08:18):
Dungeons& Dragons.
It would be a
SPEAKER_02 (08:20):
literal birdman, no hyphen.
So we saw Fire Lord really giveit to the X-Men.
He goes over and tries toconfront Professor X...
Jean Grey.
And then we get a really bigfight between Phoenix, who
emerges, and Fire Lord.
And it's a lot more even of afight than it was for him versus
(08:42):
all of the other X-Men.
The way I took it was
SPEAKER_03 (08:47):
Phoenix was winning, right?
I don't know if she was winningnecessarily as much as I think
it was just very even.
When you think about the cosmicpowers that exist in these
books, right?
We have Fire Lord, who is...
basically powered up with thepower cosmic from Galactus.
Then on the flip side, you havePhoenix, which at this point we
(09:08):
know very little about, but weas readers of, you know, in
2025, obviously know a lot aboutPhoenix and know right now that
it's this extraordinary forcethat exists through space and
time.
So I don't think at this pointthat was maybe, I doubt that was
really thought about, butclearly they're establishing
(09:28):
that the Phoenix persona is likeJack Jean Grey, right?
Super Jack Jean Grey, and shebecomes intoxicated with this
power in this book.
SPEAKER_02 (09:40):
Yeah, I mean, her, just flipping through, her
appearance going from Jean toPhoenix is just wildly...
different the way she's drawnlike she has sharper edges
always angry she doesn't havepupils her eyes are just shown
whited out all the time i thinkit's such a good visual
(10:01):
representation and kind ofillusion to gene and phoenix are
not necessarily maybe not likethe same or at the very least
gene is not in complete controlof everything that's going on
SPEAKER_03 (10:14):
There's definitely an implication here that there's
something happening with Jean,that this new persona, new
powers, new everything, there'ssomething more going on.
It's, like, great.
I actually really like thesepanels.
They're so wonderfully drawn,and the amount of care that's
put into exactly what youdescribed, like, really drawing
(10:34):
the line in the sand of JeanGrey in Phoenix.
Looking at some of the panels,you can see Jean, right, holding
Lalandra at one point.
And Jean's wearing a whiteblouse and she has her hair kind
of permy.
To Phoenix, where her hairbecomes wild and obviously has
like this starking green andyellow uniform.
(10:57):
It's also interesting, too, theart style at this time when
they're trying to portray thispower-up, like Ching and Greg
going Super Saiyan.
We see these purples and blacksthat I think were the art style
at the time more so than howthey would probably be displayed
now.
But it really pops off the pagein contrast to the colors of
(11:17):
Phoenix.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
The purples and blacks and the way they're
visualizing Phoenix's powers areall so cool.
The two panels where she'spowering the Stargate are like
so, so cool
SPEAKER_03 (11:27):
looking.
That was one of the things Inoted about this book was just
there is one panel where Jean isfiring an energy blast of some
kind at the Stargate.
And you can literally see thisoutline of the Phoenix behind
her in the fiery display that itnormally comes in.
And it just looks so awesome.
(11:50):
There was a couple other thingsbefore we move on to issue 106
that I just wanted to flag thatI thought were very, very fun.
We got a bit more of anexplanation around Kurt's powers
when he rescues Lalandra.
He has to put a lot of thoughtinto how he goes about
SPEAKER_02 (12:07):
doing it.
Yeah, I think he mentions, doeshe mention that he didn't get a
good look at the building top sohe wasn't able to teleport to
it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:15):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
He couldn't do it in the sameway that he normally would be
able to because he just wasn'table to actually see the
location before.
And his powers require him toknow where he's going,
basically.
SPEAKER_01 (12:27):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (12:27):
So I thought that was really fun.
We also got a bit of anexplanation for the relationship
between Jean and Misty.
In the last issue, Misty, at thevery end of the book, meets Jean
Grey's parents.
Professor Xavier's there and wefind out that they're roommates.
And we were both kind of like,what is happening?
Like, when did this happen thatGene and Misty became roommates?
And we get a bit of anexplanation to it in this issue
(12:50):
where Misty and Gene basicallyexplain that it was just kind of
happenstance.
They were both looking at thesame apartment, hit it off over
coffee and became roommates.
That is the explanation.
They had their own littlemeet-cute.
The last thing that I wanted totouch on is the spaceships,
because it's going to come up alot over the next few issues.
(13:11):
Dude, they are so ugly.
The bugs?
SPEAKER_02 (13:15):
The bug ships, they are just so awful.
It's a weird choice, consideringthey're like bird people.
Because even their helmet,
SPEAKER_03 (13:23):
the helmet she wears is very insect-like.
And it's just so...
I just don't like it at all.
It's awful to look at.
And we've seen them displayedlike space beautifully, right?
We've seen them in a spacestation before and in
spacecrafts coming back from thespace station as they were
trying to escape.
And they depicted that sobeautifully with these like
(13:45):
psychedelic colors that areemitting in space.
And you and I both talked abouthow great it was.
And here we are with just thisboring ass space with insect
SPEAKER_02 (13:55):
ship.
Well, there's no solar stormright now.
I'm not super bothered by thebug ships.
I like that because they'revisually distinct.
It's easy to tell, like, allright, this is the Shi'ar
Empire, blah, blah, blah.
They're flying around in theirbug ship.
It's their call sign.
It's like their flag.
Speaking of vehicles, though, Iobviously noted that, once
(14:19):
again, the X-Men blow up anotherone.
And we do get, like, a reallygood line from...
of dialogue from Kurt where hejust yells, oh no, not again, as
it blows up.
SPEAKER_03 (14:30):
We should have a special segment every episode
where we tally the number ofvehicles the X-Men have
destroyed.
SPEAKER_02 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm going to have to go back and just, I
don't know, probably buy anentire notebook just so we can
start tracking that.
SPEAKER_03 (14:46):
We can introduce some music and have it popping
off and you can just, in thisissue...
SPEAKER_02 (14:53):
Yeah, we'll have to find like a really good
transition sound effect.
SPEAKER_03 (14:59):
Maybe it's a car crash sound.
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
And an explosion.
The only other thing that Ireally wanted to bring up, and
we've talked about this before,Professor X being sort of over
the top and like a lot.
Yes.
I think it's really fun thinkingabout the 2000s era films where
we have an even keeled SirPatrick Stewart, who's just like
super calm and collected.
(15:21):
And then...
on the other side of the coin inthese books we have him looking
up to the sky and just yellingcurse you eric it can't end like
this it mustn't and then acouple of pages before the i
love this one so much a coupleof pages before the end of the
issue he just shouts are youblind gene he's such a dick
SPEAKER_03 (15:43):
yeah he is i didn't make a note of that as well he
needs to take a chill pillbecause Here we are again with
him freaking out.
SPEAKER_02 (15:51):
And they've drawn him so psychotic looking.
I would love to see the nextX-Men movie go to this like
hammy over the top Professor X.
They just got to find the right
SPEAKER_03 (16:02):
actor.
We see at the end of the book,actually the last panel is
Professor Xavier confrontingFire Lord and he makes quite the
dramatic statement.
Quote, you may destroy the earthtoday, but if the X-Men fail
tomorrow, the universe will die.
And then we get the beginning ofthe end, and it really kind of
sets the stage for this dramaticencounter that we're about to
(16:25):
have.
SPEAKER_02 (16:26):
Or maybe won't have.
Should we go to issue 106?
SPEAKER_03 (16:29):
Yeah, we may as well.
I do want to preface this bysaying that this issue, I could
have just done without.
I don't know that it reallypaired with the flow of these
four books.
Because when you remove that, byand large, it doesn't really
take away from the overallstory.
SPEAKER_02 (16:47):
No, I think nothing really changes.
It's like removing theleprechauns.
And keeping in mind that thelast issue or what we just read
ended with the tagline, thebeginning of the end, I wonder
if there was some sort ofproduction behind the scenes
thing that maybe this issue wasnot originally planned to be
(17:08):
here, but for some reason theyhad to pivot to it.
Why don't you walk
SPEAKER_03 (17:13):
us through, now that it's been quite established that
neither one of us were superjazzed about this
SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
inclusion.
Issue 106's cover takes us on anunexpected diversion.
The Angel is back, and he's cometo murder the new X-Men with
their own leader's deadly eyeblasts.
Again.
Again.
They're back again.
Yes.
It's like they never left.
Yes, that's so true.
(17:39):
But before that, we see theaftermath of last issue with
Professor X, Fire Lord, Misty,and the Greys all talking it
out.
From there, Professor X's mindstarts to fail him.
He collapses and his thoughtsdrift back to an interaction
that he had with Moira just daysafter her arrival.
We see a much less cohesiveX-Men team training in the
(18:02):
Danger Room.
They're eventually confronted byAngel, who is wearing his old
costume.
The rest of the old crew showsup, and a fight breaks out
between the two squads.
It takes them a long time, butthey eventually figure out, hey,
we're not fighting against theold squad at all.
They're in the Danger Room.
In his madness, the Professoraccidentally pit the old X-Men
(18:24):
against the new X-Men via theDanger Room, but he fights off
his sedatives long enough tostop the fight.
However...
An evil Professor Xavier whowears a cape suddenly appears
and begins to battle the X-Men.
Regular Professor X realizesthat he can summon figures from
the Danger Room too and createsthe old school team again who
(18:46):
then beats up his own personalDr.
Jekyll.
The closing panel establishesthat the madness Professor X has
been suffering from is actuallyfrom the forced psychic rapport
between himself and Lilandra andthat by reliving this earlier
moment he's conquered thismalady.
So I think for both of us thisissue was a little bit of a miss
(19:12):
and really for me kind of abummer that we sidetracked the
story that we've been buildingto for so long to take this
diversion and say alright here'swhat's been going on with
professor x and we can reallyexplain that a lot more
succinctly than taking up anentire comic for it especially
since we're pausing everythingthat's been going on
SPEAKER_03 (19:35):
yeah this really it's funny now that you've put
it into my mind that this is astory piece that was just
inserted here for whateverreason and there could be
completely valid reasons beyondlike maybe this is what chris
wanted and It could be that theywere having issues with issue
107.
So they needed to or sorry, 106.
(19:57):
That was then pushed to be 107.
So there's a lot of differentreasons.
And maybe it's well documented.
I don't know.
I didn't look into it.
But me being a terribleresearcher on this, I'm just
going to say I did not like it.
I
SPEAKER_02 (20:09):
think that's very fair.
And I think a lot of it is, youknow, we've seen not just this
break in action, but it's like,OK, we're rehashing the old team
versus the new team.
Again, it's a conflict that'sreally hard to be excited about.
However, there are, I think, afew positives from this issue.
I think, one, we can look at theteam interaction before the
(20:30):
conflict, completely ignoringthe part of, like, you know,
we're pausing the story thatwe're reading right now,
essentially.
But I think it's fun to see thatlack of cohesion, mainly the
Wolverine and Colossusinteractions, I think, were a
little fun.
Also...
The evil Professor X visuals arejust something else.
He has a real Nosferatu thinggoing on, and it's just
(20:55):
completely over the top.
SPEAKER_03 (20:59):
It's funny that you said Nosferatu.
I kind of looked at it almost aslike a, I think he actually
references it.
It's like a Dr.
Jekyll, Mr.
Hyde.
That to me is like that oldschool style animation or art
style of how they would havedepicted like a Mr.
Jekyll.
SPEAKER_01 (21:15):
Or
SPEAKER_03 (21:16):
I guess rather a Mr.
Hyde, because that's what ishappening in this case.
SPEAKER_02 (21:20):
It's Dr.
Jekyll.
He didn't go to four years ofsome sort of college to be
called Mr.
SPEAKER_03 (21:26):
Mr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
Sorry for insulting him likethat.
Foolish of me.
The art style at one point ofWolverine is quite interesting.
Like his mask.
I don't know what you would callthem.
Ears?
Mask ears?
I don't know.
What do you call them?
Like on his mask, the pointyparts.
The
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
spikes.
The pointies.
I
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
don't know.
I think they're
SPEAKER_02 (21:48):
supposed to be like ears, right?
Maybe.
I'm not super familiar withWolverine's the animal.
They don't have ears like
SPEAKER_03 (21:56):
that.
I'll tell you that.
But there is a scene in herewhere Wolverine looks wild.
Actually, he looks quite cool.
Scott is firing a eye blast athim as he draws his claws, and
he again declares they areadamantium.
And it just looks really cool.
(22:16):
I don't know how else todescribe it, but it just looks
like they changed the costumedesign for some reason, but it
becomes almost like what Iimagined Wolverine to look like.
SPEAKER_02 (22:25):
Yeah, his design looks like a little leaner and
kind of taller or like, I guess,pointier up and down.
He almost is striking kind oflike a Batman silhouette.
Yes, it does remind me very muchof like an old school Batman
look.
Take away that yellow, justpaint them all black.
SPEAKER_03 (22:45):
Yeah, it's also crazy to me if this is
actually...
what happened i must haveglossed over this due to how
much i hated the issue butthankfully you told me that this
was a flashback and then it kindof clicked a little bit better
because i thought it was allkind of a miss are these x-men
the like the real former x-menthat like is that what we are
being led to believe here thatthey are somehow back or their
(23:07):
manifestations by charlesbecause he's going crazy i
SPEAKER_02 (23:11):
think it's him going crazy in his mind like wandering
and And in that, he somehowcaused the Danger Room to create
these, I don't know how theyrefer to them, but I'm just
going to call them hard lightconstructs, I suppose.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
That's my assumption.
It's just, you know, Danger Roomconstructs that Professor X or
(23:34):
Evil Professor X created andeventually he shuts it down and
then they fight Evil Professor Xand they shut him down too.
SPEAKER_03 (23:43):
There were two things I did find really
interesting about this.
You and I have spoken alreadymany times about Scott's temper
and how he's been acting.
And we actually get the groupbasically calling him out on
this in this book.
and positioning it as being aresult of Thunderbird's death,
right?
That it's been impacting him.
(24:03):
It's impacting his judgment.
There's kind of a lot ofcharacter growth with Scott
where he admits, you know, likethis weight has been on his
shoulders and it has beendifficult.
And he's been, I think, ridingthe X-Men extra hard because of
it.
It's nice to see that, that thiswas something supposedly that
happened sometime in the past.
However, as we've seen over thelast couple of issues, he's
(24:26):
still being an asshole.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
He's been in
SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
a
SPEAKER_03 (24:30):
lot of
SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
overwhelming situations.
SPEAKER_03 (24:32):
Yeah, that's very true.
But I mean, you can still be inthat situation and feel sympathy
for somebody, but they can stillbe an asshole.
And that's what is happeninghere, in my opinion.
The only saving factor for anypart of this book, the only
redeeming factor is the fightthat we get between Wolverine
and Iceman.
It is so cool.
(24:52):
You see Iceman, you know, usinghis powers, building his ice
hill.
I guess.
I don't know how else todescribe it, but he does this
thing with his powers where hecan essentially shoot ice in
front of him and he just glideson it.
We see him doing this in frontof Wolverine and then
essentially building up an icemound around him, concealing him
(25:14):
in this iceberg, basically.
But Wolverine breaks out withhis claws and essentially cuts
him loose and Iceman falls tothe ground.
It's three panels and it looksawesome.
SPEAKER_02 (25:27):
The thing about 106 that is just the biggest bummer.
So at this point in time, theX-Men is not a monthly.
It's every other month.
So people had to wait fourmonths between issues 105 when
they enter the Stargate to 107to continue that story.
Oh, what the hell?
I get that, you know, TikTokdidn't exist back then and our
(25:49):
brains weren't mush, but thatfour months would have killed
me.
SPEAKER_03 (25:53):
I would have been so disappointed if I went to the
comic book store and picked upthat issue thinking we were
going to find out what happenedon the other side of the
Stargate only to be met with...
It's Angel.
Yeah, here's Angel again.
And the X-Men, you rememberthem, right?
It's a bummer.
I
SPEAKER_02 (26:09):
think that is probably good for issue 106.
Since we've got two more, Ithink we just jump into 107
then.
SPEAKER_03 (26:16):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, 107 and 108 really feedinto one another.
It's essentially like theculmination of the story.
So yeah, let's get
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
into it.
In issue 107, the X-Men crossthrough the Stargate and they're
greeted by Gladiator of theImperial Guard who says, Laundra
is a traitor and their prisoner.
Cyclops' clever rebuttalinvolves shooting one of the
guard with his optic blasts anda fight ensues.
The team does fairly well forthemselves.
(26:45):
Wolverine has his clothes burnedoff and decides to steal someone
else's.
The bad Emperor Dakan of theShi'ar summons the Soul Drinker
to destroy his sister, butNightcrawler saves the day by
teleporting Lalandra away, thefirst time he's ever done a
two-person bamf.
We learn that Lalandra opposedher brother's plan to use an
(27:07):
ancient force-slash-weapon andwas arrested for it.
We get to hear more about herjourney from there to Earth,
some background on Erik the Redand his various schemes from the
past few issues.
We also learn that when the nineDeath Stars are in alignment,
Daken will be able to accesspower from the Great Makran
(27:28):
Crystal.
The Starjammers enter at adramatic point and blast
Gladiator off of Lalandra.
Between them and the X-Men, theImperial Guard are dealt with
pretty handily.
However, they're too late as theDeath Stars become aligned and
energy pours into the giantcrystal.
The issue ends with Dr.
(27:48):
Peter Korbo and Reed Richardshaving a frantic discussion
about how, for a fraction of asecond, reality ceased to exist.
Super cool, by the way.
The reality?
Yeah.
This idea that reality justblipped.
It's a really, yeah, it's coolstakes that they create with
that.
And I like that they don't juststay focused on who's present
(28:12):
there at the time.
You know, they jump all the wayacross the universe and we go to
some of the brightest minds onEarth who are like, hey, what
the hell just happened?
It has a lot more, I guess, ofan impact when we really explore
like, okay, this is aneverywhere
SPEAKER_03 (28:27):
problem.
Yeah, the stakes are very high.
The culmination of these fourissues, to me, is really the
culmination of the entire storyso far.
We see the stakes being laid outas a problem that could
conceivably have massiveconsequences if the X-Men fail,
(28:49):
as Professor Xavier warned, andthen is backed up ultimately
when the big bad guy here, theEmperor, is semi-successful.
So, I agree.
100% super cool seeing this blipidea, seeing Reed Richards and
Hank Pym talking about how,well, there's nothing we can do.
(29:14):
Hank's next issue.
Oh, well, in either case, we dosee that.
Spoilers, oh my gosh.
Spoilers for issue 108 from thevery beginning.
But to me, it felt...
And again, this is really theculmination of the story.
So it's awesome seeing this highstakes.
The X-Men are important.
And if they don't solve thisproblem, nobody's going to be
(29:36):
able to do it.
This is, to my recollection,really the first time we see the
X-Men outperform theiropponents.
I think since the Animen.
SPEAKER_02 (29:48):
Yeah, because, I mean, Kirok the Damned was a
difficult fight.
The Sentinels, I feel like...
I think this is similar to theSentinels, or maybe this is
maybe a tougher opponent.
Well, they were
SPEAKER_03 (30:01):
ultimately captured by the Sentinels.
Yeah.
So to some degree, they had moreof a challenge with them.
Once they got on the ship,though, they seemed to have an
easier time.
And I think that was mostlybecause they were new, right?
They weren't studied in the sameway that the previous X-Men team
would have been.
This is my headcanon anyways.
SPEAKER_02 (30:22):
And initially it was more of a surprise to when they
did get captured.
So them arriving to the station,they kind of knew what they were
getting into more so.
It's
SPEAKER_03 (30:32):
nice seeing them succeed.
And with this kind of being theend chapter, the penultimate to
this tale, it's nice to see themsucceed in a way that really
kind of shows that there is alevel of teamwork happening here
with them.
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
They did a lot better this fight than I guess I
expected them to, just knowingthat Gladiator is kind of a big
deal.
I felt like it would be a biggerchallenge for them.
But one thing I will say aboutthe action is that there's a lot
of fun elements to it in thisissue, and there's a lot of
creativity.
We have the scene with Kurtusing the image inducer in a
(31:09):
clever way.
We have the whole nonsense withWolverine deciding like oh I'm
gonna knock somebody out or killthem who knows undress them and
then dress myself in his clothesbecause I don't want to fight
naked like he just takes severalminutes to do that it's like
okay
SPEAKER_03 (31:30):
uh that was very very fun so we see gladiator
here and you mentioned that he'spretty prominent and this is
actually the first time we seehim like ever And I think that's
a really important thing to callout here because the Imperial
Guard, for those who areunfamiliar with Marvel Comics,
they play important roles inseveral future stories, many of
(31:53):
which take place in space.
Annihilation comes to mind asbeing an important one.
Other ones I'm thinking ofare...
Hickman's Avengers run where wesee a lot of space shenanigans
take place and the ImperialGuard are like heavily involved
in that and so to see again thisconnection between Jonathan
Hickman and now Chris Claremontand seeing the Imperial Guard
(32:17):
it's this great theme ofcontinuity that continues kind
of like going forward socongratulations to Chris and the
creative team here on creatingall these characters who will
stand the test of time.
And I think really lends itselfto this story that's playing out
being just so important toMarvel storytelling.
(32:40):
We do get some new informationabout Eric the Red.
We learn definitively he is aShi'ar secret agent who is just
on Earth.
I was a little unclear why hedecided to take up the identity
of Eric the Red.
which, and we've talked aboutthis before, was previously
Scott Summers, right?
So
SPEAKER_02 (33:01):
this is, I don't, this is a weird thing because
he's Eric the Red because he isactually Eric the Red.
I don't remember if there's agood explanation for why Cyclops
was Eric the Red.
You know, I mean, at this pointwhen they made this, I'm sure
that they didn't hammer out thedetails and everything, but this
(33:21):
does connect to more moderncomics comics there is more his
name's not chad but like chadthe red emily the red there's a
whole group of these the redpeople eventually the the reds
SPEAKER_03 (33:37):
yeah because eric the red does have a real
identity that is his name's noteric at all it's like devan
devon
SPEAKER_02 (33:48):
shakari yeah i didn't write that down i guess
i'm a little confused about thesituation as well So he assumes
SPEAKER_03 (33:56):
this identity.
No real reason is given.
But we do see this bigexplanation of the big plan,
like super big picture, right?
That he was instructed tobasically take out Charles
Xavier because of his connectionwith Lalandra to prevent the
(34:16):
X-Men and him from basicallygetting in the way of him
capturing Lalandra for the SoulEater, which, oh my god, man.
How many of these things exist?
Like this omnipresent demon-likebeing that are we going to see?
This is like our third or fourthone now.
(34:37):
It's a lot, but I do like his
SPEAKER_02 (34:38):
art, so I'm going to give it a pass.
I'm
SPEAKER_03 (34:41):
going to look it up again.
Yeah, you know what?
The Soul Sucker, or the, sorry,the Soul Drinker is its name,
not the Soul Sucker.
The Soul Drinker looks, it doeslook pretty cool.
Okay, I'll give it a pass.
Amongst the designs that we'reseeing, it's by far the best.
One last fun fact about theImperial Guard.
According to Wikipedia, theoriginal members of the Imperial
Guard were basically inspired orlike were mimicked by DC Comics'
(35:06):
Legion of Superheroes.
The more you know.
The more you know.
We also see Death Stars again,although not the same Death Star
that we saw before and not theDeath Star from Star Wars.
Yeah, I think they just
SPEAKER_02 (35:19):
really like...
that word he's just reallytrying to make it happen like
please guys i promise yousomeday death star is gonna be
like a really big thing he knewhe
SPEAKER_03 (35:33):
was far ahead of his time the only other thing that i
really wanted to talk about waskurt using his powers the way he
did in this issue so we've nowseen him have to explain how his
powers work and here he is justsnagging lalondra and hoping for
the best and i think even makesmention that if lalondra was any
(35:56):
bigger than she was that theyprobably would have died during
the bamf
SPEAKER_02 (36:02):
it's a good thing that they're descendants from
bird people so maybe their bonesare like a little hollow and
it's an easier teleport they
SPEAKER_03 (36:11):
don't have the same bone mass and that makes a big
difference when you'reessentially teleporting from one
place to another So now that wekind of have the stakes, right?
We have this big plan that hasnow been revealed that feels a
lot like Hades' plan fromHercules, right?
Like this.
This is one in a million, yo.
(36:32):
This is only going to happenonce in a million years.
And it's right now.
And the stars are aligning.
And the planets in the universeare all going to be in a line.
And boom, we're going to getthis superpower thing.
situation going on and i'm gonnabecome the god of gods that's
all i could think about when iwas reading it was just like man
i saw this before and herculesalthough this is predates it
(36:55):
significantly but this
SPEAKER_02 (36:57):
inspired hercules you heard it here first
SPEAKER_03 (37:00):
yeah
SPEAKER_02 (37:00):
and now disney now owns marvel it's kind of a full
circle deal
SPEAKER_00 (37:04):
yeah
SPEAKER_03 (37:06):
and uh there you go maybe that was the reason they
were sold to disney That andDeath Star.
They wanted to make sure thatthey maintained it when they
bought Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02 (37:14):
Oh, it's all connected.
We've stumbled into a realconspiracy.
Pull out the pins.
It's conspiracy time.
Alright, so in issue 108, Scottgives his team a recap on what
exactly has been going on.
While they're at the Crystal,the X-Men are confronted by
Jaff, a guardian of the Gateinto Eternity.
(37:35):
He hits Wolverine so hard thathe escapes the gravitational
pull of wherever they are.
He begins beating on the rest ofthe X-Men.
Gene eventually drops a meteoron him, but he's unfazed with
that.
Banshee realizes that Joff mightbe some kind of machine and uses
a point-blank, full-blast sonicscream to scramble his circuits.
(37:57):
This works really well, butafter Joff's defeat, they are
instantly confronted by Mott.
How would we say this?
Mott?
Mud.
That's a tough one, especiallywith headphones on.
I'm pulling it up right now.
Mud.
Mud.
Mud.
Mud.
The second guardian.
This seems like it may continueon for a while, but a star
(38:19):
jammer chucks the emperor intothe crystal, which then causes
everyone to be transportedinside of the crystal.
No more guardians.
A sphere of energy inside of itbegins to show everyone their
worst nightmare.
For Jean, this is death.
but she realizes that she's nolonger afraid of death as she's
already conquered it.
We learn that a neutron galaxywill be freed from the sphere if
(38:44):
nothing is done, which will thenpull all of the universe's mass
down its gravity well untilreality itself is torn apart.
She attempts to fix it and iseventually successful after
anchoring herself to realitywith the help of Storm and
Corsair, who she addresses asMajor Summers and informs that
(39:04):
Scott is his firstborn son.
After the fix, the X-Men returnthrough the gate and are
followed by Lalandra, who hasbeen temporarily exiled to Earth
while the Shi'ar Empire worksout whether or not she's a
traitor or their rightful ruler,as her brother has been driven
incurably insane.
So, I believe you are a big fanof both issues 107 and 108.
SPEAKER_03 (39:29):
I am a fan of it coming from the lens that this
is the culmination of the storyso far.
Everything has been building tothis.
All the meddling by Eric theRat, all the enemies that they
face to this point, it's allbeen building to this moment.
The stakes are as high asthey're going to be.
The universe is blinkinguncontrollably now.
(39:50):
The Avengers don't know what todo.
The Fantastic Four don't knowwhat to do.
And here we have the X-Men beingthe final force between utter
annihilation, as we see on thefront of this book.
I believe it says on the cover,it says Armageddon.
Another word for annihilation.
This cover, by the way, looksawesome.
We see the X-Men basicallydodging the fist of the giant
(40:13):
robot.
which I will henceforth now callit that, as opposed to...
Mod.
Mod.
Mod.
Mod.
It's M-O-D-T for those who areunsure.
If you do know how to pronouncethis, let us know.
It's hard putting thoseconsonants
SPEAKER_02 (40:31):
next to each
SPEAKER_03 (40:32):
other.
Yeah, it's definitely a choice.
We didn't really touch on ittoo, too much, but what are your
thoughts on the Star Jammers?
SPEAKER_02 (40:40):
Um, I think they're...
They're...
kind of a fun inclusion, and Iguess they were teased a little
bit going into it, but there's alot being thrown into these two
issues.
You're absolutely right.
We are
SPEAKER_03 (40:54):
now seeing a bunch of characters that we've never
seen before with no context.
Here they are.
And
SPEAKER_02 (41:01):
there's some fun clues that you can draw up
where, you know, they have kindof like this whole rebellious
thing.
They don't really respect theEmpire, but...
they are trying to save theworld.
I mean, at this point, I don'treally have too much of an
opinion to form about them fromwhat we have.
The one thing I will say is thatI do appreciate the great soap
(41:25):
opera twist that they've decidedto throw in here with Corsair is
Scott Summers' father.
SPEAKER_03 (41:30):
Yeah.
I hope that's something we getto explore, because I actually
have no idea.
Like, I know that Corsair is hisfather, so...
Why?
How?
How did this happen?
I don't know.
SPEAKER_02 (41:44):
Backstory.
We'll get there.
SPEAKER_03 (41:45):
Why is Scott Summers' dad a space pirate?
SPEAKER_02 (41:49):
Why aren't more of us space pirates?
It would be very impractical.
There's not really a lot outthere to pillage.
There's a couple things thatmade issue 107 and 108 not hit
as much fans.
For me, if we were to compare itto, I thought issue 105 was
pretty good.
So one, we keep introducing alot of new elements in this
(42:12):
essentially final chapter ofthis story arc.
And apart from that, issues 107and to a, I think, much greater
extent, issue 108 is very, veryexposition heavy in certain
parts.
Yeah, that's fair.
They're dealing with a lot ofbig, confusing...
concepts where you got to slowdown read it a little closer
(42:35):
just to get a grasp on what itis that they're saying and I
think to a certain extent youknow both of us are probably
fans of things like that sincewe're really appreciative of
some of the different runs thatJonathan Hickman has written but
it's just like a little heavy insome spots
SPEAKER_03 (42:51):
I agree especially as somebody who totally glossed
over the Charles Xavierflashback scene and misconstrued
it as either being a fever dreamof his or worse, somehow the
X-Men were thrust into thisbecause I was very confused why
suddenly we were talking aboutthis.
(43:12):
It was a weird detour.
And this is what I like aboutcoming in where you and I
don't...
I try to not go over your notesin any kind of way.
I really like having just freshconversations about our
opinions.
I never really...
thought too much about it butnow that we've talked about
these four issues it reallyfeels like issue 106 would have
(43:34):
really benefited the overallstory if they took some of these
elements that they were reallykind of jamming into seven and
eight and put it into likeanother book like maybe the star
jammers should have had anintroduction that was dedicated
to one book So that way we knewwho they were rather than them
(43:54):
just showing up at the same timeas them introducing like 15
other characters for the firsttime.
SPEAKER_02 (44:00):
Yeah, I had a very similar thought.
If we dropped 1.06 or take inwhat it's telling down to like a
much shorter piece, that itwould be really cool to expand
this event out a little bit fromthat two issues to three issues
and really give everything alittle bit more room to breathe.
SPEAKER_03 (44:19):
I agree 100%.
And that's to say, I think thatwould have really benefited the
story.
106 aside, as I said, I doreally like the tale, the
overall story that we had here.
This high stakes game, universeending situation that the X-Men
are jumping in and saving.
And this book also gave us a lotof fun moments.
We see Wolverine getting yeetedlike across the world, picking a
(44:44):
fight with Joff.
We have a really cool couple ofpanels of Jean Grey grabbing a
meteor and basically bringing itdown like we've seen Thanos do
in the movies with moons.
So really kind of cool to seethose powers being used in the
way they're using them here.
(45:05):
Same with Kurt using the Banffwith two people for the first
time.
It's just a lot of fun.
I felt like this was just like areally fun comic book story and
the end of this chapter that Ithink had a lot of ups and downs
as we've kind of gone throughthem.
And I'm excited to kind of seewhere the story goes from here
(45:25):
because now we're almoststarting fresh.
We have Charles getting the girlat the end of the story.
We have Phoenix.
And Jean Grey seemingly exitingthis situation, probably more in
control of who she is and herpowers.
We see the X-Men emerging aslike a cohesive team, all really
(45:48):
having strong spots.
And if anybody kind of took abackseat here, it was honestly
Scott.
We see Phoenix get a spotlight.
We see Colossus get a spotlight.
And I guess Storm takes a bit ofa backseat as well, but we do
see her activate this typhoon atone point at the command of
Scott as a means of, I believeit was used as a distraction
(46:11):
alongside Sean Cassidy.
So it's really fun seeing theevolution of the team and them
actually having benefited frommonths now of being together and
having these adventures.
So for me, it was a big successwhen you look at the build-up,
and now this is what wasdelivered on.
But the exposition is veryheavy, and they probably could
(46:34):
have used another issue toreally flush it out without it
feeling overwhelming.
SPEAKER_02 (46:38):
Actually, on that Storm subject, you mentioned her
almost taking somewhat of abackseat, and to a certain
extent, I think that's truebecause this is one of the few
times so far that Storm isn'tthe heavy that takes over the
fight and ends the situation,ends the baddie.
There is a moment actually, it'searly in the fight, I think it
(47:00):
might be issue 107, that Stormactually takes charge a little
bit as like a leader and givesBanshee some direction of like,
you need to do this.
I really appreciated seeingthat, seeing Storm grow a little
bit in terms of she's evolvingto involve herself a little bit
more in that leadership rolethat I think they're really
(47:21):
missing when Scott isn't
SPEAKER_03 (47:23):
there.
Well, it's interesting too thatyou mentioned that because when
you look at the composition ofthis team, right?
We have Scott, we have JeanGrey, we have Storm, and we have
Wolverine.
All of them at one point oranother are essentially the
headmasters of Xavier's schoolor are in some capacity in
(47:44):
charge of an X-Men team.
If you were reading this for thefirst time, as we are, but
without the knowledge of wherethese characters end up today, I
don't know that you'renecessarily going to walk away
thinking Logan is going tobecome the leader of the X-Men
or the headmaster of the school.
He doesn't seem to have thetemperament for it.
(48:05):
Certainly not yet.
But seeing this development withStorm, and we've definitely seen
her take the spotlight at timesthat were incredibly dire, and
she really just steps up as aheavy hitter, as you said.
Which I think is incredible,frankly, because she is like a
standout on this team and reallyhas made me love the character
(48:25):
more than I think I did before.
What are you looking forward toas we kind of move into what
might be the next chapter ofthis run?
SPEAKER_02 (48:37):
So I think it's really exciting that we have
that fresh start feel.
Yeah.
We've been juggling a lot ofdifferent story threads.
There's been a lot of hints andteasers that really led up to
this moment.
But I think at this point, itfeels a lot like we're starting
fresh and going to establish anew thing that we're then going
(48:58):
to build on and build towards.
So I'm really excited to seewhere they take it from this end
of a big arc and where theydecide to start the next one and
where they build it to.
SPEAKER_03 (49:10):
There are certainly a couple of different ways and a
couple of different pieces thatthey can tug on, right?
Like we still have the Phoenixsituation happening.
How is that going to affectJean?
We'll have to wait and see.
We have, I think, like anestablished team dynamic now.
So my hope is really that webegin to see even further growth
(49:30):
and have these relationshipsdevelop further than where they
are now.
My hope is that the infightingof the team is going to take a
backseat at some point.
And we're going to move in adirection where I think Scott is
more of like this commandingleader rather than talking down
to the team.
We've already kind of seen a bitof that growth.
(49:52):
But seeing somebody like Stormor even somebody else on the
team, like even Sean Cassidy hasstepped up in some cases to
really lead the team insituations where they felt
leaderless.
So my hope is that we see thatkind of dynamic continue to play
out.
And I would love to see maybemore of a grounding and build up
(50:14):
into the X-Men's traditionalrogues gallery because I feel
like that's really been missingfor me because a lot of what
we've seen is fresh which isfantastic but I would still like
to kind of see someconfrontation maybe with like I
don't know like the Brotherhoodof Mutants that we might see
Magneto reestablish or we seethe Juggernaut come back with
(50:38):
Black Tom Cassidy and maybesomebody else.
I would like to see thattraditional evil sort of mutant
enter the fray here and moveforward.
Because a lot of the threatsthat we've seen have kind of
been a mixed bag.
And we just had this big spacestory, which I'm assuming we're
(50:58):
going to kind of hang aroundwith for a little bit because La
Landra is on Earth.
Could we see a love trianglebetween her, Charles, and Moira?
SPEAKER_02 (51:08):
I feel like the book is maybe...
Well, no, no, no.
Because the book's shot on thatsituation.
Banshee and Moira are together.
We could see a really intenselove pentagon.
No, it's four.
It's a love square, isn't it?
It's a square, yeah.
Yeah.
Drapozoid.
Let's just throw a few morecharacters in there.
(51:29):
Make it a...
SPEAKER_03 (51:32):
Yeah.
A love hexagon.
But...
It would be fun to kind of seethis soap opera dynamic continue
that we've seen a little bit.
Scott and his father, what'sgoing on there?
But I hope that's like a littlefurther down the road.
Let's take a break from space.
As much as I've really liked theart, and especially these last
(51:53):
two issues, I think John Byrnedid a really nice job with the
art.
And the rest of the creativeteam did an incredible job with
the inking and the coloring.
It made up, in my opinion, formy earlier complaint.
And it brought a lot of color tothe vastness of space.
They had a lot of nice contrastin a couple panels to really
(52:16):
make it pop, especially with thefights with Phoenix.
Like this, these bright yellowsand reds and whites kind of, you
know, when it comes to how sheuses those powers.
And it was fun also to seeingPhoenix again, like this literal
embodiment of the Phoenix appeararound Jean as she's using her
(52:38):
powers within this crystal.
So really, really fun.
I really liked it.
I'm excited to kind of see wherethings go and get kind of a
fresh start.
Yeah, the
SPEAKER_02 (52:48):
whole Beck half of this issue especially just kills
it artistically.
I really like the panel whereit's the whole universe being
sucked into one point and thenit has that flip side where it's
then exploding out and theuniverse is reincarnating,
essentially.
SPEAKER_03 (53:05):
Yeah, it's just...
Really beautiful.
I really even just the design ofthe Phoenix.
There's this panel that I'mlooking at right now where the
Phoenix is spread out in fierywings as like this white ripple
is happening within like thevastness of space.
(53:25):
It's just really cool.
SPEAKER_02 (53:27):
So I think we've done this for the past few
issues or episodes now, butlooking at this panel, these
four as kind of one unit, whatare your overall thoughts?
What's your grade out of out of10?
SPEAKER_03 (53:41):
I think I would put these I really wish I didn't
have to include 106 in this.
But having to take all four, Iwould give this an eight out of
10.
I think issue 106 really draggedit down a bit of the exposition
as well.
But for me, these were like, Apretty solid four issues, minus
(54:03):
106.
But beyond that, I think areally good story.
And it's visually really nice.
So I
SPEAKER_02 (54:10):
think going into this recording, I felt a little
bit more negative about it as awhole.
But in talking through thingswith you, I feel like my...
position on 107 and 108 hasbecome more positive.
106, we're in complete agreementthat it would be a higher score
(54:32):
if we would just remove that.
I'm going to say I'm at a 7.
It's hard because the previousthree issues that we covered
were such a high high for me.
But overall, there's a lot ofreally cool things happening in
this little arc, so we'll gowith 7.
I think that's
SPEAKER_03 (54:51):
very fair.
I'm sitting here...
Looking at three panels rightnow where Jean Grey is
encompassed by the Phoenix andit's just growing bigger and
bigger and bigger in front ofthe entire X-Men.
And it's just great.
I love it so much.
It looks so cool.
I think your seven is very
SPEAKER_02 (55:11):
fair.
That does it for this episode ofUncanny Book Club.
Thanks for listening and we hopeto see you next episode where
we'll discuss issues 109 to 111.
SPEAKER_03 (55:23):
Bye!
SPEAKER_02 (55:25):
if you enjoyed this podcast don't forget to
subscribe leave a review orshare with a friend
Hello everyone and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I'm Isaac Faderspiel and joiningme today is my co-host Adam
Ward.
Hey, how's it going?
Pretty good.
So we've got four issues to getthrough today.
An extra jam-packed episode.
Yep, extra jammy.
In this episode, we areexploring Chris Claremont's
(00:31):
Legendary X-Men run as we readit for the very first time.
We hope you'll join us and readalongside or just stick around
for the discussion.
In our previous episode, we sawthe X-Men's defeat at the hands
of Black Tom Cassidy andJuggernaut, as well as their
eventual victory.
We also learned that Eric theRed was the true threat behind
(00:51):
both of their escape fromprison.
Old Eric's jailbreak didn't endthere, and he helped one more
Eric escape imprisonment.
We saw the return of Magneto.
The X-Men also saw anotherdefeat at the hands of Magneto.
But thanks to the arrival ofCyclops, they were able to
escape and fight another day.
The X-Men then raced home asthey realized Professor X was
(01:13):
the real target.
In this episode, we'll bepicking things up where we left
off with issues 105 through 108.
Issue 105 immediately jumps intothe action as the X-Men charge
Eric the Red in their ownheadquarters.
It looks to be a decisivevictory, but they're interrupted
by the arrival of Firelord, aformer herald of Galactus who
(01:34):
has been tricked into believingthe X-Men are the evil ones, and
quickly defeats the X-Men.
We witness a brief flashbackwhere Eric the Red forces
Polaris and Havok to attackFirelord, and then tells them,
hey, all the X-Men are jerkslike that.
We then jump into space whereLalandra Nerimani's pursuers
briefly halt their chase afterlearning Earth has beaten back
(01:58):
Galactus four times.
Professor Xavier is having teawith Jean Grey, her parents, and
Misty Knight when Lalandrasuddenly appears, causing Xavier
considerable distress.
The two establish psychiccommunication and he soon
demands that Jean helps her.
Firelord is tricked intoattacking both Professor X and
(02:19):
Lilandra, but is interrupted bythe emergence of Phoenix.
The remaining X-Men catch up andlend aid, but Lilandra is
eventually kidnapped by Eric theRed, who escapes through a
Stargate.
Phoenix is able to power up theStargate, and the rest of the
X-Men embark on a rescuemission.
So, overall, kind of ajam-packed issue.
(02:40):
Kind of a lot going on in thatone.
SPEAKER_03 (02:42):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of pretense,
right?
There's a lot of build-up goingon, and this kind of feels like
we're getting into some seriousbusiness, you know?
I have to go into this veryquickly.
I was very curious how onebecomes a former Herald of
Galactus.
It kind of feels like a gig thatyou're stuck in, right?
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
It does feel like one of those, you're, you know,
elected to the position, andthen you serve in that role
until you die, right?
I am not super familiar withFirelord.
And when I say not superfamiliar, I mean I have no idea
for who he is outside of thisissue.
SPEAKER_03 (03:19):
I have seen him before in comics, but I do
believe he is one of thosecharacters of a bygone era.
Just not used as often as othercharacters have come to be.
So I went and did a little bitof research here to figure out
how does one...
end their contract withGalactus.
(03:39):
And it's not as complicated asit sounds.
You just put in your two weeks.
More or less, you need to findyour replacement.
And Galactus is just like, allright, see you later, man.
What did you think of FireLord's arrival?
He certainly took the X-Men toschool and I think really showed
how much more powerful he was.
SPEAKER_02 (04:00):
Yeah, this is like the third fight in a row.
Maybe not third fight in a rowbecause the X-Men did beat Black
Tom and Juggernaut.
But like the third time recentlythat the X-Men have just really
been kicked around essentiallyin a fight.
He whooped him way worse thanMagneto did probably.
SPEAKER_03 (04:16):
There is, in fact, a text box in here.
And it says from start tofinish, it's been less than a
minute.
So I don't think Magneto wipedthe floor with the X-Men fight.
In the same way as Firelord,which was just on another level.
SPEAKER_02 (04:31):
But he had to do a little bit more monologuing and,
you know, lording it over them.
Well, and
SPEAKER_03 (04:37):
talk about gullible, man.
Like, he fell for, like, theeasiest trick in the book.
You're, like, two people fromEarth, and I'm going to just
pretend to be in distress whileyou get attacked.
SPEAKER_02 (04:51):
Yeah, maybe he should have asked for like some
references.
He's got to know a few otherpeople from Earth that he can be
like, hey, man, have you heardof the X-Men?
Are they cool?
How about Eric the Red?
He wears this really sexy armor.
Should I trust him?
He looks super sketch
SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
and makes everybody feel extra uncomfortable.
I just I don't know, man.
It's I mean, like Eric isplaying like 5D chess and I'm
just shocked that a formerHerald of Galactus was just this
gullible.
to not see through it or atleast question it
SPEAKER_02 (05:24):
yeah i do enjoy the cat's paw element of it i think
it's very interesting that heset that up and he's still
trying these little behind thescene things i am interested in
what's it going to be like whenwe next see havoc and polaris
because i assume they'recompletely free of eric the
(05:45):
red's influence now and are justsomewhere I had a
SPEAKER_03 (05:50):
similar thought at the end of these books.
I had the same question.
Where are they?
And when are we going to seethem again?
I do believe we get a mention ofthem in one of the other books.
It may have been issue 107, Ibelieve.
So we get the big reveal ofeverything, which we'll get to.
But that's the last time we'llsee them, at least in this
(06:13):
story.
SPEAKER_02 (06:14):
I love how over the top their dialogue is too, where
Havok is just, great, our ambushhas drawn a witness.
So he's really, really gulliblebecause they're just laying it
on thick for him.
Oh,
SPEAKER_03 (06:29):
Lorna, watch out.
There is somebody there with us.
I can't believe we're going tobe caught.
It's so stupid.
My other question for you is,It's Lalandra, right?
Is that how you've been sayingit?
Lalandra?
SPEAKER_02 (06:48):
I believe so.
I don't know what I saidearlier, but Lalandra.
SPEAKER_03 (06:54):
Lalandra.
Lalandra.
Lalandra.
That's how I would say it.
So what do you think of herdesign?
Because we've now kind of seenthe helmet.
We've now seen her without thehelmet at this point.
SPEAKER_02 (07:04):
Yeah, I mean, the Shi'ar are very...
distinct in their design i don'tlike it like i don't like the
weird like hair thing they havegoing on i do appreciate their
obsession with that motif justas like a societal thing where
they want to be like super uppercrust and think they're better
(07:27):
than everyone else so i enjoylike that aspect of it of you
know they're really committed totheir themselves i suppose but
it just looks
SPEAKER_03 (07:35):
so odd Yeah, it is very strange.
And I felt that way through theentire four issues until we get
a bit of context to theirappearance, which I believe also
happens in 107.
Just that they're bird people?
Yeah, that they're basicallyavian.
Yeah.
Which I don't know that Inecessarily took that away from
(07:58):
their design initially.
And then once I read it, I waslike, okay, yeah, I guess I can
kind of see it.
But...
Even the Emperor's design, tome, doesn't immediately jump out
as bird-like.
There's certainly no Aarakocra.
Not everyone can be a Jarnathan.
For those who don't know, thatis basically a bird person in
(08:18):
Dungeons& Dragons.
It would be a
SPEAKER_02 (08:20):
literal birdman, no hyphen.
So we saw Fire Lord really giveit to the X-Men.
He goes over and tries toconfront Professor X...
Jean Grey.
And then we get a really bigfight between Phoenix, who
emerges, and Fire Lord.
And it's a lot more even of afight than it was for him versus
(08:42):
all of the other X-Men.
The way I took it was
SPEAKER_03 (08:47):
Phoenix was winning, right?
I don't know if she was winningnecessarily as much as I think
it was just very even.
When you think about the cosmicpowers that exist in these
books, right?
We have Fire Lord, who is...
basically powered up with thepower cosmic from Galactus.
Then on the flip side, you havePhoenix, which at this point we
(09:08):
know very little about, but weas readers of, you know, in
2025, obviously know a lot aboutPhoenix and know right now that
it's this extraordinary forcethat exists through space and
time.
So I don't think at this pointthat was maybe, I doubt that was
really thought about, butclearly they're establishing
(09:28):
that the Phoenix persona is likeJack Jean Grey, right?
Super Jack Jean Grey, and shebecomes intoxicated with this
power in this book.
SPEAKER_02 (09:40):
Yeah, I mean, her, just flipping through, her
appearance going from Jean toPhoenix is just wildly...
different the way she's drawnlike she has sharper edges
always angry she doesn't havepupils her eyes are just shown
whited out all the time i thinkit's such a good visual
(10:01):
representation and kind ofillusion to gene and phoenix are
not necessarily maybe not likethe same or at the very least
gene is not in complete controlof everything that's going on
SPEAKER_03 (10:14):
There's definitely an implication here that there's
something happening with Jean,that this new persona, new
powers, new everything, there'ssomething more going on.
It's, like, great.
I actually really like thesepanels.
They're so wonderfully drawn,and the amount of care that's
put into exactly what youdescribed, like, really drawing
(10:34):
the line in the sand of JeanGrey in Phoenix.
Looking at some of the panels,you can see Jean, right, holding
Lalandra at one point.
And Jean's wearing a whiteblouse and she has her hair kind
of permy.
To Phoenix, where her hairbecomes wild and obviously has
like this starking green andyellow uniform.
(10:57):
It's also interesting, too, theart style at this time when
they're trying to portray thispower-up, like Ching and Greg
going Super Saiyan.
We see these purples and blacksthat I think were the art style
at the time more so than howthey would probably be displayed
now.
But it really pops off the pagein contrast to the colors of
(11:17):
Phoenix.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
The purples and blacks and the way they're
visualizing Phoenix's powers areall so cool.
The two panels where she'spowering the Stargate are like
so, so cool
SPEAKER_03 (11:27):
looking.
That was one of the things Inoted about this book was just
there is one panel where Jean isfiring an energy blast of some
kind at the Stargate.
And you can literally see thisoutline of the Phoenix behind
her in the fiery display that itnormally comes in.
And it just looks so awesome.
(11:50):
There was a couple other thingsbefore we move on to issue 106
that I just wanted to flag thatI thought were very, very fun.
We got a bit more of anexplanation around Kurt's powers
when he rescues Lalandra.
He has to put a lot of thoughtinto how he goes about
SPEAKER_02 (12:07):
doing it.
Yeah, I think he mentions, doeshe mention that he didn't get a
good look at the building top sohe wasn't able to teleport to
it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:15):
Yeah, that's exactly right.
He couldn't do it in the sameway that he normally would be
able to because he just wasn'table to actually see the
location before.
And his powers require him toknow where he's going,
basically.
SPEAKER_01 (12:27):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03 (12:27):
So I thought that was really fun.
We also got a bit of anexplanation for the relationship
between Jean and Misty.
In the last issue, Misty, at thevery end of the book, meets Jean
Grey's parents.
Professor Xavier's there and wefind out that they're roommates.
And we were both kind of like,what is happening?
Like, when did this happen thatGene and Misty became roommates?
And we get a bit of anexplanation to it in this issue
(12:50):
where Misty and Gene basicallyexplain that it was just kind of
happenstance.
They were both looking at thesame apartment, hit it off over
coffee and became roommates.
That is the explanation.
They had their own littlemeet-cute.
The last thing that I wanted totouch on is the spaceships,
because it's going to come up alot over the next few issues.
(13:11):
Dude, they are so ugly.
The bugs?
SPEAKER_02 (13:15):
The bug ships, they are just so awful.
It's a weird choice, consideringthey're like bird people.
Because even their helmet,
SPEAKER_03 (13:23):
the helmet she wears is very insect-like.
And it's just so...
I just don't like it at all.
It's awful to look at.
And we've seen them displayedlike space beautifully, right?
We've seen them in a spacestation before and in
spacecrafts coming back from thespace station as they were
trying to escape.
And they depicted that sobeautifully with these like
(13:45):
psychedelic colors that areemitting in space.
And you and I both talked abouthow great it was.
And here we are with just thisboring ass space with insect
SPEAKER_02 (13:55):
ship.
Well, there's no solar stormright now.
I'm not super bothered by thebug ships.
I like that because they'revisually distinct.
It's easy to tell, like, allright, this is the Shi'ar
Empire, blah, blah, blah.
They're flying around in theirbug ship.
It's their call sign.
It's like their flag.
Speaking of vehicles, though, Iobviously noted that, once
(14:19):
again, the X-Men blow up anotherone.
And we do get, like, a reallygood line from...
of dialogue from Kurt where hejust yells, oh no, not again, as
it blows up.
SPEAKER_03 (14:30):
We should have a special segment every episode
where we tally the number ofvehicles the X-Men have
destroyed.
SPEAKER_02 (14:38):
Yeah, I'm going to have to go back and just, I
don't know, probably buy anentire notebook just so we can
start tracking that.
SPEAKER_03 (14:46):
We can introduce some music and have it popping
off and you can just, in thisissue...
SPEAKER_02 (14:53):
Yeah, we'll have to find like a really good
transition sound effect.
SPEAKER_03 (14:59):
Maybe it's a car crash sound.
SPEAKER_02 (15:00):
And an explosion.
The only other thing that Ireally wanted to bring up, and
we've talked about this before,Professor X being sort of over
the top and like a lot.
Yes.
I think it's really fun thinkingabout the 2000s era films where
we have an even keeled SirPatrick Stewart, who's just like
super calm and collected.
(15:21):
And then...
on the other side of the coin inthese books we have him looking
up to the sky and just yellingcurse you eric it can't end like
this it mustn't and then acouple of pages before the i
love this one so much a coupleof pages before the end of the
issue he just shouts are youblind gene he's such a dick
SPEAKER_03 (15:43):
yeah he is i didn't make a note of that as well he
needs to take a chill pillbecause Here we are again with
him freaking out.
SPEAKER_02 (15:51):
And they've drawn him so psychotic looking.
I would love to see the nextX-Men movie go to this like
hammy over the top Professor X.
They just got to find the right
SPEAKER_03 (16:02):
actor.
We see at the end of the book,actually the last panel is
Professor Xavier confrontingFire Lord and he makes quite the
dramatic statement.
Quote, you may destroy the earthtoday, but if the X-Men fail
tomorrow, the universe will die.
And then we get the beginning ofthe end, and it really kind of
sets the stage for this dramaticencounter that we're about to
(16:25):
have.
SPEAKER_02 (16:26):
Or maybe won't have.
Should we go to issue 106?
SPEAKER_03 (16:29):
Yeah, we may as well.
I do want to preface this bysaying that this issue, I could
have just done without.
I don't know that it reallypaired with the flow of these
four books.
Because when you remove that, byand large, it doesn't really
take away from the overallstory.
SPEAKER_02 (16:47):
No, I think nothing really changes.
It's like removing theleprechauns.
And keeping in mind that thelast issue or what we just read
ended with the tagline, thebeginning of the end, I wonder
if there was some sort ofproduction behind the scenes
thing that maybe this issue wasnot originally planned to be
(17:08):
here, but for some reason theyhad to pivot to it.
Why don't you walk
SPEAKER_03 (17:13):
us through, now that it's been quite established that
neither one of us were superjazzed about this
SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
inclusion.
Issue 106's cover takes us on anunexpected diversion.
The Angel is back, and he's cometo murder the new X-Men with
their own leader's deadly eyeblasts.
Again.
Again.
They're back again.
Yes.
It's like they never left.
Yes, that's so true.
(17:39):
But before that, we see theaftermath of last issue with
Professor X, Fire Lord, Misty,and the Greys all talking it
out.
From there, Professor X's mindstarts to fail him.
He collapses and his thoughtsdrift back to an interaction
that he had with Moira just daysafter her arrival.
We see a much less cohesiveX-Men team training in the
(18:02):
Danger Room.
They're eventually confronted byAngel, who is wearing his old
costume.
The rest of the old crew showsup, and a fight breaks out
between the two squads.
It takes them a long time, butthey eventually figure out, hey,
we're not fighting against theold squad at all.
They're in the Danger Room.
In his madness, the Professoraccidentally pit the old X-Men
(18:24):
against the new X-Men via theDanger Room, but he fights off
his sedatives long enough tostop the fight.
However...
An evil Professor Xavier whowears a cape suddenly appears
and begins to battle the X-Men.
Regular Professor X realizesthat he can summon figures from
the Danger Room too and createsthe old school team again who
(18:46):
then beats up his own personalDr.
Jekyll.
The closing panel establishesthat the madness Professor X has
been suffering from is actuallyfrom the forced psychic rapport
between himself and Lilandra andthat by reliving this earlier
moment he's conquered thismalady.
So I think for both of us thisissue was a little bit of a miss
(19:12):
and really for me kind of abummer that we sidetracked the
story that we've been buildingto for so long to take this
diversion and say alright here'swhat's been going on with
professor x and we can reallyexplain that a lot more
succinctly than taking up anentire comic for it especially
since we're pausing everythingthat's been going on
SPEAKER_03 (19:35):
yeah this really it's funny now that you've put
it into my mind that this is astory piece that was just
inserted here for whateverreason and there could be
completely valid reasons beyondlike maybe this is what chris
wanted and It could be that theywere having issues with issue
107.
So they needed to or sorry, 106.
(19:57):
That was then pushed to be 107.
So there's a lot of differentreasons.
And maybe it's well documented.
I don't know.
I didn't look into it.
But me being a terribleresearcher on this, I'm just
going to say I did not like it.
I
SPEAKER_02 (20:09):
think that's very fair.
And I think a lot of it is, youknow, we've seen not just this
break in action, but it's like,OK, we're rehashing the old team
versus the new team.
Again, it's a conflict that'sreally hard to be excited about.
However, there are, I think, afew positives from this issue.
I think, one, we can look at theteam interaction before the
(20:30):
conflict, completely ignoringthe part of, like, you know,
we're pausing the story thatwe're reading right now,
essentially.
But I think it's fun to see thatlack of cohesion, mainly the
Wolverine and Colossusinteractions, I think, were a
little fun.
Also...
The evil Professor X visuals arejust something else.
He has a real Nosferatu thinggoing on, and it's just
(20:55):
completely over the top.
SPEAKER_03 (20:59):
It's funny that you said Nosferatu.
I kind of looked at it almost aslike a, I think he actually
references it.
It's like a Dr.
Jekyll, Mr.
Hyde.
That to me is like that oldschool style animation or art
style of how they would havedepicted like a Mr.
Jekyll.
SPEAKER_01 (21:15):
Or
SPEAKER_03 (21:16):
I guess rather a Mr.
Hyde, because that's what ishappening in this case.
SPEAKER_02 (21:20):
It's Dr.
Jekyll.
He didn't go to four years ofsome sort of college to be
called Mr.
SPEAKER_03 (21:26):
Mr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
Sorry for insulting him likethat.
Foolish of me.
The art style at one point ofWolverine is quite interesting.
Like his mask.
I don't know what you would callthem.
Ears?
Mask ears?
I don't know.
What do you call them?
Like on his mask, the pointyparts.
The
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
spikes.
The pointies.
I
SPEAKER_03 (21:46):
don't know.
I think they're
SPEAKER_02 (21:48):
supposed to be like ears, right?
Maybe.
I'm not super familiar withWolverine's the animal.
They don't have ears like
SPEAKER_03 (21:56):
that.
I'll tell you that.
But there is a scene in herewhere Wolverine looks wild.
Actually, he looks quite cool.
Scott is firing a eye blast athim as he draws his claws, and
he again declares they areadamantium.
And it just looks really cool.
(22:16):
I don't know how else todescribe it, but it just looks
like they changed the costumedesign for some reason, but it
becomes almost like what Iimagined Wolverine to look like.
SPEAKER_02 (22:25):
Yeah, his design looks like a little leaner and
kind of taller or like, I guess,pointier up and down.
He almost is striking kind oflike a Batman silhouette.
Yes, it does remind me very muchof like an old school Batman
look.
Take away that yellow, justpaint them all black.
SPEAKER_03 (22:45):
Yeah, it's also crazy to me if this is
actually...
what happened i must haveglossed over this due to how
much i hated the issue butthankfully you told me that this
was a flashback and then it kindof clicked a little bit better
because i thought it was allkind of a miss are these x-men
the like the real former x-menthat like is that what we are
being led to believe here thatthey are somehow back or their
(23:07):
manifestations by charlesbecause he's going crazy i
SPEAKER_02 (23:11):
think it's him going crazy in his mind like wandering
and And in that, he somehowcaused the Danger Room to create
these, I don't know how theyrefer to them, but I'm just
going to call them hard lightconstructs, I suppose.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
That's my assumption.
It's just, you know, Danger Roomconstructs that Professor X or
(23:34):
Evil Professor X created andeventually he shuts it down and
then they fight Evil Professor Xand they shut him down too.
SPEAKER_03 (23:43):
There were two things I did find really
interesting about this.
You and I have spoken alreadymany times about Scott's temper
and how he's been acting.
And we actually get the groupbasically calling him out on
this in this book.
and positioning it as being aresult of Thunderbird's death,
right?
That it's been impacting him.
(24:03):
It's impacting his judgment.
There's kind of a lot ofcharacter growth with Scott
where he admits, you know, likethis weight has been on his
shoulders and it has beendifficult.
And he's been, I think, ridingthe X-Men extra hard because of
it.
It's nice to see that, that thiswas something supposedly that
happened sometime in the past.
However, as we've seen over thelast couple of issues, he's
(24:26):
still being an asshole.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
He's been in
SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
a
SPEAKER_03 (24:30):
lot of
SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
overwhelming situations.
SPEAKER_03 (24:32):
Yeah, that's very true.
But I mean, you can still be inthat situation and feel sympathy
for somebody, but they can stillbe an asshole.
And that's what is happeninghere, in my opinion.
The only saving factor for anypart of this book, the only
redeeming factor is the fightthat we get between Wolverine
and Iceman.
It is so cool.
(24:52):
You see Iceman, you know, usinghis powers, building his ice
hill.
I guess.
I don't know how else todescribe it, but he does this
thing with his powers where hecan essentially shoot ice in
front of him and he just glideson it.
We see him doing this in frontof Wolverine and then
essentially building up an icemound around him, concealing him
(25:14):
in this iceberg, basically.
But Wolverine breaks out withhis claws and essentially cuts
him loose and Iceman falls tothe ground.
It's three panels and it looksawesome.
SPEAKER_02 (25:27):
The thing about 106 that is just the biggest bummer.
So at this point in time, theX-Men is not a monthly.
It's every other month.
So people had to wait fourmonths between issues 105 when
they enter the Stargate to 107to continue that story.
Oh, what the hell?
I get that, you know, TikTokdidn't exist back then and our
(25:49):
brains weren't mush, but thatfour months would have killed
me.
SPEAKER_03 (25:53):
I would have been so disappointed if I went to the
comic book store and picked upthat issue thinking we were
going to find out what happenedon the other side of the
Stargate only to be met with...
It's Angel.
Yeah, here's Angel again.
And the X-Men, you rememberthem, right?
It's a bummer.
I
SPEAKER_02 (26:09):
think that is probably good for issue 106.
Since we've got two more, Ithink we just jump into 107
then.
SPEAKER_03 (26:16):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, 107 and 108 really feedinto one another.
It's essentially like theculmination of the story.
So yeah, let's get
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
into it.
In issue 107, the X-Men crossthrough the Stargate and they're
greeted by Gladiator of theImperial Guard who says, Laundra
is a traitor and their prisoner.
Cyclops' clever rebuttalinvolves shooting one of the
guard with his optic blasts anda fight ensues.
The team does fairly well forthemselves.
(26:45):
Wolverine has his clothes burnedoff and decides to steal someone
else's.
The bad Emperor Dakan of theShi'ar summons the Soul Drinker
to destroy his sister, butNightcrawler saves the day by
teleporting Lalandra away, thefirst time he's ever done a
two-person bamf.
We learn that Lalandra opposedher brother's plan to use an
(27:07):
ancient force-slash-weapon andwas arrested for it.
We get to hear more about herjourney from there to Earth,
some background on Erik the Redand his various schemes from the
past few issues.
We also learn that when the nineDeath Stars are in alignment,
Daken will be able to accesspower from the Great Makran
(27:28):
Crystal.
The Starjammers enter at adramatic point and blast
Gladiator off of Lalandra.
Between them and the X-Men, theImperial Guard are dealt with
pretty handily.
However, they're too late as theDeath Stars become aligned and
energy pours into the giantcrystal.
The issue ends with Dr.
(27:48):
Peter Korbo and Reed Richardshaving a frantic discussion
about how, for a fraction of asecond, reality ceased to exist.
Super cool, by the way.
The reality?
Yeah.
This idea that reality justblipped.
It's a really, yeah, it's coolstakes that they create with
that.
And I like that they don't juststay focused on who's present
(28:12):
there at the time.
You know, they jump all the wayacross the universe and we go to
some of the brightest minds onEarth who are like, hey, what
the hell just happened?
It has a lot more, I guess, ofan impact when we really explore
like, okay, this is aneverywhere
SPEAKER_03 (28:27):
problem.
Yeah, the stakes are very high.
The culmination of these fourissues, to me, is really the
culmination of the entire storyso far.
We see the stakes being laid outas a problem that could
conceivably have massiveconsequences if the X-Men fail,
(28:49):
as Professor Xavier warned, andthen is backed up ultimately
when the big bad guy here, theEmperor, is semi-successful.
So, I agree.
100% super cool seeing this blipidea, seeing Reed Richards and
Hank Pym talking about how,well, there's nothing we can do.
(29:14):
Hank's next issue.
Oh, well, in either case, we dosee that.
Spoilers, oh my gosh.
Spoilers for issue 108 from thevery beginning.
But to me, it felt...
And again, this is really theculmination of the story.
So it's awesome seeing this highstakes.
The X-Men are important.
And if they don't solve thisproblem, nobody's going to be
(29:36):
able to do it.
This is, to my recollection,really the first time we see the
X-Men outperform theiropponents.
I think since the Animen.
SPEAKER_02 (29:48):
Yeah, because, I mean, Kirok the Damned was a
difficult fight.
The Sentinels, I feel like...
I think this is similar to theSentinels, or maybe this is
maybe a tougher opponent.
Well, they were
SPEAKER_03 (30:01):
ultimately captured by the Sentinels.
Yeah.
So to some degree, they had moreof a challenge with them.
Once they got on the ship,though, they seemed to have an
easier time.
And I think that was mostlybecause they were new, right?
They weren't studied in the sameway that the previous X-Men team
would have been.
This is my headcanon anyways.
SPEAKER_02 (30:22):
And initially it was more of a surprise to when they
did get captured.
So them arriving to the station,they kind of knew what they were
getting into more so.
It's
SPEAKER_03 (30:32):
nice seeing them succeed.
And with this kind of being theend chapter, the penultimate to
this tale, it's nice to see themsucceed in a way that really
kind of shows that there is alevel of teamwork happening here
with them.
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
They did a lot better this fight than I guess I
expected them to, just knowingthat Gladiator is kind of a big
deal.
I felt like it would be a biggerchallenge for them.
But one thing I will say aboutthe action is that there's a lot
of fun elements to it in thisissue, and there's a lot of
creativity.
We have the scene with Kurtusing the image inducer in a
(31:09):
clever way.
We have the whole nonsense withWolverine deciding like oh I'm
gonna knock somebody out or killthem who knows undress them and
then dress myself in his clothesbecause I don't want to fight
naked like he just takes severalminutes to do that it's like
okay
SPEAKER_03 (31:30):
uh that was very very fun so we see gladiator
here and you mentioned that he'spretty prominent and this is
actually the first time we seehim like ever And I think that's
a really important thing to callout here because the Imperial
Guard, for those who areunfamiliar with Marvel Comics,
they play important roles inseveral future stories, many of
(31:53):
which take place in space.
Annihilation comes to mind asbeing an important one.
Other ones I'm thinking ofare...
Hickman's Avengers run where wesee a lot of space shenanigans
take place and the ImperialGuard are like heavily involved
in that and so to see again thisconnection between Jonathan
Hickman and now Chris Claremontand seeing the Imperial Guard
(32:17):
it's this great theme ofcontinuity that continues kind
of like going forward socongratulations to Chris and the
creative team here on creatingall these characters who will
stand the test of time.
And I think really lends itselfto this story that's playing out
being just so important toMarvel storytelling.
(32:40):
We do get some new informationabout Eric the Red.
We learn definitively he is aShi'ar secret agent who is just
on Earth.
I was a little unclear why hedecided to take up the identity
of Eric the Red.
which, and we've talked aboutthis before, was previously
Scott Summers, right?
So
SPEAKER_02 (33:01):
this is, I don't, this is a weird thing because
he's Eric the Red because he isactually Eric the Red.
I don't remember if there's agood explanation for why Cyclops
was Eric the Red.
You know, I mean, at this pointwhen they made this, I'm sure
that they didn't hammer out thedetails and everything, but this
(33:21):
does connect to more moderncomics comics there is more his
name's not chad but like chadthe red emily the red there's a
whole group of these the redpeople eventually the the reds
SPEAKER_03 (33:37):
yeah because eric the red does have a real
identity that is his name's noteric at all it's like devan
devon
SPEAKER_02 (33:48):
shakari yeah i didn't write that down i guess
i'm a little confused about thesituation as well So he assumes
SPEAKER_03 (33:56):
this identity.
No real reason is given.
But we do see this bigexplanation of the big plan,
like super big picture, right?
That he was instructed tobasically take out Charles
Xavier because of his connectionwith Lalandra to prevent the
(34:16):
X-Men and him from basicallygetting in the way of him
capturing Lalandra for the SoulEater, which, oh my god, man.
How many of these things exist?
Like this omnipresent demon-likebeing that are we going to see?
This is like our third or fourthone now.
(34:37):
It's a lot, but I do like his
SPEAKER_02 (34:38):
art, so I'm going to give it a pass.
I'm
SPEAKER_03 (34:41):
going to look it up again.
Yeah, you know what?
The Soul Sucker, or the, sorry,the Soul Drinker is its name,
not the Soul Sucker.
The Soul Drinker looks, it doeslook pretty cool.
Okay, I'll give it a pass.
Amongst the designs that we'reseeing, it's by far the best.
One last fun fact about theImperial Guard.
According to Wikipedia, theoriginal members of the Imperial
Guard were basically inspired orlike were mimicked by DC Comics'
(35:06):
Legion of Superheroes.
The more you know.
The more you know.
We also see Death Stars again,although not the same Death Star
that we saw before and not theDeath Star from Star Wars.
Yeah, I think they just
SPEAKER_02 (35:19):
really like...
that word he's just reallytrying to make it happen like
please guys i promise yousomeday death star is gonna be
like a really big thing he knewhe
SPEAKER_03 (35:33):
was far ahead of his time the only other thing that i
really wanted to talk about waskurt using his powers the way he
did in this issue so we've nowseen him have to explain how his
powers work and here he is justsnagging lalondra and hoping for
the best and i think even makesmention that if lalondra was any
(35:56):
bigger than she was that theyprobably would have died during
the bamf
SPEAKER_02 (36:02):
it's a good thing that they're descendants from
bird people so maybe their bonesare like a little hollow and
it's an easier teleport they
SPEAKER_03 (36:11):
don't have the same bone mass and that makes a big
difference when you'reessentially teleporting from one
place to another So now that wekind of have the stakes, right?
We have this big plan that hasnow been revealed that feels a
lot like Hades' plan fromHercules, right?
Like this.
This is one in a million, yo.
(36:32):
This is only going to happenonce in a million years.
And it's right now.
And the stars are aligning.
And the planets in the universeare all going to be in a line.
And boom, we're going to getthis superpower thing.
situation going on and i'm gonnabecome the god of gods that's
all i could think about when iwas reading it was just like man
i saw this before and herculesalthough this is predates it
(36:55):
significantly but this
SPEAKER_02 (36:57):
inspired hercules you heard it here first
SPEAKER_03 (37:00):
yeah
SPEAKER_02 (37:00):
and now disney now owns marvel it's kind of a full
circle deal
SPEAKER_00 (37:04):
yeah
SPEAKER_03 (37:06):
and uh there you go maybe that was the reason they
were sold to disney That andDeath Star.
They wanted to make sure thatthey maintained it when they
bought Star Wars.
SPEAKER_02 (37:14):
Oh, it's all connected.
We've stumbled into a realconspiracy.
Pull out the pins.
It's conspiracy time.
Alright, so in issue 108, Scottgives his team a recap on what
exactly has been going on.
While they're at the Crystal,the X-Men are confronted by
Jaff, a guardian of the Gateinto Eternity.
(37:35):
He hits Wolverine so hard thathe escapes the gravitational
pull of wherever they are.
He begins beating on the rest ofthe X-Men.
Gene eventually drops a meteoron him, but he's unfazed with
that.
Banshee realizes that Joff mightbe some kind of machine and uses
a point-blank, full-blast sonicscream to scramble his circuits.
(37:57):
This works really well, butafter Joff's defeat, they are
instantly confronted by Mott.
How would we say this?
Mott?
Mud.
That's a tough one, especiallywith headphones on.
I'm pulling it up right now.
Mud.
Mud.
Mud.
Mud.
The second guardian.
This seems like it may continueon for a while, but a star
(38:19):
jammer chucks the emperor intothe crystal, which then causes
everyone to be transportedinside of the crystal.
No more guardians.
A sphere of energy inside of itbegins to show everyone their
worst nightmare.
For Jean, this is death.
but she realizes that she's nolonger afraid of death as she's
already conquered it.
We learn that a neutron galaxywill be freed from the sphere if
(38:44):
nothing is done, which will thenpull all of the universe's mass
down its gravity well untilreality itself is torn apart.
She attempts to fix it and iseventually successful after
anchoring herself to realitywith the help of Storm and
Corsair, who she addresses asMajor Summers and informs that
(39:04):
Scott is his firstborn son.
After the fix, the X-Men returnthrough the gate and are
followed by Lalandra, who hasbeen temporarily exiled to Earth
while the Shi'ar Empire worksout whether or not she's a
traitor or their rightful ruler,as her brother has been driven
incurably insane.
So, I believe you are a big fanof both issues 107 and 108.
SPEAKER_03 (39:29):
I am a fan of it coming from the lens that this
is the culmination of the storyso far.
Everything has been building tothis.
All the meddling by Eric theRat, all the enemies that they
face to this point, it's allbeen building to this moment.
The stakes are as high asthey're going to be.
The universe is blinkinguncontrollably now.
(39:50):
The Avengers don't know what todo.
The Fantastic Four don't knowwhat to do.
And here we have the X-Men beingthe final force between utter
annihilation, as we see on thefront of this book.
I believe it says on the cover,it says Armageddon.
Another word for annihilation.
This cover, by the way, looksawesome.
We see the X-Men basicallydodging the fist of the giant
(40:13):
robot.
which I will henceforth now callit that, as opposed to...
Mod.
Mod.
Mod.
Mod.
It's M-O-D-T for those who areunsure.
If you do know how to pronouncethis, let us know.
It's hard putting thoseconsonants
SPEAKER_02 (40:31):
next to each
SPEAKER_03 (40:32):
other.
Yeah, it's definitely a choice.
We didn't really touch on ittoo, too much, but what are your
thoughts on the Star Jammers?
SPEAKER_02 (40:40):
Um, I think they're...
They're...
kind of a fun inclusion, and Iguess they were teased a little
bit going into it, but there's alot being thrown into these two
issues.
You're absolutely right.
We are
SPEAKER_03 (40:54):
now seeing a bunch of characters that we've never
seen before with no context.
Here they are.
And
SPEAKER_02 (41:01):
there's some fun clues that you can draw up
where, you know, they have kindof like this whole rebellious
thing.
They don't really respect theEmpire, but...
they are trying to save theworld.
I mean, at this point, I don'treally have too much of an
opinion to form about them fromwhat we have.
The one thing I will say is thatI do appreciate the great soap
(41:25):
opera twist that they've decidedto throw in here with Corsair is
Scott Summers' father.
SPEAKER_03 (41:30):
Yeah.
I hope that's something we getto explore, because I actually
have no idea.
Like, I know that Corsair is hisfather, so...
Why?
How?
How did this happen?
I don't know.
SPEAKER_02 (41:44):
Backstory.
We'll get there.
SPEAKER_03 (41:45):
Why is Scott Summers' dad a space pirate?
SPEAKER_02 (41:49):
Why aren't more of us space pirates?
It would be very impractical.
There's not really a lot outthere to pillage.
There's a couple things thatmade issue 107 and 108 not hit
as much fans.
For me, if we were to compare itto, I thought issue 105 was
pretty good.
So one, we keep introducing alot of new elements in this
(42:12):
essentially final chapter ofthis story arc.
And apart from that, issues 107and to a, I think, much greater
extent, issue 108 is very, veryexposition heavy in certain
parts.
Yeah, that's fair.
They're dealing with a lot ofbig, confusing...
concepts where you got to slowdown read it a little closer
(42:35):
just to get a grasp on what itis that they're saying and I
think to a certain extent youknow both of us are probably
fans of things like that sincewe're really appreciative of
some of the different runs thatJonathan Hickman has written but
it's just like a little heavy insome spots
SPEAKER_03 (42:51):
I agree especially as somebody who totally glossed
over the Charles Xavierflashback scene and misconstrued
it as either being a fever dreamof his or worse, somehow the
X-Men were thrust into thisbecause I was very confused why
suddenly we were talking aboutthis.
(43:12):
It was a weird detour.
And this is what I like aboutcoming in where you and I
don't...
I try to not go over your notesin any kind of way.
I really like having just freshconversations about our
opinions.
I never really...
thought too much about it butnow that we've talked about
these four issues it reallyfeels like issue 106 would have
(43:34):
really benefited the overallstory if they took some of these
elements that they were reallykind of jamming into seven and
eight and put it into likeanother book like maybe the star
jammers should have had anintroduction that was dedicated
to one book So that way we knewwho they were rather than them
(43:54):
just showing up at the same timeas them introducing like 15
other characters for the firsttime.
SPEAKER_02 (44:00):
Yeah, I had a very similar thought.
If we dropped 1.06 or take inwhat it's telling down to like a
much shorter piece, that itwould be really cool to expand
this event out a little bit fromthat two issues to three issues
and really give everything alittle bit more room to breathe.
SPEAKER_03 (44:19):
I agree 100%.
And that's to say, I think thatwould have really benefited the
story.
106 aside, as I said, I doreally like the tale, the
overall story that we had here.
This high stakes game, universeending situation that the X-Men
are jumping in and saving.
And this book also gave us a lotof fun moments.
We see Wolverine getting yeetedlike across the world, picking a
(44:44):
fight with Joff.
We have a really cool couple ofpanels of Jean Grey grabbing a
meteor and basically bringing itdown like we've seen Thanos do
in the movies with moons.
So really kind of cool to seethose powers being used in the
way they're using them here.
(45:05):
Same with Kurt using the Banffwith two people for the first
time.
It's just a lot of fun.
I felt like this was just like areally fun comic book story and
the end of this chapter that Ithink had a lot of ups and downs
as we've kind of gone throughthem.
And I'm excited to kind of seewhere the story goes from here
(45:25):
because now we're almoststarting fresh.
We have Charles getting the girlat the end of the story.
We have Phoenix.
And Jean Grey seemingly exitingthis situation, probably more in
control of who she is and herpowers.
We see the X-Men emerging aslike a cohesive team, all really
(45:48):
having strong spots.
And if anybody kind of took abackseat here, it was honestly
Scott.
We see Phoenix get a spotlight.
We see Colossus get a spotlight.
And I guess Storm takes a bit ofa backseat as well, but we do
see her activate this typhoon atone point at the command of
Scott as a means of, I believeit was used as a distraction
(46:11):
alongside Sean Cassidy.
So it's really fun seeing theevolution of the team and them
actually having benefited frommonths now of being together and
having these adventures.
So for me, it was a big successwhen you look at the build-up,
and now this is what wasdelivered on.
But the exposition is veryheavy, and they probably could
(46:34):
have used another issue toreally flush it out without it
feeling overwhelming.
SPEAKER_02 (46:38):
Actually, on that Storm subject, you mentioned her
almost taking somewhat of abackseat, and to a certain
extent, I think that's truebecause this is one of the few
times so far that Storm isn'tthe heavy that takes over the
fight and ends the situation,ends the baddie.
There is a moment actually, it'searly in the fight, I think it
(47:00):
might be issue 107, that Stormactually takes charge a little
bit as like a leader and givesBanshee some direction of like,
you need to do this.
I really appreciated seeingthat, seeing Storm grow a little
bit in terms of she's evolvingto involve herself a little bit
more in that leadership rolethat I think they're really
(47:21):
missing when Scott isn't
SPEAKER_03 (47:23):
there.
Well, it's interesting too thatyou mentioned that because when
you look at the composition ofthis team, right?
We have Scott, we have JeanGrey, we have Storm, and we have
Wolverine.
All of them at one point oranother are essentially the
headmasters of Xavier's schoolor are in some capacity in
(47:44):
charge of an X-Men team.
If you were reading this for thefirst time, as we are, but
without the knowledge of wherethese characters end up today, I
don't know that you'renecessarily going to walk away
thinking Logan is going tobecome the leader of the X-Men
or the headmaster of the school.
He doesn't seem to have thetemperament for it.
(48:05):
Certainly not yet.
But seeing this development withStorm, and we've definitely seen
her take the spotlight at timesthat were incredibly dire, and
she really just steps up as aheavy hitter, as you said.
Which I think is incredible,frankly, because she is like a
standout on this team and reallyhas made me love the character
(48:25):
more than I think I did before.
What are you looking forward toas we kind of move into what
might be the next chapter ofthis run?
SPEAKER_02 (48:37):
So I think it's really exciting that we have
that fresh start feel.
Yeah.
We've been juggling a lot ofdifferent story threads.
There's been a lot of hints andteasers that really led up to
this moment.
But I think at this point, itfeels a lot like we're starting
fresh and going to establish anew thing that we're then going
(48:58):
to build on and build towards.
So I'm really excited to seewhere they take it from this end
of a big arc and where theydecide to start the next one and
where they build it to.
SPEAKER_03 (49:10):
There are certainly a couple of different ways and a
couple of different pieces thatthey can tug on, right?
Like we still have the Phoenixsituation happening.
How is that going to affectJean?
We'll have to wait and see.
We have, I think, like anestablished team dynamic now.
So my hope is really that webegin to see even further growth
(49:30):
and have these relationshipsdevelop further than where they
are now.
My hope is that the infightingof the team is going to take a
backseat at some point.
And we're going to move in adirection where I think Scott is
more of like this commandingleader rather than talking down
to the team.
We've already kind of seen a bitof that growth.
(49:52):
But seeing somebody like Stormor even somebody else on the
team, like even Sean Cassidy hasstepped up in some cases to
really lead the team insituations where they felt
leaderless.
So my hope is that we see thatkind of dynamic continue to play
out.
And I would love to see maybemore of a grounding and build up
(50:14):
into the X-Men's traditionalrogues gallery because I feel
like that's really been missingfor me because a lot of what
we've seen is fresh which isfantastic but I would still like
to kind of see someconfrontation maybe with like I
don't know like the Brotherhoodof Mutants that we might see
Magneto reestablish or we seethe Juggernaut come back with
(50:38):
Black Tom Cassidy and maybesomebody else.
I would like to see thattraditional evil sort of mutant
enter the fray here and moveforward.
Because a lot of the threatsthat we've seen have kind of
been a mixed bag.
And we just had this big spacestory, which I'm assuming we're
(50:58):
going to kind of hang aroundwith for a little bit because La
Landra is on Earth.
Could we see a love trianglebetween her, Charles, and Moira?
SPEAKER_02 (51:08):
I feel like the book is maybe...
Well, no, no, no.
Because the book's shot on thatsituation.
Banshee and Moira are together.
We could see a really intenselove pentagon.
No, it's four.
It's a love square, isn't it?
It's a square, yeah.
Yeah.
Drapozoid.
Let's just throw a few morecharacters in there.
(51:29):
Make it a...
SPEAKER_03 (51:32):
Yeah.
A love hexagon.
But...
It would be fun to kind of seethis soap opera dynamic continue
that we've seen a little bit.
Scott and his father, what'sgoing on there?
But I hope that's like a littlefurther down the road.
Let's take a break from space.
As much as I've really liked theart, and especially these last
(51:53):
two issues, I think John Byrnedid a really nice job with the
art.
And the rest of the creativeteam did an incredible job with
the inking and the coloring.
It made up, in my opinion, formy earlier complaint.
And it brought a lot of color tothe vastness of space.
They had a lot of nice contrastin a couple panels to really
(52:16):
make it pop, especially with thefights with Phoenix.
Like this, these bright yellowsand reds and whites kind of, you
know, when it comes to how sheuses those powers.
And it was fun also to seeingPhoenix again, like this literal
embodiment of the Phoenix appeararound Jean as she's using her
(52:38):
powers within this crystal.
So really, really fun.
I really liked it.
I'm excited to kind of see wherethings go and get kind of a
fresh start.
Yeah, the
SPEAKER_02 (52:48):
whole Beck half of this issue especially just kills
it artistically.
I really like the panel whereit's the whole universe being
sucked into one point and thenit has that flip side where it's
then exploding out and theuniverse is reincarnating,
essentially.
SPEAKER_03 (53:05):
Yeah, it's just...
Really beautiful.
I really even just the design ofthe Phoenix.
There's this panel that I'mlooking at right now where the
Phoenix is spread out in fierywings as like this white ripple
is happening within like thevastness of space.
(53:25):
It's just really cool.
SPEAKER_02 (53:27):
So I think we've done this for the past few
issues or episodes now, butlooking at this panel, these
four as kind of one unit, whatare your overall thoughts?
What's your grade out of out of10?
SPEAKER_03 (53:41):
I think I would put these I really wish I didn't
have to include 106 in this.
But having to take all four, Iwould give this an eight out of
10.
I think issue 106 really draggedit down a bit of the exposition
as well.
But for me, these were like, Apretty solid four issues, minus
(54:03):
106.
But beyond that, I think areally good story.
And it's visually really nice.
So I
SPEAKER_02 (54:10):
think going into this recording, I felt a little
bit more negative about it as awhole.
But in talking through thingswith you, I feel like my...
position on 107 and 108 hasbecome more positive.
106, we're in complete agreementthat it would be a higher score
(54:32):
if we would just remove that.
I'm going to say I'm at a 7.
It's hard because the previousthree issues that we covered
were such a high high for me.
But overall, there's a lot ofreally cool things happening in
this little arc, so we'll gowith 7.
I think that's
SPEAKER_03 (54:51):
very fair.
I'm sitting here...
Looking at three panels rightnow where Jean Grey is
encompassed by the Phoenix andit's just growing bigger and
bigger and bigger in front ofthe entire X-Men.
And it's just great.
I love it so much.
It looks so cool.
I think your seven is very
SPEAKER_02 (55:11):
fair.
That does it for this episode ofUncanny Book Club.
Thanks for listening and we hopeto see you next episode where
we'll discuss issues 109 to 111.
SPEAKER_03 (55:23):
Bye!
SPEAKER_02 (55:25):
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.