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In which Miles discovers owl legs; Iceman dwells in subtext; Dark Beast overperforms; Daredevil is a delightful trash fire of a person; Graydon Creed’s presidential run is somewhat less shocking in 2021; Rogue does not enjoy playing ‘Got your nose’; and Mister Sinister is not a friend to public transportation.
X-PLAINED:
- Post-Decimation resurrections
- Owl legs
- Uncanny X-Men #331
- X-Men #51-52
- Iceman’s complicated personal life
- Casual crossovers
- The facial hair of Warren Kenneth Worthington III
- The terrible decisions of Matt Murdock
- How to subtly test your in-laws for mutant powers
- What Mister Sinister sounds like
- A bad plan
- The debut of Bastion
- DNA
- Foreshadowing
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It has to be said, if Dark Beasts plan to AVOID Sinister involved him replacing the leading geneticist in the team which has most often confronted Sinister… he didn’t really think that plan through very well.
By all accounts, the Waid run only lasted for six months because he got on quite badly with Lobdell (and also the Onslaught storyline became an in-story justification for booting him off Cap & Avengers because of Heroes Reborn). More details here : http://web.archive.org/web/20081114081111/http://www.thexaxis.com/indexes/xmen/51.htm
Yes — our hosts’ focus on how this Waid compares to later Waid perhaps made it sound a little like this Waid hadn’t done anything of note.
But if Mark Waid had left writing comics around this time, he’d still deserve attention from anyone writing the history of mainstream superhero comics for what he had already done on the Flash, which is one of the single most significant examples of the ‘90s nostalgic turn. Possibly the most significant, in fact, even if it’s not my personal favorite.
And his Captain America had already been well ahead of these X-issues, too. These are weak for Mark Waid at the time. Competent, but no more than that, from a writer who had already shown that he could be more than competent. Whether or not Waid was really working his notice, they read as if he was.
Although possibly also having fun on his way out. I mean, there’s this:
”An suck dat energy in! Do it!”
“That’s it! Push! Load up on my power till y’wanna pop!”
“Hold it in f’r dear life – – an get ready! When you got enough, you gon’ let it go in one big burst…”
And when Bishop later describes himself as having been ”completely spent” — why yes, Mr. Waid, I do think you were doing this deliberately.
I often lament that I would love for Mark Waid to write the X-Men one day. While Waid penned those six or so issues, I don’t think he ever really got to write the X-Men so much as follow the guide set before him. It would be interesting to see what he can do when there is no editorial mandate over his head.
I’ll have to doublecheck the issue, but I’m 90% certain that Cannonball used the “nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” line. It’s somewhere after Uncanny X-Men #200 before the Mutant Massacre. I believe it’s a danger room sequence – either when he’s training with Magneto for the first time or when he’s training with the Hellions at the Massachusetts Academy.
I’m hella late on this as I’m catching up on the pod while I read through the 90s, but I thought it was EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that yes Cannonball did say that line in Secret Wars II
I live for a good fight train story.
I haven’t verified these sources but here’s more (reported) history about a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/nervous_as_a_long_tailed_cat_in_a_room_full_of_rocking_chairs
Go Oregonian!