SPEAKER_01: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I am Isaac Waderspiel and joining me today is my co-host Adam Ward. Hey, I'm excited to talk with you. Horror books, right? Yep, it's another four-issue episode, a big one, and we get to do a little bit of traveling around. We get to see Japan, we get to see Canada, the X-Men are going places. I think I messaged you after I read this book that I was very triggered seeing that the capital of Canada was misspelled. I know some people might be like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. But I mean, it is. If that was Washington misspelled, that would be a big deal to people. Washington, B.C. That being said, I was very happy seeing, for lack of a better word, a Canadian arc here. It was very fun for me. So I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are. 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 tussled with Sauron, but Khazar broke it up before things got serious, multiple members of the team ended up getting kidnapped, and the remaining X-Men, led by Wolverine, devised a plan to infiltrate the city of the Sun God to see them rescued. A standoff occurred between Cyclops and Garak the Petrified Man, where they both shot eye blasts at each other, which ended up destroying his cool city. The X-Men were eventually able to leave, only to be swept up in a massive storm. Thankfully, they were also rescued by a boat that was on its way back to Japan. We also got to see a little glimpse of Xavier's past and his encounter with Amal Farouk, which ended up leaving Farouk dead, allegedly. Professor X also agreed to leave Earth behind and go to space with Lalandra. In this episode, we'll be picking things up where we left off with issues 118 to 121. Issue 118 sees the X-Men arriving to a Japan in flames. They soon learn that the disaster is a result of an earthquake, but they believe that it wasn't from natural causes. We have the briefest of detours to see Xavier and Lalandra in space, taking one last look at Earth, and then we're back to the X-Men, who locate Shiro, or Sunfire's home. He wants them arrested in classic Sunfire fashion, but Misty Knight intervenes. Wolverine meets Shiro's cousin Mariko, but an earthquake strikes before he can give her his real name. The Mandroids also end up attacking. The X-Men wrap things up nicely, but a hologram emanates from a Mandroid armor, revealing that Moses Magnum, master of the Magnum Force, is the power behind the attacks on Japan. He gives a 24-hour ultimatum to make him the absolute ruler of Japan, or he'll sink the entire nation. So I feel like things will be more productive if we talk about one elephant in the room, and that is for this issue and the next few issues, we have to completely ignore the fact that Misty Knight, Cyclops, and Jean all know each other and are very familiar with each other, and we just have to turn that part of our brains off completely, because apparently they did. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I'm reading it and I'm like, why at no point in time is Misty, at the very least, not saying, hey, Jean's going to be so happy to hear from you. She thought you were dead. She doesn't even know because the last time Jean and Misty saw each other was at the airport and she left and she said something like, oh, give my best to Scott. Oh, I mean, even still, there's no world in which it doesn't come up like, oh, hey, I just saw Jean at the airport. What makes it worse, honestly, is there is a massive time gap that happens here. I think at some point after it's not even in this issue, it's in the next one. But after the conclusion of this fight with Misty, I think it says that it's been like 10 days in the recovery for Sean Cassidy. So there is a substantial amount of time where Scott and Misty are together and it must like I can't I can't help but think it would have come up and to think that it didn't. You're just like really trying to play into bad storytelling. Especially since this entire time she's just watching her friend Colleen cozy up to Scott. So there is this panel seemingly out of the blue where Colleen is just like, damn, that's Scott Summers. Damn. Love that jawline. And then that's the last we kind of hear from it for I think like until the next issue where then suddenly they're like cozying up on a plane. Well, he does also save her life in this issue, or maybe not her life, but keeps her from being injured by debris that's falling down. I mean, yeah, this knows how severe it could have been. Anyways, it's weird. It's a weird, like, story thread that's happening here. I guess maybe it's playing into the whole Scott kind of not really feeling the loss of Jean. So I think he's convinced himself at this point that he's never been in love with her, you know? Hard to say. I do have a little bit of background of, I don't remember how, but I did learn like at one point it was being considered to make Scott and Colleen the new item and to like have him move on. So I don't know how long this goes on, but the whole thing with Misty being there, I did read that it was essentially just like an editorial mistake where it's kind of shrug your shoulder. There's no real explanation for how this could possibly occur. Oh, well, whatever. Looking past it, honestly, I felt like there was a lot of things in this issue and kind of like all four issues that we're going to talk about today that I really, really like. One of the first things that we've seen in this issue is an interaction with Nightcrawler where he is bamfing forward as a sort of scout. And he talks about how he was able to do this in like three jumps. And he's never... He's always struggled to do this. The training is starting to pay off. So we're kind of seeing him develop these skills and really becoming an expert at using them. Yeah, I actually have it as a note for the next issue, but it works here just as well, just to bring up Nightcrawler's power growth. Mm-hmm. I feel like his growth and increase with his powers is a lot more apparent than the rest of the X-Men. He's gotten a lot more impressive since his debut. He's got longer range, better control. He can take people with him. He's had a much better evolution through all these training room sessions. I'm only going to mention it now because we're specifically talking about Kurt, but I had noted that in the next issue, probably around the same spot that you're thinking of where Kurt is kind of showcasing his powers, he makes like a comment about how he could like teleport into metal if he's not careful. And it's just like, how would he know that? How would he know that he could teleport into metal? Like, would you think that? It's probably happened. Like he's spliced himself. Yeah, but wouldn't that be like game over? Mm, okay. Yeah. It's like in D&D when you use the teleport spell and you can teleport into a solid object and you take a ton of damage, but then you're outside the object. Yeah, it's like you're just forcefully pushed from its presence. Except he gets stuck. We saw actually a bit of power growth in a way. I mean, we're going to see Storm flexing her muscles a lot. Not surprising, I think, at this point. No. And we also get to see this, speaking of like Storm's powers, this team up that happens later on in this issue between Banshee and Storm where they've figured out we need to like cool him down, right? We need to cool down. What's his name? I'm forgetting his name. For some reason I just want to call him Mr. Magnum, but I know that's not right. 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 the Magnum Force, by the way? I went and looked this up because I was curious. I'd never really known of this character before. I actually also looked this up. And if I remember correctly, he fell into some sort of machine and there was some other powers thing going on and he sort of just obtained it. Am I close? What I read is that Apocalypse gave him his power. Okay, so we read very different things. Well, one of those two things must be true. That's kind of like the two variants of supervillains, right? Like you either fall in something and are presumed dead, but through some miracle become more powerful. Yeah, you come back and you're all better. Darth Maul. Yeah, Darth Maul or, you know, you fall in a vat of something. Boom. Electric Eel. Somehow Moses Magnum returned. Yeah, he was. He's back. He's kind of an established villain. And that's kind of what I was trying to get my head wrapped around is like, is this something new that Chris and the team kind of came up with? Or is this, you know, something that's preexisted? It's the latter, obviously. What did you think of the Magnum Force? He's whooping the X-Men pretty good with it. He basically controls the earth and he can punch people really hard. Yeah. I'm a bit confused of like exactly how his powers work. At times it kind of seemed to you as a bit like a, what did they call them? Like geomancers. I think that would be accurate. Or they can kind of like molds the, you know, the earth around him. He makes a remark. I think it's in the next issue where they're like trying to tunnel inside of his base and that He could literally feel them through the earth. Yeah, it was fine. He's okay. Yeah. I don't really have an opinion too strongly one way or the other. He just felt like a good foil situation here where we have like this big bad antagonist who's coming in and wants to like claim all of Japan. Like it's just a very comic book type villain and I think it fits here very well. And obviously we get this reunion between the x-men and scott and shiro and and that's played out a lot differently than i thought which is you know gonna have a full circle moment at the end of the story and we also learn that logan speaks japanese and reads we also get the introduction of the mandroids in this issue i don't think they're new but they're new to us they i think have their own little box and They were last seen in the Avengers, which is why Scott Summers has knowledge of them. Yeah. It just kind of felt like a poor man's Sentinel, you know? Really hideous looking armor. It is a very weirdly shaped armor. Kind of busty. It kind of looks like if it was a Transformer, it would transform into a vacuum. Look at his helmet. On his helmet, it's kind of curved, right? And right in the middle of his forehead, you have what looks like it could be a suction vent for a vacuum. Or a flashlight. Or a visor. But then underneath it is the real 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 being busty? Yeah, I did. Look at it. Well, I mean, I was asking because I can see it. I know what you're talking about. The first panel where it appears, it just has a giant chest and a super slim waist. It's super top-heavy. It skips leg day and core day. I wasn't even looking at this panel, which... The only thing I really like about this panel is actually the red in the backdrop really is a good contrast with the gold armor. And the black. Yeah, and the black. Is it really the trees? If the rest of the panels looked like that, maybe it wouldn't look so bad. It looks like something very 70s. Yeah. Very 70s sci-fi. I could see armor like this in Doctor Who, for example. It was a different time. Yeah, it's just campy, whatever. I didn't really care much for them. If I never saw them again, I wouldn't be upset. Bad news because they are in next issue. I meant beyond this, but yes. Sure, sure. We have to see them one more time. There's a really great scene involving Colossus in this book and a truck and the truck. And we're kind of seeing Colossus on a bit of like a hero's journey where he's trying to, I think, like find himself in the X-Men. Like, what is his role? Seeing his teammates grow and master their powers a little bit better. And I mean, like, if you're constantly around Storm and she's just kicking everybody's ass, I mean, you're going to start questioning yourself, you know? I would have an inferiority complex 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 the complex. She's just too cool. But it's very clear that Colossus is having a bit of an existential crisis when it comes to the X-Men and just figuring out where he belongs and how he can be a better member of the team. Especially when you kind of think of the last couple of issues. He had the run with Magneto twice where he kind of really got his metal buns handed to him. It's a tough matchup for him. And, you know, he got wrung around by Sauron in the Savage Land. And now here we are again, where he's having a hard time with the villain of the week. So he's trying to find his path. And we get this really cool scene where he was essentially earlier in this issue, he was shot off during this fight with the Mandroids. And he basically like crashes into a road. And you can see him try to stop this truck from getting away. And he just grabs onto the front bumper and just destroys all the axles of the truck so it can't move. It's a really cool sequence. I do like him just popping out of the hole. Like the little panel with just his arms sticking out of the ground. I think there are a few more moments with him that we'll be able to discuss throughout these four issues that we're talking. But there's definitely a few more moments that really fits into this case that you're building for what Colossus is going through. And it does feel like we are building towards something with him. But interested in seeing where that goes. Yeah, definitely. And we're also closing in on Christmas. That's true. Not when these issues were released 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 and I if we listen to this on Christmas. Just find all the different X-Men Christmas stories and read them every year. Here's them getting kidnapped by the Sentinels. Here's Moses Magnum. I'm sure there's a few more. I hope they save Santa, you know, like literally an old... At some point. An old school comic where Magneto is... Trying to ruin Christmas so he goes to the North Pole and he's using his magnetism to prevent the sleigh from taking off. And he holds Santa hostage so the X-Men have to come and save him. Boom. There you go. I just wrote it. Maybe that was the original five members. Fun fact about Santa, by the way. Canadian citizen. Is he? According to our government, he pays taxes in Canada. Oh. That's good that he's paying taxes. Well, you know. Wish he would pay his workers, but... Wow, you know, elves are immortal beings, so I don't know where that falls in labor law. They probably don't have use for money in their society. Sugar is their currency. Yeah. That's why you can't have them living in trees and make cookies. Keeper elves. So I think one of the only other things that I wanted to mention, for a while now, we've been harping on the X-Men of... Just please pick up a phone. You need to get to a phone. That's literally all you need to do. Scott Summers got to a phone this issue. Yeah, that's right. And what happens? Really bad timing. But I'm glad that we actually got to see them do what we were asking him to do, at the very least. Just try and contact them. Yeah, all of the numbers are disconnected, including the one that goes directly to Cerebro, which I'm not sure how works, but... Cerebro is just the world's most advanced answering machine. Maybe it just automatically goes on like speakerphone. And so somehow they can communicate with it. I like to think that Professor X is just getting tons of spam calls constantly through Cerebro. And he's like, damn it, I'm added on the no call list. Leave me alone. That probably didn't exist back then, though. I feel like that was a 90s thing because I saw it on the news growing up. You can add your phone number to the do not call list. Otherwise, I feel like a lot of setup for what's going to happen in issue 119 overall. Yeah, I will say it was very... I just found it very funny that he disconnected all the phones. Like, I... It's the responsible thing to do. Now somebody else can get those numbers. Well, I mean, do you think he, like, also cut off the remaining utilities to his property, you know? Cut off his hydro or electricity, I guess. That's what other people call it. I mean, if he's going to be gone for forever. Yeah, I would assume the water and the electricity are cut off. Who's going to, like, who owns the house now? I mean, he can still own it and just have it vacant. But is he ever going to come back? Maybe he's just going for an extended space outing and plans to return at some point. I mean, if anybody deserves to just go off into space and live a life that doesn't involve being, you know, targeted by monstrous robots all the time, then, you know, Xavier might be at the top of the list. Maybe less so these days, but back then probably. It's funny you say that because he's about to be starting a whole big comic story where he is in space. Probably not targeted by robots, but I don't know what's planned. Like in modern day? Yeah. The new thing that Jonathan Hickman is putting together, I think it's Imperial? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's going to involve Xavier in some way. Oh. Because he escaped. I'm not right up to... I'm partway through the X-Man hunt storyline, so I don't really know how he leaves Earth yet. You are way further ahead than I am, so I'm still working my way through the Krakoa stuff. Oh, by the way, I did start reading 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's also a little cute. I really like how it's drawn. The art style is really nice. I like that it's the artist and the writer are the same person, so it really does have that very manga feel to it. You're probably pretty early, I imagine, right? I'm a few issues in. I don't remember what just happened. It's Armor and Storm. Not real Storm, but she has a cool 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 other mutant. I don't know. Psylocke? Is that supposed to be Psylocke? She has purple hair, so I thought maybe this is, but... Yeah, I think it's Psylocke, but whatever. I could be wrong. It's been a hot minute since I've read them. Either way, it's a fun reimagining of the space, I guess. And it's very different, so it's fun to do something different. Issue 119 shows the X-Men in the process of invading Moses Magnum's lair. We get a little flashback to see how the planning process went, and the team eventually tunnels their way in, but are attacked as soon as they emerge. Magnum smacks Colossus so hard that he almost flies off the entire volcanic island. The team isn't able to stop him before he shuts himself away and begins unleashing his destructive power. Luckily, Banshee realizes that he might be able to stop the energy attack and reflect it back at its source. The standoff results in the destruction of his volcanic base and a victory for the X-Men, though it comes at a cost. As Storm says, she fears Sean may have burned out his power and worse. We learn that Sean spent a few days 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 him with a Christmas party when he rejoins them. At the very end of the issue, we see that Jean spent six weeks in the Greek Isles, good for her. and has now joined Moira, Havoc, Polaris, and Jamie Madrox in Scotland. They're going to spend a few days in Edinburgh before returning to Myrrh Island. But on the last page, we see they'll be returning to disaster. Angus MacWherter, the man whose rental boat got wrecked by Magneto back in X-Men 104, breaks into the research facility on Myrrh Island, but he hears a voice say, Human, I need you. And it says he doesn't even have time to scream. We close with Myr Isle. Christmas Day. A life ends and a nightmare is born. What do you think it is? I believe this is the last time that we were there. There was like a tease of mutant ex-escaping or something like that. Oh, yes. Well, he's walking right past. There is a panel as they are introducing Angus here. And he's walking past a door that has Mutant X on it. Does it? Yeah, it says Mutant X. I don't know how to read, so I missed that. It says Mutant X, no. Oh, yeah. Admittance. Yeah, I see that now. Yep. So first, I'm really jazzed that they brought Angus back. He's the highlight of this issue for me. And I love to see that he's back. Fun fact, this is almost two years later. The Mutant X thing is almost two years after we had that initial tease in terms of like when that was written, when this was written. Oh my goodness. It's so hard to think of it that way, right? Like reading these the way we're reading them is totally different than how people would have consumed this at the time. And yeah, it's great storytelling. Imagine opening this book and as it'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 me saying, the boat captain couldn't leave well enough alone. No, he was being kind of sassy. Like, what did he think was going to happen? Like, I'm just going to go over to this island where all the mutants that intimidated me from before are, perhaps. And, well, you know, he knew it's an accursed place, according to him. It's responsible for the destruction of his awesome boat. And even though he was paid in full for his loss, he feels like he's got to get rid of the island for the safety of everyone. I mean, when a man loses his boat, it's like losing 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 set up a big plan and enacted the plan for this whole infiltration thing and had a lot of different elements. Nightcrawler Bampson scouts it out and then he needs to give the signal to the people that are tunneling below the ocean to be like, all right, here's where you come up so that you don't drown under miles of water or however, probably not miles, but a ton of water. So I really liked the planning portion of it, especially because in the tunnel, there was a certain amount of realisticness to it with them dealing with the immense heat from Sunfire's abilities and the lack of oxygen from the fire just continuing to burn up all the oxygen. Do you know what the rationale was with them both using their powers? Was Shiro, in essence, just melting the existing rock to secure it in place so it wouldn'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, it could be very sandy, so he might be glassing it. I don't know. I don't know. There's probably a whole bunch of science that is involved in that. I hope it isn't glass, because I don't know if that would withstand the pressure down there, but whatever. It's really good glass. Like I said, there is only a semi-realness to it, and then there's the comic book half, and it's a beautiful merging of science and comic book. For me, this issue, yeah, I agree. I liked kind of the plan to get into the base and them kind of enacting it. And we had, I think, just a lot of good personal moments in this issue to kind of like capstone the last one. You know, we've already talked about how Nightcrawler was able to really stretch out his powers and do some different things with them in this issue and the last one. We see Colossus have this come to moment where he realizes again that he needs to, I think in his words, earn his keep and that he will just not get tossed around again. Like he is, in essence, refusing to be a rag doll anymore. Yeah, my notes say Colossus is not happy with his recent performance and that lack of confidence maybe contributes toward him acting rashly in the next couple of issues.

UNKNOWN: 27:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:22

Yeah, I would say so. I think he's going to be thinking with his muscles. Speaking of Colossus and personal moments, he has a little bit at the end with Storm where he's talking about missing his family and how everyone else is sort of a loner or doesn't really have anyone, but he has another 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, like he was the only one that was coming from a traditional family unit, right? He was coming from a place of love. He was leaving them behind to work a farm. So he probably feels some self guilt that he isn't there helping them. And he's been, you know, in space now in the Savage Lands. He's been in all these places that are hard to believe, right? So he's probably lonely in a lot of ways. But we've also seen maybe Storm's just a little bit of a flirt. I think it's just like her kind of like ambiguity with how she kind of interacts with characters like Nightcrawler. Maybe it's just sincerity rather than flirtatiousness. But there seems like they've been kind of teasing something between Storm and Peter. I think so. I don't think there's any... flirtatiousness from her necessarily in this issue. Like the kiss with Nightcrawler seems very just like sisterly, right? Sisterly or very friendly platonic thing. He's very bashful about it though. But she is, whether or not she is interested in Peter, I think there are definitely moments where she does seem flirtatious. I mean, many characters do, right? As you just said. They were all young adults. And Nightcrawler's face here is just, it's so funny. He has like these wide eyes after getting a peck on the cheek. And we also see some lovely moments where Wolverine steps away to, you know, speed with Mariko again and kind of really show this, not even sensitive side, but just, you know, he's showing just, him being normal he's interested in this woman and he can speak the language and they've had like a couple of cute moments and he's probably also dealing with the loss in his mind of losing Jean so yeah it's not sensitive necessarily but definitely his gentle side And we see that a little bit more, I think, at the start of next issue. But it has been interesting to see Logan as we'll learn his name is. I think that's the first time, right? I don't know. Like, did the Guardian call him Logan in that issue? I don't think so. I think everyone's only called him Wolverine. And then he tells Mariko his name is Logan. Because he made a big deal that he never got to tell Gene what his real name was. So I think Wolverine just like keeps a lot of fun facts about him very close to the chest and then sometimes gets upset at his teammates for them not knowing anything about him. Like you can read Japanese. Of course I can. You just never asked. Yeah, I mean, I think it's very obvious and they've pointed this out in a lot of ways that Wolverine isn't used to being in a family. And we're going to see this play out in this dynamic play out over the next two issues where he was involved in this previous program is treated like an asset where the X-Men treat him like a family member. So, you know, the dynamics really there. And I think once you've kind of traveled and dealt with the things that you've dealt with, you know, there is a true bond that's formed here between all these people. As is clear with this interaction between Storm and Peter and Storm and Nightcrawler, them just having this Christmas party really kind of shows the family dynamic and love that's there between them. One thing that I was excited to see was that we did get to check in on Jean. and haven't just left her as a dangling character not in the comic at all. So yeah, she's going to be going to Burr Island. And at this point, they've introduced that place as, I think, a combination of mutant research and a containment facility. So I'm interested to see what is she planning to do, I guess, with Moira and Havoc, Lorna, Jamie. What kind of antics are they getting up to? Yeah, I'm curious as well, and I'm assuming that's where we're going to be going after we're done talking about these four issues. Well, we have to see what happens to Angus, so... Yeah, too true. I think it's also important that we give Banshee his flowers. He was the hero of this book. Without him, Japan is gone. Japan would be gone, and he did it without hesitation. He knew that he was the only one who could really take on Moses, dealing with some frequency stuff. matching pitches or something. Cool nonetheless. And I think, you know, as somebody who was a little unsure about Sean's inclusion when we started reading these books and maybe had like some preconceived notions about the character, you know, just being kind of old, which, you know, was brought. We do make some jokes at his expense, which which has come up many times. In fairness, he makes fun of himself for it. But we see him give up what makes him powerful. And I can't imagine that is an easy thing for him to do. He has a very selfless moment and should be accordingly recognized for being the hero that he is. Yeah, that was one note I was looking for. I put it in my overall thoughts at the very end. But like you, I appreciate the high stakes with Banshee. And he ends up suffering a serious injury. And it's not that we necessarily want to see the character injured. But in comics, you don't always see... Issue 120 begins with Alpha Flight, Canada's superhero team 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 putting the moves on his cousin. Speaking of which, he surprises Mariko with a flower and reveals that his real name is Logan. The team flies home, and one of the pilots informs Scott that a storm is forcing them to land early in Calgary. The pilot also pointedly notices that Scott and Colleen Wing have been very close since leaving Tokyo. James Hudson, aka Vindicator, is waiting for them on the tarmac and says that they're taking back Wolverine. Sasquatch picks up and throws the plane, accidentally destroying it, which returns us to our theme of the vehicles of the X-Men getting all blowed up. Thankfully, Storm manipulated the weather to give them cover, and the X-Men snuck off before the plane got thrown. The team splits up, Nightcrawler ends up being captured by Northstar and Aurora, and Vindicator confronts Storm, Banshee, and Colleen, but gets wrecked by Storm. Finally, we see Wolverine, who's split off on his own, captured by Sasquatch. When Nightcrawler and Wolverine don't rendezvous, Scott assumes that they've been taken and says, We've been ending these issues on some dramatic one-liners. Nah, man, it's been like that since the beginning. But still, I mean, Scott Summers is kind of, you know, he's Mr. Boy Scout or whatever. He's saying hell. Pretty big deal since he's usually just calling people Mr. and Buster. Well, you know, he's amping up the red word because the stakes are high. Well, I've already complained about the Ottawa spelling. But poor Ottawa. Yeah, poor Ottawa. And for the record, that's O-T-T-A-W-A is the correct spelling. But we did meet the Prime Minister of Canada directing Guardian, who has a new name now called Vindicator. Was he called Guardian a few issues ago? Pretty sure he was. I know he was called something. But you, yeah, it doesn't really matter. But yeah, I prefer, what do they call a major maple leaf? The X-Men? Yeah. Maybe he should just go with that one. But whatever, Vindicator is talking with the prime minister who is designed to look like the prime minister at the time, who was Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father, the more you know. That was kind of fun to see. There's a bunch of locations that we got to see as well. A couple different spots in Alberta, shots of the territories. I thought it was fun getting to see all these different places that they were across the country. Not something I get to experience often. There's not a whole lot of this material out there that says spotlighting a Canadian superhero team. So that was fun. I was a little surprised by the farewell between Scott and Shiro. Well, he has the respect now that he's saved the entire country from sinking into the ocean. Yeah. Somehow he didn't have that when he was on the X-Men team to begin with, which is fine. Yeah, I thought it was some nice growth between Scott and Shiro. We got to see a wholesome Wolverine 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 he wants somebody to love him. I'd give him a big hug. I think he'd like that. Secretly. I hope so. What did you think of the Colleen Scott progression here? Just chilling on the plane. It's interesting. I do like that the pilot just calls it out as, oh, wow, those two have been real close. And again, this is why we did that big elephant in the room at the start, because otherwise we could just spend a whole lot of time on Misty is on board this plane. What is going on? Thankfully, we've already addressed it. Yeah, I don't know. I want to be like, maybe they talked. 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 because it doesn't make sense. Yeah, especially because they've been around each other for like two weeks at this point. It was cool seeing Storm sense that this storm was unnatural, that a being was controlling it. That was pretty much it. I just thought it was fun seeing the interaction between Logan and Alpha Flight. We got a funny sequence of Banshee 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 to the doctor telling him that he shouldn't be doing it. Oh, yeah. That, too. One thing that's fun that I wanted to bring up with Banshee is I like the little thing that they've done with his speech bubbles being a dotted line instead of a continuous line just to represent him talking with a messed up voice. Oh, I didn't even notice that. A fun little thing. Not super consequential. Oh, that is pretty cool. It was really cool seeing him have that confrontation with Vindicator. where he's tried to use his powers and he basically limped over in pain. Yeah, it's interesting to see this happen against a good guy. Vindicator is a good guy. And he just runs up to him and is like, don't worry, we'll get 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 big confrontation with James Hudson. And it looks super cool. And she destroys the store. And really, I mean, the way I put it earlier was that she wrecks him. Yeah, she really does wreck him. At least enough to kind of send him fleeing to get the rest of Alpha Flight. I really liked how they colored these sequences differently. with these vibrant blues and blacks to really contrast the white hair and outfit that she's wearing. I mean, it matches the boots she's wearing in here too, but it's just like a really cool way to illustrate Storm's powers. And I feel like it's really showing that there's a ton of power that's flowing out of her. She's not using a lot of restraint in this moment. She definitely feels the most in tuned with her powers, with the exception of Cyclops. In issue 121, we start things off with the X-Men committing a B&E at the Calgary Stampede, the greatest outdoor show on Earth. Storm scouts ahead and locates the missing members. It's an obvious trap, but the X-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 off the fight fearing treachery. Everyone splits off into their own little battles, and the snowstorm outside of the stampede ground spirals out of control. The storm eventually begins raining ice shards and gusting at 200 miles per hour, an escalation so intense that it halts their battle when they begin to feel it within the stampede grounds. Storm recognizes the large-scale danger this poses, but is worried as she's only attempted to shape a storm this intense once before. She flies into the upper atmosphere and is able to disperse the storm over a wide area, though she's exhausted by the seemingly hours of effort. Northstar sucker punches her as soon as she hits the ground and Cyclops answers with an optic blast. He means to savagely beat Northstar, but Wolverine of all people holds him back and gives himself up to Alpha Flight and the Canadian government, who cart him off in an armored car. The X-Men return to US airspace in a new plane and decide they should turn around and go back for their lost teammate, but Wolverine spins around in his chair dramatically to reveal he has already escaped. Fun fact, that's 321 kilometers per hour. The winds. Important to know. I mean, we're in Canada. We should be using the metric system. I'm just saying. It's a good system. And I'm American. So I think... Wolverine has really been another highlight of these few issues. You know, the last time we got to talk about him taking charge, this time we get to see some more sides of him, him being the voice of reason, him doing this fun little escape and return thing. We got to see his gentler side with Mariko and the revelation that he's apparently very good at speaking Japanese and spent time there when he was younger. It's nice that we're still receiving these little breadcrumbs of information. A couple of issues ago, I was complaining about how we were not really getting growth from some of the other team members. We were really getting a lot of growth from Storm. In fact, I think I said this in the last episode where we saw Charles Xavier in Egypt and had this flashback episode where where he interacts with Storm. And we've talked at length about how amazing she is and how her powers keep getting better and better and better. So it's... And we have to do more of it this time. Well, yeah. I mean, they're still getting better and better. Because without her, this Storm that was summoned by Shaman somehow has taken the mind of its own, not literally, but is out of control. It's no longer... He couldn't just press, you know, a theoretical button and shut it off. So yeah, Storm's awesome. But it was great seeing this progression with Wolverine in this book and just getting more of the character. I think that's probably been my favorite thing of these last four issues in hindsight. Jumping in here, I wrote down 8 out of 10 for the four issues. Having talked with you, I think I would probably make an amendment to that score. Interesting. So what were some other highlights for you for issue 121? Sure. Sure. couldn't have thought of a better way to wrap this up like maybe the only thing maybe I could have seen is some sort of acceptance by Vindicator that Wolverine doesn't want to be with them and has made a family with the X-Men and you know maybe even an exchange of hey like we'll come help you if you need it sometime or you know something along those lines a resolution between the two teams some sort of resolution between would have been, I think, good rather than, okay, well, he just escapes at the end. And he's surprised he's there. And nobody noticed him sitting on the plane while they've been in the air for at least a couple minutes. There is a really good panel on that last page where you can see Scott comes in and he's like, change, of course. And right behind his thumb, you can see Wolverine just in the background. Yeah, I see it here, yeah. That's my biggest issue with this story ending is just we didn't get a resolution and we're just leaving things where we started, which is Wolverine on the run, essentially, to be captured another day. Are they going to come back for round three? I mean, I would imagine so. They promised the prime minister they were going to have this handled. Come on, man. Like, what are you? Oh, man, they're going to be in trouble, aren't they? They're going to get a serious talking to. A lot of stories will be had that day. Oh, boy. Yeah, aside from that, I really like the interaction between Banshee and the rest of the teammates and still trying to like bust into the stampede grounds to try to help everybody out. And as much as I just ragged on this non-resolution, there was a lot of growth in Wolverine just kind of accepting like this is what needs to be done. And you complimented this as well as just him taking the leadership role and making a decision, albeit one that he knew that his teammates just never would have done. Doesn't he also say that from the start he always meant to give himself up, but he was just having a lot of fun doing this little back and forth fight between the two squads? He does say a line. I have it up here. He says, house, I would have called it quits long ago and saved everyone a lot of grief. And then Cyclops is like, you're an X-Men Wolverine. Your fights are a fight. And he says, I appreciate that boss more than you know, but I ain't gonna see my friends chewed up on my account. You want me, Jimmy, I'm yours. So he doesn't say that his intention was to give up necessarily but I think it's more that in the moment his common sense escaped him but he's realized that the only way out of this is for him to surrender and escape with apparently a lot of ease well they must not realize just how strong adamantium is I guess that must be it was there anything else that really stuck out to you I think the big thing is just storm flying up and I mean this is just like another example of Hey, Storm has solved our problems again. She's very strong. She's our heavy hitter. She just goes up into the upper atmosphere, is hanging up there for, the way I read it, probably some hours. And then she gets sucker punched by Northstar, who comes off as kind of a punk. I really loved Storm in this book, in all four issues, really. This could literally be called Storm. It's just a Storm fan cast. Storm in the X-Men is what this should really be called. Even before she fixes the whole weather thing, she has a fun moment where she takes off her cloak and wraps up the big owl in it and just throws it on the ground. And she has a rationale for it, which is the best part, that Her outfit is specifically made to be 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 character moments of these four issues are the moments that really shined. Mr. Magnum, like, whatever. That could have been anybody. Thank you for returning to calling him Mr. Magnum. I don't think I ever really swayed from it, to be honest. He's fine. The Mandroids, whatever. I could care less about either of those two things. For me, it was really about character growth, both their literal physical character growth and how they're using their powers. And then the character growth that we're seeing between the characters themselves, this acceptance by Peter that he needs to step up and find his place on the team, this gentler side of Wolverine where he's exploring his feelings with, you know, a potential spark with Miriko, even if it's just, you know, I hope you remember me and write me some letters. And then him ultimately recognizing that in order to end this fight, it's not to fight to the death, it's to give up. So those are all really big highlights for me, and of course, standing Storm as normal. For me, I would give it, I'm going to drop my score down, not by a ton, but a 7 out of 10. I was looking at a 6.5 to 7, somewhere in there, out of 10. I think some of the flaws that I was a little bit on the fence of, having this discussion made them sing a little bit more loudly than they were before. On the other side of things, I think you maybe bumped up my opinion of the issues a little higher than where I was sitting. I do like how you pointed out these four do have a lot of those fun, small character moments, which really are a highlight, and the enemies are okay. The stakes are pretty high. My only complaint is that the resolution of this feels a lot like the resolution of... moses magnum with oh it's gonna explode it's gonna do the big thing someone flies up in the air he's the only person that can stop it and they stop it and then the storm situation feels very similar with oh it's out of control storm flies up into the air she's the only one that can stop it and she stops it yeah a little similar yeah yeah i see it but i mean also we only have like five members of this x-men team one of which doesn't really have access to his power anymore, at least at our current moment due to injury. So, you know, there's only so many people who can step up and deal with those situations. It's more just, I think, the proximity to each other, not that it's necessarily a bad conclusion for either of those two issues. If anything, in hindsight, it's become very clear that Charles Xavier is very good at recruiting. He's found some heavy-hitter heroes here between... Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler with how he's using his powers. You got really strong mutant players that he's been able to draft to the X-Men. It's a good combination. They have a lot of versatility that I think maybe the old original team didn't necessarily have. So I discovered one of the reasons why my notes were long for this issue. And it's because I made a little note that Scott is cool and collected until he's pushed over the edge and then he goes berserk like a long time ago when he was beating on Lang and here with Northstar. And the reason I bring this up is just that I also recently finished reading a run of Champions where the time-displaced Cyclops was a key member of And it's very interesting looking at this and looking at all of those just because we're kind of seeing a similar age. I mean, he's younger then, but it's very interesting to revisit him and go through the struggles that we're reading about now in this run, but go through them through a more modern lens, I guess, and just how he's burdened by responsibility and completely unable to relax. And that's why he is the way that he is. No, I agree 100%. Scott is somebody who has been at 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 burdening himself with the pressures of navigating these situations. Well, sure, like everybody's chipping in and helping, but they clearly recognize Scott as the leader of the team. It speaks to how unfair his life has been to him, that he has had to find himself in these tough positions, ultimately, but that Charles really did him dirty. And then seemingly, you know, they're going to find out that Charles is gone. So now he's left holding the bag of the X-Men. I am looking forward to seeing what that's going to be like. And I assume, I mean, they don't have a way to reach... Charles unless maybe Jean is able to send out some sort of telepathic communication but I am interested in seeing what happens when they all finally go home see that their dad went out for pop-tarts and it's gone and like who's in charge now well as we know in future x-men stories there's going to be many times when Charles is gone for whatever reason and Oddly enough, one of the top three people on this team, be it 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 what this reunion will be like between Charles and the other X-Men. 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 122 to 124. 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 with a friend.