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Hello everyone and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I'm Isaac Baderspiel and joining me as always is my co-host Adam Ward. Hey everyone. This is, I have to say man, this is like the most comic book comic book I think we've read yet. Things do get pretty comic book-y in this three issue ensemble. It's everything that I would want in a comic book. If they were to adapt this into a movie, I would not be upset about it. Maybe this is what the MCU will do for their upcoming X-Men movie. I think it would be very confusing to a lot of people. Just jump straight into the wagon? Well, maybe we pick it up at the carnival, you know? They're just there and Beast shows up trying to figure out who the X-Men are and everybody in the audience will recognize who they are and Beast will still be confused. That'll work. Alright, well, in this podcast, we are exploring Chris Claremont's legendary X-Men run as we read it for the very first time. We hope you'll join us and read alongside, or just stick around for the discussion. In our previous episode, the X-Men had some much-needed downtime, and we witnessed a lot of small moments. We then saw an attempted kidnapping as the Canadian government sent James Hudson, going by Weapon Alpha, to capture and return Wolverine. He was defeated, but with a tease that the Canadians will be getting ready for round two. We also saw Warhawk, aka Second Rate Colossus, break into the X-Mansion and sabotage the Danger Room to make it the Extra Danger Room. The team was able to escape and Warhawk was stopped, but we don't yet know who sent him on this mission, or why. This also led to Jean Grey officially rejoining the X-Men. And finally, issue 111 followed Beast as he explored a circus looking for the X-Men, who had vanished. He discovered that Mesmero had enthralled the X-Men, but was captured in the process. Wolverine broke free and helped free Gene as well. As the X-Men confronted Mesmero, however, we saw him fall, and the team was instead greeted by Magneto. In this episode, we'll be picking things up where we left off with issues 112 through 114. Issue 112 begins with the X-Men learning that Magneto has already sprung his trap. The circus wagon that they're all in is miles above the earth, and they have no means of escape. We learn that Magneto visited the mansion to confront his enemies, but found it deserted. Beast then arrived, and Magneto decided to just follow him and get him to do all his legwork for him. Magneto tosses Mesmero out of the wagon, though controls his descent so he doesn't die when he hits the ground. The wagon then arrives at Magneto's base, a volcano in Antarctica. A battle immediately kicks off once there's solid ground below them. Without the ability to alert the others, Scott plans to start things off himself and work everyone else in as they go. He attempts this by directing Peter to make his move, but the X-Men soon all start attacking Solo. One by one, Magneto handles each of the X-Men until the whole squad is defeated, including Phoenix. Magneto then reveals his ultimate eye-for-an-eye revenge. The X-Men are left with their minds intact, but have the physical capabilities of a six-month-old. So Adam, thinking back to our previous episode, big tease, everything's called Magneto Triumphant. Do you think this book captured what you were looking for? I think it exceeded what I was envisioning. I think this ultimately was everything I wanted and more. frankly, because when I think about a comic book, right, it's campy at times, not all the time, but it can be campy. It can be very serious. We have like great fighting in this book and we have like Magneto being triumphant as they so plainly put it at the start of this book as so infrequent when we see meaningful villains succeed. And here we have the X-Men being confronted by Magneto, especially after these last few books, right? Where we had the whole Mesmero circus situation that really made no sense and now at least kind of makes a little bit more sense, I guess. I loved it. I loved everything about it. I honestly could have spent this entire episode just talking about this issue. What about yourself? Yeah, I'm of the same mind. I thought it was an awesome issue. I liked that we actually got answers to some of those questions that we were asking ourselves the other week where we were wondering, are we going to learn, like, why is Mesro there? Why is Magneto there now? Like, what is the story that's going on here? We got to see a little bit of that. Like you said, just a ton of action, a ton of fighting. And I really liked how it showcased Magneto really planning ahead and making his move. It really showed him as a dual threat of, yes, he's an Omega-level mutant, but he also has a very tactical mind, and he sets everything up in his favor. You know, he kidnaps them, essentially, and is floating above the Earth where they can't readily escape, and he's able to take them onto his turf where he wants them. Yeah, he definitely held all the cards in this interaction with the X-Men, right? And we see Cyclops... pretty much is the only one to recognize that this is the case, right? It really speaks to Scott's leadership, especially even in this fight, right? Between him and Magneto, it was one shot to probably really take a hold of the situation. And the inexperience of the rest of the members in fighting Magneto specifically, who Scott recognizes as being this incredible threat compared to all the other foes the X-Men have faced to this point. really speaks to the character that is Magneto. However, in the end, as we'll get to, his overconfidence is his hubris here, right? He made all these preparations. He had this big plan. I was a baby once, and now, X-Men, I can't turn you into babies, but I can make you feel like you're a baby as well as I can. Speaking of campy like you brought up earlier, very good. Very good comic book. Right? Motivation for Magneto. Like, he doesn't want to kill these darn kids that have been thwarting his plans, or at least the team that has been thwarting his plans. But it does feel very mustache-twirling villain of, you will now all be babies. Even the lava layer, right, adds to the camp. Like a lava layer below Antarctica. An evil base under a volcano. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. And even them, a bit of happenstance, right? Like he shows up, he can't execute his plan because the X-Men aren't actually here. Charles is missing. Who shows up? A beast. Very lucky. And he just, he just follows them all the way to the circus and figures out immediately, figures out immediately that the X-Men are now all carnies or at least carnival attractions. One would think it would have been easier for Beast to figure that out. Magneto has met this team just as much as he has. Magneto's like, why is Banshee a carnival barker? I also love that the way they've drawn this, it's just Magneto, essentially a mutant terrorist, just walking around in his full outfit in the public. I have to imagine that This is just the way it's being shown to be like, here he is, and that he's in a little bit more of a disguise in actuality. Otherwise, I would kind of question, I guess, everyone around them and Beast's inability to look behind himself. We do get a little bit more mention of past campiness, too, where he throws Mesmero out of the wagon. Everyone's like, oh my god, dude, you're a murderer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Definitely not something real Magneto would ever do. It did kind of pop out of nowhere. And there was also a reference to some adventure that happened between Magneto and Dr. Doom and Captain America. I meant to go and look that up, but honestly, it was over like several issues and I just didn't have the time to really dig deep into the confrontation that really prevented Magneto from showing up earlier. We'll forgive you this time. I haven't taken the time to count all the vehicle explosions and past issues, so we'll call it even. We also got to see a bit of nuance in Magneto's power and how he was able to I think it was Storm started creating a blizzard around Magneto and it really just supercharged him. Turned him into a living superconductor. Right, yeah, because of the bitter cold of this windstorm that she whipped up, which I never knew that was a power that he had. And the other very brutal scene that we get is between him and Sean Cassidy where he turns his scream back on him. I was a little bit confused about how that worked, but I assume it all comes back to magnets eventually. The rule of cool, baby. I'm not a scientist, but there does seem to be a lot of rule of cool getting a little bendy with it in this issue. I mean, in fairness, if anyone deserves it, it is Magneto. Yeah, in fairness, I was going to say it's Magneto, right? We are being led to believe that he is amongst the strongest mutants there are. Although Phoenix almost did get the upper hand against him, but it was the hesitation of Jean Grey that allowed Magneto to seal the deal and grab the upper hand. He also turned Wolverine's claws on himself. And I don't believe he actually forced them into him, but he came pretty close. Yeah, I think he was just forcing them to his face and maybe Wolverine retracted them or Magneto retracted them because, you know, his goal isn't dead X-Men, it's baby X-Men. Yeah, the scene kind of looks as though we see the Snikt taking place and... Wolverine punches himself in the face, basically, is kind of what it looks like. And no claws are seen any longer. I do love the panel right before that with Wolverine with the tiny little beady eyes. He can't believe it, right? Which is surprising because this is now his second confrontation with Magneto. And there's now a history of him being able to control the metal, you know, and that's most of Wolverine. And the same could be said with Peter. He was rushing over at him like he wasn't made of metal. And one would assume at this point, Scott keeps them practicing in the danger room constantly. That's been established. There's no chance that they haven't trained for specifically fighting Magneto. That's a very good point because Scott is prepared, if nothing else. He's a boy scout. As we see him here, right? Like he is ready as much as one can be to at least try and take on Magneto on his terms. But. At the end of the day, it will prove beneficial. Just not yet. Not in this issue anyways. We're getting into issue 113 territory, but I do really like the juxtaposition between how things go in this issue and how things go in the next one where, spoilers, but, you know, the turns are tabled and the X-Men instead prepare and plan ahead and are able to coordinate and... Magneto instead has to be the one reacting to them. And we also see Jean Grey, I think, really submit to Phoenix, but we can get more into that when we get into the next issue. Overall, I really, really like this book. As a standalone story, I would probably give this like a 10. I also recognize that we just spent a bit of time kind of poking at it, but that's us like, Digging deep here. It's fun to poke. At an enjoyment level, it's everything I would want in a book. It's serious enough to carry things over and bring us a relatively good arching story over the next little arc. I didn't prepare a score, but we'll call it a nine. Gotta just go with your heart in the moment, man. There's no planning involved. Needed more cats. I mean, Beast was there. He's basically like a cat. Almost. Not yet. Yeah, not yet. He's got a couple more years to go. At the start of issue 113, we see that Magneto has been busy since the X-Men's defeat and has been raiding research complexes in Australia and New Zealand. His attacks have gone unopposed as the Fantastic Four and Champions have disbanded and the Avengers are under house arrest. We see Xavier and Lalandra on vacation in Greece. but Xavier is troubled by the lack of his telepathic rapport with his students. The X-Men are still locked in their bodies, but after a couple attempts, Storm is able to free herself and the others by using a hidden lockpick. When Magneto returned to his base, the X-Men sprung an ambush, now with a lot more coordination. By linking the team telepathically via Jean Grey, Cyclops is able to orchestrate their attack much better. Phoenix accidentally destroys the main control console in the fight, however, and the base starts coming down around them. Gene and Beast get separated from the others, Magneto escapes by flying to safety, and the remaining X-Men are left behind as the roof collapses and Volcano explodes. Beast attempts to carry Gene to safety, but is soon overcome by the blizzard and collapses. So I thought this was another awesome issue. and a great follow-up to 112. Like I said, I really like that it built on Cyclops and the team's failure to work as a team, and we got to see the other side of the coin with them making the plan, being coordinated, having Magneto react to them instead, and I really liked that it showcased how adding a telepath, whether it's Jean or someone else, is such an invaluable addition and a strategy that really becomes a mainstay of the X-Men going forward in a lot of cases and possibly was frequently used previously before Claremont's run. Yeah, it really felt like they were a team, right? Scott being able to call the shots, Jeans providing them with a means of communication that don't give their tactics away to Magneto. really gives them the upper hand. And I felt like Gene is really beginning to take control of Phoenix or vice versa. I guess we'll have to wait and see who's really in control. But there's a lot of fun elements to this. Apparently, it's not a very good time to be a superhero is what we learn at the beginning of this issue. I am a little curious about what's all going on and why the Avengers are on house arrest, but I wasn't curious enough to look it up. So I don't know why the Avengers are on house arrest, but we do get the name of another group, the Champions. If I gave you five guesses, do you think you can take a shot in the dark at the five members who are on this team? And I will give you a hint. I'll actually give you two hints. Two of the members are former X-Men, and one of the members is a former Avenger. Although I don't know if they've been a former Avenger at this point. Well, if it's former X-Men, are we talking Iceman and Angel? You got it. Nice. So now we know where they've been. Yep. So they've been hooked up with this team. Which also consists of Ghost Rider. Okay. Interesting. Hercules. Another one I would not have guessed. And Black Widow. It's hard to think of Black Widow not being on the Avengers, but I don't think I would have guessed the rest of those. I'm very curious to know how this group came to be, specifically with Angel and Iceman being on the team. But I guess as we learn, they are no more. After what must have been a very brief time together. Yeah, I guess so. The Fantastic Four have also disbanded, which must have been a pretty big deal at the time, considering the Fantastic Four were like the first family of Marvel. That one, I guess I'm more interested in knowing what happened versus why the Avengers are on house arrest. Yeah, because that's probably just for like some one-off story that's taking place at the moment. But I think really fun to kind of see the overarching universe leading in in this way where there's like the shared continuity amongst the stories, which I don't think we've really necessarily seen too much of that at this point, where it's been weaved in in this way. Like we've seen references to other books. That guy hits like the iron fist. Yeah, right? Which is fun. But it's nice to kind of see, you know, more of this being incorporated into the story. What did you think about Magneto's baby plan falling apart? It's interesting that he arrived and came to that conclusion himself, but was still surprised and not prepared for the X-Men's attack. I thought that was a nice touch of Magneto's not an idiot. He arrives, he knows something's up. tries to play it off like, oh, Nanny, what's wrong? I thought I built you better than this. But even with all that, he's still not prepared for the plan that the X-Men put together. Did you think Magneto was smart enough to make a robot? Like, he's not ever really portrayed, at least in modern day comics, he's not really portrayed as like a roboticist or a scientist. I'm assuming that this is... a wholesale situation where there's a lot of robots that these evil people can buy they don't have to be the most tech savvy to set it up but he buys a robot in a box like you could go to sears and buy a house in a box and just assembles it himself and teaches it to be a loving mother and i guess just has it run loose i think that's just something that all the villains were really good at back then, building robots. Yeah. Maybe somebody had it in a classified section of a newspaper, you know. Evil robot for sale. Can be trained to take care of children. Wears French maid outfit for reasons. I mean, whatever. It's fun. It's stupid. It's campy. It works here. There's a hilarious scene of the robot force-feeding Wolverine soup or some other sort of liquidy thing. And brushing Beast. Yeah, and brushing Beast. I do like all of those. It looks like she's giving Cyclops a bath and a massage. Dude needs a massage. It's very funny. And then we get to see Storm's history of lockpicking come in again, which is wonderful to see. We know from the previous issues that we've read that Storm grew up on the streets of Cairo. She learned how to be a master lockpick and thief. And we see her pull off this needle that is in her headpiece and grab it in her mouth and then she's trying to lockpick these very complex looking shackles that for some reason have an actual hole to lockpick as if a key goes in there. Well, you have to be able to unlock it and open them up. Why? Magneto just can undo it with mutant power. You're thinking about this too much. Stop it. Stop it. I'm not overthinking this. It makes no sense. I mean, yeah, it makes no sense, but maybe Nanny needs to be able to take them out of their cuffs sometimes. Speaking of not making sense, and... They have set this up, to be fair, a little bit where they talked about in another past look at Storm when she was a baby. Her parents were talking like, oh, she can understand us. She's very aware of her surroundings. She knows what we're saying. She knows the meaning. It is a lot to have it be believable that someone at six months had the dexterity of a small child. Yeah, I mean, we do see her using her appendages like her feet. I don't know why I said appendages. That's a very weird way of putting that. She uses her feet to unlock a safe in one of these panels. And then she's also just left in a room tied and bound. And her mentor basically says, you need to figure your way out of here or you're not my pupil. So maybe in her mind, she's just relying on that knowledge and we're getting a little bit of fudge. I mean, I'm saying this after just, you know, really ripping into the lockpicking thing here, which, by the way, I think is really cool. It's just ridiculous to think that there's a lockpick hole. It's absolutely ridiculous. I do love that the means of escape had nothing to do with mutant powers being a factor. And I like that it pulled from Storm's already established backstory. But it's kind of a... It has plus and minuses, I guess, to it. I mean, it's fun. Whatever. It is fun. You're right. I am probably getting too deep into this. It's a lot picking, man. One thing I will say, though, at this point, I do feel like... We have really been focusing in on Storm backstory wise. And at this point, it's been going on for a long time. I would say we're probably well over a year, maybe over two years at this point of Chris writing the comics. I think we're maybe over focusing on Storm, despite how much I love Storm. And I would like to see some of the other people maybe have a little bit of their stories come in and given a chance to shine some. I don't disagree with you. That is good perspective to think about how infrequently this was being released compared to how we're consuming it. So to go two years, for example, if that is the case, that's a long time, man. Like, it's not a lot of books, like, very clearly, but that's still a long time to, if you're reading this in the moment and only getting, like, these breadcrumbs that, you know, are coming out. And I guess that is done deliberately to keep you coming back, but... and I wrote this down in my notes, it is clear that Storm is the greatest of the X-Men because she's getting all this time and attention and she's being able to get them out of these situations repeatedly and ends up being the defining person who is able to get them out of these tricky situations. And we see it time and time and time again. This time it's lockpicking, which, as you said, has nothing to do with your mutant powers, but we've also seen her being... the crux of several other conflicts where she's able to overcome great odds compared to the rest of the other members to get a hold of the situation and the one thing that really was a detriment to her which was her claustrophobia we have seen incredible growth around and have actually seen her work on getting over it so we've already had like a sort of a full circle moment for her which is wonderful and like Great character development. But I would like to see more about Peter and Kurt, like what's going on in their backgrounds. They're both really cool looking characters. Now I'm suspending what I obviously know about them at this point, but I want to know more about them because they're so interesting. So give it to me, Chris. Give me the Nightcrawler backstory that we all want to know. I'm currently looking at this panel of all of the members of the X-Men. And it's depicting the mind meld that's kind of happening here. You can see Jean Grey outlined in the background in these like bright yellows and oranges to depict the phoenix. And it's just really cool seeing the way that they're communicating illustrated in this way. I do love the drawing. The one thing that it's very off-putting, the teeth are weird. You know what? I actually found that very hard to look at as well. And honestly, I don't know that I necessarily saw it on first look and then I looked down and I can't unsee it now. Yeah, it's scary. It's just kind of scary like an infant's x-ray and you see how all their teeth are assembled and you realize that your child is a monster. I really felt like Magneto should have probably just turned them into literal babies or just have killed them. Probably because all of this was undone. Yeah, but that's not revenge. Well, I mean, it is. It's just not the revenge he wants. He wants to laud it over them. He's an eye for an eye, man. But he's not morally better than the X-Men. I guess maybe that's the point that he's trying to make is that he is. But on paper, he is not right. Like he is a villain. So do it. Do villain stuff. Yeah, just eliminate. Move on. We did get a really cool fight scene moment with Hank throwing Kurt so he could knock off Magneto's helmet. The teleportation was a really cool use of that team-up power approach. I did also like Hank just spinning him around. I really feel like they've captured Hank's voice so well in these two issues. From Magneto's perspective, he must just be so annoying. But... He's off there spinning around, going round and round he goes, bon voyage, and throws Kurt at him. I was familiar with Beast having various quirky catchphrases, like he's very famously known for saying, oh my stars and garters. I used to have an X-Men toy that had little sound bites, probably from the TV show. You would press on their portrait and they would just say it. And I would just sit there pressing on Beast over and over and he'd just go indubitably, indubitably, indubitably. I didn't realize that he was so fast with the one-liners, like beyond the Stars and Garters line. He does seem to like to joke around a little bit. and have a little bit of a rapport with Magneto, or Maggie, as he calls him several times over the last two issues. Which may, how much does drive him crazy? I noticed that some of the others started that too. Like, I think there's a point where Wolverine also calls him Maggie. So I think it's, you know, it's starting to stick. It is funny seeing Magneto just kind of dip. He just is like, okay, well, this isn't working out for me anymore. Yeah. I'm just going to let them burn in my base, I guess. And then we see a few members escape, right? Yeah, at the end of the issue, we see Jean and Beast. We saw them get separated. Jean's able to sort of blast them out, get them to not safety because they're in the middle of a blizzard, but they are free from the volcano. And it says Beast doesn't last 100 yards before the two of them collapse. If I didn't know better, like reading these final panels of them in Antarctica in this blizzard and beast is carrying gene. And even the way that Chris kind of wrote the last piece of dialogue, I'm, you know, rest, rest for a minute. Then I will lie down and close my eyes. Just, for a minute it's so cold how come I don't feel anything like it leaves just enough of a taste of are they done for like is this just you know the way I read it was man they could like these could legit be done here you know the way it's written is how I imagine somebody in those like very exhausting and difficult situations just you know they just try to rest they take they close their eyes and And that's how it happens, man. It's so sad. But that's how it happened. So it's okay. And instead of issue 114, instead we get issue 114 and this really awesome opening page of Beast covered in snow, head to toe, holding Jean. And it looks awesome. Like he's just burying it. He's just burying the blizzard. It's so cool looking. big cover for that comic too with Banshee, Nightcrawler, Storm, Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, all ghosts behind a group like as a ghostly figures behind a grieving Professor X, Beast, and Jean. Yeah, I certainly have a lot of questions around some of the elements in this next book. So why don't you kick us off with a quick rundown? Issue 114 shows us that Beast was able to summon enough energy to continue carrying himself and Jean. Luckily for him, they stumble across a helicopter, and Jean summons up a Phoenix light show to catch their attention. Jean is interested in saving the X-Men, but a tearful Beast tells her that they're dead. Thankfully, on the next page, we see that's not quite the case. The rest of the team, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Banshee, and Storm tunneled through the mountain but found themselves in a very different climate. The X-Men emerged in the Savage Lands, a prehistoric jungle hidden from the rest of the world in the middle of Antarctica. While flying, Banshee is captured by a giant pterosaur, but a fastball special helps Wolverine to free him. Behind some bushes, we see one of the residents of the Savage Land surprised to see Cyclops, who he is previously acquainted with. He senses that they're mutants and says that's precisely what he needs. We take a short break away from the Savage Land and see Hank and Jean safely return to Westchester, where she breaks the news to Charles Xavier that the rest of the X-Men are dead. On the other side of the world, the X-Men believe Gene and Beast suffered the same fate. Cyclops orders rest and relaxation for everyone, but says they'll be pulling out soon. Scott is stewing in his failure, but he is also concerned that his heart isn't broken at the loss of Gene and Hank. He shaves into a fine piratical mustache, as he calls it, and notices some striking similarities between himself and Corsair. Scott sees memories of his childhood, him and Alex falling with fire all around them. He sees Corsair and a sobbing woman who pushes them out a plane escape hatch, but an interruption from Storm causes them to fade back. Storm is hoping to share her grief over Jean with Scott, but is disappointed to learn that Scott is only in mourning over Hank. Unlike Scott, Wolverine is in mourning and wishes he could have told Jean his real name. He turns down Peter's invitation to hang with a couple of local women on their, quote, special island. Storm goes for a swim, but someone has stalked her. He sneaks up and attempts to drain some of her life energy, but the overwhelming power transforms him. A scream and a lightning bolt causes the X-Men to rush to her aid, but when they arrive, they see Sauron. Human Pteranodon, Pteranodon, Pteranodon. Human Pteranodon hybrid, whose Cyclops says should be dead. Sauron, famous for not wanting to cure cancer and wants to only turn people into dinosaurs. Yeah. I mean, he's cool in this setting, I guess, because, you know, it's the Savage Lands and dinosaurs. He's like an energy vampire is what he is. He just also happens to turn into a human pterodon. He's an energy vampire and a werewolf-esque thing. He does it all. He only turns into the pterodon form, I believe, when he consumes the energy of mutant. I think that's correct. But regardless, cool to see him at the very end. I'm interested to kind of see what this means going forward. There are some high points and I think some low points in this issue. What did you see as, I guess, some of the highs and some of the lows? Okay, well, I'm just going to start with one of the biggest lows, and it's frankly how no one knows that they're alive, right? Like, we see Gene kind of sensing them in Antarctica, and Hank, who's an incredibly intelligent person, is an absolute idiot. and convinces her that they're dead. There's no way she could be sensing them. It's even more bizarre that Charles can't sense them. They are no longer below an insulated area that Magneto has built and could conceivably have built it in a way that prevented Charles from penetrating it with his mind. There might be something special about the Savage Land, though. It is a warm jungle in the center of Antarctica, so there's something weird going on there. I think potentially there could be some sort of block where that mental scanning, that mental transmission doesn't really work out. You could very well be correct. The thing that is... Another problem here is that the X-Men have been to the Savage Land before. This is not like this might be this group's first time, but it's not the X-Men's first time. So there is a history here that could lead them to at least ponder the question. Could they have gone to the Savage Land? Is that a thing? Could they have done that? You know, could they have somehow escaped and just tried to check the Savage Lands as an option? It just feels like we're ignoring this deliberately to just have them be in the Savage Lands and have this plot with Sauron. So it's fine, but not my favorite. I just felt like we're suspending their powers here to kind of feed into this idea that they're dead. Sure. I didn't have the same... to what happened at the end of the last issue. I didn't take away from that that Jean was sensing them in some way. I thought that was just she woke up and was like, I have to save them because she thought she was still there and hadn't been walked all over the place by Beast, but not sure. I mean, yeah, I may very well be taking it a little too literally, but I do feel like there's a bit of leap happening here to get us from point A to point B. Was there anything that stuck out to you from a low point perspective? I don't know. I actually liked this issue. I don't really have anything that necessarily was like, this is a low point. I thought it was really, I thought that they've really nailed down when to let the story breathe a little. And we had two big action books back to back. And now we're taking another pause. We're able to check in on where everyone is, how they're doing. It feels like to me that we've, fully transition into this being a cohesive story versus maybe at the start it was more a collection of stories of here's what happened this month and then here's what happened two months later. I actually agree with all of what you said, minus my gripes that I had. This does feel like a cohesive story. I actually really liked a lot of the character growth that we had in this book. We see Logan suffering this heartache. And it's really put into perspective because Scott is questioning why he doesn't feel the same way Logan does. And part of this might actually be, well, Scott isn't feeling grief because maybe deep down he knows that Jean's still alive, right? Maybe he just knows. And because he isn't really processing it in a logical way, he's having this questioning of, Like, why do I not feel this? Why am I not sad that she's gone? That's one thing that I'm really interested in seeing how it resolves. Like, what exactly is going on here? Is Scott in shock? Is he mentally avoiding the reality of his situation? Does he not love Jean? You know, mainly he probably just needs a therapist. He needs to work this out. But I'm interested in seeing what does this eventual reunion of Jean and Scott look like? My personal opinion of it is, I think Scott, especially after the conversation with Storm, where Storm is basically like, Jean is growing up, man, and you can either grow up with her, but she is not the girl that she used to be. She is a strong woman who has gone through a ton of stuff, and she may have changed, but she's still Jean, and you can either accept that or not. you can continue to kind of wallow and think that you've lost this girl that you were in love with when you were, you know, a teenager. Yeah, in my notes, I wrote down Scott and Storm interaction, parentheses, she murders him with words. I mean, that is essentially what happened, but I think it was a very important truth bomb that he needed to hear. Absolutely. He's essentially grieving this memory of Jean of how she used to be, and we've seen him over the last couple of issues really kind of coming to terms with this idea that, okay, things are not as they used to be. Like, what's going on here? Like, you know, things used to be so smooth between Jean and I, and now I don't even feel like we're together anymore. I said this last time, talk to your partner, man. Like, I know he hasn't had the opportunity. I'm assuming there's been some time to talk that we haven't seen. Well, they were kidnapped and in a circus for who knows how long. There was dust all over the mansion. I don't know. All I'm saying is that a lot of these issues can be resolved by having a simple conversation. My hope is that this is going to result with Scott letting her go, admitting that things are different now. Like, you can still love somebody, but have to walk away and let them figure out what they need to figure out. So that's my hope. And at the same time, I hope that Logan and Gene get together. I want to stand that relationship, man. I think Scott and Gene will probably just talk it out eventually. They need a big fight or something, but I don't know. We also get this revelation of Scott coming to this conclusion that Corsair is his father, which it simply took him getting a mustache to make that connection. A mustache can do wonders for a man. And I think we end with him keeping it, huh? Looking at where the issue ends, he does take the time, hopefully before Storm cries out, not after, to finish shaving and suits up. So, R.A.P. Scott's mustache. I mean, it's very funny that Scott has so much stubble already. He has this big 5 o'clock shadow that required him to shave. But then you look at Wolverine, who is as hairy as he should be, but his face is the same. Well, maybe he's been shaving, though. I mean, I guess he has essentially a razor built into his hand. He's been doing a lot of upkeep. He's sewing his uniform. He's sewing his uniform. And this is all after, by the way, which we totally jumped over. My apologies. this awesome fight scene that the X-Men get into with a giant pterodon, and we see Peter fastball special Wolverine at the pterosaur, and he just carves it up in the air. And it is probably the coolest thing that we've seen Wolverine kill at this point. Probably the only thing, probably, that we've seen him kill, but very awesome. He even says that it's been a while since he's been able to... cut loose and really just carve something up. So it's nice that he was able to get some of that anger out, I guess. He was just a baby, essentially, for who knows how long, being force-fed mush by Nanny. So I, too, can relate to Wolverine's frustration. And I hope that Peter can have a lovely time off at the special island. Yeah, with these... Yeah, Peter's really making himself at home. Yeah. Well, and so is Storm. She's having the time of her life until, you know, she gets zapped by Sauron. She talks at length about how wonderful the Savage Lands are and how it reminds her of home and the fresh air that she doesn't get living in New York with the X-Men. Doesn't stink like New York. Sorry, New Yorkers. Their words, not ours. Yeah. Quote, open sewer. I don't know what that means, but there you go. Storm lives there. She must know. All in all, I will say this has been a very fun three issues. I am interested to see what happens with the Sauron arc as I've never really read anything with him as like a focal villain. So I'm interested to kind of see what that plays out as. I really kind of just know him from the meme of not wanting to cure cancer. It's a good meme. It is very good. So I'm excited to kind of see him play out what this means. Maybe we'll get some more dinosaurs, which I love. And I guess what is next? Because to me, this is us coming down from the story with them being kidnapped and Magneto and all that. And I really want to see where this is about to go beyond Sauron. So give it to me, Chris. And give me some Nightcrawler backstory, man. I want it. I know it's possible. Just give us some more love of the other characters. So what do you have for a score out of 10 for looking at these three as a whole? I'm already on record giving the first issue a 10. So I think I would probably give overall a 9, despite what I've complained about this last issue. But overall, everything has been really fun. It's been what I would have come to expect from a comic book. And as you said, it's really nice seeing this continued story play out where everything feels cohesive and meaningful. Because I wasn't sure how things were going to go coming out of the circus situation and to see it meld directly into the next story piece. And that story piece being a 10 out of 10 in my book really makes every issue feel meaningful. So even while, you know, I might have a complaint here or there with this latest issue with Sauron, it makes me at least hopeful that regardless of the problems I'm personally experiencing, those can be rectified with meaningful storytelling in the next issue or the issue after that. And it will all make sense and be for something. So that's my hope. Let's keep the momentum going forward and hopefully we're going to get some more 10 out of 10 issues. What would you give it? Yeah, so I thought it was a very solid three issues. I think we're in an interesting place where Gene, Beast, Xavier, they think the X-Men are dead. The rest of the team thinks that Gene and Beast are dead. Really interested in seeing what that reunion looks like. And I hope that going forward until we get there, we continue to get perspectives and stories from both groups. To me, it felt like a really well-earned partial victory for the X-Men over Magneto versus just they win because plot kind of a moment. We had the two issues of big action, one that was a little bit more downtime where we got to check in on where people are mentally and emotionally, similar to the first two issues that we covered last episode, but it still really advanced the story and provided an immediate setup for what comes next. So that said, I'm sitting at 8.5 out of 10. Dude, this might be like our highest rated arc that we've read. I think so. But to be fair, two issues with Magneto will do that. Two issues with Magneto and then we're going into Dinosaur Land. So, I mean, that's a pretty good setup for what's to come. And a reminder to, you know, like this is my first time reading this and same with Isaac. So this is all new territory for us. That does it for this episode of Uncanny Book Club. Thanks for listening. And we hope to see you next episode where we'll discuss issues 115 to 117. Bye. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Uncanny Book Club. If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend.