SPEAKER_03: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I'm Isaac Vader Steel and joining me as always is my co-host Adam Ward.

SPEAKER_02: 0:17

Yo.

SPEAKER_04: 0:19

Still haven't watched Dark Food. However, I do believe you've watched a different movie.

SPEAKER_02: 0:27

Yeah, I mean, in preparation of this, I felt it was only fair to give myself some homework and watch Days of Future Past. The Fox movie. The Fox movie. Gotta be clear there. So overall. Good movie?

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

Bad movie?

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

What do you think? It is not the movie I remember. And I think that's largely because being removed from the original X-Men series at that point in time, this was like a big shot of nostalgia to see the characters back after kind of going through first class. And I like what they really did with the recasted characters, like I think James McAvoy and uh Fastbender did a really good job as Magneto and Xavier. Where I think the ball got dropped was with Mystique. And she does to my and and to be clear, I watched the movie before reading these two issues. So I went in to reading the book with really my core memory knowledge on this being what happened in the film. And so in that context, I was actually surprised to see Mystique had like this huge role in the comic story. I was not expecting that, honestly. Sure. That being said, I think there were fun things about the film, but it really felt like it was the Fox version of this story rather than like a true to form sort of uh retelling of it as we have now read it. Sure. I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_04: 2:11

Kind of their own little twist on it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13

Yeah, I liked uh like I like the setting. I think the setting was really fun with it being like with Nixon and Vietnam. I think those period pieces really bring a lot of character and change to to these kinds of stories. So like that was fun, but you know, I I think like I had no idea that Xavier's assassination happens in this book or like attempted assassination, right? Like that event was part of this core chain reaction that took place that resulted in this days of future past dystopian 2013. So that was all fresh to me. And I think for the better, we'll obviously get into it, but what's your general thought on on the film?

SPEAKER_04: 3:00

I think overall positive, it's better than a lot of the other X-Men movies. I'm not super hot on first class. Oh, okay as we've uh it's just okay. Like there's there's some good elements of it, but we've discussed before that like you know, Emma's awesome, and the Emma Frost that we get in that movie is just really yeah, underwhelming and sad.

SPEAKER_02: 3:28

Yeah, truly disappointing. I mean, even compared to her first showing in the comics, like that she was never like that in the book.

SPEAKER_04: 3:39

Yeah, just no good. But I mean, overall, I mean, that's a movie that I haven't watched in a long, long time at this point. I think, you know, there's some definite positives to it. But overall, I think the Days of Future Pass movie is pretty good. And, you know, considering they are sort of written into what they've already done up to that point with the movie, I felt they did a good job of adapting the story to, you know, it's altered, but yeah, a lot of the same like beats are there, some things carry over. They made some smart changes here and there. Obviously, they can't do Senator Kelly again because that's the first X-Men movie. Although they don't really have to pay attention to that. And then, of course, the best part of the movie is that it undoes the third X-Men movie. Like that's its true claim to fame for me. Yeah, and that third film is rough. Issue 141 has one of the most striking covers we've seen yet: an old grizzled Wolverine standing in front of an older Kitty Pride with posters behind them that show the X-Men as all slain or apprehended. The 21st century is a grim, dystopian world, and we see Kitty navigate New York City to make a delivery. A gang tries to stop her, but Wolverine shows up and takes care of them. He also provides her with the last component she needs to complete the jammer, and they plan to meet up again for phase two of their plan at midnight. We see Kitty arrive at the South Bronx Mutant Internment Center, walking past a sentinel who interrogates her, and finally walking past a large cemetery of mutants and mutant allies. We see that the Fantastic Four, Professor X, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Warren, and Beast, among others, are all dead. Kitty reconvenes with all that remains of the X-Men, Storm, Colossus, Franklin Richards, and Rachel, a red-headed telepath and telekinetic, and a wheelchair-bound Magneto. We learn that Kitty and Peter are married in this future, and that they had children who were tragically killed by Sentinels. The jammer is completed, and this allows the X-Men to once again use their powers by turning off the inhibitor collars. Rachel enacts their plan and sends Kitty's mind from the future back to her past self. We then cut back to the present during a danger room session where Kitty has walked in when she's not supposed to, and the X-Men are all busy training. She's in a pretty good amount of danger, but the team works together to keep her safe. She then has her own session at a much lower difficulty level and essentially just walks through the whole thing with her eyes closed, much to the amusement of the rest of the X-Men. However, she suddenly collapses and they rush her to the infirmary. Future Kitty wakes up and hugs Kurt, who present Kitty is very scared of, and warns the X-Men that she's on a mission from the future to stop the assassination of presidential candidate Robert Kelly, Charles Xavier, and Moira McTaggart, which occurs on this very day. She explains that Kelly's assassination sets in motion a sequence of events that culminates in the nuclear destruction of the whole world. The team believes her but wants Professor X to verify her story. They all head to DC, where Charles and Moira are in a hearing with Senator Kelly as mutant experts. Kitty further explains that the Sentinels eventually wipe out not only mutants, but all super beings, both heroes and villains. We cut back to the future here and see the X-Men running through the old subway tunnels trying to escape, mentioning that Magneto stayed behind to buy them more time. The tunnels are ripped open suddenly, and Franklin is disintegrated instantly by a sentinel. Feels bad. Yeah. The X-Men do battle and are able to defeat their attackers. Back in the present, we are introduced to Mystique, Raven Darkholm, a metamorph mutant who has assembled the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Destiny, Avalanche, Pyro, and the Blob. The X-Men arrive to the hearing just in time to see the Brotherhood bust through a wall like the Kool-Aid Man. And the issue ends with the two groups facing off.

SPEAKER_02: 8:15

I was just looking up when Mystique's first appearance was, and it was not in the X-Men.

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

Really?

SPEAKER_02: 8:24

Yeah. I thought this would have been it.

SPEAKER_04: 8:27

Maybe this was the first use of her in X-Men? I would assume so. What was her first official comics appearance?

SPEAKER_02: 8:37

Her first official appearance was in Miss Marvel number 16 in May 1978. But was created by Chris. That's interesting. David Collins.

SPEAKER_04: 8:51

That's like uh a couple years before this, huh? I think so. Hmm. I don't know. That's very strange to me, but that is a fun trivia fact. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:01

And one I did not know until I looked this up just now. Very awesome. The more you know. Speaking of facts, I thought it would be fun to start with uh this picture that we see where the X-Men are in what year do you remember what year we're in? Is it 2013? 2013, yeah. In 2013, I have some fun facts about the year of 2013 so we can see how it compares to the X-Men. I'm ready for it. All right. You remember Edward Snowden? Yes. He leaks the NSA documents. We have the Boston Marathon bombing, we have uh chemical attack in Syria and non-terrible news. 3D printing became popular, the PS4 and the Xbox One release. Frozen becomes a major movie hit. I saw it in theaters. I did not, but my son loves it now, so I'm uh I'm very well aware of it. Breaking bad ended. Everybody was doing the Harlem Shake, and I I I didn't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:08

I'm still not even sure what it is, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02: 10:11

And uh Vine was popular.

SPEAKER_04: 10:14

R.A.P.

SPEAKER_02: 10:15

Vine. Yeah, Rip Vine. Um, and Gugnum Style was uh also all over the place. I do know that one. That was technically 2012 when that came out, but it was staying power. Oh yeah. Another, another popular song in the house. Well, there you go. Some fun facts, not nearly as dark and uh broody and gloomy as this unfortunate.

SPEAKER_04: 10:39

Well, the first part of your list was pretty dark and gloomy. Things picked up mood-wise a little bit toward the end, but yeah, I think this is a really awesome premise, and I love that we sort of just jumped into this story kind of out of nowhere. Yeah. This must have just felt so shocking and cool when it first released. Like you jump from what was the last stuff? Were we doing Canada with the Wendigo? Yeah, I think so. So to go from that to this is pretty different.

SPEAKER_02: 11:15

Yeah, it's super fun. There was a lot that I liked beyond just the premise itself. Even what was happening in the modern day of the X-Men was incredibly interesting. This um new Brotherhood of Mutants, we have Mystique, we have the Blob, we see what happened to him after he got out of jail and that Mystique was behind it. We have Destiny that's here, and some really cool appearances by both Pyro and Avalanche.

SPEAKER_04: 11:45

I was not super knowledgeable about what Avalanche did before this. I knew his name. Yeah, I was the same. And I for some reason, like I always just confuse like his powers with Richter. Okay, yeah. I can see that. They kinda, you know, it seems similar. Avalanche, earthquakes. Like in my head, it's just like, oh, he does like earth tremory stuff, but it's not really how it's described. No, no, no. I I don't think he does that at all. That's just like how it was in my head. And maybe, you know, I have no idea where that's coming from, but the name really interesting power.

SPEAKER_02: 12:22

It is an interesting power. I think it's technically classified as him like dissolving any uh any material, I think.

SPEAKER_04: 12:30

Yeah, I don't know. Is it, you know, is it just like breaking apart like all the blob molecular structure or basically just disintegrates everything?

SPEAKER_02: 12:41

It I'm guessing that might be what it is. We do see him grab onto a metal uh piece of art or a bar or something that uh blob was gonna smack Pyro with, I believe. And Avalanche stepped in and yeah, like just disintegrated it. Very cool. I think the premise of having like an evil mutant team, which obviously isn't new to the X-Men at this point, however, we haven't seen this in a long time. So to get this back in the fold, I think is I think it's great. I think it's you're you kind of had enough separation that this feels fresh, and then intertwining it with this uh story of this ripple through time and the consequences of the actions of this day and seeing those play out in the future is also really awesome. The future stuff is very good. It it's also awesome to showcase Kitty in this way, to make her this important character that has, you know, as we're kind of seeing, their plans are for this to be a major character into the future. And so they're laying that groundwork now that Kitty is gonna be around for a long time and she's an important member of the X-Men. Here we are solidifying it at this point. And just great to see a version of Kitty, even though we haven't really seen a whole lot of her, and certainly not in an action capacity. To see her just being involved in this story was really great. And I say that as somebody obviously who likes Kitty Pride. So I am inherently biased and I'm uh not ashamed of it, as you shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_04: 14:27

I think that they did a really good job of justifying why she's there just in like the story format where she's like, you know, I was chosen for this mission because at this time Kitty's the only person that hasn't been trained against a psychic attack. So they're able to send her back essentially.

SPEAKER_02: 14:49

Yeah, I really did like that as well. I mean, comparing it to the film, very different, right? Instead of Kitty. Very different. Instead of Kitty, uh, she kind of plays the role of Rachel in the film, which is unfortunate because I do feel we probably could have had a introduction of Rachel without the context that was really required, instead of having Kitty just suddenly be using powers that she never had before.

SPEAKER_04: 15:15

I'm wondering if they chose to use Kitty there just to have that like homage to the comics of like, yes, we understand that Kitty was the central piece of that story. You know, we're not gonna do that. It doesn't really work for what they what they're able to do with this whole like you know time difference thing and them setting up Wolverine as the X-Man, but still finding a way to involve her, yeah, it doesn't really make that much sense.

SPEAKER_02: 15:45

I think you're 100% right. Ultimately, it just doesn't make sense. It would make sense perhaps if they had the whole Robert Kelly situation happening when Kitty was a character. I think that would have helped a lot. Because then even though it wasn't set at any one point in time, you still could have done a um story. But I, you know, I also understand that they want to use the characters from the original, or sorry, not the original, the like these newer recastings and use them. And that's what we essentially got. Anywho, this is all fine. Uh the only other thing I wanted to point out that was a major difference, obviously, in character changes, is Wolverine being the chosen mutant to do this time leap back in time, which I actually will give them credit for. I do we do get a bit of an explanation as to why that is the case. And it's kind of in the same vein, although very two different things, where uh, you know, as you said, Kenny has not received that training to prevent a psychic attack yet. In the film, we have Wolverine, who just is overall the best healer on the team, and he can withstand the just overall damage that this sort of uh trip into the past would cause. It's explained well why they go with Logan. I I think, like I said at the start, I think in the context of this being a reimagining within the Fox specific X-Men film universe, like it makes sense. But at the same time, I feel like we've been robbed of seeing this story play out on screen because there's certainly enough things happening to make that transition from paper to film incredibly interesting. And we see that with the Brotherhood of Mutants, that could be a major, you know, uh antagonist organization for the X-Men, while also, you know, making Kitty the character she needs to be here, because we also see a lot of great interactions between other characters like Logan and Storm. Uh, we get fun interactions between the Brotherhood of Mutants, and we really, you know, continue to not have Xavier looming over the X-Men, and they're really able to kind of stand on their team and make this judgment call to trust that Kitty's telling the truth. And, you know, yes, they're going to Xavier to verify it, but they are taking action and making that decision themselves.

SPEAKER_04: 18:28

Real quick, you made a little bit of a noise or a comment when I said that Franklin Richards was disintegrated by the Sentinel. This must be like the most underwhelming use of Franklin Richards that they've done. And I'm guessing, yeah, I don't know what they've done with that character at this point within like the Fantastic Four comics, or like how much of him has been established that he's like an extremely powerful mutant.

SPEAKER_02: 19:00

Or even it's uh do you know if he was actually known to be a mutant at this point, or is that like a modern day?

SPEAKER_04: 19:06

He probably isn't.

SPEAKER_02: 19:08

Yeah, I think you're right. But he could be. Um, yeah, I really actually liked um, you know, I was thinking about this. I really like the inclusion of the Fantastic Four, just in general in this story. There's a lot of imagery involved of the Fantastic Four. We see headstones with their names on it. Obviously, Franklin's involved. And um in the next issue, we'll see them actually go to the Baxter building, which is the home of the Fantastic Four. What I did find funny though is one of the headstones I believe says Doctor Doom. Bruh, man. I'm sorry, but no sentinels taking out Doom.

SPEAKER_04: 19:46

Well, a bunch of Sentinels. I no man, come on. They've got a lot of them. Uh it doesn't matter. He is specifically crossed out to like they when they're explaining, like, oh, the Sentinels, they came for the heroes and the villains. Yeah. By the turn of the century, everyone was gone. He's one of the characters that they show as having a little X over them. There's no way, man. I'm sorry. Well, these are pretty advanced sentinels. Like, they're disintegrating people left and right. They seem pretty like a significantly more powerful than the Sentinels that have been featured in these stories so far.

SPEAKER_02: 20:26

Yeah, you are correct. I think it would have been nice to actually get a redesign or some sort of um like I'm I'm sure they just, you know, you were telling me Chris wasn't really interested in doing a sentinel story, right? Like that's what you had said to me before we started.

SPEAKER_04: 20:41

Yeah, we briefly discussed before recording how these these two issues was plotted by John Byrne, and a thing that I had read on Wikipedia said something about Chris not being interested in a sentinel story.

SPEAKER_02: 20:58

Yeah, and uh also as we talked about, we should have just saved it for this conversation, but that's fine. We're talking about it again.

SPEAKER_04: 21:05

We should just stop talking before we uh start the podcast, probably.

SPEAKER_02: 21:09

No man, it's the warm-up. We gotta talk about something. It can't just be, hey, how are you? How's your family? I mean, I guess it could be that, but anyways.

SPEAKER_01: 21:19

Who has the time? Who has the time? Too many comics to read. Sorry, what were we talking about? Who knows? I lost myself.

SPEAKER_04: 21:28

Franklin Richards. Franklin Richards. Dead instantly. R.I.P. Yeah, right. Also in this book, the romance partner of Rachel. Yeah, I'm not sure what we would have known about him at this point. Probably not much. We don't even see any powers from him in this story. Yeah, weirdly introduced. Yeah, he he gets dusted real bad. Kinda just exists to make Rachel have a worse day. I can't. And we'll cover it later. But this is like this is definitely like Rachel's like worst day of her life, I would assume. Yeah, I think so. This was another instance where, and I've mentioned this before, but it feels like they packed an impossible amount of story into just this one issue. Yeah, I agree. There's a lot happening, but it doesn't feel overwhelming. No. It's just it's just flows really good. Like every panel has purpose. It feels like a double issue in a good way, but it's, you know, it's that I think it's 22 pages long now. Sorry, is this a double issue? No. It okay.

SPEAKER_02: 22:37

That it did feel like there was a lot happening.

SPEAKER_04: 22:40

It took a while to describe the whole like to do the plot summary just because it's like, oh man, there's like a lot of context and important things that actually need to be brought up and can't be quickly summarized or glossed over too much.

SPEAKER_02: 22:56

Yeah, a hundred percent. I thought that the art team did Kitty a little dirty, honestly, in how she appears in the future. She old. She's not that old, dude.

SPEAKER_04: 23:09

I don't well, yeah, but when you're living in that sort of environment, you just age more dramatically.

SPEAKER_02: 23:15

Well, I would uh agree with you in a real life scenario, they don't need to do that to her.

SPEAKER_04: 23:22

It's fine, but I think they just really wanted to, you know, make it understood like she old. She does look pretty old though. Is she her older self on the cover? Yeah. Because she doesn't look nearly as bad there. Well, it's gotta be a different different artist doing the cover.

SPEAKER_02: 23:39

No, I I realize that, but they could have picked up this y fresh-looking kitty rather than grandma that we get. Yeah. Anyways, I really, really love this. They're just getting banger after banger at this point.

SPEAKER_04: 23:54

It's pretty crazy. Like the streak that they're on. That's a note I have for later of like the insane streak that they've been on recently. The only other thing in my notes is I feel like so far, one aspect that we've been missing from the story for a while is that human versus mutant thing. And previously, before this, it's been mostly shown by people like Lang, who, you know, is kind of a mustache twirling racist villain image dude. And I think this is just like a much more, I guess, grounded approach. And like Kitty even mentions like Kelly's a decent person, but it's fear that's you know driving all this instead of like hate, as it was in like Lang's story. It's also nice that we're just adding a it seems like we're getting a lot of story elements in here that are going to have a greater impact than just like here's a one or two like issue storyline with like a villain. Like we're seeing the government considering, like, you know, what do we do about the mutant problem and setting up that ongoing situation?

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

Yeah, I you know what, and I wasn't necessarily expecting that at the end. Like I and I'll save my broader thoughts on uh like on the ending. Because it is significantly different than what occurs in the film. Yeah, that's true. Like significantly. And honestly, I like it more because we we really get a fundamental setup for so many future stories, and so many doors are opened by painting this dystopian future. It's it was a shocking issue, and I think it's shocking, uh, you know, yes, incompared to for when this probably would have come out, but it's shocking even now reading this entire series the way we are. It was no less shocking going into it having not really read it before. And when I say not really, I've never read it prior to now. I've never read anything ever. What's reading? So, what would you give this issue?

SPEAKER_04: 26:15

I don't know if I want to grade them separately.

SPEAKER_02: 26:18

Okay, yeah, I'm fine with that. They're they're just so like intertwined. Yeah, it it is. I mean, even on its own, it's fantastic, but yeah. Because I figured you would give it something high regardless. So it does. I mean, yeah, I get it. Yeah, we'll save it. Okay, yeah. All right, well let's uh let's move on to the next issue because the train keeps rolling because there's a lot that takes place.

SPEAKER_04: 26:43

Issue 142 has the classic This Issue, Everyone Dies, on the cover, featured alongside an image of Wolverine being blasted by a sentinel. We see a fight break out between the X-Men and their brotherhood of evil mutants. Angel flies off with Kitty in search for Kelly, and Mystique uses her powers of disguise to fool both Moira and Charles and knocks them out with gas. The future X-Men are still on the run and end up breaking into the Baxter building, which is now the primary base of the Sentinels. Back in the present, Storm feels some doubts over her leadership abilities due to the mess that they're all currently in. To get a bit more fighting room, she calls on Hurricane Winds and forces them all outside. The fight continues with the army also taking some shots with their tanks, which unfortunately knock down Colossus instead of the bad guys. They also make the mistake of trying a flamethrower against Pyro, who just creates a big flame monster. Mystique gets up to some more mischief by impersonating Nightcrawler. Wolverine brings out the claws, but Storm has them put them away, and orders him not to use them except for the most extreme situations against deadly foes. He reluctantly obeys. The X-Men start fighting smart, using physics to move the blob, rain to put out the fire, that kind of stuff. Nightcrawler comes face to face with Mystique and asks why they have such similar eyes and skin. She replies, Could it be, Kurt Wagner, that you are not so unique as you once thought? Nightcrawler is stunned that she knows his name and asks who she is. Mystique replies that he should ask his mother about it. Back to the Future, the X-Men try for a fastball special, but the Sentinel turns dramatically and disintegrates Wolverine, with only his Adamantean skeleton remaining. Storm is the next of fall, sending the once gentle Colossus into a berserker's rage. We see Rachel clutching Kitty and weeping at the loss of Storm and her partner Franklin. She wants to break contact with Peter's mind, but doesn't want him to be alone when he dies. Before she can even finish the thought, he is killed as well. Rachel wonders what will happen to Kitty if her body dies while she's in the past, and hopes that if it does happen, that she has a better life than the one she's already lived. In the present, Kitty stops Destiny from assassinating Kelly. It seems there's some weird temporal anomaly thing going on that has a very negative effect on Destiny's mind and powers. After he's been saved, Kitty feels herself returning to the future, having completed her mission. Mystique is the only member of the Brotherhood to escape capture. Dexman fly home and explain the day's events to Kitty. Angel wonders if they've changed the future, and Xavier says, only time will tell. The last page shows Kelly and Shaw meeting with the president. He's concerned by Kelly's recommendations following the attempted assassination. But the president agrees that something needs to be done, but that it must happen covertly. They name the operation Project Wide Awake and introduce Henry Gyrik as the man who will lead them. He's given the responsibility of working with Shaw Industries to design and construct a new series of Sentinels. The issue concludes with Gyrik saying that the threat mutants pose will be resolved permanently. We get a teaser for the next issue, Demon, with the words When you're alone, Kitty Pride, no one can hear you scream. Christmas edition. That's true, Christmas edition. It's a Christmas episode next time. I think it's gonna come out near Christmas. Let's do the math on this. This is a fun coincidence. This comes out on the 24th of December.

SPEAKER_02: 30:55

Oh shit. Alright, well, we gotta play that up at the end. Anywho, a lot of detail in there. You did a you did a really good job uh capstoning the entire summary of this issue. Because there's a lot a lot of moving parts.

SPEAKER_04: 31:08

It was a stressful time to try and capture everything. Glossed over some stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 31:13

I I mean you got the majority of it all in there. It's all I think it worked well.

SPEAKER_04: 31:18

Yeah, I mean, like you there's there's like things here and there that you gotta skip. Like this might be the first time, possibly, that they mention Wolverine has really fast healing. Or did they do that last time? No, it was this one. They mentioned Wolverine having fast healing.

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 31:35

You could also talk about how for an older gal, Destiny's costume sure does show off a lot of leg. It's a weird choice. She does not look like an old person in costume.

SPEAKER_02: 31:48

Uh no, not at all. And you know, we talked about the staying power of these two issues and the characters and the story and all of these things that are gonna play out over the remainder of the course of the X-Men in some way, shape, or form. And it's really all tied back to this issue. It's really incredible to think about.

SPEAKER_04: 32:07

And connects back to Dark Phoenix saga where Shaw is like, hey man, let's build a bunch of Sentinels. Yeah. And now they're gonna throw some money at him to build some sentinels. Very fun.

SPEAKER_02: 32:19

I thought this was the perfect ending to this story. We had a strong start with this big fight that happens between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and it is not short. It is the majority of this issue and is important to the overall uh story that's unfolding. Like this is a high-stakes fight, and at times the X-Men were doubting their capabilities of defeating them. Um, because we see Storm trying to prevent Logan from going too hard, and uh for fear that if these politicians and specifically Kelly are seeing an unhinged mutant would just be too far away. Yeah, a Canadian mutant, oh my god, running rampant in the wherever the Senate is. So he had this. Thank you. So we had this great fight that was very action-heavy, it was plotted exceptionally well, it was very thought out. I thought even a character like Blob, which is inherently boring, at least to me, is in a lot of ways at this point like the juggernaut. Like he's immovable. We see Peter really struggle against him and eventually see him triumph, which you know I've been clamoring for issues or like several episodes at this point about how Peter just cannot catch a break and actually contribute in a super meaningful way.

SPEAKER_04: 33:54

Well, he uses his brain this time. Yeah. He makes uh He's like, We're gonna we're gonna physics this bitch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 34:02

And uh and lifts him up, and it's it's great. It's super funny uh seeing Wolverine bend down and they make a lever, basically. Must hurt uh Wolverine's back, though.

SPEAKER_04: 34:14

Well, he's got them adamant. But they explained that because of the animantium, he's the only one whose bones won't crack.

SPEAKER_02: 34:21

But but as we see in the future, that doesn't matter. No, they'll just disintegrate everything else. And uh that is that is one clean skeleton. Yeah, it was brutally beautiful.

SPEAKER_04: 34:34

Yeah, it looked awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 34:36

It is drawn pretty crazy, just just like enough, you know?

SPEAKER_04: 34:40

Just just the native without it being gory. It's it was great. They I think that describes like this entire situation, really. Like they show like just enough of Wolverine. They like Storm's death is not like gross, like it's kind of that I don't know what we call this like a like a silhouette sort of situation where there's not details, it's really just like they've drawn the hand, the harpoon, and her just in like all black against a white background. And then I think Peter's death was so well done where you know it's not even hap, like it's not happening on screen, you don't see it, you're just like experiencing it through Rachel, who again is having the worst day of her life. Yep. That whole situation I think is like the I mean it's kind of a bummer because they kill the X-Men, but I think it's like really a highlight of the issue because like you have Wolverine, he's sneaking up, they're doing a fastball special, he's gonna assassinate one of the sentinels, and then it just casually turns around and quickly one-shots him. And it's like, oh, this is bad. We're uh we're in a situation now.

SPEAKER_02: 35:58

Yeah. I'm looking at the panel again, and it is fierce, is the the word that comes to mind. It just it sh it's just like sheer brutality. Well done. It's perfect.

SPEAKER_04: 36:12

No notes. That's one issue with doing the movie the way they did it, is that they weren't able to recreate this scene, which has gotta be, I mean, it's the cover of the issue, it's gotta be like the most iconic imagery from this storyline, besides maybe the image of Wolverine and Kitty in front of all the posters. Like, I think those are, I mean, it's the two covers of the issues, but those are like where my mind goes, I guess.

SPEAKER_02: 36:41

Yeah, we do get a different iconic moment in the film where Magneto pulls rebarb basically through the body of Logan and tosses him into like a like a fountain or something. It's a bummer day for him. And he's just there drowning, hoping that the actions that he did were enough to change the future, and they were. Mission accomplished. And mission accomplished. The ending of the movie compared to the ending of the of this issue is significantly different. You know, as you said, we see Senator Kelly and Shaw pulled into a secretive meeting by somebody who we it's it's the president, right? Like, is that what the implication is? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 37:28

Uh yeah, it's the president. I was confused at first when I was going through and rewriting like the plot summary. I was like, who is the shadowy figure? And I was like, oh, it's the president. They just put him in shadow because they didn't want to draw the specific like whoever's president right now.

SPEAKER_02: 37:44

And so we see this secretive meaning, the sentinels are not gone. It's just, you know, things are still gonna jug along. And in the film, we see essentially the entire erasure of X-Men 3, the film. We've made everything good again.

SPEAKER_04: 38:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 38:02

Here we go, everyone. We did it. Hooray! It's a very big tonal difference. Very much so. Um to where I think like watching the film in a bubble is kind of confusing that it goes back to that moment in time, that that's like Logan's.

SPEAKER_04: 38:21

I think it's just very I think I think they just want to make it like super fan servicey too, and be like, look, it's all your all your favorites.

SPEAKER_02: 38:29

Yeah, that that's a hundred percent what it was. Hey, we're bringing back um you know, all these original characters so they can play themselves in the future for you know a very short period of time.

SPEAKER_04: 38:40

It's completely wild because they go on to make sequels to Days of Future Pass that have a completely different Scott and Gene in them. Yeah, man, that's how Fox did films. There's there's there's no making sense of their timeline. I know it's just like kind of like a funny thing to joke about, but it's just like all over the place, crazy. Who else is on that team?

SPEAKER_02: 39:08

It's Scott, Gene, the OG movie team? No, no, no, not the OG movie team. The sorry, the one that is like the the uh age of or Age of Apocalypse version or apocalypse team. Gene Storm, right?

SPEAKER_04: 39:24

Isn't she one? I think Storm is on Team Apocalypse at first. Yeah, and then Defects. Yeah. So I think it's Mystique.

SPEAKER_02: 39:33

Is Mystique on it too?

SPEAKER_04: 39:35

I suppose we can look this up.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

Yeah, I mean I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_04: 39:40

Olivia Munn uh is in the movie. They have Scylar. Oh, Angel. I think. We have Betsy Braddock, Peter Maximoff, Gene, Angel, Auroro, Mystique, yeah, Warren, Havoc, Cyclops, Hank, and then a bunch of random people's. Ooh, Jubilee. Oh yeah, Jubilee is in this. Yeah, that's right. I feel like they don't use her in Dark Phoenix much, do they?

SPEAKER_02: 40:14

I don't know. I didn't watch it.

SPEAKER_04: 40:17

Caliban? I don't remember Caliban being oh, I fell asleep during this movie, but I don't remember Caliban being in it. Clan Akaba leader. Hmm. Maybe I'll watch this one sometime.

SPEAKER_02: 40:30

Yeah, I don't really remember much of it. Oh yeah, Kurt's in it, that's right. Oh yeah. Kurt, Angel, Jubilee, Gene, Scott.

SPEAKER_04: 40:40

I feel like that's good casting for Warren. Or at least the picture that Google is associating with the movie, I think, is uh looks very kind of Warren-y to me. No, I think this is good.

SPEAKER_01: 40:53

Did they do something different with the the horseman? Is it not or are they using like a past? Like a flashback?

SPEAKER_02: 41:02

I don't know. God, it's been a long time since I watched this film and I only watched it once and I didn't really like it then. And you're not gonna like it now. Ain't that the truth? I think Moira is in this film. She is. So that's good. Anyways, I was curious how Destiny would kind of fit into a combat team. There was a great sequence where right off the start, when the Brotherhood attack and Avalanche's, I believe it's Avalanche, is doing his thing, and so Kurt responds by bamfing around and is kind of like hitting him in multiple sides, and we see Destiny call out, you know, hit him on your left. And we see that kind of play out. And she does play a significant role even towards the end of the book, as she's the one who has cornered Senator Kelly and is on the verge of killing him when we see Kitty come forward, kind of phase through her and reform into her physical body and knock this crossbow, which is a very odd choice of weapon, but there it is.

SPEAKER_04: 42:14

Destiny's really old, so when you're old school, you just uh maybe she's very attached to the crossbow.

SPEAKER_02: 42:23

As you do when you're a villain. Just gotta have an obscure weapon of choice. But overall, I really, really love this iteration of the Brotherhood of Evil mutants. We see Mystique promise at the very end that they're gonna be released from prison. She's promising this, so you know, we're setting up the return of these mutants in the future to hopefully have a little bit more staying power so they're not just taken out right away. I thought this was an extremely strong showing of Mystique. We see this tease of Kurt and Mystique being hit what's going on there? Are they related? They look kind of the same. What's happening?

SPEAKER_04: 43:02

I think it's pretty clear that the implication is they are related in some way. 100%. But it will be interesting to see, like, you know, when are they gonna go down that storyline? And like Kurt has never mentioned his mother before, uh, adoptive mother, as it were. So it'll be interesting to see, like, you know, Colossus is usually the one pining for his family. So are we gonna get a little trip to Germany? Gonna get some Kurt backstory. You'll be interesting. We've brought her up a few times. I think that these two issues just do such a great job of showing why Mystique is just a nightmare to deal with. Yeah. She's very slippery. She's the only one from the group that is able to escape when everyone else is captured. She is just like causing havoc everywhere. And I think they use her powers just so smart over these two issues.

SPEAKER_02: 44:04

I agree a hundred percent. You know, it was really fun seeing like this classic who is who? Is this the real Nightcrawler? No, I'm the real Nightcrawler, and them kind of just being on the ground fighting, and it was uh it was very funny. So I and then we immediately see her disappear after this fight, and even uh, I believe it's Kirk calls it out like where did she go? She got away because she can transform into anybody. It was a great addition to their rogues gallery and really leaves Mystique to be an important foe for the X-Men, hopefully not far from now.

SPEAKER_04: 44:49

Yeah, I'd like to see some more Mystique in the near future. I'm just looking at the next major story arcs that are ahead of us. Speaking of which, that the teaser for the next issue is completely insane. It's yeah, it definitely is. It's a pretty metal. Like, what even is that? When you're alone, Kitty Pride, no one can hear you scream. Like, is that a next the demon? This thing literally looks like alien. It does. Is it is it a brood or I mean it c they called it a demon, so like are we going like all the way back to like those first issues where they fight the demon from the cairn? Or is this like a brood space alien situation?

SPEAKER_02: 45:42

Yeah, that is a great question.

SPEAKER_04: 45:44

Christmas. I I uh I think I got kind of an answer because I went to the first page of the comic, and uh there are some spoilers.

SPEAKER_01: 45:58

Yeah. Well, the f as you wanna know.

SPEAKER_04: 46:02

I guess it doesn't matter, you're gonna read it. It's the first fing page. The first I haven't read any of the words, but so like there's the cover, the first page, like you see the the cairn and all the demons like flying. Oh so it's like okay, it is connected to that.

SPEAKER_02: 46:20

Did not even put two together. It makes so much sense now.

SPEAKER_01: 46:26

Whoa. All right, and I'm gonna stop flipping through.

SPEAKER_04: 46:31

Oh my god, man. We are in for a treat. This looks awesome. I'm excited. All right, overall thoughts. I gave the two issues together a nine out of ten. Really, really good. Is there anything they could have done to get you to a ten? Uh I don't know. Um, that's hard to say. I just don't know. I I just feel like there's going to be like a 10 situation. I just don't know when or what it is. I think this is the best X-Men we've gotten since the Proteus saga. I would put this ahead of Dark Phoenix.

SPEAKER_02: 47:13

Uh I'm I'm on board 100%. I uh you you're going to explain the some of the things you like. So before I get my score, I'll let you do that. Sure.

SPEAKER_04: 47:22

Uh so I think I was just gonna say, you know, really good story. I love the whole cutting between the past and the future. We're introduced to a ton of new characters. We didn't we've kind of barely talked about Rachel, but like Rachel's cool too. Um, she'll come up again eventually. I don't really know when. And it's there's a lot of good setup as well for you know, where is this going to lead to? And I don't think it's like next, I mean, we know right now that next issue is not gonna be necessarily an immediate payoff for some of those uh plot points, but we'll pick up those threads eventually.

SPEAKER_02: 48:07

Yeah, that I think you put it brilliantly. This for me was a 10 out of 10. I don't think I would change anything, and I also am gonna be liberal with my 10 out of 10s. Hmm. I I think when there's good work that requires you give it a good score, and that's what I'm gonna do. I like I don't know what could have made this better. Uh, the art was great, the story was fantastic. You know, we really talked about how they fit a lot of story threads into here, and we had a good chunk of time dedicated to our summaries because there was just so much happening, and it didn't feel like we were being bombarded, and it didn't feel like what was being presented was bad. So, this for me, 10 out of 10, I really, really liked it. We have all these amazing characters that are now being introduced, a lot of new opportunities for the X-Men to face evil mutants, which we've really haven't seen too much. And we also have this new story thread where Sebastian Shaw comes back into the fold. We have that anti-mutant hate that's fermenting below the surface. And, you know, again, we're kind of seeing humans, as you said, are now kind of uh becoming more, I think, mainstream about their thoughts of not like me liking mutants. So there's a lot of things that can kind of fold out of these pages, and uh, you know, we are aware of some of that broadly speaking, or you know, modern day items, but I'm excited to see these threads play out over the coming issues, however long away that might be. I'm not entirely sure. But as you said, like I don't think we need to jump into it right away here. I think just looking at the cover of the next issue, it looks metal as hell, and I'm all for a horror-themed Christmas issue that gives us It'll be like Gremlins. Don't feed the demon after midnight and do not water it. Anyways, 10 out of 10, loved it better than anything I could have imagined. Honestly, I'm disappointed that the films didn't just give me this on film. But besides that, this is way better. And I think everybody involved, like, kudos, you created a masterpiece. Great job. Here's your trophy and gold star. Yeah. Here's my approval 50 years later. Probably all they ever wanted. I do not think that highly of my opinion. Uh if if anybody from the creative team is actually listening, I want you to know deeply everything you've created is amazing. You've crushed it. And give us give us a shout out. Sponsor us.

SPEAKER_04: 50:59

Buy us a pizza. I would take that. I guess it'd have to be two different pizzas. I think that's a reasonable request. You could buy a pretty cheap pizza. That's true. Jack's frozen pizza. I don't even know what that is. Oh, I'm wondering. I'm curious about uh Canadian frozen pizza brands, but we can make that a talk for another time.

SPEAKER_02: 51:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 51:20

I think that's a good idea. I think Wisconsin might be the frozen pizza capital of the world. Really? Like, I think they produce and eat an extraordinary amount of frozen pizzas, if I'm remembering correctly. And part of it is me. Like, I'm part of the problem, but like in your grocery stores, is there like a pizza aisle? Like for frozen pizzas? Yeah. Yes. Like the entire like the entire stretch is just pizza?

SPEAKER_02: 51:50

Um I think you know, like it's store to store, but yeah, like I would I would say that there's like a decent selection.

SPEAKER_04: 51:57

Okay. Cause I've heard tell that uh, you know, people from outside the state like are impressed with the the size of how much like of the grocery store is like dedicated to frozen pizza.

SPEAKER_02: 52:12

Uh if we ever get a Patreon, we can dedicate an entire episode towards talking about frozen pizza. I could talk about frozen pizza for years. I mean, you're proving the point that this is a big thing in Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_04: 52:27

Well, it's just I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02: 52:29

It's an art form. Now I want to try a frozen pizza from Wisconsin. So if this ever happens, you're gonna have to ship me one because when I think of frozen pizza, I just think of something that's sad and makes me want to have fresh pizza.

SPEAKER_04: 52:44

It's a spectrum. Like sometimes you really want that like really cheap thin crust, like three dollar shitty situation. You know, there are fancier frozen pizzas, there's some good ones. Yeah. Well, you know, we don't wanna we don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves. You know, we gotta save it for the eventual frozen pizza podcast. Yes, uh frozen delights.

SPEAKER_02: 53:08

No, that's a terrible name. We'll think of something better.

SPEAKER_01: 53:10

Yeah, that's not good. That is terrible. That's pretty bad.

SPEAKER_04: 53:17

So just uh throw in two random things about the movie, and I think I may have said this last time, but one, Blink is a total MVP of like when they're doing the future stuff, and I wish they would have had a little bit more future things going on. They do way more interesting future stuff in these actual books, but Blink is super cool. I agree. And there's a moment I really appreciated where like the sentinels are coming and like without speaking a word, Magneto just leaves, and there's kind of like this tense assumption and feeling of like, oh, he's gonna go sacrifice himself, and Charles realizes like this is the last time he's ever going to see his friend. They don't do that, they should have, but like you know, he does come back, and I think that is kind of a huge storytelling mistake, but whatever, that's on them. Like, they I felt I felt like they were clearly setting up a really cool moment, and uh they kind of fumbled the ball.

SPEAKER_02: 54:23

Yeah, I also was asking myself, like, couldn't McNeil just down all those ships? And then I realized the size of them because you see eventually as they're approaching this outpost or wherever the hell they are, it's a bit weird. Um, their version of the future was very strange looking.

SPEAKER_04: 54:41

Yeah, it kind of felt like a different planet.

SPEAKER_02: 54:44

It felt so weird, like it made no sense. Like if it just felt like uh we don't want to spend a lot of money on this, so we're just going to throw it on a green screen, and that'll be the end of it. Yeah, very, very odd. Anywho, uh you can see at some point in time the sentinels are on their way towards the X-Men and wherever they're hiding. And at first you look at them and they're like, okay, there's a lot of them, but I mean they're clearly made of metal. And, you know, they made a point in the film actually earlier on that they couldn't be controlled because they're not made out of metal, and then McNeedle can control them anyways. Regardless, in the future, they come out and they're actually they look small compared to the ships, uh, the sentinels, and that really kind of gives you this breadth of situation, how large of a threat and how many of these there are. I don't know that they really hammered that home as well in the comic, you know, in in showing us the vast the vastness of them. It was just not a ton of them. You know, it's and I think that's fine. I think that what they presented us is totally okay. Um, but that is something that I like about the film that we kind of get the scope of how many there are and how widespread it is. It is mentioned in the comic, but we don't really see it.

SPEAKER_04: 56:13

Well, they're probably gearing up for their invasion of the rest of the world. I think you are probably right.

SPEAKER_02: 56:20

I will also say the sentinels in the film are absolutely hideous. I do not like them.

SPEAKER_04: 56:26

They're terrible. Both the ones in the past and the future. Yeah, they look goofy. Like they I hate their stupid little like wind jets on their chest. Yeah. And then they have like the weird like mystique connection where it's like, oh, her powers were the key to unlocking why the sentinels can't be beat, because they can adapt to every situation. Yeah, it's it was just a giant MacGuffin. And it's like, bro, two movies ago, you killed a mutant who can adapt to like everything and who can't be killed. You killed Darwin. He can't die though. Well, apparently he can. R.A.P. Rip Darwin.

SPEAKER_02: 57:11

And I I think that's a good spot for us to pay our respect and uh send us off.

SPEAKER_04: 57:18

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 143 to 145. Oh ho ho! The next time. 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.