0:00

That is when

0:02

Ava Bell decides Cyclops can go

0:04

fuck himself. She's

0:07

like, okay, check

0:09

please. Everybody kind of reaches that point at

0:11

the stage of the story where like, what

0:13

are you doing? This is not a Cyclops

0:15

was right moment. She's like, check please, I'm

0:18

out. Thanks, it's been real. X-Men,

0:20

X-Men. In the

0:23

21st century, people and mutants

0:25

led by Magneto aim to destroy the world.

0:32

Only hope is X-Men.

0:38

Welcome to Cerebro, the X-Men podcast, where

0:40

a homo and his friends dig deep

0:42

into the history of Homo Superior.

0:44

I'm your host, Connor Goldsmith.

0:47

And with me today is returning

0:49

guest, Karen Charm, AKA

0:51

Karen X-Men fan, a wonderful

0:54

artist who many on the

0:56

X-Men fandom internet will have

0:59

seen, but who I hope

1:01

will be doing lots

1:03

of original creator-owned stuff soon. I'd love

1:06

to read more of that from you.

1:09

Is there anything in the hopper,

1:11

Karen? Oh yeah, always and likewise.

1:14

And also it's very good to be back.

1:16

Nice to chat with you on the air.

1:19

We've hung out a bunch since the last time

1:21

you were on the show, but I was just

1:23

expressing my shock that you've only done the one

1:26

episode because I feel like you're like a Cerebro

1:28

fixture. Well, I've done the shirt. Yes,

1:30

you did the shirt, the flat skin

1:32

ally shirt. You did the logo for

1:35

my upcoming podcast, Single Female Lawyer, that

1:37

will actually happen later this year. A

1:40

lot of things had to come into alignment in

1:42

my personal life before I could start a second

1:44

podcast. I kind of jumped the gun on announcing

1:46

that, I think, but it is finally

1:48

coming. You have

1:51

been doing a really cool series

1:53

of illustrations, like character illustrations

1:55

in the order of the episodes. Which have

1:58

been so cool to see. I

2:00

had a moment where I was feeling

2:02

like I hadn't been doing enough X-Men

2:04

fan art because you know

2:06

the pandemic was nice for getting a lot of fun

2:09

things done as you started a podcast

2:11

and other people did other things but

2:13

when work

2:17

Obligations started to reassert themselves

2:19

kind of found less and

2:21

less time. That was not ideal No, yeah,

2:23

I mean you'll note that this was a

2:25

weekly show and now it is not because

2:29

Became impossible Particularly

2:31

with the length so that the episodes now

2:33

run on average. It just didn't seem It

2:37

was no longer plausible when I had to

2:39

you know return to being a productive member

2:41

of society and work for it and all

2:43

Of that so, you know, I mean, what

2:45

are you gonna do? But everybody loves it

2:47

so much the episode links, but anyway

2:49

Yeah, it was just like I'm just gonna draw

2:51

the X-Men but where do you start? I was

2:54

like well Cerebro has an order so I've

2:56

bang through the first 50 plus the extras And

2:58

I've actually I took a little break to focus

3:00

on because I had a lot of work Stuff

3:03

over the holidays in the winter and

3:05

then I've actually just started on

3:08

site season to 51

3:11

up. Yeah, you showed me the candy one

3:13

and I was like so much better hurts

3:15

my heart I feel like my magic is

3:17

one of the best I've done. I'll have

3:19

to share that with you. Yeah send that

3:21

to me I'm sure it's great and I

3:24

would like to get I Talked

3:26

to someone about this ages ago and I should

3:28

hit him up again It's been literally like two

3:31

years But I would like to get like a

3:33

more comprehensive website going for the podcast at some

3:35

point and it would be fun to feature your

3:39

Illustrations Luis Flores is illustrations

3:42

Fun fan art for the show So it

3:44

would be great to put those out there

3:46

in a more now that I don't have

3:48

Twitter and I can't like share them Like

3:50

look at this. It's like Instagram stories. Unfortunately,

3:53

they disappear. So it's less. I

3:55

can't really like enshrine things Funny

3:58

I was sharing them on Twitter and blue sky the

4:00

two places where you are not just

4:02

gonna like do you know this yeah

4:05

well you know I gotta use Instagram

4:07

more I basically decided that blue sky

4:09

would be like quitting heroin and getting

4:11

really into opium like it just seemed

4:14

like not if

4:16

I was gonna do it because I decided

4:18

that Twitter was unhealthy for me I needed

4:20

to not sign up for like the monopoly

4:23

junior form for sure of Twitter

4:26

which no insult to anybody on blue sky having a

4:28

great time but it's you know it's a smaller community

4:30

and it was it just felt it

4:33

felt like even more scrutiny somehow I was like

4:35

I don't need to start this all over again

4:37

you know I registered my name and then was

4:39

like alright fare be well yeah and it be

4:42

gone with you it does feel a bit like

4:44

as someone who's still there and enjoying it like

4:46

the party has moved on and you're still there

4:48

and it's kind of like oh more more people

4:50

are leaving kind of like the the rise unfollowed

4:53

the kurukon era but you know what are you

4:55

gonna do yeah there's that I actually

4:58

recently caught up on

5:00

like several months of X-Men comics because

5:02

I had given myself

5:04

a little break I got into

5:07

into this in the episode I did with

5:09

Annalise Bisso a little bit great one by

5:11

the way love Annalise thank you I mean

5:13

I always love talking Annalise she's so great

5:15

and so smart I really think she's

5:18

like a prodigy like she doesn't usually talk

5:20

about how young she is because I was

5:22

shot it but when she mentioned I know

5:24

people are worried about but she started there

5:26

as an intern in college and you know

5:28

now she's editing really major books at 29

5:30

because she's just that fucking good I really

5:33

think she's like a true funtakins yeah

5:36

I was remembering I think the last time

5:38

I actually talked to you in person was

5:40

last year's flame con and we had just

5:42

found out that Tom was gonna

5:45

do X-Men over like now

5:48

a year later it's is coming

5:51

to pass but at the time that's gonna

5:53

be different yeah we were like what does

5:55

that mean like he loves Annalise that

5:58

was the first thing we said Yes,

6:00

I think you you were like, what do you think

6:02

Tom Reaver's Exyn will look like? I'm like, I really

6:04

don't know but I'll tell you what if

6:07

it means Annalise Biss is coming back to eggs Yeah,

6:09

so I've been in kind of an emotional

6:11

place with it, which feels so stupid But

6:15

I felt stupid because it's like, you know, there's

6:17

actual things going on like it's an election year

6:20

There's truly horrendous news out of the Middle East

6:22

every single day like other things that are taking

6:24

up a lot of Stress

6:27

bandwidth already I would say so like when

6:29

I'm stressed about comic books that feels stupid

6:31

to me Talk

6:35

about being upset about what's happening

6:38

X-men with your therapist and being like, yeah You're

6:40

like, why do you think that upsets you

6:42

so much? I was like, well, let me unpack

6:44

it I guess you're like, I'm just worried. I'm

6:46

just worried about the new era of X-men.

6:48

It's like why what does this mean about the

6:51

world? Right. It's nothing. I don't

6:53

know. What are you talking about, right? what

6:56

I found is that you know, I

6:58

had been reading week to week to week to week to week and

7:02

Reading this final act has

7:04

been tougher Just because we

7:07

knew that it was the end of this thing

7:09

that we really loved I mean the Krakowin age

7:11

and what Hickman and all of his collaborators did

7:13

brought me back to comics It's why I started

7:15

this show It felt so fresh

7:18

and new and fascinating and I loved every

7:20

second of it even when you know Everybody's

7:22

like do you loved every single issue? But

7:25

like I've read a

7:27

lot of X-men comics and let me tell you pound for pound The

7:30

last five years of X-men comics is

7:32

some of the best years of X-men

7:34

comics we've ever gotten Yeah, because boy

7:36

howdy if you look at the several

7:38

thousand issues Exist

7:40

on the whole I wouldn't say they're all

7:42

winners, right? I'd say like on a scale

7:45

of like fun to not fun. Most are

7:47

pretty fun Right very few are not fun.

7:49

Some are really not fun, but very very

7:51

few are like life-changing Yeah, very very few

7:54

are like high art in the way that

7:56

I felt that this was and in

7:58

the way that some of the Claremont stuff is for

8:00

me and in the way that the Morrison

8:02

stuff often is for me. And Mike Carey,

8:04

God love him, trying his damnedest in one

8:07

of the worst status quotes you could possibly be

8:09

handed for this franchise. I feel

8:11

like and I've said many times that

8:13

this is the third great era of the

8:16

X-Men. You have the Claremont, Simonson, Nissenti

8:18

period and then you have the Morrison period

8:20

and then it was this. And I'm hopeful

8:22

that it's just a third in many

8:24

great X-Men areas to come. I think the

8:26

creative teams lined up for these new books

8:29

are really really cool. But

8:31

I was depressed. I was depressed about this

8:33

thing ending because I loved it so much.

8:35

So I was like I think in February

8:37

I was like I'm gonna give myself a

8:39

second and then at the beginning of

8:41

this month I caught up. And

8:44

I gotta say I really

8:48

really enjoyed catching up. I think

8:50

this stuff has been really really

8:52

solid. Several of the writers

8:54

have made it clear that they thought they were

8:56

gonna have about six more months initially when they

8:59

were planning it out. I thought it was funny

9:01

when Emma and Polaris both at different points turned

9:03

to the reader essentially and said I understand this

9:05

feels a little rushed but we're improvising because the

9:08

timelines moved up. You know if you can't get

9:10

that that's how comics works I can't help you.

9:13

In particular the stuff

9:15

Al didn't resurrection of Magneto and

9:17

the stuff that Kieran has

9:19

done in Rise and

9:22

knock me over with a feather everything

9:24

Jerry did in Iron Man which is like

9:26

not a book I've ever like ached to

9:28

read every month but I really really loved

9:30

this run of it. Who

9:32

knew that I'd be like Tony Stark oh

9:34

yeah Mutinal I love that guy. That was

9:36

never really in the cards for me but

9:39

I'm happy that we're here. We

9:41

are here today to talk

9:43

about Ava Bell, Tempest,

9:45

not to be confused with Tempo,

9:48

Heather Tucker who has the exact

9:50

same powers so that's very confusing

9:52

or with Temper, Edio Conquo's new

9:54

codename in the From the Ashes

9:57

era or Tempest,

9:59

Angel. Salvatore's codename when she had the same

10:02

power as his EDO conquo during New Warriors

10:04

Vol. 4 because of that technology. Or

10:06

even Tempest, who I think

10:08

works for Immortus or something. Oh

10:11

well, who's checking for Immortus

10:13

now that Ken can't show up in the

10:15

MCU ever again, not to be rude to

10:17

Immortus. But I- He's surprised

10:19

he dies for a while. Look

10:23

at me with the collaborative overlap I've been reading. You're

10:26

learning, right? I'll try not to step all over you. No, no,

10:28

no, no, no, please. I

10:30

need to be stepped on, otherwise it becomes

10:33

just hours of me talking, good talking, good

10:35

talking. Isolate that producer. I'm

10:37

the producer, so I will isolate it. I know, that's

10:39

a joke. No, I know, but I'm just saying. I'm

10:42

well aware because I do edit it myself

10:44

and I'm like, oh fuck, shut

10:46

up, dude. But

10:49

more to the point, I was just talking about this

10:51

with Ken and Kline actually. I was like, these codemes

10:53

are a little confusing because there's a lot of similar

10:55

codemes. But they are all black

10:57

women except for Tempest, who is a

10:59

white Australian woman, which is about

11:02

as far from a black person as you

11:04

can probably get. Kaiten's Aboriginal Australian, so she

11:06

thought that was funny. It's

11:10

a very different vibe. She's specifically from

11:12

the Gold Coast, which

11:15

I learned from the reality show

11:17

Byron Bayes on Netflix last

11:19

year is where all

11:21

the trashy girls are from specifically. All

11:24

the girls in Byron hate the girls

11:26

from the Gullsy because the girls from

11:28

the Gullsy are slags. It's

11:30

sort of the vibe that I got. Yeah, it's kind

11:32

of the vibe you get from the comic too. Yeah,

11:35

right. Which everybody is always like, why the miniskirt?

11:38

And I'm like, she's from the Gullsy.

11:40

Even the most self-possessed girl from the

11:42

Gullsy is going to have a miniskirt.

11:45

It's the vibe I got from Byron

11:47

Bayes because the fashion designer Gurley's could

11:49

not stop talking shit about the Gullsy.

11:52

I was pleased when you asked to talk about

11:54

this character a while back because I

11:56

haven't covered the Bendis era as much

11:58

on this show. in

12:00

part because it's not

12:03

an era I particularly liked. I've

12:05

reread a lot of it for different characters

12:07

and I've come to appreciate it more now.

12:10

But I remember at the time, I'm a big Brian

12:12

Michael Bendis fan. I was a huge fan of Powers,

12:15

his creator-owned book. I

12:18

followed that religiously. It got a little weird

12:20

eventually, but I followed it religiously for like

12:22

35 issues, 40 issues, whatever it was. He

12:24

revitalized the Avengers brand so enormously. And

12:28

while I'm not crazy about The Decimation, House of

12:30

M is a great comic book, right? So I've

12:33

always been open to a Bendis

12:35

experience. I was never into

12:37

Ultimate, which I think is where most people really

12:39

– like the Ultimate Spider-Man stuff is like obviously

12:42

his biggest hit

12:44

probably. But I was never into the Ultimate

12:46

universe, so that wasn't really my touch point.

12:49

I found him to be a curious fit on

12:51

X-Men, sort of from the jump. I

12:53

think in part it was that I just didn't

12:55

vibe with the way he wrote Emma. Not necessarily

12:57

what she does, because I think the things she

13:00

does make total sense. It

13:02

was like a voice thing because Bendis

13:04

characters have that very specific pattern. Emma

13:06

has pattern, but like I've said, I

13:08

think Jerry Duggan is one of the

13:10

best to ever write Emma. And part

13:12

of it is because he

13:14

does the pattern. Jerry's got a history

13:16

of TV writing. He knows how to

13:18

do that, but it always sounds like

13:20

her. Whereas I

13:22

didn't always feel like Emma sounded like herself.

13:24

And because I was a big Emma

13:27

fan and a big Scott in Emma

13:29

fan, I found this era dispiriting in

13:31

its way. I also just have never

13:33

cared that much about the 60s X-Men.

13:36

So the time travel teens were not

13:38

that exciting to me. And then they

13:40

hung around for like a long time,

13:42

which is years and years and years

13:45

and years. When

13:47

people were first like, what is this? It's clearly

13:50

like a six month arc and then it'll

13:52

be an interesting bit of whatever. And then

13:54

they were around for like six years and

13:56

it was kind of... They were around after

13:58

Bendis left. It was pretty shocking. Honestly, I

14:00

know I mean that's when I when I Came

14:03

in like you came back with Hox

14:05

pox I came in a little bit earlier in

14:07

the golden blue like time

14:10

displaced kids era. Yeah Yeah,

14:12

that was kind of when I tapped back out

14:15

was like in humans versus X-men And

14:17

then I tried with red

14:19

gold blue and they just weren't quite hitting for me

14:21

I did like a lot of stuff in blue. Yeah,

14:24

although rereading the poison axe arc for

14:26

the hepsuba episode was potentially

14:32

Some kind of hate crime against gay

14:34

people. Yeah some nice pictures Yeah,

14:37

I mean quite get the poisons. I don't

14:39

think Alice really used them at all for

14:41

the venom which is well

14:44

I've just never been like a big venom

14:46

guy I love maximum carnage because I

14:48

was a child in the 90s and

14:51

so I have to love maximum carnage

14:53

It's also Mary Jane chain smoking era,

14:55

which is important to me and shriek.

14:57

It features shriek Which

15:00

is always a pro column check

15:02

in my book but

15:04

otherwise I like spider-man but

15:06

it's never been like my thing and then

15:08

venom as Patrick Sullivan

15:10

put it in last episode on Trish Tilby

15:13

was very older brother comics and I'm the

15:15

older brother But I was gay so there

15:17

was no older brother. Give me venom comics

15:20

I liked when venom would be naked sometimes because

15:22

he would get blasted with a sonic blast. Yeah,

15:24

that was good those are great those are great

15:26

panels and I Liked

15:30

when there would be like a lady

15:32

symbiote. So like scream It

15:35

was cool. Yeah, my earliest memories of

15:37

like any of that symbiote nonsense with

15:39

the carnage stuff was like the ladies

15:41

when they're Remember,

15:44

but yeah, they weren't called anything in the

15:46

fucking comic And so they had to be

15:48

named in handbooks because in the comic they

15:50

were just the ones with the tits who

15:52

don't get names Scream is the yellow and

15:55

red one and then agony is the purple

15:57

one, right? And now Liz Allen is like,

15:59

right That's so killing it. I

16:01

mean that's the character. I would

16:04

love to take for a spin She's

16:06

Gwyneth Paltrow with a symbiote. That's all

16:08

really I want to read the ultimate

16:10

universe is fire star Bizarre right daughter

16:13

of the blob that was one of

16:15

the weirdest ultimate Oh God interpretation No,

16:18

it's fine. We're here. We're gonna do it. What can

16:20

we do? So Bendis

16:22

is a writer. I really like

16:24

there's stuff in this era that

16:26

I really do enjoy It just

16:28

overall had several foci that I

16:30

was not crazy about I

16:32

had really not enjoyed Avengers vs. X-Men so

16:35

it was spinning right out of that as

16:38

Someone who personally took the

16:40

position that Cyclops and Emma were right Yeah,

16:42

and then felt that they were kind of

16:44

railroaded into being wrong by the Phoenix five

16:47

storyline strange it's

16:49

I mean it's It's

16:51

weird now. It's weird now, but

16:53

now it's been like 15 years

16:56

So, you know, we have to laugh, right?

16:59

But it was spinning right out of that and

17:02

Emma was in that horrible black costume

17:04

with the lady mastermind titty top and

17:07

didn't have her telepathy and she and Scott

17:09

had broken up and she was Wasn't

17:11

talking like herself and I was like this is annoying and I

17:13

kind of just like I came in and out

17:15

of it The new characters

17:18

Bendis added Hijack and

17:20

triage just never quite clicked.

17:22

I think there's something there with triage You

17:24

could do more with that character, but he

17:26

just didn't get the page time really and

17:28

hijack I don't even remember what he does

17:31

the other three tempest gold

17:33

balls and more morph

17:36

to is the weird one I Felt

17:39

like the vibe was just let's make them more from

17:41

the cartoon But then it wasn't

17:43

really that it I don't know because

17:45

morph is a weird one Particularly looking

17:48

at X-Men 97 now because that character

17:50

has never existed in the comics really

17:52

right? Yeah, like changeling existed and then

17:55

Because of the success of the cartoon

17:58

a away morph and exiles morph exist

18:00

interested, but like the morph who

18:02

was a member of the X-Men is not a

18:04

616 character. Yeah,

18:06

and Benjamin Deeds

18:09

feels so like the

18:11

name of morph feels so incidental

18:13

to that, to me. I

18:15

mean, the AOA white people, I know

18:17

that there were like, you know, weirdos

18:19

who complained about the redesign for X-Men

18:21

97, but that's the more famous version

18:23

of morph. Yeah. For anyone

18:25

who didn't just watch the cartoon, like, you

18:28

know, that AOA character was super popular, he

18:30

and Blink were the big breakouts of

18:32

that. So it made

18:35

sense to do that. And yes, Benjamin Deeds

18:37

just kind of looks like changeling, but in

18:39

the like high school AU

18:41

anime, you know? But

18:44

you know, good for him. Christina Strain did some fun

18:47

stuff with him in her Gen X. Yeah, he's like,

18:49

yeah, he's kind of nothing in this except for that,

18:51

like one good issue with Emma.

18:54

Right. But then like, yeah, it's really

18:56

the Generation X series that was good. Yes. So

18:59

I think it really was just Eva

19:01

and Fabio that hit. And

19:03

that's the risk always of creating

19:05

new characters. And it's unfortunately something

19:08

that no doubt, in

19:10

part, by editorial request happens with every new

19:12

era of X-Men, right? Because part of what

19:14

you want to do is generate

19:17

new IP. But also

19:19

because the X-Men as a franchise

19:21

has often been focused on a

19:23

school or on young people

19:26

because mutation is such

19:28

a puberty metaphor a lot of the time,

19:31

it makes sense to ground

19:33

your book with here are some new

19:35

characters. And particularly in Bendis's case, you

19:37

sort of had to because

19:40

the aftermath of Avengers versus X-Men was,

19:42

oh, hey, mutants are happening again. So

19:44

you had to have some like people

19:47

are activating who hadn't because of the

19:49

decimation. So you have to do that

19:51

with a couple new characters to make

19:54

that status quo work. I

19:56

think that the problem and I've talked about this

19:58

on the show before. That those characters

20:01

free quickly get lost due to

20:03

the sliding time scale in a

20:05

sea of characters who are eternally

20:07

the same age. Yeah, you know

20:09

I feel good about the fact

20:11

that Kitty Pryde now feels like

20:13

roughly thirty. Finally, it's been a

20:15

long and winding road. Having

20:18

okay let's say she's twenty five twenty six

20:20

because I don't want the floating space tallest

20:22

is novelist email me know when his thirties

20:25

but like you know she's going through or

20:27

sad or return and becoming a barista in

20:29

Chicago is like a very thirty coating over.

20:32

That's very thirty coated and so I like

20:34

that. And I think the new mutants also

20:36

feel a little older now. Jan.

20:38

Acts some of them like Monday aged

20:41

up and others didn't seasons you believe.

20:43

hopefully with a vampire for a while

20:45

with help. smooth all about over. But

20:47

then you have that generation under the

20:49

Academy acceleration and now that be resurrected

20:52

all the ones who run the bus,

20:54

there's like eighty of them. Those

20:56

characters are all like sixteen

20:58

to twenty one, right? So

21:00

when you add in new

21:02

characters on top of that,

21:04

it's a big ask because

21:06

you're asking readers to invest

21:09

in these new characters when

21:11

X Men fans are extremely

21:13

passionate about their personal blur

21:15

both right and so every

21:17

time there's a new student

21:19

characters your favorite academy acts,

21:21

yearbook you cameo queen, Is

21:23

not going to be in the story

21:25

but also it's a list for later

21:28

writers because unless you make the characters

21:30

stick, they're going to be exclusive to

21:32

your era rate. Even characters you would

21:34

think would stick like this acted be

21:36

good. Angel Salvador drop off completely after

21:38

Morrison is crazy to me, but they

21:41

do. That. Just happens

21:43

sometimes. In this

21:45

case I thought hit men.

21:48

Did. Band is a real solid. Bender

21:50

said this in Old Owls Hundred percent. on

21:53

battle of the adam by

21:55

making fabio in asia up

21:57

part of the core cohen

21:59

premise Yeah, we would have never seen

22:01

them again. We would have never seen these characters

22:03

again. Bendis said that he was really

22:06

touched by that and that the egg thing was

22:08

crazy, but that's comics, like, you know, that's part

22:10

of the cool thing is like, you never know

22:12

where someone else is going to take it. But

22:15

it was also just cool to see

22:17

his characters get used because this happens

22:19

a lot. Like this new

22:21

era, E-Viewing is introducing three new

22:23

mutants as student characters

22:26

for Emma and Kitty, which again, like

22:28

in a new era, you're doing a

22:30

book that has that vibe. It makes

22:32

sense to have new characters. And Gail

22:34

has promised like a whole bunch of

22:36

new... Has she? Characters that we have

22:38

not seen yet. Yeah. I

22:40

haven't been reading a ton of interviews just because

22:42

I kind of want to go in like... I

22:44

said I was going to do that, but I

22:46

ended up subscribing to the the hat sub-st... Oh,

22:49

well, I do. I mean, I read Tom

22:52

Preeper's newsletter every single week because what

22:54

am I, a crazy person? I just

22:56

can't help myself. Well, it's also the

22:58

most fascinating, comprehensive accounting of the comics

23:00

in the tree that you're ever going

23:02

to be able to read this public.

23:05

I mean, it really... He just kind of lays it

23:07

all out for you as much as he can. And

23:09

I find that really fascinating to read. But,

23:12

you know, I mean, like I'm not reading like Q and

23:14

A's and things with the writers because I want to just

23:16

like go into the books and be like, what is this

23:18

book? Like I know who the rosters are. I know what

23:20

the premises are, but I don't want to get like too

23:22

in the weeds. Yeah, I'm also trying to limit it, but

23:24

it is kind of like... I

23:26

think if I can walk away

23:28

with less parasocial relationships with like

23:30

the specific people, it might be

23:33

for money. All the better. Yeah,

23:35

I think in general, fandom would

23:37

do well to detach a little

23:39

bit. Yeah. If you really like

23:41

someone, sure. But the way that

23:43

people get obsessed and start making

23:45

like theories can get very strange.

23:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did notice

23:50

that apart from those three, I

23:52

think the only other new character

23:54

is the tank character in X-Force.

23:56

Who may be not a

23:58

new character, right? Right. But in

24:00

terms of the marvel.com solicit does not

24:03

have a link to past appearances. Yeah.

24:05

I think that that is a good

24:07

balance. I personally wouldn't introduce many more

24:09

characters than that. Probably some new villains

24:12

because we could use some new villains.

24:14

We just killed off a bunch of

24:16

them. Yeah, totally. But especially

24:18

with the whole point of Krakoa on some

24:21

level was we just brought back all 500

24:24

X-Men characters, including all 300

24:26

that Chris Claremont created. There's

24:28

so many to use that

24:30

I would rather read about

24:32

those characters. I am

24:34

interested to see what Ewing does

24:36

because I like that those characters

24:38

seem to be visible mutants. They

24:40

have sort of a modern feel.

24:42

I'm intrigued to see what

24:44

that book will look like. I

24:46

really like those costume designs. Those carbon-carnaras.

24:49

Very cool. I also just think E-Viewing is

24:51

brilliant. I would read E-Viewing right just about

24:53

anything. What a get. What a get.

24:55

It's a get. Something about those

24:57

Ewing's. No relation, but I

25:00

just do find them very good. I

25:02

remember someone told me that they had

25:04

thought initially that E-Viewing and Al Ewing

25:06

were married because of the Louise and

25:09

Walt Simonson kind of factor. I was

25:11

like, oh, they're not, but can you

25:13

imagine that dinner party? That

25:15

would be all I would want to do, would

25:17

be hang out with that couple. I'm not peer pressuring.

25:20

Al is happily married. I don't actually know

25:22

what Eve's personal life is like because I

25:24

don't actually know her. But Dr. E-Viewing, if

25:27

you're listening, would love to have you on

25:29

Cerebro. In any case, I

25:31

think that Bendis similarly was modest with

25:33

his ambitions in terms of creating new

25:35

characters. It was really just the five

25:37

characters. Tempest, Goldball, is

25:40

more of hijack triage. And

25:42

like we said, only two of them

25:44

really get a ton of story.

25:47

Ava is, I would

25:49

say, apart from like Teenage Gene

25:52

and Revolutionary Cyclops, the signature character

25:54

of the Bendis run. Yeah. Like

25:57

when someone says to me, Bendis

25:59

X. I think of two things.

26:01

I think of the teen-o-five time-traveling and

26:03

I think of Tempest. This

26:05

is the character who has the most

26:08

memorable stories, I would say, that don't

26:10

involve the time travel kits. Yeah,

26:13

absolutely. She's definitely the viewpoint

26:15

character and it's like going back over it.

26:17

I was like, oh, yeah, of course it's

26:19

like right there from the beginning. All New

26:21

X-Men opens with Beast and then

26:24

like setting up his whole thing and

26:26

then the very next, like the third

26:28

page of the comic is Eva's introduction.

26:30

This girl's traumatic mutant origin story. Yeah.

26:32

Yeah. So those two are like

26:34

the bookends of the whole thing. She's the

26:36

kitty or the jubilee and the problem I

26:38

think she runs into is twofold. One is that

26:40

I think Bendis made her way too powerful

26:42

and we'll get into that because I do

26:44

think that that has been a difficulty

26:46

for the character. Totally. The other thing

26:49

is teen Jean is also the kitty

26:51

pride of this era and is

26:54

Jean Grey who had been dead at that

26:56

point for a long time and the Jarbs

26:58

were like all a flutter to have her

27:00

back even in chibi moon form. It

27:03

was a big deal and I think that as

27:05

a result Eva

27:07

loses her focus. It's interesting. I

27:09

was just on Geeks Blained with

27:11

Erika Zana for his X-May

27:14

that he does every year and we talked about E is for

27:16

Extinction. If you guys don't listen

27:18

to Geeks Blained, please check out that episode we just

27:20

did on E is for Extinction. I'm really happy with

27:22

it. I love that storyline and it's

27:25

very very topical right now, so I encourage

27:28

you to check that out.

27:30

It's on the Patreon if you subscribe to

27:32

the Patreon, but otherwise it is on the

27:34

Geeks Blained feed. Speaking of the Patreon, the

27:37

XM97 recap series is coming to you soon now

27:39

that the show is over. I wanted it to

27:42

finish out so that I could holistically analyze the

27:44

text. You know, that's what I like to do

27:46

if I can at all help it. The

27:48

Discord moderators and I are gonna be doing

27:51

that. Individual people have picked different episodes. A

27:53

few of them are gonna double up on

27:55

some episodes. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna

27:57

just like chitchat. Yeah, you watch the finale.

28:00

No, I haven't yet because I was busy

28:02

reading every appearance of Ava Bell for this

28:04

recording. That's what I thought. But

28:07

I will watch, I'm flying to

28:09

LA tomorrow. So I've saved the

28:12

two episodes and the Vanderpump Rules

28:14

Reunion on my phone

28:16

for that. Excellent. And I

28:18

want to announce also another thing I'm going to be doing

28:20

on the Patreon that I'm really excited about. This

28:23

year, I say this year and it's

28:25

already almost half over which is crazy. The

28:28

worst thing. I am hoping

28:30

to expand the Patreon a lot this

28:32

year. I know people

28:34

have been asking for the return of the Claremont

28:36

Read-Along and that is returning. I was just recording

28:38

a new one and I am excited to edit

28:40

that and get that up. But

28:43

one of the new projects that I am launching

28:45

on the Patreon this year is something that doesn't

28:49

have a title yet, we're still

28:51

workshopping, but Dr. Holly Raymond and

28:53

I are going to look back

28:56

at all 110 characters

28:58

that I have covered on this

29:00

show and analyze their

29:03

Krakowin arc holistically. Now

29:05

that it's complete. If the character

29:07

appeared on Krakow, obviously we'll have to skip like

29:09

Val Cooper or whatever. But you know what, we

29:11

might talk about like why the character didn't show

29:13

up maybe or like what we think or you

29:15

know. Oh my god. What

29:17

a million dollar idea. This is so exciting.

29:19

Pretty excited about it. Holly's excited about

29:21

it. We're doing like a big reread from

29:24

the beginning of Krakowin and it's incredible to

29:26

have a five year corpus like this,

29:28

like a full body of comics. It's like

29:30

hundreds and hundreds of comics at this point.

29:33

So we're excited to revisit.

29:35

I think each episode is going to take

29:37

two characters and sort of like, and

29:39

it's not going to be in the order we did them on the

29:41

show because I want to like pair things thematically

29:43

maybe. But yeah, we're really

29:45

excited about that. Please do sign

29:47

up for the Patreon if you haven't

29:50

and you can afford five dollars a

29:52

month. I appreciate you and well your

29:54

dollars because mama's got to

29:56

eat. But you know, it's I'm

29:59

hoping to. focus more and

30:01

more and more on this arm

30:03

of my career and the patron is how

30:06

I can do that so I appreciate the

30:08

support. Get on it everyone. A character who

30:10

did not have a huge Krakoan arc is

30:13

Ava Bell but I

30:15

did like her symbolic role

30:18

in it and I think it

30:20

is a natural outgrowth of her

30:22

role in Bendis so

30:25

I'd like to first, only

30:29

37 minutes into recording, ask you what it is

30:31

you like so much about Ava Bell, talk a

30:33

little bit about that. Then

30:35

I think we'll pause for the character file

30:37

and then we'll just go through the arc

30:40

because she doesn't have a ton but she

30:42

has a couple stories that are really really

30:44

good. It's really good. Yeah. Like

30:47

real good stuff. Those annuals

30:49

I hadn't read since they came out

30:51

and they're really good.

30:53

She really is the heart of

30:55

the Bendis for me and kind

30:59

of you're what you're saying about the time

31:01

of the year it's already half over that

31:03

is exactly why I love Ava Bell. I'm

31:06

a Taurus. I'm very you know methodical.

31:08

I like to take my time on

31:10

things and I get very stressed out

31:12

when I have to rush and deadlines

31:14

are awful. The passage of time is

31:16

terrible so it's kind of you know

31:19

the early game of being like what

31:21

would my superpower be. It wasn't too

31:23

long before I was like I would

31:25

love to have the ability to just

31:27

like stop or slow down time like

31:29

freeze it for everybody else and I can

31:31

continue on with myself like

31:33

finishing up my things like drawing whatever

31:36

so when I ended

31:39

up kind of coming back to X-Men I

31:42

guess it was I think it was 2018 or 2017 so I originally

31:48

found out about this like I'd stopped

31:50

reading after Morrison I talked

31:52

about this in the husk episode you can go

31:55

check it out but you can it's been like two

31:57

years you can I know talking The

32:01

amount I repeat myself on this show and people

32:04

still listen to it for three, four, five hours.

32:06

So don't even worry about it. I listen to

32:08

every episode I know. Queen

32:10

for that. So, I appreciate you. So

32:14

I stopped breathing comics. I

32:16

went through a whole thing where I

32:18

sort of like dropped out of superhero

32:21

comics altogether. I was like delved

32:23

into the world of like indie small press and

32:26

that's kind of been my world since

32:28

then. That was like my career

32:30

as a cartoonist and like now

32:33

thankfully it's become my day job as

32:36

a colorist for graphic novels. I

32:38

would kind of like you know check in on

32:40

what was happening with my old exes the X-Men.

32:43

My buddy Darrell Ayo told me

32:45

about J.N. Miles when it

32:48

was launching. So shout out Darrell. I can't

32:50

believe Farrell is in a book. I

32:52

thought of Darrell. I hope for more than one issue.

32:54

Well, let's cross our fingers, right? Yes, no, I did.

32:56

When it was like who will die? I was like

32:58

well if one of them is going to die in

33:00

the first issue it's Farrell, God love her. But

33:03

I hope not. Worrying is praying for something

33:05

you don't want. So let's not. And

33:08

you know what? She was on

33:11

the cover of the number two best-selling Marvel

33:13

comic of all time, Ex-Force number one. So

33:16

there's some cache. You can never take that away from

33:18

her. You can't. So

33:20

I you know listening to the show early

33:22

on they would do sort of reviews

33:25

of the contemporary comics that were coming

33:27

out. And that

33:29

happened to be when Battle of

33:31

the Atom, the event was happening. And

33:34

I was like hmm time

33:36

travel you say alternate futures.

33:39

And while you may be too gay

33:42

to understand time travel I'm too non-binary

33:44

to not be fascinated by alternate realities

33:46

and I get that future what if.

33:49

So that makes total sense

33:51

to me. You know it's interesting. I

33:53

actually really do like time travel characters.

33:55

It's purely the understanding it. And

33:58

I will say I'm very proud. of me because

34:01

I understood everything that happened

34:03

in Rise of the Powers of X so

34:05

far and the Dead Excellent book. I am

34:07

very impressed. I was like, look at me.

34:10

It's because Rachel is now the gay

34:12

mistress of the time stream. So

34:14

I'll get back to that later too. Access

34:18

for us. Yes. To time travel.

34:20

Finally. I mean, Cable's pretty bisexual,

34:22

but like, you know, he keeps it to himself.

34:24

Oh yeah. And I'll tell myself

34:26

that I was having a hard time understanding. I

34:28

think you benefited maybe from reading it all at

34:31

once and catching up like you did. Probably

34:33

yeah. Because when I just like went

34:36

back through forever before recording this, I

34:38

was like, oh, okay. This

34:40

I like, I'm following along now. Part of

34:42

it is the release schedule got a little,

34:45

I think because the timeline got

34:47

contracted on these books, as we've been told

34:49

by a couple of different writers now. The

34:52

one that was really crazy was it was

34:54

like Wolverine was coming out at the

34:56

beginning of Sabretooth war. And the story was like,

34:58

this takes place after X-Force 50, which

35:00

wasn't going to come out for like another month.

35:02

Right. Which still hasn't. Well,

35:05

it has when you're listening to it. No, it

35:07

has. Yeah. But Wolverine's not

35:09

yet is what I'm saying. So like, right,

35:11

right. Which can we just shout out Ben Percy,

35:14

friend of the pod for a hundred issues plus,

35:16

because there were a couple of that one shots

35:18

in there. A hundred issues in 2024 is fucking

35:20

crazy. That's

35:22

wild. It's very impressive. And also

35:25

the only person in the Krakowin

35:27

era to use Ava Bell's powers

35:29

in a like useful way. Yeah,

35:32

no, I thought did happen. So we'll

35:34

talk about that later. But I think

35:36

Vida Ayala did something at one point

35:39

when Gabby was arguing with the five

35:41

or whatever. But there might not have been

35:43

powers used. I just remember her having a line

35:45

and I was like, good for you. Right. Yeah.

35:48

Vida definitely gave Ava something to do, but I don't

35:50

remember if her spirits or not. But so there were

35:53

a couple of moments where it was like the issue

35:55

of Dead X-Men, the taste place after this issue of

35:57

Rise came out before it or what, you know, and

35:59

that. happen

36:01

simultaneously but they don't all come out

36:03

the same week. So I could see

36:05

that being a little confusing reading week

36:07

to week but since I read the

36:09

last couple months in one big nosh

36:11

much like Celine in the Crocia or

36:14

much like Nathaniel Essex as it turns

36:16

out all this time I did

36:20

find it easier to follow probably that I would

36:22

have but the thing is now it'll be in

36:24

trades forever like that's how people will read it

36:26

now and that's the thing that matters the most

36:28

really at the end of the day is how

36:30

these things read in collected form.

36:34

Sometimes I think about how insane it would be

36:36

to read Claremont month to month like back in

36:38

the 80s. I

36:40

can't imagine that like I was

36:42

binging it at 11 or whatever like I

36:44

can't imagine having to wait. Imagine

36:48

being so excited for mutant war. I

36:52

know. Too painful. So

36:55

basically yeah listening to Jay Miles

36:57

that put Battle Adam on my

36:59

radar I didn't quite go

37:01

back to the comics until later

37:04

we were talking about like the IVX era

37:06

which we shat not speak about. I

37:08

guess we have to kind of today. We will a little bit

37:11

but briefly actually she misses IVX she

37:13

comes back for Rosenberg briefly for like

37:15

a little county but that's it really.

37:17

Yeah she dips out. She dips out.

37:20

For good reason she gets pretty fed up

37:22

with these guys and I would too. It's

37:25

so good. It's so good. But

37:27

I remember when the apocalypse

37:29

movie was coming out I was like

37:31

ooh I love apocalypse it'd be fun

37:33

like to see what comics there are

37:35

and it was like that crossover with

37:37

the and I was just like not

37:40

I did not partake. I did

37:43

jump back in when X-Men Red came out

37:45

and I was like oh this is fun famously

37:48

to me I find it very funny I was

37:50

very cranky when they were like we're going to

37:52

wipe this all away and Hickman's going to come

37:54

in and it's like who's this guy whatever. But

37:57

anyway. classic

38:00

X-Men fan problems, who is this? I

38:02

know. God. So

38:04

anyway, before then, I was

38:07

doing like a little like mini self-imposed

38:09

residency like dog watching or house watching

38:11

for a friend and I was like,

38:13

you know what, I think that's a

38:15

good time to check out that Bendis

38:17

era because I'm a like massive

38:20

massive Chris Pachalo fan and I

38:22

was just like, this looks so

38:24

good and Jay Miles piqued my

38:26

interest. So I just like, that

38:29

was really what like got

38:31

me super hooked again. It's just like I read all that

38:34

stuff and I was like, oh, this is so good. And

38:36

I last shown to Ava one because

38:39

she had the time stopping powers and I

38:41

was like, oh, my dream. This

38:43

is so rare. And then like her

38:45

role in it was so great. She's really like

38:47

the heart of the whole thing. I guess one

38:50

thing I should notice that when she was created,

38:52

tempo was dead. Right. So

38:55

it was not confusing at the time because that

38:57

character was no longer among the living. She was

38:59

the one big casualty of the age of X

39:02

crossover because they made a point of like, if

39:04

you die in age of X, you die for

39:06

real. And it was tempo who died. I talked

39:08

to Mike Carey about that in

39:10

the Joanna Cargill episode ages ago. He's

39:13

such a sweetie and he said he had a plan

39:15

to bring her back, but then it never quite panned

39:18

out and he couldn't find place for it. And

39:20

he was like, I'll just leave that to another

39:22

writer. And thankfully, eventually, Krakow brought back everyone we

39:24

would want to bring back for

39:27

the most part. Let's say I have a few

39:29

more on my wish list, but you know, baby

39:31

steps. It is a cool power. It's

39:33

Dio from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Right.

39:36

It's like just the idea that you can go

39:38

like snap, freeze it. Yeah. It's

39:40

exciting. It's a cool power. It's

39:42

a scary power because when you think about it from

39:44

the perspective of the people who

39:47

would be experiencing it, it's so crazy.

39:50

There's a reason why some of

39:52

the more effective like superpower things

39:54

in live action have been with

39:56

super speed and stuff like that

39:58

because you could just. and slow

40:00

down all the other actors and that's cool.

40:03

As it initially starts out, she

40:06

just has the power to stop

40:08

or slow time in a localized

40:10

area like Tempo. Then over time,

40:12

she develops the power at first,

40:15

uncontrollably to literally travel through time,

40:17

which on Krakowa, Tempo also developed.

40:19

So, a little overlap-y sometimes. I

40:24

think that what helps Tempo not

40:26

fall into some of the same traps

40:28

as Tempo is that Tempo, much

40:30

like Rachel and Cable and Bishop,

40:33

seems to have more limitations on

40:35

the time travel. She went

40:37

all the way back two billion years in the past,

40:39

but I think that was because of the boost fruits

40:41

or whatever. It wasn't, she's not normally

40:43

able to do that. And that's

40:45

really the secret to making it work. You just

40:47

have limitations. You just have to put limitations on

40:49

it, right? Yeah, and so that's the issue is

40:52

a time manipulator, is a

40:54

character, it's just hard to have around.

40:57

And in today's issue, when in particular,

41:00

Ava Bell and Elixir were put on a bus

41:03

to the White Hot Room, I was like, yeah,

41:05

that makes sense because I'm sorry to their fans.

41:07

I'm not saying, I mean, actually I don't like

41:09

Elixir, but I'm not saying they're bad characters. Don't

41:11

like that guy. I just don't. But

41:14

the problem with them is that they

41:16

are so powerful and in such a specific

41:18

story breaking way that it is hard to

41:20

have them in a story if they're not

41:22

the focus of the story because they could

41:25

just break the story. It's

41:27

not quite like Jean or

41:29

Storm or characters like that,

41:32

Magneto, where they can do

41:34

anything. It's a case where them

41:36

being there means that the

41:38

plot can just not happen,

41:40

right? There's a reason Elixir

41:42

was constantly getting conked on the head and

41:44

knocked out before major events because you can't

41:47

have the character who can heal anybody from

41:49

anything in the scene if you want there

41:51

to be stakes. Similarly,

41:53

Ava had to dip out past

41:55

a certain point because once

41:58

she's shown that she can see. Mostly

42:00

author or a the timeline which is

42:02

something that time travel was never previously

42:04

able to do. An excellent comics before

42:06

this character. Then it becomes the question

42:09

of like will wait, why doesn't she

42:11

just sits near guess he like graduate

42:13

that have that kind of story and

42:15

then susan like gods territory will It's

42:17

the same problem Nicotine has off and

42:19

had where it's like once you are

42:22

the phoenix what do we deal with

42:24

you And that's another thing that I

42:26

thought was really brilliant about the end

42:28

of Forever is saying. The Phoenix

42:30

is in a rebirth cycle now. allows

42:32

Gene to have the Phoenix without it.

42:35

I mean, she's already an Omega level

42:37

telepath room. If you're going to give

42:39

her vast cosmic power, it can't be

42:42

completely limitless. Less caustic power gets kind

42:44

of a hat on their right leg

42:46

at a certain point. I mean, claremont.

42:48

Sad that Dark Phoenix happened because it

42:51

became harder and harder to come up

42:53

with situations that Gene couldn't just solve.

42:55

The of the plan was to take

42:57

away the powers that wasn't a killer.

43:00

But it ended up in Oak going outweigh

43:02

any think with Gm what they're gonna do

43:04

is like take her to the larger comes

43:06

back Girls were sugar ray like spill out

43:08

and like yeah if you're not going to

43:10

have her be the spectre and just like

43:12

be a god which is where I would

43:14

say oh I always said that's where I

43:17

would have taken after Morris and like have

43:19

her to show up as like an eternity

43:21

style being sometimes by it rain if you're

43:23

not doing that, if you wanted to be

43:25

an active superhero than absolutely You go the

43:27

Carol Roots and you take her out space.

43:29

Frankly. Marvel could use a little

43:32

more infrastructure in that area

43:34

of they're setting I think.

43:36

I'll try to do it birds, which

43:39

is when let him out. It an

43:41

incredible job. I just think Aramco always

43:43

felt temporary as the status quo. Unfortunately

43:45

I think some of the characters will

43:47

stick around, but I can't see. I

43:50

mean I know what's mars up to of it's

43:52

not a Rocco I think you should just keep

43:54

it by it if it does feel like something

43:57

that's like confusing for new readers which is the

43:59

problem with but. stuff like that. I

44:01

do think that X-Men Red is gonna go

44:03

down in history as one of the best

44:05

X-Men titles of all time. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

44:07

The sword to X-Men Red to resurrection of

44:09

Magneto series, if you were gonna collect it.

44:11

That's impeccable comics. I really,

44:14

I mean, I think everybody who was like, who

44:16

are these aliens? It's gonna sound as stupid as

44:18

the people who hated Grant Morrison. Like, it's gonna

44:20

be... It's gonna be one of those things where

44:22

we go, wow, remember that? And I tell people

44:24

it was polarizing. People go, what? That

44:26

doesn't make any sense. And

44:29

really, yeah, it's just like the the through

44:31

line of like 10

44:33

of swords, so perfect, ushering into

44:36

the sword. It's so good. Valuing era,

44:38

it's like... It's so good. One of

44:40

the best things to come out of

44:42

this era, for sure. Absolutely, unquestionably. And

44:44

I think it's the best Magneto story

44:46

ever told. Possibly

44:48

the best storm story ever told, now that

44:51

we've read through resurrection. I was waiting for

44:53

it to finish out before I like offered

44:55

a verdict, and I do like to let

44:57

things marinate for a while, but it's amazing.

44:59

It's certainly the best story she's had since

45:01

Claremont, hands down. Yeah, Luciana

45:03

Vecchio is just like... What

45:06

an incredible... You know,

45:08

he's a talented artist, but that I've never seen

45:11

him draw anything like that book. Yeah,

45:13

it's like, was so... I was

45:15

like, man, this is like... Someone's

45:19

found his Omega level power suddenly. Like,

45:21

I was like... Exactly. When that V-Hag...

45:24

Wriggled out of her... Moray

45:27

Yield, Coral Reef cave or

45:29

whatever, I was like, goddamn Luciano, go off.

45:32

I also was so gagged when

45:34

alluing that fucking nerd pulled out

45:36

not only the goblin force... Yes.

45:39

But also the first fallen... Oh my god.

45:42

From the Jamie Braddock arc

45:44

of Claremont reload. Wait, what

45:46

was this one again? My one note, if you're

45:48

listening, is that the adversary is a chaos being,

45:51

so I don't think he's the same as these

45:53

beings of Segnation, but you know what, Storm said

45:55

that. She's like, sounds like you're making this up,

45:57

Shadow King. So, you know, there's enough wiggle room.

45:59

Plausible tonight. But overall I am over

46:01

the moon that and this is not I don't

46:03

want to sound like I'm taking credit I'm just

46:06

pleased that I feel like I put the puzzle

46:08

together But my like unified theory of Jean and

46:10

the Phoenix and the Shadow King that I've laid

46:12

out on this show Over the last

46:14

three years now seems to be basically canonical which

46:16

I feel really good about I just feel I

46:18

feel smart I'm like, oh I figured out what

46:20

Al Ewing was doing that makes me feel like

46:23

a really intelligent person See

46:26

that's why I like the last two Matrix

46:28

movies I mean, I know there's a fourth one,

46:30

but I was like I kind of

46:32

like I only ever thought about you

46:35

I loved Monica Belucci

46:37

in that red latex corset

46:40

That was the first thing I ever saw her in and

46:42

it led me to all of her insane European movies So

46:44

that was a win for gay rights at the end of

46:46

the day No,

46:49

actually the Matrix thing really

46:51

I read an article that like basically figured

46:53

it out and then the movies played out

46:56

According to like their theory so I was

46:58

like, oh I feel smart But I actually

47:00

feel really smart about being a little kid

47:03

and figuring out that Xavier was onslaught because

47:05

he had the orange telepathy

47:08

bubbles and Because

47:11

they did like any orange for him in the

47:13

90s. Yes, he hasn't done that No, it's more

47:15

like they do more blue for him now like

47:18

Emma. I feel like in more recent Yeah,

47:20

which I like it's up to the letter.

47:22

I feel like orange is such a specific

47:24

color That was kind of

47:26

cool thinking about it. Yeah, speaking of colorist decisions

47:29

I just have to say one of my favorite

47:31

things about rise of the powers of ten is

47:33

that they remembered or someone made The note that

47:35

Xavier is a blonde and the

47:37

beard I was like,

47:40

there we go. There's that blonde beard from

47:42

when he was convalescing in Amelia votes Hospital

47:45

Where were we see we keep going back and

47:47

forth in time and that's I think form

47:49

and content for this episode. I Actually

47:53

think now is a good time to pause

47:55

for this reaper character file on a the

47:57

bell I'll take you through her full character

47:59

history in publication order. This is

48:01

always fun with a time traveler but

48:03

at least she has been in fewer

48:06

stories than Cable or Bishop or Rachel

48:08

from her first appearance by Brian Michael

48:10

Bendis and Chris Botchalo up through her

48:12

most recent appearance and probably last

48:14

appearance for a while in today's

48:16

X-Men Forever number four. Then

48:19

we'll be back for more with Karen Charm.

48:21

We will go through Ava's arc in Bendis,

48:24

talk a little bit about the five, and

48:26

answer some questions from listeners like you so

48:28

stay tuned. We'll be right back. Ava

48:32

Bell aka Tempest is one of the

48:35

signature characters of the Brian Michael Bendis

48:37

period of X-Men. Created by Bendis and

48:39

Chris Botchalo, time manipulator and eventual time

48:42

traveler Ava is the first student recruited

48:44

by Cyclops and his nascent Revolution, a

48:46

rogue faction of X-Men operating his outlaws

48:49

following the events of Avengers vs. X-Men.

48:52

Ava doesn't stick around for the whole Bendis era and

48:54

after some time away from the spotlight the character

48:56

found new purpose in the Krakoan age

48:58

as part of the five, the mutant

49:00

circuit responsible for enabling resurrection. Ava

49:03

makes her debut in 2013's all-new X-Men

49:05

number one as a normal teenager from the

49:07

Gold Coast of Australia. A fun night out

49:09

with friends is interrupted by her controlling older

49:11

brother who picks a fight with a boy

49:14

Ava likes. Desperate to stop things from escalating

49:16

Ava instinctively reaches out and freezes time in

49:18

the entire area for the next 20 hours.

49:20

She is a mutant, one of the

49:23

first to manifest powers after Avengers vs.

49:25

X-Men in which the Scarlet Witch had

49:27

mutant Messiah Hope Summers interfaced with the

49:29

Phoenix to partially reverse the decimation, not

49:31

restoring those who had been depowered but

49:33

once more allowing new mutants to activate. Allergic

49:36

to Ava's manifestation Cyclops and his team touched

49:38

down and Emma Frost is able to help

49:41

Ava break the time bubble. Ava isn't sure if she

49:43

wants to go with these strangers who say she's one

49:45

of them now but the arrival of local authorities with

49:47

guns drawn compels her to take them up on their

49:49

offer to escape. She finds herself

49:51

at the new Charles Xavier school Cyclops's

49:53

ragtag operation working out of a former

49:56

weapon axe facility. Despite her misgivings about

49:58

Scott Summers and his revolution Ava

50:00

takes the code named Tempest and begins helping

50:02

Cyclops and his team locate and rescue her

50:04

new classmates. After some time with

50:07

the X-Men, Ava asks Cyclops to let her

50:09

reach out to her mother in Australia, to

50:11

confirm that she's alive and safe. Reluctantly he

50:13

agrees, and the group teleports to Ava's family

50:15

home, where the Avengers intercept them to arrest

50:17

Scott and Emma. Seeing no

50:19

other option, Ava uses her powers to

50:21

freeze the Avengers, including Captain America, her

50:24

lifelong hero, who has deeply disappointed her.

50:27

As the uncanny X-Men series continues to follow

50:29

Cyclops and his team, misadventures compel Scott and

50:31

Emma to start training their new students more

50:33

formally in battle. In issue 10,

50:35

Ava's sparring with magic when her time

50:37

bubble does something new and alarming. It

50:40

makes magic disappear. Illyana returns

50:42

a moment later, apparently having been sent

50:44

forward in time. Seven issues

50:46

later, during a training exercise in Tabula Rasa,

50:48

don't worry about it, Ava herself disappears when

50:50

she uses one of her bubbles. A

50:53

few moments later, she returns, just like

50:55

Illyana did during the sparring session, but

50:57

this time, things are different. Ava

50:59

is different, having visibly aged. She acts cagey

51:02

with her classmates, and demands it's the last

51:04

of the separate cuckoos, who has peeked into

51:06

her mind, keep her secrets for now. A

51:10

pair of annuals the following month, one for

51:12

all new X-Men and one for uncanny X-Men,

51:14

detail Ava's journey between those apparently fleeting moments,

51:16

in the character's most prominent spotlight. We learn

51:18

that Ava's evolving power had grown to include

51:20

uncontrollable time travel, triggered whenever her life was

51:22

threatened, and jumping her to a random point

51:24

in the time stream. After a series of

51:26

jumps, she wound up in the year 2099,

51:30

where the future X-Men brought her to the

51:32

sorcerer supreme of the galaxy, Illyana Rasputina. This

51:34

version of magic was unable to help Ava

51:36

return to her own time, but offered to

51:38

take Ava on as a student, so she

51:40

could master the ability herself. Ava

51:42

agreed, and spent seven years as magic's pupil

51:44

in the future. Along the way, she fell

51:47

in love with a mutant man named Danny,

51:49

got married, and gave birth to a daughter

51:51

they named Doll. Content with her new family,

51:53

Ava felt no desire to return home any

51:55

longer, but magic insisted someday it would be

51:57

necessary. Eventually, magic was attacked in

51:59

her headquarters. by a demon and Ava was

52:01

too late to save her. Dying, magic told

52:03

Ava she must return to the past to

52:05

ensure Hank McCoy, the Beast, was prosecuted for

52:07

his crimes against the time stream. Before

52:10

Ava could react to this, she was shocked by the arrival

52:12

of Danny and Dahl, just as the demon broke free from

52:14

one of her bubbles. Now in mortal

52:16

danger, Ava once more found her power

52:18

activating uncontrollably and was jumped into a

52:20

prehistoric era. There she was saved

52:22

from dinosaurs by Morgan Le Fay, who'd been trapped

52:24

back in time herself by the Dark Avengers during

52:27

dark rain. Ava was intent

52:29

on returning home, but Morgan explained the timeline

52:31

had been altered by her jump, and Ava's

52:33

family in the future likely no longer existed.

52:35

Appusing to believe her, Ava attacked Morgan, and

52:37

in the process was jumped once again by

52:39

her innate defenses. This time, her

52:41

sheer determination to see her husband and daughter finally allowed

52:44

her to control the jump, and she steered herself all

52:46

the way home to 2099. There

52:49

she found strangers living in her home, and a

52:51

sorcerer supreme Tony Stark, where Eliana ought to have

52:53

been. Morgan's assumption had

52:55

proven correct. Ava's personal timeline was disrupted

52:57

when she jumped, and the unavoidable butterfly

53:00

effects on her way back had apparently

53:02

wiped Danny and therefore Dahl from existence.

53:05

Racked with guilt and grief, but now in full control

53:07

of her powers, Ava jumped back in time to

53:09

the moment she first laughed. In the

53:11

present, Cyclops is disquieted by the now

53:13

older Ava's insubordinate attitude. When

53:15

she refuses to explain herself, the separate cuckoos spill

53:17

the beans to Scott, who tells Ava she could

53:19

have come to him for help coping with her

53:21

situation. This invasion of her privacy does

53:24

not make her feel particularly trusting of the cuckoos

53:26

or Cyclops, but there isn't much time to hash

53:28

out these new dynamics before the reading of Professor

53:30

Xavier's will. Despite the schism between

53:32

Cyclops and Wolverine's factions of X-Men, all

53:34

parties attend the execution of the will,

53:36

where they learn several shocking things about

53:38

the late Professor Charles Xavier. One

53:41

of them is that Xavier has been secretly hiding and

53:43

suppressing the powers of a beautiful

53:45

unknown Omega-level mutant, a reality manipulator

53:47

named Matthew Malloy. Convinced his

53:49

destructive powers could not be loosed on the world,

53:51

Xavier placed mental blocks in Matthew's brain when he

53:54

was a child, much as he had once done

53:56

with Jean Grey. Over the years Xavier had checked

53:58

in on Matthew periodically to ensure he'd yet to

54:00

manifest his abilities, but now with Xavier's death,

54:02

the failsafes are down. By the time the

54:04

ex-men traveled in North Carolina to intercept Matthew,

54:06

he's already destroyed an entire town and is

54:09

in open conflict with SHIELD agents. To the

54:11

shock and dismay of his team, Cyclops, rather

54:13

than trying to de-escalate the situation, attempts

54:15

to recruit Matthew as his newest student. Ava,

54:18

set up, leaps back in time to consult

54:20

Professor Xavier, a man she's never met. When

54:23

she brings him to the present, they see that Matthew was

54:25

already killed Cyclops and most of the other ex-men. Looking

54:28

further back, Ava and Charles conspire to prevent

54:30

Matthew's parents from ever meeting, causing him to

54:32

retroactively cease to exist, just as Ava had

54:34

accidentally done to her own husband and child

54:37

in the future. Leaving Xavier

54:39

behind to wipe his own memories of this

54:41

sordid adventure, Ava returns to the present to

54:43

confront Cyclops. Threatening Scott with deletion

54:45

from the time stream if he continues down the

54:47

wrong path, Ava resigns from her role with the

54:50

team and leaves the title. She

54:52

returns two years later for 2016's Uncanny

54:54

X-Men 600, the trial of Hank McCoy,

54:56

one of Bendis' last stories over his

54:58

departure from the franchise. After

55:00

Hank's been forced to defend himself, Ava visits him

55:03

privately, explaining that in every future timeline

55:05

she has visited, and there are many,

55:07

she has been told Hank McCoy must

55:09

answer for his crimes. She hopes

55:11

he will now avoid letting those futures come to pass.

55:14

After two brief cameos during the 2019 franchise-wide

55:16

event X-Men Disassembled, Ava makes her return

55:18

to regular publication following the 2019 soft

55:21

reboot House of X and Powers of X by

55:23

writer Jonathan Hickman. In House of X,

55:25

Ava is revealed to be one of the Five.

55:27

A hand-picked group of mutants are able to combine

55:29

their powers in a circuit to resurrect other mutants

55:31

from the dead. While the Five

55:34

and their gift are at the heart of the

55:36

new sovereign mutant nation of Krakowa, and are the

55:38

engine by which the country is able to thrive

55:40

and grow, they are not especially prominent as individual

55:42

characters during the Krakowan era of comics. Though

55:44

they initially follow the orders of the

55:46

Quiet Council, over time the Five grow

55:48

dissatisfied with Xavier's hypocrisy and the demands

55:50

made by his Black Ops group X-Force,

55:52

and begin pushing back as a union

55:54

represented by Hope Summers. Significantly, it

55:56

is the protestation of the Five that lifts

55:58

the Quiet Council's policy against the resurrection

56:00

of clones, allowing for the resurrection of

56:02

Madeline Pryor and a recently murdered Gabby

56:05

Kinney. As the first Krakoan age

56:07

draws to a close in 2024, spoiler

56:10

alert for this month's comics, Eva and

56:12

her comrades among the five have been

56:14

leaders for Krakoan refugees following the Orcus

56:16

attack on the third Hellfire Gala. After

56:19

Hope makes a pivotal sacrifice to revitalize the

56:21

Phoenix Force, the rest of the five elect

56:23

to remain behind in the white-hot room with

56:25

those mutants who are unsuited to the battlefield.

56:28

Unreachable outside time and space, Tempest and

56:30

her friends will help guide thousands of

56:32

exiled Krakoans in building the next frontier

56:34

in mutant culture, safe from

56:36

a world that hates and fears them. X-Men,

56:39

X-Men! And we're back!

56:41

Karen, how are you doing? I'm doing

56:43

so great. I love to talk about

56:45

X-Men and with you. It's

56:48

funny, I was trying to catch up

56:50

on the Patrick Sullivan episode before this and I

56:52

was like, am I just going to spend all

56:54

day with Connor? Many such cases. Right,

56:58

it's true. I

57:00

was listening to the battle in

57:02

prior episodes hit when I was moving last

57:04

year. So it was like... That was good

57:06

timing. I'm glad that we could do that

57:08

for you. Psychically, I

57:10

knew a little bit. You know, I'm a

57:13

pythons are intuitive. So I just released on

57:15

it on a key moment. No, I always

57:17

love when I drop one and someone in

57:19

the discord is like, oh my God, I

57:22

have a six hour flight tomorrow. Thank God

57:24

or whatever. You know, I'm like, huh? You're

57:26

welcome, sir. What I'm here for. Time

57:29

passes subjectively when you're having

57:32

fun. Whatever. And Ava

57:34

Bell unfortunately does not have very

57:36

much fun. So it's

57:38

lucky for her that she can speed time up or slow it

57:40

down except when she can't. The

57:43

moments when she can't are when

57:46

her story is probably most memorable.

57:49

Yeah. Because she's not an important

57:51

character, i.e. she was

57:54

character that Bandus had created, she's

57:56

able to play

57:58

with the. ways

58:00

it could really impact a person to

58:02

time jump like this in

58:04

a way that I think characters like Bishop

58:07

or Cable or Rachel who have to be

58:09

more present in a book like apart from

58:11

the mother is Connie arc But that was

58:13

to write Rachel out in the 90s, right?

58:15

Yeah. Mm-hmm Now it's been

58:17

integrated really beautifully back into the

58:20

character and I loved in

58:22

today's issue It's

58:24

just so smart if you have this triad

58:27

of like Jean Hope and Rachel with the

58:29

Phoenix Yeah to say

58:31

okay Hope is the

58:33

maiden Jean is the mother and

58:35

then Rachel is the crone mother

58:37

is Connie who keeps the knowledge

58:39

But she's young and hot so you

58:42

don't even have to agatha her because

58:44

the old version died So you don't

58:46

even have to worry about finding an

58:48

excuse to make her 28

58:51

yeah, and as we saw with

58:53

cable, that's the beauty of time travel. Yeah Speaking

58:56

of cable shout out to Fabian Nieci asa for

58:58

bringing back the black womb. Oh my

59:01

god, you were living I just know

59:03

you she has a full salad ain't now.

59:05

So Fabian if you're listening Time

59:08

for the black womb cast finally. We'll

59:10

see I should reach out to save

59:13

I feel like the way to do that episode would be like

59:16

Fabian laughs at my caring about the black

59:18

womb for like 30 minutes and then it's

59:20

just me and like somebody you know But

59:23

like start with like an intro that's just

59:25

Fabian me asking Fabian questions about the gambit

59:27

solo and say it's like I wrote That

59:29

35 years ago. I don't fucking remember and

59:31

I'm like, oh, okay. Well, sorry It's like

59:33

how he answers any questions. It's like so

59:36

did you like have a lot of thought about that? Not

59:38

really doing the job doing my job like

59:41

all right All

59:43

right. Love that king for that. Honestly,

59:45

like the honesty is is refreshing

59:48

But yeah, no and then courier came

59:51

back trans icon courier I was not

59:53

expecting that one at all and affirmatively

59:55

now is like oh, it's Jacqueline now

59:57

long story, but like living

1:00:00

my best truth now. Those are

1:00:02

fun. And oh, and Irene Meriwether back from the

1:00:04

dead because Fabian doesn't give a shit. Fabian was

1:00:06

like cable 50 with time travel, move on. And

1:00:08

I'm like, great. Love that for her.

1:00:10

Love that for us. She and Trish

1:00:12

Tilby should start a podcast.

1:00:15

They should it would be so good. Yeah, they

1:00:18

should like go out on their own

1:00:20

like solid out O'Brien style and just

1:00:22

start like producing independent news. Yeah. Ah,

1:00:24

please. Free idea model of

1:00:26

your listener. But so

1:00:29

so Ava, we should get into

1:00:31

like her actual story, right? So

1:00:33

she first appears in all new

1:00:35

X-Men number one, which kicks off

1:00:37

this new era, the Bendis era

1:00:39

that spinning out of

1:00:41

Avengers vs. X-Men Utopia has

1:00:43

fallen. Scott and

1:00:46

Emma and Iljana and Eric

1:00:48

are on the run because

1:00:51

they are fugitives from SHIELD and the

1:00:54

Avengers and all of these people. And

1:00:57

they end up starting Cyclops's revolution

1:00:59

where they're going to go find

1:01:01

young mutants and try to train

1:01:03

them to be more radical. Scott

1:01:07

has decided that Charles's whole POV

1:01:09

was a fucking stupid and oh,

1:01:11

by the way, he was right.

1:01:14

If there's anything that the third

1:01:16

act of Krakowa should show us,

1:01:19

it's that Xavierism indication is so

1:01:21

last year, it becomes kind of

1:01:24

a fun throwback to Charles

1:01:26

and Emma competing for students

1:01:28

in the 80s because

1:01:30

you also have Kitty pride in

1:01:33

all new X-Men. That

1:01:35

book is uncanny. And then in all

1:01:37

new X-Men, you have Kitty pride taking

1:01:39

on this teacher role and also trying

1:01:41

to do her thing. But she's mostly

1:01:43

distracted with the teenage versions

1:01:46

of the original five X-Men who

1:01:48

have been pulled forward from the

1:01:50

ambiguous sliding timescale 60s by Hank

1:01:52

McCoy to shame Scott in

1:01:55

a remarkably petty bit of tampering

1:01:57

with the time stream that.

1:02:00

Well, potentially is what causes the

1:02:02

incursions in secret wars, although it's never

1:02:04

a hundred percent rare It's a lot

1:02:06

of that if that's actually true But

1:02:08

certainly ava bell encounters many

1:02:10

timelines where people say that Hank McCoy doing

1:02:12

that really broke shit in a bad way

1:02:16

So that book is the big

1:02:18

thing that's going on Uncanny

1:02:20

is sort of the secondary book

1:02:23

in a lot of ways Eventually those things

1:02:25

kind of start to shift and

1:02:27

change the teen X-Men and Kitty

1:02:29

end up abandoning The school

1:02:32

and going with Scott and Emma, but that doesn't happen

1:02:34

for quite a while. Almost as if Cyclops is

1:02:36

right almost as if I mean the funniest thing

1:02:38

about this is like Bendis certainly writes it as

1:02:40

though he is But yeah,

1:02:43

you can feel the editorial Instruction

1:02:45

that he's not and that's why death of

1:02:47

X is so crazy Because when the inhumans

1:02:49

of his X-Men thing pops up and there's

1:02:52

the time job They try and do it

1:02:54

all over again the horrible thing Cyclops did

1:02:56

he's like worse than Hitler and then like,

1:02:58

you know We see what he did and

1:03:00

it was like fine mostly But

1:03:03

you know classic X-Men

1:03:06

experience to be told that you

1:03:08

just got a little too big for your

1:03:10

britches in like asking for Respect

1:03:12

and rights and stuff Time

1:03:15

to be hated and feared again the depression again.

1:03:17

Well, you know what? Here's the thing You can't

1:03:19

kill it now much like revolutionary

1:03:21

Cyclops or much like Magneto in the 90s

1:03:23

when editorial was like Magneto's evil again Yeah

1:03:26

readers just didn't the stories that hit. Yeah,

1:03:28

like readers Just don't if the

1:03:30

readers don't respond to it then what comes back is

1:03:32

the stuff that readers respond to Once

1:03:35

you've said the thing you can't unsay it I

1:03:38

thought that Tom Breibert made a really good

1:03:40

point about Charles and his newsletter recently Someone

1:03:42

asked like why isn't Charles in your relaunch? It

1:03:44

feels like they're always trying to get rid of

1:03:46

Charles Like they are always trying to get rid

1:03:48

of Charles because that character

1:03:51

is retrograde Like does not really work

1:03:53

anymore. Yeah, the readership mostly sides with

1:03:55

Magneto at this point in their debate

1:03:57

and so many

1:04:00

different writers have tried to deconstruct

1:04:02

Charles, that it's now really hard

1:04:04

to write a story about a

1:04:06

Charles we want to root for,

1:04:09

right? So it makes more

1:04:11

sense at a certain point to sunset him. I

1:04:13

mean, I think they should, but I've been saying

1:04:15

that for years and years. To

1:04:17

me, what Jerry and Kieran have

1:04:19

done in particular in the last

1:04:21

six months, or almost years

1:04:24

since the Gala issue, I think

1:04:27

that it is like the final

1:04:29

statement on Xavierism in a really,

1:04:31

really strong, smart way. And then Al

1:04:34

really reiterated that Magneto's perspective,

1:04:36

while it hasn't always led

1:04:38

Magneto to the right choices,

1:04:41

makes more sense.

1:04:45

Particularly now. Just masterful. Yeah.

1:04:48

But yeah, in these comics, it's kind of like

1:04:50

the... This story is kind of about that, because

1:04:52

this is one of the many times they've tried

1:04:54

to get rid of Charles. When

1:04:56

Scott was Dark Phoenix in Avengers vs. X-Men, this

1:04:59

is where that all starts. And I'm sorry, anyone

1:05:01

who's not telepathic should not be able to use

1:05:03

the Phoenix power at all, but it's whatever. They

1:05:05

did it, and now we're stuck with the Tournament

1:05:07

of the Phoenix or whatever, and stories like that.

1:05:10

Hopefully that's now over. It seems like

1:05:12

it's over. But when Cyclops somehow was

1:05:15

using the Phoenix, he went crazy and

1:05:17

killed Charles. So

1:05:21

Charles is dead. That

1:05:23

is one of the crimes

1:05:25

that these fugitive X-Men are

1:05:27

being sought in connection with.

1:05:30

It also means that this era

1:05:32

becomes, to a large extent, about

1:05:35

what will the legacy of Xavier

1:05:37

be? What does it

1:05:39

mean that Xavier died? After

1:05:42

Deadly Genesis pretty much assassinated

1:05:44

that character entirely, Mike

1:05:46

Carey put in a lot of work over

1:05:48

several years to make him a good

1:05:51

guy again, and then this big death

1:05:53

happened, it's this tragic thing, and

1:05:55

then we get to the very weird plot

1:05:57

with his will, which Ava Bell factors into.

1:06:00

to hugely. So

1:06:03

before we get there, let's start from the

1:06:05

beginning, right? In All New X-Men number one,

1:06:08

Ava is, I would say

1:06:10

like 17-ish. She's said to

1:06:12

be a teenager, but it's not 100%

1:06:14

clear how old she is. She's definitely

1:06:16

like more of an adult than

1:06:18

a Jubilee or Kitty when

1:06:21

she first appeared type character. Yeah,

1:06:23

yeah, yeah. She is

1:06:25

out on the town with one

1:06:28

of her girlfriends. She starts talking

1:06:30

to a boy that she thinks

1:06:32

is cute. It's all

1:06:34

going great. But then suddenly

1:06:36

her brother, Steven, who doesn't

1:06:38

call into his sister talking

1:06:41

to boys, shows up

1:06:43

and causes a scene. They

1:06:45

start fighting him in the

1:06:47

sky. Your info

1:06:49

about the Gold Coast

1:06:52

related sort of made this a lot more

1:06:54

sense. I was like, oh yeah, yeah. My

1:06:56

sister is not going to be no Goldie

1:06:58

Slag, so she can't be talking to that

1:07:00

guy. So like that, I think is kind

1:07:02

of the vibe here. She's

1:07:04

wearing like an off the shoulder dress. She

1:07:07

looks sexy. If you think she's like 17,

1:07:09

then it's very much like her brother is

1:07:11

like 23, 24 and is

1:07:13

like, get your hands off my sister. Not

1:07:15

wearing a shirt. Yeah, yeah, it's

1:07:17

a lot. There's also like, it's

1:07:19

a little bit Stefan and Germaine

1:07:22

Sardish coded where it's like, my guy,

1:07:24

she's your sister, not your girlfriend. Like

1:07:26

relax a little bit. That

1:07:29

overprotective, like vaguely emotionally incestuous brother

1:07:31

thing is a trope in stories

1:07:33

about teen girls for a reason,

1:07:35

because the idea that you belong

1:07:37

to your male family members and they get to

1:07:39

decide what you do is unfortunately a big part

1:07:42

of every culture on earth. I

1:07:44

mean, apart from the rare matriarchal cultures

1:07:47

that are not as culturally prominent globally.

1:07:49

So, you know, it's, it's, it feels

1:07:51

real. It goes to

1:07:53

a place of violence pretty quickly, but they

1:07:55

are Australian. No offense to my Australian listeners.

1:07:58

I just, Karen's laughing. I just feel like

1:08:00

If I was gonna pick one country that

1:08:02

was likely to have a bath I happen

1:08:04

it might be Some fellas

1:08:06

in the Gulli blokes. Do

1:08:08

they say blokes in Australia? No Mate,

1:08:11

so it's like a thing but I don't

1:08:13

know no, it's it's hard to separate the

1:08:15

stereotype Well, right And also like their slang

1:08:18

is different from British slang because they've been

1:08:20

on that island for so long that it's

1:08:22

like become its own Yeah Thing

1:08:24

so I don't actually know but you know

1:08:26

like a bunch of bikies could ride up

1:08:28

and get into a bath I heard of

1:08:30

what it feels like But so

1:08:33

Eva's like freaking out cuz she's like, oh my god,

1:08:35

like I just thought he was cute I talked to

1:08:37

him like don't start like a whole thing and

1:08:39

suddenly her mutant power catalyzes and

1:08:41

she freezes time all around

1:08:43

her This lasts for 20

1:08:45

hours She's

1:08:47

frozen. Also is the thing which

1:08:50

is interesting because so iconic. Yeah.

1:08:52

Well, it's unusual Mutant

1:08:55

power and of the only time that happens the

1:08:57

same with it affects the people around you And

1:08:59

I think maybe it's a hint to how powerful

1:09:01

she really is, right? But

1:09:03

also to the struggle that she's going to have to

1:09:05

control the power which is the core Tension

1:09:08

on some level to the character Scott

1:09:11

and Emma and Magneto show

1:09:14

up I think the

1:09:16

cuckoos are tracking like new mutant signatures

1:09:18

at this point for them This is

1:09:20

their Catholic schoolgirl outfit era, which I've always

1:09:23

found a bit my favorite curious I guess

1:09:25

that started on utopia didn't it? It's like

1:09:27

a Greg lands Mm-hmm. Yeah,

1:09:29

I think is it tied to

1:09:31

the Wolverine and the

1:09:33

X-Men because they have the the

1:09:36

like Private school uniform but

1:09:38

they were kind of wearing that already on

1:09:40

utopia when the when fraction was doing it

1:09:43

I don't actually remember when that happened go

1:09:45

back to the separate cuckoos episode because I

1:09:47

bet we talked about it I can't recall

1:09:50

Anyway, they are able to shake

1:09:52

Ava loose from the time freeze and

1:09:55

explain like you're a mutant You should

1:09:57

come with us. We can train

1:09:59

you this, that, and the other thing, it's

1:10:02

not something she's eager to do, but

1:10:05

the like Australian National Guard shows up

1:10:07

or whatever. I don't know what they're

1:10:09

called, but like it's, it's

1:10:11

not great. Guns are drawn. Yeah, it's like not a

1:10:13

great situation. She's like, all right, I'm coming, I'm coming,

1:10:15

I'm coming, I guess. She

1:10:17

is the first student Scott

1:10:20

recruits for his new school,

1:10:23

which he is calling the Xavier School, as opposed

1:10:26

to Wolverine's New Gray School for higher

1:10:28

learning. She's so mad. It does, because

1:10:30

you killed him. It's like, guys, are

1:10:32

you new? Like, you just called

1:10:34

your school the Jean Gray School. Do you know

1:10:36

how many people Jean Gray killed when she was Dark

1:10:38

Phoenix? Six billion, famously.

1:10:41

The naming off. So like, if we really

1:10:43

want to go there, there's six billion broccoli

1:10:45

people who have an issue with your choice

1:10:47

of school name. Oh, wait, there

1:10:49

aren't because they're all dead because Jean killed

1:10:52

them. So like, you know, a little bit

1:10:54

throwing stones in your glass house named after

1:10:56

the Dark Phoenix yourself. And if we can

1:10:58

forgive Jean for eating all those broccoli people,

1:11:01

surely we can forgive Scott for killing Charles,

1:11:03

who frankly could have stayed dead and would

1:11:05

have worked out, I think, for a lot

1:11:07

of people. The problem with Charles

1:11:10

is you just can't keep him dead because he's

1:11:12

a Lee Kirby character and he was in

1:11:14

that 90s cartoon and anybody who was in

1:11:16

that 90s cartoon is simply unkillable. It's in

1:11:18

the logo. Yeah, it's a problem. It's a

1:11:20

problem. I hope we haven't seen

1:11:22

the end end of this area yet, but

1:11:24

I am hoping that he and his horrible

1:11:26

robot wife, like, ascend to digital hell or

1:11:29

something and we can like be free

1:11:31

of them for a time, at least. Time

1:11:34

seemed to be pointing to him being inmate

1:11:37

X of the new

1:11:39

era, but that's a misdirect probably.

1:11:41

I think Sink is inmate X.

1:11:43

That's my guess. Because

1:11:46

we don't know what happens to him and

1:11:48

he could like die in a heroic sacrifice or

1:11:50

whatever, but he is sort of the face of

1:11:52

the Krakowan age in a lot of ways, Sink.

1:11:54

And so I think him being inmate X would

1:11:56

be like a bold choice. It would

1:11:58

be sort of like that. The real

1:12:00

response to Krakow is we're locking this guy up. You

1:12:02

know what I mean? I could see that Anyway,

1:12:06

sorry time traveling again. We are time traveling,

1:12:08

but it's fine. I think that the three

1:12:10

characters We haven't seen solicited for anything yet

1:12:12

who are like notables that it's odd We

1:12:14

haven't seen yet are sink

1:12:16

Polaris and Iceman Mmm, and

1:12:19

I don't think that Lorna or Bobby would have the

1:12:21

same oomph as like the

1:12:23

prisoner, right? So my guess

1:12:25

is that they'll just show up at a

1:12:27

later date in like a wave 2 book

1:12:29

or different books or whatever But

1:12:31

think feels like a character who's conspicuously absent

1:12:34

Which is why it feels like and didn't

1:12:36

Brevoort do an X on Monday where he

1:12:38

was like I can't talk about sink when

1:12:40

asked directly So yeah, he's like I can

1:12:43

say nothing about sink, but he did say

1:12:45

like Iceman will be yeah We'll be in

1:12:47

a comic right and like, you know, so

1:12:50

that's my guess on that I just think

1:12:52

Charles is the obvious one

1:12:54

and it feels too obvious, but who

1:12:56

knows Sometimes the most

1:12:58

obvious thing ends up being the best story. I'm

1:13:00

not right in the comic Yeah, some

1:13:02

writers do the guessing thing like oh my god,

1:13:05

what could it be? And it's not a writer

1:13:07

some people are just like We're

1:13:09

doing the thing right? No, and it totally

1:13:11

depends on how that story shakes out, but

1:13:14

that's my current theory and It's

1:13:16

a good one. I hadn't thought about that in about two

1:13:18

months. We can find out if I'm right or wrong but

1:13:23

so Eva is The

1:13:26

first student like we said so that puts

1:13:28

her in the role of again the Kitty

1:13:30

pride the Jubilee or Actually to go to

1:13:33

the immediate antecedent before this era in terms

1:13:35

of like we're recruiting a class of students

1:13:37

When dancer like she's the first one we

1:13:39

get and then she's sort of by default

1:13:42

the POV character The way that wind dancer

1:13:44

is in that we're in deep Philippus run

1:13:47

And I think that that we're in deep

1:13:49

Philippus run of new mutants that eventually becomes

1:13:51

Academy X is kind of a model for

1:13:53

This a little bit because similarly this book

1:13:55

involves them recruiting these students

1:13:57

sort of one by one as opposed to

1:14:00

just like it seems I mean now this is

1:14:02

this could I could be totally wrong maybe it'll

1:14:04

take three issues but it seems like E-viewing's book

1:14:06

is going to introduce all three of these characters

1:14:08

in like issue one the way that Gen X

1:14:11

Gen X did it with Phalanx Covenant sort of but you

1:14:13

get what I mean like there's different ways of doing it

1:14:15

and there's two different ways of

1:14:17

doing it and this chooses the sort of

1:14:19

one by one Pokemon route

1:14:21

which makes sense because these are

1:14:23

newly activated mutants in a time

1:14:26

when we didn't think that was ever gonna

1:14:28

happen again right so it's like the classic

1:14:30

original model of what the X-Men do exactly

1:14:33

and if you're gonna have Cyclops do it like

1:14:36

Charles but in a way that freaks everybody out

1:14:38

that it makes sense to have him do it

1:14:40

like Charles and like the first issue of X-Men

1:14:42

in 1963 have

1:14:44

it be a very powerful young woman who

1:14:46

he recruits in the way that Charles recruited

1:14:49

Jean before Claremont retcons

1:14:51

that he recruited Jean when she was like 10

1:14:53

but you know in the original story she's new

1:14:56

she quickly becomes a little concerned

1:14:59

about well that Cyclops

1:15:01

is nascent revolution like when

1:15:03

she realizes like oh I'm actually kind

1:15:05

of being held hostage by like international

1:15:08

terrorists who want to indoctrinate me into

1:15:10

one of them I don't know how

1:15:12

I feel about that

1:15:15

entirely she

1:15:17

does quickly start to develop more

1:15:19

control over her power and

1:15:22

can therefore help them to escape from

1:15:25

situations there are a

1:15:27

new line of sentinels that are

1:15:29

particularly scary and she's you

1:15:31

know she helps them get speedier escapes

1:15:34

which is nice but

1:15:36

she's conflicted in part she's conflicted because

1:15:38

we find out that as a child

1:15:40

she idolized Captain America this is like

1:15:42

one of my favorite bits

1:15:45

yeah it's really good it's an issue

1:15:47

three I think of uncanny I just

1:15:49

like I think that is

1:15:51

kind of like one of my sweet

1:15:53

spot characters these like goody

1:15:56

two shoes sort of like

1:15:58

characters But

1:16:00

they're like not their eyes are

1:16:02

open. They're kind of like wait a minute

1:16:04

What's going on and they said there's kind

1:16:07

of like a path of disillusionment It's

1:16:09

very Kamala Khan right like in

1:16:12

your excitement about Carol And I

1:16:14

think that that is often a

1:16:16

good way to introduce it a

1:16:18

teen Character or

1:16:21

a newbie is to have

1:16:23

them be a fan I mean Tim Drake is

1:16:25

a classic one where it's like I want to

1:16:27

be Robin and I'm going to be Robin by

1:16:30

God This is

1:16:32

someone who wanted to be like Captain

1:16:34

America Come

1:16:39

on it does get to be part of

1:16:41

Carol's orbit Tim Drake does get to be

1:16:43

Robin This is different

1:16:46

when she's talking about Captain America She says everybody

1:16:48

loves him because he's an awesome superhero does awesome

1:16:50

things and he really loves the ninja and

1:16:53

everybody loves the Avengers But I love him because I

1:16:55

try to imagine myself being frozen in a book of

1:16:57

ice for so long that all my family and Friends

1:16:59

died of old age and then someone woke me up.

1:17:01

I don't think I would handle it. Well foreshadowing almost

1:17:03

I think I would freak out and I think the

1:17:05

fact that Captain America doesn't freak out. It's pretty amazing

1:17:08

I wish we had a superhero that awesome that

1:17:10

represented Australia That's

1:17:12

an interesting bit too because Hickman

1:17:14

will later create Manifold in his

1:17:17

Avengers run as sort of like

1:17:19

a captain in Australia in

1:17:21

his episode I talked to Kite and

1:17:23

Klein about how the problem with that

1:17:25

not out of story But in story

1:17:27

for manifold is that Australia would never

1:17:29

recognize an Aboriginal person as like

1:17:32

a national hero in that way Yeah,

1:17:34

but Ava had sort of private aspirations

1:17:36

young white girl Yeah, like I mean,

1:17:38

you know But she didn't know she

1:17:40

was ever gonna get superpowers and yes

1:17:42

Of course the thing that she most

1:17:44

admires about Captain America is that he's

1:17:46

a man out of time Who

1:17:49

adjusted well who lost everybody he

1:17:51

loved because of time travel but

1:17:53

managed to make it work and

1:17:55

be a superhero and

1:17:57

that's such a specific thing to love

1:18:00

about him that of course it

1:18:02

is foreshadowing for the horrific

1:18:05

suffering that she will undergo due to

1:18:07

time travel. I really

1:18:10

like that bit too and it

1:18:12

has dividends really quickly because the

1:18:14

Avengers show up in that first

1:18:16

arc to arrest Scott and Emma.

1:18:19

Yeah and like you were just saying

1:18:21

where like Kamala gets

1:18:23

to be Ms. Marvel this

1:18:25

is like oh I would love to

1:18:28

be like Captain America to

1:18:30

Captain America is arresting me. He is arresting

1:18:32

you right yeah exactly. So it

1:18:34

scales up your eyes about the fact that the

1:18:36

Avengers are and like Avengers fans don't get mad

1:18:38

at me but are often an arm

1:18:41

of the state right. I mean that's part

1:18:43

of why I really like how Captain America

1:18:45

has been written through the fall of x

1:18:47

stuff because I think that one of the

1:18:50

key things about Steve Rogers is that when

1:18:52

the state loses god damn mind Steve Rogers

1:18:54

typically is like well uh fuck you then

1:18:56

I'm not doing that. This

1:18:58

is a case where because Avengers vs. X-Men

1:19:00

was so crazy and because

1:19:04

they all watched Scott

1:19:06

kill Charles this

1:19:09

is an order he's comfortable following

1:19:11

right. Yeah totally. What's

1:19:14

interesting is the reason that the Avengers

1:19:16

get their location in the first place

1:19:18

is because Ava begs them to

1:19:21

let her go to the galsy to

1:19:24

tell her mother that she's okay because

1:19:26

she's been missing ever since this incident

1:19:28

at the bar. Yeah they're basically going

1:19:30

around picking up all these new mutants

1:19:32

and they're they're set

1:19:35

up in an old weapon x

1:19:37

base which is that's where

1:19:39

the Xavier school is that's like you

1:19:42

know upsetting an old torture

1:19:44

chamber and they're all like have we been

1:19:46

kidnapped like what's going on are we ever

1:19:48

gonna see our family again like what are

1:19:51

there classes here at the school what's

1:19:53

going on where do we eat what's

1:19:55

happening and uh yeah she's like

1:19:57

can I like at least tell my mom? I'm

1:20:00

alive and okay and they're...

1:20:02

And they're eventually like, yes,

1:20:04

that's reasonable. So Eliana

1:20:07

teleports them to Australia, they go to

1:20:09

the Goldie to meet with Eva's mom,

1:20:11

and on the way, they

1:20:13

are spotted by SHIELD operatives

1:20:15

and the Avengers get called

1:20:17

in. As the

1:20:20

situation escalates, Eva feels

1:20:22

like she has no choice but to

1:20:24

create a time bubble and freeze the

1:20:26

Avengers. She makes an

1:20:29

affirmative decision to protect Scott and Emma.

1:20:31

Yeah. It's tough. It's a tough scene

1:20:34

because it's like you're face to face with your

1:20:36

hero. He's maybe not the hero

1:20:38

you thought he was, but more to the

1:20:40

point, you're not someone who can be his

1:20:42

sidekick, you know? Because you've now made a

1:20:44

choice to strike him. Not the first time

1:20:46

she'll come to that relay. Absolutely. They've got

1:20:48

to do her story, but you know, that's

1:20:50

what makes it so interesting. A

1:20:53

repeated beat for her, a motif,

1:20:55

is her frequent realization

1:20:57

that in particular the

1:20:59

men that she has

1:21:02

chosen to idolize are

1:21:04

disappointments and are not

1:21:06

people she actually respects. She

1:21:08

has a nice moment with her mom here, who

1:21:11

like, she's kind of like, what very

1:21:13

much like, well, have you tried to not be

1:21:15

a mutant? Sort of thing, and

1:21:17

she's just like, mom, don't be racist. Don't

1:21:19

sell my stuff. I'm leaving. But then her

1:21:21

mom is like, that Cyclops

1:21:23

had some interesting points. Yeah. The

1:21:26

Avengers are very aggressive. They are. This

1:21:29

is, again, why like we keep being told

1:21:31

that Cyclops is a loose

1:21:33

cannon now, and he's gone out of control, but

1:21:35

I'm just kind of like, get these

1:21:38

cops out of my face. This is sort

1:21:40

of how I feel about this arc. I

1:21:42

don't respect this. But

1:21:44

Ava's freaked out. So she talks

1:21:46

to the other students who

1:21:49

they've collected at this point. I think hijacks there.

1:21:52

It's at this point, it's gold balls

1:21:54

and morph and triage. Are

1:21:56

we the baddies? It's basically like she has that

1:21:58

moment. Yeah. They're all

1:22:00

like, I mean, we're kind of worried about that

1:22:02

too, but we're not 100% sure who's

1:22:05

right and who's wrong in this situation And we're I

1:22:07

guess just gonna rise out what they're

1:22:09

worried about is like Cyclops keeps talking about

1:22:11

revolution and they're like, okay But like have

1:22:13

we been drafted? Like what does that mean? Yeah, you

1:22:16

know, we just discovered we had powers like

1:22:18

a week ago I'm not trying to be

1:22:20

drafted into a war The

1:22:23

next big moment that she has

1:22:25

is in issue 10 of in Canyex

1:22:27

men she and Iljana

1:22:29

are having a training session and

1:22:33

She makes a bubble to

1:22:35

freeze Iljana and Iljana

1:22:38

disappears And it was like

1:22:40

what the fuck just happened and then Iljana

1:22:43

Reappears a couple seconds later

1:22:45

because the bubble actually sent Iljana

1:22:47

forward in time a few seconds

1:22:49

and everyone's like oh It's

1:22:52

really cool at first cuz she'd like just she

1:22:55

freezes a part of Iljana First

1:22:57

which is like cuz you really

1:23:00

should just big like blue bubbles.

1:23:02

Yeah, she's making big strides quickly

1:23:05

And of course, it's Iljana cuz like

1:23:07

I had read that stuff when I

1:23:09

first read this I don't know.

1:23:11

I'm sure I put it together. It's

1:23:13

like yeah, Bendis is doing in Iljana.

1:23:16

Yes coming up. Yes He's about to

1:23:18

do exactly that. So it

1:23:20

makes sense that it's them. Mm-hmm who

1:23:22

have this interaction This

1:23:25

comes to a head seven issues

1:23:27

later They are on

1:23:29

a training exercise in tabula Rasa. Don't

1:23:31

worry about it. I talked about it

1:23:34

briefly in the Hupst But

1:23:37

you don't have to worry about tabula Rasa. It's

1:23:39

um, no, it's kind of like the vault like

1:23:41

the children of the vault Like it's a it's

1:23:43

an escalated time. It's one of those it's

1:23:46

like, you know a Hickman zone Did Hickman create

1:23:48

tabula Rasa? I think he did right? The

1:23:51

remainder. Oh, it might have been remember. Yeah, you're right, but

1:23:53

that's they both love that shit But

1:23:59

like basically like a hundred million

1:24:01

years has passed in Tabula Ras and so like

1:24:03

there's all these monsters you can fight and Ava

1:24:06

is defending herself with a time

1:24:09

bubble, but it doesn't freeze those

1:24:11

space around her It just makes her disappear and

1:24:14

everyone's like where the fuck did Ava go? Yeah, she

1:24:17

reappears like Iljana did during the sparring session Just

1:24:19

a few moments later, but this

1:24:21

time is different Everyone

1:24:23

notices that she looks older

1:24:26

like seven years older than she was a

1:24:28

few seconds ago Celeste

1:24:30

one of the cuckoos like jumps into her

1:24:32

head. Yeah likely place for a cuckoo

1:24:35

to be and And

1:24:38

reads her mind and Ava

1:24:40

is like you can't tell

1:24:42

them what happened to me I'm not ready to

1:24:44

tell them what happened that leads

1:24:47

into Probably her

1:24:49

best story which

1:24:51

starts the following month in two annuals

1:24:53

the uncanny x-men annual and the all-new

1:24:56

x-men annual You should just read them

1:24:58

together It's a big

1:25:00

tempest story. This is the one that I

1:25:02

think of always when this and Matthew Molloy

1:25:04

are like Yeah, you've been tempest stories, right?

1:25:06

Yeah, so this one is It's

1:25:09

fucking rough. It's just like really fucking

1:25:11

rough. It is sort of Unrelentingly

1:25:15

brutal to this character, but not in

1:25:17

a way that feels gratuitous Just in

1:25:19

a way that like, you know It's

1:25:21

just like somebody who is caught in

1:25:23

the throes of them not quite having

1:25:25

a handle on their powers It's very

1:25:27

rogue or Threnody. It's one of those

1:25:29

characters It's like oh your power is

1:25:31

expanded and you cannot handle it right

1:25:33

now And in this

1:25:35

case when the power is something

1:25:37

as volatile as time travel, it's

1:25:40

not ideal We first see

1:25:42

her she lands in the middle of

1:25:44

like a war between killraven and some

1:25:46

aliens Which I think is really a

1:25:49

killraven moment is always a treat.

1:25:51

Yeah, I know so little about killraven

1:25:53

so do I the Trading

1:25:56

card right? I'm just tickled because I forgot

1:25:58

that he was in this. I

1:26:01

was looking it up and it's really interesting. Apparently

1:26:03

I think that the time this is supposed

1:26:05

to be set is like 2018, 2020. Right

1:26:09

I know because it's an old comic. Yeah

1:26:12

it's very like when

1:26:14

was Blade Runner set like when it hit? 2023

1:26:16

I think? Right exactly. We

1:26:18

were all like well. But actually no 2023

1:26:20

was there's a scene at some point I

1:26:23

think it's in these where they show Ava's

1:26:26

driver's license and it expired last

1:26:28

May, May 2023. God.

1:26:31

Well also the eugenics wars in

1:26:33

Star Trek are in the 90s. Okay.

1:26:36

Because it was the 60s when they invented it. It's

1:26:39

always funny when we caught that. Just fun with

1:26:41

time. That's the theme. Yeah someday in the year

1:26:44

2525 this man is still alive they'll find that

1:26:46

song. Funny. But

1:26:49

yeah so she's like oh Cyclops is

1:26:51

doing another weird training simulation but then

1:26:54

it's very much not

1:26:56

that. Right. Cyclops until

1:26:58

now they've gone through they have a danger

1:27:00

room in their. In the

1:27:02

weapon act phase. Yeah. Yeah.

1:27:05

So they have the danger room which

1:27:07

creates scenarios. They have Tabula Rasa which

1:27:09

is like a totally weird place and

1:27:11

now we're in Killraven

1:27:13

time and it's like who knows.

1:27:16

Yeah so it's not unreasonable for

1:27:18

her to think that this is

1:27:20

like the latest wacky lesson at

1:27:22

Wacky Uncle Scott's Wacky Academy but

1:27:25

it's not that. And when she

1:27:27

realizes that it's the real deal

1:27:29

instinctively like drops another bubble and

1:27:31

warps again. This time

1:27:33

she goes way far into the past. She

1:27:36

winds up in the wild west.

1:27:38

She meets the rawhide kid. Oh

1:27:40

yeah. The way her power

1:27:42

is now out of control whenever she

1:27:44

is threatened lethally she instinctively

1:27:47

jumps. It's any situation where

1:27:49

she's in mortal danger. And

1:27:51

the rawhide kid which I could not

1:27:53

believe that we saw this guy ever

1:27:55

again after the slap

1:27:58

leather Marvel. Yeah this is. Pretty

1:28:01

long after that.

1:28:03

It had been a minute, but I still remember being

1:28:05

like, Laurentine could. I thought Marvel was going to bury

1:28:07

that character the rest of the time. I

1:28:10

love Ava Belge ally throughout this. She has

1:28:12

a really cute relationship with Benjamin. Yeah. And

1:28:15

I was, I had this thought when she

1:28:17

was interacting with Iceman when he, the young

1:28:19

Iceman, when he joins the team and he's

1:28:21

like chatting with her and it's like, wow,

1:28:23

she's such a friend, a friend

1:28:25

of Dorothy, but then she

1:28:27

just like leaves him to while she's

1:28:29

talking to himself. It's very cute scene.

1:28:32

I would do it too, you know.

1:28:34

He's annoying. We have things to do. Anyway,

1:28:36

it's a cute scene with the rawhide kid. He

1:28:38

like figures it out and he like pretend to like- And he holds

1:28:40

a gun to her head so that she'll jump. This

1:28:43

time she lands in 2099. Ever

1:28:46

heard of it? A pretty famous

1:28:48

year for the Marvel Universe. I

1:28:51

don't think this is the Marvel 2099 reality

1:28:53

though. It's

1:28:56

like a, it's a different timeline. It's just that

1:28:58

you get the same- Like next

1:29:00

to it. Yeah. It's adjacent, right? Here

1:29:04

she is found by

1:29:06

the future X-Men and they say

1:29:08

that they will take her to

1:29:10

the Sorcerer Supreme, which turns out

1:29:12

in this timeline to be an

1:29:14

older Illyana Rasputina. Who's

1:29:17

the Sorcerer Supreme of the galaxy? The

1:29:19

entire galaxy. Which is cool. It's

1:29:22

cool but also yikes. How'd you

1:29:27

do that? That's, well,

1:29:30

there's a backstory there that's probably a

1:29:32

little bit disconcerting. Illyana

1:29:35

has used magic to live

1:29:37

longer than she otherwise would

1:29:39

have, and she

1:29:42

unfortunately can no longer travel

1:29:44

in time herself because otherwise

1:29:46

that would resolve this problem

1:29:48

pretty handily. Because

1:29:51

she can't do that and they have

1:29:53

no way to stabilize Eva's power, so

1:29:55

holding a gun to her head could

1:29:57

jump her literally anywhere, like he does.

1:30:00

of the universe, like there's no guarantee

1:30:02

that she'd land somewhere safe, she

1:30:04

just sticks around and she lives

1:30:07

there in this reality for seven

1:30:09

years. Which as you

1:30:11

point out is exactly the length of time

1:30:13

that Illyana was in limbo. So

1:30:15

it's a different- Pretty on the nose, but it's

1:30:17

a cool beat. Well, what I like about it is

1:30:20

that it's not hell, right?

1:30:22

Yeah, it's nice. Illyana

1:30:25

was in hell. Illyana

1:30:28

actually adjusts pretty well

1:30:30

to this new circumstance. She falls

1:30:32

in love with this guy named

1:30:34

Danny. They get married, they have

1:30:36

a child. I love

1:30:39

that she- I think it's cool that she,

1:30:41

you know, he's like a non-passing mutant and

1:30:43

like I think things are a bit different

1:30:45

in the year of 2099. It

1:30:48

seems like things have gotten better, yeah. Yeah.

1:30:51

So again, it's like quite different

1:30:53

to the main Marvel 2099. It's

1:30:56

not really like a dystopian future. It

1:30:58

seems like things have improved from mutants.

1:31:00

Just seems rainy. Yeah, it's very rainy,

1:31:02

but like it's- that's Blade Runner, right?

1:31:04

It looks like Blade Runner. Yeah.

1:31:08

But she's happy. By the time

1:31:10

we get through the time jump there, she

1:31:12

doesn't want to go home anymore. She's

1:31:15

like, this is my home now. I have a

1:31:17

husband I love, we have a daughter, I'm not

1:31:20

trying to go anywhere. Lilliana

1:31:23

says that eventually she will

1:31:25

have to go home. Yeah.

1:31:27

And this was the first mention

1:31:30

of the trial of Henry McCoy.

1:31:32

Mm-hmm. That will return.

1:31:34

You have to go home eventually, Lilliana

1:31:36

says, everybody does. Which again, the fact

1:31:38

that it's magic is loaded.

1:31:41

You told me not to even try. I think he's

1:31:43

my home now. I have a child. I

1:31:46

love you, I'm not trying to upset you.

1:31:48

You just told me to leave my husband

1:31:50

and child. The energies of the universe

1:31:52

flow like a twig down the course of a mighty

1:31:54

river. Yet you've said that everything

1:31:56

has its place in time and nothing us

1:31:58

mortals do will ever. be able to

1:32:01

change that. And Eva's just like,

1:32:03

we'll fuck you then. So they

1:32:05

end that conversation at cross

1:32:08

purposes, but not long afterward,

1:32:11

unfortunately, Magix, Lair,

1:32:13

I guess it's her sanctum sanctorum, a la

1:32:16

Doctor Strange, right? Is attacked

1:32:18

by a demon. Eva comes

1:32:20

to help, she locks the demon in

1:32:22

one of her freeze bubbles, but

1:32:25

Iljana has already been mortally

1:32:27

wounded, she's dying. As

1:32:30

she is dying, she says to Eva, you

1:32:32

have to go back, because

1:32:34

if you don't go back, Hank

1:32:36

McCoy will not stand trial for

1:32:39

his various crimes against the time

1:32:41

stream. I can't leave my

1:32:43

family, but that's when Danny and Dahl,

1:32:45

their daughter, also enter the room and

1:32:48

the demon breaks out of the

1:32:50

bubble. And

1:32:52

uncontrollably, because now not only

1:32:54

is she in

1:32:56

mortal danger, but so are the people

1:32:58

she loves, she immediately

1:33:01

jumps in time. She ends

1:33:04

up in like the Jurassic era,

1:33:06

like she ends up among the dinosaurs.

1:33:09

It is sad that she didn't run

1:33:11

into the Empyrean time gliding down there.

1:33:14

I actually, that's another one where it's like Fabian simply

1:33:16

doesn't care, but when the Empyrean showed up in cable,

1:33:18

that's another one where I was like, Fabian, I love

1:33:20

him. I love that he's just like, I never got

1:33:22

to tie up these characters, so I'm gonna tie them

1:33:24

all up in this War issue mini series, and then

1:33:26

you could use them if you want. Well,

1:33:29

not Empyrean, it seems, but my first

1:33:31

thought, shout out to Holly Raymond, because

1:33:33

we always talk about time gliding and

1:33:35

how time gliding is something that only

1:33:37

certain people can do, but how did

1:33:39

the Empyrean time glide back to our

1:33:41

time to be turned into a

1:33:44

battery by Amanda Mueller, the Black Womb? That's

1:33:46

a story that I'd love to read. He's

1:33:48

good at it. He's good at time gliding,

1:33:50

and she's very good at turning people into

1:33:52

human batteries, so it was kind of just

1:33:54

synchronous in that way. I

1:33:56

love that she gets killed off in that, but

1:33:58

cable even says, it's probably. probably not the real

1:34:01

her. Like don't even, like don't overthink it.

1:34:03

Like you killed her! He's like it's probably

1:34:05

a clone. Don't even sweat it. She's sinister's

1:34:07

lab tech. Like this is what they do.

1:34:09

But so she lands in

1:34:11

Dinosaur Times and ends

1:34:14

up rescued from Dinosaurs by Morgan

1:34:16

Le Fay who had also been

1:34:18

sent back in time by the

1:34:20

Dark Avengers during Dark Rain. Oh

1:34:22

is that what happened? I looked

1:34:24

it up because I was like

1:34:26

what? Why is Morgan Le Fay

1:34:28

in Dinosaur Times? And

1:34:31

that's why. But when you read it, it's safe

1:34:33

to assume she's probably been there for a while.

1:34:35

I'm sure there's a good reason. She's clearly been

1:34:37

there for a while and she's not thrilled about

1:34:39

it. Ava says she's like because Morgana's trying to

1:34:41

like put the work on her and she's just

1:34:43

like does she not know that there are books

1:34:46

written about her? I know who this bitch is!

1:34:48

Like and I you don't have to be a

1:34:50

superhero to know that you don't make a deal

1:34:52

with Morgan Le Fay. Like I went to high

1:34:54

school. I've read The Washer Future King. But

1:35:00

Morgan uses her dark sorcery to

1:35:02

read Ava's mind, to determine Ava's

1:35:04

time travel powers. And

1:35:07

she's like oh score

1:35:09

you can get us out

1:35:11

of here. Because I've been stuck in Dinosaur Times for months

1:35:14

now and I fucking hate it. Ava's

1:35:16

like oh I want to go back to

1:35:18

my family. My husband and my daughter are

1:35:20

waiting for me. And Morgan says

1:35:22

to her they don't

1:35:24

exist anymore. Ava

1:35:27

refuses to believe that. Morgan's like

1:35:29

your timeline has now shifted. There's

1:35:32

no and like this so here's here's

1:35:34

the thing that I guess we have

1:35:36

to underline is the way that Bendis

1:35:38

wrote time travel with this character is

1:35:40

completely different from how Marvel time travel

1:35:43

used to work. Inconsistent. Even

1:35:45

with her. Even with her. But in

1:35:47

general up until this

1:35:49

story I think time travel

1:35:52

in Marvel always created a

1:35:54

new branching timeline. You could not actually alter

1:35:56

the past. This is the point of Days

1:35:58

of Future Past. when Kate Pride

1:36:01

goes back and averts the assassination of

1:36:03

Senator Kelly, we later learn it didn't

1:36:05

actually change her timeline. She goes back

1:36:08

and it's still the dystopian hell. It

1:36:10

has just made sure that now that

1:36:12

timeline has diverted into being Earth 811

1:36:15

instead of being Earth 616. Later

1:36:17

it turns out it diverted a long time ago because

1:36:20

of the circumstances of Rachel's birth, but that doesn't actually

1:36:22

matter. Because it's wreckons and wreckons and

1:36:24

wreckons. But that is how time

1:36:27

travel generally worked in

1:36:29

every story, everything with Cable and

1:36:32

the Asconi, everything that Bishop does

1:36:34

is not to preserve his own

1:36:36

timeline, it's to prevent his timeline

1:36:38

from coming to pass for us.

1:36:42

This is very different. When Ava

1:36:44

travels in time, she actually changes

1:36:46

the past. This

1:36:49

is now how time travel

1:36:51

works in Marvel generally. But

1:36:53

that's a shift that starts here. Is

1:36:55

it still? Yes. Think

1:36:58

about any Cable story that happens from

1:37:00

Bendis onward. All of the stuff with

1:37:03

Teen Cable coming back alters his own

1:37:05

timeline. Everything with Cable on Prokoa is

1:37:07

about how the future is always in

1:37:09

flux, he leaves notes for himself

1:37:12

and things like that. The hand

1:37:14

wave is that Secret Wars changed

1:37:16

the rules. Right, exactly. That's how I

1:37:18