August 6, 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 9 we see the X-Men assist Sunfire and save Japan from Moses Magnum. Afterward, the team is on their way back to America when a storm forces them to land in Canada, where they must then battle Alpha Flight to keep Wolverine out of the clutches of the Canadian government.
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_01 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I am Isaac Waderspiel andjoining me today is my co-host
Adam Ward.
Hey, I'm excited to talk withyou.
Horror books, right?
Yep, it's another four-issueepisode, a big one, and we get
to do a little bit of travelingaround.
We get to see Japan, we get tosee Canada, the X-Men are going
(00:30):
places.
I think I messaged you after Iread this book that I was very
triggered seeing that thecapital of Canada was
misspelled.
I know some people might belike, oh, it's not that big of a
deal.
But I mean, it is.
If that was Washingtonmisspelled, that would be a big
deal to people.
Washington, B.C.
That being said, I was veryhappy seeing, for lack of a
(00:54):
better word, a Canadian archere.
It was very fun for me.
So I'm curious to hear what yourthoughts are.
In this podcast, we areexploring Chris Claremont's
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, theX-Men tussled with Sauron, but
(01:17):
Khazar broke it up before thingsgot serious, multiple members of
the team ended up gettingkidnapped, and the remaining
X-Men, led by Wolverine, deviseda plan to infiltrate the city of
the Sun God to see them rescued.
A standoff occurred betweenCyclops and Garak the Petrified
Man, where they both shot eyeblasts at each other, which
(01:39):
ended up destroying his coolcity.
The X-Men were eventually ableto leave, only to be swept up in
a massive storm.
Thankfully, they were alsorescued by a boat that was on
its way back to Japan.
We also got to see a littleglimpse of Xavier's past and his
encounter with Amal Farouk,which ended up leaving Farouk
(02:00):
dead, allegedly.
Professor X also agreed to leaveEarth behind and go to space
with Lalandra.
In this episode, we'll bepicking things up where we left
off with issues 118 to 121.
Issue 118 sees the X-Menarriving to a Japan in flames.
They soon learn that thedisaster is a result of an
(02:22):
earthquake, but they believethat it wasn't from natural
causes.
We have the briefest of detoursto see Xavier and Lalandra in
space, taking one last look atEarth, and then we're back to
the X-Men, who locate Shiro, orSunfire's home.
He wants them arrested inclassic Sunfire fashion, but
(02:42):
Misty Knight intervenes.
Wolverine meets Shiro's cousinMariko, but an earthquake
strikes before he can give herhis real name.
The Mandroids also end upattacking.
The X-Men wrap things up nicely,but a hologram emanates from a
Mandroid armor, revealing thatMoses Magnum, master of the
(03:03):
Magnum Force, is the powerbehind the attacks on Japan.
He gives a 24-hour ultimatum tomake him the absolute ruler of
Japan, or he'll sink the entirenation.
So I feel like things will bemore productive if we talk about
one elephant in the room, andthat is for this issue and the
next few issues, we have tocompletely ignore the fact that
(03:26):
Misty Knight, Cyclops, and Jeanall know each other and are very
familiar with each other, and wejust have to turn that part of
our brains off completely,because apparently they did.
Yeah, I'm glad you said thatbecause I'm reading it and I'm
like, why at no point in time isMisty, at the very least, not
saying, hey, Jean's going to beso happy to hear from you.
(03:49):
She thought you were dead.
She doesn't even know becausethe last time Jean and Misty saw
each other was at the airportand she left and she said
something like, oh, give my bestto Scott.
Oh, I mean, even still, there'sno world in which it doesn't
come up like, oh, hey, I justsaw Jean at the airport.
What makes it worse, honestly,is there is a massive time gap
(04:12):
that happens here.
I think at some point after it'snot even in this issue, it's in
the next one.
But after the conclusion of thisfight with Misty, I think it
says that it's been like 10 daysin the recovery for Sean
Cassidy.
So there is a substantial amountof time where Scott and Misty
are together and it must like Ican't I can't help but think it
(04:36):
would have come up and to thinkthat it didn't.
You're just like really tryingto play into bad storytelling.
Especially since this entiretime she's just watching her
friend Colleen cozy up to Scott.
So there is this panel seeminglyout of the blue where Colleen is
just like, damn, that's ScottSummers.
Damn.
Love that jawline.
(04:56):
And then that's the last we kindof hear from it for I think like
until the next issue where thensuddenly they're like cozying up
on a plane.
Well, he does also save her lifein this issue, or maybe not her
life, but keeps her from beinginjured by debris that's falling
down.
I mean, yeah, this knows howsevere it could have been.
(05:17):
Anyways, it's weird.
It's a weird, like, story threadthat's happening here.
I guess maybe it's playing intothe whole Scott kind of not
really feeling the loss of Jean.
So I think he's convincedhimself at this point that he's
never been in love with her, youknow?
Hard to say.
I do have a little bit ofbackground of, I don't remember
(05:37):
how, but I did learn like at onepoint it was being considered to
make Scott and Colleen the newitem and to like have him move
on.
So I don't know how long thisgoes on, but the whole thing
with Misty being there, I didread that it was essentially
just like an editorial mistakewhere it's kind of shrug your
(05:58):
shoulder.
There's no real explanation forhow this could possibly occur.
Oh, well, whatever.
Looking past it, honestly, Ifelt like there was a lot of
things in this issue and kind oflike all four issues that we're
going to talk about today that Ireally, really like.
One of the first things thatwe've seen in this issue is an
interaction with Nightcrawlerwhere he is bamfing forward as a
(06:21):
sort of scout.
And he talks about how he wasable to do this in like three
jumps.
And he's never...
He's always struggled to dothis.
The training is starting to payoff.
So we're kind of seeing himdevelop these skills and really
becoming an expert at usingthem.
Yeah, I actually have it as anote for the next issue, but it
(06:42):
works here just as well, just tobring up Nightcrawler's power
growth.
Mm-hmm.
I feel like his growth andincrease with his powers is a
lot more apparent than the restof the X-Men.
He's gotten a lot moreimpressive since his debut.
He's got longer range, bettercontrol.
He can take people with him.
He's had a much better evolutionthrough all these training room
(07:05):
sessions.
I'm only going to mention it nowbecause we're specifically
talking about Kurt, but I hadnoted that in the next issue,
probably around the same spotthat you're thinking of where
Kurt is kind of showcasing hispowers, he makes like a comment
about how he could like teleportinto metal if he's not careful.
And it's just like, how would heknow that?
(07:27):
How would he know that he couldteleport into metal?
Like, would you think that?
It's probably happened.
Like he's spliced himself.
Yeah, but wouldn't that be likegame over?
Mm, okay.
Yeah.
(08:02):
It's like in D&D when you usethe teleport spell and you can
teleport into a solid object andyou take a ton of damage, but
then you're outside the object.
Yeah, it's like you're justforcefully pushed from its
presence.
Except he gets stuck.
We saw actually a bit of powergrowth in a way.
I mean, we're going to see Stormflexing her muscles a lot.
(08:25):
Not surprising, I think, at thispoint.
No.
And we also get to see this,speaking of like Storm's powers,
this team up that happens lateron in this issue between Banshee
and Storm where they've figuredout we need to like cool him
down, right?
We need to cool down.
What's his name?
I'm forgetting his name.
(08:46):
For some reason I just want tocall him Mr.
Magnum, but I know that's notright.
Mr.
Magnum does work.
His last name is Magnum.
Okay.
Moses Magnum.
Right.
He uses the Magnum Force.
Which is a new addition.
Do you know who gave him theMagnum Force, by the way?
I went and looked this upbecause I was curious.
I'd never really known of thischaracter before.
(09:06):
I actually also looked this up.
And if I remember correctly, hefell into some sort of machine
and there was some other powersthing going on and he sort of
just obtained it.
Am I close?
What I read is that Apocalypsegave him his power.
Okay, so we read very differentthings.
(09:29):
Well, one of those two thingsmust be true.
That's kind of like the twovariants of supervillains,
right?
Like you either fall insomething and are presumed dead,
but through some miracle becomemore powerful.
Yeah, you come back and you'reall better.
Darth Maul.
Yeah, Darth Maul or, you know,you fall in a vat of something.
(09:50):
Boom.
Electric Eel.
Somehow Moses Magnum returned.
Yeah, he was.
He's back.
He's kind of an establishedvillain.
And that's kind of what I wastrying to get my head wrapped
around is like, is thissomething new that Chris and the
team kind of came up with?
Or is this, you know, somethingthat's preexisted?
It's the latter, obviously.
(10:11):
What did you think of the MagnumForce?
He's whooping the X-Men prettygood with it.
He basically controls the earthand he can punch people really
hard.
Yeah.
I'm a bit confused of likeexactly how his powers work.
At times it kind of seemed toyou as a bit like a, what did
they call them?
Like geomancers.
I think that would be accurate.
Or they can kind of like moldsthe, you know, the earth around
(10:34):
him.
He makes a remark.
I think it's in the next issuewhere they're like trying to
tunnel inside of his base andthat He could literally feel
them through the earth.
Yeah, it was fine.
He's okay.
Yeah.
I don't really have an opiniontoo strongly one way or the
other.
He just felt like a good foilsituation here where we have
like this big bad antagonistwho's coming in and wants to
(10:57):
like claim all of Japan.
Like it's just a very comic booktype villain and I think it fits
here very well.
And obviously we get thisreunion between the x-men and
scott and shiro and and that'splayed out a lot differently
than i thought which is you knowgonna have a full circle moment
at the end of the story and wealso learn that logan speaks
(11:18):
japanese and reads we also getthe introduction of the
mandroids in this issue i don'tthink they're new but they're
new to us they i think havetheir own little box and They
were last seen in the Avengers,which is why Scott Summers has
knowledge of them.
Yeah.
(11:39):
It just kind of felt like a poorman's Sentinel, you know?
Really hideous looking armor.
It is a very weirdly shapedarmor.
Kind of busty.
It kind of looks like if it wasa Transformer, it would
transform into a vacuum.
Look at his helmet.
On his helmet, it's kind ofcurved, right?
(12:01):
And right in the middle of hisforehead, you have what looks
like it could be a suction ventfor a vacuum.
Or a flashlight.
Or a visor.
But then underneath it is thereal eye hole.
It's just a weird design, man.
It's very gold.
It's also blinged out.
It's all gold.
Did you describe it as beingbusty?
(12:22):
Yeah, I did.
Look at it.
Well, I mean, I was askingbecause I can see it.
I know what you're talkingabout.
The first panel where itappears, it just has a giant
chest and a super slim waist.
It's super top-heavy.
It skips leg day and core day.
(12:44):
I wasn't even looking at thispanel, which...
The only thing I really likeabout this panel is actually the
red in the backdrop really is agood contrast with the gold
armor.
And the black.
Yeah, and the black.
Is it really the trees?
If the rest of the panels lookedlike that, maybe it wouldn't
look so bad.
It looks like something very70s.
Yeah.
Very 70s sci-fi.
(13:06):
I could see armor like this inDoctor Who, for example.
It was a different time.
Yeah, it's just campy, whatever.
I didn't really care much forthem.
If I never saw them again, Iwouldn't be upset.
Bad news because they are innext issue.
I meant beyond this, but yes.
Sure, sure.
We have to see them one moretime.
There's a really great sceneinvolving Colossus in this book
(13:32):
and a truck and the truck.
And we're kind of seeingColossus on a bit of like a
hero's journey where he's tryingto, I think, like find himself
in the X-Men.
Like, what is his role?
Seeing his teammates grow andmaster their powers a little bit
better.
And I mean, like, if you'reconstantly around Storm and
she's just kicking everybody'sass, I mean, you're going to
(13:54):
start questioning yourself, youknow?
I would have an inferioritycomplex if I had to hang out
with Storm all the time.
And like, no shade to Storm.
She's...
Awesome.
That's why I would have thecomplex.
She's just too cool.
But it's very clear thatColossus is having a bit of an
existential crisis when it comesto the X-Men and just figuring
(14:15):
out where he belongs and how hecan be a better member of the
team.
Especially when you kind ofthink of the last couple of
issues.
He had the run with Magnetotwice where he kind of really
got his metal buns handed tohim.
It's a tough matchup for him.
And, you know, he got wrungaround by Sauron in the Savage
(14:36):
Land.
And now here we are again, wherehe's having a hard time with the
villain of the week.
So he's trying to find his path.
And we get this really coolscene where he was essentially
earlier in this issue, he wasshot off during this fight with
the Mandroids.
And he basically like crashesinto a road.
(14:56):
And you can see him try to stopthis truck from getting away.
And he just grabs onto the frontbumper and just destroys all the
axles of the truck so it can'tmove.
It's a really cool sequence.
I do like him just popping outof the hole.
Like the little panel with justhis arms sticking out of the
ground.
I think there are a few moremoments with him that we'll be
(15:19):
able to discuss throughout thesefour issues that we're talking.
But there's definitely a fewmore moments that really fits
into this case that you'rebuilding for what Colossus is
going through.
And it does feel like we arebuilding towards something with
him.
But interested in seeing wherethat goes.
Yeah, definitely.
And we're also closing in onChristmas.
(15:39):
That's true.
Not when these issues werereleased necessarily, but
in-universe Christmas.
Yeah, canon Christmas, you know,for the X-Men, not for you and
I.
Although it could be for you andI if we listen to this on
Christmas.
Just find all the differentX-Men Christmas stories and read
them every year.
Here's them getting kidnapped bythe Sentinels.
(16:00):
Here's Moses Magnum.
I'm sure there's a few more.
I hope they save Santa, youknow, like literally an old...
At some point.
An old school comic whereMagneto is...
Trying to ruin Christmas so hegoes to the North Pole and he's
using his magnetism to preventthe sleigh from taking off.
(16:20):
And he holds Santa hostage sothe X-Men have to come and save
him.
Boom.
There you go.
I just wrote it.
Maybe that was the original fivemembers.
Fun fact about Santa, by theway.
Canadian citizen.
Is he?
According to our government, hepays taxes in Canada.
Oh.
That's good that he's payingtaxes.
(16:41):
Well, you know.
Wish he would pay his workers,but...
Wow, you know, elves areimmortal beings, so I don't know
where that falls in labor law.
They probably don't have use formoney in their society.
Sugar is their currency.
Yeah.
That's why you can't have themliving in trees and make
cookies.
Keeper elves.
So I think one of the only otherthings that I wanted to mention,
(17:03):
for a while now, we've beenharping on the X-Men of...
Just please pick up a phone.
You need to get to a phone.
That's literally all you need todo.
Scott Summers got to a phonethis issue.
Yeah, that's right.
And what happens?
Really bad timing.
But I'm glad that we actuallygot to see them do what we were
asking him to do, at the veryleast.
(17:26):
Just try and contact them.
Yeah, all of the numbers aredisconnected, including the one
that goes directly to Cerebro,which I'm not sure how works,
but...
Cerebro is just the world's mostadvanced answering machine.
Maybe it just automatically goeson like speakerphone.
(17:47):
And so somehow they cancommunicate with it.
I like to think that Professor Xis just getting tons of spam
calls constantly throughCerebro.
And he's like, damn it, I'madded on the no call list.
Leave me alone.
That probably didn't exist backthen, though.
I feel like that was a 90s thingbecause I saw it on the news
(18:07):
growing up.
You can add your phone number tothe do not call list.
Otherwise, I feel like a lot ofsetup for what's going to happen
in issue 119 overall.
Yeah, I will say it was very...
I just found it very funny thathe disconnected all the phones.
Like, I...
It's the responsible thing todo.
(18:27):
Now somebody else can get thosenumbers.
Well, I mean, do you think he,like, also cut off the remaining
utilities to his property, youknow?
Cut off his hydro orelectricity, I guess.
That's what other people callit.
I mean, if he's going to be gonefor forever.
Yeah, I would assume the waterand the electricity are cut off.
Who's going to, like, who ownsthe house now?
(18:50):
I mean, he can still own it andjust have it vacant.
But is he ever going to comeback?
Maybe he's just going for anextended space outing and plans
to return at some point.
I mean, if anybody deserves tojust go off into space and live
a life that doesn't involvebeing, you know, targeted by
monstrous robots all the time,then, you know, Xavier might be
(19:12):
at the top of the list.
Maybe less so these days, butback then probably.
It's funny you say that becausehe's about to be starting a
whole big comic story where heis in space.
Probably not targeted by robots,but I don't know what's planned.
Like in modern day?
Yeah.
The new thing that JonathanHickman is putting together, I
(19:33):
think it's Imperial?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so that's going to involveXavier in some way.
Oh.
Because he escaped.
I'm not right up to...
I'm partway through the X-Manhunt storyline, so I don't
really know how he leaves Earthyet.
You are way further ahead than Iam, so I'm still working my way
(19:56):
through the Krakoa stuff.
Oh, by the way, I did startreading Ultimate X-Men.
Oh, yeah?
What'd you think?
It's kind of cute.
I mean, like, it's pretty dark.
in terms of content, but it'salso a little cute.
I really like how it's drawn.
The art style is really nice.
I like that it's the artist andthe writer are the same person,
so it really does have that verymanga feel to it.
(20:21):
You're probably pretty early, Iimagine, right?
I'm a few issues in.
I don't remember what justhappened.
It's Armor and Storm.
Not real Storm, but she has acool name.
I don't remember what it is.
Maestron?
I think it's like a maelstrom.
Maestorm?
Maestorm?
Yeah, something like that.
That's how I read it.
And then they're with the othermutant.
(20:43):
I don't know.
Psylocke?
Is that supposed to be Psylocke?
She has purple hair, so Ithought maybe this is, but...
Yeah, I think it's Psylocke, butwhatever.
I could be wrong.
It's been a hot minute sinceI've read them.
Either way, it's a funreimagining of the space, I
guess.
And it's very different, so it'sfun to do something different.
(21:06):
Issue 119 shows the X-Men in theprocess of invading Moses
Magnum's lair.
We get a little flashback to seehow the planning process went,
and the team eventually tunnelstheir way in, but are attacked
as soon as they emerge.
Magnum smacks Colossus so hardthat he almost flies off the
entire volcanic island.
The team isn't able to stop himbefore he shuts himself away and
(21:30):
begins unleashing hisdestructive power.
Luckily, Banshee realizes thathe might be able to stop the
energy attack and reflect itback at its source.
The standoff results in thedestruction of his volcanic base
and a victory for the X-Men,though it comes at a cost.
As Storm says, she fears Seanmay have burned out his power
(21:53):
and worse.
We learn that Sean spent a fewdays in a coma at Death's store,
but ten days after the incident,he's out and about with one hell
of a sore throat.
And then his team surprises himwith a Christmas party when he
rejoins them.
At the very end of the issue, wesee that Jean spent six weeks in
the Greek Isles, good for her.
(22:15):
and has now joined Moira, Havoc,Polaris, and Jamie Madrox in
Scotland.
They're going to spend a fewdays in Edinburgh before
returning to Myrrh Island.
But on the last page, we seethey'll be returning to
disaster.
Angus MacWherter, the man whoserental boat got wrecked by
(22:36):
Magneto back in X-Men 104,breaks into the research
facility on Myrrh Island, but hehears a voice say, Human, I need
you.
And it says he doesn't even havetime to scream.
We close with Myr Isle.
Christmas Day.
A life ends and a nightmare isborn.
(22:56):
What do you think it is?
I believe this is the last timethat we were there.
There was like a tease of mutantex-escaping or something like
that.
Oh, yes.
Well, he's walking right past.
There is a panel as they areintroducing Angus here.
And he's walking past a doorthat has Mutant X on it.
(23:19):
Does it?
Yeah, it says Mutant X.
I don't know how to read, so Imissed that.
It says Mutant X, no.
Oh, yeah.
Admittance.
Yeah, I see that now.
Yep.
So first, I'm really jazzed thatthey brought Angus back.
He's the highlight of this issuefor me.
And I love to see that he'sback.
Fun fact, this is almost twoyears later.
(23:41):
The Mutant X thing is almost twoyears after we had that initial
tease in terms of like when thatwas written, when this was
written.
Oh my goodness.
It's so hard to think of it thatway, right?
Like reading these the way we'rereading them is totally
different than how people wouldhave consumed this at the time.
And yeah, it's greatstorytelling.
(24:01):
Imagine opening this book and asit's closing, that's the story
that they're teasing.
And you're like, oh my God,Angus is back.
And then you make a note like mesaying, the boat captain
couldn't leave well enoughalone.
No, he was being kind of sassy.
Like, what did he think wasgoing to happen?
Like, I'm just going to go overto this island where all the
(24:21):
mutants that intimidated me frombefore are, perhaps.
And, well, you know, he knewit's an accursed place,
according to him.
It's responsible for thedestruction of his awesome boat.
And even though he was paid infull for his loss, he feels like
he's got to get rid of theisland for the safety of
everyone.
I mean, when a man loses hisboat, it's like losing
(24:45):
something.
Not a boat guy, really.
No.
No, neither am I.
What'd you think of this one?
Overall, pretty good.
I really enjoyed that they setup a big plan and enacted the
plan for this whole infiltrationthing and had a lot of different
elements.
Nightcrawler Bampson scouts itout and then he needs to give
(25:07):
the signal to the people thatare tunneling below the ocean to
be like, all right, here's whereyou come up so that you don't
drown under miles of water orhowever, probably not miles, but
a ton of water.
So I really liked the planningportion of it, especially
because in the tunnel, there wasa certain amount of
(25:28):
realisticness to it with themdealing with the immense heat
from Sunfire's abilities and thelack of oxygen from the fire
just continuing to burn up allthe oxygen.
Do you know what the rationalewas with them both using their
powers?
Was Shiro, in essence, justmelting the existing rock to
(25:51):
secure it in place so itwouldn't collapse?
I think so.
That's what I was reading it as.
Yeah, okay.
It's probably not great.
If they're under the ocean, itcould be very sandy, so he might
be glassing it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
There's probably a whole bunchof science that is involved in
that.
(26:11):
I hope it isn't glass, because Idon't know if that would
withstand the pressure downthere, but whatever.
It's really good glass.
Like I said, there is only asemi-realness to it, and then
there's the comic book half, andit's a beautiful merging of
science and comic book.
For me, this issue, yeah, Iagree.
(26:32):
I liked kind of the plan to getinto the base and them kind of
enacting it.
And we had, I think, just a lotof good personal moments in this
issue to kind of like capstonethe last one.
You know, we've already talkedabout how Nightcrawler was able
to really stretch out his powersand do some different things
with them in this issue and thelast one.
(26:53):
We see Colossus have this cometo moment where he realizes
again that he needs to, I thinkin his words, earn his keep and
that he will just not get tossedaround again.
Like he is, in essence, refusingto be a rag doll anymore.
Yeah, my notes say Colossus isnot happy with his recent
performance and that lack ofconfidence maybe contributes
(27:17):
toward him acting rashly in thenext couple of issues.
UNKNOWN (27:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:22):
Yeah, I would say so.
I think he's going to bethinking with his muscles.
Speaking of Colossus andpersonal moments, he has a
little bit at the end with Stormwhere he's talking about missing
his family and how everyone elseis sort of a loner or doesn't
(27:44):
really have anyone, but he hasanother family and he's really
bummed about it.
SPEAKER_00 (27:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
I think we remarked at the very beginning when we
were introduced to Peter, likehe was the only one that was
coming from a traditional familyunit, right?
He was coming from a place oflove.
He was leaving them behind towork a farm.
So he probably feels some selfguilt that he isn't there
helping them.
And he's been, you know, inspace now in the Savage Lands.
(28:15):
He's been in all these placesthat are hard to believe, right?
So he's probably lonely in a lotof ways.
But we've also seen maybeStorm's just a little bit of a
flirt.
I think it's just like her kindof like ambiguity with how she
kind of interacts withcharacters like Nightcrawler.
Maybe it's just sincerity ratherthan flirtatiousness.
(28:36):
But there seems like they'vebeen kind of teasing something
between Storm and Peter.
I think so.
I don't think there's any...
flirtatiousness from hernecessarily in this issue.
Like the kiss with Nightcrawlerseems very just like sisterly,
right?
Sisterly or very friendlyplatonic thing.
(28:57):
He's very bashful about itthough.
But she is, whether or not sheis interested in Peter, I think
there are definitely momentswhere she does seem flirtatious.
I mean, many characters do,right?
As you just said.
They were all young adults.
And Nightcrawler's face here isjust, it's so funny.
(29:18):
He has like these wide eyesafter getting a peck on the
cheek.
And we also see some lovelymoments where Wolverine steps
away to, you know, speed withMariko again and kind of really
show this, not even sensitiveside, but just, you know, he's
showing just, him being normalhe's interested in this woman
(29:41):
and he can speak the languageand they've had like a couple of
cute moments and he's probablyalso dealing with the loss in
his mind of losing Jean so yeahit's not sensitive necessarily
but definitely his gentle sideAnd we see that a little bit
more, I think, at the start ofnext issue.
But it has been interesting tosee Logan as we'll learn his
(30:06):
name is.
I think that's the first time,right?
I don't know.
Like, did the Guardian call himLogan in that issue?
I don't think so.
I think everyone's only calledhim Wolverine.
And then he tells Mariko hisname is Logan.
Because he made a big deal thathe never got to tell Gene what
(30:28):
his real name was.
So I think Wolverine just likekeeps a lot of fun facts about
him very close to the chest andthen sometimes gets upset at his
teammates for them not knowinganything about him.
Like you can read Japanese.
Of course I can.
You just never asked.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's veryobvious and they've pointed this
(30:49):
out in a lot of ways thatWolverine isn't used to being in
a family.
And we're going to see this playout in this dynamic play out
over the next two issues wherehe was involved in this previous
program is treated like an assetwhere the X-Men treat him like a
family member.
So, you know, the dynamicsreally there.
And I think once you've kind oftraveled and dealt with the
(31:11):
things that you've dealt with,you know, there is a true bond
that's formed here between allthese people.
As is clear with thisinteraction between Storm and
Peter and Storm andNightcrawler, them just having
this Christmas party really kindof shows the family dynamic and
love that's there between them.
One thing that I was excited tosee was that we did get to check
(31:34):
in on Jean.
and haven't just left her as adangling character not in the
comic at all.
So yeah, she's going to be goingto Burr Island.
And at this point, they'veintroduced that place as, I
think, a combination of mutantresearch and a containment
facility.
So I'm interested to see what isshe planning to do, I guess,
(31:59):
with Moira and Havoc, Lorna,Jamie.
What kind of antics are theygetting up to?
Yeah, I'm curious as well, andI'm assuming that's where we're
going to be going after we'redone talking about these four
issues.
Well, we have to see whathappens to Angus, so...
Yeah, too true.
I think it's also important thatwe give Banshee his flowers.
(32:20):
He was the hero of this book.
Without him, Japan is gone.
Japan would be gone, and he didit without hesitation.
He knew that he was the only onewho could really take on Moses,
dealing with some frequencystuff.
matching pitches or something.
Cool nonetheless.
And I think, you know, assomebody who was a little unsure
(32:40):
about Sean's inclusion when westarted reading these books and
maybe had like some preconceivednotions about the character, you
know, just being kind of old,which, you know, was brought.
We do make some jokes at hisexpense, which which has come up
many times.
In fairness, he makes fun ofhimself for it.
But we see him give up whatmakes him powerful.
(33:00):
And I can't imagine that is aneasy thing for him to do.
He has a very selfless momentand should be accordingly
recognized for being the herothat he is.
Yeah, that was one note I waslooking for.
I put it in my overall thoughtsat the very end.
But like you, I appreciate thehigh stakes with Banshee.
(33:20):
And he ends up suffering aserious injury.
And it's not that we necessarilywant to see the character
injured.
But in comics, you don't alwayssee...
Issue 120 begins with AlphaFlight, Canada's superhero team
(33:55):
of Vindicator, Northstar,Shaman, Snowbird, Sasquatch, and
Aurora being assembled.
Shiro bids the X-Men farewell,and somehow manages not to be a
dick to anyone.
Even Wolverine, who is puttingthe moves on his cousin.
Speaking of which, he surprisesMariko with a flower and reveals
(34:16):
that his real name is Logan.
The team flies home, and one ofthe pilots informs Scott that a
storm is forcing them to landearly in Calgary.
The pilot also pointedly noticesthat Scott and Colleen Wing have
been very close since leavingTokyo.
James Hudson, aka Vindicator, iswaiting for them on the tarmac
(34:38):
and says that they're takingback Wolverine.
Sasquatch picks up and throwsthe plane, accidentally
destroying it, which returns usto our theme of the vehicles of
the X-Men getting all blowed up.
Thankfully, Storm manipulatedthe weather to give them cover,
and the X-Men snuck off beforethe plane got thrown.
The team splits up, Nightcrawlerends up being captured by
(35:01):
Northstar and Aurora, andVindicator confronts Storm,
Banshee, and Colleen, but getswrecked by Storm.
Finally, we see Wolverine, who'ssplit off on his own, captured
by Sasquatch.
When Nightcrawler and Wolverinedon't rendezvous, Scott assumes
that they've been taken andsays, We've been ending these
(35:31):
issues on some dramaticone-liners.
Nah, man, it's been like thatsince the beginning.
But still, I mean, Scott Summersis kind of, you know, he's Mr.
Boy Scout or whatever.
He's saying hell.
Pretty big deal since he'susually just calling people Mr.
and Buster.
Well, you know, he's amping upthe red word because the stakes
(35:51):
are high.
Well, I've already complainedabout the Ottawa spelling.
But poor Ottawa.
Yeah, poor Ottawa.
And for the record, that'sO-T-T-A-W-A is the correct
spelling.
But we did meet the PrimeMinister of Canada directing
Guardian, who has a new name nowcalled Vindicator.
Was he called Guardian a fewissues ago?
(36:12):
Pretty sure he was.
I know he was called something.
But you, yeah, it doesn't reallymatter.
But yeah, I prefer, what do theycall a major maple leaf?
The X-Men?
Yeah.
Maybe he should just go withthat one.
But whatever, Vindicator istalking with the prime minister
who is designed to look like theprime minister at the time, who
was Pierre Trudeau, JustinTrudeau's father, the more you
(36:34):
know.
That was kind of fun to see.
There's a bunch of locationsthat we got to see as well.
A couple different spots inAlberta, shots of the
territories.
I thought it was fun getting tosee all these different places
that they were across thecountry.
Not something I get toexperience often.
There's not a whole lot of thismaterial out there that says
(36:55):
spotlighting a Canadiansuperhero team.
So that was fun.
I was a little surprised by thefarewell between Scott and
Shiro.
Well, he has the respect nowthat he's saved the entire
country from sinking into theocean.
Yeah.
Somehow he didn't have that whenhe was on the X-Men team to
begin with, which is fine.
(37:16):
Yeah, I thought it was some nicegrowth between Scott and Shiro.
We got to see a wholesomeWolverine deliver a flower to
Mirko.
And give a big smile.
Yeah, dude, that is creepy.
He looks so happy.
I think Wolverine's very lonely.
Yeah, he just looks like hewants somebody to love him.
I'd give him a big hug.
I think he'd like that.
(37:36):
Secretly.
I hope so.
What did you think of theColleen Scott progression here?
Just chilling on the plane.
It's interesting.
I do like that the pilot justcalls it out as, oh, wow, those
two have been real close.
And again, this is why we didthat big elephant in the room at
the start, because otherwise wecould just spend a whole lot of
time on Misty is on board thisplane.
(37:58):
What is going on?
Thankfully, we've alreadyaddressed it.
Yeah, I don't know.
I want to be like, maybe theytalked.
Maybe Scott's like, oh, no,she's dead.
And Missy's going to be like,no, she's on her way to Greece.
She's in Greece now.
She's not dead.
Dude, I hate it.
I don't like it.
It's very strange.
It's wrinkling my brain becauseit doesn't make sense.
(38:21):
Yeah, especially because they'vebeen around each other for like
two weeks at this point.
It was cool seeing Storm sensethat this storm was unnatural,
that a being was controlling it.
That was pretty much it.
I just thought it was fun seeingthe interaction between Logan
(38:42):
and Alpha Flight.
We got a funny sequence ofBanshee shopping with the ladies
of the group.
Smoking his pipe, as always.
Smoking his pipe.
Can't do that anymore.
He's doing it, though.
I mean, he's doing it here.
This is the 70s.
Oh, yeah.
I thought you were referring tothe doctor telling him that he
shouldn't be doing it.
Oh, yeah.
That, too.
(39:03):
One thing that's fun that Iwanted to bring up with Banshee
is I like the little thing thatthey've done with his speech
bubbles being a dotted lineinstead of a continuous line
just to represent him talkingwith a messed up voice.
Oh, I didn't even notice that.
A fun little thing.
(39:23):
Not super consequential.
Oh, that is pretty cool.
It was really cool seeing himhave that confrontation with
Vindicator.
where he's tried to use hispowers and he basically limped
over in pain.
Yeah, it's interesting to seethis happen against a good guy.
Vindicator is a good guy.
And he just runs up to him andis like, don't worry, we'll get
(39:46):
you a doctor.
Versus if this was a villain,they'd be kicking him on the
ground at this point.
But we don't get there because,and this was my favorite part of
the issue, Storm has a bigconfrontation with James Hudson.
And it looks super cool.
And she destroys the store.
And really, I mean, the way Iput it earlier was that she
(40:09):
wrecks him.
Yeah, she really does wreck him.
At least enough to kind of sendhim fleeing to get the rest of
Alpha Flight.
I really liked how they coloredthese sequences differently.
with these vibrant blues andblacks to really contrast the
white hair and outfit that she'swearing.
I mean, it matches the bootsshe's wearing in here too, but
(40:32):
it's just like a really cool wayto illustrate Storm's powers.
And I feel like it's reallyshowing that there's a ton of
power that's flowing out of her.
She's not using a lot ofrestraint in this moment.
She definitely feels the most intuned with her powers, with the
exception of Cyclops.
In issue 121, we start thingsoff with the X-Men committing a
(40:56):
B&E at the Calgary Stampede, thegreatest outdoor show on Earth.
Storm scouts ahead and locatesthe missing members.
It's an obvious trap, but theX-Men risk it anyway, and they
are confronted by Alpha Flight.
Scott and James begin to argue,but Colossus' paranoia gets the
best of him, and he kicks offthe fight fearing treachery.
(41:19):
Everyone splits off into theirown little battles, and the
snowstorm outside of thestampede ground spirals out of
control.
The storm eventually beginsraining ice shards and gusting
at 200 miles per hour, anescalation so intense that it
halts their battle when theybegin to feel it within the
stampede grounds.
Storm recognizes the large-scaledanger this poses, but is
(41:44):
worried as she's only attemptedto shape a storm this intense
once before.
She flies into the upperatmosphere and is able to
disperse the storm over a widearea, though she's exhausted by
the seemingly hours of effort.
Northstar sucker punches her assoon as she hits the ground and
Cyclops answers with an opticblast.
(42:05):
He means to savagely beatNorthstar, but Wolverine of all
people holds him back and giveshimself up to Alpha Flight and
the Canadian government, whocart him off in an armored car.
The X-Men return to US airspacein a new plane and decide they
should turn around and go backfor their lost teammate, but
Wolverine spins around in hischair dramatically to reveal he
(42:28):
has already escaped.
Fun fact, that's 321 kilometersper hour.
The winds.
Important to know.
I mean, we're in Canada.
We should be using the metricsystem.
I'm just saying.
It's a good system.
And I'm American.
So I think...
(42:48):
Wolverine has really beenanother highlight of these few
issues.
You know, the last time we gotto talk about him taking charge,
this time we get to see somemore sides of him, him being the
voice of reason, him doing thisfun little escape and return
thing.
We got to see his gentler sidewith Mariko and the revelation
(43:11):
that he's apparently very goodat speaking Japanese and spent
time there when he was younger.
It's nice that we're stillreceiving these little
breadcrumbs of information.
A couple of issues ago, I wascomplaining about how we were
not really getting growth fromsome of the other team members.
We were really getting a lot ofgrowth from Storm.
(43:33):
In fact, I think I said this inthe last episode where we saw
Charles Xavier in Egypt and hadthis flashback episode where
where he interacts with Storm.
And we've talked at length abouthow amazing she is and how her
powers keep getting better andbetter and better.
So it's...
And we have to do more of itthis time.
Well, yeah.
I mean, they're still gettingbetter and better.
(43:55):
Because without her, this Stormthat was summoned by Shaman
somehow has taken the mind ofits own, not literally, but is
out of control.
It's no longer...
He couldn't just press, youknow, a theoretical button and
shut it off.
So yeah, Storm's awesome.
But it was great seeing thisprogression with Wolverine in
(44:15):
this book and just getting moreof the character.
I think that's probably been myfavorite thing of these last
four issues in hindsight.
Jumping in here, I wrote down 8out of 10 for the four issues.
Having talked with you, I thinkI would probably make an
amendment to that score.
Interesting.
So what were some otherhighlights for you for issue
121?
(44:36):
Sure.
Sure.
(45:02):
couldn't have thought of abetter way to wrap this up like
maybe the only thing maybe Icould have seen is some sort of
acceptance by Vindicator thatWolverine doesn't want to be
with them and has made a familywith the X-Men and you know
maybe even an exchange of heylike we'll come help you if you
need it sometime or you knowsomething along those lines a
(45:23):
resolution between the two teamssome sort of resolution between
would have been, I think, goodrather than, okay, well, he just
escapes at the end.
And he's surprised he's there.
And nobody noticed him sittingon the plane while they've been
in the air for at least a coupleminutes.
There is a really good panel onthat last page where you can see
(45:44):
Scott comes in and he's like,change, of course.
And right behind his thumb, youcan see Wolverine just in the
background.
Yeah, I see it here, yeah.
That's my biggest issue withthis story ending is just we
didn't get a resolution andwe're just leaving things where
we started, which is Wolverineon the run, essentially, to be
captured another day.
(46:05):
Are they going to come back forround three?
I mean, I would imagine so.
They promised the prime ministerthey were going to have this
handled.
Come on, man.
Like, what are you?
Oh, man, they're going to be introuble, aren't they?
They're going to get a serioustalking to.
A lot of stories will be hadthat day.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, aside from that, I reallylike the interaction between
(46:26):
Banshee and the rest of theteammates and still trying to
like bust into the stampedegrounds to try to help everybody
out.
And as much as I just ragged onthis non-resolution, there was a
lot of growth in Wolverine justkind of accepting like this is
what needs to be done.
And you complimented this aswell as just him taking the
(46:47):
leadership role and making adecision, albeit one that he
knew that his teammates justnever would have done.
Doesn't he also say that fromthe start he always meant to
give himself up, but he was justhaving a lot of fun doing this
little back and forth fightbetween the two squads?
He does say a line.
I have it up here.
He says, house, I would havecalled it quits long ago and
(47:26):
saved everyone a lot of grief.
And then Cyclops is like, you'rean X-Men Wolverine.
Your fights are a fight.
And he says, I appreciate thatboss more than you know, but I
ain't gonna see my friendschewed up on my account.
You want me, Jimmy, I'm yours.
So he doesn't say that hisintention was to give up
necessarily but I think it'smore that in the moment his
(47:50):
common sense escaped him buthe's realized that the only way
out of this is for him tosurrender and escape with
apparently a lot of ease wellthey must not realize just how
strong adamantium is I guessthat must be it was there
anything else that really stuckout to you I think the big thing
is just storm flying up and Imean this is just like another
(48:14):
example of Hey, Storm has solvedour problems again.
She's very strong.
She's our heavy hitter.
She just goes up into the upperatmosphere, is hanging up there
for, the way I read it, probablysome hours.
And then she gets sucker punchedby Northstar, who comes off as
kind of a punk.
I really loved Storm in thisbook, in all four issues,
(48:36):
really.
This could literally be calledStorm.
It's just a Storm fan cast.
Storm in the X-Men is what thisshould really be called.
Even before she fixes the wholeweather thing, she has a fun
moment where she takes off hercloak and wraps up the big owl
in it and just throws it on theground.
And she has a rationale for it,which is the best part, that Her
(49:01):
outfit is specifically made tobe stretchy and extra awesome,
thanks to the Fantastic Four.
So let's use it.
Unstable molecules.
Yeah, unstable molecules.
Thank you, Reed Richards.
So that was really fun to see.
I think for me, in hindsight,talking with you, I think the
(49:22):
character moments of these fourissues are the moments that
really shined.
Mr.
Magnum, like, whatever.
That could have been anybody.
Thank you for returning tocalling him Mr.
Magnum.
I don't think I ever reallyswayed from it, to be honest.
He's fine.
The Mandroids, whatever.
I could care less about eitherof those two things.
For me, it was really aboutcharacter growth, both their
(49:46):
literal physical charactergrowth and how they're using
their powers.
And then the character growththat we're seeing between the
characters themselves, thisacceptance by Peter that he
needs to step up and find hisplace on the team, this gentler
side of Wolverine where he'sexploring his feelings with, you
know, a potential spark withMiriko, even if it's just, you
(50:09):
know, I hope you remember me andwrite me some letters.
And then him ultimatelyrecognizing that in order to end
this fight, it's not to fight tothe death, it's to give up.
So those are all really bighighlights for me, and of
course, standing Storm asnormal.
For me, I would give it, I'mgoing to drop my score down, not
by a ton, but a 7 out of 10.
(50:32):
I was looking at a 6.5 to 7,somewhere in there, out of 10.
I think some of the flaws that Iwas a little bit on the fence
of, having this discussion madethem sing a little bit more
loudly than they were before.
On the other side of things, Ithink you maybe bumped up my
opinion of the issues a littlehigher than where I was sitting.
(50:56):
I do like how you pointed outthese four do have a lot of
those fun, small charactermoments, which really are a
highlight, and the enemies areokay.
The stakes are pretty high.
My only complaint is that theresolution of this feels a lot
like the resolution of...
(51:17):
moses magnum with oh it's gonnaexplode it's gonna do the big
thing someone flies up in theair he's the only person that
can stop it and they stop it andthen the storm situation feels
very similar with oh it's out ofcontrol storm flies up into the
air she's the only one that canstop it and she stops it yeah a
little similar yeah yeah i seeit but i mean also we only have
(51:40):
like five members of this x-menteam one of which doesn't really
have access to his poweranymore, at least at our current
moment due to injury.
So, you know, there's only somany people who can step up and
deal with those situations.
It's more just, I think, theproximity to each other, not
that it's necessarily a badconclusion for either of those
(52:00):
two issues.
If anything, in hindsight, it'sbecome very clear that Charles
Xavier is very good atrecruiting.
He's found some heavy-hitterheroes here between...
Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawlerwith how he's using his powers.
You got really strong mutantplayers that he's been able to
(52:21):
draft to the X-Men.
It's a good combination.
They have a lot of versatilitythat I think maybe the old
original team didn't necessarilyhave.
So I discovered one of thereasons why my notes were long
for this issue.
And it's because I made a littlenote that Scott is cool and
collected until he's pushed overthe edge and then he goes
(52:41):
berserk like a long time agowhen he was beating on Lang and
here with Northstar.
And the reason I bring this upis just that I also recently
finished reading a run ofChampions where the
time-displaced Cyclops was a keymember of And it's very
interesting looking at this andlooking at all of those just
(53:04):
because we're kind of seeing asimilar age.
I mean, he's younger then, butit's very interesting to revisit
him and go through the strugglesthat we're reading about now in
this run, but go through themthrough a more modern lens, I
guess, and just how he'sburdened by responsibility and
(53:25):
completely unable to relax.
And that's why he is the waythat he is.
No, I agree 100%.
Scott is somebody who has beenat the center of immense
pressure.
He's the diamond of the team,right?
He is the last one standing.
He is the one who is burdeninghimself with the pressures of
(53:46):
navigating these situations.
Well, sure, like everybody'schipping in and helping, but
they clearly recognize Scott asthe leader of the team.
It speaks to how unfair his lifehas been to him, that he has had
to find himself in these toughpositions, ultimately, but that
Charles really did him dirty.
(54:07):
And then seemingly, you know,they're going to find out that
Charles is gone.
So now he's left holding the bagof the X-Men.
I am looking forward to seeingwhat that's going to be like.
And I assume, I mean, they don'thave a way to reach...
Charles unless maybe Jean isable to send out some sort of
telepathic communication but Iam interested in seeing what
(54:31):
happens when they all finally gohome see that their dad went out
for pop-tarts and it's gone andlike who's in charge now well as
we know in future x-men storiesthere's going to be many times
when Charles is gone forwhatever reason and Oddly
enough, one of the top threepeople on this team, be it
(54:54):
Wolverine, Storm, or Cyclops,and Jean, will take over and be
the headmaster of the school.
So, yeah, I agree.
I'm curious to kind of see whatthis reunion will be like
between Charles and the otherX-Men.
That does it for this episode ofUncanny Book Club.
Thanks for listening, and wehope to see you next episode,
(55:14):
where we'll discuss issues 122to 124.
Bye! Thanks for tuning in tothis episode of Uncanny Book
Club.
If you enjoyed this podcast,don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review or share with a friend.
Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club.
I am Isaac Waderspiel andjoining me today is my co-host
Adam Ward.
Hey, I'm excited to talk withyou.
Horror books, right?
Yep, it's another four-issueepisode, a big one, and we get
to do a little bit of travelingaround.
We get to see Japan, we get tosee Canada, the X-Men are going
(00:30):
places.
I think I messaged you after Iread this book that I was very
triggered seeing that thecapital of Canada was
misspelled.
I know some people might belike, oh, it's not that big of a
deal.
But I mean, it is.
If that was Washingtonmisspelled, that would be a big
deal to people.
Washington, B.C.
That being said, I was veryhappy seeing, for lack of a
(00:54):
better word, a Canadian archere.
It was very fun for me.
So I'm curious to hear what yourthoughts are.
In this podcast, we areexploring Chris Claremont's
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, theX-Men tussled with Sauron, but
(01:17):
Khazar broke it up before thingsgot serious, multiple members of
the team ended up gettingkidnapped, and the remaining
X-Men, led by Wolverine, deviseda plan to infiltrate the city of
the Sun God to see them rescued.
A standoff occurred betweenCyclops and Garak the Petrified
Man, where they both shot eyeblasts at each other, which
(01:39):
ended up destroying his coolcity.
The X-Men were eventually ableto leave, only to be swept up in
a massive storm.
Thankfully, they were alsorescued by a boat that was on
its way back to Japan.
We also got to see a littleglimpse of Xavier's past and his
encounter with Amal Farouk,which ended up leaving Farouk
(02:00):
dead, allegedly.
Professor X also agreed to leaveEarth behind and go to space
with Lalandra.
In this episode, we'll bepicking things up where we left
off with issues 118 to 121.
Issue 118 sees the X-Menarriving to a Japan in flames.
They soon learn that thedisaster is a result of an
(02:22):
earthquake, but they believethat it wasn't from natural
causes.
We have the briefest of detoursto see Xavier and Lalandra in
space, taking one last look atEarth, and then we're back to
the X-Men, who locate Shiro, orSunfire's home.
He wants them arrested inclassic Sunfire fashion, but
(02:42):
Misty Knight intervenes.
Wolverine meets Shiro's cousinMariko, but an earthquake
strikes before he can give herhis real name.
The Mandroids also end upattacking.
The X-Men wrap things up nicely,but a hologram emanates from a
Mandroid armor, revealing thatMoses Magnum, master of the
(03:03):
Magnum Force, is the powerbehind the attacks on Japan.
He gives a 24-hour ultimatum tomake him the absolute ruler of
Japan, or he'll sink the entirenation.
So I feel like things will bemore productive if we talk about
one elephant in the room, andthat is for this issue and the
next few issues, we have tocompletely ignore the fact that
(03:26):
Misty Knight, Cyclops, and Jeanall know each other and are very
familiar with each other, and wejust have to turn that part of
our brains off completely,because apparently they did.
Yeah, I'm glad you said thatbecause I'm reading it and I'm
like, why at no point in time isMisty, at the very least, not
saying, hey, Jean's going to beso happy to hear from you.
(03:49):
She thought you were dead.
She doesn't even know becausethe last time Jean and Misty saw
each other was at the airportand she left and she said
something like, oh, give my bestto Scott.
Oh, I mean, even still, there'sno world in which it doesn't
come up like, oh, hey, I justsaw Jean at the airport.
What makes it worse, honestly,is there is a massive time gap
(04:12):
that happens here.
I think at some point after it'snot even in this issue, it's in
the next one.
But after the conclusion of thisfight with Misty, I think it
says that it's been like 10 daysin the recovery for Sean
Cassidy.
So there is a substantial amountof time where Scott and Misty
are together and it must like Ican't I can't help but think it
(04:36):
would have come up and to thinkthat it didn't.
You're just like really tryingto play into bad storytelling.
Especially since this entiretime she's just watching her
friend Colleen cozy up to Scott.
So there is this panel seeminglyout of the blue where Colleen is
just like, damn, that's ScottSummers.
Damn.
Love that jawline.
(04:56):
And then that's the last we kindof hear from it for I think like
until the next issue where thensuddenly they're like cozying up
on a plane.
Well, he does also save her lifein this issue, or maybe not her
life, but keeps her from beinginjured by debris that's falling
down.
I mean, yeah, this knows howsevere it could have been.
(05:17):
Anyways, it's weird.
It's a weird, like, story threadthat's happening here.
I guess maybe it's playing intothe whole Scott kind of not
really feeling the loss of Jean.
So I think he's convincedhimself at this point that he's
never been in love with her, youknow?
Hard to say.
I do have a little bit ofbackground of, I don't remember
(05:37):
how, but I did learn like at onepoint it was being considered to
make Scott and Colleen the newitem and to like have him move
on.
So I don't know how long thisgoes on, but the whole thing
with Misty being there, I didread that it was essentially
just like an editorial mistakewhere it's kind of shrug your
(05:58):
shoulder.
There's no real explanation forhow this could possibly occur.
Oh, well, whatever.
Looking past it, honestly, Ifelt like there was a lot of
things in this issue and kind oflike all four issues that we're
going to talk about today that Ireally, really like.
One of the first things thatwe've seen in this issue is an
interaction with Nightcrawlerwhere he is bamfing forward as a
(06:21):
sort of scout.
And he talks about how he wasable to do this in like three
jumps.
And he's never...
He's always struggled to dothis.
The training is starting to payoff.
So we're kind of seeing himdevelop these skills and really
becoming an expert at usingthem.
Yeah, I actually have it as anote for the next issue, but it
(06:42):
works here just as well, just tobring up Nightcrawler's power
growth.
Mm-hmm.
I feel like his growth andincrease with his powers is a
lot more apparent than the restof the X-Men.
He's gotten a lot moreimpressive since his debut.
He's got longer range, bettercontrol.
He can take people with him.
He's had a much better evolutionthrough all these training room
(07:05):
sessions.
I'm only going to mention it nowbecause we're specifically
talking about Kurt, but I hadnoted that in the next issue,
probably around the same spotthat you're thinking of where
Kurt is kind of showcasing hispowers, he makes like a comment
about how he could like teleportinto metal if he's not careful.
And it's just like, how would heknow that?
(07:27):
How would he know that he couldteleport into metal?
Like, would you think that?
It's probably happened.
Like he's spliced himself.
Yeah, but wouldn't that be likegame over?
Mm, okay.
Yeah.
(08:02):
It's like in D&D when you usethe teleport spell and you can
teleport into a solid object andyou take a ton of damage, but
then you're outside the object.
Yeah, it's like you're justforcefully pushed from its
presence.
Except he gets stuck.
We saw actually a bit of powergrowth in a way.
I mean, we're going to see Stormflexing her muscles a lot.
(08:25):
Not surprising, I think, at thispoint.
No.
And we also get to see this,speaking of like Storm's powers,
this team up that happens lateron in this issue between Banshee
and Storm where they've figuredout we need to like cool him
down, right?
We need to cool down.
What's his name?
I'm forgetting his name.
(08:46):
For some reason I just want tocall him Mr.
Magnum, but I know that's notright.
Mr.
Magnum does work.
His last name is Magnum.
Okay.
Moses Magnum.
Right.
He uses the Magnum Force.
Which is a new addition.
Do you know who gave him theMagnum Force, by the way?
I went and looked this upbecause I was curious.
I'd never really known of thischaracter before.
(09:06):
I actually also looked this up.
And if I remember correctly, hefell into some sort of machine
and there was some other powersthing going on and he sort of
just obtained it.
Am I close?
What I read is that Apocalypsegave him his power.
Okay, so we read very differentthings.
(09:29):
Well, one of those two thingsmust be true.
That's kind of like the twovariants of supervillains,
right?
Like you either fall insomething and are presumed dead,
but through some miracle becomemore powerful.
Yeah, you come back and you'reall better.
Darth Maul.
Yeah, Darth Maul or, you know,you fall in a vat of something.
(09:50):
Boom.
Electric Eel.
Somehow Moses Magnum returned.
Yeah, he was.
He's back.
He's kind of an establishedvillain.
And that's kind of what I wastrying to get my head wrapped
around is like, is thissomething new that Chris and the
team kind of came up with?
Or is this, you know, somethingthat's preexisted?
It's the latter, obviously.
(10:11):
What did you think of the MagnumForce?
He's whooping the X-Men prettygood with it.
He basically controls the earthand he can punch people really
hard.
Yeah.
I'm a bit confused of likeexactly how his powers work.
At times it kind of seemed toyou as a bit like a, what did
they call them?
Like geomancers.
I think that would be accurate.
Or they can kind of like moldsthe, you know, the earth around
(10:34):
him.
He makes a remark.
I think it's in the next issuewhere they're like trying to
tunnel inside of his base andthat He could literally feel
them through the earth.
Yeah, it was fine.
He's okay.
Yeah.
I don't really have an opiniontoo strongly one way or the
other.
He just felt like a good foilsituation here where we have
like this big bad antagonistwho's coming in and wants to
(10:57):
like claim all of Japan.
Like it's just a very comic booktype villain and I think it fits
here very well.
And obviously we get thisreunion between the x-men and
scott and shiro and and that'splayed out a lot differently
than i thought which is you knowgonna have a full circle moment
at the end of the story and wealso learn that logan speaks
(11:18):
japanese and reads we also getthe introduction of the
mandroids in this issue i don'tthink they're new but they're
new to us they i think havetheir own little box and They
were last seen in the Avengers,which is why Scott Summers has
knowledge of them.
Yeah.
(11:39):
It just kind of felt like a poorman's Sentinel, you know?
Really hideous looking armor.
It is a very weirdly shapedarmor.
Kind of busty.
It kind of looks like if it wasa Transformer, it would
transform into a vacuum.
Look at his helmet.
On his helmet, it's kind ofcurved, right?
(12:01):
And right in the middle of hisforehead, you have what looks
like it could be a suction ventfor a vacuum.
Or a flashlight.
Or a visor.
But then underneath it is thereal eye hole.
It's just a weird design, man.
It's very gold.
It's also blinged out.
It's all gold.
Did you describe it as beingbusty?
(12:22):
Yeah, I did.
Look at it.
Well, I mean, I was askingbecause I can see it.
I know what you're talkingabout.
The first panel where itappears, it just has a giant
chest and a super slim waist.
It's super top-heavy.
It skips leg day and core day.
(12:44):
I wasn't even looking at thispanel, which...
The only thing I really likeabout this panel is actually the
red in the backdrop really is agood contrast with the gold
armor.
And the black.
Yeah, and the black.
Is it really the trees?
If the rest of the panels lookedlike that, maybe it wouldn't
look so bad.
It looks like something very70s.
Yeah.
Very 70s sci-fi.
(13:06):
I could see armor like this inDoctor Who, for example.
It was a different time.
Yeah, it's just campy, whatever.
I didn't really care much forthem.
If I never saw them again, Iwouldn't be upset.
Bad news because they are innext issue.
I meant beyond this, but yes.
Sure, sure.
We have to see them one moretime.
There's a really great sceneinvolving Colossus in this book
(13:32):
and a truck and the truck.
And we're kind of seeingColossus on a bit of like a
hero's journey where he's tryingto, I think, like find himself
in the X-Men.
Like, what is his role?
Seeing his teammates grow andmaster their powers a little bit
better.
And I mean, like, if you'reconstantly around Storm and
she's just kicking everybody'sass, I mean, you're going to
(13:54):
start questioning yourself, youknow?
I would have an inferioritycomplex if I had to hang out
with Storm all the time.
And like, no shade to Storm.
She's...
Awesome.
That's why I would have thecomplex.
She's just too cool.
But it's very clear thatColossus is having a bit of an
existential crisis when it comesto the X-Men and just figuring
(14:15):
out where he belongs and how hecan be a better member of the
team.
Especially when you kind ofthink of the last couple of
issues.
He had the run with Magnetotwice where he kind of really
got his metal buns handed tohim.
It's a tough matchup for him.
And, you know, he got wrungaround by Sauron in the Savage
(14:36):
Land.
And now here we are again, wherehe's having a hard time with the
villain of the week.
So he's trying to find his path.
And we get this really coolscene where he was essentially
earlier in this issue, he wasshot off during this fight with
the Mandroids.
And he basically like crashesinto a road.
(14:56):
And you can see him try to stopthis truck from getting away.
And he just grabs onto the frontbumper and just destroys all the
axles of the truck so it can'tmove.
It's a really cool sequence.
I do like him just popping outof the hole.
Like the little panel with justhis arms sticking out of the
ground.
I think there are a few moremoments with him that we'll be
(15:19):
able to discuss throughout thesefour issues that we're talking.
But there's definitely a fewmore moments that really fits
into this case that you'rebuilding for what Colossus is
going through.
And it does feel like we arebuilding towards something with
him.
But interested in seeing wherethat goes.
Yeah, definitely.
And we're also closing in onChristmas.
(15:39):
That's true.
Not when these issues werereleased necessarily, but
in-universe Christmas.
Yeah, canon Christmas, you know,for the X-Men, not for you and
I.
Although it could be for you andI if we listen to this on
Christmas.
Just find all the differentX-Men Christmas stories and read
them every year.
Here's them getting kidnapped bythe Sentinels.
(16:00):
Here's Moses Magnum.
I'm sure there's a few more.
I hope they save Santa, youknow, like literally an old...
At some point.
An old school comic whereMagneto is...
Trying to ruin Christmas so hegoes to the North Pole and he's
using his magnetism to preventthe sleigh from taking off.
(16:20):
And he holds Santa hostage sothe X-Men have to come and save
him.
Boom.
There you go.
I just wrote it.
Maybe that was the original fivemembers.
Fun fact about Santa, by theway.
Canadian citizen.
Is he?
According to our government, hepays taxes in Canada.
Oh.
That's good that he's payingtaxes.
(16:41):
Well, you know.
Wish he would pay his workers,but...
Wow, you know, elves areimmortal beings, so I don't know
where that falls in labor law.
They probably don't have use formoney in their society.
Sugar is their currency.
Yeah.
That's why you can't have themliving in trees and make
cookies.
Keeper elves.
So I think one of the only otherthings that I wanted to mention,
(17:03):
for a while now, we've beenharping on the X-Men of...
Just please pick up a phone.
You need to get to a phone.
That's literally all you need todo.
Scott Summers got to a phonethis issue.
Yeah, that's right.
And what happens?
Really bad timing.
But I'm glad that we actuallygot to see them do what we were
asking him to do, at the veryleast.
(17:26):
Just try and contact them.
Yeah, all of the numbers aredisconnected, including the one
that goes directly to Cerebro,which I'm not sure how works,
but...
Cerebro is just the world's mostadvanced answering machine.
Maybe it just automatically goeson like speakerphone.
(17:47):
And so somehow they cancommunicate with it.
I like to think that Professor Xis just getting tons of spam
calls constantly throughCerebro.
And he's like, damn it, I'madded on the no call list.
Leave me alone.
That probably didn't exist backthen, though.
I feel like that was a 90s thingbecause I saw it on the news
(18:07):
growing up.
You can add your phone number tothe do not call list.
Otherwise, I feel like a lot ofsetup for what's going to happen
in issue 119 overall.
Yeah, I will say it was very...
I just found it very funny thathe disconnected all the phones.
Like, I...
It's the responsible thing todo.
(18:27):
Now somebody else can get thosenumbers.
Well, I mean, do you think he,like, also cut off the remaining
utilities to his property, youknow?
Cut off his hydro orelectricity, I guess.
That's what other people callit.
I mean, if he's going to be gonefor forever.
Yeah, I would assume the waterand the electricity are cut off.
Who's going to, like, who ownsthe house now?
(18:50):
I mean, he can still own it andjust have it vacant.
But is he ever going to comeback?
Maybe he's just going for anextended space outing and plans
to return at some point.
I mean, if anybody deserves tojust go off into space and live
a life that doesn't involvebeing, you know, targeted by
monstrous robots all the time,then, you know, Xavier might be
(19:12):
at the top of the list.
Maybe less so these days, butback then probably.
It's funny you say that becausehe's about to be starting a
whole big comic story where heis in space.
Probably not targeted by robots,but I don't know what's planned.
Like in modern day?
Yeah.
The new thing that JonathanHickman is putting together, I
(19:33):
think it's Imperial?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so that's going to involveXavier in some way.
Oh.
Because he escaped.
I'm not right up to...
I'm partway through the X-Manhunt storyline, so I don't
really know how he leaves Earthyet.
You are way further ahead than Iam, so I'm still working my way
(19:56):
through the Krakoa stuff.
Oh, by the way, I did startreading Ultimate X-Men.
Oh, yeah?
What'd you think?
It's kind of cute.
I mean, like, it's pretty dark.
in terms of content, but it'salso a little cute.
I really like how it's drawn.
The art style is really nice.
I like that it's the artist andthe writer are the same person,
so it really does have that verymanga feel to it.
(20:21):
You're probably pretty early, Iimagine, right?
I'm a few issues in.
I don't remember what justhappened.
It's Armor and Storm.
Not real Storm, but she has acool name.
I don't remember what it is.
Maestron?
I think it's like a maelstrom.
Maestorm?
Maestorm?
Yeah, something like that.
That's how I read it.
And then they're with the othermutant.
(20:43):
I don't know.
Psylocke?
Is that supposed to be Psylocke?
She has purple hair, so Ithought maybe this is, but...
Yeah, I think it's Psylocke, butwhatever.
I could be wrong.
It's been a hot minute sinceI've read them.
Either way, it's a funreimagining of the space, I
guess.
And it's very different, so it'sfun to do something different.
(21:06):
Issue 119 shows the X-Men in theprocess of invading Moses
Magnum's lair.
We get a little flashback to seehow the planning process went,
and the team eventually tunnelstheir way in, but are attacked
as soon as they emerge.
Magnum smacks Colossus so hardthat he almost flies off the
entire volcanic island.
The team isn't able to stop himbefore he shuts himself away and
(21:30):
begins unleashing hisdestructive power.
Luckily, Banshee realizes thathe might be able to stop the
energy attack and reflect itback at its source.
The standoff results in thedestruction of his volcanic base
and a victory for the X-Men,though it comes at a cost.
As Storm says, she fears Seanmay have burned out his power
(21:53):
and worse.
We learn that Sean spent a fewdays in a coma at Death's store,
but ten days after the incident,he's out and about with one hell
of a sore throat.
And then his team surprises himwith a Christmas party when he
rejoins them.
At the very end of the issue, wesee that Jean spent six weeks in
the Greek Isles, good for her.
(22:15):
and has now joined Moira, Havoc,Polaris, and Jamie Madrox in
Scotland.
They're going to spend a fewdays in Edinburgh before
returning to Myrrh Island.
But on the last page, we seethey'll be returning to
disaster.
Angus MacWherter, the man whoserental boat got wrecked by
(22:36):
Magneto back in X-Men 104,breaks into the research
facility on Myrrh Island, but hehears a voice say, Human, I need
you.
And it says he doesn't even havetime to scream.
We close with Myr Isle.
Christmas Day.
A life ends and a nightmare isborn.
(22:56):
What do you think it is?
I believe this is the last timethat we were there.
There was like a tease of mutantex-escaping or something like
that.
Oh, yes.
Well, he's walking right past.
There is a panel as they areintroducing Angus here.
And he's walking past a doorthat has Mutant X on it.
(23:19):
Does it?
Yeah, it says Mutant X.
I don't know how to read, so Imissed that.
It says Mutant X, no.
Oh, yeah.
Admittance.
Yeah, I see that now.
Yep.
So first, I'm really jazzed thatthey brought Angus back.
He's the highlight of this issuefor me.
And I love to see that he'sback.
Fun fact, this is almost twoyears later.
(23:41):
The Mutant X thing is almost twoyears after we had that initial
tease in terms of like when thatwas written, when this was
written.
Oh my goodness.
It's so hard to think of it thatway, right?
Like reading these the way we'rereading them is totally
different than how people wouldhave consumed this at the time.
And yeah, it's greatstorytelling.
(24:01):
Imagine opening this book and asit's closing, that's the story
that they're teasing.
And you're like, oh my God,Angus is back.
And then you make a note like mesaying, the boat captain
couldn't leave well enoughalone.
No, he was being kind of sassy.
Like, what did he think wasgoing to happen?
Like, I'm just going to go overto this island where all the
(24:21):
mutants that intimidated me frombefore are, perhaps.
And, well, you know, he knewit's an accursed place,
according to him.
It's responsible for thedestruction of his awesome boat.
And even though he was paid infull for his loss, he feels like
he's got to get rid of theisland for the safety of
everyone.
I mean, when a man loses hisboat, it's like losing
(24:45):
something.
Not a boat guy, really.
No.
No, neither am I.
What'd you think of this one?
Overall, pretty good.
I really enjoyed that they setup a big plan and enacted the
plan for this whole infiltrationthing and had a lot of different
elements.
Nightcrawler Bampson scouts itout and then he needs to give
(25:07):
the signal to the people thatare tunneling below the ocean to
be like, all right, here's whereyou come up so that you don't
drown under miles of water orhowever, probably not miles, but
a ton of water.
So I really liked the planningportion of it, especially
because in the tunnel, there wasa certain amount of
(25:28):
realisticness to it with themdealing with the immense heat
from Sunfire's abilities and thelack of oxygen from the fire
just continuing to burn up allthe oxygen.
Do you know what the rationalewas with them both using their
powers?
Was Shiro, in essence, justmelting the existing rock to
(25:51):
secure it in place so itwouldn't collapse?
I think so.
That's what I was reading it as.
Yeah, okay.
It's probably not great.
If they're under the ocean, itcould be very sandy, so he might
be glassing it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
There's probably a whole bunchof science that is involved in
that.
(26:11):
I hope it isn't glass, because Idon't know if that would
withstand the pressure downthere, but whatever.
It's really good glass.
Like I said, there is only asemi-realness to it, and then
there's the comic book half, andit's a beautiful merging of
science and comic book.
For me, this issue, yeah, Iagree.
(26:32):
I liked kind of the plan to getinto the base and them kind of
enacting it.
And we had, I think, just a lotof good personal moments in this
issue to kind of like capstonethe last one.
You know, we've already talkedabout how Nightcrawler was able
to really stretch out his powersand do some different things
with them in this issue and thelast one.
(26:53):
We see Colossus have this cometo moment where he realizes
again that he needs to, I thinkin his words, earn his keep and
that he will just not get tossedaround again.
Like he is, in essence, refusingto be a rag doll anymore.
Yeah, my notes say Colossus isnot happy with his recent
performance and that lack ofconfidence maybe contributes
(27:17):
toward him acting rashly in thenext couple of issues.
UNKNOWN (27:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:22):
Yeah, I would say so.
I think he's going to bethinking with his muscles.
Speaking of Colossus andpersonal moments, he has a
little bit at the end with Stormwhere he's talking about missing
his family and how everyone elseis sort of a loner or doesn't
(27:44):
really have anyone, but he hasanother family and he's really
bummed about it.
SPEAKER_00 (27:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
I think we remarked at the very beginning when we
were introduced to Peter, likehe was the only one that was
coming from a traditional familyunit, right?
He was coming from a place oflove.
He was leaving them behind towork a farm.
So he probably feels some selfguilt that he isn't there
helping them.
And he's been, you know, inspace now in the Savage Lands.
(28:15):
He's been in all these placesthat are hard to believe, right?
So he's probably lonely in a lotof ways.
But we've also seen maybeStorm's just a little bit of a
flirt.
I think it's just like her kindof like ambiguity with how she
kind of interacts withcharacters like Nightcrawler.
Maybe it's just sincerity ratherthan flirtatiousness.
(28:36):
But there seems like they'vebeen kind of teasing something
between Storm and Peter.
I think so.
I don't think there's any...
flirtatiousness from hernecessarily in this issue.
Like the kiss with Nightcrawlerseems very just like sisterly,
right?
Sisterly or very friendlyplatonic thing.
(28:57):
He's very bashful about itthough.
But she is, whether or not sheis interested in Peter, I think
there are definitely momentswhere she does seem flirtatious.
I mean, many characters do,right?
As you just said.
They were all young adults.
And Nightcrawler's face here isjust, it's so funny.
(29:18):
He has like these wide eyesafter getting a peck on the
cheek.
And we also see some lovelymoments where Wolverine steps
away to, you know, speed withMariko again and kind of really
show this, not even sensitiveside, but just, you know, he's
showing just, him being normalhe's interested in this woman
(29:41):
and he can speak the languageand they've had like a couple of
cute moments and he's probablyalso dealing with the loss in
his mind of losing Jean so yeahit's not sensitive necessarily
but definitely his gentle sideAnd we see that a little bit
more, I think, at the start ofnext issue.
But it has been interesting tosee Logan as we'll learn his
(30:06):
name is.
I think that's the first time,right?
I don't know.
Like, did the Guardian call himLogan in that issue?
I don't think so.
I think everyone's only calledhim Wolverine.
And then he tells Mariko hisname is Logan.
Because he made a big deal thathe never got to tell Gene what
(30:28):
his real name was.
So I think Wolverine just likekeeps a lot of fun facts about
him very close to the chest andthen sometimes gets upset at his
teammates for them not knowinganything about him.
Like you can read Japanese.
Of course I can.
You just never asked.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's veryobvious and they've pointed this
(30:49):
out in a lot of ways thatWolverine isn't used to being in
a family.
And we're going to see this playout in this dynamic play out
over the next two issues wherehe was involved in this previous
program is treated like an assetwhere the X-Men treat him like a
family member.
So, you know, the dynamicsreally there.
And I think once you've kind oftraveled and dealt with the
(31:11):
things that you've dealt with,you know, there is a true bond
that's formed here between allthese people.
As is clear with thisinteraction between Storm and
Peter and Storm andNightcrawler, them just having
this Christmas party really kindof shows the family dynamic and
love that's there between them.
One thing that I was excited tosee was that we did get to check
(31:34):
in on Jean.
and haven't just left her as adangling character not in the
comic at all.
So yeah, she's going to be goingto Burr Island.
And at this point, they'veintroduced that place as, I
think, a combination of mutantresearch and a containment
facility.
So I'm interested to see what isshe planning to do, I guess,
(31:59):
with Moira and Havoc, Lorna,Jamie.
What kind of antics are theygetting up to?
Yeah, I'm curious as well, andI'm assuming that's where we're
going to be going after we'redone talking about these four
issues.
Well, we have to see whathappens to Angus, so...
Yeah, too true.
I think it's also important thatwe give Banshee his flowers.
(32:20):
He was the hero of this book.
Without him, Japan is gone.
Japan would be gone, and he didit without hesitation.
He knew that he was the only onewho could really take on Moses,
dealing with some frequencystuff.
matching pitches or something.
Cool nonetheless.
And I think, you know, assomebody who was a little unsure
(32:40):
about Sean's inclusion when westarted reading these books and
maybe had like some preconceivednotions about the character, you
know, just being kind of old,which, you know, was brought.
We do make some jokes at hisexpense, which which has come up
many times.
In fairness, he makes fun ofhimself for it.
But we see him give up whatmakes him powerful.
(33:00):
And I can't imagine that is aneasy thing for him to do.
He has a very selfless momentand should be accordingly
recognized for being the herothat he is.
Yeah, that was one note I waslooking for.
I put it in my overall thoughtsat the very end.
But like you, I appreciate thehigh stakes with Banshee.
(33:20):
And he ends up suffering aserious injury.
And it's not that we necessarilywant to see the character
injured.
But in comics, you don't alwayssee...
Issue 120 begins with AlphaFlight, Canada's superhero team
(33:55):
of Vindicator, Northstar,Shaman, Snowbird, Sasquatch, and
Aurora being assembled.
Shiro bids the X-Men farewell,and somehow manages not to be a
dick to anyone.
Even Wolverine, who is puttingthe moves on his cousin.
Speaking of which, he surprisesMariko with a flower and reveals
(34:16):
that his real name is Logan.
The team flies home, and one ofthe pilots informs Scott that a
storm is forcing them to landearly in Calgary.
The pilot also pointedly noticesthat Scott and Colleen Wing have
been very close since leavingTokyo.
James Hudson, aka Vindicator, iswaiting for them on the tarmac
(34:38):
and says that they're takingback Wolverine.
Sasquatch picks up and throwsthe plane, accidentally
destroying it, which returns usto our theme of the vehicles of
the X-Men getting all blowed up.
Thankfully, Storm manipulatedthe weather to give them cover,
and the X-Men snuck off beforethe plane got thrown.
The team splits up, Nightcrawlerends up being captured by
(35:01):
Northstar and Aurora, andVindicator confronts Storm,
Banshee, and Colleen, but getswrecked by Storm.
Finally, we see Wolverine, who'ssplit off on his own, captured
by Sasquatch.
When Nightcrawler and Wolverinedon't rendezvous, Scott assumes
that they've been taken andsays, We've been ending these
(35:31):
issues on some dramaticone-liners.
Nah, man, it's been like thatsince the beginning.
But still, I mean, Scott Summersis kind of, you know, he's Mr.
Boy Scout or whatever.
He's saying hell.
Pretty big deal since he'susually just calling people Mr.
and Buster.
Well, you know, he's amping upthe red word because the stakes
(35:51):
are high.
Well, I've already complainedabout the Ottawa spelling.
But poor Ottawa.
Yeah, poor Ottawa.
And for the record, that'sO-T-T-A-W-A is the correct
spelling.
But we did meet the PrimeMinister of Canada directing
Guardian, who has a new name nowcalled Vindicator.
Was he called Guardian a fewissues ago?
(36:12):
Pretty sure he was.
I know he was called something.
But you, yeah, it doesn't reallymatter.
But yeah, I prefer, what do theycall a major maple leaf?
The X-Men?
Yeah.
Maybe he should just go withthat one.
But whatever, Vindicator istalking with the prime minister
who is designed to look like theprime minister at the time, who
was Pierre Trudeau, JustinTrudeau's father, the more you
(36:34):
know.
That was kind of fun to see.
There's a bunch of locationsthat we got to see as well.
A couple different spots inAlberta, shots of the
territories.
I thought it was fun getting tosee all these different places
that they were across thecountry.
Not something I get toexperience often.
There's not a whole lot of thismaterial out there that says
(36:55):
spotlighting a Canadiansuperhero team.
So that was fun.
I was a little surprised by thefarewell between Scott and
Shiro.
Well, he has the respect nowthat he's saved the entire
country from sinking into theocean.
Yeah.
Somehow he didn't have that whenhe was on the X-Men team to
begin with, which is fine.
(37:16):
Yeah, I thought it was some nicegrowth between Scott and Shiro.
We got to see a wholesomeWolverine deliver a flower to
Mirko.
And give a big smile.
Yeah, dude, that is creepy.
He looks so happy.
I think Wolverine's very lonely.
Yeah, he just looks like hewants somebody to love him.
I'd give him a big hug.
I think he'd like that.
(37:36):
Secretly.
I hope so.
What did you think of theColleen Scott progression here?
Just chilling on the plane.
It's interesting.
I do like that the pilot justcalls it out as, oh, wow, those
two have been real close.
And again, this is why we didthat big elephant in the room at
the start, because otherwise wecould just spend a whole lot of
time on Misty is on board thisplane.
(37:58):
What is going on?
Thankfully, we've alreadyaddressed it.
Yeah, I don't know.
I want to be like, maybe theytalked.
Maybe Scott's like, oh, no,she's dead.
And Missy's going to be like,no, she's on her way to Greece.
She's in Greece now.
She's not dead.
Dude, I hate it.
I don't like it.
It's very strange.
It's wrinkling my brain becauseit doesn't make sense.
(38:21):
Yeah, especially because they'vebeen around each other for like
two weeks at this point.
It was cool seeing Storm sensethat this storm was unnatural,
that a being was controlling it.
That was pretty much it.
I just thought it was fun seeingthe interaction between Logan
(38:42):
and Alpha Flight.
We got a funny sequence ofBanshee shopping with the ladies
of the group.
Smoking his pipe, as always.
Smoking his pipe.
Can't do that anymore.
He's doing it, though.
I mean, he's doing it here.
This is the 70s.
Oh, yeah.
I thought you were referring tothe doctor telling him that he
shouldn't be doing it.
Oh, yeah.
That, too.
(39:03):
One thing that's fun that Iwanted to bring up with Banshee
is I like the little thing thatthey've done with his speech
bubbles being a dotted lineinstead of a continuous line
just to represent him talkingwith a messed up voice.
Oh, I didn't even notice that.
A fun little thing.
(39:23):
Not super consequential.
Oh, that is pretty cool.
It was really cool seeing himhave that confrontation with
Vindicator.
where he's tried to use hispowers and he basically limped
over in pain.
Yeah, it's interesting to seethis happen against a good guy.
Vindicator is a good guy.
And he just runs up to him andis like, don't worry, we'll get
(39:46):
you a doctor.
Versus if this was a villain,they'd be kicking him on the
ground at this point.
But we don't get there because,and this was my favorite part of
the issue, Storm has a bigconfrontation with James Hudson.
And it looks super cool.
And she destroys the store.
And really, I mean, the way Iput it earlier was that she
(40:09):
wrecks him.
Yeah, she really does wreck him.
At least enough to kind of sendhim fleeing to get the rest of
Alpha Flight.
I really liked how they coloredthese sequences differently.
with these vibrant blues andblacks to really contrast the
white hair and outfit that she'swearing.
I mean, it matches the bootsshe's wearing in here too, but
(40:32):
it's just like a really cool wayto illustrate Storm's powers.
And I feel like it's reallyshowing that there's a ton of
power that's flowing out of her.
She's not using a lot ofrestraint in this moment.
She definitely feels the most intuned with her powers, with the
exception of Cyclops.
In issue 121, we start thingsoff with the X-Men committing a
(40:56):
B&E at the Calgary Stampede, thegreatest outdoor show on Earth.
Storm scouts ahead and locatesthe missing members.
It's an obvious trap, but theX-Men risk it anyway, and they
are confronted by Alpha Flight.
Scott and James begin to argue,but Colossus' paranoia gets the
best of him, and he kicks offthe fight fearing treachery.
(41:19):
Everyone splits off into theirown little battles, and the
snowstorm outside of thestampede ground spirals out of
control.
The storm eventually beginsraining ice shards and gusting
at 200 miles per hour, anescalation so intense that it
halts their battle when theybegin to feel it within the
stampede grounds.
Storm recognizes the large-scaledanger this poses, but is
(41:44):
worried as she's only attemptedto shape a storm this intense
once before.
She flies into the upperatmosphere and is able to
disperse the storm over a widearea, though she's exhausted by
the seemingly hours of effort.
Northstar sucker punches her assoon as she hits the ground and
Cyclops answers with an opticblast.
(42:05):
He means to savagely beatNorthstar, but Wolverine of all
people holds him back and giveshimself up to Alpha Flight and
the Canadian government, whocart him off in an armored car.
The X-Men return to US airspacein a new plane and decide they
should turn around and go backfor their lost teammate, but
Wolverine spins around in hischair dramatically to reveal he
(42:28):
has already escaped.
Fun fact, that's 321 kilometersper hour.
The winds.
Important to know.
I mean, we're in Canada.
We should be using the metricsystem.
I'm just saying.
It's a good system.
And I'm American.
So I think...
(42:48):
Wolverine has really beenanother highlight of these few
issues.
You know, the last time we gotto talk about him taking charge,
this time we get to see somemore sides of him, him being the
voice of reason, him doing thisfun little escape and return
thing.
We got to see his gentler sidewith Mariko and the revelation
(43:11):
that he's apparently very goodat speaking Japanese and spent
time there when he was younger.
It's nice that we're stillreceiving these little
breadcrumbs of information.
A couple of issues ago, I wascomplaining about how we were
not really getting growth fromsome of the other team members.
We were really getting a lot ofgrowth from Storm.
(43:33):
In fact, I think I said this inthe last episode where we saw
Charles Xavier in Egypt and hadthis flashback episode where
where he interacts with Storm.
And we've talked at length abouthow amazing she is and how her
powers keep getting better andbetter and better.
So it's...
And we have to do more of itthis time.
Well, yeah.
I mean, they're still gettingbetter and better.
(43:55):
Because without her, this Stormthat was summoned by Shaman
somehow has taken the mind ofits own, not literally, but is
out of control.
It's no longer...
He couldn't just press, youknow, a theoretical button and
shut it off.
So yeah, Storm's awesome.
But it was great seeing thisprogression with Wolverine in
(44:15):
this book and just getting moreof the character.
I think that's probably been myfavorite thing of these last
four issues in hindsight.
Jumping in here, I wrote down 8out of 10 for the four issues.
Having talked with you, I thinkI would probably make an
amendment to that score.
Interesting.
So what were some otherhighlights for you for issue
121?
(44:36):
Sure.
Sure.
(45:02):
couldn't have thought of abetter way to wrap this up like
maybe the only thing maybe Icould have seen is some sort of
acceptance by Vindicator thatWolverine doesn't want to be
with them and has made a familywith the X-Men and you know
maybe even an exchange of heylike we'll come help you if you
need it sometime or you knowsomething along those lines a
(45:23):
resolution between the two teamssome sort of resolution between
would have been, I think, goodrather than, okay, well, he just
escapes at the end.
And he's surprised he's there.
And nobody noticed him sittingon the plane while they've been
in the air for at least a coupleminutes.
There is a really good panel onthat last page where you can see
(45:44):
Scott comes in and he's like,change, of course.
And right behind his thumb, youcan see Wolverine just in the
background.
Yeah, I see it here, yeah.
That's my biggest issue withthis story ending is just we
didn't get a resolution andwe're just leaving things where
we started, which is Wolverineon the run, essentially, to be
captured another day.
(46:05):
Are they going to come back forround three?
I mean, I would imagine so.
They promised the prime ministerthey were going to have this
handled.
Come on, man.
Like, what are you?
Oh, man, they're going to be introuble, aren't they?
They're going to get a serioustalking to.
A lot of stories will be hadthat day.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, aside from that, I reallylike the interaction between
(46:26):
Banshee and the rest of theteammates and still trying to
like bust into the stampedegrounds to try to help everybody
out.
And as much as I just ragged onthis non-resolution, there was a
lot of growth in Wolverine justkind of accepting like this is
what needs to be done.
And you complimented this aswell as just him taking the
(46:47):
leadership role and making adecision, albeit one that he
knew that his teammates justnever would have done.
Doesn't he also say that fromthe start he always meant to
give himself up, but he was justhaving a lot of fun doing this
little back and forth fightbetween the two squads?
He does say a line.
I have it up here.
He says, house, I would havecalled it quits long ago and
(47:26):
saved everyone a lot of grief.
And then Cyclops is like, you'rean X-Men Wolverine.
Your fights are a fight.
And he says, I appreciate thatboss more than you know, but I
ain't gonna see my friendschewed up on my account.
You want me, Jimmy, I'm yours.
So he doesn't say that hisintention was to give up
necessarily but I think it'smore that in the moment his
(47:50):
common sense escaped him buthe's realized that the only way
out of this is for him tosurrender and escape with
apparently a lot of ease wellthey must not realize just how
strong adamantium is I guessthat must be it was there
anything else that really stuckout to you I think the big thing
is just storm flying up and Imean this is just like another
(48:14):
example of Hey, Storm has solvedour problems again.
She's very strong.
She's our heavy hitter.
She just goes up into the upperatmosphere, is hanging up there
for, the way I read it, probablysome hours.
And then she gets sucker punchedby Northstar, who comes off as
kind of a punk.
I really loved Storm in thisbook, in all four issues,
(48:36):
really.
This could literally be calledStorm.
It's just a Storm fan cast.
Storm in the X-Men is what thisshould really be called.
Even before she fixes the wholeweather thing, she has a fun
moment where she takes off hercloak and wraps up the big owl
in it and just throws it on theground.
And she has a rationale for it,which is the best part, that Her
(49:01):
outfit is specifically made tobe stretchy and extra awesome,
thanks to the Fantastic Four.
So let's use it.
Unstable molecules.
Yeah, unstable molecules.
Thank you, Reed Richards.
So that was really fun to see.
I think for me, in hindsight,talking with you, I think the
(49:22):
character moments of these fourissues are the moments that
really shined.
Mr.
Magnum, like, whatever.
That could have been anybody.
Thank you for returning tocalling him Mr.
Magnum.
I don't think I ever reallyswayed from it, to be honest.
He's fine.
The Mandroids, whatever.
I could care less about eitherof those two things.
For me, it was really aboutcharacter growth, both their
(49:46):
literal physical charactergrowth and how they're using
their powers.
And then the character growththat we're seeing between the
characters themselves, thisacceptance by Peter that he
needs to step up and find hisplace on the team, this gentler
side of Wolverine where he'sexploring his feelings with, you
know, a potential spark withMiriko, even if it's just, you
(50:09):
know, I hope you remember me andwrite me some letters.
And then him ultimatelyrecognizing that in order to end
this fight, it's not to fight tothe death, it's to give up.
So those are all really bighighlights for me, and of
course, standing Storm asnormal.
For me, I would give it, I'mgoing to drop my score down, not
by a ton, but a 7 out of 10.
(50:32):
I was looking at a 6.5 to 7,somewhere in there, out of 10.
I think some of the flaws that Iwas a little bit on the fence
of, having this discussion madethem sing a little bit more
loudly than they were before.
On the other side of things, Ithink you maybe bumped up my
opinion of the issues a littlehigher than where I was sitting.
(50:56):
I do like how you pointed outthese four do have a lot of
those fun, small charactermoments, which really are a
highlight, and the enemies areokay.
The stakes are pretty high.
My only complaint is that theresolution of this feels a lot
like the resolution of...
(51:17):
moses magnum with oh it's gonnaexplode it's gonna do the big
thing someone flies up in theair he's the only person that
can stop it and they stop it andthen the storm situation feels
very similar with oh it's out ofcontrol storm flies up into the
air she's the only one that canstop it and she stops it yeah a
little similar yeah yeah i seeit but i mean also we only have
(51:40):
like five members of this x-menteam one of which doesn't really
have access to his poweranymore, at least at our current
moment due to injury.
So, you know, there's only somany people who can step up and
deal with those situations.
It's more just, I think, theproximity to each other, not
that it's necessarily a badconclusion for either of those
(52:00):
two issues.
If anything, in hindsight, it'sbecome very clear that Charles
Xavier is very good atrecruiting.
He's found some heavy-hitterheroes here between...
Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawlerwith how he's using his powers.
You got really strong mutantplayers that he's been able to
(52:21):
draft to the X-Men.
It's a good combination.
They have a lot of versatilitythat I think maybe the old
original team didn't necessarilyhave.
So I discovered one of thereasons why my notes were long
for this issue.
And it's because I made a littlenote that Scott is cool and
collected until he's pushed overthe edge and then he goes
(52:41):
berserk like a long time agowhen he was beating on Lang and
here with Northstar.
And the reason I bring this upis just that I also recently
finished reading a run ofChampions where the
time-displaced Cyclops was a keymember of And it's very
interesting looking at this andlooking at all of those just
(53:04):
because we're kind of seeing asimilar age.
I mean, he's younger then, butit's very interesting to revisit
him and go through the strugglesthat we're reading about now in
this run, but go through themthrough a more modern lens, I
guess, and just how he'sburdened by responsibility and
(53:25):
completely unable to relax.
And that's why he is the waythat he is.
No, I agree 100%.
Scott is somebody who has beenat the center of immense
pressure.
He's the diamond of the team,right?
He is the last one standing.
He is the one who is burdeninghimself with the pressures of
(53:46):
navigating these situations.
Well, sure, like everybody'schipping in and helping, but
they clearly recognize Scott asthe leader of the team.
It speaks to how unfair his lifehas been to him, that he has had
to find himself in these toughpositions, ultimately, but that
Charles really did him dirty.
(54:07):
And then seemingly, you know,they're going to find out that
Charles is gone.
So now he's left holding the bagof the X-Men.
I am looking forward to seeingwhat that's going to be like.
And I assume, I mean, they don'thave a way to reach...
Charles unless maybe Jean isable to send out some sort of
telepathic communication but Iam interested in seeing what
(54:31):
happens when they all finally gohome see that their dad went out
for pop-tarts and it's gone andlike who's in charge now well as
we know in future x-men storiesthere's going to be many times
when Charles is gone forwhatever reason and Oddly
enough, one of the top threepeople on this team, be it
(54:54):
Wolverine, Storm, or Cyclops,and Jean, will take over and be
the headmaster of the school.
So, yeah, I agree.
I'm curious to kind of see whatthis reunion will be like
between Charles and the otherX-Men.
That does it for this episode ofUncanny Book Club.
Thanks for listening, and wehope to see you next episode,
(55:14):
where we'll discuss issues 122to 124.
Bye! Thanks for tuning in tothis episode of Uncanny Book
Club.
If you enjoyed this podcast,don't forget to subscribe, leave
a review or share with a friend.
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