SPEAKER_01: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Uncanny Book Club. I'm Isaac Padersville and joining me as always is my co-host. The word I never looked up and came up with, Adam Ward. Whoa. I've never been called that before. Yeah, I didn't have time for uh cool words this week, I guess. Yeah, that's okay. I forgive you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

You know.

SPEAKER_01: 0:30

In lieu of cool words, I feel like we do have two really cool issues to talk about, though. I agree.

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

These were both two issues that surprise me. And I've been trying to reflect on why, and I've kind of come to the conclusion that it might be a couple of different things. Like you know, yes, this is like very good, like overall, but beyond that, when I think of all the big stories that we've kind of read on the show so far, those are all stories like Dark Phoenix, Days of Future Past. Like those were two big events that I was very familiar with before reading for this. So for us to now have another great story, and I'm unfamiliar with what's about to happen, it's very exciting. So I think that's part of it, and I think the other part is just that it's actually very interesting and very different than kind of what we've seen the last little while.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34

I agree. This was one where getting into it, I was like, I do not like know what's going to happen in this. Like, I don't have a prior knowledge from movies or animated TV shows or anything like that that kind of prepared me for like, hey, what's this gonna be about? Um, I would say like the closest thing to that, where we've achieved like a really high, this is a great story, but have not had like a ton of the knowledge of like what's going on makes me think of the Proteus arc that we read. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 2:08

Like that unfamiliarness with it, and your expectations are just blown away because the story is phenomenal and the art is good, and you're just you know, there's a lot of depth, and I can already kind of see this here again. If especially when you look at Proteus, it's really a story of a mother and a son and the consequences of you know, a variety of dominoes that fell through their life. And here we are again with the story of a father and a son and a husband and a wife. A lot of parental issue stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on um right now, and these issues cover a couple of other little small things that are also still kind of percolating in the background. Um, you know, we've seen where Chris has kind of layered the stories in that way where we're just keeping some threads, you know, just even if it's a quick mention, you know, we in in in this case I'm alluding to like this um this reference of Emma and Kitty giving us a call back to you know a couple issues ago. Okay, well, Emma is still like being spoken about, so she's still around, right? Like that's what this is getting at. She sent a letter.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Yeah, she sent it, yeah, she sent probably an extremely passive aggressive letter.

SPEAKER_00: 3:25

I don't think it would be any other way. I don't know how you feel about the Shiar so far from like what we've experienced, but I do find when they kind of enter the picture, there's a lot of there's a lot of meat that you need to be able to gobble up in order to really grasp a situation, right? Like there's a lot of extra space elements that you have to factor into the story, and you kind of have to remember what happened with them previously because it matters to where they currently are, right? Like you need to remember in this case that Charles and Lelandra are like blood now. You know, they they share like they're like married or whatever. He's he's her consort.

SPEAKER_01: 4:11

Not uh not quite married, but they have a very good uh connection, a mental connection. I would say that this is written in a way that it and I would say that this is true of a lot of these comics, that they're kind of written in a way where if you've read everything, it's going over the same information that you already know, being like, oh, you know, Wolverine's, you know, shoots out his adamantium claws or uh Colossus's Libbing Steel Skin. I feel like it does a good job of throwing in those small details where like Charles is like, well, you know, as the royal consort, I blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:50

Which I really frankly enjoyed. I actually like made a specific note about how much I enjoyed seeing Charles kind of throw his royal weight around here.

SPEAKER_01: 5:03

It is funny that he's doing it with the people that just have no respect for him or like Earth Terrans in general, but they still do have to follow the rules a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 5:14

There is one character that does appear in this story that continues to just be shoehorned in. You're gonna talk about Carol like that? I am gonna talk about Carol, and I'll and I have some good and bad things to say, but I'll hold them until after our Shall we uh do the story summary then?

SPEAKER_01: 5:35

Yeah, let's do it. Issue 154 begins with Storm and Cyclops taking a page out of the Nightcrawler Wolverine book, and they're cross-training with what they're calling a game of handball. Neither can gain an edge, and both are too stubborn to quit until their exhaustion forces it. We briefly cut to space where we see Corsair piloting a ship back to Earth as he looks at a picture of his son, Scott Summers. Sorry, Havoc. His inner thoughts are interrupted when he exclaims, They've found me, when a Shiar dreadnought appears. Back at Megdito's island base, the X-Men have set up shop with the mansion being so messed up. Iliana helps Peter find the lab for Charles' computer equipment. Wolverine comes to console a distraught Carol Danvers, who is upset at her lack of memory or feeling toward anything, but Kitty pops through the wall, stopping Carol from opening up. Scott and Auroro sit down for dinner, but are interrupted by the roar of Corsair's ship tearing through the sky and crashing into the lake. The two jump into action and pull Corsair from the wreckage. We see his unconscious dreams, him and his wife piloting their doomed plane after pushing their sons at the escape hatch, his wife murdered at the hands of the Shiar, his adventures with the Starjammers. And finally, we see him awake and Scott demanding why he is wearing dog tags with a familiar woman, himself and Alex pictured. Both Corsair and Storm confirm that he is indeed Scott's father, but they're soon attacked by Sidrian hunters, black spider-like creatures. Cyclops and Corsair flee through the high-speed rail that connects the mansion to the Blackbird, while Storm holds off the attackers. As Scott flies away, he sees the mansion completely destroyed now. The hunters assemble themselves into a jet shape and take chase. Storm joins the battle in the air. After chipping away at it for a while, the X-Men are able to disrupt the creatures and they momentarily break apart and fall. Luckily, they end up in a petroleum storage facility, and Corsair wastes no time in setting it ablaze, heedless of the other lives in danger. Scott is furious and demands answers for what is going on. Corsair begins his story and says that 10 days ago, a meeting of the Shiar Grand Council was raided by terrorists. Lolandro is kidnapped, and many other leaders were murdered. The Starjammers were implicated in the kidnapping, and a trail was left by the terrorists that lead to Earth. Next issue, Deathbird. Good recap. I had to skip over a lot of the small details. There's a lot of little things that go on in both this issue and the next issue that are really hard to fit into a recap, and I think I have a specific note on it for next issue, but uh just going over a lot of the little small moments that are sprinkled in that really kind of flesh out the story and make it feel that much fuller.

SPEAKER_00: 8:27

I think the best course of action here is just to get the Carol Danvers band-aid ripped off. Sure, sure. While it's fresh, I think Carol is just being absolutely wasted in these issues. She's getting brought up as in to remind us that she's here and yet she does nothing. Look, I understand she might she doesn't have her powers, but Sean Cassidy was running around helping without powers for a good period of time after he lost them. And, you know, she's I I think like what's happened to her is very interesting. And we keep hearing these references to Rogue and you know the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and how they sh stole her powers and she's been abandoned by the Avengers and all this other stuff that's kind of going on. And what we're getting is none of that. Like, oh there's all of these things that are sprinkled, and we're not seeing any of it, and that's frustrating because uh some of this stuff is like happening in other books. It's like I get that there's a marketing element to everything that happens in these books and the way that they're platformed and the way that they, you know, are trying to tie back to other things to encourage you to buy it. I get it, right? Like I understand how cross-promotion operates, but it feels like okay, like we are establishing that Carol is around, she has a direct connection to Rogue, who we have yet to see in the mainline book, really. So what's going on? And then the bigger problem is you know, we eventually see the X-Men try and get help from the Avengers and find out that the only one who's around is Tigra.

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

So we're we're adding in they are gone every time the X-Men come knocking. Yeah, they really are.

SPEAKER_00: 10:23

So it's just like, why do this at all? Like, other than to have Tigr like Tigra or Tigra have a moment to make her relevant to a different audience, which I'm assuming is kind of what's happening here, because otherwise she's pretty uninteresting, and that is time that we could be getting with Carol to really make us care about this other story that's kind of happening between the Avengers books and this book. I'm not trying to like fantasy book this here, you know what I mean? Like this, I'm trying to just make a genuine complaint that like I feel like we had a better opportunity to really establish and explore what's going on with Carol and why we keep mentioning her, and here she is, and then we, you know, you're deliberately bringing it up now that she's like bitter, that she's lost her powers, and we're just kind of getting a little little tease and nothing's happened.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Can I offer the the counterpoint? Yes, please. The counter-arguments. So, one, I think we're selling the situation a little short. She's not only lost her powers, she's missing a ton of memories. She has like a vague idea of like, I kind of know who this is, but I can't picture what they look like, what they sound like. I don't know like what my feelings are toward that person. Yeah, it's a big situation beyond just losing powers. And then the other part is I don't think this is a situation where she was in the Avengers comics and then is just jumping over to here. I think she was out of that run of comics for a bit. And this is, you know, Chris reeling her back in with that annual story, and now inserting her into the X-Men comics where she was a character not being used and utilized, is my general understanding. But admittedly, I I haven't actually looked to see, like, oh, how long was she gone for? But that's my kind of take on the situation of like, all right, she's not being used. He's gonna roll her into these, and I imagine there's gonna be something larger planned. And I think you could you could argue that maybe sometimes we're like slow walking her intro a little bit and kind of slow walking her involvement in the team, but I'm looking at it more from a situation of like they don't want to cheapen everything that she's going through by just being like, and now this issue, she's just like helping. I think they're just gonna like kind of gradually work it in.

SPEAKER_00: 12:52

It's interesting to kind of to think about how this would have originally been consumed. And we've talked about this before, where when this was originally released, like they would have had this Carol kind of story thread. Were they on like a bi-weekly or were they on a monthly schedule at this point? Do you know? The X-Men? Yeah. They're on bi-weekly. So, like, you know. That's like bi-weekly is still, you know, that's actually not too bad, but monthly would be you know, we're still like I just think to think how this would have been released and consumed, like I would have been annoyed then and and I'm annoyed about it now. Like, I I I just feel like she could be there should there could be so much more happening. I do have to correct myself.

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

You please it is monthly.

SPEAKER_00: 13:40

Oh, that makes it way worse, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

Yeah, so previously when we started it was every other month, and then at a certain point they switched over to they found enough enough success to make it a monthly.

SPEAKER_00: 13:53

Yeah. I don't know. I I'm trying to avoid getting into like a situation where I'm imagining this is how I would do it. Because like, what do I know? Like, I don't know anything about writing comic books, so I I'm just wanting more, I think is like what I'm walking away from our conversation with. Like, I just want more from this Carol inclusion than what we're getting.

SPEAKER_01: 14:15

That's fair. And I mean, in the in the previous issues, she's been like complete background scenery. Yeah. Like, I don't even know if they even mentioned her by they like barely mentioned her by name in her first appearance when Spider Woman was randomly there. Why not just have that be Carol, by the way? Anyway, so like in her first few appearances, she's basically just been like background scenery, and this is her first actual like scene. So I do get where you're coming from in like why haven't we had like more of this? I think this is a good step.

SPEAKER_00: 14:52

Yeah. Especially if we're building to a situation where maybe there's a a face-off with Rogue. Obviously, we know she eventually becomes a hero, and I'm not exactly 100% certain how that happens. So, I mean, like, there you could have a story throw that kind of goes in that direction. We are we are, of course, in a space setting at the moment. So there's we're about to be. You know, so there is good potential for Carol to come into play here, conceivably. She's kind of a space lady. Yeah. And, you know, there's all sorts of space shenanigans that can happen to help uh power up Carol again. So anywho, this has just kind of like been bubbling for me the last couple of issues, and yeah. And now it's out. And now it's out. I feel much better, actually. Otherwise, I really, really enjoyed these issues. As I said, I wasn't sure what to think. I think every time the Star Jammers have come up before this, which isn't a lot, I was just kind of very mid about it. I didn't really shoulder shruggy. Yeah. Has it only been the one time? Maybe. Yeah, I th I think so. It but even like whenever I've consumed Star Jammer content outside of this run, I've always kind of felt the same way. Like just I don't really know anything about them. Anytime I see them kind of like being used, I don't really gravitate to them. So I was admittedly like hesitant to really kind of think that I was going to enjoy this on the surface, like when I had those biases. Reading this though, I was so surprised and enjoyed so much of it because there's just a lot happening from this overall story that we're getting where we're the X-Men are once again kind of getting pulled into intergalactic politics, where you know, the Empress has been kidnapped and Earth is being targeted here because you know that's where they tracked her to. That Corsair has been set up and has gone to Earth in an attempt to get help from his son, who now finds out that his father is Corsair, and you get this big family drama and the tension that builds up between Scott and Storm, who you know was maintaining this secret.

SPEAKER_01: 17:18

I'm very happy that we in in this issue very quickly established like, hey, this is his this is your dad, you know, this has been bubbling in the background for a while. You've had like weird moments of like, I look like Corsair with this mustache, and we've had like Storm and Gene finding out and being like, eh, we we won't tell them. So it was really nice that, you know, it's been a really long time since that actually happened. Yeah. So it was nice that they kind of did not waste time. And then I think they handled the whole situation from that so well, with, you know, it's not just people standing still in a room yelling at each other of like, why weren't you there? Blah, blah, blah. It's, you know, they're having these arguments, but they're also in like the middle of other stuff and are basically just being constantly interrupted and like have to start and stop their bickering and back and forth and everything. And we just see it kind of string out a little bit, but not in a way where it's like, oh, this feels like it's overstaying, it's welcome. Like we get the conversation occurring and we see like through the couple issues, kind of that transformation of like they get to be on okay terms with each other.

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

I think it probably ended the best way it possibly could have. Like, honestly, I think as you'll get to in the next recap, I mean, we're kind of seeing this very complex relationship where, you know, we get this like flashback or memory sequence with Corsair and his wife. I have like a ton of questions around it, you know, with uh like, okay, so like why were they in this plane or spaceship to begin with? Like, what's going on?

SPEAKER_01: 19:05

Right. We we don't have like the wider story yet, just like this little snippet. Something bad was happening in the airplane. They threw them out. They were captured by the aliens, I guess. Yeah. So they th they had a they had a shared parachute. They only had one parachute, one of them had been like wrecked or whatever. Yeah, and they threw it. So they attached like Alex to Scott really tight, and then like as they were like falling, flaming debris dropped from the plane, went on the went on the chute, it went up into flames, and then the two boys ended up falling.

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

Yeah, so we we get like this contrasting story, right? Of Scott is the child that was abandoned, lived an uh the life of an orphan, found a father figure in Charles Xavier, and has now become a leader, and has done so without having a biological father in his life. The opposite side of this is Corsair, who we now find out has a more, I think, like sympathetic situation in a way, right? Where, okay, you guys were being attacked by these aliens, you did the best thing you could think of by, you know, tossing your kids out to safety. You're captured, you're they kill your wife, they take you prisoner as a slave, and you just decide, you know, the the last thing you see is this explosion. My kids must be dead, I'm just never going back to Earth.

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

It's a nice situation in that it feels like neither of them is like in the wrong, and it's both okay for them to feel the way that they do. It's unfortunate, but it's like I like completely putting myself in either shoes, see where they're coming from, you know? I agree.

SPEAKER_00: 20:52

I do think in some ways, Corsair is still is, you know, like we we are seeing like uh a couple different shades of what his character is like, and it is a lot more cutthroat than what Scott is used to seeing. And, you know, we see him kind of take over this confrontation that happens with these hunting alien things that kind of look like robots but are alive. And it was a it was a fun like sequence. I I did enjoy it to kind of see like this very different looking alien, and I've really complimented like every time we've seen the space stuff, it's like very imaginative, and I really have enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01: 21:36

I wonder if they do you think they invented the Sidrian hunters? I'm gonna say yes. I'm going to probably say yes. I didn't realize so I'll bring this up more next issue, but I did not realize that Chris Claremont did so much in like establishing and building more of that like wider marvel universe outside of the soul system. Like I knew going in, like, oh, he made a ton of mutants, but seems like he's making a lot of aliens too.

SPEAKER_00: 22:06

Yeah. I mean, the Shiar is huge, right? And even like the Royal Guard, that is a whole massive wing of Marvel cosmic.

SPEAKER_01: 22:18

Going back to your little um your comment about like the sequence we saw with like the the aliens transforming into like the big jet creature and kind of them having that little cat and mouse chase and attack thing. What did you think of that one odd panel out of the blackbird just like streaking past a window of like a wealthy couple having a having a meal and it's just Neville, that's an aeroplane. So it is, my dear. I'm just scrolling through this right now.

SPEAKER_00: 22:50

It's so random and just good. There's another one that was very similar. Let me see if I can find it. Oh yeah, it's in the same issue. I believe. Or is it next issue with the car? Oh, it's the next issue with the car. That was great.

SPEAKER_01: 23:04

That was so funny. I love that, like, I mean, these are like busy comics. Like the story is very tight. There's not like wasted space or whatever, but they've found like but a lot of like dumb, really funny little moments like that to like sprinkle in just here and there. Or even, I mean, with all the action and storytelling, we're getting, I guess, like those like small moments or whatever where we start with Scott and Storm playing their sports ball. We get Wolverine and Carol moments, uh, some Nightcrawler and Professor X interactions. Like, there's a lot going on here, both this issue and next issue.

SPEAKER_00: 23:42

Yeah, and I mentioned off the top, you know, there's a lot of threads that are being moved along here. We have this conversation that's happening between Nightcrawler and Charles, where they're basically talking about how they've commodered this island from Magneto now that Magneto has abandoned it. There's all this Magneto data that's there, and Charles thinks there's an immense value in essentially taking this place over because they no longer feel safe in the Westchester mansion because it keeps getting planted their flag. It keeps getting destroyed. And and Charles It's in a rough state at the moment. And Charles makes mention that there's growing anti-mutant sentiment in the US. Which is not something that we've seen a ton of.

SPEAKER_01: 24:35

No, I was glad that we looped back around on that and connected it a little bit to like the Sentinels of like, hey, there's growing anti-mutant sentiment. And like he's worried about it from like an official state-sponsored uh point of view as well, with like him wondering, like, are the sentinels part of like a new like anti-mutant official agenda?

SPEAKER_00: 24:58

Yeah. So that was a huge thread that I really enjoyed seeing, even though it was like just part of that conversation and getting this insight of, oh yeah, like we're probably gonna start basing ourselves out of this island, which I think is kind of a cool setting for the X-Men, if that's where we kind of stay.

SPEAKER_01: 25:18

I am curious how temporary this is gonna be. Because at this point, the mansion is gone, gone.

SPEAKER_00: 25:23

Well, especially now that like what was remaining was basically destroyed in this battle.

SPEAKER_01: 25:28

Um, that's what I'm saying. Like, it it seems like completely gone gone now. Like that rebuild is gonna suck.

SPEAKER_00: 25:37

The other thing I wanted just quickly mention was we've kind of seen this hinted at over the last couple of issues, this kind of growing, you know, Storm was was awarded the leadership of the X-Men. You know, we've wondered, is there gonna be what's what's the status quo gonna be like with Scott? Like, is he gonna want to kind of come back in and take back over? And um, you know, we've even seen Charles kind of uh insist that both him and Storm kind of need to make decisions for him. And so there was the dynamic right off the top of this where they're you know playing their game and kind of bonding and having this conversation about, you know, do you even want to be the leader anymore? And Scott saying, Nah, I don't think so, man. Like, I think I'm at a point in my life after everything that's happened that I think maybe I want to do something else or I'm being pulled in a different direction. And again, like I think we're going to see this leadership storyline kind of tested. We see the confrontation ultimately between him and Storm around his dad, which again, like I think ended on like uh, okay, like we made up and we kind of made it through this challenge while bickering and everything, and you know, we'll kind of see what happens. But this is all to say, I I really kind of enjoyed this little side piece story that we kind of have going on in the background around what is the future leadership of the X-Men look like, and is it gonna be Scott? And if it's not, like what is Scott gonna go do? Maybe he'll spend some time flying around space with his dad after this. That'd be fun. Gotta do some bonding time. Yeah, it gives him like time away from the X-Men, doing other stuff, throw the old baseball around. Yeah, and then when you eventually want to bring him back, it's like you can do whatever you want with him because he'll have been gone for so long and they'll have a mustache again. Maybe give him like the nine the 90s rebrand as like a mohawk or something. Lots of bending. Scott Summers with a mohawk.

SPEAKER_01: 27:39

He would be something. Hmm. Punk rock Scott Summers. Well, we had revolutionary Scott Summers, so I guess it's time. Issue 155 begins with a sulking Scott Summers who feels betrayed by Storm keeping secrets from him. Storm reminds him that Gene also kept the secret from him. Corsair takes the blame, saying he only wanted to spare Scott the painful knowledge, and Scott accuses Corsair of abandoning his family. Corsair explains that when they saw the boys' shared parachute catch fire, they thought the two had died in the fall. Later, Anne Summers was executed and Corsair fell into a hole of grief. Scott isn't hearing it and informs Corsair about the hardship of being in a prison-like orphanage and says Corsair is a pirate as ruthless and cold-blooded as the villains the X-Men fight. The argument is cut short when the entire Blackbird is transported onto the Shiar Dreadnought. Likewise, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Xavier, and Kitty find themselves also beamed to the ship. Charles demands an audience with the Empress Lilandra, and they inform him that it's not possible. Everyone is briefed on the attack and kidnapping. The Shiar wish to execute Corsair and use Xavier's psychic rapport to find Lilandra, and send a force of Imperial Guard and combat troops to bring her home. Xavier forbids this action as the Imperial Consort and is granted one day for the X-Men to find the Empress instead and avoid a raising of the Earth. The Shiar demand two hostages and Kitty and Nightcrawler are left, though Charles psychically transfers all of his Shiar knowledge into Kitty's brain first. The X-Men seek the aid of the Avengers but find only their newest member, Tigra, and the faithful Jarvis. Charles has established a rough location but had to dip because there were psychic traps awaiting him. Meanwhile, Kitty and Nightcrawler start getting into trouble with Kitty covertly tapping into the ship's primary computer. She suggests that with his ability to teleport and hers to phase, they can go anywhere on the ship and do anything. We see Corsair and Storm walk in the streets and look through a sniper scope. A brood assassin fires at the two, and Deathbird attacks them at the same time. Deathbird announces herself as the new Empress of the Shiar, but she's intercepted by Scott's blast. She fires a deadly energy blast from her own javelins meant for a Professor X, but Colossus dives in the way. The blast bounces off his metal form and unfortunately destroys someone's car. Meanwhile, the blast that hit Storm and Corsair was a psychic weapon, and the two are fighting. Scott and Peter break up the fight, but Corsair believes that Scott is Decenne, the previous Emperor of the Shiar, and says that he's prayed for this moment as Deken killed his wife years ago, and Corsair begins to strangle Scott. Scott refuses to fire his optic blast, not wanting to hurt his father, but Charles comes to the rescue, releasing Storm and Corsair. We see the brood assassin redding another shot, but he's interrupted by a snick of Wolverine's claws. The fight happens off-panel but is described as one-sided as it is brief. Unfortunately, there is more than one brood, and Storm is entrapped in a nut. Another striper takes a shot at Xavier, but Colossus once more intercepts. This time the blast is acid and it begins to burn through his metal flesh. Storm arrives and vaporizes the acid and washes the rest off with water. Wolverine finds the second brood, who exclaims, Fool, defeat one of us, defeat 1000, the brood will still triumph. Wolverine kills the creature and it disintegrates. Meanwhile, Corsair finds himself in a firefight with more brood, though he comments that they aren't from any part of known space. The X-Men join him and they open fire through the hatch, exterminating some space bugs. Unfortunately, Deathbird has captured Xavier and holds him hostage. She throws a javelin before fleeing on the large spaceship. The X-Men are under a mountain of debris, but Scott blasts them out. They crawl out to discover Peter, impaled through the chest with a javelin. Scott calls for an ambulance, but Wolverine tells them it's too late. The issue ends with the police arriving and telling the X-Men they're under arrest. Next issue, Star Chase.

SPEAKER_00: 32:19

Since you mentioned the brood, I was obviously curious if this was the first time we were seeing the brood introduced. And it was, in fact, yes, the first time. And while I was on Wikipedia, there's a note from Dave Cochram about the concept and creation of the brood. And so just, you know, uh here's a quote from him. Quote, we had Deathbird in this particular story, and Chris had written into the plot, quote, uh miscellaneous alien henchmen. So I had drawn Deathbird standing in this building under construction, and I just drew the most horrible looking thing I could think of next or end quote. So kind of like uh just a fun little behind-the-scenes look at I guess what Dave came up with with the note of miscellaneous alien henchmen, which I thought was a little funny. I mean, it's hard to not see the comparisons at least on the surface of a xenomorph. I think that's a lot of the inspiration. And I'm fine with it. I mean, the brood are cool, just like, you know, the Zerg are, I would are, I would say, are very similar to uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 33:29

They're all kind of overlapping Venn diagram circles. Yeah, you got it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:34

Anyways, um, very cool seeing the brood. I know there's a big story with them coming up uh that I don't really know much about, and I love the whole fight with the that brood uh sniper and Logan. Um and I think uh maybe nowadays we would have seen that fight, but I think the implied nature of its outcome was great nonetheless.

SPEAKER_01: 34:00

The little text that we got paints like a better picture than whatever we would have been able to see drawn out. Yeah, like it's just so I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah, I the the brood was not a twist that I saw coming. Like I knew, like obviously looking over like the next few covers that we're going to be getting into like some brood stuff, but I did not realize that that was going to, you know, we were gonna start being dropped into it like now what were your thoughts on Deathbird?

SPEAKER_00: 34:37

Because when I saw the name initially, I thought it's very on the nose.

SPEAKER_01: 34:42

Um I was familiar enough with the character that I assumed that, you know, once we got the thing about like Lilandra's been kidnapped, I was like, okay, this is probably like a Deathbird situation.

SPEAKER_00: 34:58

I was not familiar with the character like at all. It was yeah, totally new to me. And part of me thought maybe it was that Lalandra for some reason, I don't know, like maybe she became evil or was brainwashed or some other sort of shenanigans.

SPEAKER_01: 35:14

Mm-hmm. It is a cooler design than most of the Shiar. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00: 35:19

Um some of them uh uh on occasion are I don't know, they're just weird looking. I don't necessarily get like bird person, and then in other panels they look more bird avian-like, I guess. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 35:33

Um Saw Darth Vader, that was cool. That was cool. That that's so that's what I was talking about when I said that there's a lot of small details that we can't really fit into a summary while staying succinct. So like we have Kitty and Nightcrawler that are playing with the closed generator. Kitty's flipping through different outfits and lands on Darth Vader, like just straight up Darth Vader is one of the last ones.

SPEAKER_00: 35:59

I think we need to talk about the cover of this issue and ultimately what happens, because we have seen before covers like this where a character looks to have sustained a serious injury of some kind.

SPEAKER_01: 36:16

It's comic books, they're being overly dramatic. Has this character finally died? Is this a that kind of a deal?

SPEAKER_02: 36:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 36:24

So everyone's grieving, you know that they're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00: 36:29

I expected, at the very least, for s for Colossus to be severely injured in s at some point. And the entire sequence I absolutely enjoyed. So the the build-up with the sniper that gets shot, right? And we see him block that shot, and I thought, okay, this must be the moment, right? Not the moment. He deflects it. I thought, oh, okay. Odd, but alright, sure. It continues. Round two. Round two goes to block the shot again. This time, acid starts eating away at it. Another fun little twist. Another fun twist.

SPEAKER_01: 37:08

And now I'm like, oh shit. And an interesting one since it's like eating through his metal skin, which is something we have not really seen.

SPEAKER_00: 37:16

And so you immediately start thinking, oh my god, okay, like taking this cover image of him presumably dead, bleeding out of his chest. Here we have the acid that's again eating through his chest. Okay, I thought, alright, that's it. No, he survives. Because Storm comes along, does some weather magic, saves him. But he's injured. But he's injured. They leave him to guard Xavier. Odd choice, given the injury. But then he gets left behind. Come back the third time. Now he has been impaled or stabbed and is presumably dead. And I read this and can't walk away feeling confident that he is alive still.

SPEAKER_01: 38:02

This is the first time that it's been like, is he actually like, did he just die? Like, we know it's not a permanent thing because it's a comic book and it's death, but like I feel like he maybe did die. It's been really hard not to jump to the next issue, and it is gonna irritate me a little bit if we open it up, and within like the first three pages, it's like actually Peter's fine. A wizard came by and healed him.

SPEAKER_00: 38:33

Yeah, I reflected on this issue, and I immediately thought, oh, they can probably, yeah, like just use some sort of space magic to you know rectify this problem, right? With with Peter, like even if he technically dies here, they can just better him up at the end of this, you know. So I'm interested to kind of see where this goes and the impact this has, right? Of like, okay, like how are the X-Men gonna take this potential death of Colossus? You know, we know that there's a relationship between Kitty and Peter. How is she gonna act when she finds out? How is you know, how are the X-Men that are there going to act? We've heard that Logan's feeling a little extra unhinged lately, although lately he has not been like at all, but it keeps being brought up. So, I mean, there's a lot of different ways that you can take this and continue to kind of leave us asking what happens now, and you know, where's this where's this going?

SPEAKER_01: 39:38

It'll be interesting to see. I don't want to speculate too much just because we don't know how this will be resolved. It could just it might be like a three-page thing. I'm I'm a little worried, but I don't know. It feels different.

SPEAKER_00: 39:51

Yeah, I'm genuinely curious where this is going, and I'll be looking forward to learning more. I'm fascinated by this entire thing. You know, I I'm excited to kind of see if we're going to encounter the royal guard a little bit more. Uh is Gladiator gonna get involved? What's the where's Lalandra? And you know, when when are we gonna, you know, are we gonna see Carol jump in here? There's a lot that can happen. And, you know, is Peter is Peter alive? I want to know. Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z. Yeah, I mean hopefully not. Like, well, as you said, like let's give this some time to breathe. And you know, uh given how this story is playing out, I I hope uh and have faith that Chris is gonna stretch this out appropriately because I think it's worthy of it. I've given a lot of a lot of heat for how Colossus has been portrayed at big moments, and I think in this situation he went out as a as a proper hero. Like he, you know, tanked the shots that needed to be tanked, got eaten alive by acid, and then, you know, still try to protect Xavier. And he did what he needed to do, you know. I think that uh speaks a lot about Peter, and I think they gave him a nice moment to be that hero, and I'm excited to see what happens next.

SPEAKER_01: 41:21

I feel like they paid some extra attention to some of his like illustration this issue, too. Like one thing that just stood out to me was that he is very like emotive in some of his like facial expressions, like the like the the distraughtness that he has on his face when like the acid starts eating through him, and it's just like very unexpected from him. He's got like the uh I'm in pain face with the acid, and then like he has kind of like a like a sheepish chagrin sort of like smile, being like, We have endeared as soon as I recover my strength, we shall, and then Scott is like, nah, man, you stick with the professor, we got this. Yeah. One of the things, kind of building on what we said earlier with the like Kitty and Scott doing like the little Darth Vader thing, is that there was a lot of other fun little details that you know don't necessarily fit well into like a summary. We got Storm informing Corsair about Gene's death and you know the rest of their conversation before they're attacked, Tigra annoying Wolverine a ton. I'm not really familiar with that character, but it seems like they're probably a little young and immature in where they currently are. We get the back and forth between Scott and Corsair, a lot of like little details in the fight itself, Wolverine calling Charles Charlie multiple times and it just really, really bothering him. And then of course the car exploding.

SPEAKER_00: 43:01

Yeah. Uh and I'm looking forward to when he just calls him Chuck, because I think that's you know, when the when the true sort of friendship has been built by the two of them.

SPEAKER_01: 43:14

My only other thing is just the thought of like what an absolute nightmare the combination of Kitty and Nightcrawler are on that ship, just like with the teleporting and the phasing. I I don't think she can currently phase another person, but if she could, they just have like like what what what can they do to stop them?

SPEAKER_00: 43:34

Yeah, I mean they'll just literally spam and phase wherever they need to go, and that would be enough. I'm I'm curious to see how they play into this. Yeah, that will be interesting. Like what what is their role in all of this? So that'll be fun to see too. Mischief.

SPEAKER_01: 43:53

So, overall, final thoughts. I think what really stood out to me with this one and the last. Issue is that it feels like an adventure. We're getting a lot of drama, melodrama, action, small moments. We're getting like all of the little pieces that we usually highlight as like these are the positives that we see in some of the best issues that we've read. But there's also just a certain satisfying thing going on with this being like a multi-issue story. We have really only gotten through, like, I guess like the prelude to what we're about to see. I'm thinking. We're not rushing through, but it's not wasting time. Uh, it seems like it's gonna be taking us into space a bunch. We're going on a little pirate adventure. I'm only saying pirate because it's the Star Jammers, but yeah, you know, it's just very fun. I think it's gonna be a really a fun little story for us. Do you have a rating? Oh, this is tricky.

SPEAKER_00: 44:55

I think I'm gonna say nine. So I agree with everything you said. There's a lot going on here when you look at the scope of the story. You know, you have this intergalactic threat that's kind of occurring here. And in this case, it's and in this case it's slightly different than what we've seen before, right? We saw Gene be this, you know, this massive force of nature with Phoenix, and she was the big bad threat that the X-Men had to try to, you know, contend with, with the assistance of, you know, all these intergalactic powers. And here, you know, this is a case of more of the politics and the bigger intergalactic story that's taking place with the Empress. So there's a lot happening from a scale perspective that gives this a lot of, I think, weight. And mixed into this, you're right in kind of like comparing it to this adventure that we're about to kind of see them going on. We've already seen the teams kind of separate. We've seen these story elements, which I think for you and I, we've often gravitated towards when we see these like big kind of developments between the characters, and we see that happen a lot here between Storm and Scott, between Scott and his dad, between Carol and Logan, Nightcrawler and Kitty, and all of these dynamics playing out at the same time, albeit kind of small in nature, really make each panel shine and sing and brings a lot of meaning to dialogue. And some of these panels and pages can be a little heavy at times with you know carrying the story forward. But you know, Chris does a really nice job of kind of weaving this all together in a way that doesn't make you feel bogged down by all the complexities that come with uh this intergalactic story, and I'm really, really curious to see where things go. I mean, the hooks are all in here on you know who is Deathbird, and here we have her seemingly killing Peter. Is he dead? Is he not? Are we gonna be disappointed with a quick reveal? Is this something that's gonna be drawn out? You know, she seems to have a little bit more legitimacy to her given this situation, right? Like, I think you could easily laugh the name off of this character and chalk it up to something that would be like B tier. I mean, the Shiar look like birds, and we all know that, but they probably don't have birds in their homeworld, and if they do, they probably don't call them birds. So it's a little weird that she would call herself Deathbird. Regardless, I'm very curious to kind of see what this character is.

SPEAKER_01: 47:49

Evolution always finds a way to bird.

SPEAKER_00: 47:51

Yeah. So we are, I think, setting ourselves up for a very fun and interesting story, and I, for one, am uh joining you in giving this a nine. I I think it's a high order. Maybe I'll feel differently if the next couple issues are duds, but I have no reason to think they will be, and I think this will be remembered fondly as a story that you and I think back on and kind of put it in those buckets with Proteus as the stories that are incredibly incredible to read and experience, especially going into them blind.

SPEAKER_01: 48:30

Yeah, I think the thing that really sticks out for me is after these two issues, this is the most like antsy I've been to all right, what's next? When can I read the next issue?

SPEAKER_00: 48:42

Yeah, and I can't imagine digesting all this in one chunk. Like, I think if we had tried to force this together, it would be a mess. But I think spacing them out was the right call.

SPEAKER_01: 48:54

That does it for this episode of Uncanny Book Club. Thanks for listening, and we hope to see you in the next episode where we'll discuss issues 156 and 157. 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.