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In which the Shi’ar have zero chill; Bishop and Deathbird do space opera; we travel to the far-future year of 2018; Alanna Nerimani stretches the definition of “bird”; Deathbird is the cool aunt; Bishop needs a break from dark futures; and Bishop and Sauron have an intimate encounter.
X-PLAINED:
- The current number of Summers brothers
- Uncanny X-Men #358
- Team X 2000
- The Shi’ar Empire (more) (again)
- Shi’ar voices
- Parker Posey vs. Posie Parker
- Sexual dimorphism in art
- The Ursaa
- Organs
- The Chnitt
- Karel
- Several cameos
- Nullifier charges
- Tu
- The first appearance of Cyclops’s Captain America teddy bear
- 2018
- Alan Smithee
- Gith
- Deathbird’s terrible childhood
- Shi’ar-occupied Earth
- Alanna Nerimani
- Your cool murder aunt
- Earth-9922
- Deathbird’s war journals
- The Morlocks (but not those ones)
- Team X (but not that one)
- Bribery
- A very sexual encounter
- Explorations of disability and ableism in comics
- Beast’s long, slow heel turn
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What’s the name of the other Summers brother at the end of the cold open? I keep replaying it but I can’t make it out. Sounds like “Ath”??
Adam X, the X-Treme.
Thanks! So he’s back to Summers Brother status these days?
Also: why does Jay say there are “three” Summers brothers, then list 4 … ?
Well, the reveal of Adam being the fourth Summers brother occurred in X-Men Legends (Vol. 1) #1-2. It’s supposed to be canonical but hasn’t been mentioned since. As to their cold open? I’m guessing it was supposed to be something along the lines of “So Scott has 3 brothers now?” And it came out wonky. I could be wrong.
I did see the Lost in Space movie and it was… definitely a movie. Gary Oldman was in it as Dr. Smith, so that was something. It also had Matt LeBlanc in it (Joey from Friends) and I remember that for the wrong reasons. Otherwise, I couldn’t recall a single detail of that movie. There was also a failed pilot directed by John Woo that never made it to air before the most recent version with Parker Posey.
I think I’ve only read Team X 2000 once in my life and that was probably the week it was released. None of those details really stuck with me. In fact, when I thought of Team X, it was actually that issue of Uncanny X-Men that I was remembering. Weird.
So, in this episode, Miles mentioned the manga influence to the art style in these issues, and looking at these in particular, it’s interesting to see what manga artists in particular appear to having an influence.
I’m seeing a degree primary of Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed), along with Jouji Manabe (Outlanders, Caravan Kidd). This in particular is interesting as both artists were primarily published by Dark Horse. I’m not seeing that much of artists who weren’t published by Dark Horse. Maybe there’s some Kia Asamiya in there (he was only published by Viz), but I’m mainly seeing that in the eyes.
Anyway, I’m wondering why this might be. In comic shops at the time, when we’re still getting manga in individual chapter form as floppies, was the Direct Market focusing on Dark Horse because they had a bunch of stuff other than manga, so retailers were less likely to skim over them in Previews and on the order form since there’d be other stuff from that publisher they were looking for, whereas Viz might not?