Welcome everybody. It is time for our opening segment of Uncanny News. News
News News. Yes, for those of you who don't know, the Uncanny
Experience is an immersive X Men fan convention. It takes place in Minneapolis,
Minnesota at the historic Minneapolis Club where we transform it into Xavier Institute, the
school for our merry band of mutants. Yes, and there's celebrity and creator
panels, cosplay. There's a vendor hall called the Mutant Market, photo opportunities,
and an after party in the mansion is so much more. Yes.
And so for the news, we've just announced that we are so excited to
have cosplayer Michelle Waffle. She is an extraordinary X Men influencer and she will
be starring as Dazzler at our event. And Michelle, you know as being
a previous guest on our show. Her and Justin Otero were a guest on
our podcast. And yeah, you probably know her also from the Hellfire Galawak.
That's a pretty cool thing that she co founded with Jordan. Yeah.
She was also featured in Marvel's Becoming x Men video series, which is online
right now. Yeah, so join us September twenty eighth and twenty ninth for
a radiant showcase of music and light true to Dazzler style. So yeah,
she's not going to be singing like our Dazzler did last time, but she
will be there as Dazzler during the daytime for everybody to enjoy. I am
so excited to see her as the disco Queen. Alert Alert early bird VIP
tickets are almost sold out. I know, I was shocked. We got
back from vacation and I looked at the ticket numbers and I was like,
oh my god. We got to warn everybody. We only have a handful
left. So if you want guaranteed access to the exclusive activations like the Hall
Fire Club or your very own Xavier Institute's student ID card, or you want
admission into the after party, you gotta get on those VIP tickets. Now,
get on them before they disappear with the bamp Go to the Uncanny Experience
dot com now and get your tickets at early brood prices today. Indeed,
continuing our news segment the world of X Men comics, there is some exciting
news to share. Of course, we are all excited about X Men ninety
seven, the continuation of X Men the animated series. We have learned that
it's going to be coming out in spring of twenty twenty four, so we
are eagerly anticipating. And while we are anticipating this show, Marvel Comics has
announced that they are going to launch a prequel comic series that leads right into
the show, and it's going to be written by none other than Steve Fox,
who was a previous guest on this podcast. Yes, we love Steve,
and the art's going to be by Salva Espin. Yes, Steve Fox
is the writer of the X Men ninety two series that recently came out.
He's doing the upcoming Dead x Men, and he did the recent Dark x
Men as well. And the official prelude discover what Storm, Jubilee, Wolverine,
and the rest of the bloved nineties X Men cast have been up to
in the time before their return. Startling revelations here lead directly into the hotly
anticipated new series. Fans won't want to miss out. So if you guys
are really excited about this animated series, you can't miss this prequel comic series
because it's going to be in canon. We got to know the story before
the story actually starts, Yes, but that's our News Today. Everybody on
with the show. Hi everybody, This is Chandler and this is Chris and
you're listening to X Reeds the podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome to episode one
fifteen. We have an exciting issue that we are going to cover for you
today because there's a special series about me're on Disney Plus and Hulu. It
is called Echo. If you are a Daredevil fan, you you might know
this character well, and if you not, we are so glad to introduce
her to you X Men style and you may have seen her, of course
in the Hawkeye Disney Plus series. This is where Alana Cox, the or
A la Quacox, the actress who portrays Echo. She debuted in the Hawkeye
mini series and she is returning for her own solo series as Maya Lopez.
And we're really excited about this. Yeah, so I didn't see Hawkeye.
Can you give me some info and backstory about her appearance in Hawkeye? What
did she do? Sure? So she is a henchman of Kingpin. What
has happened is Kingpin has convinced Echo that in the comics, he convinces Maya
or Echo that Daredevil killed her father. But in MCU he convinced that Hawkeye
has killed her father, and so she is a henchman out to do his
bidding, commit crimes and get revenge on the death of her father. That's
interesting. There's gonna be some other celebrities that are going to be reprising roles
and returning a new cast. Some of the standouts I saw were Vincent Diinofrio,
who's gonna play Fisk, and Charlie Cox is actually coming back as Daredevil.
Yay, Yes, we love him. This is gonna be kind of
naughty, kind of scary kind of violence, I assume because it's rated TVMA
for mature audiences right well, and this is the first of Marvel's Spotlight series,
so it's going to have a new intro. It's a whole new brand
for Marvel MCU Disney Plus TV series. So yeah, I believe this is
something that you don't want to miss. It's kind of like the WandaVision that
started it all, you know, this is like the series that's going to
do a whole new branch in an MCU storytelling. So I think it's a
can't miss. It's gonna come on January tenth, I believe, or the
ninth January ninth. January ninth. I can't wait. And you know,
the story is interesting to me. She has to go back to her hometown
to Oklahoma, come to terms of her past. She's going to be reconnecting
with her Native American roots, and you know, we're going to see all
about her family and community and culture, which I love. Yeah. So
in theme with that, we are going to be doing Phoenix Song Echo.
So of course Echo has been a part of the Phoenix Lore, and the
Phoenix lore comes from X Men Comics, so we thought this is a nice
little tie in issue to kind of bridge X Men fans into learning more about
Echo and Maya Lopez, and here we go. Phoenix Song Echo written by
Rebecca Ronhores. You know, she was also the contributing writer to Marvel Comics
Marvel Voices Indigenous Voices number one anthology. Cool. Did you read that one?
Yeah? I did, Actually I own it. Cool. Yeah.
The art is by Luca Maresca. He also did the art for Children of
the Vault, which is a really cool mini series that just conclude and the
art was gorgeous and he drew Cable super sexy, So thank you Luca.
Cool. Well, let's set the era. This was published October twentieth of
twenty twenty one. This is kind of like around the time of the Trial
of Magneto story arc. Oh interesting, And of course we had Leah Williams
on who wrote Trial of Magneto. We have a whole episode of her recapping
the entire series on our January twenty twenty two episodes. So go back and
find that one. That's a fantastic one. Actually, I really love that
one because we brought in the host of a Date with Dateline or podcast Moms
and Inspirations for X Reads, and you know, we really get into the
trial hardcore on that. So yeah, But let's talk about the top song
on October twenty at twenty twenty one, and that was Stay by kid LROI
and Justin Bieber. Ooh, it's actually a good song. I like it.
It's not something that has a lot of re listen value. But if
you haven't heard that song, go find it on YouTube and you will enjoy
it. I re listened to it earlier and I thought it was a bop.
I had no idea it was Justin Bieber this whole time, though,
crazy Give it a listen. Yeah, Top movie is a movie that I
would never watch called Halloween Kills. I watched it. I loved it,
No, thank you. Oh it was great. It was one of those
like nostalgia pieces where they bring back everybody from existence for the franchise and you
don't know who's going to live and who's going to die. And it's Jamie
Lee Curtis. You know. I recommend it if you're a Halloween fan.
Really, Well, that's nice. I'm still not going to see it.
So so let's get into Phoenix song Echo number one. We'll start with on
the cover. Yeah, well this cover was by Corey Smith and Alejandro Sanchez.
And what do we see, Chandler, Well, we see Echo front
and center, of course, embodied with the new feet Nick's energy that she
has, and she's surrounded by her Avengers teammates. We see Thor, iron
Man, Black Panther, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and she Hulk.
Okay, so these people were not in the issue at all, no misleading.
Yeah, I was like, excuse, like, where are all the
rest of them? Why? Why was she on the Avengers? I'm not
everybody's on the Avengers at some point? Yes, why was she? That's
just because everybody's on the Avengers at some point, and there was a She
has this photo synthetic ability to copy and mimic things, and so she's like
task Master where she can duplicate movement photographically, and the Avengers needed her at
one point to step into a role. And I think around this time she
Hulk was leaving and they needed a bruiser because not that she's super strong,
but she's just a she's a combatant, you know, she's up in the
up in the action fighting. But they they all got involved in this battle
Royale with the Phoenix Force, and the Phoenix Force gave little bits of itself
to all sorts of different heroes and then they fought it out to see who
would be the new host of the Phoenix. And even though we'll find out
later she lost to nay More, she actually ended up getting the becoming the
Phoenix Host. So when she became a Phoenix infused, she got a new
costume because everybody gets a Phoenix cost and when they get the Phoenix powers,
they get the Phoenix glow up. So what do you think of her Phoenix
League, Well, it stays true to her fisticuff's lifestyle. She's got her
wrapped wrists and all the way up her arms because she's a she's a puncher
and a fighter. And then she has just a simple black pant and black
kind of tank top prop top look and the phoenix embellishes the front and looks
all phoenix y and bright, and then of course her eyes conic handprint on
her face is done up in phoenix flame. I love it. She looks
badass. Yeah, she is badass. She's a really cool character. Speaking
of badass, we probably get the most badass panel in the entire comic,
in my opinion, because as we turn the page, we see her in
all of her glory, flaming everywhere with the flume, and she says,
I am the fin ASX. And you know, it's very dramatic in my
head because the the dialogue bubble is wuiggly and dramatic and yellow, you know,
yellow bubble with red text. Ooh, we learned that. Of course,
when this is happening, that means it is Phoenix talking. Because Phoenix
as an entity, of course we know, has a personality of its own,
So Phoenix is kind of jiving with Echo in this I am Phoenix,
glorious moment. Now we see a horrific juxtaposition of imagery here, because the
next panel below that is somebody that does not deserve the wrath of the Phoenix.
It's a little girl and she's holding a teddy bear and she is scared
and she's saying help. And she's in her little room with her kid bed,
and the poor elephant and other bear are just getting toasted. She doesn't
seem like she's going to put up a fight against the Phoenix force. She
is just a normal little girl. And now we get a close up on
Maya's eyes, the Phoenix's eyes. Men is saying, and she says,
and I will kill you all. And then the title page, soy,
you don't get to know what happens next Phoenix song. Echo just said,
yes, let's go ahead and read the description here to give our audience a
little backstory. Born deaf Maya Lopez aka Echo was an otherwise happy child until
the Kingpin murdered her father and blamed it on Daredevil, raising Maya as his
own daughter for years. Maya eventually learned the truth, rejected her adopted father,
and joined the ranks of superheroes. Thanks to the photographic reflexes that make
her an unparalleled dancer and a hand to hand combat hint. Still, she
was the backup, the stealth agent until the Phoenix Force came searching for a
champion. In pitted heroes against one another, it shows Maya as its new
host. Even though Maya lost her fight against Anymour. No one really understands
why, least of all Maya. But she must have a purpose in this
cosmos. Mm Now, something I learned in this that I want to learn
more about is the fact that she is an unparalleled dancer. Correct, what
kind of a dancer is she? Chandler? She is an anything dancer because
she can mimic anything she sees. So if she watches Ballerina's she could do
ballet. She watches hip hop dancers, she could pop in lock. She
could do anything you want because as long as she watches somebody do the dance
she can she can mimic it perfectly. Okay, So who's gonna win in
a dance off? Her or Kitty? Oh? Her kitty is not that
good. What was Kitty's teacher's name, Stevie Hunter? Was that right?
Possibly? Do you think she would beat? I think echoes superability is going
to beat everybody. Sorry, I'm not gonna sign with anybody, but unless
it's unless they're somehow able to blind her so she can't see the dance,
and she can't you know, then use her vision to mimic. Mmmm.
She's going to She's going to do everything better and exactly. I wonder how
they're going to incorporate that into the TV series, Like, is she going
to have some really kick ass fight scenes that look like a ballet dance or
something? I hope, So that'd be so cool if they incorporate her her
dance history into the new show. Well, we shall see. Mm hmmm.
On the next page, we returned to the story. We're in Hell's
kitchen, New York City, ten minutes ago before this whole flaming fist that
the child happens. Mm hmm. There's a smash as a glass breaks open,
snatch as jewels are grabbed, and hurry up as two goons are stealing
a jewelry from a jewelry store. Yeah, we see Echo pop into the
scene with her fists ablaze, saying hello boys. This whole scene, get
her, get her. This whole scene made me like be like what is
something as powerful as the Phoenix doing small street crime, Like she's way overpowered
for these dudes. It's crazy. But we address that later once Electra jumps
into the scene. But in this moment, I was like, this is
silly. It was like, could you imagine Gene as Phoenix just kind of
going and stopping like a per snatcher. Oh no way, she wouldn't even
like, she wouldn't even look that direction. Also, I have something about
this Phoenix power so associated with fire, because it seems like she's more of
a fire mancer than like a sonic Phoenix force. So I'm not totally up
on my Phoenix stuff. I know Phoenix is a bird of fire, and
when it is part of Gene, it sonically is making it look like fire,
it feels like fire, it's everything fire, but it doesn't actually like
burn stuff. So it's very interesting that now it's all very much fire for
Echo. Perhaps Maya is using the Phoenix force how she would use it,
you know, maybe it's combining with her powers somehow, so in each host
it expresses itself a little bit differently. Maybe did you ever read The X
Men Phoenix five? Yes? Are you kidding? As the Phoenix. Oh
my god. I loved seeing that on the con and the convention circuit,
the Cause players doing that one, like, oh oh sorry, I mean
they all looked good too, like them of course, yeah magic, you
know, they all they looked amazing, And I know what they I know
the looks. I just don't know the story that well. I just know
bits and pieces of it. But did they embody the power differently? Did
they each have different manifestations of it? I don't remember the powers, but
I do remember that, you know, they were all kind of being tempted
by the dark side of the Phoenix power and using the power, you know,
for their own personal glory or fame or whatever. I remember the temptation
there, and and that all expressed itself differently. Very Star Wars. Of
course. I don't know. I I got to revisit that one because that
maybe we should X read it. Well never, we should we have a
podcast where we go back and look at various issues. I hope that the
NCU actually, you know, if they did a TV series called, you
know, the Phoenix Force, and we got to see all the different characters
in the NCU, like you potentially get this force and they have to battle
it a lot of fun. Let's uh, let's manifest at least a what
if episode? Season three was just announced, so you can get a season
three what if Phoenix related episode in the least. So she hoots up her
hand and they're all going bag bay babay by firing their guns rapidly, and
she has no problem just going I love how she was a little laughed.
She doesn't even say ha ha ha. She says, yeah, all of
those bullets just you know, collapse to the ground in molten lava, hot
as fire. They didn't stand a chance. They didn't even get near echo.
There's a close up on her lips and she says, you're going to
have to do better than that. Oh, and then a gun appears behind
her head. But I want to know if she can't hear, how does
she know a gun is behind her? I guess the click. Maybe she's
a phoenix for she can you know, sense him psychically. My guys,
Yes, that's true. I mean here's the thing though, I mean,
we were talking about how it manifests differently with different people, but we're covering
issue one and as a little bit of a spoiler, just a little teeny
pity one. That's not going to hurt your feelings. I don't think.
I right all the way through issue five because it's a five issue arc,
and I learned about powers about the Phoenix that I had no idea was possible.
Wow, And one of them being is that she can resurrect people from
the dead. That makes sense. Yeah, I mean it makes sense to
me. I just don't wor call it being done, have you no?
Hmmm, well no, uh yes, I'm trying to think now there was
Quentin Choir used his slice of the Phoenix force to make Jubilee no longer a
vampire, which is not resurrecting from the dead, but it is kind of
making the undead alive again. Hmmm. Anyways, well that's cool. I
need maybe I need to read this whole series. I've only read the first
issues, Ladies and Gentlemen, so I'm just going in super cold. But
this dude that hold up the gun, he's in a bit of trouble because
oh yeah, ooh, she said that was rude. She literally melts his
gun, melts his arm and then goes whoosh and fries him, burns him
alive into a crisp and a bloody puddle on the floor. M no one
else is planning to be rude? Are they already cowards? She screams,
you can't run for me, don't you Don't you know who I am?
Don't you know? The first time I read this, I was just like
her finger up in the air wagging. Don't you know who I am?
The Phoenix? I will kill you all? And she is just completely insane
right now, blowing up the total establishment. Everything in the jewelry store is
now being fried to a crisp and everything above the jewelry store, which is
this apartment where the little girl in the Teddy Bear is trapped amongst the flames
because she's screaming help, and it snaps Echo out of her days of Phoenix
glory, and she leaps through the ceiling into the girl's bedroom and the girl
little girl sees her. She goes, hey, you're on fire. You
brought it here. This is all your fault. Stay away from me,
Ill go away way from me. So yeah, Echo, it's such a
diss because like Echo is realizing that she left up, she did this whole
accident, and she has this remorse. But the diss is the fireman comes
in here, and the girl is just like, Okay, get rescued by
you boy, You're no hero. So yeah, Echo realizes that she has
caused the whole building to start on fire, and she says it was an
accident. The fire people show up, they save this little girl, and
she's a little disarmed by all of this drama that she caused. Again,
this whole fire manipulation, I just don't recall Phoenix Force setting buildings on fire,
but again it's different for everybody. She's looking out the window and she's
realizing that, oh my god, she needs to be able to control this
power because obviously she's out of control. And what kind of avenger burns aman
to death? I really know. First of all, now that we're looking
at the back of the outfit, we looked at the cover or when you
said this new glow up. So this Phoenix Force emblem on her chest is
actually like a little cape lette that has fringe as a whole like tape in
the back, which I really like. Yeah, it kind of makes it
look as if she has the phoenix feathers flowing behind her. Yeah, it's
super cool. Actually I like that very much. Slinking away, I see
says a shadowy figure from the fire escape behind her, glowing moonlight and all,
and Echo says, it's like I can smell her arrogance. She continues,
I know you're here, Electra, come out where I can read your
lips. And here we have it, Electra Nacchios aka Daredevil. I want
to say that the Daredevil series of Electra called a Daredevil Woman without Fear,
is actually so good and I feel like it was too short lived. I
need to like go back into the world when she is Daredevil, because she's
an amazing daredevil. Oh yeah, and I had no idea she was Daredevil,
So this is really interesting to see her and all her glory with this
costume. But I did a little bit of digging just to figure out what
happened and how she got there. And there was a period of time where,
you know, Matt Murdoch was in jail and Electra came to see him
and she told him about the fist and everything and mentioned that, you know,
there needed to be a king and a queen or whatever. But Matt
was just like no, no, no, no, and shut her down
and he didn't trust her and saying that she needed to prove that she was
on the side of light and said that she was a good guy. So
Elektra was determined to show that she wasn't a killer and she just kind of
took on the mantle of Daredevil. Well, Matt was in jail, so
she took on a bunch of threats as Electra. You probably we saw her
in the NOL invasion and she took on some of Bull's eye'es clones. And
after Mac got out of prison, though, they teamed up and they just
started protecting the city together. Yeah, they were Bolt Daredevil, so it's
kind of like a Wolverine and Wolverine. Mm hmm. That's fantastic when they
team up. Yeah, and tell us about her Luke. Oh, well,
of course she's wearing a red and black number of daredevilness her signature look
of red as Electra, you know, and when she had her Ninja outfit
on, where the pieces of fabric go between her legs. I don't know
how better to describe it. So she's keeping that vibe going. But she's
got pants on with Ninja boots, and she has the DD on her chest
and she has the Daredevil cowl, but she wears it as like just the
top of her her head so to speak. It doesn't go all the way
down her neck like Daredevil's does. And then she's got a flowy scarfee look
going. So she loves movement in her outfit. Yeah, I think she
definitely retained her Ninja esque flare. She is there to tell Maya that she
is now a criminal and she is causing drama and she needs the hell out,
and she wants to see what it's like to fight the Phoenix. I
don't want to see what it's like to fight the Phoenix who dares be running
in the direction like Avengers, please take care of this, I know.
And Phoenix is like ready to also take out Elektra or Daredevil, whatever you
want to call her. But then Maya is snapped out of it and she
goes, I'm sorry, Daredevil, maybe you're right. I don't belong here,
and she flies away, and Deboid does she fly away? She flies
and flies and flies, she flies forever. She even flies over Krakoa.
And now we get a little zoom in on who's sees her below? We
see Chamber and he's like, uh, what's that? Forge? And Forge
is all like a whole lot of trouble chamber. Yes, this is our
X men ty In of course, because they know the Phoenix Force, They've
dealt with this for years. This is a new thing for the Avengers,
so they're like, let us go, man, splain, what's gonna happen.
Well, somewhere in the Great Plains we see a farmhouse. It looks
very uh Mark kenty to me. But oh my gosh, Tiler, there's
this dude that I don't know why, but I have a major crush on
sCOD you to the comic. Oh yeah, yes, he's fixing his bicycle
and he's got the long flowing hair. He's a little bit imagine Dowkin maybe
a little bit of that flavor, right, Yeah, yeah, he definitely
has that long hair kind of you know, muscly. Look, well,
he's he's the Phoenix forest flying by in the sky and he says, looks
like it's time I better start getting ready. What getting ready is all about?
Who knows. But she decides that she's so upset she flies herself to
the moon. I'm so upset, I have to let some time alone on
the moon. On the moon, I would love to do that. That
would be like like cause you know, if I'm ever having a bad moon
and just be like bye, I'm going to the moon. There is a
device on the moon. I'm guessing this is from her, like she brought
it here because she must lying on the floor right, Yeah, I don't
understand that, like if it was just waiting for her there. Well,
it is a video scream and it says incoming video call. She's not answering
it right away. She's sitting there sulking about everything and a head pops out
of the screen. It's holographic and three D looking, and it is a
scary brood, but it's actually a kind and wonderful and beautiful brood that I
love. Yeah, Brew like bro but Brew. Yes, he is a
mister smarty Pants of the x Men. I was introduced to him as a
student, Like where is he nowadays? He Well, he is the leader
of the brood in a good way. He controls. Yeah I remember now,
Yes, he ate the King Egg. He became leader of the brood,
and then there was recently through Captain Marvel crossover, there was a brood
storyline of a sect of them that went off of obeying him and started attacking
people. But he still maintains control of majority of the population of the Brood.
While you guys, if you want to light in depth history about the
Brood, we covered it for ten million years, for five hundred million episodes
and issues back in the earlier days of X read the podcast. Yes,
indeed, you know, I always think about this because Brew controls a whole
civilization of those creatures of the Brood and all of these problems that they're having
with sentinels or whatever. I don't know why they'd be like, hey,
hey, Brew, can you just send down a giant swarm of crazy brood
to take out orchis? You know, can you guys, can you guys
go just push them into the sun or whatever? Like, I don't understand
why they don't utilize the whole army of creatures that he has access to.
But you know, he's the leader of that whole civilization. Why is he
going to throw her bodies at you know a problem? Well, and to
that point, I don't want them to sacrifice themselves, but they should at
least battle. You know, they there were a menace enough for the X
Men. Now they can be allies and you know, have a bit of
redemption. But no right now. The the dilemma, of course, being
that Cyclops wants to eradicate them and Gene does not. I just want to
see Brew and all of his glories sitting on a throne having a crown on
his head. Yeah, you know, doing Kingley and princely things. Mm
hmmm, well, gosh, does does he get to have like a Brew
queen? I don't think so. Maybe maybe i'd be interesting because yeah,
I okay, I take it back. I love Brew. I hate the
brood, correct. I don't like the Brud. I don't like the Brude
at all. They're scary. But I just love Brew. And if you
read more into Brew, I'm sure you're gonna love him too. Well,
he says, Echo, are you there. We've got a situation. Hey,
Brue, what's up. I'm getting a weird psionic signal from the middle
of the Pacific. It kind of looks like your energy signature. I think
you should take a look mine. You're sure, Maybe someone else should check
it out, just in case someone better. There is no one better if
it's Phoenix related, Maya, you're the only qualified one. I'm on it.
She has a bit of an internal dilemma about how she doesn't feel like
she's valuable, but she has to redeem herself after she completely torched that poor
villain that was just trying to take some jewels, and she says, I'm
on it. So she catapults herself back to Earth and zooms right into this
island. M h. But the island is ruined. There is like dead
rottet fish all over the land. The trees are all like scarched, scarched,
scorched the trees. The trees are all scorched, and the land is
desolate. And on top of this looks like I don't know mechanical thing.
There is a structure and it's forged, and he's waving at her. Yes,
it's an extement. Hello, Hello, I want to tell me what
you've got there, and who are you. I'm Forge, one of the
x Men, and I'm here to save you. I've never needed saving less
in my life. Yeah. So Forge kind of explains that she doesn't understand
the power that she's packing, but he does. He explains that she carries
the most powerful force in the universe, capable of great destruction and the Phoenix
Force should it be trifled with. Yeah, and she's like, what is
this place. She's like, don't you recognize it? Phoenix? So she's
like, my name is Echo, not Phoenix, and I didn't do this,
did I? And then she realizes she did do this because she is
Phoenix there now, So all the Phoenix stuff is her drama, her dirty
laundry. She's kind of realizing that, oh crap, I torched Easter Island.
Yeah. I just had to give a little quick funny shout out because
things like, is Forge man explaining me? But yeah, I that look
of realization in her eyes, just her that really close up emotional image.
Her eyebrows are upturned, her eyes are filled with the flames, and you
could just sense the sheer utter horror that she realizes in that moment in this
very you know, close up shot in this panel. So kudos to the
artist absolutely. So Forge is just like, all right, it seems like
you might need to have a little bit of a history lesson here. So
he invites her into the structure that he was sitting on, and it looks
as if there are television screens everywhere, and she is shocked because on each
of the screens we see a different tableau of the effects of the Phoenix force.
Yes, this is your life. And you know we see a planet
exploding, which is super dramatic on the left, and on the right we
see the Avengers battling the Phoenix five, which would be alluded to earlier.
Mm hmmm. And who's that in the middle Chandler, Goblin Queen of course,
Madeline. Prior so much darkness and destruction, so many souls lost,
people had been loved, who had hopes and dreams, families, an entire
planet. This is the power of the Phoenix. So now you get it,
you understand why brought you here. The power is simply too dangerous.
You must give it up, and I can help you do that. Wait,
give it up. It's that simple. Huh. You ax men think
you know everything. Well you don't know me. I'm not Jean Gray and
I don't need you to control me. Ooh Jean Burn already yeah, growing
under the bus of course, Gene. No. But Forge is just like
you know, I wish we could have did it the easy way, but
now we're gonna have to do it the hall hard away. Zippal ah.
She gets zepped and tied it to the chair, well, not so much
tied to the chair, but she gets stuck in a sonic state where her
mind is kind of not allowing her to function, and therefore the Phoenix Force
can't take over. Yeah, Borge is really crafty with his weapons. He
had to go through a lot of legs to be able to get something that
can subdue the Phoenix Force. So he's gonna have her held until he can
study the powers more and understand how the Phoenix bonds with its hosts and how
to uncouple it. Yeah, but he buries the structure. How does he
do that? Just like he clicked the button? You know, He's like,
do the thing machine I made because I can do anything. Well,
Forge, you're kind of an asshole because you buried somebody alon and that's scary.
Yes, well does there chum chum chum kaboom, pity the girl kaboom.
I cannot be contained by the likes of you. You really think you
can control the Phoenix with your little gun and your cage? That's your Phoenix
voice. You're lucky. I don't burn you where you stand for these insults,
but that would only prove your point and I'm nobody's morality tale. Goodbye,
X men. We won't meet again and foo. She's gone, okay,
So you know, if they if I see Phoenix on screen somewhere,
I want Phoenix to have this voice, very Shakespearean. It's a little it's
a little storm, it's a little you know, it's got it's got drama
to it. Echo's gonna let Forge live. Thank God, we like,
we love Forge. Forge is a hot daddy, and I don't want him
to get you know, fried alive. But he vows that next time he's
going to have a bigger gun at a better cage, and Echo will not
see him coming. Mm hmmm. So she flies away and she goes to
the Great Plains area that we saw the gentleman fixing his motorcycle with earlier.
And it is called the res It's in all nations, welcome if you behave.
So this is not a reservation for a single tribe or single community.
It is for anyone who has lost their family, lost their tribe, lost
their language, lost their culture, so that they can all join together in
a conglomerate of First Nations, Native American kind of you know culture. Well,
she is walking through town and you know it's a populated city, there's
people about. She comes across an auto mechanic place, and oh, yes,
this hunky man that was working on the motorcycle is now underneath this sports
car that is gorgeous, working away. And she's all like, excuse me,
I'm looking for someone. Maybe you can help. And he wheels out
and he's got his tank top on showing his bare arms giving muscle giving mug
ah, his hair up and a hand bun. Oh my gosh, she's
so dreamy. She's looking for the chief and he's like, yeah, I
know him, and she goes, oh okay, oh that was easy.
It turns out that the chief is this dude's grandfather, and he's all like,
uh yeah, if you want to see him, you can go to
the cemetery, all right, because he's dead. He did, he did,
but you know what, he likes visitors, so you know, have
at thee. Yeah what you got me inspired to be Shakespearean for some reason.
Now my recap is all Shakespearean. Well, she says she'll go,
and he goes, oh wait, baby, maybe I can help, and
she's like, oh, are you a medicine man? No, but I
know a few things and a friend told me you were coming. And she's
like, oh, who's your friend. Oh. And then he hands her
a slip of paper and he says, why don't you come to dinner and
find out. I'll take the paper, I'll take the dinner. I'm ready,
yes, but he says, manners do not come empty handed. You
don't show up to the dinner without somebody, even a bottle of wine,
whatever it may be. Oh my god, I learned that lesson the hard
way in real life. I bet you did. Oh my god. You
remember that one time at Halloween when I left it at home. I had
a whole thing from the grocery store, a dessert, and Chandler said,
okay, Chris, make sure you bring something. And I got there and
I was just like, oh no, I left it at home. Well,
you know I'm gonna be super late, so I might as well just
go up and enjoy the party. And I get there, everybody's decked out
their Halloween costumes. I'm like, here I am, and there's a whole
spread of amazing Halloween treats. Everything you could think of, like rice,
Crispy draculas, and I don't know, chocolate cake, Frankenstein's. It was
great. But then y'all looked at me and You're all were like, where's
your dish? And then I look behind me like, uh oops, I
forgot it. I didn't want to be late. You didn't want to be
late. Go just you shouldn't have even come at all. Just you know,
you should have been, like, you know, halfway over the party
without instead of being at the hand. That's right, a shaved sham.
Never again. I swear I will be an hour and a half late to
the party, Chandler. I will never come empty handed again. I can
do what it takes. So she needs to be at this man's house for
dinner at six o'clock sharp, and she's like, ooh, this better not
be a waste of time. As she shows up at six o'clock, she's
got something in her bag. You can see. I don't know what she
bought, but she's got a bag of something. So she did not come
empty handed. She was told to bring flour in a sack of potatoes,
so I'm assuming that's what it was. Usually with the grandfather, she brought
tobacco, but you know, maybe these people don't smoke like this hot dude.
She gets up the stairs and onto the porch, but then all of
a sudden Shing. There is an electric explosion of energy and it sends her
flying back at warp speed. Right at that is a beautiful looking night rider
car. It's not a night rider car. I just don't know how to
It looks like a night rider car. Sure, we'll say it kind of
reminds me of an Alvis Presley car racer thing. It's a really beautiful car.
Anyway, Shing smash crashes everywhere, and she's all like, what the
hell? This is my favorite part because of course, because why Chandler,
Well, because he opens the door. Ah, he's in his towel.
He's just literally ran out of the shower. He's still wet. He's soaking
wet, ripping everywhere. He's so ripped. His nipples are got water droplets
on them. Yeah, that's how Weddy is. That's how wet Weddy is.
Okay, Anyway, she says the last man who tried to kill me,
and it end up so good and she flames herself up plame on exactly.
He's all like, wait, who wha, whoa, whoa. I
said to be here at six o'clock, but it's only five thirty or early.
I didn't get a chance to the stable, the security system. Yeah,
who shows up thirty minutes before somebody. That's when you catch people in
the shower because they're busy preparing everything, they don't have time to shower,
and then they are going to take a shower right before you arrive. So
if you arrive too early, never, never, and let maybe five minutes
early. You know, just Chandler, just I have to tell you this.
If I ever organize anything, I used to organize stuff, but not
anymore. If I ever organize a little get together myself, do not come
a half hour early. No, I won't you. You may come five
minutes because I literally start everything that I need to do forty five minutes before
it's due, so I will also be answering the door. What exactly?
No? This is? She should know better? Maya come on? Come
on? So she's all like she puts a fireball in her hand Johnny Storm
style, and she is saying, hey, wait a minute, why do
you have the securities system? Who the hell are you have this security thing
that blasted so far back into that car that the car is now destroyed?
What's going on here, buddy? And don't lie to me? Well,
he's like you better come inside. We got we got, I got something
to show you, he says, Let me get dressed and I'll explain.
And he explains who he is. His name is River. Yeah, and
he didn't he didn't even clean up his house. No, he's just like
me. We're so simpatico. If we if we were like, you know,
a couple or something, we would both be cleaning the house and taking
showers at the last possible minute. Because there's books everywhere, mounds and mounds
of books. Uh, what else do we see? We see beautiful artwork
a Native American and a hatchet. Oh yeah, there's a drum knife in
a sheath. That beautiful or Nate, I love that. Yes, Oh
there's a skull of bull skull on the wall or cow mm hmm. But
yeah, we learned as names River and he has a superpower as well.
He can travel through ancestral lines, not time travel, but he can see
through ancestry. He's a storyteller. Yeah, and this is very interesting because
I don't think I've ever seen somebody that had this power specifically in the Marvel
universe yet. It's like past life superpower. Well not past life, it's
he's basically the personification of ancestry dot com. He explains a little bit about
how he knows who Echo is and that she came to understand her power and
why the Phoenix chose her her because we heard of the beginning that she is
the Phoenix host. After losing her battle to nay More died in the process,
Phoenix resurrected her gave her the power. She's like, I'm a loser.
Why would you choose me? Why am I? The Phoenix forts host
so and he's like, because you're strong, and you actually come from a
long line of strong warrior women. They touch hands and boom, we see
all of these women from her history. Well, let's see who we see
here. Now, I see as somebody that has a piece simple So I'm
assuming that this is like a hippie from the sixties. O right, yeah,
sure, we see got your leader type person. Oh yeah, yes,
and a bunch of other beautiful Native American women. Yes, it looks
strong and powerful and I love I got to give a big shout out to
the one in the lower right, because she's like grandma version of these other
women, and she's probably a real big badass. Hmm. If we got
a story all about her. I'm sure that would be really interesting. She
is like, stop, get out of my head. I don't know why
she's so shocked, but I guess, you know, maybe seeing your ancestors
is rather shocking, and she just wants to know if that's real, Like
how how did he do that? And why? I'm kind of curious,
like Chandler, if this happened to you and then all of a sudden you
got a vision of like the powerful ancestors from your line, Like who would
you see? I don't know who I would see because I don't know anything
about my ancestry, So maybe that would be shocking and exciting. I feel
like I would be excited if I learned that I came from like a line
of warrior people, you know, rather than like stop, what are you
doing? I'd be like, ooh cool. I think this has kind of
inspired me to do the ancestry dot Com just to find out. Yeah,
oh my gosh, it works. They sponsored this new character and it worked,
mister ancestry dot com. But yes, anyways, he's like, oh,
no, this actually comes from your mother's line. Mom, Mom,
I don't even know my mom that some of her last name was Lopez.
But yeah, you know, there is an evil entity out to get her
and he is going after her ancestral line. And she's like, I'm tough,
I got the Phoenix sports. He goes like, no, you don't
even understand. They're going so far back that they might eradicate her before she's
even born. Yeah, and you know what, it looks like River has
been doing his research because on the table next to a wonderful cup of coffee
which I want to drink right now, there is a sheet of paper that
shows Maya's ancestral tree and with a big circle around her on it. Yes,
but yes, we get the done dune done to be continued at the
very end because this shadowy figure that's traveling through her ancestry is out to get
her and make sure that she is never even born, kind of like in
a kind of like a back to the future kind of way. That was
the issue, everybody. It is an exciting setup for a five issue arc,
and I highly recommend it because it was a fun you know read,
and I liked seeing the incorporation of Native American culture in it. So give
it a shot, you guys. We learn things about the Phoenix Force.
You know, like that she has the power to resurrect people from the dead.
I didn't know that one. Yeah, and we get to see more
of Maya's ancestors. She goes into the past each generation. You know that
villain is going to try to kill off the people in her family line,
so we'll see if she survives. While Chandler, that was a fun recap.
I am so excited to watch the new Echo series. I'll have to
go back and catch Hawkeye. I know, I know. Hawkeye was like
a Christmas themed right, so yes, and it's like fun, it's really
fun. It's not by any means. Yeah, so that'll that'll gear me
up. Do you think I need to go back and watch Daredevil too,
just to kind of get some Charlie Cox and me. No, right,
Charlie, you don't worry. You didn't say that. Okay, but no,
there's no Daredevil, uh, you know, necessary unless you just want
to enjoy some Wilson Fisk you know, Vincent Dinofrio stuff. But no,
for storyline, all you need is the Hawkeye series. Perfect, Okay.
Cool? January Night, everybody tune into Disney Plus and Hulu for the new
Echo television series Live Action. Yeha, before we go, I just wanted
to tell the audience that I had an amazing life experience with you Chandler,
my best friend and co host of xu Reads the podcast. Why because over
the holiday we went to the home of Gambit. Yes, yes, nolangs
knowledges. We went for the New Year celebration and there was so many cool
things to see. There were so many cool things that we did, Like
we went to the American Horror Story House and took photos you know, from
Covin. Yeah, that was cool. M h, Yeah, we did
all. We walked along the French Quarter a lot. We went to the
Historic Voodoo Museum. We ate a lot of amazing food. We went to
City Park Ate Beignets did a whole photo shoot very vampire style, the hometown
of Gambit. I give it an a plus. Absolutely, it's It's one
of my favorite cities in America by far. It's sony, yes, totally.
And we actually ran into this dude that was carrying a bowstave and he
had long, scraggly hair. He was blondie. He didn't have the brown
hair, but he had the coat, he had the bow staff and everything
and he looked, you know, like a street thief kind of dude.
And I was just like, he's here, gambits here, this is the
IRL version. Yes, that was cool, And shout out to Creston City
Comics too. We went to the local comic book shop to support them and
I picked up some stuff. So love you, Creston City Comics. Shout
out, shout out, so yes, thank you for that magical memory of
Gambit's hometown. And we will be having so many more adventures in this new
year of twenty twenty four. Yes, all right, everybody, thanks for
tuning in. See you next time. X Reads is recorded in the United
States. Our theme music is written by Austin Wintry. Make sure to follow
our podcast to be updated on when new episodes appear every first and third Wednesdays
of the month. Follow us on social media at x reads podcast that's the
letter, X ri ads Podcast on Twitter, Instagram, at Facebook. Thanks
so much for listening. Bye,