SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome to Uncandy Book Club. I'm Isaac Pader, Bill, and joining me as always is my co-host Adam Ward. Yo, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

Yeah, man, I'm good. You know, coming out of our last two issues, I feel like both of us walked away feeling excited. And I don't know about you, but between us getting back together, there were multiple times that I wanted to pick up and start reading these, but I had to pause because I didn't didn't want to forget anything. So I'd uh I had to hold my excitement.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

Yeah, I specifically set out and found other things that I could read to try and distract myself just because I knew, like, all right, it's gonna be two weeks. I gotta gotta stretch this out a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 0:54

Yeah. I um I picked up like a free trial for Marvel Unlimited, and I've been reading The Incredible Hulk. I think it's from 2023. Yeah, 2023. And it kind of leads into E Smash pretty good. Yeah, it leads into like the current series, which is the Infernal Hulk, I think. Anyways, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

Good Hulk stuff. Might have to check it out when I get to a stopping point with some other series.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

Yeah, so let's let's get into it. I was very excited, like I said.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

So I think we're gonna have some very similar feedback. Yeah, I think so. More things to say, but yeah, I think I'll just kick it off then. Please do. Issue 156 begins with the X-Men clutching Peter's body as the life slips from him. Tigra tells the cops she's an Avenger, but they don't seem to care. Thankfully, the Starjammers appear above and teleport the X-Men aboard. Corsair is reunited with his crew, and Peter is taken to the life support module, but it's still touch and go. Meanwhile, we see Kitty and Nightcrawler learn that Colossus was injured and presumed dead by Deathbird's hands, and learn that Lord Samadar is working against Lilandra to help put Deathbird on the throne. Xavier awakens aboard Deathbird's ship and finds himself next to Lilandra. His senses briefly pick up a nightmarish creature before he fully awakens. Deathbird reveals herself to the two and Lilandra is furious. We learn that Deathbird is her older sister, but was stripped of rank and name after committing an unforgivable crime. Corsair tells the story of what happened the day of the parachute accident. We see a flashback of the Summers fam having a nice fly when they received a panic call. Next they knew a Shiar ship was attacking them. We learn that Corsair was enslaved but broke free, finding Decan forcing himself on Kate Summers. Corsair is sentenced to death by slow torture after trying to kill Decan. And Decan begins this by killing Kate in front of him. Following Deathward's smaller ship, the Starjammer is nearly caught up, but they arrive to a much, much larger ship. A giant spacefish creature thing that has been turned into a ship. It's very cool. The X-Men fly in, and we see Colossus's triumphant return as he kicks a door off his hinges into a crowd of waiting brood. Eventually the X-Men fight their way to Xavier and Lalandra and rescue the two. Storm is fighting Deathbird when she realizes that the ship they're in is a living being. Deathbird seizes the moment and kicks Storm into space. With seconds to spare, the Starjammers are able to rescue her and bring her aboard. The issue ends with the team learning that it will take an estimated 24 hours to repair the Starjammer enough to fly to Earth, but realizing that the Chancellor's deadline expires in only six. Next issue, hide and seek. Do we just jump in and like talk about man, that's a cool fish ship? Yeah, let's start on a positive. It is a cool fish ship. That is just like not only well drawn, but kudos to having an imagination that can come up with something that cool. It is one of the coolest two pagers that we've seen in a while.

SPEAKER_01: 4:18

Just it's so cool. We've spoken a lot about how Chris has kind of helped portray space. It's just so fantastical and embedded in sci-fi in this really awesome way that we're seeing here. I think it's like a whale, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 4:37

Whale ship. Whale fish creature thing. That almost looks like it has like more like a city ship, if that makes sense. Like, is it a whole it's hard to really gauge how big it is, but it reminds me of you know different sci-fi's where the entire ship isn't just like a battleship or whatever, but it's like an entire city that's floating through space.

SPEAKER_01: 5:02

Yeah, even when you look closer at how the locking mechanism happens, it's like very organic looking on the inside. Like rather than it be kind of like uh the the robotic aspect of the ship kind of coming out and performing these tasks, we see like this very meaty looking hook and platforms that kind of like support these ships. So there's a lot of like cool world building kind of happening here with these ships. I would I would hope to see them again.

SPEAKER_00: 5:35

Yeah, I hope if we're gonna be getting more of the brood that it's gonna involve more stuff like this, even kind of expanding beyond just like what does their ships look like? Just you know, learning like, are they doing things like this to other creatures for like other reasons? It'll be interesting to continue down that path and learn a bit more.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

Yeah, because I've experienced the brood in more recent series like uh Annihilation. So I was vaguely familiar with coming into this, knowing what they were and how they kind of operated.

SPEAKER_00: 6:11

So it is fun to see them here. One of the things that I read to Kill Time in between being able to read this was uh a run of Astonishing X-Men, which by chance was focused on the brood, which was not my intention uh going into it, but it was interesting to learn a little bit more about them that way and then kind of come back to here where this is really just the X-Men dipping their toes in and almost knowing like a little bit of what's gonna pop up, like they're gonna call them slezoids or whatever, but not really having Haven't they been called the brood yet? I thought they were. So no, they are, but I mean like that's like a like a pejorative nickname that Wolverine or Kitty, I think, ends up giving them. Okay, that sounds like a kitty nickname. It does sound like a kitty nickname, and I'm hoping in that it that it is. It seems to fit more.

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

Yeah, I would agree. Although I will say, like, her, you know, we'll kind of get into this in the next issue, but you really kind of see the youthful spirit of kitty in these issues with how she kind of uses the technology to change her clothes and kind of brings a bit of fun to this very like dire prison situation that they find themselves in. And it was really fun to see Chris kind of reincorporate this technology and these fun moments that we get between Kurt and Kitty into this bigger story that we'll kind of see play out in the next issue.

SPEAKER_00: 7:45

I like that it's multi-purposeful too, because it's not just her having fun for the sake of having fun, it's also covering up her plot to, you know, she's accessing the computer and digging into their systems and learning stuff and like figuring out or coming up with like a plan. So it's like a cover, but also just, you know, it is pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

Yeah, it looks very fun. Uh, some sort of technology like that would be cool to see one day, but I doubt it would ever happen. At least in our lifetime.

SPEAKER_00: 8:19

Someday. Someday. We can all dress up like Darth Vader. So, how do you feel about this Peter situation? I mean, I'm not happy about it.

SPEAKER_01: 8:28

We talked a bit about this last time, and we both concluded that we didn't want this to be resolved right away. Because one of the great aspects of that last issue, and I went back and looked at the last page. If you take a look at it, I think it really paints like this great picture. Like Peter has been impaled, and we've never seen this before. And you and I both felt that it was very possible that Peter is legitimately dead, and having this way over the X-Men during this story would have been incredible. And instead, we essentially had a resolution within the first couple of pages. He was ultimately breathing and not dead. And we see this result by them taking him onto the Starjammer ship, and we kind of get this unknown, right? Like they set the stage that this is very serious, he could die. But at the climax of the issue, where they're going on to the brood ship, he's totally fine. And what makes it worse is just before this happens, Scott's having a conversation with Corsair, and Scott asks him what's the status on Colossus, and he tells him that it's you know hit and miss. And then within a page or two, he's punching down the door and running in.

SPEAKER_00: 9:52

It does seem the pacing was messed up a little or not ideal. I am a little bit more okay with the situation than I think you feel. It just doesn't feel as cheapened as this like comic book, is they dead, is they alive thing usually is. If I think back to like other instances of this, it's like, oh, Scott was stabbed in the astral plane, he's not moving, and then he just gets up on page one. And you know, to a certain extent, that is almost what's happened here, but I it I feel like it just makes more sense in terms of like, you know, if this was just Earth stuff, there's no saving him. But he gets beamed up to the Starjammer, they have different medical technology, and it's still not like a band-aid sort of fix. It's like the robot or whatever has to spend presumably hours in like surgery and taking care of them and fixing him up. I do agree that it seems like his return is too quick, but I do like what they loop back to on I think next issue where we do see that you know he's not operating at a hundred percent and he has issues and he's like r rushing his recovery more than he should be.

SPEAKER_01: 11:15

I think you make a lot of great points. I understand that there needs to be some sort of MacGuffin that allows Colossus to come back. And when we read the last issue, I I had envisioned a situation where obviously Colossus is not going to be dead for good, and ultimately felt that some sort of space magic would be used at some point, maybe at the I thought maybe closer to the end of this arc, and suddenly he would be back, and we would have some aftermath out of that. But his death during that time would have been pseudo-permanent until the space magic, space tech stuff could take place. I think the issue that I really, really have that it boils down to isn't that they're have this whatever space tech that allows them to operate and stabilize him. Like that, I'm totally okay with that. And I like the the context that you kind of supplied that I didn't really think too much about that, you know, he is spending hours in surgery trying to fix him up. I can buy into that a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00: 12:23

But we do lose the timeline a bit on the ship, though. You're like very correct there. Where it's just like, oh, suddenly he's fine.

SPEAKER_01: 12:32

And that I think that's ultimately what bothered me because I feel like it kind of cheapens what's happened, right? Like it's taken away this drama that could have been.

SPEAKER_00: 12:43

That aside, it is a pretty badass entrance, though.

SPEAKER_01: 12:46

It absolutely is, yeah. Him knocking the door down like that is very, very cool. The last thing that I'll say about it is I don't really like what happens in the next issue. It feels in some ways like, okay, well, we have to try and make this make sense now. So now he his injuries are gonna be problematic and he's gonna suffer the consequences of going into battle sooner than he should have. Like they're fixing it, looping back and being like, uh, we gotta kinda like retcon this a little bit. I doubt that's what happened, but that's how I feel. I think it could have used just some time to breathe and I would have walked away feeling really good about it, even if it was just an issue.

SPEAKER_00: 13:27

Even if it was at the end of this issue, I could have Or like he comes back next issue at a pivotal moment and kind of saves the day. Yeah. He doesn't really need to be here in this issue.

SPEAKER_01: 13:38

No, and I think it would have even been I think I could have even bought into it, say, for example, you know, he knocks down this door, we we think he's coming back for this triumphant return. And, you know, maybe in the first fight, or maybe at some other point early on here in this fight, we see him collapse rather than it being significantly later. I think it would have kind of played up that his injuries are as bad as we, you know, as they are. Anyways, th that's my biggest gripe out of these issues. I feel like Colossus is still being done dirty. One other thing that I wanted to mention about spaceships. So early in this issue, we see at the FAA they have this conversation about spaceships and how they're in kind of disbelief about it. And as this conversation's happening, the radar just is showing this massive blob that covers up the radar. This guy starts having a mental episode and freaking out because he he can't believe the sheer size of it. He's like terrified, and we see these images of people standing in the streets in disbelief as they look up at the sky, and then we see the Star Jammer ship. And I love this again, just huge compliments to the entire team with the whole design. It's just so bright, kind of got a serenity vibe. Yeah, it's I love everything about it. The shape, just the inspiration feels very sci-fi-based, which isn't always where we live with the X-Men. And this is fun, and I feel like they treat the space stuff in that sci-fi sphere. I I love the scope that this kind of gives. Like, even this panel of the ship with the skyline in front of it, this is huge. Like it really is incredibly massive.

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

For some reason, it feels really big here, like especially the one where you're looking at its underbelly and like the beam is going down. Yeah. But it doesn't feel that large everywhere else. But I am I mean, like in the emptiness of space, you know, it's hard to I mean, it's it's a lot bigger than Deathbird's ship, so it's hard to say how big it is, but I think it probably is pretty large, which makes that fish real big.

SPEAKER_01: 15:58

I was just about to say that. I think it really puts into perspective just how large this fish ship is, and that makes it even cooler. I'm looking at it again and just the rows of teeth. Ah, so cool. Very neat. Everyone should look it up. One thing that I do want to say, it was funny seeing the cop tell Tigra that he didn't care that she was part of the Avengers, and that's how I felt as well.

SPEAKER_00: 16:24

Who's paying for all this? It's a very valid point. Like, presumably the Avengers have some cash. This multi-million dollar project gets destroyed.

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

Like, who's gonna repair it all? They got they got insurance. Sir, I'm just doing my job. Me and the X-Men here. No Tiger Lady. And then we also find out that she's no longer in the Avengers because the story happens to what's up that happens. She like is weird.

SPEAKER_00: 16:50

So she's like brand new to the Avengers when this when we read this, and then is suddenly just out. I assume something happened, but I didn't care enough about Tigra or Tigra to look it up.

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

I'm kind of curious. I'm just doing a quick lookup. According to Google's AI, alright? So take it as you will. She resigned due to intense self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness, and emotional distress after a traumatizing battle. Is it the X-Men's fault? No. They were fighting the molecule man and turned her into a pet into his pet. Made a giant cat bed for her, causing her severe emotional distress. Weird.

SPEAKER_00: 17:34

Comics do weird stuff sometimes.

SPEAKER_01: 17:36

That is super weird.

SPEAKER_00: 17:37

80s, am I right?

SPEAKER_01: 17:40

Alright, anyways, there you go. All the more reason for us to never see Tigray or Tigra again in this book, please.

SPEAKER_00: 17:48

Issue 157's cover teases the return of the Phoenix. We see that the team is not satisfied with the estimated 24-hour repair, and everyone is working together to speed things up. Wolverine is knocked free from the ship and floats off into space, and Hepsiba goes to retrieve him. But while she does, Colossus collapses and is taken back to the infirmary. It appears that Peter was warned against returning to action so soon, and he's once again in danger of succumbing to his wounds. The Landra attempts to reach Chancellor Araki, but we see that Admiral Lord Samadar has killed him as part of his plot. Charles attempts to reach out to Kiddian Nightcrawler, but much like when he first awoke, there is another nightmarish presence and he sees an anomaly within himself. The page reads something alien, unknown, and so profoundly disturbing that he interrupts the mind link to probe it. That proves to be a mistake. He collapses and is unresponsive. Meanwhile, the brood and deathbird are engaging in negotiations via violence when she reveals the X-Men's powers to the brood. They are very interested, saying that as breeders, they would serve the mother of us all herself, and they agree to continue with her plan. We return to Kitty and Nightcrawler and see that she's still changing outfits to mask her actions, tapping into the prime computer. She's very upset by the potential death of Peter and accuses Nightcrawler of not doing anything. Kurt reveals that he's somehow assembled a portable costume generator in the meantime. Kitty and Nightcrawler begin their mischief and discover troops sent to kill them. The two take them out and soon discover the Chancellor's body. Their plan is then set into motion. Nightcrawler teleports all around the bridge, creating smoke, and Kitty, in the guise of Phoenix, appears and makes threats. Nightcrawler then teleports away with a telepathic member of the Imperial Guard, and the two are able to convince her of their identities and share knowledge of what is going on. The rest of the guard assembles, but she are loyal to the Admiral, confront them, and a fight ensues. Kitty slips away and attempts to deactivate the weapon system, but doesn't notice a weapon turned toward her. The wall-mantwood turret fires and she phases to avoid it, but is still struck while intangible. The admiral, having apprehended the guard, fires a bolt of antimatter plasma at San Francisco, but the Starjammer appears suddenly to intercept the beam. Lalandra projects a holographic message to the ship saying that Earth is not to be attacked and says to arrest Lord Samadar, Samadar, Samdar. Peter's up and about again, but Professor X remains as he was, and they worry that his brain may have been completely, irrevocably, destroyed. Next issue. Enter the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Exclamation point. Trying to find where I would want to jump in with notes.

SPEAKER_01: 21:02

I was gonna say Charles. Sure. So I think Charles has uh some interesting moments in these two issues. We see him punch a brood in the last issue, which was that was a that was a pretty funny panel.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

That was pretty good. Like Scott's like, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01: 21:19

Yeah. Charles is just like, I couldn't control myself, and then Lalandra's like, I dig it. And here we have him doing this mind thing, trying to get in touch with Kitty and Kurt. And this this panel that we see, you know, we see him trying to use his telepathic abilities, and this awesome panel of what I can only assume is a brood. It looks very broodish.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

Yeah. It looks awesome. It's so tricky. It's like half brood, half him, and it's like twisting psychedelic, and then there's like a what looks like a Little brood and like a little like a little baby brood and like a little baby womb in like the lower right corner.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

Yeah, and that looks very alien, like very xenomorph.

SPEAKER_00: 22:10

Yeah, I mean I feel like the implication is like at some point he was stung by a brood and he has a brood inside of him. Oh, you think that's what it is? I didn't even think of that. Yeah, that's that's my assumption. Oh. Cause I think they yeah. Like when though? Like in the fight in the last issue? Maybe. I think they do it just by like stinging you with their tails. So it's like a it's like a quick thing. He is jumping around a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 22:37

Like I just went back into the last issue, and we see him jump and he's like, get down, all of you. More alien cyclops sneaking up behind you, and he like dives at it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:49

But this already, but this kind of already happened earlier. I I guess this time it makes it clear that the anomaly is within himself, and last time it was just him sensing it. But to me, like when I read it last issue, I thought like either him or Lilandra might be infected, or is just like sensing the brood nearby in some way, like their hive mind connection. But this time it feels more like, oh, it's he's got a little baby brood situation.

SPEAKER_01: 23:21

Now that you point out the anomaly within himself line, I am beginning to agree with you.

SPEAKER_00: 23:28

I'm really interested in my main takeaway from these two issues is being really interested in seeing where this Professor X stuff leads. Yeah, I agree. I think they're doing a really good job teasing that out. And but it doesn't seem like next issue is going to be that. Yeah, I know. So it's like, what is I'm very confused by what's happening here. Because I'm j I'm just gonna jump into this one. In different circumstances, we've kind of pushed the idea of like really strong start, okay, middle ground, and then like a a good finish. These two issues and the two sh two issues before it kind of feel like great, great start. And I don't know if this is a middle story or if this is supposed to be like an end. It doesn't feel like a real like the full resolution hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_01: 24:23

I had a very similar thought, and it made me feel and think that perhaps because right now they're like above Earth, aren't they? Because the Starjammer shit pops out. Yep. We now have a collapsed Colossus, we have an incapacitated Xavier. So I suppose it is possible that maybe they go back to Earth momentarily before they continue on with the brood stuff, like a little pit stop. Because reading it, I thought, oh, I'm curious how they're gonna get the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants into this space story. And now that I've thought about it a little bit more, the only conclusion I can come to is that we're going back to Earth for some reason.

SPEAKER_00: 25:04

And having like an intermission in this story. Yeah. That's part of like, you know, I mean, we're making a lot of assumptions just based on like we know that it's a Brotherhood of Evil Mutant situation. It could very well continue this in a way that makes sense, similar to how we came into this arc being like, okay, Star Jammers. But those first two issues weren't really about the Star Jammers at all.

SPEAKER_01: 25:29

It's funny you say that because, you know, when before we started recording, I was looking at the cover of the last issue, which shows all the Star Jammers, and it just made me think coming out of this, these two issues, I'm not walking away liking the Star Jammers any more than I did before, but I am walking away liking Corsair more. I think they did a really good job of portraying Corsair as this uh a monster of his circumstances, and maybe monster is definitely not the right word. Morally gray complicated. He's a creature, a creature of his of his circumstance, right? He we have this terrible story where they get kidnapped, he watches his wife get sexually assaulted in front of him and then killed when he tries to defend her, and then he goes into slavery, and you know, it starts to kind of put him in a more sympathetic position than perhaps you know I felt for him before. And I do think we kind of started to see that happen a little bit more, and we talked about it in when we were discussing the last uh like last episode, and how Scott and Corsair both have legitimate reasons to be upset with each other, and and it is it is a little more nuanced than it kind of felt in the beginning with him. And so I'm walking away, especially now seeing this story play out of everything that happens with his wife and being thrown into slavery and essentially, you know, escaping to become a space pirate because it's not even what he wanted to do, but had no choice to become that. It's sometimes you just got a space pirate, it's a lot more interesting, frankly. Um, and I like the character more for the rest of the Starjammers, though, I just don't care.

SPEAKER_00: 27:20

Well, we haven't really spent meaningful time with them where it's like, okay, we got the big guy, we got cat demon lady, we got, I think, like a cyborg situation. Yeah, like a like a weasel-looking guy.

SPEAKER_01: 27:35

So, like, there's some things I like, like, don't get me wrong, but you know, if I'm it's like a no strong opinion sort of situation.

SPEAKER_00: 27:42

There's there we're not really getting enough of them to be like, they're good, they're bad. It's just they are they're like the the backdrop scenery to Corsair and his spaceship.

SPEAKER_01: 27:54

Doesn't leave me wanting more, it makes me want less, you know. Anyways, as I said, I feel like I'm walking away as a as a Corsair fan, and the Star Jammers are just his accessories. We can talk about Kitty and Kurt since they take up a big chunk of this issue.

SPEAKER_00: 28:12

Good outfits. That must have been a pain though, just coming up with multiple outfits to draw.

SPEAKER_01: 28:17

Oh my goodness, I know. It looked so cool though. Like again, just seeing them use it. I actually really like the design of Kitty's spacesuit when she goes out.

SPEAKER_00: 28:26

It's a better design than when she invented her own superhero outfit with the with the skates. It's unclear if this is of her own imagination or if this was like preloaded into the program.

SPEAKER_01: 28:41

Yeah, I was taking it like she was kind of imagining it, but I could see it either way.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

I think probably. Just, you know, considering she also dressed herself up like Darth Vader and Robin Hood.

SPEAKER_01: 28:55

So I think Kitty and Kurt are standouts in this issue. I like the change of pace, especially because, as I said, I didn't really care much for the Star Jammers themselves. Uh so to kind of pick up this secondary smaller story and again kind of seeing this transmogrifier come into play and being used as a as a tool for them to infiltrate the ship, kind of come up with a plan to try and stop them from destroying the earth. And Kitty Gitty is, I think, shown to be very smart here, and we see her continually being portrayed as a genius, and we also see that she's a bit of a tactician as well, as she kind of comes in and doesn't necessarily handle the situation well when it comes to confronting these guys, but she doesn't need to worry about that because we get this awesome panel of Kurt Bamphing around, hitting all these guards in like one go. Uh very cool.

SPEAKER_00: 29:58

Does it make it clear which of them established the plan or if it was a team effort? I think either way, it's you know good because obviously, like you said, like Kitty is very tactical, and this isn't the first time that she's had to come up with a plan to sort of save the day. And on the other hand, it would be interesting if it was Kurt, because we typically do not see him involved in that kind of stage of things.

SPEAKER_01: 30:28

It's fun to see this kind of that they're taking her seriously. I think that's a big takeaway. She's she's not just She's a real X-Men. Yeah. She's a real member of this team, and her actions and choices are being used to benefit them rather than being a detriment, which is kind of where she started.

SPEAKER_00: 30:48

I hope we don't walk that back. Oh God, I hope not. Like I feel like it's pretty, you know, common in different media or whatever to be like, you know, she's got this progression, but then like they might do like, you know, two steps forward, one step back, have another like issue where like the problem that they are overcoming is their perception of her not being ready to be like a full member of the team or whatever. That would be exhausting. At this point, it's just like really established that she's solid.

SPEAKER_01: 31:18

Yeah, she's hyper competent. And I think you can easily look at this and say, you know, when she joined the team, she was a rookie who knew nothing about being a superhero and barely understood her powers, so she kind of sucked. And you can see why the rest of the team, and even Charles, would be frustrated at times because she's a teenage girl who's fallen into this new life and these new powers and are exploring them. And that's how they wrote it. And like that's fine. And here we are now, several issues in, and she's had a lot of adventures. And I think the turning point was that Christmas issue where she was attacked at the X-Mansion by a brood, right?

SPEAKER_00: 31:58

Isn't that what it was? A demon, a demon, a demon that looks exactly like the brood. Yeah, it's very close together for them to be doing something so visually similar.

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

Anyways, I think that really solidified her as a proper member of the team, and we've only seen her improve from there to you know, here she is with Kurt, and they are just like an absolute menace to this ship. And I think you you mentioned this last time. Their power sets together are just incredibly difficult in an infiltration capacity to hold down. It's pretty rough for the other team. Especially when we see their secondary plan come into action where they go to try and get the Royal Guard, and their plan is to basically uh combine their powers in a way to make this massive illusion with all this brimstone smoke that forms from all of Nightcrawler's banphing around, and suddenly Phoenix appears, and you know, for a split second, you're like, oh my god, what's happening? And then you realize, oh, it's she's created this costume to appear like Phoenix, and with the help of Nightcrawler and his powers, she looks a little more legitimate because of how everything's happening. And I love this panel where we see the Banff at the top after she appears as as Phoenix and she's taunting that the admiral, and then she teleports down through the floor, disappearing. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 33:35

Mm-hmm. Very cool. I like that they just steal the person away too. It's very slick. Super slick.

SPEAKER_01: 33:42

What did you think of these? I don't even know what they are. Like robot guys, the yeah, the the mechanoid mechanoids? Is that what they are?

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

I feel like this did this person come would were these people in like the first issues where we saw the Shiar, where they were fighting around the crystal and the X-Men fought the guard and that one. Maybe. You know, some of them were like the there's like the the guy that has the kind of Wolverine outfit where last time they fought, Wolverine stole his clothes. Oh yes. It's like the wolf man is familiar. You are correct. And I I assume some of these others have to be too. I mean, one of them just looks like a recycled Colossus. The guy in the middle, yeah. I I had that same thought. I think maybe we should just only call him recycled colossus if he if he pops up again. There's like a double guy, weird tentacle eye boy, uh like a stingray mixed with an octopus. I mean, they're it's they, you know, pretty inventive, but they're they're just kind of background pawn pieces that are being used for action scenes. What did you think of this whole like treachery plot? Because for me, I like the idea a lot and I like the deathbird aspect of it, but when we read like the first two issues, I didn't really pay attention to who this admiral was. And then we get to these two issues, and he's like important or like is a key player, and I kind of feel like eh, I don't really care who this guy is. Like, I was paying more attention to like Chancellor Iraqi or whatever. Like, I was like, this guy seems important, and then the other guy was sort of like the captain of the ship in the background, and suddenly it's like, oh, he's supposed to be like a key player in this plot, but I don't have like a strong feeling toward him.

SPEAKER_01: 35:47

Yeah, so I don't I don't know that I necessarily read into it too much with him specifically. I think I just assumed that this was just kind of a fresh character, honestly. Pretty fresh.

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

I think he only appeared like last issues, but I just like I didn't pay like attention to him really. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he turned out to be a little bit more important than I anticipated.

SPEAKER_01: 36:13

I think it adds an extra layer to the story, like the traitor angle itself. Yeah. Like that aspect I really do, I think adds a little bit more to this than oh, here's just some assassin that is kidnapped the Empress. I think this gives a little more political intrigue. It gives a little more credence to Deathbird to be able to manipulate this. And we also get the brood element in all this. Where do they fit in? How are they manipulating what's going on with Deathbird? Are they working with Deathbird? And if they are, who is working for who? Is she working for them in a plan to get rid of Lalandra so she can command the Shiar and whatever happens with the brood and some sort of weird team up? Or has she contracted the the brood to do something? I have a lot of questions, and I'm really interested, much like you, in kind of seeing where this brood story goes. And I'm a little disappointed on the surface that we're not getting right into it again. Because I feel like, you know, with things are rolling right now with this, you know, space stuff. So let's just keep going with the space stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 37:25

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think we do return to space pretty soon, you know, at the very least. So it's not gonna be like, I imagine, of like a long drifting away from this, but I that is one thing I'm curious about, is just seeing like what is the full situation there. It it seems to me like it's a mutual benefit thing, but it's odd because nobody knows the brood, and really I think the only one that has like information about them at this point is probably Deathbird. Everyone else is just like, where did these people come from? Right. So it's hard to imagine a situation where it's like, oh, they want her, or like, like what do they gain from putting Deathbird on the throne? Or like what is she going to offer to them that is worth all of this for them? Because we'll have to wait and see. I honestly didn't even know that the brute could talk before until recently.

SPEAKER_01: 38:21

Uh, the only reason I knew they could is again because of I read Annihilation like years ago. Yeah. Which is a lot of fun. If if you are legitimately interested in kind of the cosmic Marvel stuff, Annihilation is kind of a good place to read because it brings a lot of the cosmic space races and empires together to deal with this massive threat that is Annihilate and his Annihilation Wave.

SPEAKER_00: 38:49

I need to get back to it because I started it, but where did I possibly leave off? It's hard because there's, you know, these are big events. Yeah. Marvel Unlimited does not always do the best job of having a good reading guide, reading list kind of a deal. Not sponsored, to be clear. But willing. Yep. I'll change my opinion. No problem. I don't think you need to change your opinion. No, I think that's very fair criticism. I think the only other thing that struck me as very weird for this issue was the ending is a little anti-climactic where the situation is very dire. There's a huge blast being shot at the Earth. It's going to cause massive destruction to a planet, but the Star Dammer ship just intercepts it. Intercepts it and is completely fine? Yeah, I didn't understand that either.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

Like, are are we too that their force field is enough to prevent it?

SPEAKER_00: 39:47

Like, is that uh what they're trying to imply? I think if the ship got broken again, I would feel more okay with it. Like if it got really messed up and maybe all the star jammers have to go to Earth, then that's you know why we end up back down there with the Brotherhood. But it seems to be pretty okay. It doesn't seem like the ship really like nothing, huh? Yeah. Aliens, technology. I mean, you know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 40:16

You're right though. Like if this is a beam that's strong enough to destroy an entire planet. Well, it's it's not for a whole planet. Let me see here. They say they uh a bolt of antimatter plasma erupts towards North America, target on San Francisco. It will strike with the force of a gigaton H-bomb vaporizing everything within a hundred mile radius. Pretty powerful. Of ground zero splitting the planetary crust along major fault lines that rim the Pacific Ocean far faster than the speed of light.

SPEAKER_00: 40:50

I guess that makes sense for why they shot why they shot for nothing's faster than the speed of light. This is crazy. It makes sense why they shot for San Francisco with the with the fault line thing. Gotta crack that bad boy open like an egg.

SPEAKER_01: 41:04

Yeah, they try to say here that it's the last instant in an awesome display of engine power and astrogational skill, the slightest error would have resulted in the destruction of both the ship and much of the terrestrial hemisphere, thereby doing Semidar's work for him, but the Starjammer intercepts the beam.

SPEAKER_00: 41:28

It's very interesting that they highlight, like, oh, if it would have flown in front of the beam in a slightly different way, the ship would also be destroyed and the earth would be destroyed.

SPEAKER_01: 41:38

Do you think perhaps I'm just kind of going through the panels again to see if maybe I missed something? Maybe perhaps because she makes the command to halt the attack. Because it says simultaneously Lodlandro's holographic image appears on the command deck of every ship in the fleet. I am alive and well, no hostile action is to be taken against the Earth. So, like perhaps it was just stopped? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 42:04

It's weird. I'm imagining it not as one continuous beam and more as like they shot their shot. I mean, even still. The ship should have been destroyed.

SPEAKER_01: 42:15

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 42:16

Not forever destroyed, but wrecked up a little bit. At the very least, yeah. It should mirror Peter's journey. Next issue we can start with a kick in some space ass.

SPEAKER_01: 42:29

I have to say that final panel of Xavier is kind of funny. The more I look at it, the funnier it looks.

SPEAKER_00: 42:35

They should close his eyes at least. Seems like the least that they could do. I guess it's to imply that he's absent-minded, because it has he has like this blank stare. Because otherwise it's just like a regular coma situation. This is like it's spookier. Yeah. Do you want to deliver some overall thoughts?

SPEAKER_01: 42:56

Yeah, I think when you look at the overall story, it I think you can kind of walk away with a better overall view of of this arc. But looking at these two, I think there's a a lot of cool things that happen. But there are there are problems that for me are just too difficult to look past. You know, the Peter situation is very glaring and I think really detracts from what this could have been. And for that reason, I think I would give this like a seven. I think there's like enough good stuff going on. I'm really excited about the brood. I think Deathbird has been a very interesting addition. The trader stuff was a lot of fun. We have these amazing visuals of ships and just an incredible amount of sci fi creativity that's playing out. And I think you mix all of that with you know the character development between Corsair and Scott and Kitty. And Kurt doing their thing, and Charles does a lot of fun stuff, and I'm very critical of how Charles gets used typically and don't generally like it, but I did really enjoy him here. And, you know, as you said, I'm really enthralled by the idea of how Charles fits into this big plan with the brood. Does he have an egg already in him? Is this you know, is he just being telepathically linked, kind of like how he was with LaLandra to, you know, a a brood queen or something? It does feel a lot like that, you know, some parallels. I I I'm very excited, and I think for me it's a seven.

SPEAKER_00: 44:40

I'm also hitting the seven pretty hard. I think overall, like these two issues, the last two, is a really good, a really great arc to read. There's something about the other two where I don't know if it's just so much of the content in those was like net new. And here it's less like we're being introduced to new things and we're starting to get, I guess, a little bit more information, a little bit more of an explainer, but it it loses a little bit of that excitement in a way. I think the issues moved maybe a touch slower. Overall, good though. I think it'll be really interesting to return to the Professor X brood situation that's being teased forward. Doesn't seem like it's gonna be a long, long time, but you never know. And then overall, like I mentioned before, just like an anticlimactic end where we just solved things by flying a spaceship really, really fast to intercept the blast. But overall, really good, really fun, great four issues, good two issues, if that makes sense. Yeah, I agree with everything you said. 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 158 to 160. Bring on the brood. 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.