Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Friends. This is
the three hundredth episode of Superhero Ethics. I had totally lost count because we'd
counted in a couple different ways, in a couple different ways that made no
sense. But I am so happy to be here because we're talking about a
topic that's been like throughout the very beginnings. One of our first episodes was
about is Magneto Wright. Now we're continuing in conversations like that, talking about
X Men ninety seven with a great group of people. As always, I
have my co host, Riki Hayashi, but we're joined by two people from
what was quickly becoming one of my other favorite podcasts, Will Freeland and Steve
Storman from the Hype is My Superpower podcast. These folks are reading every Marvel
comic book so that you don't have to, or you can if you want
to. Still, but as I've said before, they do a great job
of summarizing them, and a lot of times we're talking with them about,
Okay, well what is this story like on the page? And today we're
getting to bring them back to talk about what it's like on screen. This
is not the first time we're gonna have them on. We're probably gonna have
them on again to talk specifically about the Gianosha sorry Jenosha plotline. I said
that mostly to get Will to make that expression. I'll put that into TikTok.
But there's so much about the show that I want all four of us
to get to dive into. But let me just kind of start by letting
you guys, you know, scream like little girls for a little second.
Let me just start by letting you guys scream like little kids for a little
bit. Will, what did you think of the show? Oh? Man,
I had a girl? Okay, well, thank you for having me.
First off, Yeah, thank you, assuming you survived the episode.
But but that's very x Men. Yeah, it's very x Men to welcome
a new student and say welcome to the X Men. The experience so so
that was aptly timed. But I had a great time with X ninety seven.
I will say I think episode ten might be like bottom three as far
as emotions that I felt watching the episodes. But like every episode either gave
me chills and or I teared up and or cried like this was I don't
feel like they ever slowed down like the slowest they went was like the Life
Death episode or maybe the Motendo episode. But like, yeah, but they
still hit hard, like they say, they pulled everything. It was so
much fun. But yeah, I you know, just it took Let's see,
it's ten episodes over nine weeks. It took me nine weeks to get
Steve to watch. Yeah, finally, literally and Will show in one sitting
last night from like eight pm to one am. I'm going to take credit
for getting Steve to watch. That was all I know. All I need
is a deadline. Will's like, you should watch this, and I'm like,
yes, I should. I will, but you know, it could
happen at any time, And Matthew, You're like, hey, we're recording
you know, tomorrow on Thursday. And I'm like, okay, now I
have a deadline. Now, now I can bound my time. Uh yeah.
Best X Men adaptation ever, Uh, I think, I think so.
I wish it could have slowed down a little bit. There were a
lot of character arcs. Everyone except for Wolverine had a character arc, which
I find fascinating considering how focused the show. You know, every adaptation has
been on Wolverine. Otherwise, maybe morph didn't really have much of an arc,
but more you know, interesting thing going on, which they did.
Yeah, yeah, they definitely did. But it was you know, there
were moments in pieces whereas you know, you can point to like Storm and
say, well, this is the long arc or Jean or Scott. They
all have these like long arcs that take them through the whole season in a
way that has is very x men. It's always been about large ensemble casts,
ensemble casts and and sort of long, slow burned character arcs that pull
them through. So I was I was absolutely stoked with the way that they
loved and paid attention to their characters in this I wish we had a little
more time to get a little more granular with it and and and have them
struggle through their arcs a little bit more, but yeah, it was absolute
home run makes sense and Rinki for yourself now that you've seen the last episode,
which you hadn't seen the last time we talked about it, which kind
of your overall thoughts in the show, I think I agree with Will that
the finale, I mean, it's a letdown because so much of what was
going on in the show was great. It was still a good episode,
but yeah, like the highlight for me has got to be kind of the
mid season finale. I mean it was a short season, right, but
the Remember Me the Gambit Genosha episode was just like, on every single level,
like such a good episode of television. It's hard to match that when
you do that in the middle of the season for the finale to match,
especially because of the way TV shows are structured and what a finale needs to
do, like wrap up as much as it can and also you know,
kind of hint at and set up future stuff in this case, like a
next season. So yeah, like the finale did what it needed to do,
but it didn't hit on all the levels that I would have won I
wanted it too, But that's fine, Like it didn't. I don't think
it needed to do all that. That makes sense. Well, And like
I said, we're not here to do a review, but I want to
start back just kind of set the context for all this. I definitely think
will and see if. I hope you guys are going to do more of
a straight up review on your podcast, and certainly happy to volunteer myself as
a guest for that. But I want to talk about some of the issues
that the show brings up because part of why we've been talking about the X
Men on this podcast and the very beginning is it's always been one of the
comic book stories that really does a great job of not just making it you
know, good guys, good, bad guys bad and let's punch each other,
but really raising some interesting questions. Well, I'm gonna keep my editorial
comments about how well this season did that to myself. But moving on the
first question I want to jump into, and we're going to ask you too
about the kind of question Wreeky and I really wrestled with last time towards the
end. But I want to start with a question that we didn't get a
chance to talk about, which is this idea that superheroes can retire, Because
at the start of the season, I was really excited by the idea that
Steve and Jean Gray we're gonna get to say, Look, we're I say,
see sorry, Scott Cyclops cop Boy. I'll call him Copboy, a
cab X man. That that Cyclops and Jean Gray we're gonna get to basically
kind of take a sabbatical for a while, if not a full on retirement,
and you know, raise their kid, And to me, this is
such an important issue because it's one that you know, I of course always
care about superheroes for the fun stories, but also for the stories of how
they affect us in the real world, and no one that I know about
how superpowers. I mean, your hype is pretty frickin' awesome, but as
far as it doesn't come from the sun or an ex gene. As someone
who's worked in the activist field most of my life, the single biggest thing
that wipes out activists is burnout and is the like, you know, you
never take a care you never take a day off because the fight always needs
you, and it's something I see recognized in heroes all the time. And
so I'm curious, like, how do you all think about this storyline of
it was presented as them wanting as them kind of wanting this, but also
refects kind of pushing them into it, and then by the end they don't
really get to take it. How did you feel about how the storyline was
played out? First of all, I can absolutely empathize with the experience of
activists burnout. I think I personally reached terminal burnout. I can almost pinpoint
the day in twenty ten, and I've just been kind of grinding myself pasted
it ever since. And so the idea of superheroes retiring is specifically Scott and
Gene, has been something that they've tried to do a million times. And
this was in the comics, I should say, And just to give a
little background, I know we're not talking about the comics, but I think
it gives a little an interesting sort of It was the original intention of Chris
Claremont, the writer of the X Men comics from nineteen seventy five to nineteen
ninety one, really transforming that comic from being on the brink of cancelation to
the biggest thing in comic books and pop culture. And it was his intention
to retire characters permanently, you know. And so after Jean Gray died during
the Phoenix storyline, Scott met Madeline Pryor, who was not initially intended to
be Jean's clone, and they were going to go live in Alaska, and
you know, maybe he'd come in for a storyline or something, but he
would be basically retired as a character, and they would move along. This
is not the way that the publishing industry, for Superheroes operates. You cannot
let an idea die once you have an intellectual property that is resonating with people
for whatever reason. And it's really unfortunate for Scott in particularly because his arc
is so much about family, and the show touches on this really well.
I think feeling abandoned by his parents, growing up an orphan and growing up
in orphanages and being abused in orphanages and family is so important to him,
wanting a fresh start, needing a fresh start, needing this sort of connection,
and finding this as his ultimate way to be a better person. But
yeah, and that's why it's specifically interesting to view this through the lens of
Scott and Gene, because the stakes aren't higher for anybody else to be a
good parent and to make that the sense of their life. And yet his
responsibilities too, Like you said, the movement always pull him back in.
I have a specific quote from Claremont pulled up here where he's talking about the
Madeline prior storyline says Scott was going to move on, Jeane was dead,
get on with your life, and it was close to a happy ending.
Then unfortunately Gene was resurrected. Scott Dumps's wife and kids and goes back to
the old girlfriend and like it was not his decision to do the second part.
And it's really a shame because I agree like X Men to me,
is most exciting when it's like a rotating cast. And like so much of
the especially like the visual media, has been focused on the psycholopics X Men,
but in the comics, like you, you keep moving on and on
and you have different teams, like much more so than the Avengers, I
feel, absolutely. And it's also it goes back to sort of the original
utopian vision of what the X Men are. If we sort of like,
uh, accept the integration integrationist vision of Charles Xavier, then at some point
you have to actually freaking integrate and you have to retire. You have to
stop being superheroes or paramilitary activists or whatever you call it and go get a
job. And I want to see Jean Gray as a public school teacher.
I want to see uh, you know, Scott, I don't know.
He probably he wouldn't make a he'd I think, like, you know,
security or something like, let's be real, he's he's he's not quite a
cop, but he can't take himself out of or he would be like management
of some sort, right, like he's he's uh, yeah, your manager
would be hilarious. But yeah, like I I want to see them get
jobs. I want to see them actually integrate. And it's a real tragedy
of like a contradiction of the way that we do IP and the way that
you know, big companies hold on to characters forever that they're never able to
actually fulfill this core part of their own the moral arc of the X Men,
right. I mean, it's the same way you'll never see Batman actually
fix the city and government and police department of Gotham to the point that he
can go back to being Bruce Wayne somewhere. Sure, and he'll never age,
even though every Channity adopts does. And I think you make a really
good point there about the kind of what that storytelling does, because I started
with a burnout of activists because that's kind of where I've seen it most prevalently.
But I think this is true with everything. This is true with the
person whose parent is sick, and like you know, there're sibling might say
like, look, go take a vacation. I'll take care of mom for
a week or two, but it's hard for them. The person who your
boss isn't hiring enough people, and so you take it upon yourself to like,
we have to help keep you know, make sure that the cook doesn't
have a bad time because we're not here, because you can't ever take that
break for yourself. And it's interesing because you kind of started getting into the
second that I think is very related, which the idea of like individual versus
ensemble stories. And I think that that's very linked because I think that there's
a a topic that we've talked about on this podcast before is that you know,
the great Man of History idea, the like you know, one person
can come along or one small team of four or five people can come along
and they can fix the world. That's not actually really how the world works
a lot of the time, and it's kind of a dangerous idea and to
be pushing that all the time. But as you said, also a story
about one hundred x men, like I think Justice League kind of pulled it
off, and I think uh Star Wars the Clone Wars kind of pulled it
off. But it's a very difficult thing to do, and I never expected
that they would take Scott and Jean Gray totally off the field. But I
think I would have liked it a lot more if there had been they had
really gotten to allow themselves to retire, you know, and for the first
couple episodes they were not really part of it, and then like the stuff
with their baby and like what happened with it and how it all ties into
a larger story it, you know, if it had been a kind of
like, yes, events pulled them back in, but the general attitude of
the X Men had been not oh, you're abandoning us, but just you
did your part, you fought the fight. Now it's time for new people
to step up. Yeah, Wolverine really dropped the ball there. Unfortunately,
with the way that X Men the animated series left the storyline like they what
they did with the Matteline Prior stuff in this series was okay, but it
didn't It didn't allow for that because they, as Steve said, Madeline in
the comics is a actual like distinct different person. When we meet her,
like she's Madeline Prior, it's like, oh, but you look like Jane
Gray, and I think she actually like slaps Scott when he suggests that gets
mad about it. So yeah, like that it would have been cool to
see that play out and have Scott, as you say, off the board
for like even a whole season and then at the end, like you know,
stuff happens. And when we were talking about like do activists do soldiers
get to retire, like I was thinking of john Wick, you know,
he's the retired hit man, and having like a john Wick style return for
Cyclops where he's like, I guess I'm back and like digs up his old
visor like that would have been really cool for me and like a good way
to have him off for a while and be happy. But yeah, like
people want to see their favorites come back, right, Yeah, I want
to see that Cyclops. Yeah, oh god, no, reality he has
never had dead fond Cyclops. You can't call him slim anymore. Yeah.
It also war he uses his powers in such cool and inventive ways in in
uh oh they did it. They finally were like, it's not just like
a laser beam. Yeah, it's conclussive. It's just it's force. It's
not it's not I I found like, it's not that I found him more
interesting in this than I found him other things. It's that I found him
interesting for the first time, which is a really compared to everything accomplishment.
Yeah, everyone has that. Everyone gets that moment at some point, the
moment where he's giving that interview with Trish Tilbey and he snaps. He said,
like here there's this break between the things that he can talk about in
public and the things he can and the resentment that he's carried along the way
from having to be this person. And you're right, it's such a burnout
moment and it's such a burden moment. And and these are things, you
know, ideas that have been clearly with him this whole time. And also
like he's been influenced by Magneto, like this when you talk about the age
old ethical sort of like quandary that has been done to death between Xavier and
Magneto, Like Magneto is having his influence over the X Men team in certainly
for Scott. And it was explored this way in the comics too, a
very positive way. Right. Yeah. Yeah, aad the accomplishment that this
show had with Cyclops, both in making him interesting, as you say,
but also in the three part finale, making it believable and possible that he
might turn his back on Charles and go with Magneto, because that has been
a storyline in comics, and I thought that the way they played it and
the speech that he gives when Charles comes back, I was like, Oh,
is he about to leave? Like are they gonna do that with him?
And it and it still could be they could do that storyline in the
future because they've set this up for his character that he had he has had
this break. Yeah. I think it's great because like so much Cyclops media
has just been boring Cyclopes just like the good soldier to Charles and he like
never questions him, and and this was like I love it because so much
has been Wolverine centric in X Men, and it's like, yeah, like
give us the good Cyclops or like interesting Cyclops than yeah. And so that's
just segue to the next topic, because though I'm sure we'll keep talking about
all of these, as you were kind of saying, Ricky, I think
one of the one of the things they did is that we did and spend
the whole time comparing Cyclops to Wolverine. I think they mean kind of Wolverine
a punk in most of this and like not in the good way. I
I don't know how the writers were just like, Okay, screw Hugh Jackman.
We're not we're making Wolverine just a terrible character. But I really appreciated
that there was no love triangle between It was just like, no, she's
pregnant with his baby, like they are happy together. Sorry, Wolverine,
go kick Rocks. But then like, like, I guess the Madeline prior
story is kind of interesting. Although like, to me, you gave me
Spider Queen for one episode, and I was like, I'm sorry, Goblin
Queen for an episode. And I'm convinced that the new hot couple's cosplay should
be Jerreff the Goblin King and Madeline the Goblin Queen as the cross thing,
because that, like her outfit was just phenomenal. And after that, everything
else was let down. But the tone down version, Matthew, it sure
was fair enough. Yeah, I did feral powers to keep covering over her,
keep her out legal, but google it if you think I'm kidding.
It's really ridiculous. But my question is, so then we get that love
triangle, and we get Rogue and uh, you know, Cajun Man and
old Man Teacher and like just all of these love triangle why why people think
we need like to me it felt like very lazy writing in terms of just
like here's a cliche, let's just do it again and again and again.
I mean they're honoring the original characters and stories to some degree, right,
Like that's these are big relationships baked into the X men. I think the
problem here was that they just rushed it or like didn't give it enough time
to breathe in the way that like a good more romantic centric story would would
give these time to breathe, and it just kind of had like a beat
here and then you have to have a fight, So like that happened,
right, So yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And activists polycules
are messy and you know you moment like I think of it, I think
of it as like co ed high school groups. This kind of thing happens,
but with a when you take it from high school age to young adults
and then put them in life and death situations that they lived through together,
like those kinds of passions happen. But I also agree there's uh, there
wasn't enough time you spent on these to really make it feel organic. But
I also also I think they could have just saved a Magneto Rogue thing,
like it's a thing from the comics, but like it, it's so much
worse, so much that is so much worse in the show. Yeah,
how old is she because she was in the comics when Magneto and Rogue have
their pairing, Grogue has been a member of the ex Men for a while,
and uh, you know it's she's much more grown up than like before
she meets the X Men while she's still living with mystique her mom Like,
yeah, that's that is truly troubling. Mm hm yeah. But like so
I think that's something that could have if they had spent more time, because
the whole like intrigue for Rogue is that it's somebody that she can touch,
and so like it's this like it's this it's this drug that you can't have
and then someone shows up and they're like, look, you could have this
literal part of human affection with me, and so like she can do if
she they gave her time to do this like mental anguish of like I it
doesn't make sense, this doesn't work, but oh my gosh, I can
touch, Like I see that playing out better with more time on her side,
but even on his side. Yeah sure, no, no, no,
no, yeah, more more more rogue internal struggle time and like figuring
out where she actually sees this play out instead of like total of like maybe
ten minutes of five of it being like, hey, this has happened in
the past, and then five minutes of her giving him kiss and being like,
well maybe that's not it, that's not right and moving on this.
The whole thing felt really off, particularly because like, obviously Magneto was the
one she could touch, but also did feel like, you know, she,
like Scott, was being a lot affected by Magneto's ideas, you know,
and of course, like you you talked about Scott's speech to Professor Axson.
I think that was a decent one, but I really loved what Rogue
had to say to him about, you know, to Professor Axon when she
walks away from him and then of course joins Magneto for a bit before the
writers decided to stop. Well I made that point never mind, Sorry,
I'm so angry about that. But putting that aside, so the fact that
like and then when both Magneto and Cajun Boy gambit when they both are they
both are believed to have died, and she has just been like professing her
feelings about Magneto, and all of a sudden she's like, oh my god,
I can't believe Gambit's dead. Mag know who, Like she doesn't have
a moment of grief about him, And Yeah, that that just felt like
I I hear what you're saying, and I think love triangles do form sometimes
among teenagers or adults or you know, any adults of any age. But
making everything a love triangle just felt kind of weight. It's not that it's
like love is this messy, It's that that felt way too neat, you
know, Like to me, what much more sense is like, yeah,
these people are together, but this person is a crush on that person,
and that person's a crush and get another person, Like if you want to
go that way, go along freaking chain, yeah, or just maybe just
just back off that a little bit. Yeah, I would have preferred a
more depth, deft touch on Magneto in particular there and having him, you
know, maybe Rogue is pursuing him and he's like, I don't know,
you're really young. This is weird. She's like, but we can touch
you know, like even though her heart is somewhere else, I don't know.
Yeah, that could have been done much better, and I think it
was. It was mostly done for plot reasons, to build up gambit sacrifice
and then also her defection, and it was less about the plot of the
romance and more about bringing those character arcs to a specific point, which is
unfortunate. So I liked the Magneto Rogue Gambit trio, and I do think
it could have been given more time or like more screen time. But in
particular, the scene where Rogue and Gambit in Genosha are talked like by the
fireplace, I think was like one of the best scenes in that episode and
on the show. And they did so much for those characters in that one
scene that I it makes me enjoy that storyline more compared to Jean Scott and
Wolverine, Like it just felt so off that Gene, Like I can't even
remember if those Gene or Madaline, but one of them kisses Wolverine right when
when he gives a nice like oh, like the motivational speech, and it
wasn't even like a peck, It was like a kiss on the lips,
right, And like what do you, what are you doing? You're married?
But I think Logan played that well though, Yeah, I mean a
low point. Yeah, I don't know. It's the type of thing you
either let go or it bugs you. I feel like it's again, it's
something that's happened in the comics. It's a thing that they had to sort
of like, they had to close definitively Logan's interest in order to make the
story more about Scott and Gene and Madeline. And because that was such a
like ongoing part in the original show of Wolverine's just like ongoing obsession with Gene,
I think they had to find a way to close that off more or
less definitively in order to refocus those character arcs elsewhere. And I will say
I thought at first it was going to be Logan gets with Madeline in a
way that like, look, they both get to be with Jean Gray,
and that would really have made me mad. Yeah, that would have sucked.
Scott's brother ends up with Madeline. Yeah to the rogue gambit Magneto part
of it, though. I think the other thing is that part of why
these stories frustrate you sometimes is that they always pitt as though the only thing
that competes with romantic love is another romantic love. Whereas I feel like I
think you could have told mostly that same story, like granted the idea of
can she touch another person or not? And how important is that? Like
that feels like you should get a lot of attention of going to get any
attention and have you discussed it didn't But if you're willing to pull back from
that a little bit, I think another very real story that a lot of
people go through is loyalty towards like a paternal mentor figure versus towards a romantic
interest. And you could have told you could have made that the story of
you know, Gambit is pulling her in one direction, Magneto is pulling her
in another, without ever having to be any sense of romance between her and
Menado. But that means, you know, it's kind of the like do
you go with more of the father or not even fatherly but mentor figure versus
you know, the romantic figure. I agree with that, although I do
think that specifically is something that's done well in Scott's arc. He is having
to choose between kind of choosing between Madeline and Gene, but more between you
know, like his responsibilities as a father and towards the mother of his child
and the woman that he loves. So I thought that was drawn out fairly
well and in a different context in the show. That's right, Yeah,
I was. I was thinking the same. I was like, well,
if you take the love triangle, come feedback and put it towards the Scott
thing, you can make the exact argument. Yeah. Yeah, again,
I think it was just all about setting up gambit sacrifice and Rogue's turn of
allegiance, and it was just an unfortunate way to do that. Yeah.
So let me then ask about Morph. Do we think that Morph is in
love with Logan with Wolverine? Mm hmm no, not right, Like it
is a it is a plausible direction that this character could be going. It
depends on like if the writers want to go there, because obviously it would
be controversial. I think it's true. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
It's one of those It gives you the opportunity to explore if you're a character
who can be any physical representation of a person, does does it matter what
you're does that even become a problem, for lack of a better term,
if if, if Logan identifies as heterosexual, and Morph can just be a
woman for him. Yeah, I think, just do that. Yeah,
so don't go ahead, Steve. I mean, so we're we're really learning
about more for the first time here. And you know, Morph appears in
just like a couple episodes in the original show and is dead for most of
it, or presume dead for most of it, and so you know,
they're they're a practical joker, and they are a sort of like sarcastic wit,
and so it's hard to know exactly how to take some of that perceived
flirtation from Morph towards Wolverine as kind of like, you know, just ribbing
or kind of messing around versus sort of like an expression of some unresolved feelings,
because yeah, the Wolverine is very attached to Morph, we presume as
as a comrade or as a you know, as a fellow soldier, as
as a colleague in the original show, and you know, is really upset
with the others for not grieving Morph enough when they're presumed dead. So I
think this is again, those were the two characters who didn't have an arc
of their own. I wonder if there is something there that got cut because
there was so much. It's just the show was so overstuffed. If it's
something we'll explore in season two, yeah, I'm I'm curious to see where
they go with that. But I think at this point it's it's they're opening
up a very interesting portrayal of gender through morph. And yeah, when you're
or presentation is fluid, your gender likely your gender identity likely will be too.
And so I think that there's there's room for this. I think they
may have been a little bit afraid of backlash or or they wanted to kind
of ease into it, you know. I think morph is only referred to
with them pronouns once in the season that I got yeah and so yeah,
so I I you know again, morph is an extremely new relative, despite
having been in the very first season episode of the original show, relatively new
character in terms of somebody who were exploring and giving a personality to and and
there is not much morph in the original comics outside of alternate universes. So
yeah, this is this is a We've got a lot to uncover here,
And I think it's unfortunate that the plot line that goes to you and to
gender is the one that got cut of the millions and millions that they uh
that they actually pursued. But at the same time I can kind of understand,
Yeah, I'm the cynical business decision to wait until season two. You
know, people who listened to this show before know that I'm often very quick
to pick up on any possibility a non binariess or queerness or things like that.
I completely missed all of this. I didn't, And I think for
me it's a couple of things. One is that so often Morphed playing around
with presentations felt a lot like joking around, not like trying on different identity,
because he was always copying somebody else, and I'm using he because it
felt to me like the the primary morph identification was gendered. Sure, and
I think, like, I think what you're saying, Steve is really true.
If they had wanted to tell that story, they would have had to
go so much deeper, because if I was supposed to look at more and
go, oh, yes, this is an interesting exploration of gender, I'd
be like, Wow, this was very clearly written by sis people and his
people only, And this is deeply offensive because he's only ever copying other Like
to me, he comes off much more like the younger cousin in Kanto whose
name I can't remember, because there's a very clear identification that this is morph
and then it's everything else is the copy rather than him, And again maybe
it's them and that's the case. Great, but like to me, you
had to either go much much deeper and really wrestle with that and embrace it,
or else not touch it at all, because it is to me a
very like I would love to see that character of a character really because of
their mutation just isn't gendered in the way that we understand. I think Sheira,
for example, did a version of that that was phenomenal and so well
done, particularly because they were kind of a villain. But like all of
the people who were like, oh my god, that character is the worst
would gender them correctly and be like, they betrayed us, they need to
die, while like you know, always using the right pronouns, which I
was like piece to response, Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm having like kind
of a strong reaction to it because I just it was so off my radar
screen and maybe again it's because of Ada Coppying, but also I think the
the way it was presented the fact that a lot of times we met a
character who seemed like it was a different character and then only later realized it
was Morph also kind of met that I just wasn't thinking of the character of
those terms. Yeah, for sure. So where I think the original question
Riqui is coming from is when at the end of the season, in the
season finale, when he turned it, or when they turned into Gene to
tell Logan stay with me and says like I love you, right, And
is that a moment of himing only comforting Wolverine or is he also using it
as an opportunity to or are they using it as oportunity to express their their
true feelings. Perhaps Yeah, I think that is a very valid question.
The way I took that scene in was Morph understanding Logan and what he might
need is the person that he loves, voicing the plea to keep fighting.
I think it's interesting that it's ambiguous between those two, and I agree that
if it was going to need to if it was going to be explored,
it needed a lot more screen time than they were giving it. In an
already over stuffed Susan Morph having romantic feelings for Wolverine and Morph being possibly like
nonsensegendered in some way. Those are two separate things, then we don't have
to both of them totally enterating though here and again here. This may be
my ignorance of the original show and never having seen the character Morph before,
I think, but also kind of goes into the rogue Magneto thing about age
because Morph was not one of the people who I had known from a lot
of the X Men movies. I thought Morph was supposed to be more like
the like the second generation, you know, Jubileese age, and so yeah,
I do remember that scene. I think part of why I didn't see
as romantic anyway is because I saw it more like, you know, a
scared kid, you know, like a nineteen year old talking to an adult
in their thirties or forties or one hundred forties or whatever it is that that
Wolverine like. To me, I saw it very like to a mentor figure,
to a teacher, not necessarily to a romantic equal. Absolutely, can
Can I introduce one quick tangent on that scene? Sure? I really wish
that when Jubilee got sucked into outer space, it was Wolverine who came to
in time to say her rather than Sunspot saving her. Wolver Yeah, gets
that moment in the comics, uh with Gene annoyingly, but it would work
I think even better with Jubilee as his sort of like mentee, you know,
daughter figure, just uh, you know, on the brink of death
and then realizing that he's needed and snapping too in time to to to do
that. It was a really great moment from the comics. And I wish
that if you were going to give Wolverine one thing to do the whole whole
season, I wish it was that to protect you. So I another question
I want to ask, and this goes again to a topic uh Reeke and
I discussed somewhat last time, and Rica, I'll let you kind of start
on this if you want, because one of the things we're talking about is
nostalgia and fans service and sort of the to what extent do you need to?
You know? And it was it good to do things that the you
know, that that fans will recognize because we've seen them before and there were
some wonderful callbacks We talked about the you know, what did you expect?
Black Leather is such a great turnaround on the great line for the first of
the Chris Carpenter, not Chris Carpenter movies, but I like, well,
you know the movies I'm talking about the first of the Hugh Jackman, Patrick
Stewart, Bryan thank you. But then today we're talking about, well the
love triangles are you know, they're not great, but they're part of X
Men, so we just have to keep them. And to me, I
guess this is a really interesting question. Is when you're doing a new version
of something, there's some degree to which it's okay to say, yeah,
like they've we've always had the characters act in these ways, but we're going
to change some things. And clearly they did, like, for example,
they they were able to say, look, we've seen the wolverine logan,
the logan Scott Jean Gray threesome, you know, plotline way too often and
it's kind of sexist. Let's move past that. Where do you think that
line is in terms of when we say, oh, well, it's always
been a part of the show, so it should just be a part of
the show going forward, versus being able to say, nah, maybe it
what even better if they left in the past. I think the line is
where it actually worked in the past or would work today and doesn't. I
think they actually thought that the love triangles would work today and just failed miss
the mark. But like the love triangles and the messy strings of romance and
the big, big feelings, big soap opera feelings, big you know,
like projection of intentions and angst. That's something that's worked really well for the
X Men for a very long time, and I can understand looking for ways
to kind of throw that in, and romances is a natural place to do
it. Mhmm. Well, and just in general the large with that,
Yes, fan service, I I think I think if fan service becomes a
plot point, then I feel like that's where it kind of fails. When
it's like a background comment or a cameo appearance, like having Morph turned into
Hulk, yeah, or having Bloken Dagger and Spider Man and Mary Jane and
Flesh and all those characters, like, Yeah, having those kind of cameos
when you're part of you're part of that. You're showing there's chaos and there
are other heroes in this universe doing their part. I think those kinds of
fan service cameos are are perfect. I think they're fine, completely okay,
if they did some sort of fan service that was like a three minute deep
dive into the differences between like Cable and X men if you were there for
whatever reason, that's completely unnecessary and it doesn't move so anything forward for the
I'll give an example actually from the Bashian story of fans service that I think
did not work, and that was trying to explain the origin of Bastian and
his mother Rose and all of this stuff. And the origin of Bashan,
by the way, was very, very very different in the comics way,
more complicated, but in a way that drew on a lot of you know,
backstories and progressing plots that you know, if you were a student and
you were a following you would have understood. Kind of not really they comics
has a thing like, you know, this was Bastian's plot arc was kind
of interrupted for about eight to ten years, and then when they brought him
back, they're just like, oh, we kind of have to explain literally
everything, because we can't really expect that our readers were uh literate, were
comic readers back then, you know, like it's kids largely, and so
they they did a lot their Bastian has always been kind of a messy topic.
I'm surprised they did it uh in this but uh it's kind of a
shorthand for large government and defense industry reaction to mutants as a threat and mass
mobilization a bastion fanser is abasin fansers. I don't think was necessary, And
like, I'm kind of in the middle on it was him stealing Cable's second
organic arm and then turned into the second coming that I called him at that
point. Yeah, totally, Yeah, it's like that for a tenth episode
SEMs Finale power Up for Bashan that that immediately one that felt very comics,
but then also like that felt it made him more throwaway, just a larger
punching bag to throw everybody at. And so, you know, I think
where fan service does work is when it is in service of character arcs,
like we did the the Madeline Pryor arc and and Inferno as a way to
set up Scott's story arc. We did Life Death, which was you know,
completely different, and we did these very different and out of order,
like if we had had more time, like the story arc of Storm leaving,
her leaving, losing her powers and Scott leaving the X Men are intimately
intertwined because uh Storm loses her powers, decide, you know, goes on
like sort of a personal quest, comes back to the X Men, decides
like this is my home, These are my family. This is my family,
even though I still don't have powers. Fight Cyclops too for leadership of
the X Men wins even though she doesn't have powers, and he does,
and he's like, all right, like this is the sign for me that
I need to get out of here. This isn't my place anymore. I'm
going to go raise a family. So like these were these were kind of
fan service moments in the way that they're adapting, kind of like stories that
aren't like headline, front page, what are you going to make your big
X Men movie about? But they worked in the way that they are in
service of character arcs and telling sort of like the broader story of what you're
trying to do with X Men, And I thought that is an example of
good fan service. I guess what I'm trying to ask about those not fan
service, but more the opposite, which is the how far do you think
they can go in terms of changing things that people think of as central to
this And obviously some people are gonna get upset, and that's not I'm not
I'm not worrying about you know, the sure, the edge lords are always
gonna edge lord. But in terms of like, okay, so we don't
have we don't have in this version, uh, you know the love triangle
with Logan and Scott. Really it seems like most fans are pretty okay with
that. It's you were saying before that, well, we kind of have
to have the love triangles because that's what we have. But like it sounds
like also you could have done without the love triangles and fans wouldn't have been
that upset about it. I'm kind of curious kind of how you all feel
about that, Like, could you have had Megano actually not turn evil for
part of the story and had fans be okay with it? Could you have
had like Professor X literally never come back and have fans be okay with it?
What? What? Because it does seem like a lot of times when
I point out things that are like, ah, this didn't feel the best,
the response is, well, but that's always been the story. And
I guess I'm just kind of curious of how far can we go and say,
well, maybe we can make it a different kind of story without it
no longer being the X Men. Oh, like you want to tell something
original? Kind of yeah, I think whatever story you're making that that has
primacy, like you know, the adapted media, Like you're you're you're using
these characters, you're taking them out of the toy box and you're playing with
them, and then you're telling the story that you want to make and then
you put them back from it done. Uh. And the characters are based
on such kind of like strong uh stock archetypes or ideas that they're they're going
to be fine, and you can kind of use them for different things afterwards.
I think to go with your example though of you know, why does
Magneto act like this? And then why does you know why is this sort
of like the uh, why why do we bring Charles back? And I
think that actually gets to you know, an interesting part of of of X
Men and and the conversation around nonviolence and the fact that you know, in
in the finale, Charles, even after shutting down the dude's mind, you
know, is staying with him to try and keep him alive and bring him
back because he believes this deeply in the power of love and and and uh,
you know, loving one's enemies not because of some like hippie dippy moral
or it is moral, but this this sort of like hippie dip lovey dovey,
like uh, kumbaya, Pollyanna kind of thing, but like that the
the sort of king idea that love is a force that creates things like the
possibility for redemption, that creates things like the possibility for reconciliation, that creates
things like the possibility for a positive peace rather than the absence of conflict,
and that to actually create and promote peace beyond simply a tet a tet of
power constantly escalating at one another, which is what I think Bastion represents in
this comic or in this and in the show, you do need the presence
of somebody who is who represents non violence in a strategic and and focused way
of saying, like, there is a method of conflict resolution that can scale
extremely large, that creates a lasting and positive peace. And that's when when
you see like a lot of these things. The larger political arc of the
show switch it is around escalation versus de escalation. And you know, characters
acting in self defense in a way that escalates, like Magneto is acting in
self defense when he puts an electromatagnetic pulse over the entire world, because there
are these sentinels that it disables that will kill him and all other mutants.
Like this is valid self defense. However, it is destroying the world,
and it needs to be counteracted in some way. And so it's only through
the creative application of nonviolence and pursuing a positive piece that we get to a
point where we're not simply escalating endlessly. Uh. And I think you can
see parallels to that in any number of you know, current real world world
conflicts. Uh. And especially when nationalists feel, which Magneto is often portrayed
as, feel the necessity to act and in self defense as a justification that
their violence is justified through their self defense, no matter the scope or the
proportionate response of it. I had some better response than I could ever conflict.
I do want to go point out that when Magneto does it, he's
not under attack, he is not defending himself. He's defecting the earth everyone
else. But that's I get your larger point. I think we're going to
do a whole other episode on that because I think I think Martinuther King would
have thought perhas reacts with a punk because to me, he's like, to
me, the a very big difference between nonviolence versus violence, versus assimilation versus
you know, self assertion and self pride. And it's there's a larger conversation
that I want to have about why is it that black Panther has to have
kill Monger, you know, Professor AXT. Why is it always that that
the focus is on the more radical has to be the nationalist has to be
the more violent instead of that the more radical maybe has some truth and that
the more assimilationist is the one who's like not going far enough. But that's
sure that the question I was more getting at was that, to your mind,
if you did tell a story where that kind of kept the idea of
the first half of this where Magneto had to learn to love a lot more
because he had to learn responsibility of the school, Professor X was totally off
the board, but we were also letting the students learn much more of his
like, no, don't try to be like them, we are different.
That's that that that there's a middle ground between Nash and separatism and assimilation,
and that it can be a we are different, we are proud, but
that doesn't mean we're better or worse. Like would that have been an acceptable
x Men story or would that have Ethin gone because Professor X isn't being proven
right in the end, it would not fit what an x Men story is
supposed to be. No, no, no, that's that's one that they've
done in the comics plenty of times as well. So yeah, that's that.
That would be a great x Men story. I'd love to see it.
I think it's just not the story that they were telling this time,
and I hope we get room for it in the future. The last big
thing I wanted to touch on was this question of what does it mean that
tolerance's extinction? But before that, Reeky is my other kind of co host.
I've been really driving the bus. Here are any other big questions you
want to raise or comments you want to throw in? Well, I do
want to comment on the whole fan service thing, because I've had a lot
to say about it here. Like Star Wars and to me, like my
go to phrase as a fan, I want to be serviced, like I
want to enjoy the things I enjoy and I have them show me things that
I recognize and love, but you have to it has to be in service
of the characters, and it has to be in service of the storyline.
So talking about this series, the things that they have done differently from the
comics, like Madeline Pryor we discussed as completely different. Inferno was like a
year long cross like all Marvel storyline and involved actual demons in the comics,
which they paid like service, like fans service to with the imagery that she
used, like she had demonic things attack them with her with her mind powers.
Right, So I like that, Like, you can't there's no way
that they could do like Inferno would have had to been like a whole season
for to be true to the comics, and there's no way they're gonna do
that. So they introduce it in a way that they can present on this
show in one episode, Okay, Like I'm okay with that. The Bastion,
I think what I'm confused about with most with Bastion is that they didn't
address some of the Easter eggs, right, Like there was a photograph in
Forge's office of him standing next to Bastion and like hugging or like arms across
each other's shoulders like they had worked together and trask maybe, yeah, I
can't remember who else was in that photo, but yeah, but people like
people picked up on that. They're like, that's Bastion, Like Bastionian is
in this, Like I don't, we don't know if he's going to be
a character, but like that's an Easter Egg. Done. And then like
Bastian showed up as a character, and it was never addressed that Forge had
possibly worked with him, right, Like he never said like, oh it's
you like like or like I helped him like work on this technology, like
right, And that should have been a part of Forge's character, Like it
should have been at least at least a dialogue with somebody. Yeah. So
that's that's to me where it seems like they put him in as an Easter
Egg to be like yeah, like if you pay attention, like there's Bastion,
like we're hinting at him, But it doesn't address the fact that it's
Bastion with Forge, which I think isn't It is an important enough thing that
it should have there should have been a conversation about that. So it seems
like that was like a bit of fan service that kind of got lost in
the shuffle, like they wanted to sneak him in there early on, but
then like we forgot or whatever. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, yeah,
they leaned more into the fact that Forge built the or helped build or
design the cloaking or deactivating tech with with the Trask part of that picture,
but not the not how fashion was involved in all that. Well, this
is actually let's be segue to another related question that that Riaki and I talked
a little bit about last time. I want to hear all three of you
say more on to me. The other downs the potential downside of fan service
is what happens to the people who don't have all that background. And I
actually kind of have a maybe an odd take given this show, which is
that I think I think that I didn't enjoy the show as much as you
all did in part because I didn't have all that background. I didn't have
that part of the fandom in me from my love of this show from the
before, or like knowing more about the comics, that I wasn't being serviced
in quite that same way. But I think that's totally okay, Like to
me, I don't think of that. To me, I think this this
is basically season five or season six of the original X Men show, and
as long as it's marked like to me, if it had been marketed aggressively
in a way of like, don't worry, if you've never seen anything else,
you're gonna love this, I would have been like, Yeah, you
kind of pulled one over on me. And I think there are some people
who don't know the X Men story who did really enjoy it. But I've
certainly heard from a lot of people in my position who were just like very
lost, very confused, and found it hard to care about some of these
storylines. I feel like that like to me, for me, Ahsoka was
what you guys are talking about, Ahsoka was. There were parts that show
I didn't love, but it felt very much like Rebels season five, and
I felt completely serviced as a fan in ways that I absolutely loved When people
said way, but I'm upset because I feel like I can't enjoy the shorty
as much if I haven't seen Rebels. My thought was, no, you
can't, and that's okay, And so I'm kinda curious you guys take on
this in terms of like when fan service goes to the point that people who
don't have all that background feel maybe a little alienated or just having trouble enjoying
it as much or keeping up with it. What's your kind of like is
that should fan service be done in a way that it doesn't alienate people or
push them away? Or is it okay if it does, because like,
not everything is for everybody. My kind of take on that is I might
write a story the same way in the sense of, like if I write
a story that has fan service, and then I can also like allude to
larger things or allude to things that may or may not have happened in the
past, and they just kind of reference it. Then my best case scenario
is, say, if you have fifty fans and then fifty new watchers,
if ideally a majority of those fifty new watchers are intrigued, like get brought
in by the story, and they're intrigued enough that they want to ask others
about, hey, what do they mean about that? And then and then
my story that I wrote is perpetuating out and it's creating newer fans who are
actively exploring my universe and not just the one story I told, But then
there's also going to be I understand that there's going to be a number of
those new fans that are going to get turned off by that. But my
hope as the writer is that there are more new fans than there are people
who have There's a saying in comics, every issue is somebody's first, and
it was it's it's been abandoned over the years, but the idea was.
The idea was that, you know, you you want to keep a lot
of your core concepts very accessible, that you want to reiterate what the who
all the characters are, what their powers are, what their situations are,
and where they are in their individual plot arcs every single issue, and you
end up with a lot of sort of very non naturalistic recap dialogue, tons
and tons and tons of extraneous exposition in order to help fans who are coming
in keep up. And that is I think was extremely effective in terms of
creating successful story you know, like franchises and successful like resonant characters and building
a fan base where people can jump in and feel like they might not understand
everything, but they'll they'll figure it out over time and things will become through
they can start in, they can jump in wherever, and they won't necessarily
they might have missed out on some good stories, but it won't be completely
over their head. And I think the problem, the reason that that's been
abandoned in comics, and I think the reason it was abandoned in X Men
ninety seven is that having all of that extraneous or repetitive, redundant exposition or
going out of your way to keep characters going too far from their like true
north as a concept, gets in the way of this sort of prestige style
storytelling, where you have characters who grow and change over long arcs, where
you have you know, dialogue that sounds more natural and more just like less
awkward than somebody saying, you know, like Storm announcing what her powers are
every single time she uses them, or you know, Gambit. I really
think one of the biggest reasons why they killed off Gambit was because he that
his betrayal in the original show is the least compatible with just somebody talking like
a goddamn person. I'm sorry, can I swear on this? Okay?
Okay? Because he talks about himself in the third person. He's ridiculous.
He is such a bizarre cartoon character with this impenetrable accent, and I loved
him when I was a kid. I literally thought I was Gambit. But
he is ridiculous as a character if you're trying to tell a story with like
more prestige oriented or up jumped themes and ideas and storytelling, which they're clearly
trying to do here. And so I do think that that was a casualty
of that. Yeah, I think I think that's exactly where I am is
that is. I love that long storytelling, you know. And like I
mentioned to Soka, another great Star Wars property is Mandalorian, which I mean
to try and be as subtle here for non spoiler as a cant though it's
a couple years old, been now. But like a lot of fans have
said that the failure to mention a very important character from the Clone Wars TV
show, who is should be a very important character for Bocatan and the recapturing
of Mandalor as while as Obi wan Kenobi is a real failing of the show,
and they're clearly doing it because they don't want to isolate, you know,
newer audiences, And I agree, Yeah, I think it's worthy to
keep bringing it up because I think it's a show that as we get more
of this prestige long form, as we get more things where it's a writer
like it's one, it's one reason why it's nice to have completely new ip,
but as we get all these ips that are so locked into all these
other stories. Yeah, because I do think like, for example, like
if you had to, I am sure someone who had never heard of Wolverine,
Logan Scott or Jane Gray was maybe a little confused about like what's happening
with these three of their left time going on? But like you can't keep
retelling these things again and again. I think I think your point of the
exhibition there is really key. Let's go ahead for me. The X Men
ninety seven, like where like I watched most of the original animated series,
I think I haven't seen like season five because I know it's bad. But
where this show failed in my opinion, if you know, quote unquote failed
in terms of like the inaccessibility was the Professor X like shear stuff, but
they kind of had to do that because of the starting point of this episode,
like he's not here, and if they wanted to bring him back,
they wanted to bring him back. They have to explain like where he is
and what he's doing and why he comes back. And it was like I
sat through that episode and I was like, yeah, I know, I
know all these characters, I know this storyline, but it just it seemed
like a big detour to get Professor X back and it was like, all
right, like I will give up this one episode in order to get Professor
X back. But like Sarah, my wife, I think she watched those
episodes, but they didn't the original episodes with a she are, but they
didn't really resonate she She was like who are these people? Like what is
this? And like that to me? Is I think where the show kind
of hit a low point in terms of accessibility. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah, Matthew mentioned that earlier too. Yeah, they're trying to find I
think also the creators were throwing in kind of a broader point about colonialism and
power relations, just in a different context to kind of show the transmissibility of
these ideas. But yeah, it it, it was. It was awkward,
and it it kind of like you it. It came up with an
expectation that it wouldn't go anywhere because you're like, well, obviously these characters
are just thrown in right now and we don't care. Maybe as a way
to mirror some of the anti colonialist uh hintings in the concurrent life death plot,
but those were also pretty underbaked. So yeah, all right, Well
this's been a great discussion. I do want ask this one last question,
but trying and keep it somewhat brief. But I just for Scott and Will
and you know, we could please your thoughts as well as we Still I'm
not literally cyclops. You're not a cop. I'm white guy. In Will's
mind, I am the whitest man who has ever existed, which would make
me cyclopes. But that fact. But here, here's what does it mean
for is tolerant? What the question is tolerance extinction mean? Okay, I
think I have a shorter answer because I think this gets into levels of conversation
that seem as much more equipped to have. So for personal reference, I'm
on the DEI committee at the school that I'm on the board of. So
de I is diversity, equity and inclusion, and so like ideally, companies
everywhere have some sort of DEI approach to you know, their missions, and
we hired a DI coordinator two years ago and she immediately changed the title to
DEI B. So it is diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging because her
explanation is that if you are doing de I, then you like have attachable
ramps to stages for if you ever have a someone in a in a wheelchairs,
you can get them up, versus belonging is that the ramp is already
built into the stage. You have classroom classrooms that allow for hearing impaired individuals
versus you build your classroom to have the the r f uh transmitters to project
to listening devices that you already have on on hand, like, uh,
It's one thing to create a culture where you accept people uh that are not
your uh, that are your atypical, whether it's neurodiversity, uh uh,
physically impaired in any way or uh non binary or other religions YadA, YadA,
YadA, But it's another to have it be part of your part of
part of your structure and your build. And I think for me, tolerance's
extinction is that difference. I think tolerance is just doing d I. Tolerance
is saying, yeah, you're allowed here, but you got to use that
other door. But we do technically have black patrons at this restaurant where And
if that's all you're going for, then yeah, you're eventually going to die
out because you're still othered in the conversation of the society as a whole.
Where once you bring in belonging, it's not just you have mutant Town,
where there's this segregated borough of New York where mutants live. It's people are
the mutants are part of the teaching staff, and they work in corporations and
the and the strong downtown. They're part of your society and it's just another
person and not oh, there's a mutant over there and there's a human over
here. So I agree tolerance's extinction to an extreme degree, Like I think
the end game of Tolerance leads to extinction of or or or erasure of whatever
is being tolerated. But that's kind of my three quarter baked. It's a
lot more baked than my approach, which was they combined the storylines you for
extinction and Operation Zero Tolerance. Yes, yes they did. Yeah there And
like in the episode that I that I did before I tried to basic explain,
I think you explained much more succinctly than what I was trying to say,
which is that I think that that's to me, that's the interesting part
of the of what they did is it felt like they were using this phrase
in two different ways, one of which being the much more like the action
way. But yeah, also this idea of and here's where I do think
Magneto was making a very important point of if we're if all we're asking for
is to be tolerated as mutants, then we're gonna go extinct in the same
in the assimilationist Yeah, yeah, all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
I believe that is the end game message. But seems right it is definitely
Operations zero Tolerans and for extinction are two very important legendary storylines from the X
Men comics that they pulled heavily for these ten episodes. But as far as
the message on paper, I think that you're more to it than that.
And yeah, no Cassandraova, but we don't need Yeah, gods kind of
go back to the fan service changing stuff obviously, like when they had the
Notion episode. Like in the comics, Cassandra Nova is supposed to be one
who sends the wild Sentinel and I was like, oh my gosh, they're
doing Cassandra Nova. And at about the same time, we got the hint
I think a trailer for some an upcoming thing it seems to sugges Cassandra Nova
is a thing, and then they just didn't. So I was like,
oh, okay, I guess not, which I'm okay with, Like that's
the thing because they plotted it out in a way that it didn't have to
be her, right, Like you can do these stories and change like a
fundamental thing like who the villain is if it's if you write it as a
whole, but then yeah, yeah, it turns out a whole lot of
X Men villains want to do genocide. Unfortunately, it could have been an
ezy, right, it could have been apocalypse. Like at one point I
was like, is it apocalypse? Like is he trying to set this up
as like a oh something, I don't know he's gonna be season two?
Yeah all right, well yeah yeah. So to bring to bring it back
to different questions you had earlier about king heroes attire, I hope that this
universe allows characters to retire, like at the end of the day, you
like when you look at Scott and all the times a new mutant or a
child is introduced, Scott just wants to be a dad. Like when you
boil down everything, Scott just wants to be a dad. Colossus just see
will tell you. Colossus just wants to be an artist. Like let him
retire and let him paint. I'm a Frost just cares about being a teacher.
That's all she's ever done. And like there are core characters that their
hopes and dreams are outside of being a mutant soldier, and because of their
popularity, it's never gonna happen. But damn it, this is a chance
to let that happen. You telling you you've you vitalize this universe that was
dead for thirty years, Like, let the natural course take over, let
Scott retire, whether it's I mean, the kind of got to catch that
because of the epilogue, but like, you know, let these characters go
and they can do a crazy cool John Wick revival in a season finale or
something. But like, let them go and it will just be for a
little bit. Yeah, I do hope they set up. I hope that
season two starts with a long enough arc that the people who are remaining in
the present, which I believe is Sunspot, Jubilee, Forge, right,
those three. Primarily that they give them time to be the X Men and
recruit some new characters like in the present and let the other weird stuff happen.
Mm hmm, yeah, I think I could really helpful and also just
have And granted, the whole point of this is that we're gonna kind of
post the school era, but it'd been nice if they had just like find
a way to make clear who the different generations are and what ageous people are,
because I do think that, like, for example, in those in
the Brian Scott movies you had, it was very clear like Iceman, you
know that their version of Rogue, you know, all those are a fundamentally
different generation than Wolverine and cop Boy and Phoenix Girl and like, you know,
all these other people. So yeah, maybe nice. All right,
Well, thank you all so much for being a part of this. I
was supposed to have put in a plug for membership a long time ago.
We had a long conversation here, but members you know you're gonna get even
more content. I think we've been going on for a whiles, so we're
actually do is use a clip from the episode that I had a while ago
of myself Will and Steve talking about Gianosha. But also, I'm gonna make
sure you guys get a chance to hear anything that we're gonna definitely have them
back to talk about version of Genosha compared to the genotion in the comics,
because I had some big questions about that. But so please, I'm gonna
say, I'm not gonna talk about Genosha. Okay, I will talk about
Lamb. Sorry, purposely I should start purposely, I don't. Okay,
I'm gonna start calling it tatoine. Here we go. They're good. Oh
gosh, Well, I would love it if you pronounced it the way that
Boba pronounces it, which is like or something like that tween. Okay,
But the point is when Williams aren't laughing at my pronunciation, they actually have
an awesome podcast of their own that you should totally check out. Uh,
give us a plug, Steve, Oh, Dad's hop is my superpower?
Uh, Steve and I talk. We've taught. We have like one hundred
and thirty five episodes. Go and check them out. We read a lot
of comics. Will and I have been best friends, our entire lives.
We read a lot of comics and we hang out and we talk about them.
If that's something that sounds like something you enjoy, come check us out.
It's called Type is my superpower. It's wherever podcasts are potted. Yeah,
and I get a great podcast. Check it out. Even if if
you're like me and you can't many the comics, they actually like give you
enough of the picture to really help you understand the comment. You guys do
that great job of like melding fan service with not alienating people, So thank
you. I always love that. Will. Also, you tend to do
things on stream as well. I do. I'm on Twitch silver Dreamer or
Silver with a Y. I build building brick sets like if anyone's watching the
stream, everything you see behind me, like my Godzilla taj muhallaba will be
and stuff uh and model kits and stuff. And then also on Sunday evenings,
I read Marvel comics. It's against copyrights. I don't tell anyone,
don't tell anyone, but but but I do. We read comics on stream.
People like hearing my voice and so that just kind of evolved in and
allegedly I also write independent comics, although I need to actually publish something new
at a certain point in order to keep saying that, yeah, look for
the pros. It's his first comics, all right. Thank you all so
much for being a part of this riky Is always. Thank you so much
for being a co host and fighting through as we got overwhelmed. I thought
we was gonna get one of these two today, but we got both.
To our listeners, thank you all so much. We have spoken to me,
my ex man