Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I'm Isaac Faderspiel and joining me today is my co-host Adam Ward. Hello. Hello, how are you doing today? Good, man. I'm excited to talk about this next set of arcs that we're looking at. I feel like this is like a good, solid few issues that we're going to cover today. Maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, what would you rate it before getting into the meat and potatoes? I would say that we probably jump up to about like a 7. To me, this arc that we're going to talk about is kind of the leading into the next big one, right? Where things, for me anyways, reading it really felt things picked up. All right. Well, in this podcast, we are discussing Chris Claremont's legendary X-Men run as we read through it for the very first time. We hope that you'll join us and read alongside us or just stick around and listen in. Thank you for watching. Their first mission, as well as their ill-fated mission to stop Count Nefaria from letting loose with America's nuclear weapons. While the team was successful, issue 95 ends in the death of Thunderbird. Issue 96 deals with the immediate aftermath of Thunderbird's death. Cyclops is ruminating and in a mix of frustration and grief, he unleashes his optic blast without restraint. He ends up destroying a bunch of trees and this thing called the Cairn The rest of the team is busy training in the danger room, and Wolverine gets a little too aggressive, as Wolverine is known to do. And after Nightcrawler teases him, he maybe almost accidentally kills Nightcrawler. Moira Metagurt shows up. She is an old flame of Professor X and a scientific expert on mutants. She joins the mansion as a housekeeper. a role that she might be a little too qualified for. The demon Kirok escapes the cairn and chases Cyclops back to the mansion. There's a big fight here with Moira even joining in with a machine gun, which is a pretty funny visual. Wolverine thinks he's killed it at one point, but Kurok begins to get back up. The Professor enters its mind when it's weakened and learns how they can defeat the creature. Storm is sent to seal the cairn and destroy the demon at its source. She unleashes a powerful blast that ends up destroying it, and Kurok disappears. In this issue, we also get a B-story showing Colonel Rossi of the U.S. Army inspecting Project Armageddon and its director, Stephen Lang. He threatens to shut down the project, and later on, So Adam, what are your overall thoughts about issue 96? I thought that it was okay. I think I touched last time on the fact that, you know, when we were talking about Krakoa, it was just kind of this big beast. And similarly, that's what we have here, right? We have, in essence, two different stories, but at its roots, really, like at the end of the day, this is a story of Scott Summers, D. And I think unfairly, we see Xavier again, essentially giving Scott a really hard time for a situation he finds himself in, right? So, I mean, Scott Summers is regarded by many as one of the greatest leaders in all of Marvel. And Scott is going through the motions here, right? Like he's coming to terms with the loss of his first teammate. You know, the first of many, really, in his storied career. He is clearly grieving. And Charles is, as we've talked about, has been kind of an asshole. And he says, this is a quote, he isn't letting it show. but he is deeply affected and is brooding, making mistakes. So he's giving him a hard time for grieving, which for anybody who's gone through that process is very difficult and can come in waves, right? Like you can't control when that takes place. So it felt like Scott was wrongfully being prosecuted for feeling his feels, you know? Yeah, I feel like in some of these early issues that we've gone through, the professor has a certain... Yeah, which is, you know, maybe it's the inexperience, right? Like, I'm trying to put into perspective for myself, reading this, you know, this isn't the X-Men that we know today. Right. The X-Men we know today are built off of the stories that Chris told, right? And we see that here, right? When we talked last time about the Krakoa era and how we were witnessing a lot of similarities between what Jonathan Hickman wrote in the Krakoa stories and here right and we see that again today as we discuss you know the the introduction of Moira as you said it was a very funny scene seeing her come out with the machine gun to blast Kurok it was it was very great and as you also mentioned she's way overqualified and it's almost insulting to see her employed as a maid for Charles Xavier, who, as you also mentioned, is a former flame. So he has a romantic connection with this woman, and here he is hiring her to be a maid in his mansion. Speaking of romantic connections, this one's got a little bit of like a meet cute thing going on for Moira and Banshee, Sean Cassidy. I mean, I think it was a one way meet cute. Well, probably. But, you know, it starts with him talking smack about like, oh, the new housekeeper is going to be some like old, ugly, blah, blah, blah. And then he like answers the door and he's like, oh, good heavens. Look. Banshee is constantly surrounded by people who are literally half his age. And four times as pretty as him. Yeah. What did you think of Kirok? I think he's he's fine I mean this issue really to me feels kind of like a cap on the last two with them kind of invading Valhalla and then Thunderbird's death and then this is sort of like kind of the end cap to that storyline transition into kind of what's coming next he feels okay to me as sort of like this one issue villain but I could also see how you know maybe it would be interesting to spend like a few issues with him and expand on what more like I think this issue is like very very brief into like who's this dude what's he trying to do there's not a whole lot just because it's very self-contained but I wouldn't be against the idea of seeing more of him I guess or the idea of him playing a bigger role yeah I agree I think knowing that there are characters in the future especially who kind of float with mutant powers kind of like in this demon space like magic perhaps in the future you know of x-men right like you see I don't know if that happens, but I would imagine it would be reasonable to think. Yep. I'm also unsure about whether or not he's someone that makes a comeback at any point. I think certainly the demon type that they are does, I think, come back and play a factor in magic specifically. I also wanted to talk about Storm because we see Storm again in this story essentially be the finishing blow. And I want to applaud Chris for making Storm this incredibly powerful and interesting character, like from backstory to creation, right? We all know Storm is being awesome today, right? with her Storm powers. But we're now seeing consecutively, in almost every issue we see Storm, she is essentially a powerhouse, which, you know, makes sense. But this is at a time before there was so much lore of the X-Men to really kind of like paint this picture of what's strong, what's not strong. And Storm here, again, is just incredibly strong, being able to get away from this fight and destroy or reseal the Cairn. Absolutely. And while we're on the topic of Storm, this issue does give us a brief look into her past where we can learn a little bit more about who she is and what kind of all brought her here. And one thing that you can infer from this issue is that she has an issue with claustrophobia. This is kind of the first tease that we get at that. We see a flashback of her kind of walking presumably with her parents, skips to the next scene of her, I guess, covered in the rubble of a building that collapsed, and she shouts out, I must be free, once we kind of get a look back at the modern time. I really like kind of the subtle nods to these character features that we are starting to see come through, because this is a team, like, I'm not, maybe you know, but I'm not exactly sure how much involvement Chris had with the giant-sized book that kind of kick-started this team. I would have to imagine some. Right. If he was taking on this next team. Although I think those are X-Men that are specifically credited to the writer, the author and the artist on the book. So if this was just kind of like characters that were given to Chris without very much input, then I think he's doing a really nice job of trying to rod in the backgrounds of these characters and kind of give them interests and fears that are going to play out. Right. And you're right. We are seeing this with storm and we've seen it similarly with other characters even in their kind of like brief intros we got a sense of the type of people that they are we were able to I think glean that Kurt is religious that Colossus has this larger family and comes from kind of like humble roots and is I think kind of like the youthfulness of this book the most naive one maybe and we even saw that when he jumped out of the helicopter right like with this base assumption that you'd probably be fine he doesn't know if he's gonna be but he assumes he is Alright, well, picking things up with issue 97, Professor X is seen plagued by nightmares involving aliens, and he's worried that he's starting to go mad. We see Lorna and Havok are spending some quality time together, and they're ambushed and their minds get taken over. Professor X makes good on his talks of going on vacation, something that he brought up in the last issue, and he ends up taking a flight. Just as he leaves, the mind-controlled Lorna, now going by Polaris, and Havok attempt to destroy the plane. There's a fight between them and the X-Men with Havok popping in and out of his mind control. We learn that Eric the Red is the true villain behind this attempt on Xavier's life. Lorna is taken out by Storm and the three current adversaries flee with Cyclops lining up a shot and deciding not to take it. This ends up rubbing Wolverine the wrong way and the two briefly get physical before Storm stops things from escalating any further. At the very end, we see a single frame continuing last issue's B story and see that Lang is monitoring the X-Men with a tease that the Sentinels will be returning next issue. So, the thing that I found most exciting about this issue, Polaris finally has a name. No more spoilers that I have to worry about. What do you think of her design here? It is... Interesting. I can understand why she kept the name Polaris and I can understand why she didn't keep this design for her current costumes. Yeah, I think I'm definitely more of a fan of the modern day appearance for sure. Purple was definitely, I think, a popular choice for characters at the time. It feels more villainous, which I guess is probably good. The thing around, I guess, maybe like a cowl or what would we call that sort of... It's like a collar. Yeah, it's very large. It is very large. I agree. On this top, of observational occurrences in this book what are your thoughts on Kurt's human form that we see so he has a some sort of like what is it exactly like a transistor believe it's image inducer thank you yes it is referred to that at some point what do you think of his appearance it's very 1970s Actually, it goes back a little further than that. This is actually, I'm going to butcher this. I want to say it's Errol Flynn. It's like a movie star from the early 1900s. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, damn. Was that explained at one point? I don't know if it's directly called out, but it's one of those things, if you look in maybe a trivia or something for the issue, it calls it out as being what's happening. But no, I want to say the name of the actor is Errol Flynn. Yes, you are correct. Yeah, Errol Flynn. I think that is how I would also say this. personal life. His most notable roles included Robin Hood. Well, there you go. Doesn't get more swashbucklery than Robin Hood, really. Speaking of womanizing, him and Peter are both interested in checking out a bunch of ladies at the airport. So maybe this look that he's picked kind of fits out for what he's going for. Very possible. Very possible. It is interesting. I'm currently looking at a page where one of the plane, like the plane crash occurs, where like it looks as though like the plane literally flies through another plane. I don't know if that's what's happened here, but this is right after Polaris attacks Jean Grey. It kind of looks like that. I think what's going on is Havok is destroying other planes as he's trying to aim for that one. It's very strange. If we look at the panel that we're looking at where they mentioned World War III, it's interesting because right after that one, the very next panel, we see the X-Men lying in the rubble of that airplane, essentially, and then Havoc and Polaris are both just kind of chasing after the plane that I believe Xavier's on. So I'm re-looking at this page. So if you see the top panel, the top right has the pilots pointing at Havoc and Polaris. Okay, so you can see that Havoc is letting loose his sound blast. And in the next panel behind the plane, you can see the same kind of pattern, the circular pattern that is clearly the sound wave that's kind of emanating from him. And so I think you are correct. That is debris from other planes caused by the sound wave as Charles Xavier's plane is trying to get away. And then in the next page, we see this larger, almost like a jumbo jet is probably how I would describe it. Looking at this now, this isn't Charles Xavier's plane crashing into this, which is how I viewed it originally. This is actually Kurt hitting Havok, as we see, right? And that beam destroying the plane. This is all starting to make a little bit more sense and less that Charles Xavier's pilots are recklessly moving across this airfield trying to get away. Although reckless to avoid being hit, but not reckless enough to be the ones actually destroying these planes. And you know, they might be. Now that I'm looking at the plane that Charles is on, it is a StarCorp plane. So it's not like he's flying coach or anything on like a regular flight. I'm assuming that this is like a private jet situation. Yeah, you're 100% right. Maybe this is a specially designed plane. I don't know. But what did you think of Eric the Red? So not knowing a lot of what happened in the comics prior to this, I thought his introduction was incredibly confusing. The you're Eric the Red, but you can't be Eric the Red. I was Eric the Red. So that's a quote from Cyclops when we're kind of confronted by like who is the true villain behind what's going on in this issue. I had no idea what that meant and that was incredibly confusing. Yeah, I agree. I did kind of look up a little bit afterwards about Eric the Red. I still don't know that I have garnered enough information to want to talk about it and also to avoid spoilers because I know Eric the Red comes back at some point. I didn't want to spoil anything for myself. I really don't like the design. It's very bizarre. Hey, speaking of that, if you don't like this design, you should look up what Cyclops looked like when he was dressed as Eric the Red, because it's way better. And by way better, I mean it looks like the slutty clothes that I make a starian wear in Baldur's Gate 3. Wow, that is very revealing. It even has like little nipple covers for him. It's such a bizarre choice. The Cyclops Eric the Red costume. I mean, it's not far off from the Eric the Red we see in the book. Although the one we see in this book has full pants for one. Not this with the booty shorts going on in the nipple covers. Well, Scott Summers has great legs. I don't deny that. You gotta show them off. Don't deny that. Yeah, I kind of like, again, if this feels a little thrown in, though I suspect we'll have some sort of payoff in the future. But right now it just kind of feels like, oh, all right, Eric, the red, you're here and then you're gone. Very shortly after, again because of Storm, overpowering Polaris. Yeah, it is a little odd as kind of like looking at it as just like a one issue and then even a lot of what's shown in this issue isn't really resolved or continued in the next one. But I think we're going to start to see things like that pop up a lot where we're getting, you know, a storyline and then... Maybe it's that next issue, a couple issues down the line, a few issues we might see it continuing on and getting picked up again. The other thing I just wanted to quickly touch on, as somebody who's been pretty defensive of Scott Summers to this point, we see him very harshly last shown at Wolverine after Wolverine, I think very fairly pointed out that he should have fired at his brother and at Polaris and Eric the Red, especially given the fact that Cyclops very clearly has some sort of self-control, right? He has talked about how he can let his I-beam go at full power or that there's a power range of some kind so he is hesitant because he doesn't want to kill his brother right fair enough but wolverine very obviously tells him you need to like hit them you gotta knock them down and very cyclops acts not like himself up to this point he gets a little cheated and tells logan that he will kill him yeah i mean i feel like at this point we're still very near thunderbird's death and we are probably still seeing him kind of still not in maybe like his back to his baseline as far as frame of mind he is still like reeling over that and upset with that it is a pretty big overreaction especially since if he were to sort of take that shot in this very I guess cliche action movie thing where they've set up where it's like take the shot take the shot and then they fire the gun in the air yes yeah I feel like he could take the shot and then storm could catch their friends but again you know don't think too deeply on it kind of a situation I think but Wolverine's pretty harsh with him I mean he calls him gutless that's that's a pretty big deal in the 70s yeah sure yeah that's that's fair and I also mistakenly I went and looked while you were saying that he does not threaten to go Wolverine but we will see things unfold over the next couple of issues where that will change not necessarily towards Wolverine but we will see Scott become lost in himself again and lose control of his anger I think the tease that we get here at the end of the book to me is what I have been waiting for this looming figure of something thing coming. And the Sentinels represent the boogeyman for mutants, right? They are the epitome of everything that hates them. So we get this tease of what's to come. And I'm very excited. Very, very excited. It is always fun to see a classic villain show up. And I believe this would be kind of our first look at someone that is sort of that classic villain of, you know, they've been in the issues before this, and then they've had like a staying power over the last 50 years. 100%. And Lang is interesting because he becomes this sticking foil for the X-Men, as you kind of alluded to. And I think this team has needed something to kind of bring them back into the X-Men universe that has kind of been established to this point and because when you see the X-Men walk away right like we see the original X-Men walk away and during that time it's it's strange to me that they would walk away into a world that is going to hate them the way that they are right and each one of them can blend in with society fairly well so that's not an impossible thing to do but even up to this point we haven't really seen a ton of music mutant hate with these new X-Men, right? We've seen a bit of it with Count Nefarious, but he was just kind of a prick to begin with. It wasn't, it's not the same as this. This is, Lang is literally somebody who hates mutants, right? He hates everything that they represent. And the X-Men were built to represent that sort of real life hate that can happen. And that's, this kind of brings us back to the core of what the X-Men are. were kind of built around. So I'm very excited. Can I ask you a weird random question? On the very last page of this issue, whose arm is that? So we see Stephen laying over a control board and looking at a monitor of the X-Men at the airport. But then we also have like this scene directly behind him where it looks like, is that somebody else looking at laying on a monitor? Or what's happening here? It kind of looks that way. That's not something that I picked up on my first time reading this. I did find it odd. And now that you've pointed it out, I can't not see it. I'm just trying to quickly look at the yellow paneling to see if it gives any indication of what we're kind of seeing here like we see this kind of like prologue of Cyclops walking away I do like that there's a little shot of a sentinel leg oh yeah there is do yeah and the horror of that day will be that they'll kill without ever knowing the reason why that they won't be men at all merely puppets dancing on a string Well, there we go. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe it is related. I'm not entirely sure. It almost looks a bit like a spider. It does kind of look like that, but it's definitely not. I don't think anyways. Where was Peter Parker when this issue came out? Where's Get Me Spider-Man? It would have been funny if Spider-Man was on the next cover, but not the case. If only. If only. But we do get this really cool shot of the Sentinels on top of a building. Again, with the Sentinels are back, enough said. Which, again, I think that's very warranted and, again, just roots them back down into X-Men lore, really. What did you kind of think of this? This is a bit of the capstone of the setup, I guess, is probably the best way of thinking it as we do get quite the escalation, right? Yeah, I think looking at these three issues, 97 is for me more of kind of like a low point. 96 is sort of that end cap on like an earlier situation. I feel like 98 is a really exciting issue and there ends up kind of being a lot to unpack from it. Yeah, I think of all three stories, I had the most to discuss with this issue. So why don't you tee us up? So in issue 98, it's Christmas time in the Marvel Universe and the X-Men are out for some quality time in Manhattan. Scott and Jean eventually split off, as does Banshee and Moira, who are now dating as well. Everyone is sort of quickly interrupted, though, because, as the cover of this issue let us know about, the Sentinels are back. Cyclops and Jean Grey take on the first batch, but eventually Jean is kidnapped. Banshee and Wolverine are seen rushing off to do battle, and Storm ends up saving Cyclops from a deadly fall before fouling another Sentinel with her winds. We learn that Wolverine and Banshee were also taken taken by the Sentinels. Things then cut over to Professor X's vacation with Dr. Peter Korbo, director of the UN's Project StarCorp, where the two of them are fishing on a yacht. A Sentinel attack occurs there as well, leading to the destruction of the boat and Professor X also being taken. We see the X-Men restrained and with a bunch of science stuff attached to them. Dr. Lang gloats and smacks Jean after the two of them have a bit of a tiff. This ends up enraging Wolverine, who breaks free and begins attacking the Project Armageddon thugs. The X-Men fight their way free, but after they break through some walls, we get a shot of Banshee's shocked face. Dr. Corbo finds the remaining X-Men at the mansion, and between all of them, it's deduced that the kidnapped X-Men were taken into space. Yeah, and space looks awesome in these books. It looks so good. Even as we saw at the beginning of the last issue, right, with Charles kind of like looking out, having these I mean, I interpreted it like they were starships. It just looked awesome. I love the way that they depict space in these books. We'll save that conversation for later. What are your thoughts on, like, given that this is the first time we're seeing Sentinels, what are your general thoughts on how they look? There's something really, I don't know what it is. The Sentinels look really good. To me, they don't seem very dated. There's something very timeless about this design, which I think is not necessarily their first design. this is at some point there was a redesign I always sort of just like cringe thinking about what we got for like the X-Men movies for Sentinels they just don't look like good and right to me like this is very close to what ends up being in the cartoon that was in the 90s and isn't that far off from how the Sentinels look today I definitely have you know we talked about in our last episode about how I think the X-Men cartoon it for us anyways is like a very specific moment in time that we associate with the x-men and so my first exposure to the sentinels was a hundred percent in that show and seeing them depicted here like i know exactly what this is there is something very unsettling about their appearance it's this maybe it's their eyes like this dark they just have like the dark eyes dead cold yeah the dead cold eyes i can see how they would strike fear and mutant kind i mean hell in humans you don't even need to be a mutant to be afraid of these things they are intimidating dating one observation I had when we see this battle taking place between the X-Men and the Sentinels Scott uses his eye blast through his sunglasses and I don't know that I've ever seen that before because aren't they in practice essentially a shield for his eyes so if you look at that panel it's almost it's more his glasses have like a flip up the ruby quartz lens flips up oh you're totally right that's how his vice works too where it's just like an up and down door that moves on him so he can like crack them open and have a small blast or he can open open them and have more come out thank you thank you for pointing that out it was bothering me when i was reading it thinking what the hell is this it's really easy to miss especially because it's shown a few panels back first where it's very easy to see like oh his themes are coming out of his sunglasses it looks weird though it does look weird but that's kind of all that's all flip up lenses i Sorry to the flip up lens gang out there. He needs those transitions for himself. So we see Scott kind of take care of a couple of these. You mentioned Storm gets in on the action as well. And no surprise, Team Storm. I love that we finally get to see Xavier on vacation. Number one, has long talked about vacation because he's stressed out. And when they are attacked by the Sentinels, he uses his Mind Blast, as it is described in the panel, on the Sentinel and it seemed to work. Do you know if there is an in-lore reason why Mind Blasts work on a robot? So this is something Something that I looked up a little bit. Apparently it's one of those comic inconsistencies where sometimes Professor X can mind blast the Sentinel, sometimes he can't. Okay, the rule of cool. Yeah, essentially they're just ruling rule of cool, but when I read this I was like, what is going on? I'm glad that I wasn't crazy in thinking this. I thought it was very bizarre, frankly speaking. You mentioned the tit for tat that Jean has with Lange. I wrote down a very specific quote that she references. Where's your swastika, Lange? You don't look dressed without it. I think I laughed so hard reading it because I was not expecting it. And it really, I think, paints the picture, as I was previously talking about how Lange represents pure evil, right? Pure hatred. And so her making that comment like really sets the scene a lot without having to have a lot of exposition around why he hates mutants. It's also a lot of these old issues have sort of a it's 50 years ago, like everybody's calling each other like Mr. Buster, things like that. I mean, that sounds like something that you could throw in a comic today and that reads normal to me. Like, that's just like kind of a good insult. Yeah, I mean, considering this would have come out in the 1970s, with that in mind, to have that kind of that picture painted of a character is very telling, right? That would paint a very specific person in people's minds as it should today. But in the 1970s, you're a lot closer to the Second World War. And that image, of a nazi is i think very fresh in their minds reading it now i mean i know exactly what i'm thinking about good on chris i think it was such a clever comeback and i think really paints gene as a very clever character yeah both like mentally and with wit and kind of speaking of that situation uh we see wolverine pair out in anger after he sees gene is essentially slapped it's interesting to me and especially in the context that at the start of this issue it's mentioned that the x-men have been together for almost a full year at this point it's interesting to me that nobody knew that wolverine's claws were part of him and not like his costume i think that also still speaks a lot to who wolverine is he's a loner he's very guarded and isn't one to just like share all these things about him do they even know that he has a healing factor i'm not sure i don't even think that's been discussed yet really if i'm not mistaken but We do see, again, like this really cool action sequence on the space station with all these sentinels. It really kind of creates an image of how vast this space station must be, right? To have these sentinels, which are at least 15 feet high, maybe more, you know, like they're huge. Somewhere between 15 and 30, depending on how it's drawn. Yeah, 100%. So you have this really cool fight that happens on the space station. Cassidy blasting through the hull of this space station. into space as the X-Men are trying to figure out, well, they're not anywhere on Earth. Where could they be? Oh, they're in space. There they are. I think a very fun way of ending the issue and kind of like these three books and I think sets such a great foundation for the next set where we get the continuation of the story, which is, you know, I'm hooked, right? Like after reading this, I'm ready, man. I've been waiting for this. Like I've been waiting for the Chris Claremont storytelling that has made this run so important to people and this is like I'm so I'm so jazzed I'm so jazzed 100% I think this this issue and like kind of the next few really sort of pick up the pace a lot yeah and I mean it starts to make sense right like you have an X-Men team that's a year now under their belts it paints this picture of a family unit more so than you know we've had just one or two adventures you know there's this suspension of belief that you have to have when you read these kinds of books of you know there are things happening that we don't see right like there was a narrative taking place over a course of time you as a reader have to buy into the idea that the x-men are going on adventures that we don't see right like they maybe they're not super big but there are things happening in the world and especially in a book like this where you have like a large time gap right that kind of takes place over the course of the books because literally last issue like i'm sorry not last issue but last episode they were just formed right so like we're only like seven books into this run and And here we've now established a year under their belts. It really paints a picture of a team that's coming together and makes a lot of the interactions that we're going to see in the coming issues all that more important. So there's one more Wolverine thing that I wanted to mention before we move on from that. Did you notice when they're captive and they're doing all the science stuff on them that they make a comment about him having like a unique nature or he's not like reading is like a mutant at first? Yes, yes. So I don't I don't know if You're aware of this. I did a little bit of internet research because I was curious about that. Apparently, Wolverine was originally planned to be an actual real-life Wolverine animal that was morphed into a man by the high evolutionary, but they ended up dropping that storyline. Stop. Okay, hold on. A literal Wolverine turned to man? Like a reverse werewolf? Yes. Well, I mean, the High Evolutionary does a lot of weird man-animal hybrid situations, but he was supposed to be like, hey, we'll turn a wolverine into a human and see what happens kind of a situation, I guess. Thank goodness they scrapped that. What a terrible idea. Yeah, his real origin is a little bit cooler. Yeah, way cooler. Yeah, the line here says, quote, I don't know, sir. Is this Wolverine a mutant? His readings are nothing like the others. But mutant or no, whatever the Wolverine is, he isn't human. And then he brags about his chrome alloy shackles that are unbreakable. And then instantly broken. Yeah, yeah. Within a couple of seconds, Wolverine just cuts them off and that's that. And then we see this mass exodus of people. The only other thing I wanted to bring up with this issue in particular, I don't know how many of like the weird cameos that you caught in this one. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, maybe. Like I do recall seeing Beast at one point, maybe. Am I crazy? I don't think Beast, but there's the panel when Gene and Scott kiss. You have Jack Kirby and Stan Lee having a discussion about like, what are they doing? They didn't do this when we had the book. And then I think at the very first page, actually, They're by the ice skating rink. Dr. Doom is ice skating. Wait, that's supposed to be Stanley. He looks like Dr. Strange. A little bit. But yeah, so then in addition to Jack Kirby, Stanley, and Dr. Doom, apparently, I forget which panel it is, but Lois Lane and Clark Kent are also... Featured in this comic. On the first page, there's also, in the bottom right-hand corner, a Nick Fury. Oh, there he is. Wait, Lois and Superman? Okay, hold on. Lois and Super... Oh, you know what? I think I found them. It is on page two, in the top right-hand panel. in the bottom left-hand corner. Oh, there they are. It's the Where's Waldo of X-Men. Interesting. I mean, I don't know. It's weird, but whatever. I guess it's fine. Fun little trivia. So what were your overall... Okay, now that we've kind of discussed the three books, do you stick with your seven? Is that what you would still put this trilogy at? I think so, but this issue I would also say is far and away kind of above the other two that we talked about today. Like this one... There's just like so much that happens so much to kind of like talk about. It's just like a lot of really good setup for where things are now going. And I guess to me, this is the one where it like really feels like the X-Men versus this is a comic book. Now it like feels distinctly X-Men. Sure. Yeah. I think for me, I agree with a lot of what you said. Particularly, this is like really kind of showing us an X-Men team that is developing into itself. And we've now moved away from them just being this new iteration, right? Like they are the X-Men. They aren't just people who have been in an issue or two. However, I do feel like there was a lot of time spent on stories that as of right now, don't necessarily feel all that impactful. And like, that's a pacing thing, right? Like pacing is important. You want to kind of draw the stories out. So I'm not going to hold it too hard against them, but between the two former stories here, the first two, it just kind of just felt meh. And for that reason, you know, when we went for all the things that we talked about, the random demon, we have Eric, the red demon, popping in with no context and popping out just as fast. And those two things to me just were not great. But we end on a super strong note and that to me balances it all out, all of it. So I would put this at six and a half. That's fair. I think one of the things that I guess I like, like even looking back at like the first one we discussed, is that we're getting more information about who these people are, where we get sort of the flashback with Storm. And then if we look at issues 97 and 98, I like that we're kind of continuing to be teased by this mystery of Professor X's having these nightmares involving aliens that are just like shutting him down and he's going through significant worry about what he's seeing. building to things, I guess. I agree. And not just sticking to like a monster of the week situation. There's certainly a way to do that, right? I think the Fantastic Four is so successful in a lot of their storytelling because they kind of have like an episodic feel. So you can pop in and kind of get this fresh adventure every time. But I agree. Like this, for me as a modern day comic book reader, I like having narrative. I like having an overarching story. And I like a payoff. So to have these kind of threads start. And again, like I understand it's a pacing thing. I'm not like discrediting that this isn't going somewhere, right? Like I alluded to, I think the Eric the Red stuff will lead somewhere. You know, we're immediately going to have the consequences of this interaction with Lang. So I know the wheels are in motion and that really has me excited. And even you pointing out what I was interpreting, reading that panel of what looks to be another being watching Lang, watching the X-Men has me excited for what that could be because it's such a subtle reference. that it's like a blink in your midst, you know? It's people listening to us watching someone watching Lane watching the X-Men. Yeah, it's like that movie. Oh, God. You know the one. Yeah, you know the one. Let's just leave it at that. They're watching them, you know? Well, that does it for this episode of Uncanny Book Club. Thank you for joining us for Issues 96 through 98, and we hope to see you next time, where we'll be discussing Issues 99 through 101. Bye! If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share with a friend.

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