UNKNOWN: 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I'm Isaac Baderspiel, and usually this is when I would be introducing my co-host Adam Ward. However, we recorded this episode and the last episode in one run, thinking it was going to be one single episode. It turns out we had a lot to say about the Proteus Saga. We hope you enjoy our discussion of X-Men issues 127 and 128. Issue 127 picks up immediately where we left off. off with Proteus shuffling closer and closer to Storm. What eventually stops him is a barrage of bullets between him and Storm from Moira's rifle. She means to take the killing shot, but Cyclops stops her. Moira knocks him out in retribution and takes up the hunt once more. The team reassembles for a hot cocoa break, and Cyclops sees that Wolverine is extremely shaken by his run-in with Proteus. Cyclops goads him into a fight, and eventually involves Nightcrawler and Storm in the conflict as well. Scott calls a truce and says to consider it a session in the danger room. He wanted to ensure that there weren't any lasting psychological after-effects from their reality-bending encounter. Wolverine delivers extremely high praise by saying, I ain't thought much of you in the past, Psych. As a team leader or as a man, I was wrong. Moira arrives in Edinburgh to warn her estranged and abusive husband, Joe, and to tell him that, hey, they have a son and he's coming to kill you probably. Proteus continues his journey, jumping hosts when needed until encountering his true target, and he does eventually take over Joe, killing him. After absorbing Joe, Proteus gains his father's memories and emotions, which turns him against his mother Jean hears the psychic death scream and rushes the X-Men to the scene. There's a brief battle, but the X-Men have difficulty getting to Proteus due to his powers. The issue ends with Proteus holding Moira hostage to stop the X-Men from coming after him. Scott apologizes to Sean and says that Proteus needs to be stopped, no matter the cost. I think really, really solid book just overall, and I mean, that's something that we can kind of just say about all four issues. One thing that I think stuck out to me a lot was when I think about Cyclops in just across a lot of what we've read so far, he really excels at being a tactical leader, but less so a leader of people, you know, really highlighted by the first issue we talked today where his feedback is just pathetic people, really pathetic, not the best way to talk to your team. I guess that's just his management style. But I felt like it was really nice to see him really step up and have this encounter with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, and really go beyond just his tactical leadership expertise and to provide a much needed direction and leadership intervention for the three of them.

SPEAKER_02: 3:34

Yeah, I agree 100%. I said off the top how I didn't agree with how Cyclops was dealing with that situation in the danger room and how he dealt with the team and this is the polar opposite of that seeing the toll this conflict with Proteus had on all of the members of the team but especially Logan and he even remarks that if Wolverine doesn't get past this it's going to cripple him like he'll he'll never be the same and to do that he he What a good leader has to do when he pokes the bear and gets him agitated and gets him angry and gets him not necessarily thinking about this encounter with Proteus and how he failed in a lot of ways to overcome the situation and be impactful and meaningful in those encounter in that encounter with Proteus. And I think that really speaks to his ability to be a people leader, which I mean, like, that's a very common phrase I think in like modern culture but I think it's it's not something that you would really expect here it's something I would expect from Captain America right being able to kind of put the people you're around ahead of the mission and that's kind of what we get here with this you know pause and it was incredible foreshadowing and a great tie back to that first issue of okay yeah I'm I'm hard on you guys I recognize that but every time we working together and training together and all these missions he's developed this connection with them where he can recognize when they're struggling and in actual danger as we see as he talks about the trauma that Wolverine's dealing with and he's able to kind of act and he does it responsibly like he knows he's goading Wolverine enough that he's not holding back and we see that take place and it's a great choreographed move that kind of goes on with Logan being tossed over because he's acting irrationally and doing exactly what Scott wants him to be doing and letting go and trying to kill him and he informs Gene ahead of time mentally that hey like I'm I'm gonna do something crazy here because I need to help them I need to snap them out of this funk and the only way I can do that is by opening their eyes to what we're doing and then pulling in Kurt who gets knocked around immediately and Storm steps in to be like this is enough this is ridiculous why are we doing this and he doesn't take that for anything other than okay well if you're gonna talk like this then you're gonna get pulled into this too you failed and I need to make sure that you're also okay but recognizing as soon as Storm steps in he's like okay that's enough and we gotta I forfeit by the way this was all a test and you all passed congratulations

SPEAKER_01: 6:43

yeah he can knock her down the one time but he doesn't want to necessarily have that fight linger on for too long yeah it's a clear

SPEAKER_02: 6:53

kind of you know it's a bit of a movie trope it's that slap in the face to snap you back to reality and that's essentially what happened here this was Scott giving the team giving the team that back slapped to the face to like get them to snap back and be like okay you're focused again you can do this and we can do this together but I need you to be present and so it was awesome it was so great I will provide a critique though of Scott because we see Moira pull out a rifle that she created because it has the ability at least the scope of seeing through i guess like the illusion of what and how proteus is kind of existing right because if he's not even in a body like he's just almost like pure energy basically

SPEAKER_01: 7:51

it's like uh like infrared like heat scope situation except tuned to you know looking for his specific form of energy but

SPEAKER_02: 8:02

super messed up that you have to make a weapon or or an attachment to a weapon that's capable of killing your child again kind of playing into that generational trauma she's known how big of a threat he could be that if he escaped something like this could happen and he would be unstoppable and she would have to do the only things she can do and that's put him down it's I can't even imagine that situation for a parent to have to make that decision and then you have Scott step in when she's about to kind of eliminate him understanding the threat that he poses and Scott steps in prevents her from taking the shot and then at the end of the book I think he kind of recognizes the mistake that he makes because suddenly he's changed his tune to okay we might actually have to like cross you know our red line and eliminate him for good

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

yeah I mean at this point Scott hasn't had a direct encounter with Proteus and he's like what are you doing we want to capture him not kill him and then later in the book after he's seen his crazy powers in action he's like uh never mind we uh we can't capture this person let's just uh we gotta do what we gotta

SPEAKER_02: 9:28

do we've really kind of talked about this theme of generational trauma we see her rush to get ahead of Proteus by going to her estranged husband and be like hey you're a giant piece of shit but I'm trying to do right here by giving you a heads up that your son that you don't know about but you have is dangerous and is aware of you and is coming to potentially kill you and how she had you know he left her and he you know all of that trauma plays out and into Proteus and his motivations and the way he acts in this villainous attitude really all stems from the experiences Moira kind of had and the hate that she generated towards him because here Proteus is seemingly hating his father trying to kill him then gaining those memories and seeing even deeper and and darker how messed up the relationship is and him now wielding the husk killing your father and wielding the husk of him to now go after your mother and I guess like ultimately get humanity to bend the knee and recognize that they're nothing compared to you like really messed up when you think about the layers and layers and layers of trauma that are feeding this story and I wrote down you know like generational trauma is a curse and I think that's how we see it play out here

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

part of the issue seems to be that I mean the way I read some of this is it seems that Moira was essentially trauma dumping on her own son nowadays people go to therapy for that kind of thing I mean people probably still you know definitely do it I think people are still trauma dumping on their children but should stop it and go to therapy but you know not a great mother child situation that she created with that and

SPEAKER_02: 11:46

I think she like she recognizes that right like she I think recognizes she's part of the problem but it's too late right yeah this child that you had is now grown up and is like the damage is done and I think that's why you have her creating a weapon capable of eliminating him Because, you know, while she doesn't want to use it, and she probably wants to hope that there's still, you know, I think she even comments at one point about how she did, you know, she tried, she tried to make him a good person, but it wasn't enough. And it's, you know, exactly what you said, it's trauma dumping on on her kid that put this in that situation. It's, I think, very mature of Chris to include that kind of story in in this in the X-Men at all because it's I think very relatable to people especially in the 70s and it's still relatable today for thousands if not millions of people who still are dealing with the baggage of their parents it's hard man and I think you have to sympathize like a little a little with Proteus and I think anybody who's been in that situation right like the trauma dumping if you've been on the receiving end of it you know what it's like even beyond that his

SPEAKER_01: 13:05

life majorly sucks Yeah, he's certainly a monster

SPEAKER_02: 13:31

of his environment from his power set. And I think a lot of mutants and we see this through like dozens and dozens of stories some mutant powers suck like they just suck and you can accept it and try to live with it and and own it and you know i think it's wonderful when you can accept who you are and i think i wish everybody could but in proteus's case you're being shoved into a closet and left there to rot in a lot of ways being told that you're a monster that you're uncontrollable that you're too dangerous to exist in reality and out in the open to see the sky to you know experience sunlight to be with friends and you're having to like that shit's gonna build up and build up and build up until it explodes like a powder keg and that's what we see here this was an inevitability you know yeah I also want to call it how great the cover is I'm flipping back now. The cover of this issue is like Proteus is portrayed in this kind of white outline and color, almost like a ghost. And it's just flush with like this purple and pink and these waves of black. It's awesome. I love it. It's so vibrant. There's some good covers in these issues. I was a little like on the fence about how I was going to feel about the artwork because I knew this was kind of... You know, like it's an old book. I've really

SPEAKER_01: 15:08

loved it. There's a lot of really good stuff. There are elements that, at least for me, I end up missing a lot. Like, you know, a lot of modern stuff is just there's a lot of detail. And I guess I would describe it as like a cleaner art style. Like, I think some of this old stuff really relies a lot on like a shading style that just isn't used as much nowadays. And, you know, modern printing is, you know, just in a place that wasn't possible back then. When I decided to, you know, hey, it'd be really fun to just like, read all these old X-Men comics, I thought that the art would be a bigger obstacle than it was. And maybe early on, it felt like more of an obstacle. But I mean, at this point, it like really, really doesn't

SPEAKER_02: 16:07

i agree 100 i struggle to consume media that is older like whether that's what old media sucks watching something that was you know sd and hasn't been upgraded to hd in any kind of way like i really have a hard time sitting down and watching that like likewise a good old four three four three format ratio yeah and similarly with games like older games i just feel like I have memories of those and the experiences and how much I love them at the moment but if I go to play them now it those like it doesn't feel the same as it did and I think that's just because at those moments in time seeing pixels the way you were seeing them like it was fine because that was incredible that you were experiencing it like in that capacity but to know where we are now where you can near lifelike versions of video game characters to go back and play something where they're very polygon like is it's a struggle it's such a barrier for me and like and for some people it's not and to you I say I'm happy because it's a massive barrier for myself

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

yeah gaming had and like a very much an awkward stage in like the PlayStation 1 and 64 era. And to some extent still like the PS2 era is kind of a rough period where I think, I mean, it depends on like the type of game that you're trying to do, but like there's a lot of Super Nintendo stuff that still looks really good. And that's because it's working within different limitations. Yeah. Like a Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy like that kind of stuff still looks really good and doesn't really come off the same way as like if you were doing like Final Fantasy 7 or something like that or 8 just kind of look rough 9 I think less so because it has a very fun art style to it that I've always appreciated but it's just on the mind because they're having their big anniversary around now damn happy birthday Final Fantasy 9 I agree 100%

SPEAKER_02: 18:44

with everything you just said I think there's obviously exceptions to the rule and I think one that sticks out for me not as an exception but an example of a game that I just can't play today is Goldeneye the way the controls are like even just using the N64 controller for me now is just I can't it's just it's I'm too used to the dual joysticks. The C-pad on there is very awkward to use now. It's a weird controller. It was a choice. And for some people, they still love it. I think the new Switch came with... You can get an accessory that's basically like an N64 controller. We are really making this a hard one to edit. I think those are all the notes I have for this issue. So I mean, like we can move on to the final one. I

SPEAKER_01: 19:41

mean, the only other note I have, and I think it's very important is just poor Sean Cassidy. He's on hot cocoa duty. He learns that Moira has a secret husband or had at this point. Like, I mean, it's like you said, you know, he's doing what he can to support the team. And for some reason that's hot chocolate. Not even coffee. That was... really out of left field like I was it's just so random to be like here's your hot cocoa Scott do you want some more I love oh I love that he also throws it in Wolverine's face like that's how he starts the fight just by throwing a bunch of hot hot chocolate

SPEAKER_02: 20:28

straight into his face actually now that you mention it in that whole interaction with Logan he even like hints that Wolverine is thinking about leading the team. It's interesting because we've seen Logan kind of step up in some of the past issues over the last couple of episodes. And here we have like an acknowledgement by Scott, who is also seeing Logan kind of, I think, step into being more of a leader than maybe he was originally. I

SPEAKER_01: 20:56

think it's partially also just due to how much Wolverine personally likes to question leadership styles and choices that Scott makes. That is all my notes otherwise. Kind of just like a great middle issue of the arc with, you know, not a whole lot of very specific notes. Yeah, we can move on to the last book. Issue 128 starts things off with a pretty trippy first page of an entire city getting all bendy. The X-Men spring into action, attempting to save the lives of bystanders. Proteus turns Moira into some kind of elephant-like creature. That was weird. Things get pretty weird. Yeah. Yeah. Gene connects the team psychically and Scott dictates a new plan of attack to them. His plan seems to be achieving some measure of success as Proteus ends up fleeing with Phoenix in pursuit. The X-Men keep chipping away at him little by little causing Proteus to burn through his human host. Colossus tosses him away from Moira and his host body eventually disintegrates as Proteus takes his true energy form where he is both most vulnerable and most dangerous. Peter steps up big though and transforms as Proteus attempts to take his body. He then smashes into him with his organic steel fists, blowing him apart in one of the sickest panels we've seen yet. The X-Men arrive to Peter's side, relieved to see him alive and well. Moira grieves, Sean and Moira embrace, and the X-Men walk away victorious. So overall, to just a really solid issue really great conclusion to this four part story that we've gone through like you said it's really hard to find areas to complain about or to like nitpick and for a time I you know thought I did stumble upon one where I was like yeah I don't know about this there's like a page that essentially recaps everything Yep. We see all the way back to here's Wolverine and Colossus battling Magneto for the very first time, like 20 issues ago, more than 20 issues ago. And this is how he broke free. And then he takes over old man McWhorter. And part of me was like, well, like, why do we have this recap or kind of retreading? But then I spent a little bit more time kind of mulling things over. and instead shifted a bit to I enjoy this recap you know it provides context of why was he sitting around for so long like why is this story happening now versus when the containment was breached and getting to look at different angles and you know different perspectives of different events that happened throughout all this like seeing Moira actually enter the actual cell and seeing the husk of what was her son's body just, you know, shriveled up and gone. So I kind of did like a big 180 of, oh, yeah, this thing. And I was like, oh, yeah, this thing's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02: 24:23

I'm on board. I think the context that you kind of just gave won me over on the idea as well. And I don't think maybe it struck me upon reading it in the same way. But I guess we're kind of seeing things through his eyes in a lot of ways. Like him even taking over Jamie's body, the shriveled up remains of his body that Moira finds, this confrontation with Phoenix. I agree. Like at first I was like, why are we getting a recap? I guess is it because, you know, these are coming out months apart and we're just trying to give the reader the additional context of where we started and how we got here. And I think that kind of like serves that purpose in a lot of ways. But I really like how you kind of position the rationale behind the entire situation and what it's serving so you've won me over I am now doing 180 as well we did it you did it Chris again you won us over I want to like quick like just make mention and not dwell on it but on the opening page you mentioned like it's we see like the bendiness and the trippiness of Proteus's powers kind of playing out still super cool to see but how metal is it I know exactly what you're gonna say an incredible way to start a book than to say ever hear a city scream that is pretty metal it is so metal I think there's a lot of things in this issue especially that you could kind of like define as metal especially the you know like as you said like this ending sequence with Colossus and Proteus where he catches him in the monologue and

SPEAKER_01: 26:06

just makes him pay for it now you're just making really roundabout puns about metal

SPEAKER_02: 26:12

unintentionally not mad about it though in either case I really really love that they kind of have the just that like little phrasing kind of really sets the scene that this is immensely out of control right and I think it's immensely out of control in a way that we haven't really seen before not that the X-Men haven't dealt with large-scale threats we saw the situation in Japan which you know threaten to sink the entire country and we've seen also that time reality almost ended that almost seems like nothing compared to this I'm yeah I understand what you're saying I think it's like seeing the stakes are different right and you touched on this earlier when you were like well a lot of these fights that we've kind of seen kind of take place with nobody around right even when they were when the X-Men were fighting Alpha Flight like it's at you know a vacant kind of So the stakes aren't exactly the same in how we're witnessing it. And even how we've seen, I think, the average citizen used in this story as a casualty of Proteus. We've talked about how he's the deadliest on-panel foe that we've kind of seen, and his indiscriminate killings are very different to some of the others. other villains that we've encountered even though like arcade is like literally kidnapping people to kill it doesn't even feel remotely close to the same

SPEAKER_01: 27:47

as this arcade kind of seems like a amateur like he murder world seems like it really needs to take some notes from maybe Proteus and his approach to villainy well that's

SPEAKER_02: 28:00

simple it just wouldn't work in that case right because Proteus is not in the entertainment business he's in the I'm here to mess things up business. Everything I thought was like super cool, great action sequences. Like we see this kind of final confrontation where all the cards are put on the table. The bees, bees are brought in here, weaponized. The

SPEAKER_01: 28:24

bees are so funny. I can't look at that panel without just hearing, not the bees. The bees!

SPEAKER_02: 28:33

It really speaks to the character of Storm who's like, I don't want to hurt the bees. everyone so I'm gonna just blow them away even though I don't they're not even real I guess I guess they are real I don't know he's the reality they're real bees but it's uh it was a really crazy scene we see just Proteus like there's another panel in here that really stuck out to me and it's like every scene we see kind of you're beginning to see the collapse of the body of his father with like the glowing purple eyes and these it's he's slowly kind of corrupting the the body more and more and more and like we get to the end of this book and he's now like a like a corpse basically he's like the he's being shot up into the air on like this i guess dirt mud boulder rock something it's going up the side of this escarpment and he's now just like oh that's a big word a withered Someone went to college. What, escarpment? Yeah. Well, I live on the Niagara Escarpment, man. Boom. There you go. It probably isn't an escarpment, but anyways. It's just a cool visualization of, okay, the plan is working, right? Scott keeps going on about how we got to burn him out. We got to burn him out, get him to use his powers, going to have to ditch this thing, this body, look for something else, and that's when we're going to be able to strike. And it's a good plan. Is it though? Cause I was kind of going back and forth on it because we've seen like Jean again mentions, I think it's like earlier in this issue, she has like kind of like an internal thought bubble talking about how the more he uses his powers, the

SPEAKER_01: 30:27

stronger he gets. Well, I think part of that's just, you know, he doesn't have experience using his powers. Like this is him practicing and getting used to it. And yeah, becoming more and more comfortable with it so that he's able to do not just surround somebody in amber turn a bunch of stuff into bees you know he could start to do some really wild stuff if he gets his you know reps in that's a very

SPEAKER_02: 30:56

fair point that I don't know that I considered it in that way and I think that makes I mean it makes a lot more sense I think in the context of this story to think of

SPEAKER_01: 31:05

it and it's like one of the two like they they kind of like bring up like two major weaknesses of Proteus he don't like metal metal no good and you know he's burned through just like a ton of husks of people and is just constantly murdering to stay alive so you know getting him to accelerate they drive him out of the city so that there's nobody like around for him to take and then just get him to burn through by overindulging in his powers. Yeah. And I feel like they really use a lot of like hit and run kind of tactics to just like chip away at him.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 31:48

100%. It seems like every X-Men kind of takes their shot. You know, we have even this like cool panel of Scott and Havoc on either side of them and they're just like blasting them away only for him to, I think, like dissipate. basically and they hit each other and talk again about like how they can metabolize the energy and we see like multiple times Scott's like it's like Wolverine you gotta go it's it's on you man it's that I got faith in you you gotta go deal with this you're on your own we see Logan profess his love for Jean kind of he does he says leave her alone I love oh I loved that lady I didn't even recognize the past tense it It's such a weird thing to say. Well, maybe he's mourned the idea that she died. I mean, he's... And he's now Yuriko. He's got

SPEAKER_01: 32:43

Mariko now, but... Mariko, yeah. It's just such a... Like, it's a weird phrase to say aloud, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, it is a little strange. No one's around to hear him and call him out on it, though, I guess. Like, what do you... You loved her? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:03

Yeah, you could still love her, you know, as a friend, as a sister, as family, whatever. But I don't know. It's whatever it is, what it is. That's not how the Wolverine rolls. No, he professes his feelings aloud. There's this really cool panel of Wolverine falling and Cyclops trying to stop him with his optic blasts. Super cool. That's another funny one. Super cool. I think like the culmination of Peter getting up there and you mentioned this already is so cool. See, him just punch and just shatter him into you know a million energy pieces and they even you know make mention that they the punch sends him flying to every corner of the world really cool culmination and I don't think this like capstones Peter's story like the one that we've kind of been talking about where he's like trying to find his place on the team I hope this is not the conclusion to that because this to me still doesn't feel Like that's what we were building towards here. Like to me, this was the X-Men working together. Peter, you know, steps in and is able to hit the final blow. I

SPEAKER_01: 34:13

don't think it's meant to be like the conclusion to that. I feel like they would have had to set it up more with him failing earlier or like, you know, having that stumble of like, I didn't succeed. And then, you know, when he steps up and delivers the finishing blow, it would have that greater impact. But I think it's just like you said, kind of that more of a teamwork thing that we're seeing here. Yeah, Scott, I'm looking

SPEAKER_02: 34:41

at this panel right now towards the end of the book. And Scott, you know, he's talking about how metal is, you know, his weakness. And he says, quote, that's why I was counting on Colossus to finish the job the rest of us started. And it looks like he's done just that. So really, I think speaks to the team effort and how it took everything they had to stop him. He also makes mention, I think it's earlier in this issue about how Proteus is the type of threat that the X-Men were created to stop and I thought that was such a like such a important line I think to really raise the stakes of what they were looking at and I don't know that they've ever really positioned any of the threats that we've seen so far in that way

SPEAKER_01: 35:25

maybe Magneto I mean his his like intro is you know the whole trying to take over the air base or the army base or whatever it is and grab missiles and stuff back in I assume that's I think that's the first issue of X-Men but either way like I think that's a really good call out and I think it's a fun connection back to that like flashback issue we had with Xavier where Amalfarook was like the first evil mutant that he had ever encountered which then you know led to him being like oh you know we need something in place there's gonna be more mutant threats that some Someone has to stop. Yeah, that's a that's

SPEAKER_02: 36:06

a great connector. And I honestly didn't even like put those two things together. But yeah, it ties in beautifully to like the overall story that we've been having. And I'm very satisfied with the ending.

SPEAKER_01: 36:18

One thing that I wanted to make sure we called out, I think there's a nice moment in this book, like a Scott and the Jean moment. And like these four issues are so hectic that even though They've reunited. They haven't had any time to unpack anything. Like, you know, Scott wakes her up. She's like, oh, Jason, it's you. And he's like, uh... You know, what, who's Jason? But at the same time, he's also like, oh yeah, I've got to get Colleen's key off my key ring real fast or, you know, whatever his thought process might be. There's just like a really nice moment after Jean is hurt and he's thinking, that scream, Jean's down, hurt. No, I can't think about her now. I don't dare or I'll crack wide open. I have to focus on the job at hand, nothing else. And I think it's nice to see you know it's been unclear about what is going on with Scott where he's not grieving the loss of Jean and I think what we're finally getting to see is he you know walled himself out from that and didn't want to experience any of that grief and his brain is just pretending like oh maybe I didn't love Jean and now we're kind of seeing even if it's not like a romantic type connection at the very least We're back to acknowledging he's very close to this person and has been for a number of years now. Like they've essentially grown up together after a certain point in their life. And it's good to see, you know, we're back to him caring instead of just being like, I don't feel sad. Yeah, I almost feel like

SPEAKER_02: 38:08

having some sort of breather after this story would be beneficial. Yeah. Just like a conversation of, oh, my God, you're alive. Yes. Oh, my God, you're alive. And here, you know, we can have this conversation about our feelings that have been unresolved over the past several months while they've been contending with their own problems separate of one another. I don't know that we're going to get that, but I think it would be very beneficial if we do.

SPEAKER_01: 39:05

Yeah, they're definitely going to need a game of baseball to work this out.

SPEAKER_02: 39:11

Well, maybe when Charles returns. Play ball. Then the whole gang will be back together and he could be the referee or whatever the heck he was doing.

SPEAKER_01: 39:18

So we already kind of, you know, gave our little. Well, I think maybe only you. I don't remember if I gave it score at the beginning. This, you know, episode recording has been lasting a long time, so I can't remember that far back. I have the memory of a bird. But, you know, overall thoughts. Very good. I think best contained story we've read so far. It doesn't. all prey to over relying on tons of pros or like whatever it is you know the non-dialogue yeah there's only that one section and that last issue but it was kind of an interesting recap and providing some tidbits on stuff we didn't know so gets past main focus is the Proteus story but we're still you know kind of have those little threads of you know we're dragging things along of like oh what's going on what's happening with this Jason character and gene in those first couple issues. I believe you had said 9. When I have written down, I put 8.5 or 9 out of 10, I think, for me. Probably a 9. I think this is about

SPEAKER_02: 40:24

probably as perfect as you can get. I don't think I could ever give anything a 10 out of 10, but I think Chris and the rest of the creative team, and again, massive shout out to, I think, John for his, you know, the way he kind of really depicted Proteus in this book and his powers which I think again like on paper could have been very challenging to imagine like reality warping in general but to kind of come up with this concept of a character that doesn't have a physical form and how do you make that character stand out when they are inhabiting the bodies of other people so they don't just look like Mary Sue like Ren Yeah, I think it would have been, I think the art and the coloring by Bob and John and everybody else that was like involved in this specific story, like really brought this to life and I think made Proteus into the top tier villain that he was. And I think they all deserve like immense credit for this story. It's really stands out to me, I think, as the best one. And I say that as somebody who really stand Magneto and that whole arc, if we want to call it much of an arc, um, the Magneto Chronicles this to me when you think about the hype around Chris and this is one of those stories that really I think stands out as an incredible high point and one that if I were to point somebody to as a as one to kind of absorb in a bubble I would point them to this because it's very well contained it's very entertaining and it's very very visually appealing while carrying these very mature tones that might not necessarily always be at the forefront of comic books. and especially in comic books at this point in time. So I stick with my 9 out of 10. I really, really enjoyed it, and I imagine most probably do.

SPEAKER_01: 42:46

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 129 to 131. Bye, everyone. Read comics. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Uncanny Book Club. you enjoyed this podcast don't forget to subscribe leave a review or share with a friend