What if the X-Men battled Apocalypse, Sentinels, the Brood, Juggernaut, Omega Red, Murder World, Mojo World, Exodus and Magneto all in one day? Plus a history of X-Men Video Games!
I hope you brought a fistful of quarters because welcome to dear watchers and Omniversal comic book podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido:We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds and the video games that make up an omniverse verse of fictional realities we all love. And your watchers, gamers on this journey are me, Guido.
Rob:And me, player 2, a k a Rob. You're the non player, man. Yes. Exactly. And now before we begin our trip today, Guido, what's new in our little section of the multiverse?
Guido:I don't know. I don't think there's that much that's new other than we're on a little bit of an x stretch. So Mhmm. Last week was a an x last episode, 2 weeks ago, was a visit to nineties Jim Lee Clairemont X Men, and now we're doing a totally different, but also nineties X Men coverage episode. And I was actually just talking to Elliot of Elliot Comic Art earlier today who's starting his first ever reading of the Morrison run, which is a sin, but at least he's doing it finally.
Guido:And it's funny because I've been thinking, oh, we need to cover some of that because, of course, Cassandra Nova is gonna be in Deadpool 3. X men 97 is coming out in just a few weeks, so we might just be turning into an X Men podcast.
Rob:And and I know, of course, as listeners will know, you're a huge X Men fan. But aren't you a little lackluster on some of the new X Men comics? Is that correct?
Guido:Yes. But I can I can forgive lulz as long as they then have bright spots at some point? But, yes, I'm I'm not fall of the house of x is not quite hitting in the same way House and Powers did, but it's not over. So who knows where it'll go? And then, of course, we have a month with no X Men this summer before a massive reboot of the entire line.
Guido:So we'll see. I'm hopeful. But it's just been a little lackluster.
Rob:Claremont, Jim Lee, last week. We have our X Men issue, this week, and then, of course, lots more X Men on our TV. And if you are joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse today, origins of the story, exploring multiversity, and pondering possibilities. So thanks for coming along.
Guido:Yes. And remember to leave us a 5 star review wherever you're listening or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, And you can find us on most social media, especially Instagram and threads at deer watchers.
Rob:And with that, deer watchers, welcome to episode 129, and let's check out what's happening in the omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe.
Guido:Oh, and our careful listeners will know that sound.
Rob:Mhmm. And today, we blew in our cartridges to get ready to answer the question, what if the X Men battled? Apocalypse, the Sentinels, the Brood, Juggernaut, Omega Red, Murder World, Mojo World, Exodus, and Magneto all in one day.
Guido:That would just be a day in the life of the X Men. I I have a better question for today's episode, which is what if Apocalypse wore a sleeveless outfit? Because this comic that we covered today has Apocalypse in a sleeveless outfit.
Rob:Sun's out. Good job.
Guido:Coloring mistake. It is very much like they were drawing Apocalypse out of straight out of the Marvel swimsuit special. It was very odd. But we'll get all into that issue and what that question even means when we visit Earth 30847. So Earth 30847, As far as we're concerned, only appears in this comic and video game that we're gonna talk about today.
Guido:If the Internet is to be believed, this video game shares an earth with other video games just because of who the maker is, which is Capcom, which was the sound effect that transitioned us into this segment for you video game fans out there, but I do not believe that this video game shares an earth. We'll get all into this video game earth on this episode so far in our series of a 128 other episodes, we've only covered Tomb Raider in terms of video games. We talked a little bit about the Mario movie, but we haven't done too much in the world of comic books based on video games. So buckle up because we have an exhaustive history of X Men video games for you on today's episode.
Rob:Laura Cross, she's wearing the same top as Apocalypse. Right?
Guido:Yeah. Although her name is not Laura. So let's start with that statement
Rob:that she's committed. Laura. I was pronouncing it. It's, like, the British inflection, not Lara.
Guido:Well, then you need to have a whole British accent in the whole sentence or it just sounds like you're mispronouncing her name. So we've covered X Men countless times.
Rob:You can
Guido:always go to deerwatchers.com, click episodes to search for whatever you want to find. We think you should go find our X Men back catalog. It is evergreen. They never go out of style, and we want you to join us in this conversation. So go to deerwatchers.com to search for other episodes.
Rob:Okay. So we're booting up the old Commodore 64. It's humming along, and let's jump into our origins of the story.
Speaker 3:Right now on this very show, you're gonna get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago.
Rob:So we have a lot of video games to cover, so we will mention each one briefly.
Guido:Yes. For this segment, we're focused on X Men video games, not Marvel games that feature x characters, although there are good number of those, but we needed to whittle this list down a bit. We're going to give you a little bit of background, just give you a timeline of X Men video games. There are a lot, and that's gonna lead us into today's universe we're covering.
Rob:First up, the uncanny x men from 1989 on the NES. This is a bird's eye view mess of a game that is considered one of the worst NES games ever. You can play as Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Iceman. You called the NES Games. You're too young.
Rob:I was a little too young. Yeah. I never had any NES.
Guido:On NES. I loved having it, and it's awful. It is god awful. It is truly a terrible, terrible game. It was just fun to have it, but I I hated playing it.
Guido:I much preferred the Wolverine NES game. We're not gonna get into Wolverine's games. There are a whole bunch that we're not
Rob:gonna worry about. Section on Wikipedia where it's
Guido:Yeah.
Rob:X Men video games, and then it's Wolverine video games.
Guido:Yeah. So the Wolverine NES game is much better. The X Men NES game is not even good as, like, an artifact in the same way. Like like, Dick Tracy is kind of good as an artifact. You and I were just talking about that game is not that good, but it's, like, fun to see Dick Tracy on screen.
Guido:This game is so ugly and just Wow. Awful. It's not worth it for anyone.
Rob:To watch a YouTube video or something like that.
Guido:So next up is 1989, same year, later that year, x men madness in murder world for the PC and the Commodore 64. Now we got a side scroller in murder world going up against Arcade and Magneto. We have the loosely inspired by Pride of the X Men, Colossus, Cyclops, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, Storm, Wolverine Team. And I've never played this, though. I had a Commodore 64.
Guido:I I loved my Commodore 64. You did not even know what a Commodore 64 was until I introduced it to you.
Rob:I played a few PC games, but not many in the common yeah. I I never had a Commodore 64. I didn't hear about it even until just a few years ago. Totally off my radar.
Guido:So we the this game and there's a few others that I missed. We're gonna have to download the ROM and use an emulator because I really want to see what madness in Murder World is all about.
Rob:Next up is X Men 2 Fall of the Mutants. It appears in as a 1990 as a sequel to murder world. Now it's a bird's eye view overhead player against Freedom Force as Longshot, Dazzler, Iceman, Phoenix, Havoc, Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Rogue, Shadowcat, and Archangel. And what's really cool is much of this game is actually narrated by Uatu, who actually sets it in an alternate universe from mainstream Marvel continuity. So you better believe we will definitely be covering this one day.
Guido:Yeah. This is another weird one that I missed, and I like that they brought in the cast of characters. And I'm really curious by the Uatu framing device and the the narrative elements of this. Yeah.
Rob:It definitely seems that you can't have an X Men game without Cyclops and Wolverine. I think the 2 of them must be in every single game.
Guido:I know. That's why I wanted to as I was going through preparing the history. Let me put the characters in because it does it is interesting to see, and, of course, they always put 1 barely one token woman, and they change out who it is. So it's fun to track
Rob:what's happening. This one's got 3, though. Dazzler It does. Out of 4. Dazzler Phoenix, silent sidelock,
Guido:the way the game is structured is you actually, like, go into battles a lot, and so you're choosing a character to play another character. So I think that's how they were able to put more characters in. It doesn't look like it's too level based, but we'll see when we get the emulator version. Alright. So now the one game that everyone listening of a certain age has played and loves in their minds, X Men, the arcade game from 1992.
Guido:So explicitly based on the pride of the X Men character designs, you can play a Cyclops, Colossus, Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, or Dazzler. Or if you have 6 friends and you're standing at the arcade and you have enough quarters, you're all playing at the same time fighting the Sentinels, the Blob, Pyro, White Queen, Nimrod, Juggernaut, Mystique, Magneto. This game is just the classic. It's come out on a lot of other platforms since, and it really is just a perfect arcade game. We just played it on an arcade cabinet at an arcade not too long ago.
Guido:A few weeks ago, we found it, And it just is so fun to pop in and out. It's great.
Rob:I think of this game in the Simpsons. Like, those are the 2 like, if I think of an arcade game, it's those 2. And in the Simpsons, I always love playing as Marge. Here, I always love playing as in the vacuum cleaner. Totally.
Rob:Marge in the vacuum cleaner. And here, I always love playing as Colossus. And because his mutant power was like that big blast, which had nothing to do with, like, his actual powers. Who was your go to character? I think I have a guess.
Guido:Well, of course, it's always Dazzler or Storm. I don't think I would choose anyone else. I mean, Nightcrawler because I like the agile characters, which tended to be why I chose female characters. They always made them faster. But, yeah, always Dazzler or Storm for sure.
Guido:And, yeah,
Rob:I've played this game, obviously.
Guido:Yeah. Can't wait. I played
Rob:probably this is the X Men game I played the most. And so just later in 1992 for NES, and Sega Genesis, and later for Game Gear and Game Boy and SNES, which is what I was playing it on, comes Spider Man X Men Arcades Revenge, where you can play as Spider Man, not an X Man, Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, or Cyclops against arcade apocalypse, robots of classic villains and sentinels. This game was so hard. I don't think I ever got very far, even though it's the one, as I just said, I played more than any other game. Dude, what about you?
Guido:I don't remember this being hard. I I played this one. I loved this one. This is now, like, my sweet spot, and I had all the Sega systems. So I played this on Genesis and the Game Gear, and I remember it being fun.
Guido:Of course, I like that you could be Storm. So this is the first game I had where you could play as a woman. I liked But
Rob:she was underwater, which was weird. And, like, the water would rise, and she would run out of breath. It's like, what does this have to do with Storm?
Guido:Yeah. And I'm sure you liked it too for arcade. It's fascinating to me how much of the video game history we're we're telling here includes arcade. Maybe just because of his name, they were like, we why don't we put arcade in these games? His name is arcade.
Rob:And the Wolverine level was my favorite because he was the most arcade like. There were clowns. There were giant Jack in the Box gangsters with machine guns. And the cool thing with this one was if you didn't have your claws out, your health came back as Wolverine. So it was like the one level I could beat because unlike Gambit, he was being chased by a giant Raiders of the Lost Ark at Boulder that would just was just constantly chasing him.
Rob:So you couldn't even, like, be cool Gambit because this giant rock was just chasing you, and you had limited amount of cards you could throw too. So it's like, no. All you wanna do is throw cards.
Guido:Yeah. Yeah. So this is a fun classic one. And then we get to the one that I think I played the most until you get to some of the modern games. So this is the next year, 1993 for Sega Genesis only.
Guido:Actually, a lot of these games start being Sega only. We have X Men, just called X Men. The danger room is malfunctioning. Turns out it's a virus Magneto's put in it. And you can be Gambit, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, or Cyclops in all different fun locales because they're in the danger room and it's messing up.
Guido:And you can call in a bunch of the other x men. So while it's very frustrating to me that you can't play as one of the X Women, you can call in a whole bunch and they'll, like, come in and do some cool Oh,
Rob:I remember this. Yeah.
Guido:Back out. And this game is known for being hard. This game is known for actually being ranked one of the hardest games on the Genesis, but it is so pretty. It feels like it was a big leap in graphics at this point and really fun. I loved this game so much.
Rob:I mean, I have
Guido:it in its original box, and I love to start treasuring it.
Rob:Only now am I playing some of these because I was just strictly a Nintendo boy growing up. And I was shocked to see that the X Men didn't even have Nintendo 64 game period. So there was a whole big period in my video game playing that I did not play any X Men games then.
Guido:Yeah. Though there was a Nintendo exclusive, tell us
Rob:about it. Yes. That was X Men Mutant Apocalypse, which was out on the SNES. I I refuse to say SNES. I I just I was at SNES.
Guido:I don't know. Do people do that other than British people? We've been watching a great
Rob:That's true.
Guido:British video game show called, 8 bit what is it called?
Rob:They're Oprians. Go 8 bit. Yeah.
Guido:Go 8 bit. And really fun. And they say SNES, and I'm like, are they doing that? No. But, no, I think they really are just a fan of SNES.
Rob:Well, this was out on the SNES in 1994, and it's gonna be our main segment. So we're not gonna talk about it right now.
Guido:No. No. We'll get into it. But later that year in 94, we get X Men Children of the Atom out on most platforms. It's the first fighting game in the X Men, which there are a good number at this point.
Guido:And it's from Capcom, and it's great. It's I love all the fighting games. This was not the one I played the most, but it was really fun because you got a ton of characters and powers, and that's what the fun of a fighting game. So it suits the X Men well. I prefer my games to have narrative threads, but that's okay.
Guido:It was fun.
Rob:This one looks and feels a lot like Street Fighter. Right? Which is, of course, Capcom.
Guido:It's Capcom. So yes.
Rob:In 1995, we get X Men 2 Game Master's Legacy. You know, we love Game Master, the most popular character on Game Gear. Comics at that point. Yes. Of course.
Rob:With Cyclops and Storm later joined by playable characters Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Bishop, Jean Grey, and Cable. They fight against the legacy virus, Gamemaster, and a bunch of other X Men villains.
Guido:And just to clarify, it's games master.
Rob:Oh, games master. Sorry.
Guido:He's he's the master of multiple games. Multiple games. One. This game we just got, you've been playing on your analog pocket. Right?
Rob:And Yes.
Guido:I I play this all the time. Game Gear was my favorite portable system. Though I had a Game Boy, Game Gear was in color and had these X Men games, so I just would play it nonstop. And this was one of those that I did. So then Sega in 1995, same year, puts out X Men 2 Clone Wars, a sequel to that first X Men game from 93.
Guido:Now you can be Beast, Cyclops, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Wolverine, and eventually Magneto as you fight against the Phalanx and clones of many of their classic villains. This is cool because at this moment, what they're doing, and it's true with Games Masters Legacy, they're taking comics that are coming out right then Mhmm. And putting elements in. So the Phalanx covenant is the big arc that's happening the year before, and they put this out. Games Master Legacy has the legacy virus, so they're pulling directly from the comics, which is really cool.
Guido:The really important and interesting thing about X Men 2 Clone Wars, awesome game everyone should play, but they actually started development on X Women Sinister Virus. So not kidding. This is the 3rd sequel in this series that would have featured all playable women. I think the plot is there's sinister releases of virus, and I don't think all the men die, but maybe, like, they all become depowered. I don't know.
Guido:I don't remember what the plot was because it was due in 97. A playable demo was released, and you can illegally download the ROM of the playable demo online, But it was canceled, and no one knows if I I think people suspect the game doesn't exist. But my gosh, if someone one day found this game, how fun. Or someone should just go back and redevelop x women sinister virus. I would love that.
Rob:Or just call it y the x man. Then next up, we have x men versus street fighter. That's out in 1996 for the arcade, but later that year, x men 3 Mojo World for Game Gear with Wolverine, Rogue, Cyclops, Havoc, and Shard, that's a a different name, fighting against Spiral, Mojo, and other classic villains.
Guido:Yeah. They wanted to pull in. Again, Shard's in the comics. She's barely in the comics. It's Bishop's sister who dies in the future.
Guido:So Uh-huh. But they're pulling her in maybe to get some racial diversity amongst the characters. They now have 2 playable women, so my gosh, plus a a female villain in Spiral. So that I saw that ex women sinister virus is really starting to influence them.
Rob:I saw that Selene was a villain in lots of video games. Was she just big character at this point, or they needed a woman?
Guido:Actually a big character. My guess is maybe some designers just wanted to draw a
Rob:woman in
Guido:Black Bruce J. Exactly. It was, like, 3 or 4 games. It was, like, a lead. The villain the arcade game.
Guido:It's like, what is Emma Frost actually gonna be capable of doing to us in an in an action based arcade game? Alright. So moving right along, we are more than halfway there. Don't worry. In 1997, we got a Quake conversion with X Men, the Ravages of Apocalypse.
Guido:So this is an official video game release, but it's an expansion on Quake. So it's an overlay of characters. You need to have Quake to play it. And then the games take a break, so we actually get a few years without a game. It's 2,000 that they come back with X Men Mutant Academy.
Guido:So this is now the fighting game I played. I'm in college at this point playing this nonstop on PlayStation. It's on PlayStation and Game Boy Color. It's a fighting game. It's great.
Guido:It's so much fun, and it spawns a number of sequels that we'll hear about. You probably never played X Men Mutant Academy.
Rob:No. No. See, I didn't play any of these
Guido:because that's color cartridge, but it's not nearly as good. You need to play, like, a PS 1 rom of this because it's really
Rob:Yeah. Yeah. Because that same year X Men, Mutant Wars is out also for Game Boy Color, a side scroller with Storm, Cyclops, I Iceman, Gambit, and Wolverine. They're going against, guess what, Magneto and Cyborgs.
Guido:And then 2001 brings us Mutant Academy 2, so they're staying in with the fighting. But also Game Boy Advance gets Reign of Apocalypse. This is actually has a slightly alternate universe story. Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and Rogue are battling Blob, Magneto, Apocalypse, and his sentinel army. I I guess that's loosely inspired by Age of Apocalypse that he has the sentinel army.
Guido:It's it's, I don't know, strange strange things they're incorporating, but my guess is trying to pull from the comics.
Rob:In 2,002, we have X Men Next Dimension, a fighting game that is the 3rd in the Mutant Academy series. 2004 gets us the multiplatform X Men Legends, a dungeon crawling RPG with tons of characters, powers, and upgrades, and the first sort of open world to the extent that was possible, use of X Men characters and lore.
Guido:Yeah. And there's a sequel to that. That is a fantastic game. I really love that. It's a lot like if people haven't played it, the Marvel Legends series that is more recent next gen consoles is similar, where you you can make up a team of 4 characters, and you're just sort of running around doing stuff.
Guido:What's so cool, though, with the X Men Legends is they did this with the Marvel too. You can use each other's powers and, like, create, power mashups, and it's really a great way of tying into the X Men books a bit more. At this point, they're inspired, though, by the movie costumes clearly. There's lots of leather and black, so not the classic comic books. Because then in 2006, we get the X Men official tie in game to the movies tied in with the very classic x 3 The Last Stand.
Guido:We know how successful that movie was, and so you know that fighting as Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Iceman in this game must be good because it's based on that movie. And what is
Rob:the There was no video games for the first two movies, which were probably more popular.
Guido:Probably well, they might not have anticipated. I mean, they released Mutant Academy clearly to go along with the movie release at that point. And, again, legends is inspired a bit by both ultimate x men, the comic and the movie X Men looks. But, no, this is the first official tie in game that probably took them a few years to put it in development. Games take up forever, and that development stops.
Guido:So we get, at some point, X Men. This is in 2,000 I think 11. I think I miswrote what the year is. X Men Destiny. It's an attempt at building a bigger RPG for next gen consoles.
Guido:They create 3 unique characters. You play as 1, and you can sort of upgrade and tweak their powers. It's it's a pretty bad game. It it was not well designed. Maybe it was rushed.
Guido:It it's pretty negatively reviewed out there. I don't even think I finished it, which is surprising for an X Men game at that point. And then that's it. Everything stops, except there's been long rumored development on a massive futuristic modern game, and there was a leak, in fact, from Insomniac Studios, so the group that brought us Marvel's Spider Man, which is amazing, incredible, great game, great reference to the comics that we know and love as well as being a great game. And so, supposedly, their X Men game won't be out till 2030.
Rob:Woah. So Talk about a long time for development.
Guido:Wait. Yeah. Well, games do take an incredibly long time. And right now, in the last 6 months too, the gaming industry has been in major upheaval. Yes.
Guido:I would not be surprised if we actually if that game gets canceled and lost
Rob:or something. But Odd would be we could even have a movie maybe by that point with a totally different set of characters than this video game would have, which would be kind of confusing to advance that there.
Guido:Roughly in development together, But who knows? I, I hope it happens, and I hope it's good. But I'm not, I'm not holding my breath. That's for sure.
Rob:Well, Guido, what do you say we swing by the dominoes, then go to the Blockbuster to rent a video game, and, of course, we gotta stop by the comic book shop to pick up a a free promo book as well. I I hear that's out.
Guido:So I forgot that we had to rent video games sometimes.
Rob:Of course. Yeah. So let's go back to the nineties and also explore some multiversity.
Guido:I am your guide through these vast new realities.
Rob:Follow me
Guido:and ponder the question, What if?
Rob:And today, we are exploring X Men Prelude to Perdition number 1 from January 1995. This is a Marvel Comics free comic book, and it's maybe a loose adaptation of X Men Mutant Apocalypse video game from January 1995 and Capcom games.
Guido:So the comic is written by Jim Krueger, penciled by Karl Kerschel, inked by Hector Collazo, colored by James Austin, lettered by Janice Chang, former guest, and we had an interview with her you should go listen to, and edited by Glenn Hertling. It's a promo comic, and I can't remember how it was given out, and and I can't find it online. No.
Rob:I look too. I it's it's like nowhere. It's been erased from history.
Guido:Yeah. Well, it's pre Internet, so I I really just don't. It was it's a full size comic. So unlike there are some comics that are bound with the game, but then they tend to be the size of the game box. This is a full size comic, so I don't remember if it was, like, in a store where you would buy the game and you could get this or if there was a send away.
Guido:I I don't remember, and I can't find it online. So if you know, you can let us know on social media if you remember getting this in 1995. I have it, but I don't know how I got it. So, in terms of the creators on the comic, Jim Krueger is a comic book writer. He later becomes pretty well known, I'd say, for writing the Earth X trilogy with Alex Ross and then the Justice book at DC with Alex Ross.
Guido:All of this is later, and then he goes into a lot of tie in comics like Buffy and other licensed stuff. At this point, though, 1995, he's only done a handful of ex annuals for Marvel, and that is it. Karl Kershaw, similarly, this is sort of the start of his career. He's a comic book artist primarily at DC over the last 20, 25 years. This is just one of the first of maybe only about a little more than a dozen Marvel books that he did before moving on to DC and other stuff.
Guido:So let's start with a summary of the game and then this comic, which is kind of a prequel and kind of an adaptation. I'll give a summary of the comic. So why don't you tell us about the game?
Rob:Okay. So prejudiced humans on Genosha are imprison imprisoning humans of imprisoning mutants, and Professor X sends Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, Psylocke, and Wolverine to rescue those mutants. Little do they know that Apokolips is experimenting on the mutants there as well. After playing through each character and defeating the humans and sentinels, you then choose an X man to tangle with the Brood, Tusk, and ultimately, Apocalypse. You've saved the day.
Rob:Nope. Fake out because Magneto plans on destroying Genosha to send a message to the humans. So Charles summons you back to the mansion for additional training via holograms of omega red Juggernaut and murder world slash mojo world, and now you are ready to take on the master of magnetism. After defeating Exodus and his acolytes, you defeat Magneto and save mutant human relations for now.
Guido:Yeah. So that's the game. And then this comic, which is out the same month, here's what's going on in this. So we have Apokolips experimenting in Genosha. Gambit, Psylocke, Beast, Cyclops, and Wolverine confront him.
Guido:They end up fighting some sentinels on Genosha. Apocalypse finds out that the Brood have infected his mutates, and so he's busy fighting the Brood. The X Men or the subteam of X Men destroy the Sentinels. This stuns the Brood, and they find out that Apocalypse has escaped. So Genosha is free to be itself again, which the it's sort of weird.
Guido:I don't understand if the person writing this knew what Genosha was because there's this whole thing like, oh, now we can be happy human mutant beast again. But the ex men suspect there's something else going on here and that there's something is wrong. And it turns out Magneto's been watching them, set this up so that the mansion would be unguarded. I guess there's just no other X Men. It's not clear where the other X Men are.
Guido:They go to the mansion, and the danger room starts simulating merger Murder World and Mojo World and the Savage Land because, one of Magneto's acolytes is controlling it.
Rob:An unnamed female acolyte that's just kind of there.
Guido:And Xavier is trapped in it? Or it's so unclear. They fight Omega Red and Juggernaut suddenly. It wasn't a secret in
Rob:the comic to me that
Guido:they're holograms. It wasn't a real comic. True. It's not that. I guess they're in the danger room sequence.
Guido:Mhmm. And Xavier ends up stopping this madness from occurring. He stops the acolyte. But now half of this sub team that we know from the video game, this lineup, has been kidnapped. And it turns out that Exodus brought them to Asteroid m, although they're calling it Avalon here, and to put them on trial.
Guido:And the comic ends with Magneto. They're all tied up, and then it says continued in the video game. But it's just not totally true, but, we'll get into that. So, let's start with the game. You said you played it a lot.
Guido:Did you remember, like, the narrative aspect of it?
Rob:Oh, yeah.
Guido:What do you think of the narrative aspect of it?
Rob:I I liked this game a lot. You know, one of the things that happens in the Spider Man X Men arcades revenge game is every time you lost a life, it happened across all your characters. So, like, it was very hard to beat in that way. Here what's fun is like you play as all these different characters and they each have their own lives, which is great. And then the powers are just really well done, I think, for this.
Rob:And the other nice thing is I mentioned before, like, Gambit has a limited amount of cards in arcades or events that you can have. Here, you have unlimited cards. And, like, in the arcade game too. Right? You had, like, only certain amount of times you could use your powers.
Rob:And here it's unlimited, which I think as a kid playing an X Men game, it's like you wanna have as many powers as you want. So I thought that part of the construction of the game was very clever.
Guido:Yeah. And it's fun. I think the fake out is the coolest aspect of the game because we even in preparation for this, neither of us have played this in a long time. In preparation for this, we watched the cut scenes, and you're watching, and it really is a typical finale of of something Xavier's telling you once you beat Apocalypse that, like, you've saved the day and everything's really happy. The music it's Capcom, so the music is all very Capcom y as is the art design, and it all feels like everything's gonna be happy.
Guido:And then, like, an interruption comes in on the broadcast, and it's magneto, and you find out that actually, like, he's I don't know. Whatever he's doing that brings you back to the mansion. It's kind of absurd,
Rob:of course. Charles says
Guido:you need more training before. Xavier's like, come back to the mansion so I can train you before you fight Magneto. But whatever. It it works, and the fake out is really fun.
Rob:I don't think I ever got that far necessarily to to to to even know the fake out. And it's and it's it's interesting. I wonder why they also chose to call it X Men Mutant Apocalypse because Apocalypse is only the he's not even really the bad guy for the first part of the game because the first part of the game really sets the bonus.
Guido:Like, if if the game ended before the magneto fake out thing, apocalypse is the arch Oh,
Rob:he would be. Yeah. The big bag.
Guido:It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and and we'll get into this with the comic too. Like, it it's why we posed the what if question the way we did. It's sort of like, let's just put everyone together, and so Apocalyps doesn't have a clear plan here. But he is the arch he is the uber boss in this game until it gets interrupted and you find out. In fact, no.
Guido:Magneto is gonna be the uber boss. Mhmm. So
Rob:I was just gonna say, I think and I the last thing on the game too is, like, I think this is just a really fun game, though. I think it really combines the perfect amount of side scrolling beat them up, but you can also explore the levels as Wolverine. You can crawl up things with your claws, and the character designs are really good. Like, they look like the characters. And so I I think overall it's good.
Guido:Yeah. Capcom's a good studio to be doing these games in because they give it a cartoony feel.
Rob:Mhmm. And so
Guido:it feels very comic booky. You don't have to like, because Capcom, at this point, like, their all their art looks like cell shading, and it looks almost like Disney art. Like, it's very bright, vibrant colors, very flat, in a good way. Like, it looks like it's drawn on paper. It it's a good match.
Guido:So I agree. The design is great. There's even really fun moments. Go look for these online if you haven't seen them in the final sequence when because they get reunited with the rest of the X Men, although it's really not clear where they are or why. I guess Magneto might have, like Bishop and Jubilee and Jean Grey, but it's never made clear.
Guido:But the finals there's a final screen for each of the protagonists that you get to play as where it's like their sort of happy ending. And it's very cute because it's like Cyclops hugging Jean, and it's Beast hanging out with Jubilee. It's Psylocke with Bishop, who's given a thumbs up and looks really kind of lecherous. And then it's Rogue, and Gambit is the best because she's covering his mouth to kiss him. Wolverine is alone and really sad because he's an eternal loner.
Guido:But it's a fun final sequence, and and it's just the look of it is perfect and comic book y. So they really got what makes X Men games fun, I think, and Mhmm. Applied it here. So this comic, I don't know what its point is. I will say I guess I'll start generally.
Guido:I think I really liked the comic.
Rob:Yeah. Me too.
Guido:But it's weird, and I don't get what it's doing in terms of the game. Maybe Kruger had, like, a loose outline to work from and had to try to create something with that, and that's why you have these sort of strange inconsistencies. Or maybe just his attempt to make the game world make sense created it? Because it's just so weird. Like, why is Apocalypse on Genosha, first of all?
Guido:Okay. That makes no sense. Then why what's the deal with the Brood? Like, what is going on? Yeah.
Guido:And well, I guess he had to get them in because the Capcom developers wanted to put the brood in, so he had to figure out why the brood would be there and what that would mean. So there are some weird things, but I liked it. I liked the writing. I liked the art. A fun issue.
Guido:What you what did you think?
Rob:Yeah. I think he did a really good job of capturing the voices of the characters. There's lots of jokes in there that really reminded me of the humor on X Men The Animated Series, especially coming from Gambit.
Guido:Clear influence, which it makes sense. This is 3 years into the run of
Rob:Yeah.
Guido:And the animated series. So yeah.
Rob:Yeah. Psylocke and Cyclops don't have too much, characterization, but Beast is fun, and especially Gambit and Wolverine are very much their classic selves. And Gambit has a lot of one liners, especially, like, he throws the his cards, and it's like, I'm I'm gonna deck you or something like that to the sentinels. It's like, yeah. Okay.
Rob:That that works.
Guido:Yeah. And it's fun to read a comic. You know, there are some X Men books like this, but it's just sort of fun. And it's just throwing a bunch of their villains at them and try to give you a story as to why, but that doesn't matter that much. But I I like you know, while the brood thing doesn't make sense, it's it's sort of fun.
Guido:It's like, well, what if what if Apocalypse and the Brood and the Sentinels are all on Genosha, and these 5 X Men have to go up against them for whatever reason. And then what if the danger room has taken over and they have to fight all these villains and you know? So it it it's fun in that way too just as an X Men comic. It's action packed and fun with the things that we know and love.
Rob:What do
Guido:you think about the fact that Kruger basically gives away, though, the twist of the video game? Well, so they came out together January 95. That's why yeah. I think if this had been, like, a promotional thing to to build up excitement for the game, it would have taken away that. But I guess if we assume that maybe you're only reading this when you're playing the game yeah.
Guido:It it does spoil though, for sure. It spoils and that would take away from the the misdirect of the game. Because reading the comic, you'd know you're waiting for Magneto, and and so you wouldn't be surprised at the end. So it does take away from it.
Rob:Yeah. The
Guido:the only thing I like the art. Like, it's it's you can tell it's someone sort of early. It's a little like, Karl Kershaw gets a lot cleaner with his stuff, or it could sometimes be in these books, these promo books, especially. I think the coloring and the inking, they they aren't spending a lot of money on it, so people are probably rushed. But it reminded me a little bit of, like, the Jaylee Executioner song art from this era, which you won't know what that means, but it looks a little like that.
Guido:The only thing I really don't like, and this is in the colorist. I don't know who made the decision. Psylocke is quite literally yellow, and that's not okay.
Rob:Mhmm.
Guido:So Yeah. I don't Yeah. I Yeah. I don't it's weird because in I don't know if maybe they were trying to go for the video game coloring. I suspect it has more to do with trying to code her as Asian because she's like a a pale yellow, and she's the only character, with that skin tone in the coloring.
Guido:So that was a problem, but otherwise, I didn't have any problem with issue.
Rob:And you were fine with the apocalypse. No sleeves.
Guido:It's so weird because he's not even sleeveless in the video game. So, again, I think the coloring messed up there. I think the colorist didn't realize that you're supposed to draw the whole arm blue. So it's kind of fun. You get you do get up this alternate outfit for apocalypse in this issue.
Rob:Yeah. And, like, exodus looks a little funky. Like, he doesn't quite look exactly the same, but then, like, Juggernaut and Omega Red look great in, like, a big image. So, yeah, maybe they were just spending more time on some characters than others. And and what do you think
Guido:about There are a lot of characters, like, the scenes
Rob:Oh, yeah. There are.
Guido:Weekly. So And
Rob:what do you think about the title? Because prelude to perdition, if perdition is like hell or damnation, but it's got a great comic book alliteration. But, like, what is the hell that they're entering? Like, why not use the apocalypse as a game?
Guido:The content of the game, Mutant Apocalypse. Like
Rob:Mhmm.
Guido:What's weird is it doesn't I mean, I guess unless you associate the idea of apocalypse with something.
Rob:Uh-huh. That's what I
Guido:was thinking. Prelude to perdition is sort of like the thing that comes before the apocalypse, so maybe that's what they were going for. What's weird is the cover says X Men Mutant Apocalypse. I don't know why they didn't just call the comic X Men Mutant Apocalypse. I really don't know.
Guido:I I have absolutely no idea why.
Rob:And for something that's clearly a little bit more geared at kids because there's a few times where they have to explain who all the characters are. They make sure to say everybody's name to, like, throw in, like, a $10 word, like, perdition.
Guido:To look it up today. I I don't know what the that was.
Rob:I just know Road to Perdition, the movie with Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. I'm like But I
Guido:don't know. I still don't know what it means. I had to look it up.
Rob:So Hell or damnation according to the rainboxers. So
Guido:Well, before we go forward, we usually say, do we wanna go back to this Earth? So I guess in this case, like, do you want more comics in this Earth? We'll talk about video games in a few minutes in our next segment. But do you want like, would you want a second a sequel to this comic?
Rob:No. I don't think so. I think the I think I I loved this comic. I thought it was really fun. Maybe I could do one more to just to kind of wrap up the events of, like, the second half of the video game.
Rob:I I okay. I could do one more comic now that I'm talking
Guido:about it. I agree. I could do one more because I think it would just be fun and and keep that same action packed tone, I bet, and all that. But in some ways, he's almost created, like, a choose your own adventure, which I appreciate, I like because it's sort of like this continues in the game, and now it's up to us to finish out this story. Not that we get choice, like, video games at this point don't have choices that follow you or impact the ending.
Guido:Although who you fight Magneto with would impact slightly the dialogue you get, of course. But the still, it's sort of fun that he sets it up that, okay. Now it continues, and it's, like, in our hands. And we we get to be the ones who find out how we are gonna defeat Magneto and save the rest of the X Men. Even though this isn't a clean adaptation.
Guido:It's sort of. This is like an adaptation of the first 2 thirds of the game, I guess. So in that way Yeah. A sequel is unnecessary because the game itself is the sequel, which I guess is why sometimes people call this a prequel, though it's not. Well, yeah, let's let's go into more.
Rob:Yeah. So I I it's flashing that we need to put in some more quarters because we just have one life left, but that life is pondering possibilities.
Guido:Will the future you describe be averted, averted, averted?
Rob:So, Guido, what are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?
Guido:Well, let's talk about a few questions just about X Men video games. And let's start with you since you've played some of the games that are on this list that were not adapted into comics in the same way this one was, Would you want more comic book adaptations of X Men video games? Like, either then or now, would you enjoy a a Spider Man X Men arcades revenge comic book for example?
Rob:I think, like, that one I would enjoy now if they also took a somewhat meta approach and commented on some of, like, the ridiculousness of the game, like Storm being underwater and the that you have to start every no matter how far you get into the game, you always have to then go back to the beginning and start with this, like, stupid Spider Man level. So I think, like, there could be some good Marvel humor, especially from, like, a Spider Man character or Gambit about why why am I being chased by a giant ball? Like, those kind of things.
Guido:Yeah. Yeah.
Rob:How about you? I mean, you played more of these games than than I did going back to some of these very first ones.
Guido:I think if they follow what Kruger did here, I think it's a really good model, actually. I'm I'm sort of surprised it doesn't happen more. I feel like it's happening more recently where you'll get these standalone tie in books that are, non canonical. But I would I think it would be fun even thinking about the the just adjective less X Men game for Sega in 93 that I played the most of. Like, what's fun is that the game designers and creators and writers have constructed a little bit of a story.
Guido:So why not let a comic book writer adapt that story and take it and and give us something that is just a version of it. So in that case, you have this the danger room malfunctioning and Magneto's virus. Like, why not? And you have a set number of characters. So, like, you have all these parameters.
Guido:Like, give it to someone to do an a one shot or or a 2 issue thing. Or I could see it being like an anthology book where there's little short stories from different video game worlds or something. I don't know. I I just think I I think this is well executed enough that it's a good model. We can't go back in time and have them have released promo comics, but there's certainly enough people like us who have played these games Mhmm.
Guido:Who would totally enjoy, I think, a a little glimpse into the world of the game. I mean, some of the games, like I said, are so closely lifted from the comics that it's almost like a snake eating its own tail, I guess, if you then bring it back to a comic.
Rob:Well, and and, like, the danger room one is fun because it gives you a reasoning of why all these characters are in it. I think, like I was thinking Spider Man is so easy because it makes complete sense why the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and the Lizard and, like like, he can encounter all those people. But why here, as we've discussed, why are they fighting the Brood and Magneto and the Apocalypse, like, and Arcade? Like, these are not villains that necessarily have anything to do with each other. So having a device like the danger room malfunctioning, it's like, oh, okay.
Rob:That makes sense why suddenly Omega Red is appearing on the scene.
Guido:Yeah. Although in some cases, I wonder if, like, a writer could have some fun with it. In this case, Kruger, it's just one line. He doesn't give a lot of backstory, but he tries to sort of say, well, the brood are there because they've infected the mutates that Apocalypse is working on. So Mhmm.
Guido:It Or would seem like that's the part that I think is fun is a writer sort of having to use that weirdness and then pull something out of
Rob:it. Yeah. And we saw I think, arcade and mojo were both in a bunch, and those are good characters to explain. Like, they brought people into battle. Right?
Rob:So suddenly, that's why the blob and the brood or a death bird are in the same place. Right? Because, like, Mojo has has just channeled them all in there to fight the x men.
Guido:Or they're they're they're fake, like, you'll see in a lot of games. Like, Clone Wars, the phalanx are creating fake versions of things. In the the Cyborg game, there's a bunch of Cyborg versions of characters. So, yeah, that that device is already built into a few of the games. So, yeah, it'd be fun to get more comic book adaptations of some of the video games.
Guido:I guess zooming out, when it comes to X men video games, what would you want from 1? I mean, you don't play too many modern games, but what what do you think even in past ones makes for a good X Men game? What do you want to see?
Rob:Well, like I mentioned before, I think a key thing to me is not having limitations on their powers. Maybe there's a function where if you don't use the power for a bit, it charges up and can be super powerful. I saw that was a key that was something in the one of the video games, but no one wants to play an X Men game where it's like, okay. I've used up all my playing cards, or I can't channel lightning now because I need to rest. Like, no.
Rob:It's the x men. You wanna see them use their powers. And never in the comics or other adaptations where it's like, okay, they need to they they need to rest now after, like, using 2 knots. So I think that's key to me. It's like let the x men be the x men.
Rob:Don't put these other restraints on top of it.
Guido:Yeah. I think for me, I mean, I'm eager for an insomniac developed X Men game. I think an open world game is a perfect fit for X Men. Part of why X Men Legends works so well is because you get deployed to different missions, and that gives you all these different narratives and puts you in different settings with different characters. So an open world game where you have some element of choice like the Spider Man games where you have a straight linear narrative and the side quests and the side stories, I think makes a ton of sense for the X Men.
Guido:I think what's probably hard and I don't know if this is what made Marvel's Avengers, the the recent game from about 5 years ago, such a failure to people or not, but the characters are hard. You need a lot of characters to feel like an X Men game. You have to be able to play different characters. Even something like the arcade game, great. There are 6 characters.
Guido:They're sort of weird choices, again, based on the pride of the x men. But, like, someone's unhappy that it's just those 6 characters because X Men fans have so many favorite characters. So how do you develop a game where there are 12 characters? And can you develop a game, let's say I mean, modern video games, of course, you can choose a character and it usually is technologically possible. But, like, narratively, could I play Rogue the entire game and have the same story as you if you play the game as Cyclops?
Guido:Like, I I think it's probably very tricky, which is why you would have to have certain levels, be certain characters, and then does it start to feel restrictive and less fun to you? So I don't know. I'm very interested and excited. But for an X Men video game for me, you have to have a lot of characters and a pretty open world with a lot of stuff going on in it.
Rob:And I think some of the other issue with some of those characters is how do you properly play display their powers in a video game? Because some of the games, Wolverine doesn't have the healing factor. Like in x men apocalypse, he does not have that. Rogue, you you mentioned it's like, of course, you could do the strength, you could do the flying, but how do you do her maybe draining? I bet that's not in any games.
Rob:And even some of the villains, like, I saw Fitzroy is that lead villain in one of the games, but he just comes out with, like, a big metal suit. He's not, like, creating portals. So yeah. So I think you there's some characters that are tricky. Even like Jean Grey, like, what how do you show telepathy
Guido:and telepathy in the characters? In far so few of the games. Mhmm. She's a tricky one for sure, I think, to display. Although in the fighting game, she's awesome.
Guido:I would play her in Mutant Academy all the time, of course, and that was pretty great. So, well, we'll do an episode in 6 years when the new x men video game comes out talking about it.
Rob:And we'll be anticipating the announcement of the movie at that time.
Guido:But until then, we do have some other video game worlds and tie in comics to cover, and we will do that eventually. For now, that is a wrap. Dear watchers, thank you for listening. I have been gamergido.
Rob:And I have been player 2 Rob.
Guido:The reading list, playing list is in the show notes. Follow us on social media at dear watchers.
Rob:And leave a 5 star review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip to the multiverse. We're
