Listen to the episode here!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! (X-Men #193)
“The hard part wasn’t bringing you back from the dead–it was getting you into those leather pants.” (X-Men #193)
Firestar’s first comic-book appearance. We’d like to tell you it goes uphill from here, but, no. (X-Men #193)
Let’s take a moment to admire the complete impracticality of Kitty’s jacket. (X-Men #193)
“That’s right, Sam. And when you’re headmaster of your own school, you can dress however you want.” (X-Men #193)
Kitty’s jacket again, because it is just so gloriously awful. (X-Men #193)
The robot enforcers of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Or something. (X-Men #193)
Empath: Literally the worst kid. (X-Men #193)
In which Charles Xavier takes advantage of a teachable moment. (X-Men #193)
Aw, Nimrod, you’re so wacky. (X-Men #193)
It seems like a waste that this sequence isn’t accompanied by sitcom opening-credits music. (X-Men #194)
Things about Rachel Summers that are not The Saddest Thing at this point in continuity: None of them. (X-Men #194)
Really, Earth-811? Limitless budget, and you couldn’t design anything that looked better than THAT? (X-Men #194)
Voltron special! (X-Men #194)
The scene depicted on the cover ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT TAKE PLACE AT ANY POINT DURING THIS ISSUE. Good god, Marvel. (X-Men #195)
And now, an actual nightmare that you have actually had! (X-Men #195)
Seriously, what the hell, George? (X-Men #195)
Aw. (X-Men #195)
Damn, Shadowcat. That’s cold. Not entirely inaccurate, but cold. (X-Men #195)
I have no idea how they’re going to explain this one to their parents. (X-Men #195)
Next Week: Firestar!
Looking at the art it appears that Kitty gives her weird batwinged coat to Katie and just never replaces it. BTW, in the 80’s I owned a similar one in purple and my mother had a mink coat in the same pattern. Also the Crimson Pirate is the best Pirate movie ever.
Great cold open as always. Reminds me of a question I have about the Siege Perilous.
When the X-men outback team fled through the Siege, most of them were altered in someway and/or scattered around the world. Psylocke got a new body, Storm became a child etc. What happened to Longshot? Because after this a very similar character appeared Gambit, who threw objects, was charming and ‘lucky’ and like Longshot Xavier would describe having a ‘mind like quicksilver’. Yet Longshot would be out of the x-men for a long time.
So my question is, do you think it was ever intended for Gambit to be Longshot?
As a reader at the time, I definitely got the sense that Gambit was like a dark ‘n’ sleazy Longshot, thinking particularly of this one scene (drawn by Michael Golden) that shows a dark star glow in Gambit’s eye.
But no, from what I hear, Claremont wrote Longshot out for a second Longshot Nocenti/Adams mini that never materialized. Gambit was supposed to be an avatar of Mr. Sinister, designed to infiltrate and destroy the X-Men from within.
Gambit was supposed to be a lot of people.
Oh, and pedantic note: Psylocke didn’t get a new body from the Siege Perilous. She emerged from the Siege amnesiac, but in her Brit-body. The Hand found her and turned her Asian to sell her to the Mandarin. (Then, in the 90s, it became more complicated, involving Kwannon and Spiral.)
Definitely yes, at least I’ve got no doubt about it. Gambit openly took Longshot’s place up in the series in a similar way Longshot took Nightcrawler’s place up before.