Episode 007 - Cyclops Has a Good Day

## Episode Description

In which death is a revolving door, we really liked Days of Future Past, space pirates are the best pirates, Vulcan is (still) the worst, Miles has a Corsair costume, Lilandra has lovely plumage, no one knows how to pronounce “M’Kraan,” we studiously avoid discussing the Phoenix force, Saurids speak Hebrew, Raza Longknife’s name is a bit on the nose, Rachel is the worst at hugs, Greg has a ‘ship, and we all kind of identify with Cyclops.

## Cold Open

The revolving door nature of death in the X-Verse is discussed. Special guest Greg Rucka explains how Corsair will be returning in the new Cyclops series. (The explanation is bleeped out.)

## X-Plained

* The Starjammers (and how to pronounce their names)
* The Shi’ar
* The Neremani Dynasty
* Plumage
* Apostrophe abuse
* Corsair
* The secret origins of the Starjammers
* Why Hepzibah talks like that
* The Rule of Cool
* Visor iterations
* Summerstaches
* Cyclops’s dubious deductive skills
* Hugs
* The All-New, All-the-Same X-Men
* Teenagers, again
* Cyclops #1
* Cyclops vs. Scott
* Space-parenting
* Rachel’s convention sketchbook
* Greg’s Kitty Pryde feelings
* An exceptionally vivid threat
* Intergalactic fashion
* Corsair’s pecs
* Key parties in space
* The greatest romance of the Marvel Universe

## Listener Questions

* There seem to be 4 X-genres: save the world stories, oppression stories, time travel stories, and space stories. The first three make sense to me as flowing naturally from their premise - even time travel makes sense, because the X-Men have a very specific goal, and these stories show what happens when they don't succeed. But why wacky space adventures? To this day space stories seem to be really popular, even though it seems 100% random for these characters.
* If the Starjammers got a new ship that wasn't called the Starjammer, would they still be Starjammers?
* Do you suppose the character of Vulcan can be "salvaged"?

## 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, I was thinking about death

**Rachel:** Thanos's girlfriend? Or wait - or the one in the bikini? Or the vertigo one? Y'know, with the ankh? Y'know, Miles, you've gotta be more specific about these things.

**Miles:** No, like death. Like, the revolving door kind. In X-Men.

**Rachel:** OH! With a lowercase d.

**Miles:** Yeah, like they're gonna be killing off Wolverine in some big crossover event coming up, but at this point it's a foregone conclusion that he'll be back.

**Rachel:** Well, yeah. A-listers always come back.

**Miles:** Colossus?

**Rachel:** Reanimated by Ord of Breakworld.

**Miles:** Shadowcat?

**Rachel:** Retrieved from space by Magneto, then killed, and then reanimated in the space of an issue by Ord's lady friend.

**Miles:** Professor X?

**Rachel:** Usually turns out to be faking it.

**Miles:** Magneto?

**Rachel:** Much like Keith Richards, I’m pretty sure Magneto can no longer be killed by conventional weaponry.

**Miles:** Cyclops?

**Rachel:** Was just mostly dead.

**Miles:** Corsair?

**Rachel:** Man, you know, I have no idea. But I bet Greg Rucka does. Hey Greg, how's Corsair back from the dead?

**Greg:**  Oh, no, no, no. We talked about this. I’m not gonna X-plain anything that's gonna be a plot point in the series.

**Miles:** It's okay, we can ask Bobby to bleep out any spoilers in post.

**Greg:**   [*sighs*] Alright, well, um: After \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*, what happens is \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* recovers the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* and then they take it to one of those big \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*s where they put it underneath a large \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* and they slide \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* and once they have the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* parts, they put it in a \*\*\*\* of \*\*\*\*\*\* which people of course could \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* but nobody's really going to \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*. Once they \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* this fashion, they then proceed to \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* throughout the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* using him as a \*\*\*\*\*\*\* against members of this \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* in such a way that he is \*\*\*\*\*\*\* exact his \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* revenge.

**Rachel/Miles:** WHAT?!

(01:21)

[Intro: *Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song*]

**Rachel:** I’m Rachel Edidin.**Miles:** 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 7th 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:** So, X-Men: Days of Future Past - the movie -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] is so good.

**Miles:** It - it actually is really, really good. I was kind of blown away.

**Rachel:** Can we talk about this for a minute? Because we led up to it last time and I have been wanting to talk about this movie with you all week, 'cause I watched it on Tuesday, and then there was this three day gap where you hadn't seen it and it was like being cut off from the hivemind and it was horrible.

**Miles:** I-I’m sorry! I’m just really spoilerphobic.

**Rachel:** I don't - I don't - I don't know how to be excited about X-Men without you, it's - it's really, it's really fucked up. It's like not having hands.

**Miles:** Should we see a therapist about this? Is this okay?

**Rachel:** I think it's okay.

**Miles:** *X-Men: Days of Future Past* is a really good movie, uh, we talked last time about what we thought you should see beforehand. We're gonna amend that list. We said *X-Men: The Last Stand* and *X-Men: First Class* -

**Rachel:** But you don't actually need to watch *X-Men: The Last Stand*, which is great, because no one should ever have to watch *X-Men: The Last Stand*.

**Miles:** So, if you're going to see *X-Men: Days of Future Past*, then the one to see before it is *X-Men: First Class*. That should really give you all you need to know. Now Rachel, you've also been playing the *Days of Future Past*, uh, mobile game that came out, right?

**Rachel:** Yeah, Glitchsoft was nice enough to send us a download code. I’m not very far in it because I’m really, really bad at platformers, but it's a lot of fun. It's based really directly on the comic, so if you're looking for an adaptation that's you know, the the originals, and Kitty Pryde's the main character and stuff like that and has a lot of like comic book easter eggs - it's really fun, again, it's very playable so far, I think I’m about seven levels in.

**Miles:** An aside for all of our listeners - we don't really advertise at all. We uh - yes we were given a code. We're never, ever going to promote anything we don't actively like, though, so we - you have our word on that.

**Rachel:** We don't get paid for this, our opinions are our own, we don't speak for Marvel, the Shi'ar Empire, the Jean Grey School, the Xavier Academy, or anyone else.

**Miles:** Actually, I am a duly appointed representative of the Shi'ar Empire. I probably should have discussed that with you.

**Rachel:** God damn it.

**Miles:** I just - ah I just didn't know how to bring it up.

**Rachel:** Dude! Its - seriously?

**Miles:** We'll talk after the episode.

**Rachel:** What the hell, man?

(03:21)

**Miles:** [*chuckles*] Anyway, this week we're joined in the studio by writer Greg Rucka, who's here to help us explain the Starjammers and get into the details of his Cyclops ongoing series, which premiered this month.

**Greg:**    Yeah, if the Starjammers are explicable - and I’m not sure they are.

**Miles:** We're gonna explick as hard as we can!

**Greg:**    [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** Or die trying.

**Greg:**    Explick away.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** So, for both of those subjects, we should probably start with one point, which is Cyclops' dad, Corsair. Corsair is in charge of the Starjammers.

**Miles:** I really like Corsair. I might like Corsair a little too much.

**Rachel:** You might have a Corsair costume.

**Miles:** I mean, there was a space party, and I could have gone Star Trek, or actual space history -

**Rachel:** You might have shaved the beard that you've had since high school for your Corsair costume.

**Miles:** I stand by that decision.

**Rachel:** It looked pretty amazing. We're gonna post pictures in the as mentioned on - it's - it's a beautiful costume.

**Miles:** [*chuckles*] I’m gonna be famous.

**Greg:**  [*chuckles*]

**Rachel:** [*laughs*]

**Miles:** Uh, so, Corsair's basic history: So, Corsair is a dude named Christopher Summers. Now, if you've listened to previous episodes, we've mentioned him. He's the father of Scott Summers (Cyclops), Alex Summers (Havok), and Gabriel Summers.

**Rachel:** The worst Summers.

**Miles:** Uh, Vulcan, who's..kind of a big mess. Um, but was a big deal for a long time.

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] The optional Summers.

**Miles:** [*laughs*] The - the - the third Summers, if one so chooses. So, the known Summerses at the time - that's Christopher, his wife Katherine, and Scott and Alex, they were in a plane, 'cause Christopher is a pilot - was a pilot.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] He's a -

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] Air Force pilot.

**Miles:** They were just, you know, flying around, doing their thing, and all of a sudden, terrible things happen, the ship is [*dramatically*] out of control!

**Miles:** Uh, plane. It's not - it's just a plane, at this point. And, uh,

**Greg:**   [*laughs*]

**Miles:** Christopher and Katherine, to save their sons, eject Scott and Alex with the one parachute.

**Rachel:** And that leads into Havok and Cyclops' backstories, which are irrelevant for our purposes.

**Miles:** But very tragic.

**Rachel:** What happens to Christopher and Katherine: they get beamed up onto the Shi'ar ship that has been firing on them.

**Miles:** Now, the Shi'ar. I suppose we should talk a little bit about them.

**Rachel:** Can we make Greg explain them?

**Miles:** Greg, would you like to explain the Shi'ar in four sentences or less?

**Greg:**   The Shi'ar are one of the main Marvel galaxy empire forces. They look like birds, and they can't decide if they're going or coming.

**Miles:** A-as far as the bird thing, that always confused me as a reader when I was a kid, 'cause they-they kind of have feathers but they also just kind of have weird - like um, the hair of the Centauri in Babylon 5, it almost -

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*]: Yeah.

**Miles:** Reminded me of that. Kind of - How would that look in three dimensions?

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*]: Lilandra has the best feathers.

**Miles:** She does. I’m pretty sure that's why she is most often the leader of the Shi'ar.

**Greg:**    I - I think they do it on the basis of plumage, yes.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**   That's as logical as anything else!

**Miles:** [*laughs*] This is absolutely true. X-Men.

**Rachel:** They're also really into apostrophes. And we should qualify that there are -

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] Yeah, they are everything. They're every name.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] There are gonna be a lot of names in this episode that none of us are quite sure how to pronounce so bear with us as we butcher those.

**Greg:**    Yeah, the - as the - speaking as the writer on some of these, when I type the names, I just assume it's a guttural pause. Or a glottal stop on everything, like Lil - landra.

**Miles:** She was actually the only one that never had a - a visible apostrophe, which always confused me.

**Greg:**    Yeah, but she should.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** She traded hers for extra plumage.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**    That's it. That's exactly - it's beautiful, plumage.

(06:06)

**Miles:** So yeah, we - we have a few uh Shi'ar who are gonna be significant over the course of X-Men, and they are actually - most of them have the last name which is Neramani. We have Lilandra herself, who we've mentioned, um, there's also her brother, the Mad Emperor D'Ken and I kind of feel like you can't just say D'Ken, you have to say Mad Emperor D'Ken pretty much every time he comes up.

**Rachel:** Yeah, it's sort of like you can - you have to say Adam X the X-Treme.

**Miles:** Exactly! And then we have Cal'syee who's their other sister, who's also known as Deathbird.

**Rachel:** And she was just called Deathbird for a really long time, but relatively recently, it turned out that Deathbird is actually a rank in the Shi'ar military. I think we should just keep calling her Deathbird, because there's not gonna be another one in this episode, and it's a lot easier to pronounce.

**Miles:** Also, Cal'syee sounds way too much like khaleesi and that's an entirely different franchise. The Shi'ar, their stories tend to be going with that - uh, that - those mentioned siblings, largely about who's sitting on the throne at any given time. Um, usually it's some kind of a war between these siblings, not always, or between the Shi'ar and another alien race.

**Rachel:** They're also in the possession of the - and, this is gonna be one of those other things that I’m not sure how to pronounce - mm-kraan crystal? Um-kraan crystal?

**Miles:** I always said em-kraan.

**Rachel:** The em - [*sighs*]

**Miles:** Do you have your own pronunciation?

**Greg:**    I’m with em-kraan.

**Rachel:** Okay, the - the -

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] Why complicate it? You get to say it in your head however you want.

**Rachel:** The M'Kraan crystal, which is basically the - the nexus of reality in or at least of 616. Uh, we're not gonna go into that, but again, the Shi'ar have that. That's how powerful they are as a - as a space empire in the Marvel Universe.

**Greg:**    Yet they can't seem to get their government to work.

**Miles:** They really can't. Um, you know, again, much like the - the Roman Empire, except space and birds.

**Greg:**    Mm.

**Miles:** Slight difference there. So, Lilandra, she first came into X-Men, she had sort of a psychic and romantic connection with Charles Xavier. She came seeking help. We're gonna get to the specifics of that in an episode coming up in the not too distant future. But for now, the important thing to know is the Shi'ar are this sort of uh bird Roman Empire analog who overlap with the X-Men a lot, and pretty much every time the X-Men go into space, the Shi'ar are in some way involved.

**Rachel:** And these are the people who capture the Summerses.

(07:55)

**Greg:**    Specifically, the Mad Emperor D'Ken.

**Miles:** [*dramatically*] the Mad Emperor D'Ken!

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] For - for which you can read Caligula very easily.

**Miles:** So, D'Ken and the Shi'ar, uh, kidnap the Summers patriarch and matriarch, and enslave them. Basically, D'Ken takes - sorry, Mad Emperor D'Ken takes Katherine, uh, Cyclops and Havok's mom, as a concubine.

**Rachel:** Or as close as you can say to that under the Comics Code Authority.

**Miles:** Christopher tries to rescue her, and D'Ken just kills Katherine right in front of him. And this is something we mentioned, um, when we talked about X-Men: Deadly Genesis a little bit ago - the son - or the the the not-yet-born son of Katherine and Christopher - Gabriel, was at that point ripped out of Katherine, put into a vat -

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] Yeah, can we skip over this bit?

**Miles:** Let's just skip over this bit.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] Oh god, we sure can. We're just looking at Corsair and he doesn't know any of that stuff anyway, so.

**Miles:** That's true. Just as far as he knows, his wife is dead, he's a slave, he's put on a prison planet, and it's terrible.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] And his kids are probably dead on Earth.

**Miles:** So, the prison planet is a place called Alisbar [sic] and here is where he meets these three space pirates - Ch'od, Raza, and Hepzibah.

**Rachel:** One of the few names that we actually do have a pronunciation for, or at least an intended pronunciation for, is is the first one of those, um, because we - we checked with our expert source Doctor Internet -

**Miles:** Thanks, Doc.

**Rachel:** And, uh, Doctor Internet told us that Dave Cockrum actually intended - originally intended for that name to be pronounced like it was just transliterated Hebrew, so as [*guttural H*] Ha-od.

**Miles:** But since that's not a sound that most people whose first language is English tend to make very often, most people just say Cha-od, and we're going to go ahead and do that so we don't get phlegm all over the microphones. So anyway, they all end up teaming up. Christopher at this point - he's like, well, I’m in space, I’m hanging out with these space pirates, I need a space pirate name.

**Rachel:** Everyone needs a space pirate name. We need space pirate names.

**Miles:** Uh, listeners, if you have any ideas, we're open to them. So, he ends up calling himself Corsair after his old Air Force callsign, which he chose, from our research, based on just his love of old adventure stories and science fiction and stuff. Now a brief aside, Rachel, do you want to talk about where the Starjammers originally came from?

(09:42)

**Rachel:** Like some of the X-Men who showed up in All-New, the Starjammers weren't originally created to be part of the X-Universe. They were created by Dave Cockrum to be a standalone team. He eventually got impatient waiting for a slot in Marvel Spotlight or Marvel Comics Presents, and so he ended up giving them to Chris Claremont to put in the X-Men.

**Miles:** Right, so the whole thing with Corsair being Scott's dad - that was actually created after the characters themselves were created. I’m gonna briefly go over the the other members of the Starjammers, 'cause they're gonna become extremely relevant, especially once we start talking with Greg about the new series. So first of all, we have uh Hepzibah, she's a member of an alien race called the Mephitisoids and basically they're sorta skunk-cat people. They used to be drawn more as skunks, now they're drawn more as cats.

**Rachel:** Along with Sonic the Hedgehog, she is responsible for conditioning in a whole new generation of furries.

**Miles:** Likely true. Originally, I - I mentioned that Corsair met up with the Starjammers on this prison planet. Hepzibah was actually about to become the main course at a banquet. She was gonna be eaten alive. This prison planet is really weird and really terrible and I do not recommend it.

**Rachel:** Speaking of unpronounceable names, uh, her name is literally a series of scents. Hepzibah is a nickname that Corsair gave her after a character in Walt Kelly's Pogo.

**Miles:** Which is kind of awesome. Hepzibah and Corsair end up in a relationship of some ill-defined sort. Uh, after a while, she actually spends some time on Earth on X-Force, along with Wolverine and Warpath and some other characters, and we're not gonna go into that for now. So next -

(10:58)

**Rachel:** Is Cha-od or Ha-od. He is a Saurid, very large reptilian guys with gills. He's affable, I think he's either the navigator or the pilot - do the Starjammers have specific roles, or do they all kind of [*crosstalk*] cover everything?

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] I mean you know, I couldn't f - I couldn't find anything when I was looking to see if there was specific positions for them. I have a feeling, the way I envision that ship running is that there's a captain, there's a chain of command, and everybody knows the job they can do and they can do, and they can do everyone else's job. Ch'od is, he's very smart. He gets to be Science Officer and Chief Boarding Member.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**    Because if you see him coming at you angrily, you get out of the way.

**Miles:** He kinda reminds me of uh Beast in that regard, he's this really big dude but he's also brilliant.

**Greg:**   We're digressing already, but I love the way he speaks. He - he's the most erudite of them. And I like that it - there is a very considered gravitas to to the way he speaks.

**Miles:** Yeah, and the Starjammers - that's one thing I always enjoyed about them is you have these four core members - you know, Corsair is sort of the normal human among them, but the other ones, like - you have Ch'od, who's sort of this erudite figure, you have Raza, who's like, uh - we'll get to him in a second, who's like this old-school, like Scottish for some reason pirate badass -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] That's because all pirates are secretly Scottish.

**Miles:** [*crosstalk*] All dwarves, also.

**Rachel:** You don't watch enough movies.

**Greg:**   [*chuckles*]

**Miles:** Uh, apparently. Then we have Hepzibah, who's got this sort of strange like almost..

**Rachel:** She inverts syntax a lot.

**Greg:**   [*crosstalk*] Yoh yeah no no no no no it's e - this is another digression, right, because they've got whatever's in the atmosphere that allows everybody to understand everybody else.

**Miles:** You know, your babble fish or whatever.

**Rachel:** Mm-hmm.

**Greg:**  Exactly, and one of the first questions I had to my editor when I was working on the first script was "Why does she speak so funny?" Because they can all understand her.

**Miles:** Mm-hmm.

**Greg:**   And we went back and forth, and we decided what she's trying to do is when she's speaking like that, she's trying to speak English. That's her -

**Miles:** Okay.

**Rachel:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**  That's her trying to speak Chris's native language.

**Miles:** That - that totally works. I love that idea.

**Greg:**  They - it works right up until the moment where she's trying to speak to anybody else.

**Rachel:** Oh, okay.

**Greg:**  And then you're like okay, well she's staying in English, and she's letting the translator bugs work for them.

**Miles:** I mean, you know, X-Men, suspension [*crosstalk*] of disbelief is required.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] there are certain quest - Exactly. There are certain questions we do not ask, and I’m really bad about identifying those questions far enough in advance.

**Miles:** I think letting it be awesome is an important skill to have as a reader. Like, "Is that awesome? Yes, so I’m not gonna look more deeply into it than I need to."

**Rachel:** Well, and I think the Starjammers are a really good example of a place where that's key, because there are a lot of ways that they don't quite fit or don't quite make sense, and what it comes down to is that they're space pirates who hang out with [*crosstalk*] superheroes and if that's not enough, I don't wanna know you.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] Exactly - they fly on the basis of cool.

**Miles:** [*chuckles*]

**Greg:**  That's - that is. That's it. They fly on the basis of cool.

(13:19)

**Miles:** So, the other main Starjammer member is a guy named Raza Longknife.

**Greg:**  [*chuckles*] What's in a name? [*laughs*]

**Miles:** I love it! And actually, I read this: according to - according to, again, our friend Doctor Internet, at least someone claimed that Longknife is his English translation of what his actual alien name is. Actually, maybe you know this - 'cause we couldn't find: is is Raza Shi'ar, or he is - is he some other alien race?

**Rachel:** We know he's super cyborg-y.

**Greg:**  I would have to go back to my notes. But this is one of those things where like I said, I keep asking questions that I probably shouldn't ask. 'Cause I was asking them how the visor works.

**Miles:** Oh man.

**Greg:**   Like, what's the trigger mechanism on the visor, and I literally had an editor write back to me: 'Brian's been writing this thing for I don't know how long - he's never asked that.'

**Rachel:** Oh well I - man, I can answer that.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**  No, it depends on what phase and what stage, right?

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Greg:**  What visor is my Scott using?

**Rachel:** He's using -

**Greg:**   And what's the trigger mechanism?

**Rachel:** Mm. He's using the one that was let's see here - he - they came forward -

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] Must be the hand one.

**Miles:** Mm-hm.

**Rachel:** Yeah, he's, he's got two though, because he uses both the temple one (**Greg:**  Mm-hmm.) and the hand one (**Greg:**  Mm-hmm.) in the - in the first few issues of the Silver Age. (**Greg:**  Mm-hmm.) So, this is, he's he's been in the Silver Age since about seven, but that's also assuming he hasn't gotten a newer visor since - since joining up and ending up at the Jean Grey school.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] And if, well, or even -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] Which presumably he'd have access to - I mean, you'd think they'd be like, yeah, that thing you're using is - is fifty years old.

**Greg:**  That's an antique, [*crosstalk*] kid.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] We have a better one!

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**  Right, well you - and then, then, presume that, and now you're on board the Starjammer, and Sikorsky takes one look at you and says, "That is stupid."

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:**  Let's do contact lenses. Let's do - what is it? Nictitating membrane.

**Rachel:** Grant Morrison did contact lenses briefly and it made absolutely no sense.

**Greg:**  Yeah, uh, how do you remove them?

**Miles:** Oh, that sounds really dangerous.

**Rachel:** Very care - again, again, this is a thing in the Morrison run, and it just, it's like two panels and he just never went back to it because [*crosstalk*] it was so untenable.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] Ill-conceived.

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Greg:**  Ill-conceived might be the word?

**Miles:** [*crosstalk*] So -

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] But I like the - the nictating membranes - is that - is that how we pronounce it?

**Miles:** I just like to say that word.

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Greg:**  Yeah, it's - it's a good word.

**Miles:** So, um -

**Greg:**   And you don't have to bleep it.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** [*chuckles*]

(15:04)

**Miles:** So listeners, um, I think in the last, like, couple minutes, you have just decided whether or not this podcast is for you.

**Greg/Rachel:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** If you can't get really excited about iterations of Cyclops' visor, you need to find a new hobby.

**Greg/Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Miles:** If you can, you should totally hang out with us.

**Greg:**  Welcome to the high weeds.

**Miles:** So, yeah, Raza. So he's, he's this Cyborg, old-school pirate, which I just, that's such a good phrase. Later on in a storyline that maybe we'll cover, we'll cover later, he's actually possessed by this I don't even know you you say it - Z-Z-Z-Ks-Ks. Um, it's it's a symbiote, kinda like the one that Venom is, 'cause you know -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] It's also spelled ZZZXX, all caps.

**Miles:** Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's spelled differently because Marvel. But it's a symbiote like venom, like the spider-man character, and it sorta takes him over for a while. He ends - actually ends up getting that purged out of him by the Nova Corps, and it's this really complicated thing. The important part is -

**Rachel:** Just run with it.

**Miles:** We have an old-school cyborg space pirate who gets taken over by a parasitic alien.

**Rachel:** And gets over it.

**Miles:** I love comics.

**Rachel:** He's great! and there's Sikorsky, who's uh the sort of dragonfly robot doctor.

**Miles:** Yeah Greg, you mentioned him.

**Greg:**  Yeah and he's named by Corsair. That's how he ends up with the name Sikorsky.

**Rachel:** I'd wondered - he's named after Igor Sikorsky, right?

**Greg:**  He's named after the helicopters. Corsair is like, ah, you're like a helicopter, I will name you after a type of Russian model helicopter because I’m an Air Force pilot, see?

**Miles:** [*laughs*] and Si-sikorsky's like 'Yeah whatever dude, I’m a robot, I don't care'.

Greg: [crosstalk] Yeah. Exactly. And Sikorsky's like 'go away'.

**Rachel:** And Corsair - Corsair never -

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] Or 'away go' .

**Rachel:** Never breaks away from that. When he first meets the X-Men, that's part of how they figure out that there's - that he's not just from space, because he's like dropping regional slang.

**Greg:**  Hm.

(16:27)

**Miles:** Um, and then we also have a member called Waldo, who's not in the Starjammers anymore, he basically got destroyed, but he was kind of a robot who piloted and took care of the ship. Now, the last member, uh, who shows up later - he's this dude named Corvis. And going into his backstory would take a very long time but suffice to say, (**Greg:**   [*chuckles*].) that Corvis is (**Greg:**  [l*aughs*])

Rachel: [*crosstalk*] It's wrapped up, okay, it's wrapped up with Shi'ar space politics, it's wrapped up with the Phoenix Force,

**Miles:** And uh also an improbably large sword. Like, Final Fantasy VII clearly was not that old when this - when this issue came out.

**Greg:**  It was part of the universal gestalt.

**Miles:** Now, later on there was a phase when uh Corsair as we mentioned, died, we talked about that a little bit. And -

**Rachel:** And during that era, um, Havok lead the Starjammers, and Polaris and Rachel Summers, who again is Scott and Jean's kid from an alternate timeline (**Miles:** X-Men.) were also on the team.

**Miles:** Right, uh -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] There's oh, there's also there's a 2006 limited series by Kevin J. Anderson, who's best known for *Star Wars* and *Dune* novels where the captain of the Starjammers was a tree guy whose name I have forgotten and I’m gonna leave it at that because the less said about that series the better. Let's look at how the X-Men tie into all of this. Corsair is Cyclops and Havok's dad, and he's gonna first show up on Earth

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] And Gabriel's.

**Rachel:** In - and Gabriel's - oh god, I thought, I thought I thought you were the one who wanted us to forget Gabriel.

**Greg:**  The problem is we're not allowed to.

**Rachel:** Oh, but Gabriel's not one of the X-Men, so.

**Miles:** He was.

**Rachel:** Briefly - briefly!

**Greg:**  Yeahhhhh eh.

**Rachel:** Aaaahhhhh.

**Greg/Miles/Rachel:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** I will find a way to justify this.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk]* You're - yeah I know, you're trying, I can see you going 'I’m gonna get through this somehow.'

**Rachel:** I am trying so hard. 's like 'not really. He's just...fake X-Men. Um -

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

(17:56)

**Rachel:** Okay, so anyway, regardless, Corsair makes his first appearance in the comic in *X-Men #104*, which is the lead-in to the Phoenix Saga. He doesn't make it to Earth until 107, at which point he's still not revealed as Cyclops' father, although Jean's figured something out, but she doesn't tell us what.

**Miles:** Later on, jean does tell Corsair and Storm what's up, and Corsair doesn't know at this point, of course, but we learn a little bit later on - that's in 109, I think - that Corsair's asked them not to tell anyone and they've agreed.

**Rachel:** Now of course in deadly genesis, that'll be retconned to be Xavier making the call not to tell Scott and Alex about Corsair. Now my favorite part of this comes in *X-Men #114*.

**Greg:**  [*starts laughing*]

**Miles:** I wanna just like frame these panels on our wall.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] this is - oh, we really should. This is, this is one of those amazing scenes. So, Cyclops keeps on thinking that he might know Corsair from somewhere, and he - he can't place it. And he and Storm end up in the Savage Land for a few days - which is, if you recall, the place in Antarctica where there are dinosaurs and it's always summer and it's - it - and ridiculous things happen.

**Miles:** I mean, you've probably been there, if you vacation around much.

**Rachel:** And one of the ridiculous things that happens is that he doesn't shave for a few days. And he - he finally shaves, and he's halfway through shaving, and he's just got a mustache left, and he catches sight of his reflection and he realizes that with a mustache he looks like Corsair.

**Miles:** And therefore -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] And he spe - and specifically that he looks piratical, too. [*laughs*] Aaand so he figures out that there must be something to his sense that he knows Corsair, but he still doesn't quite put two and two together until *X-Men #154*, when he discovers that Corsair has a locket with pictures of Scott and Alex and their mother in it, and Cyclops, being the bright bulb he is, immediately demands to know why he has that, and why he has Scott's father's dog tags.

**Miles:** [*chuckles*] Like dude, Scott, you're the leader of the X-Men, you're - you're better than this. Come on, come on, you got this.

**Rachel:** So, they work that out, and their relationship, from then on, tends to be pretty tense and adversarial. They - they work together, but they don't really get along that well. There's..one kind of notable t- exception to it which is a a a really good kind of quiet issue much much later, which is *X-Men #391* -

**Miles:** [*crosstalk*] *Uncanny X-Men*, to clarify.

**Rachel:** Yeah, *Uncanny X-Men #391*, which is - is kind of the worst camping trip ever.

**Miles:** The - there - as I recall, you really enjoyed the couple of almost awkward hugs in that issue.

**Rachel:** I do, I do! Um, I was - in, in context, there was this thing in *All-New X-Men* where Cyclops kept on like trying to hug X-23 then the two of them were like - and the two of them are both terrible at - at feelings and hugs and - and they kept on failing at it. And so, I remember that there was this issue that was just nonstop Cyclops and Corsair failing at hugging. As again, you know, someone who identifies a little too much with Cyclops and is also really really bad at hugs - um.

**Miles/Greg:**   [*laughs*]

**Miles:** Aw, you're not that bad.

**Rachel:** I’m - I’m pretty bad. Pretty bad.

**Greg:**  [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** Um, but it's it's a really nice issue, it's sort of it's a quiet very much just character development moment. But it - it goes into a lot of why there's been that tension between those characters. Th-the obvious is, y'know, the lawful-chaotic divide but the other thing is that Cyclops or at least adult Cyclops - and that's that's gonna be a distinction that's gonna become important shortly - never really seems to have gotten over the fact that Corsair never came back for him. And this is someone who literally followed his kid into the distant future.

**Miles:** Right, Cyclops followed Cable, [*crosstalk*] to clarify.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] Yeah, so this feels like a major point of betrayal.. And they talk about that pretty extensively in the issue. I think the ultimate explanation is that Corsair just feels like he's failed so utterly as a father that the best thing he can do is stay away and - and so they eventually resolve and - and hug super awkwardly. Super awkwardly.

(21:15)

**Miles:** So, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the present day, as far as young Cyclops.

**Rachel:** The original five X-Men got pulled into the present about maybe a year, year and change ago. These are Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Jean Grey, still Marvel Girl at that point. They can't go back, they're coexisting currently with their adult modern counterparts -

**Miles:** The surviving ones anyway.

**Rachel:** Yeah, it's - I - obviously except for Jean. They end up going into space for phoenix reasons, the details aren't really important here except that they run into the Starjammers, and Cyclops discovers, about 90 issues before he normally would have, that his dad's alive.

**Miles:** So instead of having Cyclops who's already, you know, the leader of this somewhat seasoned team of X-Men being like, you know, holy crap my mustache makes me look like a pirate, that dude I met is my dad -

**Greg:**  Yeah, let's - let's context this. This is a 16 year old boy who's been having the worst 3 weeks of an [sic] really impressively bad life - can you imagine what it would be like if you were 16 and somebody showed you your future for 20 years, and they said 'this is what you are in 20 years' and I’m not talking about 'and you became a zealot, or a revolutionary, or maybe you murdered your mentor' or any of those things. Just you and me, if somebody had said at 16l, 'This is you at 36' you woulda snapped like a twig.

**Miles:** That would be a major mindfuck, yeah.

**Greg:**  Yeah, so, here's Scott, and there's dad. And also, you flip it around and there's Corsair going 'my god. That's still a young man who needs a father.'

**Miles:** Yeah.

**Rachel:** And Cyclops decides that he is um the - the rest of the - the young X-Men go back to earth, but Cyclops decides that he's gonna stick around and he's gonna travel with Corsair - [*crosstalk*] he and the Starjammers.

**Greg:**  [*crosstalk*] He actually goes back with them, which I think is significant, right? (**Rachel:** Does he?) He does, yeah. Because they land, and they all get off, and then he says I’m going with him! Because he could have bailed earlier. He couldn't need - he didn't even need - no. He actually takes the time. 'I've gotta get off, I've gotta tell you I am not coming with you.'

**Miles:** Mm-hmm.

**Greg:**  I’m going back with my father. I have reasons to do this.

**Miles:** Says his goodbyes to Jean and everyone else.

**Greg:**  Yeah. And and I think what he says to Jean is very telling. Y'know, the 'Maybe this way we can both have a chance to be happy'.

**Miles:** Right, 'cause -

**Greg:**  Which is an - incredibly - it's such a 16 year old thing to say to - to your almost-girlfriend

**Miles:** Who you know that you're destined to later marry before she dies.

**Greg:**  Well but - but you're not destined. You know that you did, but it doesn't mean you're gonna do it again.

**Miles:** Speaking of mindfucks.

**Greg:**  Right?

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Greg:**  And who, who you've kind of picked up on, is not into him. She's more into Hank.

**Miles:** Exactly.

**Greg:** Okay? so I mean talk about - you know. I think - I actually think Scott is being very very smart in making that decision. (**Rachel:** Mm-hmm.) I think his decision to remove himself from that environment is very smart.

**Miles:** And that's one of the things I like about this younger version of Cyclops. He's - he hasn't had the chance to get nearly as messed up as uh - as our current adult Cyclops has. Like there's still 'Maybe he'll turn out okay,' you know?

**Greg:**  [*chuckles*]

**Rachel:** Yeah, this is um something that that comes up in the first issue and that I think gets addressed really directly in the narration um - or if not that, in the action, is that he's a character who's overwhelmingly responsibility-driven and obligation-driven and this is sort of his first time starting to break away from that.

**Greg:**  Yeah, he's he - he's an ulcer waiting to happen. I think, I do think that one of the things that you're seeing there [*chuckles*] in that departure moment is him going 'Yeah, I uh, I gotta get my head straight'. (**Miles:** Mm-hmm.) 'Cause my head ain't straight.'

**Miles:** [*chuckles*] And it shoots optical blasts out of it.

**Greg:** Exactly. And then it's on - and when it's on a swivel, it's very dangerous.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:** Uh.

**Miles:** So, this is the first ongoing that Cyclops has had - the one that you're writing that just started. It it was - it was a surprise to me when I heard about it. I’m like 'oh, Cyclops is getting a a series, cool and then I looked at the details like -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] 'Cause you know, he's become this very central character with more agency than just leading the X-Men in the Marvel Universe, so obviously.

**Miles:** It was kind of a surprise when I’m like 'Oh wait, it's young Cyclops.' It's not the Cyclops we've been following for - for decades, it's this new slash old version that you know, in X-Men history comparatively just showed up so I guess was that um - was that an editorial decision, was that your decision? [crosstalk] like - how did that - ?

(25:07)

**Greg:** [*crosstalk*] That - no. That was, that was how it was presented to me. I mean, when I got the call, I got the call very specifically saying we wanna do this series that's gonna be 16 year old Cyclops in space with his dad. And Bendis says you'd be really really good at this because he's seen you with your son and your son's fourteen and apparently you know about that. And.. that was the hook, you know. I - I think if they had offered me adult Scott, I would have passed.

**Miles:** Mm-hmm.

**Greg:** Um, and it has nothing to do with whether or not I like the character, it's simply that I would have been like there is tha - there is so much baggage. You guys would have had to do another fifty of these podcasts, and I would have had to have heard all of them (**Rachel/Miles:** [*laughs*]) before I would have been willing to take on that job.

**Miles:** That's entirely reasonable.

**Greg:** I mean, I’m, I’m dead serious. Never mind going back and re-reading EVERYthing. You know, it was presented to me very directly as 16 year old Cyclops is going into space with dad. Knock yourself out. And there were certain other edicts that I was given. There were things that I was warned about [coughs] stay away from here, try to go over here, use this, don't use that. (**Miles:** Mm-hmm). If you can avoid it. But it it was almost free run. And, you know, I talked to Brian, I talked to Bendis, uh, when when I got the offer and I said 'I’m presuming, I view this as a support book. This is, this is you're going to need Scott back at at some point, you're gonna need to tell me the condition you're gonna want him returned in. And he was like yeah, eventually. And I was like, (**Rachel/Miles:** [*laughs*]) what is eventually mean, and he was like whenever. You know, I was like, [*crosstalk*] you're not helping!

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] So, we can - we can at least assume that he's gonna survive this series, or or be you know conveniently reanimated as necessary.

**Greg:** Well a - a - as I believe you mentioned at the top of the podcast, death wears thy sting. (**Miles:** [*laughs*]) Um, you know. I could kill him three or four times, that's not gonna slow him down. Um, and and we all know that, [*chuckles*] so.

**Rachel:** So, to me it does kind of make sense that it's young Cyclops, because adult Cyclops is a character who is just inextricably associated with the X-Men and pulling him away from that dynamic pulls away - pulls him away from a lot of what defines him in the marvel universe. This is an - is a Cyclops who doesn't quite have that yet. So, what - what happens when you pull him out of that context, especially before it's really become intrinsic to his identity?

**Greg:** Wonderful things. I mean, I really think it's wonderful things. You know, in a way he's a legacy character, right? this Scott is a legacy character because in a way he's a legacy of Summers Prime, I guess, (**Miles:** Right.) you know, Cyclops Prime. And and I guess that's sort of the way I think of him. I think of - I think of the fellow on earth who's palling around with Magneto, as Cyclops. I think of the kid in space with his dad - that's, that's Scott. That's Scott.

**Miles:** I like that distinction, yeah, because he still has sort of his own identity as a - as a person, before being in this role.

**Greg:** And you know what, they're two weeks into the school when he gets yanked forward. You know, two, that's two weeks of the codename. Your first two weeks of school - normally pretty bumpy.

**Rachel:** [*chuckles*]

**Miles:** Right, you don't really know anybody there, you don't know really who you are [*crosstalk*] what your -

**Greg:** [*crosstalk]* Exactly. He's - he's had enough time to go okay, this is better than everything I've had up until now except for the part where we're persecuted by the world, (**Miles:** [*chuckles*]) and the redhead is really really cute, (**Miles:** [*chuckles*]) and I think I’m really really into her. But I would point out, Scott, as you know as far as we know, Scott's straight and she's the only girl there. (**Rachel:** [*chuckles*]) So if Bobby and Hank and you know Warren aren't all thinking the same thing about her, they're not adolescent boys.

**Miles:** And yeah, you see some of that in the Silver Age, like everybody goes crazy, not over 'What are this person's powers? What's her personality?' But 'hey, a girl!'

**Greg:** Yeah, 'Look, a girl mutant!'

**Rachel:** Including Professor X. Which is [*quietly*] so creepy.

**Greg:**  Yeeaaaahh.

(28:43)

**Miles:** Speaking of things we don't talk about.

**Rachel:** Augh, god. Not okay times, um.

**Greg:**  [l*aughs*]

**Rachel:** So I- I have to say I am selfishly pleased about this series for a number of reasons, but one of them is - is that I - my convention sketchbook um theme is is 'Cyclops Has a Good Day'.

**Greg:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** [*laughing*] And and I - I -  I feel like there's gonna be a lot more like the - between even like the first couple issues of this series, there will be more fodder than there has been in the entire previous hundreds of issues of *X-Men.*

**Greg:** I want you to scan and post.

**Rachel:** I have.

**Greg:** Starting an - I have not seen those. That needs its own Tumblr. [*crosstalk*] Cyclops Has a Good Day. That's its own Tumblr. Oh, I wanna see that.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] I'll se - I'll send you a link - I have - I have eight or nine of them. I've - my favorite by far is - is Doc Shaner's where he's - he's excitedly finding a quarter.

**Miles/Greg:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** Which I think is - is a really good indicator for just how low the bar is for a good day for Cyclops.

**Greg:** [*crosstalk*] Yeah, you're gonna like issue 2.

**Rachel:** [*excitedly*] Yes!

**Greg:** Um, you're gonna, you're gonna like issue 2. There are a couple - there are a couple moments where - that are gonna make you want Russell Dauterman sketches if not pages.

(29:38)

**Rachel:** So, you mentioned earlier that part of why Brian recommended you for this series is that you're the parent of a 14 year old. To what extent has that informed your - your writing of - of  Cyclops and Corsair and where you've - where you've taken this story?

**Greg:** Honestly, it - it actually has informed it. I actually - 'cause there's narrative to this. I was talking to Brian and my son was there. And he heard - this was before i'd agreed to do the book. (**Rachel:** Mm-hmm.) and Brian was explaining to me why it is that I should do this book, and he was appealing to Elliot, and Elliot was like 'Yeah you should do this book, it should totally be about me.' (**Miles/Rachel:** [*laughs*]). And I was like 'Okay, and when you're firing optic blasts from your eyes it will be. But until then, all you are is source material, kid, because you live in a writer's house'. And I actually, I actually said to him - once I'd agreed to do it, I said 'Okay, so' and I - I described to him the situation. I said 'This is you: at 8 you and your younger brother are given the only parachute in the airplane by your mother. (**Miles/Rachel:** [*laughs*]) and shoved out. And then for the next 8 years it's pretty much hell on earth. Um, you're separated, there's an orphanage, you discover, you know, that y-y-you're hated 'cause you're a mutant, you finally end up in this good place boom! You're pulled into the future, your future absolutely stinks, and hey, dad's still alive. What would you want? If dad said hey, let's let's let's road trip.' And he gave me a list. He really really really wants Corsair to take Scott to a concert. (**Rachel:** [*chuckles*]) to which I’m like, yeah maybe later. You wanna do that. He - but he gave me a list of things, and then he gave me a list of questions that he would want answered. The things that he would really wanna corner me on, if it were us and say, [*crosstalk*] I would want answers.

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] and this isn't just you, this is you who's relatively another twenty years in the future.

**Greg:** Yeah. Yeah. And this is him saying, you know, he gave me a list. These are the questions. This is what I - what I would need to know. Because I'd be really angry. And I was like yeah, and with good reason. The - the first fundamental question is 'Why didn't you come back'? When you could, why didn't you come back? And you answer that question very differently if you are saying that to a Cyclops who's in his, what, late twenties, (**Rachel:** Mm-hmm.) when he has - when he asks. And when you're sixteen, and it, and it's a sixteen year old boy looking at you, saying 'Where were you?'. My son is going through that that phase of human development called uh adolescence and it sucks, you know? And he's a pretty happy kid and I think he's a very well-adjusted kid, but I can still see his struggles.

**Rachel:** What's the line in the comic, 'Everyone sucks at being 16'?

**Greg:** That's exactly it.

**Miles:** [*chuckles*]

**Greg:** And I really, you know, I I I firmly believe that. Even the people - you know, and this is the other thing we always forget, right, w - as we get older and our empathy is honed, you know, the - the great revelation of our our, of our twenties is the realization is that everybody (**Miles:** Mm-hmm.) was going through the same thing between ten and eighteen, you know, that we all didn't know how to talk to whichever gender we were attracted to, we all had no self-confidence, we all didn't know what we were gonna do with our lives - that whole laundry list. Right? And we forget as we grow up, that realization is a huge moment.

**Miles:** Right, before then it's the whole 'Nobody understands me' without realizing that everyone feels like nobody understands them.

**Greg:** Mm-hmm.

**Rachel:** Yeah, it's like, well, you're not wrong, you're just not not unique. (**Miles:** [*chuckles*])

**Greg:** Well and and it's exactly that paradox, you're holding the truth and the untruth at the same time, which is: nobody understands me, except everybody understands me. Nobody has ever been here. Because it feels - I mean it's a legitimate sensation, it's a legitimate emotion.

(33:05)

**Rachel:** So, you - you're talking about identification, and you've written before about about you know, reading *X-Men* and you know connecting with Kitty Pryde as a character. Um, (**Greg:** Yeah.) Who are your favorite X-Men? Who are the ones that - who you read for, when you read the books?

**Greg:** I - I chased Kitty. I mean, Kitty was - Kitty was my entry point, and Kitty was the character that I associated with the most. Um, not simply because of her Judaism, but that was a huge element, you know, in the same way that I know that for Black readers, being able to see an African-American character, you know, is a point of connection.

**Miles:** Right, at the time there just weren't that many options for people who weren't straight, white, protestant, et cetera.

**Greg:** E - e - exactly.

**Rachel:** And I didn't really think about that with kitty before you mentioned - uh, mentioned it, because I think of comics as such - such an overwhelmingly Jewish field but there - that doesn't really translate to the characters, does it?

**Greg:** No. No, there aren't many characters who are - who are identified as Jews. Um, and that was a huge connection for me. I liked [*laughs*] there was a period where I liked Peter.

**Miles:** Colossus?

**Greg:** Yeah, and then he cheated on Kitty and I hated him. And I don't care if it was secret wars and they all thought they were never coming back, he still shouldn't have done it.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:** Uh, one of my favorite favorite favorite issues is the issue where Nightcrawler and Logan take peter out to a bar in New York and the subplot is that they get attacked by Juggernaut. But the A-plot is basically Logan and Kurt saying 'You Ever Ever do that to her again.. And they will not be able to find all the pieces, boy.'

**Rachel:** And then Nightcrawler and Captain Britain do the same thing with Pete Wisdom in Excalibur.

**Greg:** Mm-hmm. [*chuckles*] [*crosstalk*] So you can tell -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] I remember the specific threat - that Captain Britain would pull his head off and Nightcrawler would draw unflattering pictures on it before teleporting it to the middle of the Atlantic.

**Miles:** That's a really good, creative threat.

**Rachel:** That's a great threat, yeah.

**Greg:** I was gonna say, it does get the point across. So I think for me, like I said, it started with Kitty, and I loved Illyana but I remember, see, I started reading when *New Mutants* was new.

**Miles:** Like, the early eighties.

**Greg:** Yeah. Yeah, like when the book debuted, and I had my #1, and I remember looking at this art by this Sienkiewicz guy, and going 'Who gave this to a three year old with black crayons?' (**Miles:** [*laughs*]) you know, and then, that beautiful moment when - realizing what he was doing on that page, and it just - so it mean, and I read those for a really long time. A really long time. So, you know, I had a rotating cast. Scott had never been in it. And I got to the point - I said this in another interview - where I actually sort of sat down and said - why - why am I not connecting with this guy? And I realized the reason I’m not connecting with this guy is that for me, a lot of what I was reading was wish fulfillment. The people that you want - this is why everybody likes Logan, right, because everybody wants to be a badass. Right, everybody wants to be able to walk through life doing, you know, doing [*as Logan*] 'I get my way!' You know? Nobody reads American Splendor going 'I wanna be that guy!' You know? And and that was the thing with Scott. I read Scott and I was like no, that's me. That's me. I’m the guy who takes everything too seriously, I’m the guy who gets picked on by the cool kid, right? I’m the killjoy. I’m the guy that has to say 'Settle down everybody and get back in line.' 'Everybody be quiet, the teacher's trying to speak.' That was me. I think th - the more I sorta came to realize that, the more I actually kinda began to adore Scott. Because I think that there's something inherently noble in Scott that is missing in a lot of the other X-Men.

**Miles:** Exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's that's one of the main reasons I love him so much as well.

**Greg:** Yeah, and I think that you - you see it in Kurt, and I ignore a lot of the way that they fucked up Kurt, in my opinion, (**Miles**: Mm-hmm.) but you certainly see it in core Kurt, as well (**Rachel:** Yeah.) There's a nobility in, in their existence. Um, there isn't a lot of pretense. Ororo wears not so much nobility, but regality?

**Miles:** That's always the word for it.

**Rachel:** Yeah.

**Greg:** Right?

**Miles**: Yeah, totally.

**Greg:** But there is something you know, like I say,  to me, Scott is, he's a leading man. But he's a leading man from the 40s, he's Gregory Peck, he's Gary Cooper. He's never gonna be Bogie. He's never the one who made people slide off their chairs. (**Rachel:** [*chuckles*]). He was the one who who who you want going like [*grunts*] you know, and and that's it that's - he's not sexy. And that's one of the fun things about him at 16, is because 16 he's at that crux point, right? 'I know what I want to be, and then I see what I became, and that wasn't it, so how do I make this work? I mean, is this bullshit? You know is this, is this wrong? I’m 16 I have to stop with the fantasies, never mind that life has pretty much beaten them out of me, right, never mind the fact that I’m not gonna be a pirate or an astronaut. What I’m gonna be is I’m gonna be an X-Man, apparently, and I don't know what that means. I know what Xavier wanted it to mean, two weeks ago for me (**Miles:** [*laughs*]) or six weeks ago for me, but now that's totally different too.' And I do know enough about where Brian's going that there's a lot of stuff coming that changes - you know, Scott's out in space right now. He's [*sound effect*] he's not getting letters, but uh when he gets back, he's gonna be in for a couple shocks.

**Miles:** So, you mentioned unpleasant revelations uh sort of uh being in store for Scott - uh, does he know about the whole Vulcan thing, about the whole Shi'ar mess and Vulcan killing so many people?

**Greg:** No. Because if he knew that, he would know that his dad's supposed to be dead. And this goes to the cold open question. Part of the reason that I haven't bothered to explain it is that Scott doesn't know to ask. Nobody's told him 'Oh, by the way, your dad, who you thought was dead, and wasn't, got dead, and was.' He just, there's no frame for it. He doesn't know about Gabriel. He doesn't know any of that. It is story necessary in *Cyclops #3*. Your questions are answered in *Cyclops #3*.

**Rachel:** So, we'll hold out til July.

**Greg:** Exactly.

**Rachel:** Alright.

**Greg:** You can make it, you really can make it, and then you'll be like, wow, that is such a lame reason for him to come back and you can drop the book then.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** Yeah - so I wish we could keep - we could keep going with this for another couple hours (**Greg:** [*laughs*]) actually we should just have you back and do this later on in the series again this is great, um -

**Greg:** [*crosstalk*] this has been terrific. I've really enjoyed this.

**Rachel:** But, unfortunately, we have, you know, a limited window, so we're gonna go to listener questions.

(39:00)

**Greg:** Alright.

**Miles:** So, this is from quintessentialdefenestration on Tumblr, which -

**Rachel:** First of all, awesome handle.

**Greg:** That is an amazing name. [*laughs*]

**Miles:** Wow. Speaking of things I just wanna say over and over.

**Rachel:** Right?

**Miles:** So, quintessentialdefenestration says "There seem to be 4 X-genres: save the world stories, oppression stories, time travel stories, and space stories. The first three make sense to me as flowing naturally from their premise - even time travel makes sense, because the X-Men have a very specific goal, and these stories show what happens when they don't succeed. But why wacky space adventures? To this day space stories seem to be really popular, even though it seems 100% random for these characters."

**Rachel:** Y'know, I have an answer for this: it's not a continuity answer, it's that space adventures are awesome.

**Greg:** That's the answer. The answer is look at the - look at the era when Corsair and the Starjammers are introduced, and that's your answer. You're talking about a post-*Star Wars* world and comics are trying to grab what's cool. And what was cool at that time - let's go back into space. We hadn't been doing that in a while. That inextricably has tied the *X-Men* to space ever since (**Rachel:** Mm-hmm.) But why do it? W-w-we did it because it was cool, you know?

**Rachel:** Yep - why go - why - that's sort of the 'Why go into space?' answer in general (**Greg:** Yeah.) but in in fiction I mean - given the unlimited budget of writing your own world, why would you not have space adventures?

**Miles:** And I also like seeing 'em and X-Men characters I - well okay so I would hesitate to describe them as down-to-earth, but -

**Rachel/Greg:** [*laughs*]

**Miles:** At all, but bear with me! But Marvel's characters, the strength of Marvel's characters has always been that you can like - you can sorta see them as - as real people, and I think there's -

**Rachel:** [*crosstalk*] Yeah, they're grounded in real places, there - it's it's it's New York and Chicago, not Metropolis and Gotham.

**Miles:** Right and so I think there's that - there's a certain thrill to being like, 'Oh you know, I can kind of identify with these people, or I can think of them as people that I know like, What the hell would we do if we were all of a sudden in this crazy space war? How would we react?'

**Rachel:** Well and it takes characters who are who are grounded in a - a version of the real world really far out of their element.

(40:47)

**Rachel:** Our next question is from alsomike on twitter, and alsomike asks: "If the Starjammers got a new ship that wasn't called the Starjammer, would they still be Starjammers?"

**Greg:** Yes. Next.

(40:55)

**Miles:** [*laughs*] So the next one is from pixelkaiser on Twitter. Uh, oh this is a good one, I’m curious to hear your perspective. "Do you suppose the character of Vulcan can be "salvaged"?"

**Greg:** [*inhales; sighs loudly*] I think -

**Rachel:** And should he be?

**Greg:** I - I don't think so. I think that Vulcan is a a gaping gaping wound in the continuity of the *X-Men*. That's what I think. Look, there are some people who are exceptionally gifted at uh knitting the tapestry of continuity back together and making something beautiful out of it. I’m really really good at doing quick patches, and they're not often pretty. So, if you can do it, I’m not the guy to do it.

(41:38)

**Rachel:** So, you mentioned specifically working - working with Russell to update Corsair's look, 'cause he is the 70-est space pirate of all the space pirates.

**Greg:** He is.

**Miles:** Which I love.

**Rachel:** Can you talk a little bit about that process?

**Greg:** Mostly it was [*chuckles*] what was it? 'cause the book had actually 3 editors on it. Issue 1, if you, if you noticed, there are three space editors.

**Rachel:** Yes.

**Greg:** There's space editor Nick Lowe, there's uh space editor Tom Brennan, and then there's space editor Janine Schaefer. And, I believe it was Nick, who said you've gotta change that costume, and sorta dropped it in front of Russell. And Russell, you know, dove in, I was gettin' his design sketches and so on. And you know I liked the sash, man, I liked the sash. (**Miles:** [chuckles]). There's a piece of me that goes, it - you know, people go 'Oh look, so 70s' and I’m like 'He's in space! That's contemporary fashion on some planet!' (**Rachel/Miles:** [*laughs*]). Somewhere, he walks in and everyone's like 'Hot damn, where did you get those jompurs?' You know? I mean that's it's its space! That costume is - it's gotta have boots, it's gotta have a sword, I believe it should have a sash, and I believe it needs a  deep, deep neckline. (**Miles/Rachel:** [*chuckles*]). Alright? I think, I think Corsair has great pecs, and I don't think he's afraid to share it. Or to put it another way, he should be goddamn Beefcake.

**Miles:** Yes, and I love that yeah, early on, the first image we see of Corsair is him in that medical bed, and it's like damn, dude, you work out. Like, a lot.

**Greg:** [*chuckles*] Yeah, it's funny um, issue, issue 3, Corsair is shirtless for the entire issue.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:** And and the note I got from the the editorial note was more issues like this please. (**Rachel/Miles:** [*laughs*]) to which I was like well, you know, an issue - in the next issue, Scott's gonna lose his shirt and so they're both gonna be wandering around shirtless.

**Miles:** This is for so many glorious audiences.

**Greg:** [*laughs*]

(43:19)

**Miles:** So okay, this actually segues really nicely into a question that - that I had so, in the first issue, like at one point, Corsair and Hepzibah, and Scott are about to uh to go and board the ship.

**Greg:** Yes.

**Miles:** And Ch'od's like 'For glory!' and Corsair says 'For girls!' and Hepzibah says 'And boys.'

**Greg:** And boys.

**Miles:** So, this this this makes me ask - uh, wanna ask the question. So, we have these 70s characters, right? Uh, we have them - we have them speaking like this, you know, they've been out here for a while, trying a bunch of new stuff -

**Rachel:** They're totally swingers, right? I mean, like (Miles: [laughs]) we realized in context of this, that we'd been assuming this, literally like since we started w-, you know, like since the first Starjammers comics we'd read and this just like 'Oh! yeah! obviously!' So is the starjammer basically like an ongoing key party in space?

**Miles:** And I'd like to remind you that whatever you answer is official canon forever.

**Greg:** [*laughs*] I - I would offer you this, by way of answer: Uh, space is very very big, and it's very very cold, and there are vast vast vast incomprehensible distances separating individuals in - in that void, and there's a lot of time spent in spaceflight, and uh there are only so many times you can watch the same movies.

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Greg:** Uh, I will also add that I feel that if anybody *[chuckles*] - if there's anybody that I believe can actually practice polyamory successfully in the Marvel Universe, that I’m aware of, it's Chris and Hepzibah. That said, I don't think either of them is interested in it. I think their commitment to each other is absolute and total. You look in uh what we know about Hepzibah's backstory, and you look at the tragedy - you know, we - we talk about Corsair jokingly. He - he sees Katherine die. And, if I remember correctly, he actually sees Gabriel ripped from her.

**Miles:** He does, yeah.

**Rachel:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Greg:** So, there's a reason he's laughing and he's grinning. Because that shit doesn't get put down, ever. (**Miles:** Mm-hmm.) It doesn't go away. Never mind being put into a slave labor, never mind everything else. Never mind losing your kids, right? Never mind your two boys, that you don't know if they died or not. And, Hepzibah's - they're gonna literally dine on her. So, you look at the - that cauldron that they found each other in, and I - I believe that, like I said, I think that neither of them would have a problem with the other one going "Hey, he-slash-she looks hot. What do you think?" but I also think they're like "You're the only one for me."

**Miles:** Man, they are one of my favorite couples in the Marvel Universe, actually.

**Greg:** See, I’m also - I'm also a hopeless romantic, and in light of - somebody on Twitter read one of my interviews and said 'You've lost this Scott/Jean shipper' 'cause I made some comment about, you know, the fact that he's in space, he's going to meet other people, he's a 16 year old boy, things happen. I know there's an audience that's absolutely invested in the two of them, and I don't begrudge that. They may be the most eternal love, they may be destined to be together, I think Chris and Hepzibah are together. I think they're epic. I think they'd literally - they would literally cross the galaxy for one another.

(46:18)

**Miles:** Oh, I think we are about out of time there unfortunately but thank you again to Greg Rucka for joining us this week. So be sure to check out the *Cyclops* ongoing series that Greg's writing, which is seriously awesome. Uh. The second issue comes out on June 4th.

**Rachel:** And you should also check out his creator-owned series, uh, *Lazarus* from Image Comics, *Veil* from Dark Horse Comics, um, *Lady Sabre & and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether* (**Greg:** Hey!), which you can find online and, coming this fall from Oni, the next volume of *Stumptown*.

**Greg:** Listen, I am very impressed that you dodged the tongue twister, the Lady Sabre title. That was really good. You're a professional, ha ha ha.

**Rachel:** I've - I've played Adventure!

**Miles:** [*laughs*]

**Rachel:** Um, so "*Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men*" is as always recorded at the Rose Way in Portland, Oregon and produced by Bobby Roberts, who is co-host of the awesome *Welcome to that Whole Thing,* which you can check out at WelcomeToThatWholeThing.com.

**Miles:** And if you're enjoying our show, please take a minute to rate and review us on iTunes or Stitcher or both and check out our shop at *RachelAndMiles.redbubble.com* for t-shirts and stickers.

**Rachel:** Next week we'll be back looking at the first issues from one of - really, the definitive X-writer.

**Miles:** Welcome to the Claremont era, listeners. Hope you survive the experience.

**Greg:** Dun dun dun

**Miles:** And Greg, thank you again so much for being on the show, it was great to have you.

**Greg:** It has been an absolute pleasure, thank you Rachel, thank you Miles. I really had a good time.

**Miles:** And we will see you guys next week.

(47:33)

[Outro: *Excerpt of X-Men: The Animated Series theme song*]

## Follow Along at Home

Buy on Amazon

* Vol 1: Starstruck by Greg Rucka

Buy on Comoixology

* Cyclops series page

Read on Marvel Unlimited

* Cyclops series page