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In which Deadpool and X-Men ’92 artist Scott Koblish joins us to present the Summers Family Tree as you’ve never experienced it before; the X-Men go to Dante’s Hell; Dr. Strange gets his Virgil on; Wolverine sniffs snakes; Iceman has probably killed a lot of people; and X-Men fans have remained remarkably consistent over the years.
X-PLAINED
- The Summers family
- Birthdays at the Xavier mansion
- A package as sinister as it is stylish
- Uncanny X-Men King-Size Annual #4
- One version of Hell
- A demon who is also a sorting hat
- Another X-Men crossover conspiracy theory
- The X-Men’s religious affiliations and lack thereof
- Nuance of self-narration
- Snakes with arms, and the vocalizations thereof
- Dangers of encasing people in ice
- The death of Stefan Szardos
- An overly complex revenge plot
- The origin of that one angry mob from Giant-Size X-Men #1
- Kinda-incest
- Reader responses to the Dark Phoenix Saga
- X-Men vs. board games
- The appeal of the Outback X-Men
- Artist-character associations
NEXT EPISODE: Kurt Wagner: Warlord… of our hearts!
DEAR MISTER SINISTER lyrics by Jay Edidin & music by Tea Fougner. Performed by Scott Koblish.
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Stylish Sinister… this seems as good a place as any for Sinister in a cardigan http://x-meninknitwear.tumblr.com/post/152023864331/sinster-is-modelling-the-vertical-jaquard-with
It’s pretty impressive Wolverine could find Storm. She didn’t have a little snakehawk to go by.
Regarding the song lyrics: Sadly, I have some bad news regarding the parentage of Rachel Summers. While I love Chris Claremont’s intention that the Phoenix was Rachel’s father and I think there is textual support during his run (particularly from the fact that Rachel appeared to be a unique entity in the multiverse and had no doppelgangers during the Crosstime Caper), I just stumbled upon the fact that this has been contradicted on the page. In Excalibur #52, the Phoenix Force itself indicates that Rachel Summers is the daughter of Scott Summers.
Maybe the Phoenix Force recognizes family as functional, not just genetic units. =D
I do love this Annual. It’s really weird and fun. I love Logan giving a portrait of himself to Kurt.
The story is a fun little twist on Dante’s Inferno. I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno – I’ll probably never get around to it – but this is a good story about it.
Kurt dating his adoptive sister is one of many, many, many weird bits of sexual politics in Claremont’s work. (Steve Englehart is the King of Uncomfortable Sexual Politics in comics, though).
They’re probably the least interesting part of the family tree, so I can see why they were elided, but a brief shout-out to Alec’s adoptive family, the Blandings (Andrew, Joanna, Haley, and the late Todd). It’s always been bizarre to me that the family he grew up with more than the Summers have been so absent from his adult life; it took something like three decades for them to turn up on-panel, and I’m not sure if they’ve ever appeared in a non-flashback issue.
On the subject of letters page delay, it got worse and worse over time, since they kept bumping the lettercol for extra story pages. IIRC they eventually wound up skipping over a year’s worth of letters in order to catch up.
I’ve always meant to ask about his adoptive family… it did get to the point where I wondered if they lived in Canada or something. 😉
Yeah, as far as I know the Blandings only ever showed up in X-Factor #0.
Shhh! People, we don’t want them to be more prominent, that’ll only get them kidnapped, tortured, and/or killed!
‘We’ve killed all the Greys, we’ve wrecked the Summers, what should we do now?’ *fingers thumping on table*
As far as the appropriate circle of hell for Storm, I think the fact that she thought she was a goddess for so long would be a bigger sin. At least as far as Christian thought goes.
Good episode, I really enjoyed it.
Yes, Storm calling herself a goddess would be a greater sin than theft. Except that she pulls it off so well.
“God! This woman is proclaiming herself a goddess!”
“What?! Let me see! That’s her? Hmm. You know what? I’ll allow it.”
Proclaiming herself a God without reference to Christianity wouldn’t be a big deal, in Dante’s version – that’s Level 0 (Limbo). Julius Caesar did that (among other potentially sinful acts), and Dante put him here with Homer and Socrates.
I love Nightcrawler’s Inferno, and this episode did a good job of breaking it down.
I was surprised that Jay’s pick for “character who should be killed off and not come back” wasn’t Charles Xavier. Although I guess he’s already dead . . . I’m still crossing my fingers for him to be brought back, though, myself!
This song is AMAAAZING!
I love you guys so much that your podcasts inspire me to CLEAN (if that’s not a fuckjn mutant power I don’t know what is) because they are so great. As an old school 80s reader who jumped on board the train at the beginning of the golden years apprently your podcasts have been invaluable in catching me up!
So my question is-what are your thoughts on the new Legion TV series coming up on Fox? (Or FXXXXX, whatever.) As a reader of The New Mutants who needed to see those kids at a crucial time in my life I think it’s looking fantastic (Aubrey Plaza as Lenny, WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT) but I wanted to hear your thoughts on this.
Much love, and please in its Bil Sienowicz onto the show, I’ve found he’s so damn accesible on Facebook it isn’t funny! Seriously-best Warlock artist is best artist!
*invite my space bar and autocorrect are plotting against me. Apologies.
I’ve listened to that opening song 5 times now, and i will continue to do so because it’s hilarious.
It’s incredible and ironically does an excellent job mapping things out
I can now no longer credit “Nemesis” by Shriekback as the only song I know that uses the word ‘parthogenesis’. It had that distinction for the longest time.
How is the Summers Family Song not been visualised on youtube on its own yet? CRIMINAL
Can we bug Scott Koblish for a slightly cleaner recording? And maybe a guitar solo right after “parthenogenesis!”
Dude, that would be amazing! Anyone feel up to it?