X-MEN '97 + X-FORCE PT 1

[00:00:28] Hello, welcome back to Comics Are My Happy Place with me, Colin and... Nickity Crick. Nickity Crick, Nick Dayspring Summers as he's called himself on the Zoom which is a lovely little name for you. It looks good as well, Nick Dayspring Summers. Have you thought about changing it, do you think? I quite like it. I think it... and then you know your initials would be like NDS which feels like a sort of legal agreement actually now I've said it out loud. I don't think I'm that keen.

[00:00:56] NDS or a far right group. Nick Dayspring Summers sounds better than Nathan Dayspring Summers actually I think who is of course who you're referencing Cable because every week we talk about our favourite thing comics and we're going back to the 90s. Back to the 90s. Yes. In X-Men 97 special. Three episodes have come out so far. We've seen them all. We probably love them all. Let's find out in a minute.

[00:01:25] Not only are we going to talk about those but in this possibly one-parter, possibly two-parter we're also going to be covering a range of classic 90s characters who we looked at from the X-Men universe. That's Bishop and his gang Randall and Malcolm from Bishop's partners are called Randall and Malcolm. His sister Shard, his arch enemy Fitzroy. We're also going to be talking about X-Force, the original X-Force.

[00:01:55] We're going to talk about Shatterstar and Feral and a bit about Cable and Gideon. Gideon, perhaps the greatest creation of the 1990s. Gideon. Oh my goodness I can't wait to talk about Gideon. So Nick, you saw X-Men 97. First thoughts? You've seen the first series? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, and I assume you loved it. Yeah, fully on board with the first series. Thought it was great. I think it's... Oh my god, it was so good.

[00:02:22] I think it is better even than the 90s series because much as I love the 90s series, there's a slightly creaky element to some of it. Due largely, I'd say, to the budget limitations of the time. But now that you've got time and money to invest in it this time around, it feels like this is a better version of what they were trying to do back then. Yeah, and great as the 90s series was, which I don't think I watched that much as a kid, madly. You wouldn't... I think I was too old, Nick.

[00:02:51] I think I was getting on a bit and I had this weird exodus. Oh, we're also going to be talking about exodus. Here we go. When I had a little time away from the X-Men, which was a strange period in the wilderness. Obviously, I came back because I'm here at 47. Yeah, the old series still had that little bit of He-Man where, you know, the voice actors were limited and would do about eight parts each and stuff like that.

[00:03:17] And I don't know how much they did this, but maybe reusing certain action moments and stuff like that. You know, and there's the whole Wolverine just has to chop trees down and stuff or things that people are stood on because he can't actually stab anyone. Whereas now he seems to stab anyone and everyone he wants to, pretty much. Also, because it came out about the same time as Batman the Animated Series, it wasn't influenced by it.

[00:03:42] So post-Batman the Animated Series, a lot of these action-y, superhero-y, sci-fi type cartoons got simpler and cleaner in their animation. Whereas X-Men still has that slightly over-detailed look to the character design, which makes it harder to animate, which makes some of the animation look not quite as good. Whereas Batman the Animated Series sort of stripped a lot of it back. And then a lot of series post-that had that cleaner, stripped-back look where there were fewer things to animate.

[00:04:11] So it actually makes it look better. Yes, more stylized. So I think X-Men suffers by having a lot of detail in the character design, which means they have to animate that detail every time. So the animation actually ends up not being quite as good as it could. It looks more like someone has just brought a comic book to life or to the screen rather than created their own thing from the comic book. Yeah. One might say. But this first series of X-Men 97 was incredible, I thought. Yeah, loved it.

[00:04:40] So Inferno, I re-watched some of it the other night. I may have been absolutely off my tits. And I was by myself. And I think I stood up at one point during the Inferno episode and said, this is the best thing that has ever been made to myself out loud. It really is incredible. Inferno, if you don't know what that is, it's a clone of Jean Grey.

[00:05:04] Even the way they did the clone of Jean Grey and the baby, as in who becomes Nathan Summers, who becomes Cable, who they send into the future. And there was all that eggy stuff in the 80s around like Scott being horrible to this wife because he realizes she's a clone. Even before he knows she's a clone of Jean Grey, he's just like, you're not Jean Grey because the real Jean Grey comes back. And as you can hear, it's all very complicated. But I like that they've leaned into all that, but somehow taken all the edge off it.

[00:05:34] Yeah. Simplified it. There's a bit where they do like Trish Trilby? Is it Trish Trilby or Trish Tilby? I think it's Trish Trilby, isn't it? I've got it in my head that it's Trish Trilby. Trish Trilby. It's very hard to say, whatever her name is. And she's an old character who is the Beast's girlfriend, who is a reporter.

[00:05:57] And there's one episode where she does this kind of 1990s sort of semi-factual document sort of magazine show type on the X-Men and on the X-Mansion and stuff. And it's at first done in, it's quite funny and twee and 90s. And you sort of get the idea of all the things we, we, we're now far beyond, you know what I mean? That kind of stayed kind of set up. But then Scott Summers just loses it out.

[00:06:25] It's great how Scott, they, they've taken him from being, you know, the stiff upper lip kind of Boy Scout. And then suddenly he just loses it. Yeah, we're all freaks, aren't we? You just want to kill us all. And we, we, we, we sacrifice ourselves and you don't care. It's a great moment. Yeah, sorry. As you could tell, I really enjoyed that series. And then of course the, the bit where they do Grant Morrison's ears for extension. Extensions? He is for erections. He is for extinctions.

[00:06:56] Where famously loads of mutants get wiped out by this big Sentinel. Yeah. But they, they take that idea, but they mix it with other things from the 90s that were shit, but they've somehow made really good. Yeah. Like Bastion and they have Mr. Sinister they've made really good and Morph they've made really good. And the, the actual, the genocidal attack is really upsetting. And the Gambit Rogue Magneto Triangle. Brilliant. Yeah. Oh, so good. Anyway, there you go. That's series one.

[00:07:25] That's the point I was going to make is I think that they've done a really good job of picking comic stories to be influenced by, but not slavishly adapting them. Mixing, mixing different bits together to make something new, familiar to people who know the comics. But also will probably just work as standalone stories if you haven't seen it before.

[00:07:46] So it's, it's cutting out a lot of the thing that you get with X-Men comics where you have to have read sometimes 30 years worth of comics to understand who all these different characters are and how they interact in order for this storyline to make sense. And I think it's cutting through a lot of that, but still giving you a lot of the classic moments that as an X-Men fan you want to see. Yeah. What's interesting as well is because you, because as I'm watching it, I think would someone who doesn't know this be entertained by any of this? Would someone who, and I think the answer is yes, Nick. I mean, not everyone.

[00:08:14] But I know of a few people who are kind of animation fans, game fans, maybe fantasy fans, whatever, but don't, aren't into comics and aren't into X-Men who have got into it and who really enjoyed it. One man even started making his own t-shirts for after watching it, which was obviously I like a, an absolute vulture, like leapted him or a jackal and was just like, I've got loads of graphic novels.

[00:08:42] If you want to borrow them, please read them and we can talk about it. And he was like, I'm all right. Thanks. He just wanted to stick to making his own t-shirts based on the cartoon that he'd seen. That's fair. That's quite a good reaction to something, isn't it? Where you just, you, cause he didn't want to buy t-shirts that had already been made. He wanted to design his own and then get them made. I like that. Yeah. And then wear them. That's, but, but from something you've just watched. I quite like that. That is quite fun, isn't it? Yeah. God bless it.

[00:09:11] I've been thinking of doing that with some, there was some nerdy designs I wanted and I was like, I might just make that myself. Well, I think it's quite satisfying and quite easy to do nowadays, presumably. It's that first series. I think it does make sense. Even the Inferno stuff, which they, they boiled down to one episode, which was in the comics, a sort of year long storyline, wasn't it? Or longer even. And they just kind of nailed it in one episode. And, but made it better even. I thought it was scarier and more, and weirdly made sense.

[00:09:41] I'm not sure where the demons came from. Were they actually demons or were they just in her mind? Because in the original, she actually makes a kind of deal with a Mephisto type character, doesn't she? But I can't remember. It's a little while since I watched the first series and I didn't go back and rewatch the first one. I think it's possibly just in her mind. She creates a limbo world and drops you in it kind of thing. But loads of neat little references like Morph just becomes magic at one point. Yeah. Just because she was in that bit and then turns into dark child magic.

[00:10:10] Which they don't explain, but it's just there. Yeah. For me and you. And millions of other nerds. But you don't need to know that to understand what's going on. It's just a nice little reference. It's just a cool moment. Yeah. Oh, so good. So good. But what did you think of series two? There's only three episodes out so far. First impressions, Nick. Yeah, I'm already loving it again. It's really good. I think it might even be better than the first series, maybe. Oh, really? What do you like that's better?

[00:10:37] I really loved, and I was surprised by this, I really loved the second episode in which they completely repurposed the title sequence for the starring team, which is the ones we're going to talk about today, X-Force. X-Force. So yeah, so the title sequence was completely reanimated to feature the X-Force team and the X-Force logo instead of the regular X-Men one. And I really liked that.

[00:11:02] And I actually thought throughout the episode that they were quite a cool X-Force team. The combination of characters they picked were quite cool. Yeah. So it's Cable. Yeah. It's Jubilee and Sunspot. Archangel and Psylocke. Is that it? There's only five. It's just those ones. So we're going to the full on history of X-Force in a minute. But essentially, the initial X-Force, the only person there is Cable. Yeah.

[00:11:28] Cable sets up this group, X-Force, who are paramilitary wing of the X-Men, who are kind of child soldiers. It's not a very nice idea from the beginning, thinking about it. But then Jubilee, I don't think, was ever an X-Force. And Sunspot was later on. Yeah. But he wasn't in the initial. And then Psylocke and Archangel become a much later X-Force, uncanny X-Force. Yes. A run done by Rick Remender, which is fantastic. Yeah, that's brilliant.

[00:11:59] Do you think we're missing having just Feral and Shatterstar or... No. Warpath or any... No. Having read some of the issues for what we're talking about today, no, I don't think we're missing them at all in the slightest. I think they've done a really good job of trying to turn the concept of X-Force into something actually watchable, which is hard work, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about it.

[00:12:26] I was thinking the only way you could do it now is what they did in Deadpool 2, which, as you know, I'm not the biggest Deadpool fan, but that was a funny idea, which actually they were referencing ecstatics, weren't they? Yeah. They were referencing that idea of like, a whole team is all set up. We're X-Force. We go into battle and then everyone gets killed except Deadpool. But that had Shatterstar in it, didn't it? Yes. I think it was the only one. And I don't... I think...

[00:12:52] I was thinking if you put Shatterstar and Feral in it, for example, you'd just have to kill them, wouldn't you? Yeah. They'd just... They'd be there as collateral and a joke. Yeah. They're cannon fodder. Because they're such naff characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And always have been, bless them. I'm surprised as well that I'm quite enjoying... In the comics, I get a little bit tired of Apocalypse sometimes. I think he gets a bit overused. But I'm quite enjoying them using him across the different time zones in this series.

[00:13:19] So having the kind of future Apocalypse and his origin back in the past and using that as the kind of framework for this first set of episodes and splitting the teams up so they're doing slightly different things. Because it's letting them cover a few different bits and pieces at the same time. So we start in the future. Yeah. Because at the end of the last series, the X-Men got zapped, seemingly killed. But actually they were sent... Half of them were sent to the future. Half of them were sent to the past.

[00:13:49] And we start in the future and it's very much... I'm afraid it's very much the future of Cables comics though, isn't it? Of that clan chosen... Strife. No Strife. No. I think Strife would have been worth putting in. I don't think they had to do the big stupid suit of armour that would cut you to pieces if you actually wore it. But I think an evil Nathan, I was hoping they would flip, put that in there somewhere. They might still. There's still time for them to bring that in.

[00:14:17] I don't think he was ever in the old cartoon. I don't know. I was trying to remember. But they did do the sort of... What was it called? The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. Which was a miniseries that was not particularly interesting back in the day, I think. Where Cyclops and Jean Grey finally go to the future and help bring up Nathan. I just find that all the designs in that... I think they did as good a job as they could, but it's just all boring. Don't you think?

[00:14:44] As soon as you go in the desert, there's something about... In fact, the past ones set in the desert as well. But that's kind of ancient Egypt desert. That's fine. But futuristic Mad Max-y deserts with nomadic tribes. Mad Max is obviously incredible. But Mad Max is incredible because they're using bits of stuff from the present. Like cars and trucks and boomerangs or whatever. Whereas this just...

[00:15:10] From the original Cable comics, I just think it's all quite boring. And I don't... I didn't feel they really got past that. Okay. In this episode. If I'm honest. I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to because I felt in the animated version, there was a better sense of Jean and Scott getting to spend some time with young Nathan and forming a connection with him, which I don't think really came across that much

[00:15:38] in the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix miniseries. That miniseries always felt like, here's a miniseries to fill in a gap and also to say, actually, Scott did actually bring him up a bit. So he got to be a dad to him without Cable realising it. Okay, fine. It's very confusing. I find generally time travel characters quite eggy and unpleasant. Yeah.

[00:16:03] Especially the fact that Cable is normally like 60 and his dad is 40 or 30, whatever. It's just kind of... But that would just be so weird. It's like Mork and Mindy. Yeah. That's what I always think of. Cable's basically the baby from Mork and Mindy. Yeah. It's just something about deserts and nomadic type clothes. I don't know. It doesn't quite land on me. But it was still fun. It was weird how it was like over straight away as well. Yeah. They just kind of like beat Apocalypse.

[00:16:32] Which I think is good because that's the pace at which it moves, isn't it? The cartoon doesn't dick around. If that was a mega epic X-Men story, it would be like at least 12 issues or something, wouldn't it? Yeah. And it would just repeat as they always do. Always the problem with comics generally, bad comics, is that they just get captured, then they escape, then they get captured, then they escape. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And just fight the big bad about three or four times. Whereas this, they've just done it in one episode. Yeah.

[00:17:01] And at first I was like, oh, is that it? But I was like, no, that's good. That's a good idea. And it had the Horsemen from Rick Remender's run as well. Yes. Minotaur guy. And Death is a sort of Civil War drummer. Yeah. Which is weird that he's in 37 AD or whatever. 37, 37, 86 AD or whatever. Yeah. Why there'd be a Civil War drummer. I don't know. But my daughter found that very funny that he drums Death or something. I like that they're still embracing some of the weirder aspects of the comic.

[00:17:31] They're not like shining away from characters that you might think, actually, is this a bit odd to put on screen? I like the fact they've just gone, yeah, no, that's weird. Put that in there. Yeah. And haven't bothered to explain it either. Yeah. Or like there's a character called Ozymandias who's kind of sultan made of sand or something. Yeah. He wears a turban with a jewel, but I'm not, I mean, I'm not sure how culturally accurate he is. No.

[00:17:59] But he's a 90s servant to a pot. I think he's meant to be the Ozymandias from the Shelley poem. Yes. Which is a weird decision. I felt like in the comic he was made of stone or am I just getting that mixed up? Same here. Yeah, it's more that the end of the issue of the episode, he kind of vanishes by turning into sand and going through the air vents. Yeah. You see like Fien as in Rachel Summers, his mother Ascani is the old one in the future and it's her who's brought them through time. Yes.

[00:18:26] Although they don't specifically at this point say that she's Rachel Summers. So maybe that's a reveal they're holding onto for later. Yeah. Was she ever in the old series, Rachel Summers? I don't know if she was. I was trying to remember that as well. I don't think so, but I could be wrong. The problem with all like Bishop and Cable and Rachel Summers who are all like time traveling characters is it's, they all come out of like good stories. Yeah. Well, maybe not Cable, but you know, or Bishop saying that, but like at the time they're

[00:18:55] an exciting idea. Yeah. It's probably, there's some kind of story. The only real good one is Rachel Summers who comes with Days of Future Past. Yeah. And it's kind of exciting and it's a cool idea, but then they just join the team and then after about 10 years, they're just hanging around. But it's like, no, this person's from the future. Like it would, you can't just have them like hanging out and then just, they join Excalibur for a bit. And then they join the new mutants, whatever for a bit. And it's like, and they sort of just become another generic ex person. Yeah.

[00:19:26] It was very obvious in that first Days of Future Past one that that was meant to be the future that they were heading towards. And then when they decided to keep Rachel around, they've obviously thought I will have to make it that all of these futures are possible alternate futures because then we're not trapped by having to somehow engineer the story to meet that future at some point. Yes. Well, same with Bishop. I was like looking at Bishop and I was like, what future is he from?

[00:19:54] Like, is he just, he's like sort of from the Days of Future Past, but a bit before it or a bit after it? Yeah. And also not really. I think it's another version of Days of Future Past. So I think whatever they did to stop Days of Future Past coming about worked, but then still something else happens to make a similar future happen. This is the thing with all the future stuff. It's all a little bit unclear and vague because I guess because the writers don't want to define it that much so that you're not then beholden to having to do that.

[00:20:25] But equally, you still want to try and make it clear what they've come from and what they're trying to avoid. Yes. It's like the most annoying, weird characters, but they've all come from the best storylines. It's, it's, it's, we're starting with Days of Future Past is still the, probably the best X-Men comic ever. Right. Yeah. And it's so good. I also think just Chris Claremont enjoyed like mucking things up. Yeah. And then making it complicated for later writers and she didn't care.

[00:20:53] He just kept adding and adding and adding. But his idea was apparently he wanted them to all grow old and be replaced. He didn't think we should just live forever. He wanted them to retire and then new people come in and just keeps going like real life. But obviously the comic books won't let you do that. No. The comic book aging is such a weird thing anyway, because obviously the characters have aged since they first appeared, but only to a certain degree.

[00:21:20] And there's only so much more that will allow them to age before they become, you know, before they have to start thinking about retiring. Yeah. I know Beast has hit 40, hasn't he? Right. Famously. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think possibly older. Yeah. Now. I don't know. I definitely have. It's just funny. These, these future characters, aren't they? But I was thinking also like Chris Claremont liked to do all that stuff, but then also actually talking about Cable and Bishop, they are just like watered down ideas of Chris Claremont's

[00:21:49] ideas, aren't they really? They, he didn't create those. They're just kind of like a bad version of what he did well. No. I don't think about it. So people just kept adding more future characters. Imagine what it would be like to just have a mate who was from the future. Just go like, just sit in the pub and every now and again go, hang on, you're from the future, aren't you? It must be very hard to just live your life. That's the thing I would never really liked with Bishop in particular.

[00:22:16] I quite quickly Storm's just like talking to him like he's just a mate. Yeah. And like giving him advice and, and you'd just be like, fuck off. You're from the future. This is too weird. Sorry. But she's like within about two pages, just giving him sort of life advice and reminding him, you know, about believing in yourself or whatever, or, or daring to dream and all that stuff. And it's like, no, he's from the future. This will just split your brain. You wouldn't be able to cope with this idea.

[00:22:46] I don't think. She is Storm, to be fair. Oh yeah. I mean, Storm would be able to cope with it. Fair. I'll give Storm a pass on that one. Storm can do anything. But I think I wouldn't cope with being the traveler back to the past because I have got like a terrible memory. So I wouldn't know what I'd be constantly telling people things that had happened in the future without realizing it, because I just wouldn't remember when things had happened. You know, I'm still convinced 2006 is only about five years ago. Oh God. Yeah.

[00:23:14] And you'd still, you want to be like back to the future and work out all the football scores or whatever and make loads of money, but you just forget everything. Like, what was that thing? I mean, actually, did you see a series called Dark on Netflix? Oh yeah. That was brilliant. Have you seen it all? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the third series goes a bit mad, doesn't it? But it's quite X-Men-y. The one thing I really didn't like about it was how they kept referencing The Matrix. I thought that was a little beneath the subject matter. They kept going, it's a glitch in The Matrix. It's like, don't reference The Matrix.

[00:23:44] This is better than that. But I thought generally it was really good. I really liked it. And I like the idea that they've gone, if you went back in time, you would just be considered a maniac and locked up. Yeah. Or that idea that, you know, I mean, this is a spoiler, but like the kid who's gone missing. This is kind of the first big thing that happened. So it's not really spoiling it too much, but that it starts with the kid going missing, but actually he's gone back in time. Yeah.

[00:24:11] And he's lived his whole life and they know him now, but he's older. Yeah. That's such a weird idea. Because once he gets back to 1980, it's not, they don't have time machines or anything. It's just like, you just accidentally went back in time. Yeah. And then it's like, well, now I'm just stuck. So I've just got to live my whole life. Yeah. I really liked it. I thought it was really good. Well, this is the sort of stuff the X-Men time stuff doesn't do. And I feel like, I mean, it's probably not going to, is it really?

[00:24:40] Because they're just sort of people with guns shouting. Well, also it can't because X-Men aren't a finite story. They have to keep going. So you can't do that kind of loop thing where you tie it all up nicely to say, oh, well, here's where we went back to the past from the future. And then it all comes back to the future again and ties up because you've got to keep churning out more X-Men stories. So you can't ever have that kind of finite loop to say, oh, it's all tied up neatly in a bow. So I guess you're constantly sort of rebooting and stuff as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

[00:25:10] Well, so as you say, X-Force feature heavily in this first part. Maybe we'll talk about the Apocalypse One and whatever comes out on Wednesday next time. Yeah. But should we jump into X-Force? Should we talk about X-Force? Yeah, let's do it. I mean, they are the most 90s of 90 things ever. They really are. I mean, one thing to point out is generally read along with us. If you look on the blurb here, the bump, you'll see all the comics that we read.

[00:25:39] I made Nick read a lot of comics and we read them quite quickly, didn't we? If I'm not. But the good thing about these comics, you can read them in about three seconds. In fact, the first thing I've written here with X-Force number one is it's a lot more fun if you skip the words. Oh, there's a lot of words. There's a lot of words in X-Force number one. They like the words. He really likes the words in X-Force number one. There's no point to any of the words. Oh, no. To almost any of the words.

[00:26:08] So I first became aware of X-Force when I was in Canada, 12 years old, staying with my cousin Sean. And there was actually an advert on TV, a Levi Jeans advert, where Rob Liefeld was on it talking about X-Force, somehow related to Levi Jeans. That's a weird product placement crossover. Yeah. Yeah. But they were like, you're the creator of X-Force. And he was like, yes, I am. And I wear these jeans. But it was, I think it was just as they'd come out. Right.

[00:26:38] So it was so famous. I think it was the biggest selling comic of all time. Yeah. And then it was a clip by X-Men, which was Jim Lee's, which was like a rebooted X-Men that Jim Lee did. But if you don't know, basically there were a load of these superstar artists at Marvel. Gradually, the writers kind of got shifted out and pushed to one side to let these artists take over. I'm not sure why that happened as such, but it was just the editorial drive.

[00:27:06] They were kind of the punks, the new kids on the block, weren't they? Yeah. And they're generally now considered quite bad artists, I think, most of them. Jim Lee was the one who really was exciting, I think, wasn't he? He'd already done like 50 issues of X-Men or something with Chris Claremont. Yes. Yeah. He'd done a fair chunk by this point. And they were good. They're off their time, but they are cool.

[00:27:31] I have to say, I struggle with both Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld's artwork. I'm not a fan. I just find both of them a style that's really hard to look at. And I'm not meaning that in a disrespectful, I don't mean to say they're bad. It's just, it's definitely a personal taste thing. I just, there's something about it I just don't like looking at. And I think particularly with Rob Liefeld's, it's just so muscular. Everything is muscles.

[00:28:00] And I just find it really hard. In some of the panels, I find it really hard to work out what's going on because it's just lots of muscular bodies flinging themselves around. But also the bodies don't quite make sense. They almost look a bit like those, you know, those medieval drawings of a man whose face is in his head, his body. Yeah. He's got a face in a torso and no head sort of thing. Some of them look like, there's right at the start, there's one where Cable's jumping. And it's almost like his legs, his knees are up around his ears or something. Yeah.

[00:28:30] Also the idea of jumping with all those guns and shoulder pads and straps and bullets, just sort of propelling yourself through the air. Whee! Like, it's just so ridiculous, isn't it? Yeah. I think Will Portacio, who did the Bishop ones, even worse. And I think there's one thing I noted, he doesn't do any backgrounds. You literally have no concept of space and time. And I think Rob Liefeld's kind of the same. You just don't know where you are at any point, do you? No. I'm sort of skimming through.

[00:29:00] Maybe a little thing that says, like, the Arendac Mountains secret base or something like that. Yeah. But generally you've got no concept of what's happening, where it's happening or when it's happening. There's just a sort of portentousness. There's a real portentousness to the way it's written as well. Yeah. It just feels full of like... What does portentousness mean again, please? It sort of means it's like full of ominousness and trying to create a sense of like doom. Menace.

[00:29:29] The opening narration to X-Force 1 is, Seven silent figures stand motionless, brooding alone with their thoughts, and the weight of the road they have chosen to follow, once they were children delighting in a dream. Now they are soldiers fighting for the freedom of their kind. It's just a sort of overly, overly serious attempt to be kind of sort of slightly deep and meaningful.

[00:29:59] In an ominous and threatening way that just sounds vaguely ridiculous. They're also, they're mainly the new mutants or at least, well, Cannonball is. Is it just Cannonball? Is he the only one who? Boom, boom. But she was a later new mutants. Boom, boom. Wasn't, was Warpath one of the new mutants? No, he wasn't. He was one of the Helions or Hellions. Yeah. But yeah, there's something quite grim about it, isn't it? The idea of like, oh, what if we turn the teenage team into soldiers? Yeah.

[00:30:28] And have this old man with a gun teach them how to do it. And they're quite violent from the off as well. They're pretty, they're pretty vicious. Yeah. Shatterstar chops off Reaper's hands. I noticed that. They're also very unpleasant to each other. Like, Feral's always like just stabbing one of them randomly. Yeah. I think the main problem is they're all Wolverine. Apart from Cannonball, they're basically all Wolverine. So it's just a team of Wolverines.

[00:30:53] And what they often seem to do is they fight another team of four or five sort of similar looking mutants. So that seems to be like X-Force's MO in these first few issues that I read is they go up against another four or five who look kind of like them in slightly similar costumes. And I just all find it a little bit interchangeable. Yeah. They do look like toys as well, don't they? This is, this really is when people think comics are for children and they are.

[00:31:23] I mean, in this case, obviously. But when people are just like, what, you read comics? Seriously. This is. Yeah. This is what they're thinking of. This kind of thing. Yeah. A hundred percent. X-Force is the one where you're like, they're not all like this. Honest. Yeah. That said, it does have the incredible forearm. A man with four arms. It does have forearm. I did like that. It's good to see forearm. It does have forearm. And Sumo. Is Sumo there? Or maybe not Sumo. But Thumbelina, who's just a, think a small woman.

[00:31:51] I like the fact that forearm is spelt F-O-R-E-A-R-M as in like to be prepared. I like the idea of him not actually having forearms. He just turns up and every time they're about to do something, he just keeps going, yeah, I knew you were going to do that. Oh, you've given it more benefit of the doubt than we did when I talked about it. I think with Dave Reed on this like last year or something, because I thought it just meant like the forearm, like the part of your arm that's the forearm. But I didn't realize it meant he's forearmed. Oh, that's very clever.

[00:32:21] As in he's ready. Okay. Maybe this guy was a genius after all. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. I would have preferred it if that's the character who was. He just, every time they go to hit him, he's like, yeah, I thought you were going to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I knew you. I knew you were going to take out the gun. But he doesn't, he doesn't defend himself. Oh, no, no. He just knows that's what they're going to do. He's just like, oh, here we go. He's just a bit bitter and like assumes the worst. He's just glass half full man. It is very violent, but kind of neutered violence.

[00:32:50] It's like the equivalent of like when, you know, when sex scenes are really sexless. Yeah. Does that make sense? That none of the violence really lands because you can't really tell what's happening. Apart from Reaper getting his hands chopped off. That was pretty violent, to be fair. Although Feral, during like a training exercise, Feral does slash cannibals guts open, which feels a little bit much. I kind of like Feral. She's a cat woman. That's about it though, isn't it? She's very much from the streets. It's...

[00:33:19] I realised, this is what I was saying earlier. I realised that I didn't actually know who Feral was. I had been getting Feral mixed up with Rain, Wolfsbane. Oh. What, when were you getting it? When was this? When were you getting mixed up with it? Oh, just when I started reading the issue just now, I assumed they were the same character and I suddenly realised that Feral wasn't Wolfsbane. She's an orange Wolfsbane. Yeah. She's... What's that kind of cat is that? Where there's sort of ginger and white? Calico? Is that the name they use?

[00:33:49] A calico cat is what Feral is. I did read the end of New Mutants series because it finished on 100 and that was when all those guys came in and Cable was just like, these guys are joining now, you lot can sod off kind of thing. And all the New Mutants left. It's like, oh no. These horrible people have moved into the house. It would be pretty upsetting. Which is kind of what ecstatics does to X-Force further down the line. That's true. That's true. Other things about Rob Liefield's art.

[00:34:19] I feel like Rob Liefield's art has been talked about a lot. So I don't want to bang on. You know, people talk about him having, can't draw feet. Have you seen this? He'll often draw people stood behind people because he can't draw feet properly. I'm having a look through one of the issues now. He does, he draws quite small feet. Yeah. He famously often covers the feet because he can't do them. Yeah. We can't get the proportion right. They're quite small and pointy. But also legs, I think. I think he can't draw feet, legs or people.

[00:34:48] That's what I've written down. There's a bit where Cable's like kneeling on one leg and it looks like his, the leg that's kneeling has been stuck on him. Yes. I know exactly the image you mean. It doesn't look like that. Or there's three people next to him, but you can only see their legs. It's very confusing. Also, why does he always do that thing? Two things he always does is give them like black eyes. I don't mean like black eyes waving punch, but like where, I guess again, it's that ominous

[00:35:17] portentous thing, like you say, where just their eyes have gone completely black. Like he's just sort of covered in, coloured in that part. I mean, it's kind of a stylistic choice. A little white pin brick in there for the pupil sort of thing. Yeah. But it's not just like Cable and stuff like anyone can do that at any point. Yeah. I guess in a way it's just like a manga decision, isn't it? That that symbolises someone being dark. He also gives them all receding hairlines. Have you noticed that?

[00:35:46] Which is okay with Cable because he's meant to be old. But there's a guy called Garrison Kane I'd like to talk about. Did you get to that in X-Force 2? Yeah. I didn't really get a sense of who he was apart from part of the Weapon X program, maybe. Yes. Garrison Kane is meant to be the deadliest mutant of them all. Like he's the assassin who can beat anyone. He is the new Weapon X who used to be Wolverine. Rather than Wolverine's deadly claws and metal skeleton,

[00:36:14] he has sort of metal arms that can shoot his fists. So his fists can shoot out and grab you and try and strangle you. And that makes him deadly. I thought that was particularly stupid. But he's got the sort of badly receding hairline. He's meant to be very young. Because at one point he says something about someone being ancient. What are they like 36 or something? Yeah. Something brutal like that, you know. He draws most people with like that widow's peak hairline.

[00:36:41] So where your hair comes to a V in the front, but with the really deep bits that make it look receding. But also a curly widow's peak. Yeah. Sort of a curly widow's peak. Garrison Kane's a very weird character that I really think Rob Liefeld thought would take off. I mean, to be fair, that's one issue where I actually enjoy Deadpool because at least he's not Garrison Kane. Yeah. But he kept trying to get Garrison Kane going for a couple of years, I think. Really? People were like, we're not interested in a man whose fists shoot off.

[00:37:11] I mean, that really is a toy, isn't it? He just looks a little bit like Colossus, but not a lot. So he's got silver arms like Colossus, but that's it. Like the rest of him is just sort of normal. So it's just quite a boring look. Yeah. When he takes his top off, the metal goes about as far as his nipples as well. Right. So it's kind of arms and ribs. I guess. And lungs are metal, but the rest is human. And that happened in an accident. What accident was that? Yeah.

[00:37:40] What accident takes away two sides? Maybe if you were stood between two trucks, like in Plains, Trains and Automobiles. But somehow it just shaved off the sides of your torso. That concludes part one of our look at X-Men 97 and X-Force. Come back next week for the second part. So in the meantime, it's a to-be-continued shuffling from me.

[00:38:13] Thank you for listening to Comics Are My Happy Place. If you have enjoyed this podcast, there are many ways you can support us You can follow us on Instagram at Comics Are My Happy Place. You can drop us an email at comicsaremyhappyplace at gmail.com And if you've got anything funny or interesting to say, we'll read it out on the podcast. But the best way to support us is to go to our Patreon, patreon.com slash comicsaremyhappyplace

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[00:39:02] Comics Are My Happy Place

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