517 – Sliding Scale Ransom

0:00I'm J.E.D.N. And I'm Miles Stokes. And we are here to explain the X-Men. Because it's about time someone did. Welcome to episode 517 of J.N.Miles, explain the X-Men where we walk you to the ins, the outs and the recons of comics, greatest superhero soap opera. And welcome to something we've been wanting to do for a very long time. That's right. Today we're going to be highlighting three issues, not of main continuity, not of an alternate universe, but of three different alternate universes in Marvel's classic What If. Yeah. So, I've always had mixed feelings about the What If series in large part because the question What If is usually answered by Everybody dies horribly. Like, if a single little thing changes in the Marvel Universe, then Everybody dies horribly to the end. Like, that's so many What If issues. I mean, definitely one of the ones we'll be covering today.

1:00Well, true. But, for the most part, we tried to find some that bucked that trend. Or that was just really interesting or just really fun. And we listed the help of our patrons. We had a Patreon discussion where people recommended, like, X-Men related What If issues that they liked. And, oh god, we read through so many What If issues. And so many were fun. Like, you guys made excellent suggestions. And eventually, we were able to narrow it down to three. You may disagree with our choices, but I hope we can speak of the ones we have chosen entertainingly nonetheless. So let's look at those in chronological order, starting with What If Volume 2 Number 9? What If the new X-Men had died on their very first mission? This issue is written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Rich Buckler, inked by Sam Dolorosa, colored by Evelyn Stein, and lettered by Phil Felix. It was released back in November 1989. It also includes a couple of stories What If Black Bolt talked in his sleep and what if the thing's body kept mutating, which we're not going to cover. They're fine. They're short. I mean, the first one seems pretty self-explanatory.

2:01That could be a real short story, right? Yeah, I can't imagine that's more than like a panel. So the main story in here, the one we just read the title of, that takes place on Earth 105709. What If was generally really good about having official multiversal designations in the official handbook of the Marvel Universe, or reference in other stories, stuff like that. And this was actually the one that was hardest to choose, like the other two stories when they were recommended by patrons, we were like, oh yeah, we're almost certainly doing those. And indeed, we are. Well, what of them we would have been doing regardless? Well, that's true. Yes, we agreed with the patrons very much in that regard. But we also wanted to pick an issue of What If that was sort of a more standard issue of What If, which is to say, here's a big X-Men event. What if a little thing was different about it? And we settled on this one. It took a lot of pondering, but I feel pretty good about our choice. This issue opens in the Scottish Highlands, as Dr. Meyer McTagger gets a telegram telling

3:01her that Professor X is very ill, and she's needed at once. And so off she goes to the United States with a very tiny reins and clare, Wolfsbane, just like way younger. She's got her early New Mutants hair that's super spiky, and she's wearing this orange and green sweater and plaid skirt combo that she wears throughout the remainder of the issue, even though it takes place over the course of weeks, if not months. And she's just adorable. Like Rich Buckler, she straws the most adorable spiky-haired little girl of all time, and reins and clairs already inherently adorable. So that's pretty good. Yes, she's a very, very cute kid, immapid, if you will. We definitely will, yes. So I feel like a good what-if story always throws in lots of little continuity nods. And so of course, as they're leaving, her awful bigoted secret father Reverend Craig is there to be mean at her for no reason, until Moira says that she'll make a donation to his parish, and he goes and fucks off with his giant beard in a different direction. And thus Reyn has allowed to come with Moran in the US, Beast meets them, wearing a mask

4:02of his non-ferry face, and explains the situation. Xavier's been deeply depressed since some friends of theirs died and blamed himself, and Hank has since quit the Avengers to take care of Xavier, but Xavier's kind of a dick about it. And so we learn here, the professor actually doesn't know that Hank sent for Moira, and when Moira shows up to see if she can help, not really knowing the full story yet, Xavier does not respond well, saying, Please forgive me for not taking your hands, Moira. I'm afraid I can no longer buy human contact of any kind. A good what-if issue is also super dramatic. Like when you only have 22 pages, or something along those lines, to tell the story of an entire alternate universe, you gotta go hard with those emotions. So at this point, Hank pulls off his human Hank mask to reveal his colored blue, but describes his gray furry self, and explains the situation, but the existence of mutants

5:04that he and Professor X are mutants, and what happened to the last team. Yeah, because this takes place right around giant size X-Men number one from the 70s. That's the one where the Silver Age X-Men investigated the island that walks like a man, Cracola, back before it was a mutant homeland, and Cracola lets Cyclops escape to bring it more mutants to feed on. We of course covered this story way back in Episode 5. This is Episode 517. That was 512 episodes ago, holy crap, Jay, how did that happen? The inexorable passage of time. That's the thing, yeah. But it also highlights, and this is honestly one of the reasons I wanted to do this issue, something that everybody always forgets, which is that beast was not on that mission. Beast was not in giant size X-Men number one as one of the captured Silver Age mutants. This beast was on the Avengers. Instead, we had havoc and Polaris there. They had just joined the X-Men, not that long before this. Everyone also forgets that they were there.

6:04So like in the original story, Professor Xavier recruited the usual all-new, all-different X-Men, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Storm Colossus, Banshee, Sunfire, and Thunderbird. But this time at the end of the big fight with Cracola, when they threw Cracola into space as if they were Magneto, the heroes didn't have time to get clear, and all 13 X-Men ended up dying in space with Cracola. Well shit. Whoops. So I know we were saying that we tried to choose issues where not everybody died. Not everybody dies, but all these characters died. Or did they, because in the main continuity, Cracola was actually captured in space by the stranger, that guy with the big mustache, and ended up being okay. So maybe these 13 X-Men are also okay, we never find out. Or maybe they just flew out into space, and were rescued by the brood clone X-Men from that one story of New Mutants. Well they didn't exist yet. Maybe they traveled through time as well. That can happen. There's lots of time travel. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So there we go.

7:05The Silver Age X-Men are dead. The all-new all-different team are dead. Of course years later, in 2005's X-Men Deadly Genesis mini-series, we'll find out that Moir McTaggart actually sent her own team of mutants to try to save the Silver Age team, and they died. So like it's kind of funny that she's here for this story. It is, yeah. And I wonder if that plotline deliberately drew from this particular what if? Honestly, I don't know. Like there are so very many what if stories, and they're so seldom referenced. We'll talk about some ways in which some of these stories are referenced later, later in the episode. But for the most part, they're just sort of ignored, at least officially. So back on Earth, Professor X is having a hard time of it. He blames himself. Yeah, appropriately, I think, for the deaths of both teams. And you know, Moira helps sort of slowly nurse him back to health as rain and beast bond over being adorable and generally irrepressible.

8:05Rain, by the way, has not manifested her mutation yet. It's kind of like how Larry Trask, pre-cognitive powers, are prevented from manifesting by the disco medallion he always wears. I see. So if something looks sufficiently 70s, they can prevent the menace to pronunciation of mutant powers. Oh, yeah, that entire decade was just like totally suppressive of the X factor, except for the fact that the X-Men really became much more popular in it, which is weird, you know? No accountant for taste. Yeah. Anyway, time waits for no man. So accountant aferious suddenly appears on a screen the X-Men have in their home, which we learn only turns on and turns on with no warning when something especially important happens in the news. I have so many questions about the mechanics behind that, but okay. So accountant aferia, of course, was the villain of X-Men number 94, the issue that followed up giant size X-Men number one. And he has the same plot here that he did there, which is that he is commandeered an American missile base to take over the Doomsmith command system, which is a pretty good name.

9:09And he's holding the world for ransom. And I'd forgotten, but this is from the original story. He demands that each nation on Earth pay a ransom, the amount of which is determined by its ability to pay, which is actually like a pretty reasonable way to do it if you're going to hold the world for ransom. Yeah, yeah, sliding scale ransom. I know, right? Um, accountant aferia, you could be worse. You could, I guess. So there are no X-Men in this universe since they all got shot into space with an island that walked and then flew into space like a man. So our tiny, tiny group of kind of sort of heroes try to figure out what to do. They try to call the Avengers, but they're off-planet somewhere and they can't get in touch with them. They try to call the Fantastic Four. They don't answer the phone. I like the teeth of Fantastic Four are totally around and available, but they're just really tired. Like they just had a long night. You know, Franklin was still really young at this point. So he was just up all night crying and they were all taking turns being good like co-parents and godparents and stuff, but they're all just real fried. Or they're just screening and don't feel like it. They're like, oh, Professor Xavier, that fucking guy.

10:12Nafaria sounds like last week's news. So Amora asks if there are no other mutants that Professor X could contact, like he contacted, you know, the other X-Men he recruited, he replies. I mean, the ones I sent to their deaths. No, Amora. Whether the world saves itself or gets incinerated, I can have no part of it. Oh, Charles, Charles, you've had a hard time. I mean, fair enough, like your first team died. You were really close to, and then your second team who really hoped to save the first team also died, I can understand not wanting to recruit a third team. But isn't Earth where the mutants live? Yes, it's true that that will be a big problem if Earth gets destroyed. But I get it. It's one of those things where when you feel like you've really fucked something up badly, it can be tempting to know that to just do nothing, even though you know that doing nothing would be even worse, just so at least it's not your fault. So fortunately at this point, Cerebro can still be operated by non telepaths, so Beast

11:13is able to step in. And he contacts a bunch of people. He contacts the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who at this point were still very much officially mutants. He contacts Neymar or tries for Neymar at least, but finds instead Neymarita, a remarkably wholesome and adorable team. Gallop and Galapagos, really Beast man, the whole white world? I love this. I mostly know her from the New Warriors comic, where she is very different, although occasionally does reference her old, like, a literative saying. So I'm very, very amused to see, like, early, early Neymarita. Good for her. In Ireland, he finds Siren, who is training with Black Tom. In this story, she'll actually go by Banshee instead of Siren, in her dead dad's honor, which I believe she'll eventually many, many years later do during Peter David's second X factor run. And in Arizona, he is able to locate Thunderbred's kid brother, James Proudstar, lifting Bridg Rocks to make a very large gravestone for his dead brother.

12:13However, for no apparent reason, for several pages, but only several pages, this comic refers to them as John and James Proudfoot. I assume they're hobbits? Oh, yeah, yeah, famous hobbits. The Proudfoot's or Proudfeet? Now James Proudstar here, or Proudfootstar, hates Professor X, since John died working for Xavier, kind of like in the main Marvel universe, but of course, the death here is for a different reason. And after all of these contacts, Cerebro blows up, and in its last thrust manages to teleport all of the mutants whom Beasts have been talking to, as well as Beasts and Rain who happens to be in the room, to Colorado. So the official justification here is that this was part of the plan that Beasts intended for this to happen. And he had Cerebro tap into records of Nightcrawler's powers to make this happen, which, okay, you know, sometimes you're reading a story and you're like, oh, the writers just really wanted to get from plot point A to plot point C, and didn't want to spend the page count

13:16on plot point B, so okay. And this is definitely one such story. Well done, Roy Thomas. So yes, everyone is in Colorado outside the missile base, including tiny, mop-a-d reigns and Claire in her orange and green outfit. And while they figured they'd better start fixing things quickly, because nefaria might blow up the world, unless this equitable plan for ransom is met. So they break into the missile base and fight the anime. These are nefarias, um, animal people in super costumes that they are apparently humans who have been transformed into animals, although they had previously been exposed as just wearing animal costumes when they fought Daredevil a while back, nefaria has since actually transformed them. And I love that during this fight, Gort the Gorilla Man actually takes some time to explain this. Like, you could use an editorial caption like with the asterisk and stuff, but no, instead Gort the Gorilla Man will explain the anime.

14:17Gort, if you ever want to be on the show, we can do a special episode. You got a limited window for that though, Gort. So despite John Proudfoot star being a loner jerk, the team fights pretty okay together. And Xavier is hopeful. But then dispares when Dragonfly of the anime hypnotizes all of the heroes and is about to kill them all. And Xavier is going to lose a third team, oh no. But there's one mutant who's not yet in the fray, and that is the one who they left at the door with extremely emphatic instructions not to involve herself who is tiny mop at reigns and Claire. And so Xavier reluctantly, and with Myers consent because Moira of course is the guardian of reign, pulls a sage and awakens reigns latent mutant powers early, which apparently is a thing he can do in this story, just like Beast can operate cerebro really effectively, just like cerebro can use a mutant power to teleport people, it's all fine, don't worry about it. Anyway, it turns into a big fuck off wolf and saves everyone. Yeah, the X-Men wake up and they win, and it's great.

15:20And I appreciate that during the fight, the X-Men are like, oh no, a wolf and Beast's like, nope, pretty sure that's my favorite little mop it. Well done, reign, it's super cute. And they're all like, oh yeah, that's Gens. It totally scans. So just like in the original X-Men number 94, Count Niferia tries to escape in his fancy stolen military jet. But unlike in that story, where John proudered our foot, blew himself up trying to punch a plane to death, instead siren, or I guess banshee, blows herself up by screaming at it in the sky. Interestingly, the art here shows what looks like a laser beam, sapping the plane from off panel as it blows up, not anything coming from siren herself. So as we learn in the, you wouldn't think it'd be related, quays are number 30. The Earth 616 version of the Avengers villain, the living laser, had actually gone through the multiversal window, the watcher is using to watch this, what if story. And so that laser that blows up Niferia's plane, that laser is in fact the living laser, like the guy.

16:21And after this happens, he ends up accidentally splitting into a bunch of multiversal versions of himself, and it turns into a whole thing. Comics are ridiculous, man. Right? Oh, what if? So many delights, it's almost as good as that time in what if Stripe killed the X-Men, when Apocalypse triggers Storm's claustrophobia by palming her face with his giant hand, like he's putting a bird to sleep with a blanket over its cage. Anyway, this time, instead of dying, punching a plane, a footstar proud saves the day and catches siren, and everybody's okay. Like, they were bickering a bunch before, more than any of the other characters, and now they bond, and it's very nice. So obviously, some of the characters have lives to go back to, uh, Pietro heads back to the humans, one to heads back to the Avengers, but others, um, decide they're going to stick around and, and form a new X-Men team. It's great. So there's this big splash page of the team charging forward, as they do in comic books, including tiny, tiny wolf Spain, and a version of her going solo costume from New Mutants Number 61, when the New Mutants, like, left the mansion since Magneto was being a jerk. So it's like a brown and yellow X uniform, it's, it's very cute.

17:24And, uh, yeah, it's an issue of what if, where, okay, a lot of characters die, but the end is a happy, optimistic one, hooray! I for one was disappointed the Black Tom Cassidy didn't end up getting recruited to the new team, because I think that would have been very funny. I agree. Bring that chalely into the main X title, Tom. So there we go. There's our most normal what-if issue that we'll be covering, but now let's cover the one we've been excited to cover for literal years. What if volume two, number 24? What if Wolverine had become the lord of the vampires? This issue is likewise written by Roy Thomas, and RJM, uh, LaFacea, with art by Tom Morgan Colors by Tom Vincent and letters by Janice Chang. RJM LaFacea, I look this up. Those are Jean Mark and his wife Randy, LaFacea, uh, they are incredibly prolific sci-fi writers, and they have, like, sort of a shared name when they write together, and I was starting to read through the Wikipedia page where they just basically wrote everything. Good for them.

18:24So this issue was released in January of 1991, and takes place on Earth 9-1-4-0, and we deferred from canon midway through X-Men number 159, which you can hear us cover way, way back in episode 18. Just before Storm resisted Dracula's mind control to zap him with lightning, here she doesn't bother, and Wolverine Nightcrawler and Colossus all get famed. And the comic mentions that where it diverges in part is also that Dracula chooses to drink more of Storm's blood so that he can, like, fully kill her and turn her, instead of just having her come her own free will. So basically, you could also call this issue what if Dracula were thirstier? Maybe a different kind of thirstier, because the narration describes Dracula drinking the X-Men's blood in, quote, an orgy of satiation. Huh! Hey, listen, there's a reason that Sexy Dracula is a mainstay of this podcast. Admittedly, the version of Sexy Dracula I tend to do is a little bit more consent-minded than this one.

19:25So when three days after their death by vampire, they X-Men rise, and when Dracula calls, Nightcrawler and Colossus are compelled to come, but not Wolverine who shows up on his own and is sassy from the start. See, Wolverine is immune to Dracula's mind control, and he's also just the most precocious vampire ever. He can already turn into mist and turn into a wolf. I like that he's kind of a Marty stew, but also Wolverine and also a vampire. So extremely. And so they fight, and I love that they just keep transforming into different forms. And specifically, I like the part where Wolverine turns back from being a full wolf into like a wolf man, where his body is very wolf-manny, but he's just got his normal Wolverine head with his silly Wolverine hair on top of it. It kind of reminds me of what werewolves look like, at least in one issue of the comic tarot, which of the Black Rose, where there are realistic wolf head on top of a sexy naked woman body that almost looks just kind of copy-pasted on top of it.

20:28Well, they're specifically a tracing of courage wolf from the meme. Wait, that was courage wolf's head on an naked lady body? You didn't know that? No, okay. Yes, that was courage wolf's head on an naked lady body. Tara, which of the Black Rose, just look it up. It is quite the comic at one point someone's vagina is haunted. Well, and that's the thing is you're not summing up sort of the full glory of that bit, because at this point, someone is told she has to get out of where she is, because her vagina is haunted, as if she can somehow flee her vagina along with the house. You can't escape your problems or your vagina's listeners. Anyway, Tara was an amazing, amazing, amazing comic, and we will link to a couple articles about it in the visual companion to this episode, should you wish to follow up further. Anyway, Wolverine decides that he wants to be Lord of the Vampires, which is like being Lord of the Dance, but no, actually it's exactly like being Lord of the Dance, I assume.

21:28So as happens with Lord of the Dance, Wolverine and Dracula fight to the second death, I guess, Wolverine wins Drinks Dracula's Blood and Beheds Dracula. The explanation for why Wolverine is like a super mean vampire is pretty good here. When Count Dracula drank the blood of his precursor, Varne, he inherited Varne's evil, and added it to his own. That double dose of evil, imbibed with the blood from Dracula's jugular vein, has now passed to Wolverine, drowning all human feeling within him. Oh yeah, it's just simple genetics, it's like, you know, with the pea plants and Punnett squares when you're learning about genetics and biology. Well, I hear that the more delute evil gets, the more powerful it actually is. Oh, it's like homeopathic evil? I don't know, man, I'm just saying weird shit that makes no sense. Which yes, covers homeopathy. Well, and homeopathy. Oh, that's true. That's true. So anyway, Wolverine's now Lord of the Vampires, well done Logan.

22:31And he's extra super evil because blood. So he starts by turning other mutants, the new mutants, the X-Men, the Brotherhood, the Hellfire Club, Freedom Force, the Morlocks, presumably the residents of the heartbreak hotel. The only real threat to his new administration is the Darkhold. This is a big fancy spell book held by Dr. Strange that contains the Montessiformula. The Montessiformula is a spell that instantly destroys all the vampires on Earth. So that's not great. And they can't break into Dr. Strange's house because it's vampire proof. So instead they lure Dr. Strange out with a crimson gem of Ciderac, at which point he's ambushed by vampire Juggernaut who kills him. Just kills Dr. Strange. Well, he mostly kills Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange is dead for all legal intents and purposes. His body is dead, but his cloak manages to fly away. And with it, his spirit escapes, which we'll get to in just a little bit.

23:32But his body certainly is not forgotten. Logan orders it to be fed by his vampire thralls to his white albino crocodiles and his crocodile pit, which is a thing that he has. It's weird that he specifies both that they're white and that they're albino. It is weird. You're right. I didn't think about that. I was too busy looking at the crack to chomp, ganache, snapped, ganoss, slurp, sound effects in the background. Does this happen? Oh. They're happy crocodiles. They're so happy. They can, you know, wizard corpse. Yeah. Oh, wizard, just them. You think you like jiggles around a little bit with a stick? Oh, I think so to make it look alive. Yeah. Well, on August 5th, the mutant vampires make their move. They take over New York City and I'm like, August 5th, that's a really specific date. What's up with August 5th? So I looked it up and it was when the first electric traffic light was installed in Cleveland in 1914. It was when Neil Armstrong was born in 1930 and it was when the nuclear test band treaty was signed in 1963 and also when vampires took over New York City.

24:35In 1991, presumably. Well, I don't know, because it's like a flashback to a story from way before. So when does this take place? I don't know. And the eternal literary present miles. That's true. On August 5th, the eternal literary present. That's right. Now all the superheroes who could have resisted have either been turned or killed at Wolverine's discretion. New York City is quarantined off and the public discussion of vampire of the vampire menace begins leading to such amazing questions as how can we be certain vampires are not already in command of America's atomic arsenal? How indeed, Jay, is that one of the greatest lines in a comic book ever? It's right up there with you have to get out of here if your vagina is haunted. Bring it back. Yes. So meanwhile, Dr. Strange's disembodied spirit finds the ancient one and gets told that he needs to deal with the vampire situation. And if he doesn't have a body to do it, well, he got to find one. And Dr. Strange does. He's got someone already in mind and that is the one and only the incorrigible Frank

25:38Punisher. Yeah, Frank Punisher hasn't been turned because guns. Well, guns and silver bullets and a lot of holy water and he fights dirty. So Frank Punisher, vampire hunter is actually a lot of fun and he is down for a team up or a mild possession or whatever is going on here. I think Strange is basically just on for a ride along and and advice giving. And he gets the cloak. He gets the eye of agamoto. And the art is so good. Is this panel of him just posing all badass holding up his gun while the cape suddenly sneaks up on him and is then billowing all around him, but that really just implies he was already posing and then the cape is like, Hey, I want to get me some of that and posed with him. Correct. This is exactly what happened, probably. Unfortunately, after he's taken out most of the vampire X-Men on his way back into the sanctum, St. Torm, he is attacked by Wolverine himself. And they're going to fight in the sanctum. Unfortunately, the sanctum's anti-vampire spells. Tampa Wolverine's power is down enough that they're pretty evenly matched.

26:41It's such a fun fight. Like Frank Punisher has his big Dr. Strange cape and his big medallion and Logan has like a vampire reversion of his X-Men costume. So his boots are way taller and instead of having an X-Belt buckle, he has a big fang skull and his own big red cape. It's like their banter is really good. At one point, Wolverine asks Frank Punisher what he says to the idea of being killed by a vampire and Frank replies, in words of one syllable, which his guns follow up with blam blam blam blam blam blam. So they fight and they fight and Frank is about to kill Wolverine when vampire kitty jumps between them and he decapitates her instead. Yeah, like you can't stop the movement of his giant silver priest blessed knife. So her head just pops right off and just bounces along the floor, kitty prides head. It's so excessive. Um, it's also enough to shake Wolverine kind of back into his right mind.

27:43So he kills Frank of course, but then he lets Strange convince him to read the Montessy formula himself and all of the vampires dissolving to dust. Wolverine included. The end or is it because this world will be briefly revisited in quasar number 30 up that thing with all the living lasers that we talked about earlier. Um, yeah, this is one of the worlds that has like living laser stuff going on in it, which honestly, I'm glad because if you have a continuity where Wolverine becomes lord of the vampires, you should come back to it as often as possible. And in fact, we do again sort of occasionally you'll have a what if story spin off of another what if story. And usually this is a what if from that what if like it's a different multiversal designation. So in what if volume to number 37, what if Wolverine has X vampires conquered the world? By a control of America, it's a time of carcinol. Uh, yes, Logan ends up fighting Madeline prior in inferno.

28:43This is actually part of a what if cross over story called timequake where the timekeepers like from the Loki show are going after anomalies in different universes, including a character from this one. Like, of course, yes, please come back to vampire Loganland comic books, comic books. So there we go, that story is a goddamn delight. It is. It really is. It's very silly. Um, and we're going to end speaking of delights with with the rarest of what if stories. So what if story were pretty much only good things happen? That is what if magic number one, what if magic became the source or supreme written by Leo Williams with art book by Felipe Andrade, colors by Chris Allerin, letters by VCs Clayton Cowles. Now, we technically covered this very briefly way, way back in episode 230 as our backup story to um, uncanny X-Men 303 when Leon and died of the legacy virus, but we covered it very briefly and we like it. So we're revisiting it today.

29:44Also, that was like seven years ago. So this story was released on Halloween 2018 way more recent than almost anything we've covered. And it takes place on Earth 18133. So maybe we should talk a little bit about Iliana Rasputin's normal origin before we proceed, because this story depends pretty heavily on it. We did cover it back in episode number 19, but that was um, even longer ago. As a tiny hapless mop it, Iliana Rasputin was a was abducted from the island better known as Octopus time into the hell dimension known as limbo by the demon Blasco. She grew up there for I think about seven years into a teenager undergoing some pretty awful abuse while Blasco tried to groom her into his successor slash. During that time, a number of the X-Men had also been stuck in limbo, or at least alternate versions of them had. Those X-Men became increasingly corrupted by the hell dimension with the exception of storm who became a great sorceress and who eventually took Iliana under her wing.

30:47So long story short, Iliana came out of limbo very, very traumatized. In the main Marvel universe, she ended up hanging out at the X-Mansion and joining the new mutants and being okay, yeah, at least until Inferno happened. But basically, perpetually in fear of herself and her own demonic capabilities and never really having addressed the trauma of, you know, her entire early life and hell. So with all of that said, let's talk about this lovely, lovely story. So I gotta say it's hard to take notes on this issue because it's so pretty and I love it so much. Like Williams does a great job, but Felipe Andrade and Chris O'Halloran are just transcendent. Oh yeah, and I mean the relationship between the writing and the art in this book is so, perfect. Like each complement each other so well. This was one of my favorite issues the year it came out, not as I think it's still one of my favorite one shots period. So we start with magic having fled the Xavier School afraid of and for herself and she's

31:48hitchhiking down the eastern seaboard, leaving a trail of dead would be predators in a magical signature like a beacon. I kind of love the idea of still very traumatized Iliana just basically making herself bait to find and kill anyone who would abuse a young girl. My impression was that she was stumbling upon those folks by accident. I don't know, it seemed a little more deliberate to me, but yeah, it's hard to say it's ambiguous. So Dr. Strange shows up to find out what's up and finds a scared, hungry and very traumatized runaway teenager. Brings her home somewhat by force and after some sandwiches and misunderstandings she agrees to be his apprentice and they are just both spectacularly bad at people and it's delightful. And the dialogue is so good as they're interacting. Iliana at one point asks, Your Earth's Sorcerer Supreme? What a rude word to emphasize. Yes, I am. Wong, we have a lunch gust. What a rude word to emphasize is Wong. And a bit later, as like Dr. Strange is trying to figure out what to do with this child.

32:52Wong, she's feral and she's never had pastrami before. It's such a good mix of terrified of everyone and very protective of herself, Iliana. And highfalutin, but also compassionate Steven, like as he learns bit by bit about what Iliana has been through and just is so sad for her and so protective of her. So this story gives magic, focus and instruction to counteract Blasco's, some of what she had with Storm in her miniseries and beyond that. But most of all, what it gives her that she's never really had in an expo is a protector. So someone who doesn't just throw her straight into another fire and who's strong enough and decent enough to go out and unlimbs for her while keeping her safe physically magically and emotionally. And I like that the story takes the time to breathe to really go into that. There's this one beautiful two-page spread of the two of them training with all kinds of colorful, bizarrely geometric worlds in the background, all of which they're like hovering, facing each other and meditating and training. It's a montage. And one of the things the montage really emphasizes is Iliana developing all of her various skills,

33:54including the one skill that she just can't seem to nail. Remember, Iliana had tons of trouble with creation magic in that original miniseries. Like she kept trying to create an acorn to make a magical tree the way that her mentor Storm did and it just didn't, didn't work. And I like the way this is portrayed. Like she's listing off all of the things she's learning and creation magic just keeps coming up because she keeps trying and failing. And she's just so frustrated eventually and lashes out at Dr. Strange. You don't get it. I was raised to be the ultimate tool for destruction. Of course, I can't create anything. It's because I was built to bring ruin. Why do you bother Strange? I was time trying to reconstruct a vessel made only for evil. No one is this altruistic. At least Blasco's intentions with me were clear, or do you just prefer the company of the little girls? Yes, Iliana, you're right. My intentions are not wholly generous. I am the reigning sorcerer supreme of this world and I am tired.

34:57I want to retire. So let me finally put your mind at ease. I'm training you to be the next sorcerer supreme and it is not a gift, it is a sentence. But it will never happen anyway because evidently you think you're just too damn broken to even do creation magic and you'd prefer to stay that way. And from her anger and hope and all of that, Iliana does something parallel to what she does in the original series and she pulls out a weapon made of her soul. Although in this timeline, it's not a sword. It's a magical staff. And I love the visuals here. There's this panel of her just smiling so happily, so openly, so innocently and genuinely. The first time she has, as she turns around holding her staff to show Stephen. And then sees him suddenly with belasco behind him holding his sword to Stephen's neck. And all of a sudden all of that happiness just shatters. Now at this point, Strange does what a good grown-up does. He basically, he is in control of the situation.

35:58He gives belasco a little chance to prune, then switches it around and basically says, Iliana, you wanna show him some of the destruction magic that you've been honing? And Iliana panics and at that point, Strange basically steps up and is like, okay, yeah, I'll deal with this. And again, the way this is visually portrayed, we could just talk endlessly about the art here. Like, belasco's helpless and Stephen's expectantly waiting for Iliana, but he's totally misjudged this because we see her holding her staff and just looking away, sort of sad and scared. And the next panel is the same panel, but this time she's the tiny, tiny little girl seven or so-year-old version of herself in a baggy dress, in the same pose, but the staff is twice as tall as her. She's just right back where she was. Now finally, Iliana is the one who kills belasco with her new staff. And she's basically killing herself with grief and rage at this point magically. So Strange brings her somewhere where she can safely let it out.

37:01Yeah, just a different dimension that is dying anyway that she can safely destroy in and channel all that energy into. And he's just there, and he listens, and he doesn't tell her not to feel the way she's feeling, but he does tell her to please not die. And then they go home for lunch. And Dr. Strange gives her a brand new fancy sorcerer escape that he's very proud that he put together himself. Well, he, he, he ensorcelled it himself, someone else so did. Well, okay, that's true. He mentions, he mentions that he had it made. So there we go. Iliana's a little more okay. She's finally free of belasco. She's finally created something, even if it was kind of messy and ambiguous and she did end up killing belasco with it. And she's in line willingly and happily to be the next sorcerer supreme. And like that's it. That's the way the issue ends with hope with her arguably in a better place than she ever was in Earth 616. Oh, yeah, way better. What a wonderful, lovely issue. I love the relationship between Strange and Iliana, like they're both flawed, slightly

38:04broken characters, but there's just so much love and trust, hard-earned trust between the two of them here. This is to what extent I can have hopes for and regrets for a fictional, entirely fictional character. Like this is what you would have hoped Iliana had gotten when she came out of of limbo. This is, this feels like the right thing to have happened if something was going to. Yeah. Now in the main Marley universe in Earth 616, Iliana actually will train under Dr. Strange for a while, but that'll be many years later when she's already an adult in Brian Michael Bendis' 2013 run of Uncanny X-Men. As for this story, it'll get a quasi-kind assortous sequel in Leo Williams' Dr. Strange at the end in 2020, although it's sort of ambiguous whether it is, but it's a nice little follow-up to it whether it's directly intended or not. So there you have it. There are three chosen, ex-related issues of what if, and there are so, so many other issues.

39:04So many. I feel like we could do a podcast of just that, maybe someday somebody will, we definitely encourage it. But there you go. The most important thing to remember is that vampires have control of America's atomic arsenal. And with that, you've got questions. An anonymous listener asks on Tumblr, an episode 513, you talked about Cyclops' camping trip with Corsair, and how you would have rather seen the same trip with Cyclops and Cable. That got me thinking, have we seen Nathan, Rachel, or Nate Gray spend quality time with either Grandpa Christopher or Uncle Alex? We have a specifically Rachel, and specifically you can see Alex and Rachel spending some quality time together in X-Men Unlimited Volume 2 No. 11. I don't think I've read that one yet. I looked it up, and it's by Chris Yose, who's writing I generally really like, so I should read that. And later on in Uncanny X-Men, both Rachel and Alex are going to travel with and become Star Jamrs for a while. That is an underrated story. That's around the rise and fall of the Shiar Empire, which would lead into Yalik War

40:05of Kings and stuff. And of course Corsair dies partway through that, but he's around for some of it. And he gets better later. Oh, isn't that the one with the giant beefy Shiar guy with a huge, like, Final Fantasy sword, who's kind of related to the Phoenix, and he hooks up with Rachel for a while? That's at the beginning of that whole saga. Okay. But yeah, it's really good. That, and I think Mike Carey was doing the other X-book at the time, underrated era. Zulsage asks, on Tumblr, why is Wolverine able to climb walls with his claws sharp side down? Surely, if he does that, he'd just cut down through whatever he's climbing and he'd get nowhere. Are there any comics that show him climbing with his claws sideways so the blood parts would give him purchase? Not that I know of. I'm sure they're out there, but that's a hard thing to look up. You know, it's comic book magic, but let's overanalyze this. So we've also seen Wolverine slow his descent when he's falling by clawing into a nearby wall as he falls. So I just assume that he's carefully, subtly twisting and turning his claws as he does.

41:07Kind of like when you're on roller skates and you want to slow down and so you have them be a little bit diagonal in controlled ways, it's probably that. Maybe he has a rubber break on his claws? Oh, maybe he does. Yeah, I think he totally does, actually, or like a little handbrake. It's sort of built into his palms like Spider-Man's web shooters. But also remember that Wolverine's claws were initially drawn as more cylindrical with pointy ends like cat claws and so they didn't even have blades at the time. That would make much more sense for climbing and also that would make much more sense period because as we talked about in the Wolverine movie episode, there's bone underneath. How would it work for metal to make blades over bone if it just pulls over the existing bone? And if it's, you know, too hard to be sharpens. Yeah, but I actually, I think, have the correct explanation, which is that Adamantium is of course a manmade metal derived from Adamantine, the metal of the gods. And we know from a recent Wolverine story that Adamantine is sentient and immensely powerful. So I think Adamantine itself is breaking physics specifically for Logan so he can continue

42:11to survive for long enough for Adamantine to like take him over. Or speaking of taking him over, I think we could also just sum up this entire questions answer by saying, yeah, Romulus did it. I hate this. We're a fully listener supported podcast and certain levels of support come with on air acknowledgement from various fictional characters and concepts. We'll tune the dial today across the multiverse to ZZ105. You're listening to the euphoric hour only on ZZ105. Join us as we mix experimental music with even more experimental pharmaceuticals for a listening experience that's out of this world. Today's trip is brought to you by the Maximus Power Foundation for better living through biochemistry and by the support of listeners like Michael Lee, Adrian and Mika. And with that, J and Miles explain the X-Men is recorded in Forest Hills, New York and Portland, Oregon and produced by Matt Hunter who also arranged our theme music. You can find more of Matt's work at newknifeandtalk.bandcamp.com Two episodes come out most Sundays on Apple podcasts, Spotify and at explainthexmen.com.

43:14Check out explainthexmen.com for visual companions to every episode. Our show is 100% listener supported. If you'd like to help us stand the air and add free, check out the Patreon link at the top of explainthexmen.com. We rely on word of mouth for new listeners to find us. We don't advertise just as we don't run advertising. So if you like the show, please tell a friend and take a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting platform, both really help. Next week we'll be figuring out exactly what makes a mutant. With geneticist, James McCraight.