Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Welcome, fellow Flat Scans to Dear Watchers in Omniversal comic book podcast, where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds that make up an omniverse of fictional realities we all, uh, love. And your watchers on this journey are me, the not offensive, because Flat Scans is an offensive term for humans ensabagido.

And me, the All Imperial High Lord. Or if you'd rather just rob rob.

The offensive using these bad words about humans.

Mhm I'm just up here in Heaven, all in my powerful enclave, looking down on you humans.

Ah heaven. The nightclub. I don't know that people are going to know that reference quite right out.

The gate, but we'll get to it in just a second. But before we start today's trip, what's new with us, Guido, in our little section of the multiverse?

Well, this is unusual for us. You and I don't usually talk about current events in our What's New? We talk about the show and other stuff that's happening. But I felt the need to say, we just saw Barbie, and I think we need to talk for a moment about it, because I won't spoil anything, but I think its storytelling fits so well into the type of stories you and I mhm explore and talk about and like on this show. So if people are listening and are on the fence, I think it's very meta and it's very multilayered and it's really fascinating, even a little multiversal, I'd say.

I think multiversal definitely I think it definitely fits into that.

So I think people should see it. We both absolutely loved it. People should see it.

Mhm yes, agreed.

And this is a rare multi part episode, and we'll explain more of how that's going to work. It's our biggest episode, our biggest read ever.

Tell me about it a few parts.

And as the episode progresses, we'll talk about what those multiple parts will be and how we're structuring this. And that's not all that's multi part. Our giveaways this summer have been multi part, and we have two more giveaways left this summer, so you've got to keep listening. One is our biggest giveaway ever, with tons of elseworld's multiverse what if comics. And then one might be our best with all these signed books we have to give away. Keep listening, Dear Watchers, because we've got more coming.

And if you are listening, for the first time, we have three parts of our journey today through the multiverse origins of the story, exploring multiversity, and pondering possibilities. Thanks for joining on today's journey.

And remember, leave us a review. Wherever you're listening, reply to us on social media. We love to hear from you.

And with that, fellow mutants, welcome to episode 107, and let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe.

You missed the chance to call us h*** superiors.

That's implied. And today we head to one of the most famous alternate universes ever.

Uh uh.

To find out the answer to the question, what if Legion killed Professor Xavier in the past, triggering the Age of Apocalypse?

Yes, this alternate Earth is massive Earth two nine five, so numbered for the COVID date of its debut. It's known as the age of Apocalypse. And in addition to the massive backstory that we are going to chip away at and having this huge debut event, this Earth has actually been revisited countless, numerous times. I'd suggest it's probably actually the third most well developed Marvel Universe after the 6116 and the Ultimate Universe 1610. I think it's probably the Age of Apocalypse. And in terms of our coverage of X Universes, we've covered a bunch of X books. But the most relevant to this episode and this story are what if Sinister formed the X Men, which we covered in May 2022, episode 47, and what if Magneto and Xavier formed the X Men together, which was way back on episode 21 from November 2021. We covered that with Elliot. So I think we're going to do lots of history and background before we get into the main event.

Yes. Okay, so picture it. America 1994 X Men comics in 1991 set the record for the biggest selling comic, one that has not yet been broken. And we are talking biggest selling and we are talking American comics because manga is wildly larger. Like 500 times larger.

Yeah, when you look at those numbers, it's just bananas. Like, we think we have big comics, but my gosh, I was looking at sales numbers for this, and nothing compares.

Well, DC certainly doesn't compare because DC's top selling comic of the modern age barely hit three quarters of a million issues. So even when they talk about the golden age and a million issues a month of Superman and such, that is an estimate and is also across something, sometimes multiple titles and issues.

Here's where we're going.

Yes. Either way, that million number is a slim fraction of 1990. One's X Men number one, with over 8 million full caps issues printed and sold.

Yeah, sold might be much less, but you can't really assess sold. They're still sitting in people's dollar bins, or they're sitting in someone who has a box of them thinking that they're going to be worth something. But of course, the reason this issue is not worth a lot is of it printed.

Word to the speculators out there, it's an astounding number.

And so you can see why it's never even come close to being beaten.

And also, kind of speaking of astounding, there were of course, already sometimes four, five, even six ongoing X titles happening at once. And that was true throughout this era with one shots and miniseries to complement a core of four, up to even seven ongoing series. That is really Age of X. Yeah, they really should have put ten out at a time just to kind of go with the whole x number.

Roman numeral x. Yeah, that would have been quite fun. But no, they never did that marketing ploy.

Well, these x titles were a big deal. And also x men were hitting more mainstream culture than other marvel was at the time, which is hard to think of today when marvel's everywhere. We kind of had just batman that was kind of in the film universes, but nothing else, really. But x men was really hitting at home with merchandising. And of course, the animated series debuting in 1992. These were really blowing up. Everyone's talking about mutants making this incredibly visible, very well known to a level that's not really ever been matched again for various reasons.

Yeah, maybe when the x men m movie finally gets announced, we'll hit a moment like those early 90s heydays, but.

I don't know, 8 million titles sold, again, of a comic. Not that one, I don't think.

Coming of age in that era. Uh, gosh, I don't see it ever happening again.

But it was we missed Batmania, uh, in 89, kind of. So this was your Batman, but this.

Is better to me. So getting into a little more context to get us to age of apocalypse, a little context on events in comics at this point. We have talked in some smaller ways about stuff like secret wars at marvel in 1984, and crisis on infinite earth at DC in 1987, because those are considered some of the original event books, meaning a crossover that has a miniseries title or a standalone and then spreads off into other books and titles. And secret, uh, wars had about 40 books, if you count the unimportant books you didn't need to read, but where the characters were kidnapped from and then placed back and had a twelve issue main title. Crisis was a little bigger, had about 60 books. It's of course, a reboot of all of DC's continuity. So if you count the books being canceled and ending, and then the new beginnings, you get about 60 books and twelve main titles. So that's just giving you a sense of scale of some of these big events. X men crossovers, meanwhile, start in the 80s with mutant massacre, follow the mutants, and it's so successful, they just keep going. So we have inferno, and then into 1990, we have extinction agenda, mere island saga, fatal attractions, executioner song, and the phalanx covenant. And all of that is what leads us to our event today. Sometimes they get to an event a year, more or less, crossing over into most, if not all of the x books at the time.

It feels like it's like RuPaul's drag race now. There's just always an event happening. You can always tune in somewhere.

It's true. It is true. Well, what's interesting, actually, when we were prepping this episode, you and I were talking about like line wide and company wide crossovers and so even though Secret Wars and Crisis were big company wide crossovers, that really didn't persist. All these X crossovers until the year after AOA, actually. Age of Apocalypse is so popular that they do a company wide with onslaught the next year. But otherwise these stay limited to the line that they're a part of.

So let's talk a little bit about the background on the creation of the event itself because I know there's also some false information out there.

So we'll try to well, it's unclear. There's lots of differing memories, which I think happens when you have people reflecting on something from 20 or 30 and.

When you have 1215 writers, artists working on these, a lot of people memories might be different.

Age of apocalypse.

Yeah. So apparently the event started between Bob Harris, the ex titles group editor at the time, scott Lobedell and Fabian Nitzieza, thanks to a few sources, especially the 2019 25th anniversary oral history that Sci-fi did we have some more information about the creation. So apparently Bob told Scott to work on an idea where Jubilee shows up to the mansion and didn't know any of the people claiming to be X Men. Scott added to the idea that in fact they were X Men and they decided that going back in time to kill Professor X would be a way to get to this alternate timeline. It started out as just an uncanny X Men multipart like days of Future past, but quickly grew into a crossover. Harris had a slightly different recollection years earlier in the pages of wizard when he said he was breaking stories for the X Men TV show and they wanted a Bishop story, but they had already done time travel, so they suggested this instead. And we'll actually discuss those animated episodes in part two of our Age of Apocalypse coverage.

Yes, they're important in the generation of this story.

M and Mark Wade adds a bit of flourish to the kickoff event Legion Quest, which we will get into very shortly. And of course, they revise the character who remembers from Jubilee to Bishop, which makes a lot more sense because Bishop is a time traveler. Maybe Jubilee was just super popular at the time. So they were like, it's going to be Jubilee.

Well, they thought like the young character would be fun. She was at that time the youngest, newest mhm yeah.

So they tell the marketing team that they are going to market the event by get this, canceling all the books.

And the marketing one story. It's just like they're chatting on the phone and I think Bob is on the phone with marketing and covers the thing and Scott yells out, just tell them we'll cancel all the books. And it just became this thing.

Well, the marketing team gets very excited about that, probably because they didn't have to do much work because they knew this was going to get a lot of press I would imagine, no matter what. And the promo comes out saying, X Men the end with Xavier's wheelchair and a bullet. Wizard cleverly dubbed it Crisis on Infinite X Earths. Though Fabian Nicieza, uh, preferred not to be compared to Zero Hour or Crisis because those were reboots of all continuity. And this was a story, in his words.

Yeah. And those promos gosh, I remember them well, uh, saying that things were getting canceled because what was happening was that they announced that all of the X books were going to be canceled, though the press at the time did include that they were becoming these new books and it was part of this event. So there are all these stories about fans being outraged and Generation X had just started.

It was only outraged.

It was only a few issues in. But there's stories before the event even starts in old issues of wizard that they're in the press talking about. Legion Quest talking about this event, how there would be bookends that it would be a four month long event. So I think some of that's a bit apocryphal. But I do remember having been alive at the time. I do remember being surprised and thinking, oh my god, they're rebooting these. Because we didn't have the it wasn't the era of annual reboots of titles that we've been in the last 20 years. So they would bookend the crossover with Alpha and Omega and use four months to tell the story through rebranded new books. They end up hashing out the story details at a summit that Howard Mackie joins. And this includes what new characters they want to introduce or create, how to redesign the existing characters, and what creative teams to bring in, which almost all are the creative teams of the existing books that get switched over. So you get a lot of people, a lot of impressive names on there because they're the people who are writing the titles and would continue writing the titles after the event. The core event was over 40 books. That's not counting the preceding story, Legion Quest, that we are going to cover in just a moment.

This is why we're doing this during the summer when we have a lot more time to read.

And numerous follow ups, for sure. So sales are wild. So there's some stories that books so books at the time were selling, especially X books were still selling, like sometimes half a million books an issue, which is just crazy. If you think about today. Today you get some comics that sell 10,000 an issue. And if books fell below 100,000 at the time, that was generally when they were in the realm of cancellation. Sidebar. Today, a book that sells 100,000 is like in the top three.

Yeah, it's like TV too. When you hear how many people watch Mash, it's like, uh, exactly.

But what happened was some of those titles that were selling like 100,000 when they became the Age of Apocalypse. Books went up to the 400,000, 500,000. So the event was just huge, massive, massive success. And we will continue to give some history over the course of our episodes and our conversations, including changes they made to the story, the impact and legacy, of course, the numerous sequels and other variations. There are video games inspired by this. There are The Animated Series. And totally coincidentally, just within the last 24 hours, marvel at San Diego Comic Con July 2023 has posted a teaser logo that has the AOA X Men logo saying who are the new X Men? So there is something going on that's going to call back to this and we are going to explore all of that over the course of our coverage in these three episodes.

So that is the general background on Age of Apocalypse. But let's talk about our background on this event. Guido, you've mentioned a few times that you were really following this as it was coming out. So what was your background?

I mean, this could not hit at a better time, right? I'm 13 years old. I have been reading comics for a few years at this point. I guess I had enough of my own allowance money or whatever. But I was definitely going to the comic store every single week. And so when this happened, I remember everything about it quite well. And I don't have the best memory for stuff like this in my childhood, but I remember the promo. I remember consuming all the articles in wizard and I loved it. I absolutely loved the event. I read every single issue of the event. I continued to reread the event. I used to love stuff like this. And then the next year onslaught even more. I would gather all my single issues and I would try to put them in order. And then I would carry around this pile of 40 books in order and I'd try to see what the right order was. Because of course the internet is really nascent at this point. There are like web forums starting to spring up. But it took like accessing 2 hours.

For that forum to load. And then your sister would knock you off when she had a phone call.

No, we had a separate line. The party line or whatever. No, the party line is when you share it. We had the teen line or whatever. Um, so yeah, I used to try to figure out what order they go in based on the sequence of events. I don't want to get too much into my opinion of it though I will reflect on why it meant so much to me at the time. Here is that it was probably one of the first big complex things that I could consume. I imagine it's what other people and of course it is like 7th grade or whatever. So it's probably when other people consume Lord of the rings at that age. Ah, imprint on them. I think it was probably the same thing. It just imprinted on me because it was suddenly this entire world that I could try to figure out the pieces of and the characters and how they fit together. And even, like, maps, the world is different, so you had to figure out how everything flowed. So I just absolutely loved it then and again, I've reread it. I've reread the whole thing start to finish, at least half a dozen times. Probably more, if I count just casual reading back in the 90s.

Well, that's a great analogy with Lord of the Rings because you're jumping back and forth through all these stories and the world building, which we're of course going to get to. And even the order is interesting because you gave me the order to read these in, and a few times I'm reading and going, wait, did he tell me the wrong order? Because so many times you're like, jumping right into the story. Is this the actual order?

Well, and it's imperfect. Like I used to know at this time, it's the triangle era of numbering Superman where they put triangle numbers on all the Superman titles so that you had the precise order you should be reading them in. And X Men didn't work quite that way. And I think it's fine because you'd have stuff happening parallel or in between the books. So even though there is roughly an order you could read this in, it's imperfect. Something is going to happen in X Man number one that if you read that after amazing X Men number one, you get spoiled a little bit on that. But it's impossible with such layered storytelling. Anyway, you what is your background with Age of Apocalypse?

Well, as you might have gleaned from what I was just saying too, this is the first time I'm ever reading this event.

You even told me when we were prepping, something shocking to me.

Yeah. That I wasn't even really sure what it was about.

You didn't know how it kicked off?

No, none of those things. Well, in my head, I think I was conflating it with Days of Future Past a bit. I just knew that it was also an alternate timeline or future or something. But I was kind of just putting them all together and I wasn't really sure what was what. So this was really the first time I read this. I think I was being that I'm a few years younger than you, I think this was just a little bit before I was reading comics, but I don't think I was probably actively reading these like you were just getting the new books. Because I remember I did do that with Onslaught a year later. So I think that just that one year difference of, okay, then I could get into an event. But at this age, I think I was more reading one offs.

I was, of course, uh, I have integrated your childhood comics into my collection. You had a lot more Spider Man and JSA. Spiderman reading a lot of X Men books.

Yeah, Spiderman was the one. I remember reading a lot of all the issues, and for X Men, it was more watching the TV series and knowing those.

And this event there, as we've talked about, stays really contained to X Books. Even though it is a sprawling, massive event, it stays contained to the X Book.

Yeah, and it's interesting. I think you make a good point with the Internet, though, too, because especially if you're like an eight year old going to the comic store, it's probably very hard to know. Okay, which books do I need to get in order to read all of this story? Yes. It says Age of Apocalypse on the COVID but even then, it's a little tricky.

You don't have, uh, to ask people. You had to look at the catalogs, like the previews catalog and stuff. Yeah, it was fun to try to do that. I think I still have some of my loose leaf paper where I would handwrite out the issues that I had or needed or the order I thought they went in. I loved doing all of that.

Well, let us be like Bishop and jump around in time, back to the time for Origins of the Story. Right now on this very show, you're going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago, and before we get to Age of Apocalypse, we have to get to Legion Quest. So for this, we read X Factor 190, uncanny X Men 320 and 321, X Men 40 and 41, and Cable 20. These are, of course, from Marvel Comics and they are dated between December 1994 and February 1995.

And I am going to tell you all the creators who worked on them. And it's a long buckle up, so bear with us. We're not going to join you by issue.

Hope you use the restroom.

The writers are Todd Dezago, John Francis Moore, scott lovedell Mark Wade Fabianizieza and Jeff Loeb. The pencilers are jan Jersima Roger Cruz andy Kubert, Ron Garney, Ian Churchill Anchors are al milgram, tim townsend, dan green, joseph rubenstein, matt ryan, bud LaRosa WC. Carrani, and Hilary Barta. Colorists are Glynis oliver, steve Buchatello Kevin Summers digital Chameleon and Mike Thomas Letters are richard Starkings, Bill Oakley, comiccraft Chris, Eliopoulos and JQ. And the editors are, of course, Bob Harris with Kelly Corvisi and Lisa Patrick. We read this storyline because it creates the Age of Apocalypse through Legion's actions.

And here is a quick summary. So, Legion, Xavier's son, wakes up after killing Destiny and from being in a coma and decides he needs to make everything right. So he and some X Men travel back in time as he plans to kill Magneto.

This is, of course, after he then apparently has a, um, relationship with his mother. And it's very strange. But he then attempts to kill Magneto and ends up killing Xavier, who throws himself in front of the psychic blade to save Magneto. The world slowly crystallizes from the emcron crystal wave and ends, which is also happening, apparently. Well, it's not a coincidence. It's happening because Legions altering the course of history. And one cool thing to note before we dig into what we thought. And what happens is, so every single X book at the end of that month, which we did not read them all, but this is what I did as a child. I used to read them all. Because at the end of every book, they crystallized whatever was happening in the book. So even if it wasn't relevant to Legion quest, with the greatest example, of course, being we did read the one where Rogan Gambit kiss. They finally kiss and they crystallize. So you don't know what's going to happen. And the greatest one, I think, though, is Wolverine and Sabertooth are in a huge fight, like knockdown brawl, classic fight. And Wolverine, uh, has his two claws around Sabertooth's head. The kind of classic Wolverine move is he going to release the Middle Claw. He ends up popping the Middle Claw crystal. And, uh, so you don't know what's going to happen, which, of course, you do come back and get the resolution of that story. But just really cool thing that happened with the crystallization. So Legion Quest is essentially Age of Apocalypse part one. I guess you don't need to read it, but you won't understand why the Age of Apocalypse exists unless you read.

And this well, we were speaking I had never read about never had read Age of Apocalypse. I don't think I've ever read a comic that featured Legion as a character. Or if I have, he's not in.

He'S in New Mutants when he debuts Muriland Saga, when he kills Destiny here. And then he doesn't show back up until the more modern reboots over the last 15 years.

And we watched the first season of his FX TV show. So that did help. At least give me some context into the mental, uh, issues that he's having, because a lot of that has been kind of resolved up to this point. So it was helpful to have that as a background, even though it's the TV show, not the comics.

Yeah, and I think it's a good other than the weird thing where he makes out with his mother and it's implied that they end up having sex that night, I think, because he doesn't know who he is. It's very strange. And I don't know why that was included.

And she doesn't know he's her son. Yeah, she's not at fault.

But other than that, really problematic part of the story. I like this. I think it makes sense why Legion's doing it. Right? He's trying to make up because he's at this point healed. He's not deranged or evil. He's trying to make up for the fact that he killed Destiny and that things have just gotten so bad and gone so wrong. And it makes sense to me that he's put all of that in. Like, uh, it makes sense. He's thinking, well, if I eliminate Magneto, Xavier, my father's dream of mutant human equality can be fully expressed. There will be no one to impede him right off the bat. Of course, there ultimately will be other villains if that were to happen. So I think it makes a lot of sense. And then Xavier sacrificing himself makes, I think, some too.

So, yeah, it's that classic almost Batman question of people say, like, well, why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker? He could save a lot more. He could save hundreds of lives by doing that. And that's kind of legion's thought here, it's like, I'm just going to kill Magneto, and yes, I'm going to kill this one person, but I'm going to probably save hundreds of people and help my father's vision in doing that. So I think it makes sense in his head. It's just against what Xavier believes in. Yeah, and I think a lot of this issue too, or this storyline really brings it back to, for me, what is so much of a core part of X Men, or at least the X Men I read, which is the dichotomy between Charles and Eric. And a lot of this is in the flashback and when did these two.

People'S paths yeah, the other thing this has, I mean, it has that sort of ideological light stuff, but it also has the soap opera elements of them too, which is really fun.

Mhm. Yeah.

So yeah, I think it's a great story. It doesn't, though, stand in isolation. Again, I don't think you'd read this and feel satisfied, nor do I think you should read Age of Apocalypse without at least skimming this. So you know what prompts it.

Yeah. And I think for me, as someone who's coming into this much fresher than you are as well, the whole Shia crystal aspect I don't fully understand. To me, it reads now in 2023 more as a device to just get us, uh, to Age of Apocalypse. We have to pause or destroy these universes somehow. I don't fully know what the crystal and Legion all have to do to each other. So that part, ah, I just kind of had to take as a device.

Yeah, well, and it ultimately is, I mean, uh, you'll see a little element of it again, but it is ultimately a device. I think it's a way I mean, I didn't do extensive research or even extensive thinking of my own knowledge of stuff to know, but this is one of the earliest big events like this that I think has ever happened. If you look something like Days of Future Past is a. Two issue entitle event. Right. So this idea of suspending your books and creating an alternate timeline was not, you know, cris, is not that zero Hour was not that those are, as Fabianisia said and you mentioned, those are retooling the entire continuity of the universe having this kind of event. Uh, I just don't know that it happened. So I think the Emcon crystal plot is a device there to give us the in and the out. Right? We're going to need an out also at some point. And so it's a way of saying like, okay, the world ends. We're going to go to the Age of Apocalypse, and we're not just going to do that because if you have Legion just alter history, it becomes a little harder to undo Legion altering history. So you sort of need some other device, I think. And then the visual, like I said, is really cool with just everything crystallizing. You're sort of putting the 6116 in suspended animation while you veer off into the two nine five.

Yeah, and it gives us these nice moments too, of Warren having just started a relationship with Psylocke, but she's one of the people who's been teleported into the past. And I think one of the moments that stand out the most to me is the Rogue and Gambit moment, where, as you said, they finally kiss. They're going back and forth of like because of course it's hard to kiss Rogue. And that's nicely mirrored in the Charles and, uh, Leandra, or am I getting her name right?

Lilandra from the show, Lilandra idea, because.

She'S a hologram and they're apart and they can't really be together because she's out in outer space. And that's really nicely paralleled with the Gambit rogue relationship. They are right next to each other, but of course still actually can't be together.

Yeah, well, that's right. And all that story works is all those character moments that you get is what makes the X Men so good.

Mhm. Well, let's crystallize this segment and head into exploring multiversity.

I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if?

So of course, we are answering the question, what if Legion killed Professor Xavier in the past, triggering the Age of Apocalypse? So get ready, here we go. And we read the first wave, if you will, of, uh, Age of Apocalypse for this first part of our coverage. And that is x Men Alpha one generation next. One astonishing X Men one. Excalibur One. Gambit and the externals one. Weapon X One. Amazing. X Men one. Factor X One and X Man One. All from Marvel Comics, dating between February 1995 and March 1995. Busy few months. If you are reading comics.

Yes. These are written by Scott Labdell, Mark Wade, Roren Ellis, Fabian Nica, Larry Hama, John Francis Moore and Jeff Loeb. Penciled by Roger Cruz, Steve Epting, Chris Bacco who's also credited as co creator joe Maduera, Ken Lashley, Tony Daniel, Adam Cooper, Andy Kubert, Steve Epting and Steve Scroche. They're inked by tim townsend dan panosian mark buckingham dan green tom wegerzen phil moy kevin conrad carl Keisel chris warner matt ryan al milgram mike sellers cam smith budlarosa will conrad lettered by richard STARKing's comic crafts chris eliopoulos pat Brusseau colored by steve bugoletto electric crayons joe rosas marie Javins mike thomas kevin summers Glynes oliver Editors are Lisa Patrick, Kelly Corvisi, Suzanne Gaffney and of course, Bob Harris, who was credited at one point as the big Kahuna and at another point as N Sabah editor. So lots of credits. And you can see, uh, probably to get these books to be on time, they had to just bring in so many people to fill in on pencils and inks and do some supports and finishes. People are credited as breakdowns and finishings. So you had just so many people working on this to make it work. And of course it did work. And we read this because it's the kickoff of the event, it's the bookend alpha, plus every title's, first issue, except for the less core ones like Chronicles and X Universe, which we'll get to in our future coverage. We can't quite summarize if you never read it, it's just way too sprawling. Long story short, with Xavier dead, apocalypse took over the US. At some point from the early seventy s or late 60s, when he's supposed to have been killed through to now. He has a home base in New York. Mutants are superior over humans who are oppressed, enslaved, or killed. And so we're just going to launch in and more story details will show up in our conversation now and in the future. So why don't we start with the world building? That's really what we want to focus on here is the world that's built.

Yeah, I think this is so much judging, speaking as the person who's reading it for the first time, I think this is so much about the world building. And what's fascinating about the world building is that the writers do not give you all the information at one time. There's moments where I'm reading this and going, wait a second, am I supposed to know what's happening? And then I'll see it a few pages, uh, books later, or sometimes many books later. Like one example I'm thinking is apocalypse. Or someone mentions the Shadow King in one of the first books in this run, but we don't see The Shadow King until one of the last books in the run. And another moment I'm thinking is someone says, oh, when we lost Jean, and you're thinking, oh, Jean Grey's dead. But in fact, then we see Jean Grey and she's with it's it's, it's that slow building of like, oh, they had no need to tell you right from the start, oh, Jean's with Wolverine. Now you're just going to get that once you get to it. So I love that they really took their time with this.

Well, and that's something I love, is it's sort of an end media ray where it just starts in the middle. You enter into the story. Even though Bishop's arrival is the catalyst for this moment, the story just peels back layer by layer. But I think the structure also is so accessible. Well, I'm curious if it's accessible. You'll have to tell me, um, in just a moment. But what I'm thinking makes it work, and I imagine it could be more accessible is that you do have these very clearly delineated subplots, and they even do a good job of reminding you. It's like, okay, this group is out on a heist mission because they need to go retrieve that. This group is going over there to talk to Destiny to see if Bishop's telling the truth. This group is stopping the Sentinels from killing all of the humans.

Right.

Like, you have each group's independent mission, but the books are just so well, intertwined. So that's something I love about it. But does that make it work for a new reader?

I think it does. I don't know if you're getting the full impact of it not being a full X reader. I think I have enough knowledge that it does have an impact on me. Knowing the having read some X Men comics, having read a bit of the Croan era, definitely watching the animated TV show, I don't know if this would be something that you could just start cold. You have not a good entry point. Yes, exactly. Yes. But I think it does have impact. I think some of the people where it was like, oh, I don't really know that character. So that didn't, like, Richter, uh, plays a part, and I don't really know that character. So that really didn't have the impact on me that it probably would if you really know and love that character. But that doesn't take away from the overall enjoyment or storytelling that's here.

Yeah. Though there are cool things that you just reminded me of, one that I imagine work for the amount of knowledge you had. Like, I love the Madry. And that's a good example, too, where for a few issues, they keep referring to the Madry as who you have to fight, and they're all cloaked and they're like and madri is such a good word because you think they're sort of like religious fanatics or something, but then it turns out they're all Jamie MADRIX multiple man. That's why they're called madri. Is Jamie MADRIX? And, um, it's such a clever little twist. And so, yeah, knowing Jamie MADRIX obviously helps that, but it's fun.

Yeah. There's a lot of those little Easter egg like things that are scattered throughout. And I think because X Men has such a deep character base, it's fun that, as you're reading the books, suddenly you're getting to the last book that we read and you're seeing characters like Forge and Toad that you hadn't seen up to that point. But that's the great thing about the X world, is that you have so many characters to choose from.

Yeah, well, I think that's what works well here, too. Is it's one of those alternate universe storytelling? And we always talk in our episodes about what kind of alternate universe is it? Is it one with a single point of divergence? Is it drastically different? Is it similar? Is the status quo reset? And this, I think, threads a good needle mhm, and it requires some suspension of disbelief, like why some of these characters would use the same code names, but it helps that they do, of course. So the fact that they generally use the same code names, and even in their redesigns, they're different, but they're recognizable. So I just like that there's enough of the character. Even though they came up in a completely different way post Xavier's murder, in this timeline, there's still enough of the character that we know, so you can tell it's Gene and you know that Gene and Wolverine had this romantic thing at some point. And you can obviously tell it's Rogue and Magneto and Rogue and Gambit had something at some point. So there's enough from the 6116 brought over, but then each character is tweaked in just enough of a way that you're like, oh, that's cool, I think.

Yeah. One thing I'm thinking of is actually how the Sentinels are used here, because you think at first, oh, the Sentinels we always know are one of these being bad guys in the X Men world, but here they're actually on ah, the the humans are actually using them to help protect the mutants to some extent. So it was like, oh, I'm reading that, and then going, oh, that's interesting how we're taking one thing and changing it just a bit there. Yeah, and I was curious, too. So we're talking about it being an alternate universe, but is this the Bishop from the 6116 here?

Yeah.

Okay, so he is our M character.

That doesn't matter if it is the Bishop from the 6116 or a different Bishop, but he has the memories and consciousness of the 6116. Uh, I don't know if it's his physical corporeal self or not sure, it doesn't matter. But yes, it is the six one six bishop. I mean, that's what's going on here, is he has all of those memories, and slowly he starts to impart those to, like, Magneto. And that's where all the catalysts for this moment is coming from.

And we have a lot of characters we don't really have a single protagonist here. Magneto kind of maybe, is the closest we have. We follow him a lot, but as you said, there's a lot of characters that are kind of similar to what we know, but different. Do you have a favorite character here? A favorite character arc? A favorite redesign?

Well, I can't, uh, really talk about the arcs yet because we haven't gotten.

Through the character arc up to this point, I guess.

I love seeing every little twist. I mean, from something really small, which you probably wouldn't have even noticed, like Monet in Generation Next being Know It All, the computer where did not know who that was. And, ah, I think that's just a really cool little way of taking this character, who at that point had been in three, four issues of the 6116, had barely appeared. Chris Bacalo and Jeff Loeb had created her and then had to do something with her. And we don't even fully know what her powers are at this point. So it's just fun when they do little stuff like that through to the bigger things. Like, I love Rogue and Magneto being a couple mhm, because, again, in the 6116, they are briefly a thing. And so it's fun to pick up that piece and explore. Like well, it's almost like it's an example of the way that this alternate universe gets to ask a whole bunch of what if questions. Even though there's one point of divergence, which is Xavier being killed. It's like, well, what if Rogue was with Magneto instead of Gambit?

Yeah. In fact, someone even says what if? At one point, in one of the later issues that I was like, he.

Talks about all the what ifs magneto.

Yeah. Is it Magneto's powers? Definitely. They can use Magneto's powers however they kind of want, because one of the things they do do is that he's able to create some kind of barrier that allows him and Rogue to touch.

Which is why they can have a.

Child have a child together. But it works really well. And also that Gambit was Magneto's best friend. We only get that in one line. We don't know what that really meant. But Rogue was also in a relationship with Gambit, is now in a relationship with Magneto. So it's really interesting how that triangle, I think, especially, is set up. And I think Magneto in general, as a character, as he's kind of he's furthering Charles legacy, but he doesn't know his own background well, the 6116 version of what he's done. And as he's kind of slowly coming to terms with those with his past sins or sins on another world, I.

Think yeah, because it hasn't happened yet. In fact, he never goes down that path because he is trying to embody the legacy that he thinks Xavier would have wanted for him. So is there a, uh, character redesign that you really enjoyed, especially with your more moderate level knowledge?

I really liked, actually, the redesign and the story for Scots a lot, because here it's so interesting because while he's called Cyclops and he, of course, has the visor, he does have two eyes. But here he only does have one eye because Wolverine has literal. So I actually like that, that it's like, oh, it's much more literal. And the idea that Scott is always like the ultimate soldier, he's the ultimate follower of Charles in the 6116 and here of Sinister. So I thought that was really oh, that works so well. And even then, his relationship with Alex, with Havoc, it's that classic Scott demeanor, only now he's an antagonist instead of a protagonist. But also, I think we see that there's a lot more going on with that character and with his relationship with Havoc, who wants to maybe kill him. So there's a lot of interesting things there. I'm curious to see where they play out.

Yeah, I agree. And that's a fun story, too, because Sinister is the narrator of The Factor X book and is obviously up to something and has whole plans and schemes. Sinister is always a fun character.

Yeah, totally. And I think I also just love anytime they have groups of characters together, I'm thinking, especially when we get forge has a traveling group of Shakespearean actors, but they're also doing other things. It's very Carnival, the TV show. And Toad has always been one of my favorite characters. So I love how he's been redesigned and Forge himself. I love that because he's probably been through all this stuff. It's not just the little fake mechanical leg now. It's like he's all got this whole exoskeleton. And I think that works. Really.

Yeah. Mhm yeah. And that, of course, is in the X Man book, which there's lots of questions about who Nathan is and what his role is.

Oh, and I have one more because there's so many characters, but the last one is, uh I do love how they use Beast in this as well, because what's so fun about it is that he talks exactly the same, only he's evil. So it's fun that we get, like, evil Beast, who's doing this genetic modification, which M makes complete sense because he did it on himself in the 6116. But that we get him doing all like, oh, my stars and garters and all that stuff. But he's also experimenting on killing people to further genetics. Yeah. And literally just dipping them into goo. But he still has that Jovial Beast way of talking. And of course, I only hear the voice from the animated series saying all those lines.

Well, this is Dark Beast. And as I mentioned to you, spoiler alert, he's one of the characters who comes over to the 6116 at some point. I think probably for that reason. I'm sure people enjoyed him a lot. And he's also one of the characters who I'd say this is jumping ahead, but right now, in the Krakoan era, beast's decision making and the way Beast is, is like that AOA Beast. He's like the two nine five Beast where he's just you're like, you're kind of evil and you don't care. So, yeah, he is a fun one. Yeah.

Well, speaking of evil.

Great.

What do you think about Apocalypse's plan? Because it's interesting. It's Age of Apocalypse, but we only see little bits of Apocalypse. He's very Emperor Palpatine. He's kind of, like, haunting the shadows of a lot of these things. But I'm not fully sure what his plan is because he hasn't killed the humans. He's kind of made this pact with the humans, but he's going to betray the humans. I don't know why he hasn't really just killed them outright. I don't know what his plan is. But I also don't know if it really matters, because the only thing that really matters is that he's this desk pot. Like, what do you think about Apocalypse's actual plan?

Well, you're right. It ultimately doesn't matter that much. And so I don't know that the details matter. What I think works to explain it all when it doesn't make sense to me is that Apocalypse is always survival of the fittest. So it's not just that he's never been just the evil villain, I want to take over the world. That, uh, doesn't interest him. What interests him is survival of the fittest. And he's always wanted mutants as h*** superior to take a role of power over the world. But beyond that, he doesn't necessarily need to kill humans. That's not his motivation. He doesn't care that much. Now. He does slaughter many, many humans throughout many different events because he is evil and oppressive and doesn't really care. But yeah, I don't know that he has a plan. I mean, if you think about it, and you'll get pieces of this in some of the backstory, that unfolds. But obviously, he's only taken over the US at this point. We also learn humans still live and function and are not oppressed and enslaved in Europe and Asia.

Well, the survival of the fittest makes sense too, because he is willing to kill mutants that basically are useless to him. Like, if they don't have a power that can help him, he's willing to kill them as well. And even some of the humans, like, if they have a lot of money, they can live with angel in the Heaven nightclub that we alluded to at the start. So even those humans he's giving some pass to. So I guess you're right. He's his own moral code, whatever that is, I guess, which is survival. The fittest.

Yeah. And we see there is a little bit now the book doesn't get into it. It's actually something, you know, thinking about the way, like, Kieran Gillan writes immortal X Men in the current Krakoa era is super political and Game of Thronesy and successiony. This event probably could have gone more in that direction at times than was commonplace in the 90s because you have this Human Council, and you have they're assembled in England, and Apocalypse is sort of negotiating with them at times. And you have Moira McTaggart and her husband, and they're part of it so you have this background where yeah, I'm guessing Apocalypse is looking for sort of world domination, but ultimately he's not a catalyst in this. You asked what his plan is. I don't know that he has much of a plan here. He's just sort of continuing what has already been happening in this world for 20 years. What brings it all to a head is everyone else's plan. Sinister has a plan that we haven't learned yet. Magneto has a bunch of stuff going on, mostly brought on by Bishop's arrival. So everyone else seems to have a plan in place that's kicking stuff off.

And it's interesting, I think the, uh, more and more you're just explaining this. I'm going back actually to what you said at the start. Not comparing it necessarily to this, but Lord of the Rings, I'm really thinking more and more he is like a Sauron character because Sauron hasn't taken over the whole world and we don't even know if that's really his plan. Or maybe it is, uh, but everyone has these all factions. Yeah, like you're saying he doesn't really care. Right. It is that domination of what he wants to do. And all these other people, humans that have their own stories that are actually kind of throwing monkey wrenches into the issue. So there's a lot of comparisons. I wonder if that was at all an influence on this storytelling.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's probably influenced just countless writers in unconscious ways. So I think the last thing for me before we move away from it for this part is just thinking about the kickoff event is the importance of Xavier. So when we think about, uh, the what if and those points of Divergence, do we think this is a logical point of divergence? Do we think it is a reasonable Earth Two Nine Five, that because Xavier dies, this is what plays out?

Mhm well, I think it shows you that when Xavier died, magneto did carry on some of what he wanted, which is why we have characters having the same code names and having similar relations, or even being the X Men. Yeah, but I guess it's saying that there was something special about Xavier that kept that group together in a way that Magneto or other characters cannot just.

Have not been capable.

Mhm.

Like Apocalypse's quote unquote plan. You just don't dig into the details of it. But yeah, I guess it makes sense. Take this major player off the board, and who's to say that then at that point, apocalypse wouldn't have been able to dominate in the way that he did. And again, we're going to see in some flashbacks and stuff, we'll see some of why that happened and when it happened.

And Xavier was always this big connection between mutants and so and that is maybe one of the issues that's come up here is maybe without that connection, we see that humans got decimated and thrown out of the United States. I'm just speculating. Maybe that was part of the yeah.

Yeah. So I think that wraps up our exploring multiversity segment with Age of Apocalypse today.

Well, there's going to be lots more books in the future. But before we get to those, let's try pondering some possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? Diverted? Diverted?

Will it?

Charles we have no idea.

Charles talking to Bishop, so it's perfect. Always used from The Animated Series is going to really closely tie into this conversation.

So we've already discussed a million and one books, Guido, so what are we possibly talking about for pondering possibilities?

Nothing. Uh, we are going to talk about this over our next two parts. So here's how this is going to work. Because this is such a huge event, and we've just gotten dipped our toe into it. So we are going to go every other week with our Age of Apocalypse coverage. So next week next episode is going to be something else, something unrelated. Then in two weeks, we'll return with part two of our coverage there. We're going to dive into the core of the event. We're going to keep reading each title right up until the end. We're going to bring in those side titles that actually build out, like, what are the other heroes in this world doing? Where are the Fantastic Four and the Avengers? And where are the humans and what's happening? As well as a few past stories, we'll check out the Animated Series episodes that were developed parallel to this but are quite different. So that's part two. And then we will go back to another episode in between parts two and parts three. And so in a few weeks time, we'll wrap up our Age of Apocalypse coverage with part three. And for that one, we're going to read the conclusion of each story, plus a deep look at the dozens of sequels, world appearances, retcons characters who came over to the 6116 video games, the Legacy there, and, of course, what the future might hold, because Marvel will have, at that point, made an announcement about whatever they're teasing. And we can. So remember, we have this three part AOA coverage. We hope you stay with us. It's going to be every other week for the next few weeks with some other stuff sprinkled in.

That is a wrap. Can't wait to get to those other episodes. But until then, we will see you soon. And there is no giveaway this week. But if you are looking for our active giveaway, I highly recommend you listen to the last few episodes, and there.

Might be one on the horizon. So thank you for joining us, flatscans and almost superiors out there. I have been En Sabagido.

And I have been your Lord high Almighty Rob.

The really long reading list is in the giant show notes for this week. You can follow us on all social media at Deer watchers and leave a.

Review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.

In the words watch, you keep pondering the possibilities.