Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

38 – Welcome to Murderworld (Feat. Chris Sims)

Art by David Wynne. Prints and travel mugs available until 1/11/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and travel mugs available until 1/11/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which we welcome back Emergency Backup Co-Host Chris Sims; comics writers are basically supervillains; Cyclops is not here to have fun; Spider-Man flirts with objectivism; Murderworld is probably not financially sustainable; you should totally cosplay the Proletarian; Arcade may or may not secretly be the Archie Andrews of Earth-616; and Doctor Doom remains absolutely delightful.

X-Plained

  • Captain Britain
  • Arcade
  • Francisco Scaramanga
  • The vastly inferior Arcade of Earth-1610
  • Uncanny X-Men #123-124, 146-147, 197
  • Chris’s first X-Men
  • A really sweet truck
  • Spider-Man’s brief flirtation with objectivism
  • What the X-Men do on their night off
  • Hella nipples
  • Murderworld
  • Miss Locke
  • Mr. Chambers
  • Marvel comics in the Marvel Universe
  • A large number of elaborate deathtraps
  • Soviet Nick Fury
  • The Proletarian
  • Hostage-wrapping
  • Phil and Tobe
  • One way to celebrate your birthday
  • Avengers Arena
  • Miss Coriander
  • The best non-X Arcade stories
  • The end of Axis Sixis
  • Arcade at the Arcade

NEXT WEEK: Cloak and Dagger!


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8 comments

  1. Oh, man. Arcade. I was waiting for this day with baited breath.

    Like Chris, I too was introduced to Arcade and the X-Men via a little paperback novelette featuring Uncanny 123 & 124, as well as that silly adventure where Warhawk or some other sabotaged the danger room. Needless to say, the Arcade stuff was far more awesome, and I really had hoped for some Arcade action in the classic cartoon of the day. Sadly, no such luck.

    Also, that story easily cemented my like of Cyclops, seeing how he’s fairly badass and not really whiny in those issues, “Jean is deaaaaaaaad” aside. And of Arcade, for obvious reasons.

    Maybe Arcade will be the central focus of the next big event, and he’ll just turn the entire planet into Murderworld as a contract for all the pissed-off alien races in 616. I know I’d read it.

    Also, fun note. The black and white reprints that mister Sims and myself owned also somehow had actual Storm “nipslip” with that robe, thanks to how the black and white art was rendered post-inking but before coloring. I wasn’t aware of it until my mom noticed it and made me throw the book out, but I was fairly oblivious to that kind of thing when I was younger.

  2. Rachel-
    As a fellow Scott fan and player of LEGO, video games and LEGO video games, does it bug you that in that game they show the optic blasts as heat based? Or am I FAR to picky about a children’s game based on a children’s toy? I just remember the fit Scott threw when even his own father thought they were flame based because “they’re red”…

    1. You’re missing the simplest–and totally canon-consistent–explanation: While Earth-616 Cyclops’s powers are force without heat, Earth-13122 Cyclops has heat-based powers (and, y’know, is made of plastic bricks).

      (That said, you’re also taking this too seriously. X-Men continuity is a mess, and nowhere more so than with regards to powers. Cyclops’s powers are wildly inconsistent in frequently self-contradictory ways in 616 canon. There are some places where, if you work hard enough, you can eke out a thread of coherency. This is not one of them; and there’s a point where, if you’re going to keep enjoying the material, you eventually have to do the MST3K thing, and repeat to yourself, “It’s just a comic, I should really just relax.” )

      1. Wow.
        And just like that, the annoyance is abated.

        Brilliant reasoning. So again, thank you. And may I say it also warms & fuzzies the cockles of my heart to know that The Exiles, or the new X-Treme X-Men, or even Excalibur during their X-Time Caper may have stumbled across one of those pearls in their sidereal string populated by tiny plastic versions of themselves… Lockheed facing LEGO Lockheed is now forever a hilarious vision in my mind.

        THIS is why I listen.

  3. Loved the Arcade summary, very good dissection of his appeal. I’ve always found his incongruous levity a welcome relief from the general doom and gloom of the X-Men. But sadly you missed out my favourite Arcade appearance: Excalibur #4-5!! I trust you’ll get round to it in due course. And I know it is isn’t *strictly* Arcade but the emotional punch comes from what happens throughout the issues… that ending! That final panel! Oh Claremont, that was so so cruel!!

  4. I loved this episode, but I just have to “well, actually” the Scaramanga reference. Scaramanga (Christopher Lee, who’d been angling for a role in a James Bond film for years by that point) didn’t assassinate people by luring them into his amusement park, he just shot them with a sniper rifle or with his titular golden gun. The amusement park was where he dueled the hitmen his assistant (Hervé Villechaize, bee-tee-dubs) hired to kill him, in another obvious inspiration for Arcade and Ms. Lock. The more you know!

  5. Holy shit, I did not realize that terrible SNES game was a sequel to Uncanny #123-124.

    Love me some Arcade. His stories are always a lot of fun.

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