Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

96 – Horsemen of the Playground

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

 

In which we play Evolutionary War Mad-Libs; it’s probably a bad sign when Apocalypse decides you need an intervention; Dani is (briefly) the new Doug; horses are jerks; it’s probably really dangerous to be Longshot; Storm has the coolest friends; the High Evolutionary is very high indeed; and we make a (very token) nod to Valentine’s Day.

X-PLAINED:

  • Secret Origins of the High Evolutionary
  • Evolutionary War
  • The actual history of eugenics in America
  • X-Factor Annual #3
  • New Mutants Annual #4
  • Uncanny X-Men Annual #12
  • Classic X-Men #22
  • Purifiers (but not those purifiers)
  • Stack
  • Purge
  • How to tell when an event has major psychic repercussions
  • A Silver-Age callback
  • An Apocalypse-style intervention
  • Toga Steve (Val-Or)
  • The return of Bulk and Glow Worm
  • Equal-opportunity Hellfire lingerie
  • Mirage’s power upgrade
  • Miles vs. puberty vs. Uncanny X-Men
  • The coolest civilization ever
  • Colossus’s illegitimate kid
  • The cutest sound effect
  • Origins of the Scott/Jean/Logan love triangle
  • Stuff Jay likes and Miles doesn’t
  • The Elle Collins Theory of Podcast Roles

NEXT EPISODE: Captain Britain!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

Buy prints (or travel mugs) of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

63 comments

  1. I have a soft spot in my heart for Evolutionary War. It’s not really good, but has this goofy, ramshackle charm in trying to raise the High Evolutionary to main event heel status whilst simultaneously trying to keep him a little sympathetic.

    Pus, it’s another Art Adams-drawn annual. Those are always good.

  2. Valhalla, New York, is a real place, by the way. I was born there, and may or may not frequently leave off the New York part when I tell people this.

  3. Ah, the Evolutionary War. It was not a particularly good story. Some of the Annuals were fun. But the story as a whole was a mess. Not as bad as Atlantis Attacks, but still bad.

    Question about Dani’s fake car: Does it cause real pollution?

    I’ve read the Avengers issues that destroy the Savage Land. I thought it was a big mistake. The story wasn’t great, and destroying a place with so much great story potential was so stupid.

    I do like that Storm Sky-Wolf-Pirates story. It’s ridiculous, and glorious, and when I first read that story, I wanted it to get, at the least, a mini. I would love for it to be brought back, because Sky-Wolf-Pirates!

    I never bought into the Jean/Logan thing. Prior to Phoenix’s death, there was never any real indication she had any feelings for him. I feel like Claremont through it into that Classic X-Men story out of spite about the then-upcoming X-Factor breaking up Scott and Maddie. (Also, while I’m generally sympathetic towards affairs, making moves on a woman in a happy relationship is a dick move. Logan’s a dick.)

    1. It was not like it was ever serious enough to be called an affair, it was always Logan force kissing Jean in those occasions (except for the one during Morrison run where Jean was the one who instigated the kiss) and yeah u were completely right about Claremont and his agenda at the time to sabotage the Scott/Jean relationship.

  4. Wait what, that’s actually where Spider-Woman came from? I swear this was the first time I actually said WHAT at the same time as Miles……

  5. Just had to point out – Mile’s dream podcast where he only speaks in Apocolypse’s voice and Jay says maybe it could be a milestone goal…

    Pherhaps a “Mile’s tone” goal?

    just gonna let that pun hang there. You’re welcome.

  6. Magneto’s argument against Dani seems a trifle forced, since she’s probably the best actual fighter the team has (powers notwithstanding), plus her power has a definite and well proven, offensive capability. She can render someone near catatonic with fear by pulling their darkest fear out of them, or completely distract them with their greatest wish, and she can do it to multiple people at the same time.

    Admittedly, not much use against a Sentinel, but against any person who isn’t a powerful enough psi to block it, pretty darned effective.

    (Gosh, anyone would think the talk was only there to foreshadow/justify the amping up of her power to the extent it was.)

    Plus Dani’s power increase bugged me a lot in terms of it’s implications. (Never mind poor, sexually-frustrated-as-hell Brightwind not getting his happy-happy-pegasus-nookie-time (It’s like Angel and Husk in that Chuck Austen issue, but with horses))

    Suppose she used her powers on a someone who was mortally scared of earthquakes, or being set alight, or black holes, or bombs, or anything instantly lethal along those lines? If someone was terrified of catching a lethal disease, would she create “real” virii which would infect them, and possibly others? What would happen when she switched her power to comething else?

    It probably sounded like a cool idea but I never felt it really worked, as a power or for Dani as a character.

    1. Yeah, I keep thinking about the implications of Dani’s power, and wow, it could have been insane.

      I made the joke about whether Dani’s fake car caused real pollution, but it’s a legitimate question. Would the CO2 disappear when the car does?

      But there’s more than that. What are the limits of her power? If someone’s hurt, can she create a person capable of healing with a touch? If she does, would the injuries return when she unsummons the person? Or would the effects of a summoning be permanent?

      Add to that: If she summons a person, that person is real. So as soon as she unsummons that person, she’s killing them.

      And think of the combat applications. If her fondest wish is to have the X-Men helping out, then she can summon perfect copies of the X-Men. We know from that story that her illusions can include multiple creatures – she summoned a group of demons – so she could summon the X-Men as a group, or the Avengers, or whoever. Worst case scenario, she just summons Thor or another major-league powerhouse.

      She could work with the New Mutants to come up with ideas for fake heroes capable of defeating any villain, and then summon them.

      It’s a little unfortunate that these implications were never actually explored. Because jeez, that upgrade potentially makes her insanely powerful.

      1. My personal wish is her upgraded powers were more just illusion powers generally rather than turning her very specific illusions into physical objects. Like most powers, it moves with the plot, so I wouldn’t overthink it, though.

      2. I sort of thought that her powers just made something that worked, but whether it would operate in an accurate fashion was something else.

        So she could create a Ferrari from her own mind (another twist to her amped up powers, I don’t think she’d ever been able to apply her powers to herself before), but unless it was something she had created with a full awareness of what the internal workings actually were, it would be a sort of Ferrari shaped psionic construct, so the wheels would go round and the steering wheel operate because she knew that’s what Ferraris did, but if you opened up the hood, chances are there would be a block of something that looked like Dani’s conception of an engine, but which would, despite making the right sounds, not operate like an engine would.

        Likewise she later creates facsimilies of Doug and Illyana for Kitty (Who is missing them both) which would act like the real ones would, but probably only inasmuch as Kitty would expect them too, or know them well enough to be aware of. So ask “Doug” what his favourite programming language was, and he’d know because Kitty knew, but ask him what his favourite grand opera was, and it would either not register, or he’d give an answer which Kitty might expect him to, if she had to think about such a thing.

        My overanalytical streak was in full swing in the mid 1980’s, can you tell? 🙂

  7. Oh, I do have to say that I would watch the hell out of the cartoon adventures of “Lil Apocalypse and his Horsemen of the Playground!” 🙂

  8. Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal and Gilgamesh… Singing They Might Be Giants songs is one of my favorite ways to make the workday go faster. No need to analyze ahead of time to see if customers could find it potentially objectionable.

    On an unrelated note, you 2 are still my podcast ship of choice. Looking forward to your 100th episode in March.

  9. haha, i take it u guys arnt regular smokers (weed).

    do u guys not have a FB page by the way ?? thats the only social media site i use.

    1. No Facebook page yet – we might at some point; it’s mainly a matter of deciding whether we have the resources to moderate it to the level we’d want to.

        1. oh ya, and i was gonna say: u know whatd be SO cool!?:P all the diff X-Pods should have a big X-Event/Crossover. Do a Host Swap thing. with DangerRoom, ThePodcastThatGoesSnikt, X-Aspirations, UXC

      1. Its too bad really,, people often talk about how much they like ur show on the Uncanny X-Cast podcasts’ FB page. discussing Eps there. saying, ‘huh i cant find there FB page, anyone have the link for it?’ etc

  10. I don’t know if Peter Jr. was ever in regular continuity again, but he was in the overlong X-Men: The End series Claremont did a decade ago. In the GeneXt series that followed up on that, he had his own kid with Polaris. I don’t even get how that works, age-wise.

  11. Miles, i think you’re mistaken about Jean and Logan hooking up during Morrison’s run, i don’t remember that ever happening.

    1. You know, you’re right. I’d remembered them having sex – or at least kissing – when they were trapped in space together, but that doesn’t happen.

      (Incidentally, in paging through the Planet X storyline to double-check this, I was reminded of how much I dislike Morrison’s Magneto. Such a good run, and then… that.)

      1. Yeah it was in New X-Men, it was shortly before Scott’s tryst with Emma, Jean goes to meet Logan in the woods and talks about her problems with Scott, then Jean in a moment of weakness kisses Logan, Logan had the chance to make a move but he didn’t take it as he may have realized that she was still hung up over Scott and he wanted to respect their relationship, after that their interactions and dynamic was more of a strong friendship rather than romantic, so to sum it all up the Jean/Logan dynamic (or the triangle in general) is blown way out of proportion thanks to the movies, it was a retcon that Claremont wrote in Classic X-Men to sabotage the Scott/Jean relationship because he felt the editorial ruined Cyclops as a hero by having him abandon his wife and kid, so he wanted to hook up Jean and Logan (which never happened as he was let go after X-Men #3 in the 90’s), even the one or two scenes where Logan kissed Jean during Inferno and X-Tinction agenda were mandated by Claremont, so Marvel’s refusal to bring back Adult Jean may have something to do with the amount of baggage the character holds (phoenix, retcons, triangles etc), which may be why they brought back a fresh faced young Jean instead (free of all baggage that adult Jean holds) hopefully they do right by the character this time, with Marvel twisting the Jean/Logan dynamic into a Father/Daughter one (with Y.Jean/OMLogan), i suspect it may be a way to get rid of the triangle and change their dynamic forever in future, this could be good for the character developments of both Young Jean and Young Scott as individuals and also re-exploring their relationship, they may have a more brighter and healthier future ahead of them.

        1. Was it Jean in a moment of weakness? I was never sure, since we get the distinct impression that she KNOWS Scott is looking right at where she and Logan are (He might have been carrying binoculars) and is doing it to try and get a reaction out of him.

          Logan not taking advantage of it was the more impresive part of that scene, perhaps he guessed why she was doing it.

  12. I love how you can go from the seriousness of our sad history of forced sterilization to ending with the hilarity of the “high” Evolutionary. This was definitely a fun one. BTW, I was reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes famous quote when the Supreme Court OKed the practice of sterilization (“Three generations of imbeciles are enough”). We’re used to “imbeciles” being used in a cartoonish fashion, but I suspect the use there (even if they’re of the fire-breathing variety) was intentional.

    I’m glad you covered these issues. I bought the New Mutants one because it was referenced after Dani’s powers increased, but I was worried I was missing out on some grand story with the High Evolutionary. Now I feel appropriately filled in.

  13. Your description of Apocalypse’s role in The Evolutionary War sounds exactly like his role in the Acts of Vengence. How come that never caught on and became his thing to pop up in other villain’s crossover plots?!

  14. So, are you going to rename after episode #100 to ‘Jay and Apocalypse X-plain the X-Men’? I think it could work…

  15. In terms of the armour of the high Evolutionary (Thank you Jay, I will now never be able to think of him as anything else) I always thought his helmet had less of a fin, more of an easy carry handle, somewhere between the Cybermen, and those Darth-Vader-helmet-shaped action figure carry-cases of the 1970’s.

    A carry-handle seemd like a sensible enough thing if he had to take it off and carry it around for any length of time, for those moments when he wasn’t worried about imminent werewolf attack.

  16. So may I offer a little background on WHY the Savage Land was destroyed at the start of the “Uncanny” annual? I know Jay and Miles don’t often venture too much into non-X-Marvel but there was a lot of important stuff happening in the other books that affected the larger MU, just as “Inferno” will creep into the non-X-books.

    So background is: during the Shooter E-I-C era, there was a push at Marvel to get rid of characters (and things) that were no longer being published on a regular basis. I’m not sure if Shooter spearheded this “continuity cleanup” or not, but a lot of it was done by Marvel’s most continuity-minded writer editors — Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio and Roger Stern (and to a lesser extent David Michelinie and John Byrne).

    So for example, after “Tomb of Dracula” ended, Dr. Strange cast a spell in his title that destroyed all the vampires, including Dracula and Lilith. When “Ghost Rider” vol. 1 ended, Johnny Blaze was cured of the Ghost Rider possession. Most of the Defenders were killed in their final issue. Jessica Drew “dies” at the end of “Spider-Woman.” At the end of “Master of Kung-Fu,” Shang Chi give up his violent lifestyle. At the completion of “Rom,” the title character is restored to human form. And when “Power Man and Iron Fist” ended, Luke is falsely accused of Iron Fist’s murder and disappears for years. Also at some point the Skrulls were stripped of their shape-shifting powers as well as part of this same campaign.

    Which brings us to the relevant story here. “Ka-Zar” was cancelled in 1984. In 1985’s “Avengers” 256-257, a battle with the character Terminus — who you guys mentioned in the episode — leaves the Savage Land destroyed and reverting back to an arctic wasteland. Ka-Zar and Shanna (and Zabu) survive and the Avengers take them to New York to live — which is where they are coming from at the end of the X-Men annual.

    My guess is, at some point near the end of Shooter’s reign, someone realized “why are we getting rid of all these still-viable concepts?” and a lot of that early mid-eighties closure started to get undone. Jessica Drew was resurrected pretty quickly but I believe the Savage Land rebirth was one of the first major “un-dos.”

    The only downside is undoing all the bits of ’80s closure led to a lot of the ’90s continuity nightmares that sort of became a ’90s benchmark.

    1. That’s fascinating stuff – thanks for posting!

      A Marvel Universe without vampires would be a Marvel Universe with no Sexy Dracula, and that’s no Marvel Universe for me.

      (More seriously – closed-door endings like that of the 90s Starman and Spurrier’s X-Men: Legacy can work very well, but I can’t imagine them being the default in shared superhero universes.)

      1. In the Starman omnibus it includes the Blackest Knight tie in with David Knight resurrected as a black lantern and Hope O’Dare with the Shade (who are now dating) both fight him. Its a okay story

        There’s also a else-worlds sort of Starman prequel story set in the 40’s called The Golden Age that fits in with the bits of the world in Ted Knights past in Starman.

        Ted is only in two scenes but they are really good and fit in with his breakdown due to helping make the atom bomb.

        Its a decent story even if you haven’t read Starman.

      1. Mark Gruenwald actually ended up kinda regretting the Scourge. He started to feel that the kind of house-cleaning he used Scourge for wasn’t really his right, as any character can potentially be of use to some writer.

        Yeah, the “house-cleaning” approach Marvel took for a while was REALLY ill-advised, I feel. I’m not sure of the logic behind it, either. “Hey, there’s no book specifically set in the Savage Land right now, so let’s just destroy it so NO ONE can have a story that involves the Savage Land!” Just silly.

        1. I knew several of these things happened but have never connected them as happening at the same time under editorial mandate (all before I started reading).

          Made me wonder how Claremont stayed out of it. I don’t think any mutant villains were killed by Scourge for instance (not in X-Men or New Mutants anyway).

          Then I wondered if the Mutant Massacre could be another item on the list? At the time the Morlock population was pretty explicitly wiped out (bar a few survivors the two X-teams saved) for years. Might that have been Chris following this editorial direction?

          I also wonder if, when he later killed the X-Men(!) in FotM he was doing so partly to make a point about the trend?

          1. I have heard that the housecleaning was also Shooters idea of making thing more ‘realistic’. The Marvel universe should be the world outside your window, and so writers were instructed to remove many of the more fantastic concepts, like lost worlds in the arctic.

  17. I like it when Apocalypse get to be all badass and superior. It’s seems these days he never get the respect he earned. Like, Nicieza totally blew him off in AoA SW, and Black Bolt just PWNED him in house of M, so he doesn’t look threatning at all. Especialy now with a kid version of him running around harmless.
    I miss back in the days of the 92’s cartoon when he was the baddest of them all. You could always know things are really dire when you’v seen him involved. Beyond Good and Evil, Time Fugitives, Come the Apocalypse – all were epic. Seeing him behind Angel transformation into Archangel… Man, Apocalypse of X-Men TAS rocked. I can’t imagine young people reading AoA today feeling the awe that I was feeling towards the character in the 90’s.

  18. Darn, guys, I wish your podcasts had got subtitles –I’m not anglophone and I miss half your comments 😛 !

    Annual #12 is very special for me because it was one of my first X-Men issues. I scarcely knew the characters, and there’s nothing so thrillling as reading a story in which what you glimpse is much more than what you really understand. Plus, as much as I adore Longshot’s mini last issues and Asgardian Wars, I sincerely think that this Annual is Adams’ peak as an artist –so clear, eloquent, sharp and skilled in narration. Wiacek’s ink helps a lot (Austin is too much…too much).

    Regarding that opening scene…yeah, it very much unsettled me as a teen, too –and still now! (Okay, almost every scene involving Longshot is always disturbing and suggestive). BTW, I love that he’s wearing a Flash-like T-shirt under his jacket ^ ^ .

    Nevertheless, I’m gonna retrieve another scene from this Annual which causes infinite sadness in me. It’s the kiss between Longshot and Rogue, this poor girl who clutchs at straws in order to skim a sensation from anybody. And this time she’s got the chance to get it from a boy she likes so much, without the need to steal –it’s openly and warm-hearted given. The body language tells us all about it –even the way she fondly holds Longshot’s inert body when conciousness has left him.

    Of course, Dazzler’s gotta spoil the moment, in the worst coitus interruptus ever. Seriously, I know she’s supposed to be Longshot’s lover, but I don’t know where this girl hides her tact and her pity.

    1. Subtitles (or a transcript) have always been a dream, but we don’t have the time or resources to create them. If anyone wants to volunteer, though..!

      1. I’m permanently trying to improve my English, and your podcasts are such a challenge. But now I’m getting them much better than before 😉 !

        BTW –Miles, I’m still waiting for your (brilliant for sure) dissertation about Longshot & melancholy 🙂 .

        1. Luckily Jay and Miles speak very clearly, so even when they talk fast they don’t eat syllables and that can really help to practice listening. The only time I really had problems understanding what they were saying was the first time Jay used their Warlock voice, maybe the post-process during that chapter was different from the others? Because I haven’t had problems with it after that.

          Good luck improving your english, I’m doing the same, learning thanks to podcasts and videogames 😀

        2. Thank you! We’re still hoping to provide transcripts eventually–which will hopefully help some with that–but it’s been a project we haven’t had time for yet…

      2. Would this work as a transcript

        Jay: You okay there Miles

        Miles: I don’t know man I just cannot wrap my head around the origins of the high evolutionary

        Jay: That is entirely understandable in fact I have actually prepared something in anticipation of precisely this eventuality

        Miles: Really ?

        Jay: Yeah! So you know mad libs right?

        Miles: Yeah

        Jay: Okay so were gonna take those rules and apply them to Marvel continuity just give me whatever answers you can think of off the top of your head

        Miles: Sure

        Jay: Okay comics friendly career

        Miles: Geneticist

        Jay: Bad role model

        Miles: Mister Sinister

        Jay: Non human sentience

        Miles: Mutants ?

        Jay: Oh mutants are technically humans sorry

        Miles: Uh okay then Uh inhumans

        Jay: Perfect

        Jay: Location

        Miles: Wundargore mountain

        Jay: Gonna need another race of nonhuman sentience

        Miles: Uh can I go with Moleoids ?

        Jay: Absolutely were taking a big tent approach here

        Jay: Ah environmental hazard

        Miles: Ah well if it’s a big tent approach. Ghosts

        Jay: Ghosts it is
        Jay: Another environmental hazard

        Miles: Lets go science e this time. Uranium
        Jay: Animal

        Miles: Spider

        Jay: Monster

        Miles: Werewolf

        Jay: Unconventional hobby

        Miles: Ugh baby swapping

        Jay: Okay and now lets plug em all in

        Jay: Renegade Geneticist Herbert Windham who may or may not be the partial namesake of the first premier of Queensland Australia was living in his moms basement when influenced by the works of Mister Sinister he attempted to develop a means of artificially accelerating evolution. Windham was rejected by his academic piers until a disguised inhuman approached him in a back alley to offer Windham the key to unlocking the genetic code. Along with his BFF and fellow scientist Jonathan Drew. Windham then made a bee line for scenic Wundagore mountain where he enslaved the subterranean Moloids and forced them to build him an advanced research facility. Unfortunately Wundagore was infested with ghosts and uranium which collectively made short work of the Drew family. Jonathan was possessed by a sixth century sorcerer and his daughter Jessica ended up with radiation poisoning which Jonathan attempted to cure by injecting her with Spider juice. After Jonathan had left Wundagore Windham proceeded to build himself a suit of fancy armour to keep him safe from the werewolf that had killed Drews wife enabling Windham to safely pursue his passion for baby swapping

        Jay:WHAT

    2. In defence of Dazzler, I don’t think she still had a lingering dislike of Rogue over the whole “repeatedly tried to kill her” deal. Which is, you know, understandable.

      1. Yeah, I guess that little…”conflict” should be quite annoying for Ali. There’s a full issue about it (#221) and her behaviour was so nice, I must say. Usually it’s her possessiveness towards Longshot what makes her lose her way –rotten luck that possessiveness is precisely a feeling that Longshot can’t bear at all (it’s carved in his -molding- genes).

  19. California just recently (2014) passed a law making it illegal for prison to sterilize inmates without their notification and consent.

    Here’s a big whack of American eugenics data categorized by states – but doesn’t include indigenous folks because our lives are still controversial. Apologies for the bitter tone, it’s a bitter pill to swallow on a Wednesday.

    https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/

  20. Miles, your Sexy Dracula has awoke in me an understanding that I never thought I would find. I now understand why Marvel maintains vampires (Jubilee etc.) in its universe. Damn…

  21. When I first encountered the High Evolutionary, I thought he was supposed to be one of the Elders of the Galaxy, not a human. Especially since he creates an entire world on the other side of the Sun and sends Adam Warlock to go be its Jesus. “Man-Wolf is equivalent to his Lucifer” also feels like a Mad Lib.

  22. Wait, Jay’s never read any Alf media?!? Then you’re missing out on one of my favorite versions of Cyclops… Melmacian Cyclops! Mutant Melmacian Snot Bummers, fresh on the heels of losing the love of his life in the Dark Klenex Saga, spends the whole X-MelMen crossover issue crying, and therefore releasing uncontrolable force blasts from his large brown nose as Michigan Wolverine, Brogue and the rest of his team join Alf in random slapstick adventure. Not quality storytelling at ALL, but growing up a fan of Cyclops and parody it was one of my prized posesions.

    1. Haagen-Daasler (or Haagen-Dazzler, I forget which one) is the one that stuck with me.

      Also, I feel it should be mentioned that if Magneto meets a group named “the Purifiers” and they’re wearing battle armor, then he’s going to strip one of them down to their underwear.

  23. Couple of things. Jay, you never did explain your thoughts about the origin of Stack’s name…. Stash I would have understood based on your high Evolutionary idea, but Stack?

    I would also like to thank Miles for choosing Constable Purge, because Doctor Purge sounds like the inappropriately cheery mascot for a laxative brand… Dr Purge, and his even less appropriate sidekick, Kid Enema.

  24. Jay – during the mad libs portion you vetoed an answer stating that “technically, mutants are humans”. While you are philosophically and ethically right, I wanted to point out that technically, Marvel’s subsidiary legally fought and won a federal court case based on the argument that mutants are not humans – all for the purposes of obtaining lower import/export tariff rates for X-men toys since dolls were taxed at a higher rate than non-human figures.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz,_Inc._v._United_States

    1. So it’s basically the same reason the US Supreme Court declared tomatoes to be vegetables.

      I always wondered if Mutants were a separate species or not (based on the definition of producing fertile offspring). I couldn’t think of any grandkids of a mutant/human couple.

    1. They fall all over the place continuity-wise; there’s not really a good way to incorporate them en masse. Maybe we’ll do a piecemeal episode with more of them at some point, but in general, there aren’t many places where it makes much sense to fold them in.

      1. I get it, really. I just think it’s a pity.

        What I would say is that they may not fit into continuity as such, but an episode on them would be a good way to explore issues of continuity, in particular of the way in which flashbacks, stories set in the past that aren’t quite retcons, can shape a decades-long, multi-author, ongoing story. Which is to say their existence, their relation to both the original material and to the material that they were actually published contemporaneously to, is itself interesting. (This’d get even more interesting if you talked about the inserted pages in the old stories.) Anyway that’d be my pitch.

  25. I so want there to be a Apocalypse: Middle Manager comic. Because really, he sounds like the worst middle manager.

  26. I just wanted to say thank you for touching on the subject of Eugeneics and how it went on for centuries in America. It really disturbs me that most American History classes rarely talk about the subject and how in many ways Eugeneics were the basis for Nazi Germany. It’s still something that is frighteningly embedded in our culture; for example the term of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ is not a term used by Darwin, but was coined by Herbert Spencer and Eugeneics founder Francis Galton; and isn’t something we should be continuing to use when talking about evolution, yet it is continually used without examining the problematic history connected to it.
    I’m really glad that X-Men did touch on this issue in one of their books, even fictionally, because it’s frightening how much of this history and the people who were put through it is more or less erased by society. Cases like Buck v. Bell or recent incidents in female prisons are not talked about, and that’s just really scary.

Leave a Reply to Icon_UK Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *