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In which Nimrod is probably an honorary Summers by this point; Claremont hits a centennial; it’s probably pretty hard to get an unconscious person into tight leather pants; the X-Men finally encounter a world that actually hates and fears them; and the Power Pack fits somewhat uneasily with the grown-up Marvel Universe.
X-PLAINED:
- Nimrod
- Uncanny X-Men #193-195
- Thunderbird II (James Proudstar)
- Situation-inappropriate attire
- The worst Hellions
- Firestar (Angelica Jones)
- Why you call ahead before breaking into NORAD
- Leadership
- Public opinion
- Juggernaut fights
- How the X-Men wake up
- Nazgûl
- Tyranny of the Masses: The Robot
- The Voltron Special
- The Power Pack
- Navigating crossovers
NEXT WEEK: Firestar!
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Dear Rachel and Miles,
You asked what it must be like trying to follow uncanny x-men without New Mutants and I actually am doing exactly that right now! See on the Marvel Comics Digital Unlimited app, new mutants cuts out just after demon bear and picks up again at Inferno, which basically means I’m missing a very large component. Fortunately, it really doesn’t matter that much. I may not know what is going on in that book, but provided I know the book exists and the basic premise (younger mutants who are not suppossed to be in combat but hijinx ensue) I can actualy follow along without much of a problem.
That is not to say that I don’t notice it. But its like a constant “Oh man I wish I could read this from their perspective” or “I wonder what the new mutants are doing right now?” rather than “What the hell! Where did this all come from?”
So to answer the question of “How difficult is it to only read Uncanny?” the answer I’ve had going from #1 to the beginning of Inferno over the last few months of following along with you guys is “Not confusing at all” which is pretty ….x-ceptional.
Yep. Went there.
Cheers!
P.S. I forget the exact scene and issue, but there is a throw away line by Scalphunter about killing some Morlock kids on the streets of NYC a few months prior to the massacre. So I’m pretty sure Marauders killed Annalee’s kids.
Thank you for that window! (And man, those Marauders are huge jerks.)
Power Pack is also pretty sparse on Marvel Unlimited. How good is it? Should I try to get it via other means?
I’ve only read a little, but I’ve enjoyed it. It’s definitely a kids’ comic, but if you don’t mind that, I think it’s worth casually looking around for.
If they have the Marvel Age Power Pack miniseries on there, then those are worth reading too. They’re also kids titles and take place outside of continuity, but they have gorgeous art Gurihiru. There’s even a volume where they team up with the X-men that includes a costume contest that’s really good
Regarding navigating crossovers, Inferno came out during one of my lapses in collecting. When I got back in, I eventually got all the back issues with the core Inferno story (Uncanny, X-Factor, and New Mutants) sometime in the early 90s. I eventually discovered there were tie ins with Excalibur when I got that series.
I didn’t even know until today’s episode that there were tie ins with Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Avengers. So yeah, I would say for that specific event, SmileyRK (sp?) didn’t miss anything. And the X-Perts gave good advice on the topic in their answer for crossovers/tie ins in general.
Yeah, ditto–I just found out about those Inferno tie-ins when we were researching for the episode, and I’ve still not read ’em.
I just finished re-reading inferno and the cross-overs, I was intrigued by how well they interacted with the main plot, without ever getting involved. It’s interesting as an adult and a writer to take apart how they all told individual stories in the broader changing world, but hardly vital storywise.
I’ve read the Daredevil tie-in. (Spider-man and Daredevil were my gateway into Marvel comics) Reading Inferno would make that issue (#262) make a lot more sense, but reading that issue would not contribute to your understanding of Inferno.
He is attacked by a sentient vacuum cleaner. That’s the whole plot.
That is an _awesome_ plot!
The Fantastic Four issues that cross over with Inferno are also worth checking out. It’s not really because of the Inferno tie-in, but because Steve Engelhart’s run on the series is completely unhinged.
I read them all several years ago, and the only thing I remember is that in the Spider-Man crossover the Kingpin punches a huge flying demon in the face and it explodes. So there’s nothing pertinent to the X-Men’s story in the crossovers, but definitely some pertinent badassery.
The Book Club Idea would be pretty awesome.
In addition to the book club, your take on all the other pop culture references too. Rachel and Miles giving the MST3k treatment to Buckatoo Banzai, watching along on my VHS copy, would be an evening well spent..,
Are you implying that Buckaroo Banzai is not a perfect cinematic masterpiece? Because if so, we may need to part ways here.
-Rachel, who may or may not be the Perfect Tommy of a theoretically-for-now-but-we’re-totally-going-to-do-this-someday-for-real Rule-63 Hong Kong Cavaliers
It is perfect especially when you realize that Buckaroo Banzai is a retconned fictional history of Canadian Superhero Col. Chris Hadfield super soldier and current deserter from our weapons program.
It’s the coat, right? Which bears a striking resemblance, in style if not color, to Scott’s from W&tXM cartoon.
If\when this happens I’ll be Penny’s sister because, well, somebody’s gotta die…
And it made me very happy to see that, in the new Star Trek film, (spoiler) Buckaroo grows up to be the bad guy.
References to Crimson Pirate, Laputa AND a discussion of Power Pack. This episode ROCKS.
That Sienkiewicz cover is gorgeous and completely misleading… But I do love Wolvie’s claws in it, for some reason. And the shape of the smoke is weirdly pure Sienkiewicz. I also love Power Pack SO hard.
I vaguely remember, but was too young to really parse it, that there was some controversy over that cover, but I can’t find anything on Google about it.
I couldn’t imagine why there would be a controversy over Logan willfully endangering a child’s life, with all that cigar smoke. Oh, yeah and his claws are out.
Hah… of course that would have been what the controversy was about. I’m just not sure who it was controversial to, or where their complaints played out!
The episode I’ve been waiting for. Issue 193 is where I started reading. Between “So, of course, he gets nailed” and then picking up the Kulan Gath D&D/X-Men story from the recent-back-issues shelf at the LCS, I was hooked.
You’ve mentioned “Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends” several times and the X-Men guest-stars several times by this point, and I can’t help but ask … Can we talk about Wolverine’s ridiculous Australian accent?
Tracking back through these episodes so I’m super late to this, so necro comment, but… To find this one… I got issue 193 – the James Proudstar/Thunderbird one – as an “X-Men: CLassics” sometime in the 90’s. To get to the end and find Nimrod, disguised as a human, being all sneaky and knowing from the cartoon what he looked like, I was so hooked. I’d been getting as many X-books as I could from the local newsagents here in Australia, which meant it was a random issue every couple of months, but man ever since then Nimrod has been one of my favourite X-Men villains, simply because I had so little else to go on.
And regarding reading one “half” of the main story and not the other? I was one of those reading only one of Bendis’ books (Uncanny with Scott and the renegade school) and it seemed to make about as much sense as it needed to. I wasn’t really lost. But that could also be because I was used to parsing out details and just accepting when I didn’t know things from my past, of having only been able to read an issue every few months from a newsagents in Australia.
Try reading the Onslaught event with only 1 issue of Wolverine fighting Stick in a burning building and 1 issue of “Joseph” and Rogue and Gambit discussing their relationship before Thor pulls Xavier out of Onslaught and the guy going apeshit, then one final issue of them talking in a kitchen over breakfast about all the people who died. It’s wild.
I actually have been reading Power Pack, and after realizing that it’s a pretty good “kid comic” I’ve been reading it to my 7-yo daughter. She absolutely loves them! (I think she kind of relates to Katie) Such a great Pack of kids 🙂