Hi, everybody. This is Chandler, and this is Chris, and this
is Neil. And you're listening to X Read the podcast. Yay, we
are back with another episode, episode ninety eight, with author Neil Clyde.
Welcome, Neil. We're so happy to have you. Neil. Hello,
Hello Eddie. Thanks for having me. Oh my gosh, thank you so
much for being here. We're excited to talk to you because you are the
author of the upcoming The Phoenix Chase. This kind of novelization of X Men
lore, which is not cannon but can be cannon to people, I guess,
but I still love all the novelizations. Yeah, no, it's it's
fun. It's it's so it's for a company called Aconide Books. They license
out from with Marvel. They do a bunch of Marvel books. They've done
Escardian themes, Heroine's Untold, a bunch of different and so one of their
fanners is School of X and they do all these like X Men books,
but it's set during the Brian Bendus Penned era, so like twenty fifteen,
like twenty third fourteen and a little earlier. And so it's cannon in the
sense that it sort of ties into that continuity, but it kind of it's
sort of said in what they call it their own sort of parallel universe.
So it's like right next to six sixteen, it's six to eighteen or whatever,
right close enough to be kissing cousins, but sort of far enough to
be its own thing. Right, it's just basically an excuse so the editors
don't have to read all the books and be aware of that. It's like,
you know, we don't want to update all of our writers on all
the novels. Yeah. No, And for like a continuity guy like me,
it's great because I'm like, I want to tie it into all this
stuff, and they're like, you don't have to, like, but I
want to. I want to. Well I love that want and desire.
Yeah. So your your Marvel School of X novel, The Phoenix Chase.
It features kid Omega's coming out May second, twenty twenty three, swords literally
around the corner. It's available for pre order right now through anywhere you get
your books, comic shops. Actually it's in the Mark steamond previews, I
believe. So go and get your comic sort of get a bunch of copies
and yeah, and then it comes out May second, right before the Guardians
of the Galaxy movie and Free comic book Day. Oh really well timed.
Yeah, absolutely, But this is not your first Kid Omega story. It
is not. So Aconite did an anthology for the School of X Banner called
School of X and my first story, Kid Omega Faces. The music appeared
in that in that book, and it was a lot of fun. It's
kit Omega basically talking to a human and telling them about this crazy time travel
story that he and his pal Glob went on. And it's basically the two
of them bouncing around X Men history. But why Quentin, So you've done
this story and you've got Phoenix Chase what and you're wearing a Quinn Choir T
shirt. By the way, I'm a huge fan of the character. I
know there are people who are much larger fans than I am, Folks who
are Twitter accounts and Tumblers and you know Instagrams that are really devoted to Quentin
And I just think he's a fascinating character. I think he's got this really
great, like sarcastic trickster vibe that you see in Loki or you see in
a lot of those sort of characters, like anti hero type characters, and
like he's what it's great about him, especially in the era that I get
to write him, is that he is still kind of a jerk, but
starting to move into that phase where he's like wants to not be the character
how he first appeared. Right when he first appeared in the Grand Morriscen era,
he started off as you know, a regular mutant kid in the school,
and then you know, stuff happened to him and he became this real
sort of like I don't want to know vilan is the right word, but
rebel, I guess is the best is the best term. Anarchist, right,
And you saw him a couple he did a couple of appearances where he
like an in the beginning of Schism. He came out and he was a
guy that basically kicked off schism, and you saw a lot of that from
his earlier appearances where he was just kind of like Magneto was right, mutant
revolution, I don't really buy into everything that Charles Xavier's saying, and I'm
gonna sort of up end the mutant patriarchy and matriarchy or whatever. Right,
And over time, as he appeared in the Vendus books, and also eventually
as the character got a little older and did at his stint in West Coast
of Venders and now obviously as you're seeing him in X Force right on the
correct area Krocoa era, he's definitely mature. Is maybe not the best word
for Quenton, because I don't know that Quentin will ever fully mature, but
he's come to terms with what it means to be responsible a little bit.
And so what's great about it for me in this sort of playground that I
kind of get to monkey around with, he's definitely starting to figure out what
it means to be responsible and what it means to not be selfish, and
what it means to really value other people. And so you saw a little
bit of that in the short story where he basically learned what it meant to
sacrifice, right, what sacrifice, personal sacrifice means. And that's what the
story was about, because, like I said, it was a time prowl
story. It was him following Magneto across time and looking at like the various
iterations of Magneto you know, over X Men history, starting from like Brotherhood
of Evil Mutants, you know, him and Piro and Blob and the Toad
and all them, all the way up to Magneto and Cyclops creating the Exabered
Institute, right, So them being kind of the co headmasters, and you
know we you know, we tease different things, like you know, Secret
Wars was teased in their and BT's active vengeance and all the various touch points
that you really saw Magneto along the way, and it's Quinton basically seeing that,
like when you see mcgneto was right, The question really comes down to
it is which mcneto right? When was mcneto right? Was he right at
the beginning? Was he right when he started to become good? Was he
right? Durning the gym lillierro Like, when what's Mgneto right? And what
was he right about? And so that's really what Quinton's arc in that story
is about really coming to Rips what it means to basically look at his hero
because he's really admires Mgneto and say, if he can grow, why can't
I. We really took that and used it as sort of a catalyst for
the story that everyone's going to read in May, which in the Phoenix Chase,
it's about Quinton really kind of maturing even further Earth and coming into his
own as as a hero and learning what it means to not just really like
fire off from the gut and kind of shoot first and ask questions later,
but understand what it means to marry chaos with diplomacy a little bit. And
the great thing is that we get the probably gets to partner him with Alex
Summers Havoc, who's a fantastic character, because you've got two characters really with
a lot of daddy issues, yes, and two characters, you know,
one who's super confident to his detriment and one who is not so confident to
his detriment, and looking at that sort of like teacher student relationship, how
the two of them really learn together from each other over the course of the
book. I will say that one of the elements of the book that really
excites me is that it features the Star Jammers, one of my favorite teams.
I love Cosmic x Men, so I need to know who is your
favorite Star Jammer and why. So I'm a Courser fan. There's sort of
love or hate with this family, but I'm a Summers family like I'm a
fan, So this book really touches except for Adomax, who are not really
sure how people sort of land on Adomax. But the key Summers family members
all really appeared in this book, so you get Scott, Alex, Corsair,
and even Mom Catherine's in the book for a little bit. And then
because we're going to tee this up in a little bit, but Vulcan also
plays a large part of the book table. I love that MESSI Summer's drama,
and I like Coursair because he's got the visual flamebuoyance. He's like Air
Force Space Pirate Captain Dad that is really just out there, kind of doing
his Errol Flynn meets Ton Solo, and just something about the character has always
really drawn I've always been drawn to that character. All the other ones are
really great too. I mean, I'm a big fan of the entire team.
Of course, there's definitely the draw for me. I also love Coursera,
so totally agree. On your Instagram, you posted the Marvel Legends wave
that's coming out the Chode build a figure and it's a wave that features Corsair,
Kit Omega, Emma Frost, Chamber, Money Fang and Chode and you
said five out of seven characters are in your book. So which characters of
those are going to appear in the novel? Well, let's see if you
can guess. I mean, there's some obvious ones obviously. Yeah, So
I'm gonna say Chode, Coursair and kit Omega are obvious. Kit Omega obviously.
Yeah. I want to say I am a Frost just because I love
her so much and I really wanted to be in the book. Yeah,
I'm hoping. And then I'm gonna say it's Fang. I was hoping it's
Monee because why not. It would be so amazing to have money in there.
But it's Faying because we're in R space, right. So Emma,
Emma appears at the beginning, Um, you know, like like like I
said, it's set during that sort of Zebo Institute Vendis era where they're up
in that you know, Weapon X facility. Um, and so Emma's part
of the team. And so at the beginning you see a lot of those
characters Cyclops and Emma and some others. And Fang appears at the end of
the book, which I don't want to give away too much, but yeah,
he's in there. Two of those figures already, so I'm excited.
I've pre ordered them as well. I'm so excited. Something I'm excited about
is video games. Because when you fired up the camera and I saw what
was behind you, I was filled with joy. You have an X Man
arcade cabinet, just like Handler dies. Me and him are obsessed with this.
We go head to head and battle it out every time I come over.
So is your X Men cabinet your social hub? Is this something that
you play a lot? And what is your character of choice in the game?
Yeah, so I'd be play it a lot. I play it a
couple times a week if I can social hub. I mean, like,
I have a family, so it's if my kids are playing, I'll play
with them. Sorry about this. I didn't actually get it for the X
Men. It comes with two other games, and I got it for the
Captain America game that it comes with, which I played in high school like
religiously, like every day, and I haven't played it in years. And
when our kid went up and makes the games came out and said, oh,
it's gonna be packaged with this other game, I'm like, that's the
game I want. I spent I want to say wow, about four or
five months in high school trying to beat that game just Sunday after Sunday,
just with a bag of quarters. And then we got the game and my
son and I put it together together. I'm beat it in like Mets because
because it's free to play, it's fantastic. But I do love the X
Men game. And when we play, I'm Cyclops. It's the force beams.
He moves quick. It's a Summers person. You love Summers brothers.
I actually I'm I'm a big Colossus fan too, so sometimes I like I'll
juggle between the two of them. Um, I just don't love Colossus as
a character in the game. He doesn't move as fast. It's a little
bit more cumbersome. If I can't get to Cyclops, I'll take Peter very
well, very well. Well, I'm a nightcrawler, stand I love.
I love being Nightcrawler in that game. He's my favorite. In fact that
I play other characters, I just don't under I don't even know what to
do. He's got a cool power like the like the criss cross teleport.
Asian and Wolverine's kind of got almost the same thing, but it's his arms,
right, So it's the criss cross, but instead of the teleporting,
it's his slash. So I'm all about Storm in this game, doesn't she
have that like knife? If I recall the ice pick? Come on,
you know I'm talking about it's the wand. Yes, a wand which never
had one, but in the video game she hasn't want Yes. I thought
it was a Mandela effect for half a second where everybody thought that that was
real, but it never existed and I just found out. Thank you for
confirming that it was a wand. Yes. Nobody likes Dazzler. Oh.
I know a lot of people that play with Dazzler that would refuse to touch
another character except for Dazzler. So I will say there's a lot of Dazzler
fans with that game that bought this cabinet specifically for this game. I think,
all right, I don't know that, but I'm glad. I'm glad
that they're Dazzler fans out in the world. We love that, So Dazzler
Army of fans. You can go at Neil on Twitter and stuff. I'm
not coming down on Dazzl. I like the character of Davil. I just
don't know people who use her in the game. Yes, well they will
make themselves now and I'm sure Dazzler, yes, absolutely. All right,
well let's get into this issue. Well, first of all, I'm really
curious, so we're by the way, audience, we're going to be recapping
X Men Emperor Vulcan number one. Now, why did you choose this issue
for our show? As I may have mentioned, there's a lot of Marvel
and X Men continuity. In the Phoenix case, Quinton and Alex with the
star Jammers, they're out on a scavenger hunt to find an aspect of the
Phoenix, and so it's a big grand space adventure and it ties into a
couple parts of X Men continuity, and one of the larger parts is Vulcan's
reign as emperor. When you've got, you know, a book that really
is focusing on a Summer's father and son and talking about one letting the other
one down and self esteem issues across the family, you can't not talk about
Gabriel Summers, right, and how he really affected that family. And to
be honest, just to sort of spoil something, sorry, this book from
my perspective, or for these characters perspective, it's actually the first time that
Courser and Alex see each other after Corsett Courser comes back from the dead.
For those folks who don't know if a larger spoiler in the comics, Vulcan
killed his father. At one point, he kills Corsair and Alex then became
the captain of the Star Jambers. Havoc became the captain of the Star Jamdlers.
And so in the book you get kind of that first moment of the
two of them seeing each other after Corsair's resurrected, and they have a lot
to unpack, and there's a lot of that as part of the book.
And so one of the things they have to unpack is clearly Vulcan. And
without giving too much more away, a lot of what you see from a
like dynastic saga that is Emperor Vulcan. A lot of what you see really
ties in to some key parts of the Phoenix Chase. Well, let's set
the era this book. It came out in November of two thousand and seven.
The top film was American Gangster starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington. Have
either of you seen this film? Nope? No, this is a prime
Oscar season. So I'm surprised that if the number one film of nove is
not registering at all, We're all also talking about how long ago is this?
Now we're sixteen years ago or something. It's crazy to think that two
thousand and seven was so long ago. Yeah, that's oh my lord,
it's quite a bit. Yeah, this is probably maybe a good field Lope,
Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, good actors. Well, these songs you
may have heard of. The top song of November of two thousand and seven
is a tie. It is kiss Kiss by Chris Brown and t Pain and
Apologized by Timberland and one Republic. How's it going? She wants that love
e Devey lovey dovey kiss kiss kiss kiss something that I don't remember all the
words that I got. The other one? Is it too late to apologiz
You's it too late? Yea, yeah, that's it. That's it one,
that one I know, the first one not so much. Yeah,
all right, well either way, songs of the era. All right,
let's let's dive into this. X Men Emperor Vulcan number one published November two
thousand and seven, written by Christopher Yost, art by Paco Diaz, titled
Gabriel Summers also known as Emperor Vulcan, and on the cover, it's a
pretty dynamic cover. It's actually really caught my eye, so I love it.
Well. First of all, of course, we get this amazing giant
image of Vulcan and his missing eye, because I guess Deathbird took out one
of his eyes. I can't remember now. I read that Vulcan saga that
the fall of Shear so long ago. We do you get to mention of
the eye. I have to go sort of look again, and I don't
remember whether it was death Bird or Diken. Mm. Well, we'll get
to it. We'll get to it. I know who it is. I
totally remember now. Oh, but I don't want to spoil it because it's
kind of like a good artistic moment, you know, a power dynamic thing.
So we'll get there. We will expose how his eye was slashed from
his face by the end of the day. Remember I remember who it is
now, Yep, yep, yep. We'll get there. And by the
way, that character who we will get to also was in the book.
Below we see Alex Summers leading the star Jammers minus Hepsiba. I noticed that
she was absent. I think she left the team after Coursier died for a
little while. Yes, she was living on Earth. That's right, she
was on the X Men. She lived in the X Mansion. Yep,
yep. I think post of Courser's death, she didn't want to be on
the Jammer and so they had a weird team at the time. Rachel Summers
was on the team. Who's in the book and this guy Corvis I don't
remember too much about. Yeah, Corbus, he is a she Are,
a member of the she Are who has the Phoenix Blade, which is a
sword m du and dued with the power of Phoenix, or a portion of
the power of Phoenix, right, and they and they were dating at some
point, I remember, yes, and then and then Polaris is on the
team and then chowed Raza and yes, that's the that's kind of like theah
the core team. A war Path was was in the story, but I
think he went back to Earth with Hepsiba and a couple other the characters of
the Fall of Sher Empire. But now we are guests in this core team
of the New Star Jammers. I actually loved all of their dynamic in this
book. I can't wait to get into The only character we haven't mentioned is
Lelandra. She's also on the cover, correct, land I can't ever not
say it like that. All Right, we open and on the inside cover
we have our very first at blert. It says, ahoy, and there's
a picture of a girl fishing and it's for Old Spice. This was pre
the Old Spice guy, right, yeah, okay, pre the Old Spice
guy. It is a very sexy lady and she is fishing. There's a
bear behind her. It is I don't see her fishing in this outfit.
I r l so definitely a fantasy here. She's wearing really high boots,
but they're not like waiters, you know, which are worn like pants with
overalls. They're kind of just buccaneer boot styles with Daisy Duke jeans. And
she's got a tied up shirt and a picnic basket. I guess for fish
to put in, is she supposed to be wearing the Old Spice? Or
B Is she supposed to be attractive by the Old Spice? Or c?
Does the Old Spice have nothing to do with the ad? Is the bear
wearing the Old Spice? Right? Correct? The tagline says smell intriguing.
So maybe she's wearing it and it intrigues the bear and the fish around her.
Zoom into my bear face though, is that bear happy? Is he
going? Oh? Is looking? Is not angry bear? No, it's
definitely looking like what's over there? Okay, she's wearing it. One month
later, the old Spiceman was born, right exactly. It changed everything.
Yeah, he's on a horse. On the first page, we have a
previously an X Man, which made me think immediately of the animated series.
Previously an x Men Vulcan, one of Charles Xavier's former students and brother to
the x Men, Havoc, was long thought dead, but recently he resurfaced.
Deeply traumatized by his childhood, he left Earth to revenge himself on the
Shear, the alien empire that killed his mother and enslaved him as a boy,
and along the way he fell in love with the princess turned criminal outcast
Deathbird. Together they drove Lelandra, a Deathbird's sister and the Empress of the
Shear, from her throne. Havoc and the fellow x Men Polaris and Marvel
Girl fought alongside the star Jammers and Havoc's father Corsair to prevent this and avoid
a civil war, but ultimately Vulcan killed his father and wed Deathbird. In
so doing, he cemented his position as the leader of the Shear and ushered
in a new age of tyranny. Now the star Jammers, led by Havoc,
have joined forces with Landra's rebels to put an end to the mad reign
of Emperor Vulcan and then pan down to the Star Destroyer exactly. I was
gonna say, it feels like that text, that that scrolling text of Star
Wars. That's why I'm paired my cabinets here, my X Men and my
Star Wars cabinet. I love it. I love it. Yes, So
yeah, are we opened on a scene of war. We see this alien
race and they're saying that there's a development with the sher and so they say
the time has come. These are characters who will become more important to the
rest of the series. They become the antagonists. Guy or Tall. I
think, oh, yes, okay, yeah, so this is just the
precursor to the end of the issue. Got it. This is sort of
like the flashback to sort of what happened to them and kind of setting up
their story a little bit. Yeah, and the name of the race is
something really interesting, which we will reveal at the end, because I was
just like, what, that's what your name means, like for real,
So it's tay Tuned Centers for that excitement too. These creatures, they kind
of look almost reptilian, amphibious, kind of like a starfish but kind of
black. I don't know, what would you describe these aliens, like like
a bug vibe from them, like, oh yeah, like a beetle.
Yeah, kind Yeah, they reminded me a lot of I don't know if
y'all are Hulk fans, but from like World War Hulk, Like the character
Meek is raised a little bit got that kind of like sort of tadpoleis sort
of bug kind of feel to it. Well, they're not the only ones
that are in space. We also have some she Are empirere soldiers in their
ship and they're detecting a strong electromagnetic field, but they can't detect the source.
And then he realizes, you know, the captain who has fabulous feather
hair. By the way, I love the Shear Race for this feather hair.
I want to grab it off their head. And say put it on
my head, let me fly around with that. It's cool. But anyway,
this she are guy, he's just like electromagnetic god preserve. It's a
trap all warbirds to condition black, which I mean, I guess that's code
red in Star Trek speak. Those star Jammers are here, and the star
Jammers appear through a portal in space and guess who appears on their screen.
It's Choed. She are warbirds. You should be wise to surrender now never
Chode shall put you into the not wise category. Then yeah, and then
on the next page we have this and dynamic team shot. Oh it looks
so good. It says star Jammers take them down. Neil, what do
you think about this page? There's not much really I can say. But
then there's the team. They're They're fantastic. And it's weird because I spent
so much time really diving into like Alex Summers as a character, and he's
got all these self esteem issues, and I just that's one of the things
I love about this issue is that he keeps saying that he does, but
you see him here and it's like he's like natural born leader. He's taken
over. He's ready he's ready to go, and I just don't get it.
I don't get it, and I think most of the characters around him
don't. And you see a lot of that kind of discussed in not just
this issue, but the series itself. I will say that Corvus, who
is the sheer guy with a big sword, he has definitely inspired me for
some cosplay looks because I was like, ooh, I would I love a
big anime sword. So I was really excited to see Corvus in this team.
And of course we got to talk about Polaris in that classic look.
I love this look. She steals the entire issue. I'm sorry, but
to me, this whole issue stars Polaris Is. Look look at that braid
in her hair, that headpieces on point. As far as costume construction,
I can't see how anybody in real life would be able to fight or do
any battle in this. But she's looking fierce, bab before strategy. I
don't know, Yore practicality all right, you just you just coined a new
slogan. I'm going to see you on a T shirt in a week.
I love Havocs look because it's like Tron. It reminds me of a Tron
light cycle suit. It does I was just about to say that, yes,
and he is serving us Tron totally. I'm I'm always kind of torn
about this, this era of Havoc with this costume. I'm a big fan
of the classic right. I like the giant rings on his head, the
simple black suit with the you know, with the concentric circles. I'm a
big fan of classic Havoc costume. But there's something about Tron Havoc that is
kind of compelling. I don't know what it is. So I like the
costume, but I still kind of wish he was just always wearing that simple
black with the just huge rings. I love this next kind of area of
banter with the team. So Havoc says, remember we need the captain alive,
to which Lorna replies, I'm pretty sure he was talking to you,
Rachel I stopping crazy months ago, which of course is a play on the
fact that Polaris has always dealt with, you know, mental health issues,
and she's just she gets too powerful, So you know, that was a
trope always. You know, once women characters get too powerful, they just
turned crazy. And I'm so glad they stepped away from that, and they're
just allowing her to be a badass in current comics. But then it goes
to Rachel, and Rachel says, I'll do my best, no promises.
But Corvus's line is my favorite. You X men talk far too much in
battle. I love it. I want them to talk even more more banter.
Oh, he looks so cool. I'm so inspired to make that outfit.
Something about a giant sword. It's just something about Final Fantasy character.
I just and I love Final Fantasy. So I'm going to disagree with you
here, Chandler. I have a strong opinion. I just feel as if
this guy looks like he is Wolverine escaped from the Kingdom Heart. Yes,
he's definitely, Yes, a Kingdom Hearts Wolverine. Accurate assessment. Well,
I was kind of going through the list of star jammers to bring into the
book. He was one I didn't dig in too much. Something I just
don't like the character. I don't know what it is. It's just me.
Maybe he is a little shallow I find in the in the in the
books, you don't really get deep with him. He just is a powerful
sword. Wheelder who was dating Rachel. Yeah, I'm also a big fan
of Star Star Jammers Classic, so I focus a little bit more on on
those those characters. And I brought Hips of A back so oh good.
I was gonna say that she's missing in this because you know she's such a
core team member. Well, my book has corsairs, so she came back.
They overcome the team. They turn on the TV and Lelandra and the
General Cardom. They convinced the Armada that they need to turn themselves over to
the resistance and fight Emperor Vulcan. Now on the next page, we have
our next it's got milk. Oh, this is a fun one. Oh
got milk. So classic, so two thousand and seven. It has massi
Oka. I'll read what it says. It says Massioka from Heroes, right,
correct, he played Hero on Heroes. It says mined by massi body
by milk, my hero think hard. It's milk. Some studies suggest teens
who choose it instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner. Plus, the
protein helps build muscle, So grab a glass. Then you can change the
future too. Got milk, And that's how old this book is. Hero's
was still on and popular at the time, Save the Cheerleader and Save the
World. This is super timely that he's in this book because this book came
out right around the time I went to San Diego Comic Con for the first
time. I went to San Diego Comic Con that summer after this issue dropped,
and I met Massioka. I happened to be at some San Diego Comic
Con party and was sort of standing with all the comics folks and feeling like
a little like impository. But I had a few in me and said,
I'm gonna go talk to some people. And at the time, my wife
was pregnant with our first child, and she was here in New York,
and it's got to be late at night, Friday night or Saturday night,
one of them, you know whatever. And I decide I'm gonna go talk
to Massioca because if we watch Heroes and I'm going to have him call my
wife. And so I kind of sidle up to Massioca with that like drunk
courage, and I'm like, hey, Massie, you don't know me.
I don't really know you. I love your show. My wife we watched
it together. She's back home in New York. Would you do me a
favorite and just call it? And she's pregnant with our kid, would you
mind calling her and saying hi? And he was like sure. So I
call my wife up on the phone. It's got to be two in the
morning here in New York. I wake her up and I'm like, hey,
listen, I have someone who wants to talk to you. And he's
very nice. Area he talks to her. If minute, you know,
a couple of minutes, I hope everything goes well. You know, you're
grabbing a kid, your husband's a nice guy, blah blah blah blah blah.
And that's it. The conversation ends. I said, talk to you
tomorrow, go back, go back to sleep. I say thanks to him,
and I walk away. That's it. And then later on my way
back to the hotel, I actually had a text for my wife saying who
the hell was that? And I'm like, that was Massioka from Heroes and
She's like, why don't you just say that. I would have said more
to him, but it was it was like a fun thing that happens.
One year later, I'm back at San Diego Comic Con and I'm at a
completely different party and I'm online for the bar and three people ahead of me
as Massioka, and I'm like, what the hell, and I kind of
lean over. I'm like, listen, you probably don't remember this, but
last year, and I told him the whole story. I just wanted to
let you know we had a boy. He's great, thank you so much.
And he kind of looked at me like this, like very frightened person.
And I'm glad to hear that and kind of quickly left the bar of
mine. And that is my massi Oka story. I love it. I
love it. Yeah, I've met massi I've worked on the show Heroes actually,
so it's really crazy to see an ad with a hero star because it
brings back so many memories. It was my first big job moving to Los
Angeles. I worked on season one, two, and three of the show.
And I love your story because I did that to a friend once with
Jerry O'Connell and I was on a set that I was working on and he
was one of the actors and I had him call my friend and she to
this days, she's just like that was one of the best moments ever because
I unlike you. I said, hey, I've got Jerry O'Connell here that
wants to talk to you, and he goes, hey, it's Jerry O'Connell
anyways, right, So I think I think the fact that I had a
couple of drinks in me I forgot to tell her who it was. And
I was just like, oh, Chilo, it is by his voice,
ran that literally didn't happen. It's so confused. She's like, oh,
it's nice to night, thank you. Yes, I'm pregnant. Think really
exactly, it's just a random person at comic con. I'm what a fun
little trip down memory lane. Oh my gosh. We open this new scene
with this she Are warrior. He is trying to hold up it looks like
a spear of some sort and he says death to the False Emperor, Death
to the WHOA. Okay, this is not good because this soldier is being
blasted at full force and he's disintegrating into a skeleton, and Vulcan is standing
there when we fist full of power and he says, I'll have to start
over. I couldn't hear over the screaming. Oh my gosh, look at
that skull on the bottom of the floor. Just the smoke coming out of
its eye. This guy he means business. This guy's like, no joke,
no joke. Brothers. They are they are a laugh riot, those
Summers brothers. Well, yes, So he is in the throne room,
he's holding court, and he wants to know whether they're his people like him
or not. He said, did you just say that I wasn't loved by
the r people Iraqi? My lord folk, and I would not dishonor you
by attempted to steve you, even if it meant my life. This year
empire is tearing itself apart. And then he goes on to explain that there's
some people that are still supporting him because he's married to a death Bird and
she's kind of in the faan, so they're kind of like art right,
But most everybody else is just like, no, this guy is a pretender.
This guy is not even fit to be on the throne. This guy
is not cool. What are you doing? This is one of the things
that really kind of drew me to the Shire, or that drew me to
this series, is that it's Game of Throne's X Men style. I mean,
it's definitely family stabbing each other in the back. I mean, you've
got a guy who took over to the throne by killing the former emperor and
then marrying a sister, and then his and the other sister is trying to
get the throne back from If you're a fan of like Game of Throne in
Succession, in any of those shows where you've got like family battles, you
know when in Fighting Ember of Vulcan is for you. Yeah, I know,
it's it's great, and the whole fall if she are leading up to
it's so good. So yeah, listeners, if you have not gone back
to listen to that or read that era, you definitely should. It's a
lot of fun. Can we talk about the ferose fashion on Deathbird? This
outfit she is wearing is this should be at the how fire Gala? This
is how fire Galla worthy to me. Starting from the bottom, it looks
like she's got these kind of feathered knee high boots, and then she's got
this body suit that comes up to her waist with a deep V. And
then she has basically a metal looking braw boostier thing but with her abdomen showing.
And then she has a shoulder shrug thing that turns into these feathery sleeves
that droop down, and then of course her epic headgear. Oh, those
sleeves are the best. Though. This is one of my top looks.
I think I love the look. I can tell the artists really loves to
draw women, Like all the women look fantastic, the men look okay.
It's like I can tell that this artist, Paco Diaz, he loves to
draw himself a lady. Speaking of men, guess who's in the in the
room? Gladiator. First time I ever saw a Gladiator, I'll never forget
X in the animated series just seared into my memory totally. Anytime I see
him just throwing backs across the ocean, like, You're like, how is
that possible? You've been a character of this. He's been around for a
long time. I mean, this is a guy. He was in Contest,
the Champions, he was in everything. And when you think about just
like that whole X Men cosmic like scene, you can't talk about it without
Gladiator, without the Imperial Guard. Well, they don't like what they hear
from this rocky guy. They don't want to hear this slander, that this
blasphemy that the people don't love vulcan, so death Bird takes a claw to
his face and scripts him across the mouth. How he I know, she
says, I think the Chancellor is a politician who likes to play mind games,
but he would do well to remember that you are emperor now, whether
the Secret Order likes it or not. And then he wants to hear about
why his brother and the star Jammers are not dead yet, and we cut
to another spot in R space where the star Jammer and Armada of Rebel.
You know, this is all the Star Wars kind of reference. They're talking
about cutting off supply lines, crippling the empire, all the strategy, and
everybody's like, hey, Alex is kind of like really into this. He's
really good at leading. Employers is like, just give him a minute.
He's going he's going to going to ruin it. At some point, m
they say that, wow, you're really good at strategy, and he's like,
no, that's my brother and then my father. They're born leaders,
not me. And Polaris has like told you, Joe and Rachel totally denounces
Kingdom. Hearts Wolverine escape. She's all like no, no, no,
no, yeah, no longer dating. But then they end up landing on
a planet and Havoc and Corvus are having a chat and he Corvius wants to
know how to get back with Rachel and Havoc's advices. She likes cheeseburgers m
and we cut to the bar where Rachel is using her psychic powers to stack
up some shot classes because she's kind of bored, and she says, man,
I could go for a cheeseburger and my sweatpants. I missed my sweatpants.
I love her. That's like all the time, I want sweatpants.
Back in two thousand and seven, alien bar like this that was super stylized.
That's like a dream, that's like something that you would never see.
It was so fantastical. But now it's like, all right, well,
we have one of these in Disneyland, and there's another one on Hollywood Boulevard
called scumm and Villany Cantina, which is really cool. I highly recommended if
you're in the Hollywood area. We've got a couple of cool bar scenes in
the book, and one of the most fun parts of kind of writing those
scenes was getting to spend a lot of time like looking up species of Marvel
aliens and populating the bars with like old school aliens from like the seventies and
the eighties and even a couple from the nineties, and just kind of naming
as many alien races as I could. And I actually thought a lot of
them were not going to fly because you know, it's two esoteric ords.
You know, people won't know, but they're all in there. I love
it. What was your favorite alien race that you just discover that you're like,
whoa, this is like really funny and or weird. This is awesome.
I'm putting it in. I wasn't as weird as I could be,
I'll be honest with you. A lot of it was recognizable aliens like xan
Darians and pop up the ends, like the bar owner is like a pop
up the end, which was actually kind of fun. It was like the
Impossible Man, that character from The Fantastic Four. It's like a shape shifter.
My favorite reference though, is there's a lot of like planets and stuff
that kind of get thrown around, and at one point of Corsair references the
planet Seagroom seven, which is a planet. There's a Hercules mini series that
Bob Layton did way back in the early eighties. I want to say where
the last issue, he goes to this planet Seagroom seven, where it's like
the best distillers in the universe. They make the best drinks in the universe,
and basically they give him like this really powerful drink that he uses to
like get blacktus somewhat drunk. And so I've always loved that issue and I've
loved that planet, and they actually referenced it in an episode of modoc on
Hulu, one of the episodes actually using those characters in it, which is
really a lot of fun. So I got to like reference that planet,
which was fantastic. I was really happy to kind throw that in there.
Back with Polaris and Rachel, Rachel is on the hunt for information to find
out what part of the Shier Empire murdered her family, and she found out
that there is a secret Order within the Shire Empire and she is going to
find them after they take down Vulcan, and she is going to kill them.
I'm really hungry because you said secret order, and I thought in and
out secret Order menu, Rachel Summers would be very happy to go have on
with you as long as you bring out Oh yeah, I'm into it.
Me and Rachel, we need to go on a date. So back at
Chandelar. What a beautiful city with you know, these towers that are huge,
many moons are in the sky as well, and lots of ships.
There's all sorts of citizens walking around talking about how they do not like the
current emperor. This is the gossip moment, when he gets to hear what's
being said about him around town. And this one like older she are dude,
He's like I heard he was a slave that de Ken took him in
and was betrayed, murdered, all that piping tea another Arthur mutant like Lelandra's
shame Xavier. And then he continues on they should take him out and shoot
him in the head before he destroys the empire. There must be a true
Sheer on the throne. This hooded figure looks up and sees a giant screen,
a big JumboTron, and it's vulcan looking on majestic. It says kill
the false emperor in the Shire language. Yes, he's pulling a princess jasmine.
You know, he has escaped the palace. He doesn't want to be
a princess anymore, and he puts up his hood and just so she could
be amongst the street urchins and learn how to how to be out of the
palace. So how do you say death Birds name cal c Kelies? I
always say Kelisi, which is not it? This is like Kelsey, Like
oh, it's just like totally like like generic Kelsey Kelsey and just spelled so
special. Yeah. And she's in her in her robe too because she doesn't
want to be recognized. And she's all like, the Emperor should not travel
without an imperial guard escort. And he's all like, they are just as
likely to try and kill me as anyone else. You're the true king.
You got this, you came, you conquered, you married me. You
know, I believe in you. And she goes, now, let's go
kill some star chambers. Yeah, they get to make out too. It's
very romantic. It's like super villainy romantic. You know, you asked why
I picked this issue. A lot of this like byplay between Vulcan and Death
Bird. A lot of the political drama definitely comes into play in the novel.
There's a lot of what has been set here that gets kind of called
back to, you know, Bulcans sort of self esteem issues, Alex's self
esteem issues, their relationship Bulkan and Deathbird relationship. A lot of that is
really what helps power, especially in the back half of the novel. Well,
now we're back in space in a place that might tickle. Why because
it's called feathers Edge. Eh eh okay. Just see, Polaris is cloaking
the ship with her amazing powers. She is giving all her might and effort
and flair aboard the ship and covering everybody in some sort of electro magnetic field.
The approach the feathers Edge space station and there's a bree bree, bree,
and there is a huge explosion. There's incoming captain the energy signature.
The she are are here, lots of them, and they find out that
Emperor Vulcan has arrived with his armada. They knew Darjammers were going to attack
the station. Vulcan says, my empire spies are good. Kill the X
men, kill Kardoom and Lelandra, the others will fall in line. And
we have Gladiator with his arms folded in the foreground and we get a close
up on Vulcan's lips and he says now and then all of a sudden explosions.
Boom boom, ka ka boom. The star Jammers spaceship is trying to
fly through all of these explosions in space, and Havoc is shouting evasive maneuvers.
This is definitely like one of those epic Star Wars Star Trek final battles
in the air, throwing a little bit of Starship troopers in there. This
is an epic space battle. Yes, at the end of issue one,
right m I know, they really brought it. And just when you think
like, there's what, how are they going to get out of this?
How's Lelandra and the star Jammer is going to escape, when suddenly rooom kaboom,
there's a massive explosion on Vulcan ship and everything explodes and we see that
it is surrounded by a giant army of bug looking ships. Oh my gosh,
look at all those ships in there. And some of those ships look
like beetle bugs, they look like zwords, they look like these anthropomorphic ships.
Oh. I love how the sheer ships are the shaped like their hair.
They look like the feathers. They look like the feathers, feather shape
of their head and their hair. That's funny and Vulcan isn't a ship talking
to glad Eaters, and he says, or should we kill them all?
Tell me, glad Eater, you said before that the sire who defected had
no honor? Would you kill them all? I serve Emperor. It is
not my place to decide. And when you took my eye, was that
service or was that your decision? Oh there's the tea right there, everybody,
Gladiator, Gladiator himself is the one that took Vulcan's eye. Throw Yeah,
totally, his own bodyguard. So much, so much political craziness,
but yeah, it's it's our pal glad to eat. So Lelandra and Akari
and Polaris everybody. They are in shock. They're like, what what,
what does happened? Dear God? And they said that they are getting this
message in and they are finding out that they appeared to be calling themselves the
sky are tall. So Choate says, hmm, they appear to be calling
themselves that she are tall, bold Choice and Wolverine kingdom. Hearts escape.
He says, she are tall, but that means Rachel's comes in. She
says death to the she are the name of their race means death to the
she are close up on Havoc's eyeballs. Mmmm to be can continue their whole
race? You guys is named after killing the she are people. Yes,
wow, that's that's some dedication there. But she are a kind of bastards,
I will say. I agree. They are jerks. They're horrible,
They are the Lanisters. One of the things that I thought was super fascinating
when I was doing a lot of the research is that one of the stories
before this was the Sheer basically coming to Earth and killing all of Jean Brady's
family, right, like eliminating that bloodline except for Rachel, yes, her
parents everything. Yeah, yeah, And like how can you make these guys
allies after that? Right? They came and killed an entire lineage like of
humans, mutants and you know what have you. What I love about the
fact is that Rachel is the one to say that at the end, because
you end this issue on are these guys allies? Are the enemies? Do
I work with them and kill you know, death to the Sher? Or
do my partner with the Sher to fight this new threat? And so that's
what I think the series sets up. Yeah, Flelandra and Xavier never got
cozy. The X Men would totally be enemies with the she Are easily.
Oh yeah, it's all because of that two households both alike in dignity and
fair Verona, that made it it's possible for them to even consider being,
you know, in league with she Are. What's interesting is that if you
look at the two teams, you know, teams like the X Men and
then she Are Slash Imperial Guard, that whole military monarchy, whatever you want
to call it. Over to the years, there's like a love hate really
like their enemies, the friends, their friends, their enemies. You know,
there's a crossover around the time of where my book is set, called
The Trial of Jean Gray, where if you've read it, it's it's great.
It's it's a crossover with the Guardians of the Galaxy where they basically that
she are put a time displaced Geen Gray on trial for of her what she
will do, what you will do? Right, And it's it's a it's
a great for us over but like again, enemies but kind of allies,
but kind of enemies. And so really, when I said Game of Rooms,
you know, it's such a great comparison because you just have these political
machinations between the various factions, and then when you look at the larger universe
and you look at, you know, the rest of the Galactic Council,
it becomes this wonderful, messy thing that I was really happy that I got
to play in a little bit. I'm excited for this book to come out.
Just to reminder everybody, it comes out May second. You can pre
order it now, but if they want to learn more about you, where
do they find you online? I am on Twitter and Instagram Neil Clyde all
one word for both of them. I post a lot of about the book,
but I also post a lot about comics and Disney and food and my
writing which is sporadic. But you can follow me on both those and the
book comes out, Like you said, May second, School of X the
Phoenix Chase from Aconite Books slash Marvel. Really really really excited for it to
come out. I hope everybody enjoys it. I hope everybody has as much
fun with it as I had writing it. And we spent most of the
time talking about Havoc and the star Jammers and the Sheer, but the start
of the show is our pal Quentin choir kit Omega and he will never let
you forget that. Definitely read it because writing him is always a joy,
just his sarcastic, chaotic nature. Just it's a gift for almost any writer.
So thank you Grant Morrison for creating him. I really hope you all
like the book. Thank you so much for being on the show. We
really appreciate you coming on and bringing us a book that I've never read before.
I never even knew that there was an X Men Ember of Vulcan mini
series, So thank you so much. Yeah, I'm glad I could bring
you into the cause of it insanity that was Emperor Vulcan and that time period
because all the books around then, you know, yos Ember Vulcan, Brue
Bakers, X Men, Brian bendesss x Men, and they're just fantastic And
if you have chance, you know, those of you who are listening,
go back and read them or reread them or what have you, because they're
just so much fun. And thanks for definitely thanks for having me. I
appreciate you giving me a chance to come on and chat about star Jammers and
of course Aaron is Glorious Mustache. X Reads is recorded in the United States.
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