Episode 009 - Leprechaun Surprise Party

==Episode Description==
In which Rachel refuses to back down from a challenge, we reject a point of canon, Leprechauns know Wolverine’s secrets, Erik the Red is (still) awful, Professor X is (still) a dick, the X-Men are your D&D party, the Shi’ar do a Star Trek riff, Phoenix is kind of a big deal, the circus comes to town, and Magneto gets creepy.
==X-Plained==
*Cassandra Nova
*More early Claremont
*Sound effects
*Cassidy Keep
*Seneschals
*Shillelaghs
*Image inducers
*Black Tom Cassidy
*Supervillain bromance
*Bronze-age pacing
*Leprechauns
*Hovercraft rental
*Muir Island
*The Shi’ar Imperial Guard
*The M’Kraan Cyrstal
*Phoenix 101
*Secret volcano lairs
*Magneto’s mercifully short-lived age-play fixation
*The (dis)continuity of mutant powers
==Listener Questions==
* Do the X-Books really rely on heroes coming back to life more than other superhero comics?
* How long did it take for Magneto to get that Holocaust survivor backstory and not just be generically evil?
* Whatever happened to all those weird powers Claremont gave the X-Men and forgot about, like Kurt literally turning invisible in shadow or Storm using her powers to change her clothes?
== Transcript ==
[Editor’s Note: Rachel now goes by the name of Jay and uses male or neutral pronouns. This episode was recorded before Jay’s transition. At Jay’s request, we are using the name and pronouns they used at the time when this episode was recorded to keep the integrity of the transcript.]
(00:00)
Miles: Hey, Rachel, remember Lilandra? Professor X's space-bird girlfriend?
Rachel: Miles, everyone remembers Lilandra. They were together for like, 30 years.
Miles: Wait, they're not still together?
Rachel: Dude, first of all, she's dead, and, shockingly, there are lines even Xavier won't cross. But, that's not even relevant, 'cause they actually split up during the Morrison run.
Miles: Was that a Cassandra Nova thing? Do you really think you can explain Cassandra Nova in a cold open?
Rachel: Is that a challenge?
Miles: Fuck...
Rachel: Okay. So. Cassandra Nova is a Mummdrai, Professor X’s evil disembodied psychic twin. While they were gestating, she tried to clone herself a body based on his, but fetus-X strangled her, so she was born as a malevolent consciousness.
Miles: Oh, god. What horror have I unleashed? I’m so sorry, listeners.
Rachel: Decades later, Cassandra managed to produce an adult body, which she used to unleash the sentinels on Genosha, decimating the mutant population, then made her way back to the Xavier School, switched bodies with Professor X without anyone knowing, leaving him trapped in her body whose vocal chords Wolverine had severed.
[sharp inhale]
Disguised as X, she first outed the institute as a school for mutants, then went off into space, broke Lilandra’s mind and generally beat the hell out of the entire Shi’ar Empire.
Miles: And that’s when they broke up?
Rachel: Nah, a while later Lilandra came back to earth, and tried to assassinate Professor X under the assumption he was still possessed, at which point the Shi’ar officially annulled their sorta marriage.
Miles: Was he still possessed?
Rachel: No, by then the X-Men had stuck Cassandra Nova’s consciousness into this glowing space grub thing, which later went on to subtly manipulate Emma Frost into convincing Shadowcat that it was her baby.
Miles: What?!
(01:13)
[Intro: Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song]
Rachel: I'm Rachel Edidin.
Miles: And I'm Miles Stokes.
Rachel: And we are here to X-plain the X-Men.
Miles: Because it's about time someone did.
Rachel: Welcome to the ninth episode of “Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men” where we walk you through the ins, outs and retcons of our favorite superhero soap opera.
Miles: This week, we'll be continuing our coverage of the earlier Claremont run, what we've come to think of as the first Phoenix era.
Rachel: And we wanna start by talking a little bit about that, as it affects the podcast structure.
Miles: So, if you've been listening from the start, you might notice that these episodes have gotten a little more linear.
Rachel: That's not gonna be the case throughout, but this era? Those 44 issues that take the X-Men from Giant Size #1 through the end of The Dark Phoenix Saga? They're continuity critical in a way that laid the foundation, tone and story, for the next 40 years of X-books.
Miles: It's also got just a ton of story. Uh, at first we were thinking we would just keep the pre-Dark Phoenix, uh, Claremont stuff down to maybe one or two episodes, but as we read and talked to each other we realized that there was no way to do that without skipping a whole lot we wanted to cover.
Rachel: Even if we did skip a lot that we didn't. And, so, as a result, the podcast itself is going to be a little more..contiguous than usual.
Miles: So we'll try to give context as we go, but if you haven't listened to, uh, last episode, Episode 8, What We Talk About When We Talk About Claremont, you might wanna go back and do so before continuing with this one.
(02:28 )
Rachel: Done? Good. 'Cause it's time to go see a man about some leprechauns.
Miles: That's pretty much how I leave every party.
Rachel: All our friends are leprechauns?
Miles: I don't get invited to a lot of parties these days. Okay, now, where we- where last we left our heroes, they had just been to space, they had come back, Jean Grey had died, uh, sort of getting them back to Earth, and then had come back pretty much immediately as the Phoenix.
Rachel: Giving the "I am fire and life incarnate" speech, and then promptly collapsing into a coma.
Miles: It was a really good speech, that took it all out of her. Or it might have been the dying and being reborn. One of the two. Anyway--
Rachel: [crosstalk] I like that the idea that she was actually killed by Claremont dialogue.
Miles: It it some potent stuff. Uh, she has just come back to Earth. She's sort of convalescing in a hospital and the X-Men are sort of staying with her. Now, after they sort of, uh, process the fact that she's still alive, and Scott cries, and Nightcrawler's a good bro, and closes the door so he can cry by himself--
Rachel: [crosstalk] And they figure out that she's gonna be okay.
Miles: They're not really sure what's going on with the giant space fire bird thing, but they're like, "Whatever, you know, we're X-Men, this shit happens all the time." So, Xavier basically says, "You guys are kind of in the way, and I know- I know you love Jean, and that's cool, but you really need to get out of here, how about you go on a vacation?"
Rachel: And Banshee says, "Well.."
Miles: "...as it turns out, I have a castle, that I just heard about, from this letter I got."
Rachel: And that letter, I'll point out, was mailed in X-Men #99, two episodes ago, we saw a guy sort of desperately trying to get to a post office and mail a letter before some mysterious assailant took him out.
Miles: This is like, the most dramatic lawyer scene we've seen in X-Men so far, I think. So, uh, Banshee, he grew up in, in Cassidy Keep, which is in, uh, County Mayo, I think, in Ireland
Rachel: They're really specific about it, which is rare in X-Men.
Miles: I kind of feel like Claremont just got super in to Irish geography when he was writing this part. It's kinda cool, like, there's this little brief montage-y thing of them sorta jet-setting over to County Mayo. Like, I feel like if, if this were a movie there would be a little dotted line moving on the map, except there would just be little bits of profanity coming up from the dotted line from Wolverine.
Rachel: And they're complaining about Irish cars, which is weird, 'cause I don't know if that's even a thing, like, are there- are there cars that are manufactured in Ireland?
Miles: I don't know, but again, I think Claremont was just reading way too much about Ireland at this point.
Rachel: Or too little.
Miles: So, yeah, they head over to Cassidy Keep. It's actually kinda cool, because since Scott, uh, Cyclops is staying behind with Xavier, here we have just the new X-Men getting a chance to hang out with really nobody else.
Rachel: I would say, over these few issues, more of the team dynamic develops than any other brief period. You see friendships really start to resolve. We talked a little bit about this last episode, but that, that happens a lot more here, and it's also something that you mentioned that you wanted to see, which is a Banshee-centric story.
Miles: Right, so, I gotta stick up for Banshee, because I'm gonna be completely honest, he is a less interesting character than most of the X-Men. But that makes me feel like you should just- I should stick up for him, like, I'm the guy that always plays the yellow board game piece in board games, because I feel bad for it, because no one chooses it. It-it's sorta like that.
Rachel: He's the grown-up, in a lot of ways. He's a little bit older than the rest of the X-Men, he's a former Interpol agent. He's a lot more easy-going than the rest of these guys, and he's-he's pretty much around because, y'know, he wants to help out. So he doesn't have a lot of the same drama hooks as the other X-Men, and he's - I think that makes him a really good counter-balance to the team. In a lot of ways, he plays the role that Cyclops then comes to play in the movies, which is again, sort of the fairly low-key team grown-up.
Miles: And one thing we haven't really, uh, touched on yet. Moira McTaggert is an old colleague of Professor Xavier's, and we learn, also, his-his ex-girlfriend, his ex-lover.
Rachel: She's currently working for him as a housekeeper, and no one knows much more about her than that, other than that she's someone X knows from way back, who knows about the X-Men. She and Banshee sort of have the beginnings of a thing going on.
Miles: Right, and it's actually really charming, 'cause they're these two comparatively normal people just like, "Oh, hey, we're, you know, middle-aged, and sort of shyly falling in love," and it's really sweet.
Rachel: And everyone else is like, throwing each other at robots.
Miles: Anyway, so, they get to Cassidy Keep, which is just this straight-up, uh, giant castle thing.
Rachel: Where Storm promptly takes a shower in the middle of a hallway.
Miles: Well, not like, promptly. Like, she doesn't, you know, just do it with everybody else there.
Rachel: It's like, 5 minutes, and she is in the middle of a hall.
Miles: I think Dave Cockrum and later John Byrne just really like drawing Storm naked with her hair just a little bit over her nipples. To be fair, those are pretty cool looking panels. So..yeah, they get there, and they meet up with the seneschal, which I learned from Dragon Age - the seneschal of a castle is like, the dude that's sort of - h-he's half butler and also half, like, castle manager. Banshee is like, "Good to see you, how are the families?" "Oh, the families are fine," and like, nothing is mentioned about "the families" in that--
Rachel: Right, who are they? Are they, you know, the families in the village that is presumably around this castle, 'cause that's how castles work--
Miles: [crosstalk] Is it- is it- is it the mob?
Rachel: I assume it's the mob. It's gotta be the m- it might als- we don't know that it's not a mob. Even later when we find out who they are, it is never established that there is not organized crime involved.
Miles: Or just an angry mob. X-Men loves its angry mobs. They first thing they do is they're like, "Hey, let's-let's have a fancy dinner," and so, everybody dresses up, and this part is actually really charming, I-I don't know why I love this part so much.
Rachel: Because Storm and Nightcrawler flirting and being adorable.
Miles: Yeah, so Nightcrawler's got this image inducer thing, um, that can make him look like a normal human, since he doesn't even remotely, by default.
Rachel: And because Nightcrawler is adorable, he just uses it to make himself like movie stars from between, like, 1920 and 1950.
Miles: Yeah, so he's like, um, Groucho Marx, he's-he's Errol Flynn, like, he's all these different stars--
Rachel: Yeah, his default disguise is Errol Flynn. He gets yelled at repeatedly because it attracts attention when he's out. Fred Astaire, I think a couple others.
Miles: And so, anyway, he and Colossus are both sort of flirting-ish with, with Storm, like, Nightcrawler sorta tongue-in-cheek, and Colossus very earnestly, but shyly.
Rachel: Well, Nightcrawler really really likes to play the old school style dashing gentleman. I think what he's doing is less flirting than just picking up on-on an opportunity to do that.
Miles: Yeah. So Storm, so they're all getting dressed and she, she gets into this like, super fancy dress and has her hair all, all up and crazy.
Rachel: She has really Bride of Frankenstein hair.
Miles: Uh..she makes it work. It's true.
Rachel: Do-do you think this is foreshadowing her later impressive  hair?
Miles: M-maybe. I-I don't know, I mean, Claremont did like to play the long game, like we've discussed. So yeah, you know, the-they go off to dinner, and she's like, "I'm gonna go with both of you, you can stop, you know, fighting over me," an-and I love you, Storm.
Rachel: And then, a thousand fanfiction writers cried out in unison.
Miles: [laughs] They-they do that a lot with X-Men. So, yeah, they're-they're do dinner, and, oh, look, there's not dinner on the table, instead there's Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut hanging out.
Rachel: So, let's talk about Black Tom Cassidy. Black Tom Cassidy is Banshee's cousin. And he's a dick. And this- is this his- this is his first appearance, right, has he been in the comic ?Miles: [crosstalk] It is his first appearance, like I, I felt like he must have shown up in the Silver Age, just because--Rachel: [crosstalk] No.
Miles: --of how Silver Age he feels, but no, this is the first time he shows up. 
Rachel: He's got a fancy goatee. He yells. He chews scenery. He's super scenery chewy, and he is apparently best, best friends with Juggernaut. They're not just teamed up, they're-they're best bros.
Miles: You later find out that they met in prison and they became friends there, but I kind of like that y- they just have this great bromance, this villain bromance, like, throughout Marvel history.
Rachel: They team up repeatedly, and again, it's no- it's never just that they're team-teaming, 'cause Juggernaut hates everyone, 'till totally go to the mat for Tom, like, they're serious bros.
Miles: [crosstalk] Mm-hm.
Rachel: It's-it's nice.
Miles: So Juggernaut--
Rachel: In-in a murder way.
Miles: Y-y'know, sweet murder. So Juggernaut we've seen before, you know, he wears a big, dumb, brown costume and you can't stop him 'cause he's got this crazy demon power.
Rachel: Is it brown or red? I thought it was red.
Miles: Uh, it's brown with red accents.
Rachel: Brick red?
Miles: I...maybe?
Rachel: [crosstalk] Brownish-red? Burnt sienna?
Miles: Can we get some Pantone charts in here?
Rachel: We should.
Miles: Okay, so, yeah, Juggernaut we've seen before, um, Black Tom, we haven't. So he's a mutant, and I-I kinda feel like they, they just sort of forgot that they hadn't given him any specific powers right before the issue went to print, so, like, uh, what can he do? I don't know, he can--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Stuff!
Miles: --he can channel, uh, heat, through..wood. Okay, good enough.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Which, so that wins the award for porn-iest sounding power ever. Serious- he can channel heat through wood.
Miles: Oh man, and the, the facial hair, and the costume, he would- he could totally be a porn star. The- his name..
Rachel: Black Tom Cassidy?
Miles: He's a porn star. This is- this is what he was- he's doing--
Rachel: [laughs]
Miles: --when he's not a super villain. 
Rachel: Black Tom Cassidy and The Unstoppable Juggernaut. I call it The Unstoppable Juggernaut.
Miles: If we ever change careers, and go from like, podcasting and comics work to porn, then that's our first feature film.
Rachel: Absolutely not.
Miles: So, Black Tom, right, so he can channel heat through wood, but the way he does this? So he has- okay, so I used to play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, I mean, I still do, but like-like, old Second Edition stuff, and one of my favorite druid spells was this one called Shillelagh, where you'd make sort of th- uh, a magical cudgel from a nearby plant, and he's got a shillelagh. 
Rachel: [coughs, chuckles]
Miles: And I just wanna say "shillelagh" over and over and over, but I never wanna spell it.
Rachel: Speaking of powers, a few episodes ago, someone asked about the trope of, uh, family members powers not affecting one another, and I said I thought that was just a Summers thing, and a number of you corrected us, correctly, that that's also true of the Cassidys, and, I continue to reject that because it's really dumb. With Cyclops and Havok, it makes sense that their powers don't affect each other, because they involve specific types of made-up energy, because metabolizing energy is part of both of their power sets. With Banshee and Black Tom, Banshee's powers are literally just sound. Like, was Black Tom made of vibranium? 
Miles: I think that's the only explanation. Or maybe he's just deaf, and really good at reading lips so nobody ever notices?
Rachel: And again, heat. He can channel heat. It's not special heat. It's not like..special, magical..mutant heat, it's just heat, that he can channel through wood, which somehow doesn't catch fire, because, I don't know, but anyway, Banshee's not heat-proof. This is stupid. 
Miles: So, do we--
Rachel: [crosstalk] I reject this canon!
Miles: We reject this canon?
Rachel: We reject this canon.
Miles: Okay, with all of our authority in the Marvel universe, this is no longer canonical. We're undoing it.
Rachel: We hope you're listening, Marvel, because we will be expecting you to maintain this as well.
Miles: We had Greg Rucka on a couple of episodes ago, he's a Marvel writer, maybe he was gonna use Black Tom for some stupid reason.
Rachel: I know a guy who knows a guy.
Miles: There you go. So, Black Tom and Juggernaut, they're like, "Ha ha! We're villains! And now we're gonna press a button an dump you though a trap door," which I love. It's like, straight out of one of my favorite scenes in the first Ninja Gaiden. [sings] Da na na na!
Rachel: This is a really video game-y episode.
Miles: I'm a really video game-y person.
(11:16)
Rachel: You really are. An-and they say, you know, you- "This castle will be your tomb," and the word "tomb" triggers Storm into a massive attack of plot-relevant claustrophobia.
Miles: This is one- this is Storm's secondary mutation, I think, is that she gets claustrophobic whenever the plot demands it.
Rachel: She didn't get super-claustrophobic when they were in space, in a space shuttle, in a space station, but she does in a giant castle.
Miles: They were sorta still figuring out the characters at this point. This is early days.
Rachel: Yeah. So, um, she goes into a three-and-a-half page origin story flashback.
Miles: She was a baby in Harlem, and then her parents brought her to, uh, Cairo, and then they died in-in a terrorist attack or something like that.
Rachel: And-and she was, she was trapped beneath rubble for a long time, which is why she's claustrophobic.
Miles: Right, and then, like, she became, uh, a master thief under Achmed el-Gibar, el-jibar, I think?
Rachel: We'll come back to that guy later, too. Remember that name. Or don't remember that name, 'cause we'll be reintroducing him.
Miles: [crosstalk] I mean, I can't really remember the name, but it's a good name. And then she goes off to Kenya, and becomes a goddess, and that's where Xavier meets her, like, that's going on in the three-point-five page backstory.
(12:10) 
Rachel: So, that actually brings me to something that I wanted to discuss, which is pacing. The way comics are paced is really era-specific. The amount of story and the amount of action that went into a single issue in the seventies and eighties is significantly more than now. Um, decompressed storytelling has become a thing...you don't really see twenty page fight scenes, you don't really see five page fight scenes that don't have a lot of exposition and other stuff going in. So, for example, the issue where the Phoenix shows up, Jean comes back to life, Jean's in the hospital, they go through all that stuff, they find out about the invitation to Cassidy Keep, they go to Cassidy Keep, they have the dinner party, and they get ambushed? That's one issue.
Miles: Yeah, I mean, these days it kind of feels like you pick up an issue of a superhero comic, and it's twenty-two pages of somebody deciding whether to get coffee and then not getting coffee. 
Rachel: It's also a lot more text heavy, in those days, I think there's a lot more emphasis now on letting the art do more of the storytelling? 
Miles: Mm-hm.
Rachel: And so you-you have less captions, and so there's-there's less forcible propulsion of plot. And they both-they both have their merits and flaws, but it's interesting to look at them as artifacts of specific time periods, and I, for another frame of reference, um, a writer friend of mine was, I was talking with about a story that he was- he was reworking that had originally been a pitch that he'd put together in the early 1980s, and what he mentioned offhand, you know, it wa-it was for an eight page story then, which would probably be about a twelve page story now. So then that's part of why we're splitting the pre-Dark Phoenix stuff up into three episodes, because we were looking at the number of issues and thinking, "Oh, we can get through this," and then started actually..going back and rereading them, and-and realizing that, no, you know, twenty to twenty-eight issues, in the late seventies, is a lot more story, than that many issues now.
Miles: And this is with us still skipping some stuff. It's like, "Warhawk? Who cares about Warhawk? We'll skip him."
Rachel: Nobody cares about Warhawk.
Miles: Poor Warhawk. 
(13:48) 
Rachel: So anyway, back to Cassidy Keep.
Miles: Right. They get in this fight, and Storm is pretty much paralyzed because of the claustrophobia thing.
Rachel: [crosstalk] And they lose. Juggernaut and Black Tom completely kick their asses, and imprison most of the X-Men, except for Nightcrawler, who gets rescued by leprechauns.
Miles: Let's just let that sink in for a moment.
Rachel: Rescued by leprechauns, the Kurt Wagner story.
Miles: Seriously, the families that were being talked about are, in fact, leprechauns. Like just, straight-up leprechauns. And what I really like about this, my favorite thing about the whole Cassidy Keep storyline and I think the main reason I insisted we cover this..is that Banshee, so he grew up in Cassidy Keep, right? And when he shows up, uh, again with the X-Men here, he's asking the seneschal, like, "Oh, how are the families?" What that means is that Banshee grew up with leprechauns, and he hasn't forgotten about them, like, he's just asking the seneschal how they're doing, and he never thought to mention this! To anyone!
Rachel: To be fair there's really no casual way to work that into a conversation. "Y'know, oh, I thought we could go back the, uh, to vis-visit my family home, it's nice, it's a castle. Leprechauns."
Miles: I-I kinda- I'd be excited about leprechauns.
Rachel: "You guys! It's, may- it's like, y'know, by leprechauns, let me show you them!"
Miles: Right, like, was he worried that his enthusiasm would freak out the X-Men? Th-Was he trying to play it cool? I--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Was he saving them for a big reveal?
Miles: Like, there was gonna be a leprechaun surprise party if Black Tom and the Juggernaut hadn't ambushed them?
Rachel: Is Leprechaun Surprise Party the sequel to the Juggernaut and Black Tom porno?
Miles: Yes, it is. Yes. It. Is. 
Rachel: So anyway..
Miles: The thing is, they-they're just sorta like, normal people hanging out, except they have like, they're tiny, and they have pointy hats, and pointy shoes. It's so wonderfully nonsensical. It's one of my favorite things about the Claremont era. It's stuff like this--
Rachel: [crosstalk] And they never- they never come back, do they? Like, they're just a thing for two issues, you know, they're there--
Miles: [crosstalk] Well, no, they're..they-they come back briefly, and they're mentioned later on, but never in such a focal role.
Rachel: I really love it when X-Men intersect with weird fairy tale stuff. That happens a ton in Excalibur, and then there are trolls in X-Factor, and it's just - I don't know why, but those stories make me really happy, because the X-Men, y'know, intensely weird concept, and having them come face-to-face with stuff that is as weird to them as like, people with superpowers are to us, and it is always super weird to them - is always kind of fun to watch.
(15:47) 
Miles: Agreed. Uh, but Nightcrawler, y'know, he adapts pretty quickly. He's like, "Okay, you guys are leprechauns. I'm-I'm excited, but that's cool." This is also briefly, to-to-to put in an aside, where he learns that he's invisible in shadow, which is a power that..I think a lot of writers kinda forget about.
Rachel: Yeah, it's a cool one. Really, he's kind- anything he's wearing is also invisible in shadow, which-which always struck me as kind of peculiar.
Miles: I'm just gonna say unstable molecules and not worry about it.
(16:07)
Miles: So, the X-Men are in-in a bad way, and Professor Xavier, who has a, uh, you know, psychic link with the X-Men all the time, is like, "Holy-holy crap! The X-Men are-are not in good shape. They're fighting the Juggernaut, who's my evil step-brother, uh, you know, he's a big scary dude. Cyclops, you should go help them."
Rachel: And Cyclops says, "Fuck you! No! My girlfriend, who I totally love, is in a coma, and also, you're being an asshole." I wanna talk about this for a second, because there is literally nothing in X-Men that I find more satisfying than Cyclops telling Professor X to go fuck himself.
Miles: [laughs] Li-So, somebody could write a limited series that was just that. And--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah.
Miles: --you'd-you'd be happy?
Rachel: I would, I would buy that, I would buy that. I would buy all of the variant covers, and I would write enough letters to fill the entire letter column.
Miles: So, Cyclops does not go to the rescue, but the X-Men end up being fine. Nightcrawler shows up, with some leprechauns, and frees the other leprechauns who--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Well--
Miles: [crosstalk] --are being imprisoned.
Rachel: --before that, though, Nightcrawler learns why Tom and Juggernaut are there.
Miles: [crosstalk] Oh, right, yeah.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Um, aside from, you know, there's the old grudge, but what got them to actually go after these guys and fight them is that they were approached by..none other than our favorite bondage Viking, Erik the Red
Miles: Erik the Red, yeah. So he's been, I-I guess he just has like a Plan A, B, C, D, whatever, 'cause he keeps sending villains or turned heroes after the X-Men and it keeps not working.
Rachel: Now, those of you who were around last episode may recall that Erik the Red is actually at this point, this version of Er-Erik the Red is Davan Shakari, the Shi'ar agent on Earth, in disguise, in a costume that Cyclops briefly wore while pretending to be a supervillain during the Silver Age. Don't think about it too hard. Very quickly, I wanna say, uh, David Wynne who's, uh, a cartoonist who's been sending us these fantastic pieces of fanart did a drawing for us last week of, um, Erik the Red with Italian Porn Batman and it is literally my favorite thing on the internet at this point. Like, I have it open in a browser window that I just keep on clicking back to and giggling.
Miles: Every time I look at it, it's just...[giggles]. 
Rachel: They could ride around on bicycles and have little adventures together.
Miles: I love this plan. Nightcrawler finds out about Erik the Red - he's not explicitly stated as being Erik the Red, but it's very clear, and the art just straight up shows it's Erik the Red.
Rachel: [crosstalk] No, he is, he's-he's specifically described as, you know, a guy in a-a Viking looking outfit, and Nightcrawler makes the connection, they're like, "Yeah, that sounds like the guy."
Miles: So, they go, Nightcrawler goes, and he-he attacks Black Tom and Juggernaut, and the battle's still not going very well, but what, um, what really turns the tide is when, during the fight, where the wall gets sort of knocked open - a hole gets knocked in the wall - and Storm sees the sky, and all of a sudden, she's - if not fine, like, she's in control of herself again.
Rachel: Can we talk a little bit about how Nightcrawler goes into the fight? Because I think think this is actually kind of ingenious. 
Miles: Yes, I love this part.
Rachel: So, he knows the Juggernaut has a huge hate-on for Xavier, and he's got this image inducer that can make him look like anything. So he makes himself look like Xavier - complete with the suit that Xavier actually happens to be wearing at the moment, which is kind of impressive - and he's-he's just hopping around and playing off walls and being like, "Yeah, I'm your dick stepbrother! Whoop!"
Miles: It's really satisfying to see, uh --
Rachel: [coughs]
Miles: --Xavier just springing around and being a total douchebag, it's great.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Well, he's a total douchebag anyway, but he's like a spring-loaded douchebag in this.
Miles: [laughs] Spring-loaded douchebag.
Rachel: The Charles Xavier story.
Miles: [laughs] So, they fight, and Storm, uh, it really- this issue really gets across that just- she's just immensely powerful. Um..
Rachel: Yeah, she is. Uh, Storm is easily the most powerful of the team right now, save for Phoenix, and Phoenix is a whole other story
Miles: So, they fight, and since, um, the brothers Cassidy, their powers don't work against each other, they end up fighting with swords and axes in this big medieval castle, which I love.
Rachel: And then Banshee just straight-up throws Tom off a cliff.
Miles: Right, like, he doesn't, he's not trying to kill him, but it's one of those, well--
Rachel: He's just trying to get rid of him, and Juggernaut - this is one of those sort of sweet Juggernaut-Tom moments, Juggernaut is like, "What the hell, you just threw my only friend off a cliff!" and just dives off after him.
Miles: Will we see them again? We don't even need to answer that, this is X-Men--
Rachel: [crosstalk] It is.
Miles: [crosstalk] Of course we will. So, you know, Wolverine's name is Logan, right, but as we've mentioned, there's not a lot of stuff about Wolverine le- yet, like, we don't know about the healing factor, we don't know about the adamantium skeleton--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Well, and we don't know his name, going into this. 
Miles: [crosstalk]  Right. 
Rachel: [crosstalk] We have never heard his name used, but the Leprechauns know it.
Miles: (as Leprechaun) "Mr. Logan..."
Rachel: And that's literally the first use of his name in the comic. The leprechauns just know his name. Is it ever explained why? No! They just know.
Miles: [crosstalk] They know a lot of things.
Rachel: [crosstalk] The leprechauns. What the fuck, leprechauns?
Miles: We love you, leprechauns. The other awesome thing is, uh, some of the sound effects in these fights are glorious.
Rachel: Oh, dude, they do not do sound effects now like they used to, and again, these-these aren't quite the best Bronze Age sound effects of all time. That goes to Walter Simonson's Thor run.
Miles: (pronounciating sound effect) Krak-a-doom!
Rachel: Alright, so we have "Phat!"
Miles: "Fabam!"
Rachel: "Skreek!" And I wanna point out that this is actually a great sound effect, it's the sound of Wolverine trying to cut Juggernaut up, and it does exactly what a sound effect should do, which is evoke a really specific, and in this case, absolutely horrible noise.
Miles: "Zrrak!"
Rachel: "Fop!"
Miles: "Bwok!"
Rachel: "Kadamm!"
Miles: "Rakow!"
Rachel: That one has an exclamation point after it. Writers, and letterers, who don't appreciate putting exclamation points after sound effects are people who I don't understand. There is a lot I love about hand-lettering, and about old-school lettering, and my absolute favorite thing about it is the way sound effects interact with art, the way the sound effects aren't just sort of a stand-in for description, but a really active visual component of the storytelling. And this-this era does that beautifully. We're gonna- I'm gonna put together at some point this week just a gallery of rad Bronze Age sound effects.
Miles: Nice, and you-you can pepper them into your day-to-day life, like, if-if-if you ever don't know how to respond to something, just hold up "Zrrak!" or whatever.
Rachel: If you know, you can't think of a Claremontism to yell during sex.
Miles: [laughs] And if you can't, then we haven't done our jobs. So, okay, anyway, they-they-they beat Black Tom, and Juggernaut, and everything's fine, and so they head back, and they're trying to rent a hovercraft to get back.
(21:14) 
Rachel: Now we're into X-Men #104. They're headed to Muir Island, which is-is Moira McTaggert's facility. Again, all they really know about her is that she's Xavier's housekeeper and she knows some stuff. So they go and try to rent this hovercraft, and they completely fail.
Miles: 'Cause they-they show off, they're all in costume, and presumably still pretty banged up from their-their big fight. The hovercraft rental guy - I guess that's a job, hovercraft rental guy?
Rachel: Yeah, I love that hovercrafts are just a thing you can rent. 
Miles: I-I think they in real life, presumably.
Rachel: Are they? 
Miles: I don't know. Let's try, after this episode. We can go home in a hovercraft, instead of our car. So, he's like, "Wait, I- you guys are kinda freakin' me out, 'cause, like, you're all bloody and dressed in bright colors and I'm just a mustache hovercraft guy."
Rachel: If you're a gamer, you know this scene. This is the scene where your D&D party goes and tries to do something without cleaning up after a fight, and then fails all their social rolls. 
Miles: Right, they're like, "Oh, shit, I guess we-we should have probably changed into normal civilian clothes," and-and you'll- you know the guy playing Wolverine's like, "Nonononono, uh, clearly a superhero of my level would never make a mistake like this. I gotta reroll that, let's start this scene over," and the GM's like, "Nope, nope, you guys didn't say, so we're goin' with it."
Rachel: Oh god, Wolverine is the munchkin. That's why he doesn't even have a name. He's the person who's-who's player spent so much time min-maxing him and like, optimizing him for-for physical combat that he has no social stats, no name, and maybe a character class? 
Miles: So this makes me respect Banshee even more, because clearly Banshee's player is all about, like, subtle backstory and character bits without having- needing the character to be sort of the center of the story.
Rachel: Yeah, Banshee's player is the guy who wrote,  like, ten pages of character development. "I don't, y'know, expect you to work this in or anything, but I just want you to know it's there."
Miles: More love for Banshee. More hate for Wolverine. Excellent. They end up just stealing the hovercraft, and like, hanging the guy by, by his collar from a wall, like, that doesn't seem like a very superhero thing to do, but--
Rachel: [crosstalk] It-it is again, you know, X-Men as D&D, and just, "Y'know, fuck it, we're all just optimized for combat anyway."
(22:57)
Miles: [crosstalk] Yeah. And so they're-they're-they're going in their hovercraft and they-they get to..near Muir Island, and all of a sudden all this metal crap starts flying around, a-and-and they're just picked up on this big island of earth and a-are about to be thrown against the wall of Muir Island, and guess who, it is our buddy, the miraculous Magneto.
Rachel: This is his first appearance in the Claremont X-Men.
Miles: Uh, yeah, yeah, he hasn't shown up since the Silver Age.
Rachel: And, appropriately, he gets a really good opening speech. Chris Claremont - we-we talked about Claremont dialog and how it can be just really purple and overwrought, and sometimes that work, and sometimes it doesn't, and one of the places it always works is with Magneto. Miles, would you, would you like to roll us into this?
Miles: Yes. Yes I would. [as Magneto] "Greetings, X-Men. I bid you welcome to the site of your final battleground. You are going to die here, mutants, and not all your powers, nor your skills can save you from my wrath. Look on me, X-Men, for I am your oldest, deadliest foe, master of the Legion of Evil Mutants, and soon to be lord of all the world. I! Am! Magneto!"
Rachel: Oh, god, I love Magneto so much. 
Miles: I just wanna talk like that all the time. So, they fight, and, uh, Magneto just totally trounces them.
Rachel: Yeah, they- he-he demolishes them. They're- they do not stand a chance, and they are- this is the second really big fight they've lost in like, three issues.
Miles: And then at that point, Cyclops and Moira, uh, they-they show up, and, um, Cyclops says, "Hey, I'm making a call. You guys are not ready, we need to get the hell out of here."
Rachel: [crosstalk] And he is super pissed off to be there, because again, he wanted to stay with Jean, and..then, um, Moira tried to get in touch with her lab assistant. Oh, and it becomes evident over this that Moira is a hardcore scientist, this is her super-intense lab research facility, and-and Banshee starts worrying that he's totally outclassed, which, everyone is kind of outclassed by her? She's-she's super hardcore mad scientist.
Miles: Mm-hm. She also has, uh, Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, as her lab assistant-
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah.
Miles: [crosstalk] --who will go on to become one of the best characters in the Marvel Universe. For right now, he's just a dude with not much personality, and a really dumb suit.
Rachel: I don't think you even see him use his powers in this.
Miles: No, he's just sort of on the ground, having got knocked over.
Rachel: There's something else I want to go back to about Magneto, because the last time that we saw Magneto in the Marvel Universe was in Defenders #16 --
Miles: [crosstalk] Oh...
Rachel: [crosstalk] --in which Professor X had turned him into a baby.
Miles: Let's just not...let's just not talk about that.
Rachel: Well, that's gonna become plot relevant in a few issues.
Miles: But it's so dumb. 
Rachel: It is super dumb. So, can we compromise? Can we just- can we just take it as read that that happened, and as we will find out, the reason that he's now an adult is out good old bondage Viking pal, Erik the Red, again.
Miles: I like how Eric the Red has a turn-you-into-not-a-baby-anymore ray.
Rachel: Yeah, like, he really wants the X-Men dead, but he doesn't quite care enough to act directly, so he just basically throws super villains in jars with them and shakes them to make them fight.
Miles: [laughs] That's a really great mental image.
Rachel: So, the X-Men get thoroughly trounced, Cyclops shows up, they all retreat.
Miles: Right, they just straight-up run away, and Magneto's like, "Ha ha, I am victorious, that's awesome!"
Rachel: And again, what this emphasizes is that these are still really new X-Men. They are not good at teamwork. They are not good at working together yet. They're really not equipped to face the kinds of villains who the original X-Men were fighting by the end of their tenure.
Miles: That being said, they are about to be thrown into some really over the top shit.
Rachel: The greatest fight of their lives. 
Miles: That's like every issue in Claremont.
Rachel: But this might actually be.
(26:07) 
Miles: We'll just cover this next part really briefly, because it's not important.
Rachel: They get home, and guess who's there?
Miles: It's Erik the Red.
Rachel: Again.
Miles: [imitating horn] Womp-womp. They fight him, and he's actually being kind of a pushover, and they're like, "Wait, what's-what's going on here, this dude's really formidable," and it turns out what he's doing is looking like he's being innocently attacked by these-these evil, evil X-Men, so that Firelord, who's the former Herald of the, uh, the planet devouring, uh, purple pantslessness aficionado, Galactus, will say, "Hey, hey, stop picking on my buddy. You guys are jerks!"
Rachel: Um, and this is- this is the second type of-of fight that Erik sets up. So there- there's are the ones he finds people who hate the X-Men are l- and are like, "Hey, you wanna, like, kill the X-Men some more?" and they're like, "Sure!" So that's-that's Black Tom, and Juggernaut, and Magneto, and then there's the second kind, where he takes someone and mani- either manipulates or mind controls them, so that's Havok and Polaris, and, here, Firelord.
Miles: Yeah, and we find out that the way he got Firelord on his side was that he had Havok and Polaris attack him. Now, it's kind of unclear whether he released his brainwashing of Havok and Polaris so that this would happen, or whether he just told them to act like they were attacking him. It doesn't really matter, but they say, "Hey, someone's seen us taking out Erik the Red, it's another alien. Kill it!" And so Firelord beats the crap out of Havok and Polaris, and joins up with Erik.
Rachel: [crosstalk] See, that's what makes me think that they're mind-controlled, the "Kill it!" specifically, because they're-they're not really that bloodthirsty. [laughs]
Miles: It's true, I mean, Havok can be kind of a douchebag, but not to that degree.
Rachel: Yeah, Polaris has - and again, Polaris has super villain moments, but just the out-of-nowhere "It's an alien, he saw us doing crimes, kill him"? when they steal a bunch of sushi and don't pay for it.
Miles: [laughs] Repo Man references, nice, nice.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah.
Miles: [crosstalk] Um, so Firelord fights the X-Men, and, uh, trounces them. I-it's a really bad day to be the X-Men, it's just one thing after another.
(27:39) 
Rachel: Except! Meanwhile...in space...
Miles: [as Narrator] "Meanwhile, in space..."
Rachel: [as Narrator] "Meanwhile, in space -" the Shi'ar. And, this is our first introduction to the Shi'ar as more than, like, faces on a screen, or artifacts of X's nightmares. When we first see them, the Shi'ar are basically cosplaying Star Trek, the original series. Like, down to the captain's log, to, y'know, references to the Prime Directive, the layout of the bridge of their spaceship, so-so basically the-the Shi'ar are at this point bird Starfleet.
Miles: So the Shi'ar, um, we find out that they're, uh, after Lilandra, um, that she's basically an escapee from the Shi'ar Empire.
Rachel: She was the admiral of their-their Starfleet or whatever, and she's the younger sister of the Emperor D'ken, she has betrayed him--
Miles: [crosstalk] Y-you said it wrong. Mad Emperor D'Ken.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Sor-sorry, right, right, Mad Emperor D'Ken, uh, she has betrayed him, she tried to take down the Empire, and she has fled to Earth, using some kind of telepathic connection with Charles Xavier, and we know this because she shows up at Jean Grey and Misty Knight's apartment while Jean, Misty, Charles Xavier and Jean's parents are sitting and having tea.
Miles: It's like, bam!, bird lady, teleporting in. What's up? 
Rachel: The Greys are just like, "...okay?"
Miles: "Our lives have gotten so weird since this bald dude showed up."
Rachel: Man, I feel so bad for the Greys in this whole story. I feel bad for the Greys in general, their lives are just horrible, but like, in this story in-in particular.
Miles: Later on, they totally all get murdered.
Rachel: By the Shi'ar! Again, like, the Shi'ar just fuck things up for the Greys nonstop. 
Miles: Terrible Shi'ar.
Rachel: Freaking bird jerks.
Miles: At this point, the X-Men are heading back, to, uh, where Xavier is, because Firelord said he's gonna take out Xavier for Erik the Red, and they all fight, and Phoenix, this is the first part--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, Firelord breaks- just breaks down the wall of the apartment.
Miles: Yeah, and this is the first time we ever see Jean manifest her Phoenix powers. And she is so, so powerful, like, she's just, y- just shooting out crazy blasts of telekinetic flame and stuff.
Rachel: Now, it's been hinted that there's something more to Phoenix than just sort of a rebirth of Jean and the amping up of her powers, but this is the first time we really get a window into just how powerful Phoenix might be.
Miles: Yeah, because uh, Firelord's just been mopping the floor with all of the X-Men, and we've seen him in previous Marvel comics, um, y'know, he's a herald of Galactus, he's very, very strong.
Rachel: And, Phoenix just takes him down.
Miles: I think she, um, she uses her powers to knock him about 8 miles away from the battle. 
Rachel: So while Firelord is fighting the Phoenix, Erik the Red sees his actual quarry, Lilandra, has shown up, grabs her, throws up a quick space portal, jumps through it, and disappears.
Miles: And, uh, Xavier, without really explaining, so he's sort of had this telepathic contact and talked with her a bit, says, "X-Men, I- there's no time to explain, you have got to save her, it is seriously so important."
Rachel: The portal's closed at this point, but again, hardcore powered-up Phoenix is just like, boom, reopens.
Miles: "Right, reopen the space portal I don't understand." And they jump through, into this wonderful tableau, that's just full of aliens and-and spandex, and a big crystal, and bird people, and it is one of the best openings for an issue ever.
Rachel: But before that, while they're fighting Firelord, there's a cameo that I wanna point out, which is--
Miles: [crosstalk] Oh yeah.
Rachel: So this is- this is the point where reality breaks. In this panel, we see Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum writing the same panel that they're currently in.
Miles: It's great!
Rachel: I love, like the number of creator cameos that show up during this run.
Miles: And also, um, if the art in this panel is correct, then Dave Cockrum at the time had a truly impressive masculine beard.
Rachel: Uh, Claremont and Cockrum aside, the X-Men have leapt through this portal, and straight into the middle of a space-battle. There's a a big, pink crystal thing in the middle of it.
Miles: It's more fuchsia. 
Rachel: Fuchsia. And around it, there are all of these, just, yeah this wild variety of aliens, duking it out. 
Miles: Yeah, so, these- this is the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, and we're gonna see a lot of them in the future, pretty much anytime the Shi'ar show up, or anytime the X-Men go into space, the Imperial Guard are gonna be somehow involved.
Rachel: The Shi'ar Impreial Guard are another Cockrum creation, aren't they? 
Miles: Uh, yes, I believe so. 
Rachel: And they're a direct homage to DC's Legion of Superheoes, and I gather that many of them have-have direct parallels although I'm honestly not familiar enough with the Legion of Superheroes to point out whi- who, y'know, who's which.
Miles: I looked this up, actually, at this point they all do. Uh, Gladiator himself is Superboy, except purple, with a giant mohawk.
Rachel: So, Superboy but better?
Miles: Essentially, an upgraded Superboy. Um, now, what we're seeing is we're seeing the Mad Emperor D'Ken in front of the M'Kaan Crystal, about to do some terrible stuff with his sister Lilandra. And the Imperial Guard--
Rachel: [crosstalk] That- you make that sound so much filthier. Like, in- creepy and incesty than it actually is. He's about- he's about to kill her.
Miles: W- okay, yes, to clarify, he is about to kill her, not have horrible--
Rachel: Not do some stuff. Anyway, he's about- he's about to feed her to, what a Soul Drinker?
Miles: The Soul Drinker.
Rachel: And, they, y'know, the X-Men fight the Imperial Guard, and sort of manage to hold their own, Wol-Wolverine steals on of their clothing--
Miles: [crosstalk] I love this part! Like, he gets his clothing burned off by this random fire guy..
Rachel: [whistles]
Miles: ...and, uh, so he's- he-he-he sees this guy named Fang, who's kinda Wolverine looked, he's sort of bestial, he's got this orange and brown outfit with little like, teeth all over it. 
Rachel: If that sounds familiar, here's why -
Miles: Yeah, so, he-he fights Fang, and then he just steals his clothes. Uh, so, this actually reminded me, I guess you could- you could say- you could say it reminds you of Spider-Man getting the symbiote during Secret War, it's like the black costume, but it reminds me of this old issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, which I used to love when I was a kid, where the-the turtles get taken into this, um, this sort of space professional wrestling world for some reason or another.
Rachel: That happens in She-Hulk, too.
Miles: Well, there you go. And, uh, and Raphael just keeps his costume there for the whole time, 'cause he just really likes it, it's kinda like that. So, anyway, they fight, and they're all sorta holding their own, and then, we have some folks that we already talked about in a previous episode.
Rachel: They're-they're not really holding their own. They do for a little bit, but it's obvious that they're outmatched, and then, the Starjammers show up. So we talked about the Starjammers at great length two episodes ago when we talked about Cyclops and space adventures, but for a quick reminder, the Starjammers are space pirates. They're buddies of Lilandra's, they're set to take down the Shi'ar Empire, and they are led by a guy with a really nice mustache, Corsair, who is later going to turn out to be Christopher Summers, the father of Cyclops and Havok.
Miles: And it's during this-this adventure, this fight right here that Jean, Phoenix, realizes what's going on.
Rachel: And Storm finds out at this point too, and then they both just lie about it for a really long time.
Miles: Yeah. So, they all fight, until they end up in the M'Kaan crystal, essentially. They throw D'Ken in there, and they go after him.
Rachel: Let's talk about the M'Kaan crystal, because the M'Kaan crystal is basically the Nexus of universes. It's got a neutron galaxy in it, it's got a shit ton of matter and anti-matter, and it's basically - its integrity it what holds the universe together. The universe, and it's-it's insinuated heavily the multiverse together, and I would, I would love, by the way to break this down at some point with an actual astrophysicist, and talk about the extent to which the M'Kaan crystal is probably, actually, absolutely phenomenally scientifically unsound, but, but sort of break down the pseudoscience around it. Can we- can we do that at some point?
Miles: I..yeah, I would- I would love to--
Rachel: [crosstalk] I mean, obvi--
Miles: [crosstalk] --if anybody's an astrophysicist, uh, hit us up, I guess. [laughs]
Rachel: Um, it's also very, very closely connected to the Phoenix. For those of you who are hardcore into the Pheonix mythos, the M'Kaan crystal is a physical location of the White Hot Room, which we're gonna get to in..a few years.
Miles: [laughs] Probably.
Rachel: A few decades.
Miles: So, yeah. They're-they're in there, and, um, in the meantime, we keep cutting back to Earth, uh, where reality just sort of keeps briefly blinking out.
Rachel: And all of reality, like, the universe is ceasing to exist for short periods of time, because of whatever's going on in the crystal, which is some kind of mad celestial convergence.
Miles: And one of the things I really like is it keeps- it keeps cutting to different parts of the Marvel Universe, it really gives it a sense of scale. So you have..you have the Fantastic Four being really concerned, talking to- talking to Peter Corbeau, the space guys from when the X-Men were in space recently. Um, then you have the Avengers kinda freaking out...
Rachel: Jimmy Carter and his friend Joel.
Miles: Yeah, you- uh, you totally do. And the-they don't believe it, they're like, "Peter Corbeau, we-we don't know what you're talking about. You're wrong." 
Rachel: And he's like, "No, no, seriously, the universe is blinking out of existence if this keeps on happening, or accelerating, it's going to destroy itself." 
Miles: Yeah, and so, none of them can actually do anything about this, but it really us gives a sense of importance to what the X-Men are doing, they are fighting to save not just- not just like, New York, not just the Earth, but existence, reality itself.
Rachel: But they are matched. The M'Kraan cry- I mean, everyone's outmatched by the M'Kaan crystal, the M'Kaan crystal is, again, literally the heart of reality. It basically traps them all in nightmares and the only- the only person in it who can really interact with it is Phoenix. And I'm saying Phoenix and not Jean, and that's important, because is the first time we really actually get a glimpse of the Phoenix Force, and what it is. Again, it's been teased that it's something outs- you know, something external to Jean, or might be. This is the first time we see just how external it is, that it is something that is infinitely larger, older and more powerful.
Miles: I do like that Claremont doesn't really explain what the nature of the Phoenix is, he just sort of gets at something big is going on, it's really weird, it's really important.
Rachel: And the Phoenix inside the M'Kraan crystal rewrites the universe. The universe is falling apart, it's-it's literally disintegrating. What happens in the crystal..is self-contradictory and complex, and I-I get the impression that that's deliberate. But, for all practical purposes, the Phoenix recreates the universe, based on it and Jean's memories.
Miles: Now, it can't do so by itself, and Jean/Phoenix realizes that it's gonna need life force from other people, and Storm volunteers, and Jean says, "No, that-that'll kill you! That'll kill you. But maybe if there are more people involved, we can all link together and make this happen.
Rachel: So they grab Corsair, and, um, they get him to do it by making backstory references. Then eventually the rest of the X-Men. This is a place where the narration and the captions..just work beautifully, and the art is absolutely stunning. I'm gonna put some of these panels on the blog, just so you can- you can see some of that juxtaposition of art and narration, because Cockrum just beautifully conveys the grandiosity and the power and scope of the Phoenix, which is this thing that is so powerful that is can go toe to toe with, again, you know, the-the Nexus universes, and it can rewrite reality.
Miles: I wanna read some of the narration here, because it is Claremont at his best, in my opinion. "Reality twists. Collapses. Reforms. The strain more than mind or body can bear, and she no longer knows whether she's bird form or human, whether she's trapped within the sphere, or grown so large she dwarfs the entire solar system. She falters, panic seizing her as she realizes that for all her awesome powers she still can't do it alone. And then suddenly she isn't alone. The spirits of the X-Men are with her, giving of themselves as Storm and Corsair gave. In that instant, as she feels her power, the power of her friends sing with her, as she re-energizes the energy lattice, it's as if a door has opened before her eyes. A new new pattern forms, shaped like the mystic tree of life, with Xavier its lofty crown and Colossus its base. Each X-Man has a place, each a purpose greater than himself or herself. And the heart of the tree, the catalyst that binds these wayward souls together is Phoenix. Tiferet. Child of the sun, child of life. The vision of the harmony of things." It's so over the top, but the art just really ties it together, it's just this majestic, this genuinely majestic scene. 
Rachel: Something I noticed rereading this - I read through all this initially in order, years and years ago - is how much the stuff happening that she's trying to stop in the M'Kaan crystal predicts the Dark Phoenix.
Miles: Yeah. It's very much that sense of sort of apocalyptic creation and destruction.
Rachel: And scope, and again, the Phoenix is-is tied..inherently to the M'Kaan crystal, and that's-that's something we're gonna, we're gonna go into more later, but for now what happens is..she fixes it, she fixes reality. Um, the strain of having been thrown into the crystal and everything else - D'Ken comes out catatonic, Lilandra is obviously going to be forgiven and is going to end up Imperiatrix, but she's still banished temporarily to Earth, where she and Professor Xavier promptly hook up.
Miles: Right.So, anyway, after this, some stuff happens, they fight some kind of forgettable villains, while--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, they go back- they go back to Earth and have some fairly mundane adventures. 
Miles: Where we mentioned before, we're gonna skip over some stuff. This stuff is stoppable, we're gonna be referencing some of it later as certain parts appear.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Yeah, if it- if it becomes relevant we'll bring it up at that point, but you don't really need it for now. Um, #108, the-the issue where they repair the M'Kaan crystal, the end of the space adventure, is Dave Cockrum's last issue. It's dedicated to him, along with a footnote that he's still alive, which I think is really [laughs] charming, and from there John Byrne picks up, and John Byrne is the second Claremont Era X-Artist, and he and Cockrum, I think, more than any other two artists are associated with this run. And Byrne is eventually gonna be the dude who draws the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Miles: For me, the X-Men, in my head, they still look like they're drawn by John Byrne, I think they always will.
Rachel: Yeah.
(39:29)
Miles: So, anyway, the X-Men get back to Earth, and some kind of forgettable stuff happens, whatever.
Rachel: Yeah, they fight some stuff in the Danger Room, they get kidnapped by Mesmero, and, um, tricked into joining a circus which is something that actually happens a lot in X-Men?
Miles: Kind of a weird trope, it's true.
Rachel: At that point, Beast comes back frees them, joins the team.
Miles: Right in time to fight Magneto again! Yay, it's Magneto, we love Magneto.
Rachel: And he's not working for Erik this time, he's just a dick.
Miles: So, um, he shows up, and um, I get to do another speech. [as Magneto] "Greetings, X-Men. I trust you're all quite recovered from Mesmero's mind games. We have unfinished business, you and I. If you'll remember, when last we met, I swore that not all your powers, nor your skills would save you from my wrath, and they will not! This time, the final victory will belong to Magneto!" 
Rachel: I like how Magneto cares about continuity.
Miles: Yeah, 'cause, if you notice, he references his exact wording from the last big threat he gave them.
Rachel: In which he also references, you know, his-his last previous appearance, so, we mentioned that the whole thing where Magneto gets turned into a baby is gonna become relevant again, and it does.
Miles: So yeah, he-he takes them from the Earth, in, uh, like the circus cart that they're in, into space.
Rachel: Because Magneto.
Miles: And-and then, uh, takes them down to Anarc- Antarctica, into a volcano, where he's got this giant base built, it's like 5 miles across.
Rachel: And this is- this is when Magneto is still just a straight up super villain. He ca- really hasn't become the interesting sympathetic foil to Xavier that he'll be later, but again, I appreciate how much- how committed he is to really doing the super villain schtick right. Like, he has a subterranean volcano base.
Miles: Ah, it actually mentions he's got multiple subterranean volcano bases uh, at different places on Earth.
Rachel: God, I love Magneto.
Miles: That's just what he does, like, when he's- when he's, uh, not fighting superheroes he's just building subterranean volcano bases. 
Rachel: Later on, it's gonna be satellites.
Miles: Uh, well, he still has Asteroid M at this point, as well.
Rachel: This is kind of ridiculous.
Miles: He's like one of those politicians with a bunch of different homes, and they get in big tax scandals about it.
Rachel: Magneto is the 1% of super villains?
Miles: [laughs] He totally is. Well, him and Doom. So, the X-Men and Magneto fight, and y'know, we-we don't need to go into great detail, uh, effectively they lose again. Phoenix al-almost takes him out, but she's not fully able to, and Magneto straight-up defeats the X-Men, and they do not manage to escape this time.
Rachel: This leads us to something we managed to avoid talking about last episode, but are going to have to ad-address eventually, which is Chris Claremont and weird fetish stuff.
Miles: Yeah...well, and specifically, Chris Claremont's run probably generating some weird fetishes in an entire generation of readers.
Rachel: [crosstalk] Oh my god, yeah, there's-there's-there's a generation of people who are like, 13-18, in the late 70s and early 80s and reading comics, who can probably sit down and trace a large number of kinks back to this run.
Miles: So, specifically, at- uh, the X-Men--
Rachel: [crosstalk] This - at this point, this is so weird.
Miles: --they wake up in these sort of--
Rachel: [crosstalk] So weird.
Miles: [crosstalk] --machine chair things, hooked into these computers, and the deal is the circuitry that's wired into their brains makes it so they only have the same motor control as six month old babies, like--
Rachel: Because Magneto really resents having been turned into a baby, so he's like, "Revenge!"
Miles: Yeah.
Rachel: "Really precise spot-on revenge! And I even built a robot, to like, be your nanny, so you're gonna be stuck in this weird ageplay thing forever."
Miles: The robot nanny, she takes care of the X-Men like babies, so she feeds Logan and scolds him for spitting out the food--
Rachel: [crosstalk] And threatens to bathe them and stuff and it's just- it's-it's, um, it's unsettling.
Miles: It is. And eventually, I love this part, so Storm is the one that gets them out, because she's got lockpicks in her headdress, which, okay, I'll totally buy, she was a thief for a long time.
Rachel: Yeah.
Miles: But what she says is that, when she was a 6 month old baby, she had the coordination of a-a-a of a little girl, for some reason.
Rachel: She also had, you know, the coherent memories of that. That's pretty solidly established in the Cassidy Keep story, that, like, Baby Storm had...had object permanence, and cognition, and the-the ability to understand and form com-complex memories, so..I will actually buy that.
Miles: Storm is pretty awesome.
Rachel: I mean, none of it makes any sense, but it y- doesn't make sense in consistent ways.
Miles: So, she lets the X-Men out, they attack Magneto, they ambush him, and this time, they actually win, because they're working as a team, they've had time to coordinate.
Rachel: Unfortunately, they win in a giant metal base, that's under a volcano.
Miles: So the whole place just--
Rachel: [crosstalk] Which is- which is the literal definition of a Pyrrhic victory, I wanna point out.
Miles: [laughs] Yes, it is. So, uh, the base blows the fuck up, and Magneto flies away and escapes, Jean and Beast get trapped, uh, you know, on one side of some rubble, and they escape in this big Phoenix burst-
Rachel: [crosstalk] They-they escape into-into the snow of Antarctica.
Miles: Uh, and then promptly fall unconscious, and the other X-Men, as far as we know, were crushed to death by..a volcano. And so it's this wonderful, wonderful cliffhanger, which is where we're gonna leave off too. Because that's all time we have for, uh, talking about issues today. We do have some question, however.
(43:53) 
Miles: So this is from David Crooked Knight on Twitter: "Do the X-Books really rely on heroes coming back to life more than other superhero comics?"
Rachel: No. 
Miles: I-I'll clarify a little there. I think it's more prominent, the whole resurrection thing in X-Men just simply because Jean's storyline..
Rachel: Yeah, there's a character who's themed around it.
Miles: [crosstalk] Yeah.
Rachel: [crosstalk] So, you see it more in that context, but I-I think, I think that the-the-the revolving door of death is - I'm not gonna go through and count instances, but I would gamble that you'd see about even distribution. And also, y'know, Professor X fakes his death all the time, like, that's his thing, so, you might see a little bit more of it there, but that-that's all. So, uh, James, uh, McGee or McGuy, sorry if I'm butchering this, on Twitter asks: "How long did it take for Magneto to get that Holocaust survivor backstory, and not just be generically evil?"
Miles: As we've mentioned, um, in this episode, Magneto, he's-he's just sort of a bad guy at this point. He's a really grandiloquent uh, bad guy, which I love, but um..
Rachel: Props for working that word in. It's a great word.
Miles: It's a very Magneto word. So his backstory actually first shows up in X-Men #150, um, X-Men has a habit of, anytime there's a big milestone-sounding number of having really big stuff happen, and that's where Magneto also also starts to kind of develop a distinct personality, and he becomes the morally grey complex villain that we've come to love so much. I would say - i-it's also interesting that at this point, I- they-they kept going back and forth on what Magneto's deal was. Like, we knew he was a Holocaust, um, but it sorta went back and forth on whether he was - his family were Jews, or gypsies, Romani. Uh, eventually they did decide that his family was Jewish, and the movies have obviously settled on that. But it really wasn't until X-Men #150 um, that Magneto stopped just being a-a dude who liked speeches and red and purple.
Rachel: And becomes a person.
Miles: Alright, so, last question, this is from HouseToAstonish, Al Kennedy: "Uh, whatever happened to all those weird powers Claremont gave the X-Men and forgot about? Like, Kurt literally turning invisible in shadow or Storm using her powers to change her clothes?"
Rachel: Okay. So here's the thing about the X-Men. Their powers are not written consistently. They never have been, the probably never will be. The thing with Storm isn't actually that powers-related, it's because their costumes are made of unstable molecules, and that immediately gets forgotten, because later on, um, Jean is going to use that same trick to sh-show of just how amazingly powerful the Phoenix has made her. Um, so that's-that's not even entirely relevant. Uh, Nightcrawler being invisible in shadow, as Miles mentioned earlier - some people remember to do it, some people don't, but again, that's not really specific to Claremont Era powers. Y'know, magnetism, what it does, what it, what it can do is another great example of something that-that you just kind of have to run with at every- any given appearance. Uh, Cyclops's powers are another one. Officially, they're just force, they get written as heat about half the time, you can nitpick that. We do nitpick that, but there's a point where you've gotta accept that these are not gonna be consistent and if you need them to be, this is probably not the comic for you.
Miles: Okay, that's we- all we have for you today, listeners. Rachel, do you wanna take us out?
Rachel: "Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" is recorded at the Rose Way in Portland, Oregon, and produced by Bobby Roberts who's also co-host of the awesome "Welcome to That Whole Thing" which you can check out at welcometothatwholething.com.
Miles: If you're enjoying the show, please take a minute to rate and review us on iTunes or Stitcher, and check out our shop at rachelandmiles.redbubble.com for t-shirts and stickers.
Rachel: You can find a visual companion to this episode, as well as blog posts, fanart and additional fun at rachelandmiles.com. 
Miles: Next week, Wolverine beats up a pterosaur, Cyclops grows a mustache, and everyone gets possessed. See you next time.
[Outro: Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song]
Category:Podcast episodes
Category:Transcribed