SPEAKER_02: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Under Any Book Club. I'm Isaac Badersfield, and joining me as always is my co-host, the elegant Adam Ward. Happy New Year.

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

Happy New Year. We did it. It's uh 2026 now. Not at the time of recording, but you know, now now.

SPEAKER_02: 0:28

I keep seeing memes about like, you know, all the past several years, like in a dumpster or whatever, and it's like surely 2026 will be the one that's actually better. Gotta hope, man. It feels a little too real.

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

You gotta walk into the new year with your best foot and hope for the best. There you go. Some life advice. That's free. Yeah. Yeah, it is free. There you go. Take it or leave it, I guess. That's a little bonus.

SPEAKER_02: 0:58

Not sponsored. Sponsored by Adam's Words of Wisdom. Ward's Words of Wisdom.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04

Ooh, I like that. I should get that put on a shirt. There's a merch idea. So what'd you think of these three issues we got?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13

I think these were pretty interesting. I think pretty good overall. The third one, more unique than the others. And then I think overall the first two issues that we're going to go through today were a pretty good, kind of self-contained story that picks up where a couple of things have left off with like, hey, whatever happened to Emma Frost or what's going on with Shaw and the Sentinels. But I think, you know, overall, I think with the last few issues, these few issues, we're in kind of a good place, and it feels like things have kind of gotten back up to speed, at least for me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

Yeah, this felt like an outstanding story thread that was, I mean, really hit at essentially the last time we saw Emma. So to kind of see this come back into the fold here, still kind of see like the story thread with you know Kitty kind of being like this catalyst that kind of brings Emma back into the lives of the X-Men. Apparently the world's most desired mutant student. I just want to say off the top here, there is some wonky ass imagery of the stuff. Are you gonna say derp face? There is a lot of derp face, but even off the top of this first issue we're about to talk about, Kitty looks like a woman in her mid-30s. Like the very first page of the comic, you're saying? Well, the very first page, and then continued into the second page, and then it kind of gets, you know, even on the third page, she looks like she's maybe in her twenties, like late 20s.

SPEAKER_02: 2:50

Is this a guest artist? There are three different artists on this issue, and none of them are the like regular artists that we established after after John Byrne left. So it's Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod, McLeod, McLeod, and Joseph Rubenstein.

SPEAKER_01: 3:11

Well, I mean, take taking that into consideration, I mean, you can tell that like it feels like a bunch of different people drew, like where the art drew feels not uh admiring enough. But being the the artists behind this issue, like it does feel like it was kind of handled by a bunch of different people. And look no further than like the first kind of pages that we get where the art is very different, like much more mature. And and even taking a closer look at some of the other characters, like looking at Wolverine, he looks really aged up.

SPEAKER_02: 3:51

He looks weathered. Uh the beer and the cigars have finally taken its toll.

unknown: 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:59

Well, why don't you give us a bit of a recap of this issue? You could still win a Columbia 10-speed racer, so you still have time, everyone. Enter now. Send it in.

SPEAKER_02: 4:10

Issue 151 begins with some bad news. Kitty Pride's parents are concerned that she is the only youngster at the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, and have decided to move her to the Massachusetts Academy. Charles says there's nothing that can be done, and Kitty runs away to her bedroom in anguish. Storm comforts her and Kitty informs her that Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club is the headmaster of the Massachusetts Academy, and that clearly something is up. Storm says that her parents just want what is best for her, and Kitty announces that her parents are splitting up and want her out of the way while they do, and that's why they sent her away in the first place. Charles is certain that no one has tampered with Kitty's parents' minds, so Kitty says her goodbyes. Peter says he is not good at expressing himself in writing, but that he will try to send letters. She gives him a gross kiss goodbye. Storm decides to drive Kitty personally so that she can check out the situation. She wonders if Wolverine was right and that the X-Men should have done something to prevent this. But she ends up being confronted by Emma in the lounge. We cut away, but see that light flares bright in the room and there is a rumble of thunder. Storm leaves soon after, saying goodbye to Kitty. After driving a bit down the road, she exits the car and begins testing her powers out. It's quickly obvious that Emma has done the old switcheroo and is now inhabiting Storm's body. She drapes herself in white fur and lights a cigarette because that's what rich people do, and phones the Hellfire Club to speak with Shaw about their plan. We then see Storm awaken, imprisoned in both Emma's body and a cell. Nightcrawler is having a moonlight stroll with his girlfriend Amana Sefton, who is also apparently his adopted sister since early childhood. We learn that the witch queen Margali Zardos found the infant Kurt in his dead mother's arms and raised him as one of her own. They share a kiss, but are attacked by a sentinel. Cyclops blasts it almost immediately after, all the way from the mansion, but the sentinel is unscathed. More sentinels emerge from the lake, and we see that Shaw is behind the assault. The rest of the X-Men join the fray, but these sentinels seem to be a big improvement over the previous models. One of the sentinels tears through the roof to deal with Cyclops and Professor Xavier. It's a back and forth fight, but the X-Men seem victorious when Emma arrives as Storm and shocks everyone into unconsciousness. Meanwhile, Storm, as Emma, has picked the lock to her prison and quickly discovers that she now has Emma's powers. She finds Kitty and attempts to gain her trust, but ends up brain blasting her instead. The issue ends with Storm clutching Kitty, hoping that she hasn't accidentally killed her. Don't worry, she didn't. There is an awful lot of people clutching people, being like, oh my gods, I've killed them. They're done. They just gotta check for vitals.

SPEAKER_01: 7:11

You would imagine that would just be the first thing you do, but I you know, I I I think this is all meant to be uh you know a telenovela in a way. Drama. Just it's gotta be you gotta put the cell in. Gotta play it up so people care. She could really be dead.

SPEAKER_02: 7:29

This uh issue in particular seems to have a lot of that uh soap opera ness going on a little bit, especially with uh Kurt apparently being adoptive siblings with his girlfriend. A weird choice.

SPEAKER_01: 7:44

Yeah. Um I don't know what to really say about it, honestly. I don't think I dwelled on it too much when I was reading it.

SPEAKER_02: 7:53

Just something to bring up.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

It's not really dwelled on very much in the book, but yeah, I don't think they actually did a, I think, a well enough job of explaining the character all that well. See her eventually, not in this issue, but we see her eventually use some magic, and we get some kind of background that her mother is a magic user of some kind, and thus she has magic, I guess. That's the the the leap we have to to make. It would have been nice to if maybe they had spent some time introducing her before, even if it was briefly to kind of establish some of this uh character development. Or, you know, we can keep we can keep getting Carol Danvers just kind of shoehorned into these issues still, which happens.

SPEAKER_02: 8:41

They've briefly mentioned the whole magic thing once or twice, with Amanda being I don't know the word. I we're just gonna say a mage.

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

Yeah, she's a magic.

SPEAKER_02: 8:54

She deserves arcane.

SPEAKER_01: 8:55

Yeah. Was she the same girl that was kidnapped by arcade? Which time?

SPEAKER_02: 9:04

Yes, like both times. I I mean I think it it might be yes both times. I know that was her for the second time. Like Kurt's been with Amanda for a while now, but I don't know if it would be like the same I don't know. I feel like he's been with her for a lot of this run, but at some point they decided, like, oh, she has a name and here's some backstory. And also she's not related, but kind of related.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Yeah, I mean enough for them to be s probably sibling-like. It's weird. It's weird. There's no way around it. Huh. Okay, so she has a super she has a superhero name. What's her superhero name? Uh Daytripper? Day Tripper. Yeah. Is her superpower like drugs? So apparently she gets this moniker um much, much later. Because she is part of a team. She's part of a team involved with uh Excalibur. Oh, because oh, okay. It says she takes the code name Daytripper, playing on Kurt's code name, because he's Nightcrawler, so she's Daytripper. Oh, Jesus. That's a little much. She later assumes the identity of magic. What? Okay, alright. That's enough of that.

SPEAKER_02: 10:34

That is magic with a cave for the for the listeners at home unaware.

SPEAKER_01: 10:41

Anywho, I will say the scene where the the um sentinels come out of the water is very cool.

SPEAKER_02: 10:50

I like how sudden it was. Yes. Just, you know, they're sharing a nice kiss, there's an ambush. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 10:57

It felt like Shaw executing up like a plan, you know? And yet it kind of feels like in some ways they kind of played themselves, because the this plan, as we'll find out, does not go as planned. But I like that we finally got to pretty classic Hellfire Club. Yeah. Yeah, look look look no further than Leland. That poor man. That's a next issue thing. Yeah, that's a next issue thing. It was great to see him back, though. I honestly thought he was Dunny, so to see him back was nice. It was also nice seeing that the sentinels are upgraded here. And I think we could probably like a much tougher battle. That is acknowledged by Wolverine, I believe, because Scott originally engages the Sentinel and it didn't damage it. So they remark on that. I think you know, like it's just good to see, right? Because like I think it's safe to assume that these sentinels have been given these upgrades courtesy of Sebastian Shaw.

SPEAKER_02: 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:01

He's in the Sentinel building business now. Yeah, in a secret control center far beneath the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw monitors and controls the progress of his mechanoid creations. But where is Henry Gyric? What were your overall thoughts on the whole Freaky Friday situation that we got here?

SPEAKER_02: 12:22

I'm assuming it has been played out a little bit less at this point in time. You know, we're talking 40, like 45-ish, 44 years ago, somewhere in there. You know, I like to think of things kind of logically, strategically. I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, you take Storm off the board, she's like their heavy header. You get her powers, so that's kind of a big power dynamic shift in your favor. It seems like they did a really bad job of imprisoning Storm as Emma's body, though. Like, like, what were they there was like she'll never get past this single locked door and two guards. Literally impossible. Like they could have uh, you know, just put up like a bunch of cement walls and just checked on her in a week.

SPEAKER_01: 13:12

Yeah, uh you put them in a cement box and you have the little, you know, the little food tray spot, and like that's it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:21

You gotta break the wall down if you want to get out. It is a pretty nice cell. You can tell that Emma Frost wanted the best for her body, even in prison, where it's like they get a full normal mattress, nice headboard, a dresser, a mirror, and then there's just like a crappy sink and like a chair in the corner. I don't know. It's like a weird juxtaposition there, little writing desk.

SPEAKER_01: 13:48

Yeah, I mean, it's remarked on a few times by Emma that she clearly wants to be in her own body, and you know, she's running this scheme as part of a plan to destroy the X-Men or whatever. So, yeah, it all it all checks out. The my only real complaint about like the general concept of the body switch is in principle, Emma has psionic powers or psychic powers. And couldn't she just use her powers to do this body swap thing, as opposed to this being like um MacGuffin blaster that you just shoot your whoever it is and you swap bodies?

SPEAKER_02: 14:36

It seems like Emma is quite the crafter of things like this because she also gave Mastermind or whatever the device that allowed him to like exceed his actual powers and mess with Gene so much rather than just creating illusions. So uh I guess she must be pretty crafty, but I don't know. It it makes sense to me that she isn't able to do that like flip-flop switch.

SPEAKER_01: 15:06

That just seems like a lot. I mean, not by today's standards, I don't think, but definitely for the time.

SPEAKER_02: 15:12

It's like copying over a whole hard drive, errors constantly, SATA cables. I have an old motherboard, so it's it's SATA cables all the way down.

SPEAKER_01: 15:24

Oh yeah, I'm the exact same. I think I need a new motherboard, which means I probably need to build a new computer, which I don't really want to do. How about them RAM prices? We can be topical. Just to go back to your point about the cell and like just the ineptitude of we're just gonna have mass incompetence leading the hellfire here. Um, we're just gonna like maybe they just underestimated Storm, you know? But yeah, I the I did like kind of the panels we saw of Emma wielding this power and flying into the sky. I I I really, really enjoyed her flexing her muscles and kind of getting used to this new power set that she now has access to.

SPEAKER_02: 16:16

They did a really good job of drawing Storm as like a crazy witchy lady. Like it's very like it's her face, but it's also very much like not her face in these panels. It's kind of creepy. Evil.

SPEAKER_01: 16:31

It's the eyes, I think. Yeah. They the like they totally shift her general facial expressions. I I give uh Charles Xavier a lot of flack on this show. I I want to give Charles some flowers for a moment, if you if you don't mind. Please. We get to see Charles Xavier actually use his powers effectively and actually help the X-Men beat the Sentinels. It's incredible. Essentially, we get a blinded Wolverine, um, albeit temporarily, and the the Sentinels are at this point trying to take Wolverine kind of off the board, and uh with the expressed sort of command to bring him back to Leland for some reason. Um, I think because of their their last encounter, I I would imagine. And then we kind of have yeah, and then we have Charles using his mind powers to essentially be Wolverine's eyes. Um I do like that he's looking away though. And I'm to believe that on the next page, it is, I think, implied that it was short-lived because we have a sentinel that busts through the ceiling, and then we see uh Scott and Xavier.

SPEAKER_02: 17:53

Yeah. So it was also cool how soon they were able to respond to the Sentinel attack because of Charles being there and having his kind of short-range rapport with the X-Men. Scott blasts the Sentinel like super, super soon after the whole battle begins, even if it wasn't super, super effective.

SPEAKER_01: 18:12

I I do want to kind of compliment these kind of back, like at least the this fighting sequence is really nice to look at. There's a lot of cool sequences with both issues did really good with the fighting sequences. Like the this is a notable improvement, honestly. I I like the the kind of movement that's in this nightcrawler scene where he's planting explosives on the legs of the sentinels to blow them up, and even like Storm swooping in and knocking down the sentinel to take cr you know, as we learn, is the to take out Wolverine. I feel bad for Amanda though. Like she almost looks like she's gonna get crushed by the sentinel, and then somehow she's pretty far away from it. Anyways, so cool art, also a lot of janky art.

SPEAKER_02: 19:00

So yeah, a good strong mix. I think next issue is when we really, really get those kitty derp faces.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Yeah, well, for most of this issue, she's drawn like a much older character. Yeah. Was there anything else in this issue that uh stood out to you?

SPEAKER_02: 19:18

I think the only other thing for me is that we did get some more good personal moments. You know, we had a lot of interactions with kitty and storm. Yeah. She was able to share the news of her parents splitting up. You know, she's going through a lot. And uh, you know, we got like the Curtin and Amanda moments before they were rudely interrupted by Sentinels. So I think overall this issue was just kind of a strong mix of a lot of different things. We had this really good, well-sequenced back-and-forth battle. We're, you know, looping back on certain plot points. We have the personal moments, got some good art, we got some less good art. It's, you know, it's a good struggle.

SPEAKER_01: 20:01

Yeah, I think your point about the relationship between Storm and Kitty is um I think really powerful through these issues. You know, we've spoken about this motherly bond that Storm has with Kitty and the trust that kind of exists there since you know Storm was one of the first people that took Kitty under her wing and you know was actually around when Emma first attempted to take Kitty. You know, there's a lot of history here between all of these characters, but I think the relationship between Kitty and Storm is really what carries these issues, especially when we get into the next issue where there's a lot of exposition that takes place, but the idea that Kitty has to put all of her trust in Emma Frost claiming she's actually Storm to essentially save the X-Men, which is what ends up taking place. She's been saving the day a lot lately. Yeah, man. Kitty's earned her keep, which you know kind of goes back to what Logan was saying in the beginning, which is are we not gonna like try and like stop this? Like we're not even gonna do anything. And Charles is just like, what do you want me to do? You want me to try? No, I don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 21:23

Well, to be fair, he wanted him to like mess with their free will. And it's not like the worst place to draw a line in the sand and be like, maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe that might be wrong. It's probably the whole gene thing. He's learning some lessons. Good to move to 152?

SPEAKER_01: 21:41

Yeah, I was gonna say we've already kind of touched a bit on the events that kind of take place in 152, but why don't you give us the full recap here?

SPEAKER_02: 21:49

Issue 152 begins with Emma shooting lightning at Storm and Kitty as they drive off. Kitty still thinks she's being kidnapped by Emma and attempts to phase through the car, causing Storm to lose control and drive off a cliff. The car tumbles and explodes. Emma accidentally summons too much wind and blows herself far away from the scene. Kitty sees Emma's body about to be overtaken by flames and struggles with what to do, but ultimately makes the heroic choice. Emma returns to the X-Mansion and meets Shaw. She's furious and believes her body to be destroyed. Shaw tries to console her by saying she still possesses great power and beauty, saying he thinks Auroro would make an exquisite white queen. The two kiss passionately. Meanwhile, Storm begins to slowly convince Kitty of her true identity and says she must cooperate with her to stop the Hellfire Club's assault on the X-Men. Speaking of which, the X-Men are tied up and have their powers neutralized by inhibitor manacles. The Hellfire Club, Shaw, Emma, though the X-Men believe this is Storm, and Harry Leland are gloating, but Wolverine knees Leland in the groin. The goons start roughing him up and reveal that they have cybernetic enhancements now because Wolverine cut them up so bad during the Dark Phoenix saga. Storm and Kitty recruit Stevie Hunter to drive them to the mansion. They sneak off, but Shaw and Emma soon arrive and confront Stevie. Meanwhile, the goons are roughing up Wolverine, and we're told that he has died, and if the X-Men step out of line, they will suffer the same fate. Storm is psychically helping Kitty to pick a lock, which helps her to escape the clutches of Shaw and Emma. Kitty sneaks through the mansion, but Wolverine finds her and reveals that he hasn't died. Amanda, powers unknown to the Hellfire Club, has cast a spell to trick the guards. They form a plan and we see Kitty break the X-Men free and they begin fighting Leland and the goons. Wolverine tells the cyborgs to get over themselves and be happy that they're still alive. To deal with Shaw, Colossus gives him the fastball special, and they throw him far off into the lake. They hope that this will burn off a good amount of the power he's stored up. Emma ends up summoning too big of a Storm and accidentally hits Shaw with a lightning bolt so powerful it overloads his abilities and he falls unconscious. Storm confronts her, and the two rise into the sky, battling it out, until we see a flash of light and Emma's body falling to the ground. Storm, now in her own body, flies down to catch her in time. Emma tries a psychic assault, but Storm, now understanding Emma's powers better, resists and hits her with a lightning bolt. For some reason, her clothes then tear off and she puts her hands around Emma's throat, meaning to kill her. Wolverine stops her and says, Anyone can kill Princess. It's easy. I know. What takes courage and strength, what separates the humans from the animals, is not killing. Kitty wonders if they should call the cops. Storm says they can't expose the Hellfire Club without exposing themselves, and that it's better for everyone to go their separate ways. Emma promises to keep silent and says the Hellfire Club is nothing without Shaw, and the X-Men have nothing to fear until he recovers. Emma also agrees to return Kitty to the School for Gifted Youngsters. We end the issue with Emma swearing in her head that the war between them isn't over and won't be until the X-Men are dead and damned. Kind of intense. I didn't know that Emma felt so much animosity toward the X-Men randomly.

SPEAKER_01: 25:28

Uh maybe she just feels embarrassed, you know? Like, she keeps getting thwarted. We all believed her to be vaporized by Phoenix. And then she keeps stealing her star pupils. Yeah. And worst of all, her body was almost exploded.

SPEAKER_02: 25:48

At the end of the day, Emma just wants to be a teacher.

SPEAKER_01: 25:51

Yeah, she does want to be a teacher. Right.

SPEAKER_02: 25:54

I don't know if at this point they've, you know, added that characterization, but that's her eventual like driving passion.

SPEAKER_01: 26:03

I uh I felt like some of this issue suffered a bit from the recap that was just kind of inserted into this issue. As well as the just, you know, I while I just kind of talked up the relationship between Kitty and Storm in these two issues, I do feel like the the sequence that kind of happens in the car is just very text heavy.

SPEAKER_00: 26:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 26:28

There's a lot of yellow boxes on that page. Yeah. It just kind of felt like it slowed everything down a bit, you know. Like we we had we had some good action going, you know, things are progressing well. God, man, back to the goofy kitty faces. There are some wild ones in this one. It's yeah. I I don't know. Real big close-up on the on the big puppy eyes. It's as if they can't decide how they want to illustrate her, you know? Like it it's as if they maybe because she's just not established uh too much yet, so but I don't know. It's uh there's just some goofy, there's some goofy stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 27:11

Yeah, I I felt like last issue, like whoever drew it, like the artist was like, she should be older, and this issue, the artist was like, Kitty's actually really young. So yeah. Let's not forget that. There's some wild, derpy faces in this issue. It is unfortunate. The art in general is fine, it's good. There's a lot of good stuff too, but they have a weird obsession with just like I don't know, man. They do some weird stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 27:44

Yeah, it's it's uh it's not great, but it seems to be almost exclusively a kitty pride problem.

SPEAKER_02: 27:55

It would seem sometimes they do it with Storm to like a lesser extent. Like they'll draw both of them sort of like back and forth together with like kitty has big puppy dog eyes, Storm has cat eyes.

SPEAKER_01: 28:10

Yeah. I'm just looking kind of like at this sequence that has like the puppy dog eyes that you're talking about. And it kind of has some back and forth panels with Emma Frost, and Emma looks fine. It makes me feel a bit like they just don't know what a 14 like how old is Kitty, like 14, 15? Not quite 14. Okay, so sh she's a teenage girl. It just makes me feel like they don't know what a teenage girl looks like or how to illustrate that appropriately.

SPEAKER_02: 28:42

They didn't have Google images back then. She kind of looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings in the very like bottom right panel.

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

It's the eyes, they look like they're bulging from her eye like her skull, you know? Because they also look like sunken in. She's seen some shit with the way that it like It's been a long day. The funniest thing is like going to the next page of this issue, and the X-Men are lined up on the couch, and Poro Cyclops has like this quartz iron mask on, you know? Like the like the the man in the iron mask, but he's the man in the quartz mask.

SPEAKER_02: 29:26

He just looks so don't let Nightcrawler have a seat on like a chair, and Amanda is just on the floor.

SPEAKER_01: 29:35

Well, as you can see, uh Colossus takes up the majority of that couch. He's a big boy. Yeah, he is.

SPEAKER_02: 29:42

Well, they were some pages, and we got a conclusion. They were some pages. I think, you know, derpiness aside, there was a little bit of good kind of buddy cop kitty storm moments. Mm-hmm. Overall, I think it's a pretty tight, self-contained story that they did over the two issues. There's not a ton of wasted space, even if there are moments of there's too much text here. This doesn't need to be illustrated like with words that we can see what's happening. But yeah, I don't know. Overall, I thought they did pretty good with, you know, making things very it just seemed planned out. Uh, we had some good back and forth action, fun little dramatic bits.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

We talked about how well the action sequences have been kind of put together in these two issues. And I'm just looking at another great example of this. There's this fight that's taking place uh where Sebastian Shaw breaks through the wall and Emma's storm comes flying in, zapping everybody, and uh, we get to see Scott use his uh trigonometry or whatever. Hell yeah. To uh triangles to hit Shaw in the back, and then we get to see Colossus toss Shaw. And the way that they drew this, like it looks like he's being thrown out of the panel, and then we kind of see him land in the water. It looks really cool.

SPEAKER_02: 31:06

There was definitely a big step up in the action illustration, which not consistently but hasn't always been great. Like, there's been some like really good examples of like this was a fun fight. They really used the space well, and then there's been some just like they punched him in this panel, and then he punched back in that panel, and then Wolverine popped his claws. It's much more dynamic in in this story.

SPEAKER_01: 31:32

Yeah, I agree. I think that is a high point, especially since John's been gone. I think this is like the best action-looking panels we've we've had. So good job, guest artists.

SPEAKER_02: 31:45

Yeah, good job, guest artists. One thing that did not pop up in this issue, but I feel confident that we will eventually see, is I think there is going to be a question of who exactly is the leader of the X-Men, uh, at least in terms of like in the field. I I feel like we're gonna have to have some sort of confrontation between Scott, who is apparently back for good now, and Storm, who has been leading the X-Men while he left. And uh I'm I'm interested in seeing how that plays out.

SPEAKER_01: 32:20

Yeah, I wonder if we'll kind of get a bit of a resolution to that in the coming issues, since they're going to be a little bit more Scott focused in a way, anyways. I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_02: 32:30

I don't know for sure, but uh hopefully Scott focused. I mean, if they're gonna so the next like four issues, I think, are all like Corsair and the Star Jammers related, which one would assume would be a great point to loop back around and be like, hey Scott, this dude is your dad, by the way. You know, if even if Corsair doesn't say it, Storm also happens to know that Corsair is Scott's dad. So I think there's some opportunity for that to come up.

SPEAKER_01: 33:01

Yeah, yeah, I I'm curious to kind of see what happens. I will say I am generally and historically have not been massively drawn to the star jammers in any meaningful way. No, I haven't really been exposed to them too too much, so you know, beyond what we've kind of seen here, and a couple like modern day issues that I've read, but I just haven't been able to I think dig them in the same way that I could dig the Guardians of the Galaxy, for example. That's fair. Like I'm hopeful that the familial bond between Scott and Corsair kind of brings some needed interest and depth to to that team. Cause like for me, it's just yeah, I mean, I I'm not necessarily looking forward to four issues of spell jammers.

SPEAKER_02: 33:51

I think the only positive of it, I you know, I don't really think of the Starjammers as spell jammers, which is DD. You did. You were you ran on the D DD train of thought, but I don't really think of them like in in the same way as the Guardians of the Galaxy, like, because that's like a standalone thing, and I don't know if the Star Jammers have been a standalone thing, but I I I'm looking at it more as like they're gonna be our vehicle for a space adventure. So hopefully there is a good space adventure story in these next few issues. But before we get there, we've got to cover issue 153. Yeah, which uh I think you could probably do pretty quickly, honestly. Issue 153 is a bit different than our usual comic book, but it starts with the X-Men cleaning up the wreckage of the mansion, a new running theme. Nightcrawler informs Charles that the repairs are beyond what they can do, and Professor X thinks that he's right, and their financial and physical resources are strained. Kitty yells for Peter as it is Ileana's bedtime, and he needs to tuck her in. Ileana is frightened by the idea that bad people will come after her or Peter again. Kitty says that she will protect her and offers to tell her a bedtime story titled Kitty's Fairy Tale, featuring Pirate Kitty and her stalwart companion Colossus. On her adventures, they encounter a wizard, Charles Xavier, who flies on a magic carpet and a noble prince, Scott Summers, who can shoot blasts from his eyes. They tell the other two of their quest to rescue Cyclops' beloved Princess Jean, who is transformed into a being of absolute evil, the Dark Phoenix, who then dramatically appears and begins wrecking the city. She escapes before Charles can use his weapon, an orb containing Jean's soul. Pirate Kitty then summons the dragon Lockheed from the waters and they climb aboard. While this is going on, we cut away every so often to see more and more of the X-Men gathering outside the door to listen to Kitty's story, beginning with Nightcrawler and Wolverine. The heroes next stumbled on Bamf, a little blue teleporting demon, who asks Pirate Kitty if she wants to make beautiful music together. Back in the real world, Kurt says, I don't know whether to die of embarrassment or strangle Kitty, but Wolverine thinks that she has him pegged. Bamp chases off all the other Bamfs and joins the team. Meanwhile, Colossus discovers a bottle in the sea which was imprisoning the genie Windrider, who is also after Dark Phoenix. Finally, the Mean, a short and wide beast with claws, cigar, and a pack of beer, joins the crew. Prince Cyclops says that this fiend was a rival of his for Gene's affection, but that he never accepted that her love was actually for him. The party soon comes face to face with Dark Phoenix, and a battle ensues. The Mean stabs Lockheed to get him to breathe fire, and everyone is thrown off. The Genie Windrider saves everyone with a spell by giving them wings. Lockheed then knocks Wolverine into Dark Phoenix in a kind of fastball special thing, and the wizard uses his weapon against her. A new battle begins with the majestic bird of the Phoenix battling against the white tendrils of Jean's soul. The narration says Gene had fought this battle once and lost, and innocent lives paid the price. Given a second chance, she does not fail. Cyclops catches his beloved and the curse on his eyes is lifted. Lockheed flies the groups back to their land where the prince and princess are married, living happily ever after. With Ileana asleep, the two leave her room to find an audience outside. Scott says everyone thought the story was great, especially the ending, and kisses her forehead. Next issue: Reunion with the Star Jammers. So, overall, I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. It was a fun little one-off, you know. It happened, I think, in a good spot in the story where we're not really interrupting anything else, which kind of came off as like a positive for me. It was unique. And, you know, if we had like two issues of this, it would be pretty tiring. But I'm pretty okay with it for, you know, just the one. And I think we do have to mention that you can win a Columbia 10-speed formula 10 racer details inside.

SPEAKER_01: 38:21

Yeah, we didn't mention that the last issue did not uh have the 10-speed racer competition on the on the cover. Instead, they were advertising for Spider-Man and his amazing friends that was going to be on NBC. Tune tune in for 80s cartoon action. I agree with everything you said. I think if this was longer than this, it would just be I would have a lot of issues with it. I wrote down it was fine, it was fun, it was filler. You know, I think the big takeaways. That was beautifully summed up and alliterative. Thank you. We do get some important character, or not even character, but kind of like story threads here, right? We kind of get this story of the X-Men are kind of broke. The X-Mansion was handly heavily damaged in that assault by the Sentinels that we just saw in the former issue. So that is a story thread that we're kind of gonna lock in on. We kind of alluded to it before, where Charles had originally called Angel back into the fold because Angel's rich and he was happy to bankroll the X-Men. And now that the only thing he's gonna take his money with him, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_02: 39:38

And I think he's probably still bankrolling the X-Men, but I mean they have really wrecked that mansion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:45

It's it's all Blackbird is fine, though. It's almost at a state where they need to just like tear it all down and rebuild it again, but better. Which will happen many times. Um, the other I I think important note here. Here is Ileana is now kind of being brought more into the fold. We get to kind of see this cute little relationship that's forming between her and Peter, her and and Kate. And I think even the, you know, it I still think the whole relationship between Colossus and Kitty is a little premature. It's happening. So, you know, we're kind of seeing the relationship a little bit here between the two of them. And it was a little surprising to see Kitty speaking in Russian. I didn't realize she knew Russian. They all are Russian now.

SPEAKER_02: 40:42

Did you did you did you catch the note about why? No, I clearly didn't. Okay. Well, it it said that Professor Xavier basically installed Russian onto everyone's brain. Oh.

SPEAKER_01: 40:59

Well, there you go. Make sure you're reading thoroughly, kids, or else you'll end up like. They hide a lot of little details in those little boxes. Oh, God, man. So much.

SPEAKER_02: 41:11

Anyways. Yeah. The text on these is actually like obnoxiously small. Like they are cramming in words.

SPEAKER_01: 41:19

The we also get a a cameo in this issue. Fozzie Bear.

SPEAKER_02: 41:24

And Lockheed. I think the only other thing for me is, you know, I think it's a plus that Ileana is still hanging around. I'm a little worried, you know, that they're gonna take her away and, you know, have her do her really bad, tragic backstory of, you know, being kidnapped and raised in a demon hellscape, but especially with her being so concerned about being taken away. But yeah, I mean, you know, I guess it will happen at some point, but does that happen in these issues?

SPEAKER_01: 41:58

It's gotta, right? Um, apparently there is an magic number one that came out in December 1983, which serves as a similar origin story.

SPEAKER_02: 42:11

This issue is I think there's like a magic and storm in the series too. This is a January issue.

SPEAKER_01: 42:19

Getting pretty close. Yeah, because I guess coming out of this is where New Mutants kind of kicks in. Mm-hmm. And she's over there doing her thing. Uh, I don't have anything else. As I said, it was fine. It was fun, it was filler.

SPEAKER_02: 42:37

I think I I mean, I don't think we're gonna beat that as a like a recap, but um, I guess I'll give my overall thoughts for the three together. Yeah, please. I felt like they've kind of found their footing again. We had some meh issues in there, you know, some arcade um after some really big peaks with like days of future past, but I feel like we've taken steps in the right direction with like 149 and like the big 150 issue. I think 151 and 152 was a good self-contained story, picking up the earlier threads. It looks like from here on out we're gonna be embarking on a big multi-issue story with the Star Jammers. It feels like they've found the narrative path that they want to follow rather than just sort of wading around through the narrative waters, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

I think for me it's going to come down to how the Star Jammer issues play out. Because when I look at these three issues kind of in the vacuum, it has all the elements of things that I like. Kitty is in it, Emma is in it, Hellfire Club's in it, Storm is in it, you know, we have this we got the Sentinels that pop up, we got these cool action sequences. As we do often on this show, we nitpick. So when I look at the overall, you know, what was given to us, and I'll kind of take the third issue out of this in a way, because it was, you know, again, just kind of a little bit of a filler issue, and I agree with what you said. This was the right time for something like this, you know, especially if we're about to jump into a big four-issue story, I'm okay with a little pause, and that was fine. So I think these all had elements that I enjoy in my X-Men Gomics. So to see what's gonna happen next, which I have no idea what it is beyond it being Starjammers related. I think space. Yeah, and space. So I I'll be really curious to see how I feel coming out of those four issues. And I think I'll kind of let that dictate whether I feel the same way you do, and and if they have found their footing, because that'll be the next kind of bigger story. Whereas, like, even what we got here in these three issues are kind of the remnants of a story thread that is several issues old at this point and really could have been injected anywhere. So it didn't need to be right now. That all being said, you know, I'll I'll I'm curious to see where things go, but I think um, you know, fitting with the filler theme that we kind of talked about with the third issue and just like the nitpicky, not even nitpicky, like the bad art that we see across these books at times, and also the good art we have at times, the downsides, I guess, of having multiple people artistically working on a project together, pulling it in different directions. I think this is like a I don't know, like a six, which might be my lowest score that I think I've ever given. I feel like we've dived into six territory before. Yeah, maybe. Like maybe a six and a half. Yeah, I'm gonna go with a six and a half. I mean, I mean, like ultimately, there were things that I liked. It wrapped up this nice story. We got some nice moments with Storm. You know what? I'm going up to a seven. I'm sticking with seven.

SPEAKER_02: 46:13

There we go. I was gonna go seven point five. Are we ignoring the third issue? Are you just grading the the two? No, I'm mixing it all together.

SPEAKER_00: 46:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 46:22

Yeah, I'll go seven five. Like ultimately, the third issue is is fine. It's fine on its own. You don't need to like it. We're we're probably never gonna see it again. And if we do see it again, I hope it's only again in this like singular way as to just okay, we're taking a little breath here, you know, let's see where things go. So, yeah, seven.

SPEAKER_02: 46:49

Well, 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 154 and 155. Yeah, we're going to space the final frontier.

SPEAKER_01: 47:04

So, buckle up, kids. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_02: 47:07

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.