The X-Men TAS Podcast

The X-Men TAS Podcast: Rise of Apocalypse Part Two

• Willie Simpson

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0:00 | 59:22

We return from vacation to witness more bad therapy from Professor X and debate yet again if any sentient being has been sentenced to die by black hole in our reality on the latest episode of X-Men (97) TAS! Join us as we discuss...

  • Feeling iffy on the new Marvel Doomsday trailer!
  • Bishop winning the MVP for most sane X-Man this episode!
  • Magneto and Professor X, failing spectacularly together!
  • Ok, Bishop won MVP but couldn't he have time traveled back a littler earlier when it came time to pick up Professor X from the past?

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the X-Men Task Podcast. My name is Willie Simpson. My name is Sonia Rappaport. Sonia, welcome back to the world of X-Men.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

You are on a nice extended uh two-week vacation.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, I had a little hiatus.

SPEAKER_00

And you're back.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is fun. Now I have a bunch of episodes in the cam that I get to watch.

SPEAKER_00

You were almost replaced. We'll get into that and a whole lot more. Uh first, just remind everyone check our show notes for our social media links, how to donate to us. We appreciate everyone who does just that. And hey, uh, if you're not involved in that Facebook group, you're missing out on a chance to interact with the X-Men Task Podcast. Or Reddit, it's there too. Right, on a much higher level because we've been having these uh cool, incredible Zoom sessions that we've been posting to YouTube. Private videos, though, that you can only access through the Facebook group. You can't search them out on YouTube. Uh, they're not listed, but in the Facebook group you could find them.

SPEAKER_01

And you could also be in the videos.

SPEAKER_00

You could be in the videos, you could get get off all your hot takes about X-Men, about whatever. Uh we had we did a couple in your absence. They're amazing. I want to thank everyone who uh volunteered and participated. And we're gonna do more of those in the future because they're so easy and it was so great just to talk to everybody and uh get everyone's expertise involved.

SPEAKER_01

No pun intended.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Uh in all X-Men really things. Uh the next one we plan on doing is the new Spider-Man movie is coming out July 30th. I want to do a big Zoom community reaction episode with everyone about Spider-Man, whatever it's called, brand new day or Spider-Man 9, as I've calculated. Because now all the Spider-Man movies are canon. So Spider-Man 9, uh, the only way to be involved if the in the episode is be part of that Facebook group and uh say you're interested when I post the time of when we're doing it, then you could be there talking with us, and we appreciate everyone who does that again. So Sony, that's what um I've been up to since you've been con. I've been holding some impromptu zooms with our uh great fans. Um a lot of stuff has happened uh since you've been away. Uh there's a new season of King of the Hill, which just like dropped yesterday or something. Uh we watched the first episode. I'm very excited to dive into this one because um it's gotten like incredible reviews.

SPEAKER_01

How many episodes is it? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's 10, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. All right. We just kind of like dipped our toe in the first episode, it was good.

SPEAKER_00

I yeah, very charming. I know you read that it's like a 10 out of 10 website. One one website, I think IGN said it was 10 out. They called it a masterpiece, which blew my mind. I was like, Maybe it has a great story arc over the course of the 10 episodes. We haven't gotten there quite yet, but it was good. I hear there's like a whole episode where they do a backstory episode where the characters are young again, as you remember them from the original series. That that excites me, yeah. So we are huge King of the Hill fans, very excited to have that in our back pocket. Um, other stuff that's been going on. Uh oh, we saw the Odyssey yesterday. That was fairly mind-blowing, I must say. Um, we are going to do a full discussion on the Odyssey for the next episode that we talk. Not in this one. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, right. So, right, so not to confuse everyone, we're gonna do three episodes this week. On Wednesday, you're gonna hear this episode, episode four, uh of the X-Men show. On Thursday, you're gonna hear episode five, the one so the two Sonya missed. So Wednesday, Thursday, episodes four and five, and then Friday, uh, we should have the newest episode that's coming out this week uh with a special guest, if everything lines up correctly. We're very excited about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that'll be fun.

SPEAKER_00

Right, that'll be fun. So you'll get episodes Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week, and uh, we appreciate everyone still rocking with us. So, but we figure that uh because this episode we want to talk about the Marvel Doomsday trailer. So we'll talk about that, and then but tomorrow we're gonna talk about our experience watching the Odyssey.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Which um I'm very excited to talk about that. Um but yeah, so the Doomsday trailer came out. I have a lot of thoughts about it personally.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Um my biggest takeaway was I found myself simping for certain moments and characters, but I couldn't get over the general AI slop look of it all. Which I don't know is the fault of Marvel, but it's just it's it's made it's just the nature of AI videos where you could watch some shitty AI video where it's like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and uh I don't know, the X-Men are in a room together talking. And like and it's like it's kind of like what this movie like this m and the main reason I get the AI feeling is not just because of the assortment of characters, it's the general like it's the environments they're in. They're in these just like wasted, nothing landscapes. I know some of it's in the X-Mansion, which to me is already like kind of a generic set piece. Uh, and then a lot of just like in some like destroyed ruins of an area. They it seems to be a lot of the landscape too is like um someone's holding up the ocean and they're standing in the middle of the ocean so they could talk to the Namor Atlantean people with the Black Panther and Fantastic Four characters, and that's just like a nothing space. So, my biggest problem with the trailer is that I got no sense of like where this movie takes place. Uh you know, like it is it a world that's lived in, it just feels like a glorified AI cameo.

SPEAKER_01

I mean it's also one of those things where they made sure to show you all of the characters from all of the other movies that you've and TV shows and stuff that you've seen. Yes. And so it's like it's always really hard to get a handle on what the plot actually is gonna be about. Yeah, yeah. Because so often those cameos are stuck into the trailer to get you excited about, like, oh, I'm gonna see, you know, uh Shuri as Black Panther or whatever. But then, like, come the movie itself, it's like a two-minute cameo by whoever it's like it doesn't amount to anything in terms of actual storytelling.

SPEAKER_00

And then sometimes they feature characters a lot more than you think. So uh I don't think this is gonna be the case, but this could be a Gambit movie for all we know. Like uh a bunch of the characters we see could die. Right. Like you see some X-Men, you see Cyclops, you see Professor X Magnil, maybe they all die in the first five minutes, and the only surviving X-Men is Gambit, Chatham Tatum, and he's like a driving character of like whatever, you know, maybe a bunch of Avengers die too at the hands of Doctor Doom. Like, who knows? Like, uh so you don't they gave you nothing in terms of plot, and they gave you nothing in terms of like a world of like where this might take place. Maybe it's very intentional, they're just keeping it completely secretive. Yeah. I have heard things that like this movie is not going well as far as the script. Uh-huh. I heard that on one of like the Ringer podcasts. Uh-huh. They said the word behind the scenes is that they they keep like reworking the script as they make it, which is bad.

SPEAKER_02

That's not good.

SPEAKER_00

That they don't have like a grand vision of what the fuck they're doing. I mean, and it makes sense too in the standpoint of like where what is the storyline of Marvel lately? They had Kang, they fired the actor for cause, uh-huh. And then then, but that throws away like whatever plot they were leading towards.

SPEAKER_01

And they didn't come up with a new one, apparently.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I mean, they're shoehorning Robert Downing Jr.'s Doctor Doom. It like he's the character, but he hasn't been set up at all. Right. And uh it's just it's like an odd choice. Um and it's also it's just it's doing the there's a lot of heft heavy lifting of like everyone kind of knows who's a comic book fan, knows who Doctor Doom is. And then also it's like Robert Downing Jr.'s sort of like a splash of a it's like, oh, you're gonna be in good hands because of RDJ. But it's just sort of random, right?

SPEAKER_01

It's not I mean they have to have written that into the plot. There's no way they have Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom without like showing his face and explaining somehow what an elaborate backstory. Yeah, exactly. Like if they weren't gonna do something like that, they could have cast anybody, like any other famous person would have done fine.

SPEAKER_00

So As Doctor Doom.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there has to be like some kind of I don't know, uh superhero gymnastics that's gonna go on for the movie, like try to make sense.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean the movie's called Doomsday, so it probably is a Doctor mostly a Doctor Doom origin story of some kind. At least an origin of the scheme. Uh, you know, like Avengers Infinity War, I guess, was like a Thanos origin story, and they pay it off with the sequel the end game. Right. It was like, but those two movies were about Thanos, really, the character, and the other character sort of like scrambling to beat him. So, and I know, so you this and it's similar, it's a silver set where you've got Doomsday and the next one's Secret Wars, which comes out the next year. And so I guess it's like it's like they're probably just like two Doctor Doom movies, like those were two Thanos movies. Now they had laid the seed of Thanos a lot more in the previous Avengers movie, like he would appear occasionally and like he was established. Here they've only established Doctor Doom in literally the end of the Fantastic Four movie in like a one-second cameo where he's interacting with Franklin Richards. Right. Um, I mean, I don't know how to feel about all this. Like, again, I my favorite moment of the trailer was seeing Gambit fight Shang-Chi. Although, I mean that's obviously gonna be resolved very quickly, and they'll realize they're on the same side. Yeah, probably. Uh I mean Cyclops look good, James Marsden's finally getting a moment, but it's just I think they're all there to be murked, the X-Men, clearly. They're not they're gonna be killed. Like, I don't know. They're it's just they're uh they're like what's the right word? They're uh too old? It's not that they're too old. I mean they're it's not even that. It's it's like a tribute performance. Like these are tributes to these actors in that universe, and they're giving them one send-off of as like a because they're too old and they can't reuse those actors eyes of Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01

That's why.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's yeah, it's that, but it's it's it's also I don't know. The it's part of their marketing scheme, you know. I mean it really is like they're tying up the loose ends. Yeah. Um I mean, there it's like a again, they've been soft introducing the X-Men as a concept for some time now in all these movies, like where you get like variants of them or Miss Marvel the theme song. Yeah. I mean, none of it's like really paid off, like you saw Beast at the end of the Marvels movie. And none of it like matters or it does Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01

Like those are the little like clips that they put in the the trailers to make you think like, whoa, Beast is there, but then he's he's only there for like a minute at the end, and you're like, okay, well, might as well have not been there.

SPEAKER_00

And there's no story to it. It's like he's not the character, it's Kelsey Grammar, who is barely a character from the X-Men 3 when he played it one time. It's like there's nothing, there's no real meat on that bone besides of what you you yourself bring to it as a fan.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I I mean, I don't know, maybe it'll defy expectations and blow us away. I mean, I think it's gonna make a lot of money. I think people are gonna see it out of morbid curiosity. Uh, it'll have like a big opening weekend, but like how much legs it has after that, it seems like this just seems like a weird good time jamboree movie. It's like come about doom. Yeah, it's like come to the traveling roadshow circus where you've got a whole bunch of Marvel characters dance around for you, you know, at a tent.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's what it feels like. Uh it doesn't feel like they've just lost the fucking rails of like long-form storytelling.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I know a lot of like Infinity War had like a lot of fans. I know people really liked that movie. Yeah. But I already felt like that Marvel jamboree thing happening there. Yeah. Like it was like just like too many things.

SPEAKER_00

But ha that was heading towards a conclusion, though.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00

It was like a good send-off for everything. Like it was like, all right, there's a whole bunch of bullshit at the end. We've reached the end, here's a prize, a bunch of bullshit, all the characters fighting together on screen.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

They're doing it again, but it like makes no sense because this middle period has been bad. Yeah. And it hasn't led to anything, and they've made mistakes and they've rebooted their franchise. And the other thing is you kind of know it's all coming to an end anyway after the Secret Wars thing, because they're just likely gonna wipe the slate clean of all these actors that they've hired and have new younger actors play the X-Men, God knows who else, like recast Tony Stark and Captain America and just do that's probably what their plan is just start it over. I don't know, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01

Alright.

SPEAKER_00

Um, so I mean, I'm down on the doomsday.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but we're gonna see it, and when we get back from the theater, we're gonna be like that was good. Maybe.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I mean it's kind of losing its power over me, I have to admit.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I did when you were gone, I had a lot of nothing to do.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

So th two things I did. I watched the Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

And uh I you know, I I I still found it charming. I think it's like very much carried by Tom Holland Zinde uh and the the guy that plays Ned. Uh-huh. They were all uh good. But like in general, it was just sort of I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

It was like a didn't have a lot of rewatch value for you?

SPEAKER_00

Not quite. You know, and as Spider-Man stories, it was a little its foot was too much in the Avengers world. That's what's interesting about the new one, is like, what is it, you know, it seems like could be about anything really uh when we've speculated. Um I rewatched that. I also rewatched Doctor Strange 2 Multiverse of Madness. And I thought that movie was better than I remembered.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00

For two reasons.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The Sam Raimi's direction was excellent, I thought. He brought a lot of style and pizzazz to that movie.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

The thing that drowns that movie, there's two factors. Um, the script is bad. Yeah, that's a big deal to me. And the Wanda stuff is bad. I remember that being weird, yeah. And it's that's too centered at that movie. But like, if they just let Sam Raimi cook and make his own Marvel movie, it w I think it really would've there was something in there.

SPEAKER_01

But they had to like get Wanda in there because the show had been But they didn't connect it to the show properly.

SPEAKER_00

Like it didn't make commercial we've talked about that, like, yeah, yeah. But anyway, the point is like watch that was like, I would have just let Sam Raimi make some Marvel. I want to see him do other like do the X-Men or whoever, you know. I feel I like I think he knew I kind of got the sense that he knew what he was doing. Um but whatever, I don't know. That movie underperformed its expectations. Um, but I I did that one was an enjoyable rewatch to me. Okay. I think I watched another Marvel movie too, now I can't remember, which is probably not a good sign showing how unmemorable it is. Alright, anyway. We gotta catch you up on X-Men, Sonya.

SPEAKER_01

I know.

SPEAKER_00

Um so this episode, Rise of the Apocalypse Part 2, or Rise of Apocalypse Part 2. Uh are you excited to be back in this narrative world of X-Men 97?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I like this storyline that's playing out in like ancient Egypt, and there's like ancient alien stuff going on, and Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This is good X-Men territory.

SPEAKER_01

It's like uh will they, won't they be able to prevent the rise of apocalypse?

SPEAKER_00

It's also very messy with the choices the characters make and that the time travel butterfly effect nonsense of it all.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I enjoyed the messiness of it and how silly the characters were and they're crazy.

SPEAKER_01

They know that it's messy and that they're like not always making good choices.

SPEAKER_00

And they both make really I mean it's Magneto and Professor X at their worst in terms of critical thought process and just I don't know. Uh like for example, we see Professor X doing bad therapy in this episode. Uh Magneto just making insane choices on behalf of everyone that uh are just stupid, I guess. But um I think this was a very exciting episode and a very satisfying apocalypse origin episode. I think when by the time this episode ends, it is extremely satisfying as far as that character, and just sets him up exactly as how I envisioned apocalypse in my mind always. Yeah. From the original series, from the comics, it's like a pitch-perfect version of the character by the time of it. So um this one opens up the it was like a in the last episode, they were about to be blown up by Kang with some kind of Death Star ray he has. And uh the X-Men are fine because Magneto, it turns out, did a magnet shield over them. Good one. And but it's but Ball, who is En Sabanor or Apocalypse's mentor, is dead. And he's pissed. Right. I learned that Ball is voiced by Michael Dorn. Amazing. Wharf. Wow. And then the guy that does Kang or Rama Tut is the guy that did Q from the original Star Trek. The actor's name is escaping me.

SPEAKER_01

That's pretty awesome, too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's a too awesome.

SPEAKER_01

What a straight line on his resume.

SPEAKER_00

Right. From Q to uh I don't know if we mentioned it, but uh Beverly Crusher was the voice of Mother Ascani from I think we did mention it. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01

So that's really funny because it's like all the kids that were watching the X-Men in the nine in like 1994 or whatever, like probably were watching Star Trek TNG like ten years later or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

And I right, and I think Star Trek and the X-Men, there's a lot of strange cultural overlaps. I mean, a lot of it has to do with uh Patrick Stewart, uh-huh. Just two iconic science fiction characters between Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X.

SPEAKER_01

But he wasn't Professor X yet at that time. He wouldn't for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

Right, I know, but I'm just saying like I'm just imagining that the links between Star Trek and X-Men in general.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think they even made like crossover X-Men Star Trek comics or like even like novelizations, which is insane to think about. Yeah. Um and I remember when we talked to Eric and Julia Leewald years ago on the podcast, you can look it up. Uh they talked about Star Trek being an enormous influence on them and their writing too. So like the the DNA of Star Trek runs deep in the X-Men animated series, at least. Um, all right, so Ball is dead, Nord's mad, the X-Men are alive. Uh Bishop is there, and he wants to leave immediately. And I I thought Bishop was the MVP of this episode. Yeah in terms of his like attitude and perspective.

SPEAKER_01

Right. He's like, look, guys, we tried and it didn't work out. We have to go like back to the future.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. It's it's a big fuck up. Let's go. I'm here to save you, X-Mar.

SPEAKER_01

Abort, abandon this mission, let's let's get out of here.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Uh meanwhile, like Xavier and Magnetor are e are in equal turns trying to reason with Noor to, I don't know, make him good, I guess. And they're constantly fucking it up.

SPEAKER_01

Um Xavier's like, just give us a chance to explain, you know, and Nor, I mean, he's very it's not like he's so level-headed or anything. He's just like, well, you were strong enough to like survive. So uh okay, I'll I'll listen uh because you manage that. Like I don't know if that's a good reason or not, but he's like, all right, fine, I'll hear you out.

SPEAKER_00

Uh I mean, and uh Professor X explains like who the X-Men are that they're from 5,000 years in the future and there's a vision of the better world, and it's it eventually it just doesn't work on Noor. He's not swayed by these conversations. Uh, there's a funny other discussion between Bishop and Magneto about like what they should do next. And Magneto does have a good line to Bishop where he's like, you know, it's the pot calling the kettle black. Like you've also used time travel to like fuck with the future. Right. Like, why are you yelling at us for doing the same thing? Right. Uh but I mean I think Bishop is more of an authority on that. I guess he knows more about he's fucked things up a lot of times. Yeah, he had to travel, he's had to make that journey through the rainbow portal multiple times. You know, I always love when he's traveling through time, at least in the X Menami series, he's like screaming into the void. Yeah. Um and Ro continues to be a mag secret Magneto fan.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh she also likes the idea of like being able to alter the timeline, though, because she's just like so devastated over the loss of Gambit and her future that she just left. And I think she's like holding out some kind of hope that if they make the timeline better in terms of apocalypse, that it'll also maybe be better in terms of like all their loved ones not being gone. Yeah. That they lost.

SPEAKER_00

So I mean it it it the problem is it leads to so many time travel questions that are like the X-Men do not care to like think through really.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's not even that they don't care to, it's that it's not like possible to. You know what I mean? Like the whole thing with the butterfly effect is like you don't know how it's going to influence the outcome later.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's fun in the original series when they're messing with the timeline so much with Bishop, Forge, and Cable. Bishop does multiple missions to the past, he comes back to the his present multiple times, and he sometimes I mean this is the funniest thing about the original series where it's like sometimes forge is like, you failed in your mission, Bishop. The future is still messed up, and Bishop's like, Oh man. And then other times Forge would be like, uh, who are you? Like, if if what you're saying is true, then I never would have met you before or something. And Bishop's like, oh man.

SPEAKER_01

So that is a really tough needle to thread, you know what I mean? Because it's like the first reaction isn't actually logical. Like, how would he know what the other timeline was like if he himself is in that timeline? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I know what you mean, but I'm more I'm already getting confused.

SPEAKER_01

This is why the X Men can't parse it either.

SPEAKER_00

I you know, and and this that's part of why the X Men are great because when it comes to time travel stuff, it's like It's the shakiest of nonsense. Um I know the Avengers Endgame did a lot. I mean, there's time travels like central to that movie. They travel back to get the infinity stones to defeat Thana. And they have like a lot of like uh conversations about how time travel works and and how like you know, if you uh change the past, like what kind of parallel timelines are opened and they try to explain it logically. It is funnier with the X-Men. I think it's it's way sloppier than that, totally.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

At least normal, I mean a lot of times because it's from a single character's perspective, like you're following the story of cable traveling to the past, you're following the story of Bishop traveling to the past, etc. So it's not it's not like so team oriented where people are trying to like get a grip all together, right? It's like one person's journey.

SPEAKER_01

And they end up in like a fish out of water situation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Um this is a funny moment where Beast is like, Well, I know it's a few thousand years early, but let's invent democracy and vote on what we should do. And Magneto like, because Bishop wants to leave immediately, Magneto wants to stay. So Magneto just grabs the time collar from Bishop and crushes it. And he's like, I voted. Which I don't know what that meant in terms of trying to follow the logic, because everyone had their own time band. Does does Bish do they need Bishop's time band?

SPEAKER_01

It like controls all the rest of them.

SPEAKER_00

Is that what it is? I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

That's what it seemed to imply in this episode, but I have no memory of that.

SPEAKER_00

But yes, if everyone has their own time ban, it just seems like it's one, you know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_00

It's tough to say because later on when Magneto sends them to the present, it's he just opens one time portal and they all fall through it. It's not like their time bands are activated and they each individually go back, so that's confusing. Okay. Funny nonetheless. Um You know, Apocalypse, as we said, is not buying the Xavier plan to be the first X-Man. You know. That's Xavier's dream for him. My quest to free Egypt has failed, my people are dead, there's no better world I can think of.

SPEAKER_01

So Xavier's like, yeah, right. Like, that's why we have to form a better one together. Because your quest failed or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, these concepts of like global harmony or global peace probably don't make sense to a like pre-or like a dawn of civilization type human being.

SPEAKER_01

Because they have no concept of like the full earth yet.

SPEAKER_00

Even if they do, it's still like it doesn't make sense of uh it's just such a modern concept to me, this idea of conquering the world for the good or changing the world for the good as a whole in a place and time where it is more in an apocalypse setting of like survival of the fittest. You know, it's like the oppressed and the oppressors. I know to an extent we still live in those times, but you know, we we have like there's been a great deal of civil civilizing since then uh where people can imagine like a world of like a cooperative spirit or something, like a humanity is like uh embracing some kind of Star Trek future versus a world where it's just kind of like a lawless like bands of tribal groups clo crashing into each other, making their own civilizations, expanding at their own limits and whatnot. Like it doesn't mean anything beyond that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but you also see that in Noor's reaction.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Right, yeah. It doesn't make sense. No, it makes no sense. I just rem- I'm bringing this up because I remember uh I'm thinking of Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great movie he did, um, starring you've seen this movie, right?

SPEAKER_01

I don't think so. Really? Is that a Brad Pitt movie?

SPEAKER_00

No, it's not Brad Pitt, it's the the Irish actor.

SPEAKER_01

Troy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, Brad Pitt was Troy. It was the Irish actor, um, oh god, from Miami Vice. His name is escape. Hold on, I'm looking it up right now. Alexander the Great.

SPEAKER_01

Colin Farrell?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, Colin Farrell, exactly. Thank you, Sonia. Colin Farrell's anyway. It's like, you know, Alexander the Great almost conquered the world, sort of. Yeah. Like he gets as far as India.

SPEAKER_01

He he did a yeah, he conquered a lot of the world.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And in the movie, there's this dumb conversation he has with his lover slash best friend, where he's like, think of it, like, we're not conquering the world just to be kings. We're doing it for like a better world, you know? Uh it'll the we'll establish Alexandria's as far as the world can see, where they're all be connected and people can like live wherever they want across the globe, like sharing the planet. And it was like a it's very clear in that movie how that's like a wild idea for then. You know, it's not it's like a proto pan-humanism that doesn't like fit the times.

SPEAKER_01

Is there documentation that that's really what his intention was?

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01

I really would doubt that.

SPEAKER_00

I think that was made up for the movie, but it still was an effective scene in just making you think about like what would like a d like a grand despot think about their position is uh to conquer the world. You would think that mo they would just think they're a god on earth. Like I feel like that's the position, like the literal position these guys had, like Louis XIV, the god king, right? Or the sun king. The sun king. Right. The pharaohs were like they were deified.

SPEAKER_01

Uh it was all for like personal gain, it wasn't the like people.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah, yeah. It's about like you are like the manifestation of some like deified power. Perhaps we'll discuss this more on the next episode when we go deep into the Odyssey. Yes, perhaps get into some like, you know, prehistoric uh discussions. Um okay. Uh the plan continues to go off the rails because Norris at least he's kind of open to talking a little bit more, the X-Men. And Xavier, this is where Xavier is going to implement some classic bad therapy on him. Uh which in this case just amounts to him like going through his like life story and through his mind's eye.

SPEAKER_01

Actually, we we didn't say it, but like earlier on in this episode, before they like reason with him, Professor X, I think it's earlier than this, he actually does try to get into his mind, but he can't. And he's like, Oh, there's too much anger, so I can't read him or something. I was like, that's not something we've ever heard of before, Professor X.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I mean, his powers are always whatever the script needs it to be, because he's so technically he's so overpowered that he needs to invent like telepathy puzzles that you know, like it's like, oh, he has this kind of mind, and my powers are useless here.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Anyway, so he like tells Nord to lay down and and he's like, All right, I'm I'm gonna try to find this temple of great power. Uh just relax. This can be kind of uncomfortable. Pain comes me. Yeah. Like that's very telling.

SPEAKER_00

That's a bad sign. Uh I oh yeah, the temple of great power. Like they they know that there's this temple out there, this cosmic temple, and that's why Magneto is confident that they could fix the time bands. Right. He's like, surely this magical temple that may or may not exist has the technology we need to repair the time travel devices.

SPEAKER_01

Surely now we get a flashback to I guess Noor's like earliest memories from when he was a baby.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Um, we see like from his point of view, his mother abandoning him in the middle of the desert. And then he like grows up as a slave and he has to do backbreaking labor, but he also like looks like a mutant, so he's not accepted even by the community of slaves that he's in.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, this is good storytelling.

SPEAKER_01

It's done quickly, but like very effectively.

SPEAKER_00

Right. He's left out in the rain and the cold or whatever, and at least has their shitty beds, you know, as slaves. Their beds are not great, but he's not even allowed to lay in a pile of hay.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And then uh he hears a voice one day. Come be eternal.

SPEAKER_00

It's okay, so it's the celestial that gives him his powers eventually. The celestial sounds like apocalypse. This is what was confusing to me. Like by the end of this episode, his personality gets changed from being En Sabah Noor to Apocalypse, and his voice changes. Is his is his brain just replaced by the celestials? Or is he still the same guy? But I know it's like emerging.

SPEAKER_01

But I don't really know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_00

But you know what I'm saying though? It is like kind of it's like, is the celestial just apocalypse? It's like the id of apocalypse, and it's just downloaded into this guy's body, uh-huh, and that's all there is to it, or is it like this is if Ansabdab Noor was a nice guy, the Celestial would have put him given him the power, but he would have been like a good cosmic force. Right. I don't get that sense. I feel like whatever whoever touched that amulet would have just become the personality of the celestial, which is kind of evil. Because this goes into the whole like crazy celestial philosophy from the comics, and then we saw a little bit in the Eternals movie where there's these like weird cosmic beings that are like born in the eggs of the cores of planets, they eventually grow up and destroy the planet and like re farm more planets with seeds, and it's like this never-ending cycle. So I mean again, it's touched on in the Eternals movie of like the Eternals are there to kind of like keep them in check or something. Something with like they protect the people on the planet to make sure that they don't disturb the gestation of the robot. I don't know. It's like confusing. And so Apocalypse is like, is he the manifestation of he's like an eternal essentially? Where he's his job is to like um keep the local population in check and keep them enslaved while this uh like a celestial is growing in the earth's core. I don't know. I don't know either. I mean again, it's it's a little confusing, but it it's something to do with that kind of nonsense. Yeah, they really like Apocalypse is he but he's like an agent of the celestial for some purpose. Like that's what is uh communicated at the least.

SPEAKER_01

I guess so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Okay. Um I mean I do like the way these this constellation looks where it's like these weird six parallel stars in the form of a like a rectangle. Uh-huh. That's what's guiding uh all the travelers to this cosmic temple.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And um Magneto thinks like everything is going to plan, and Bishop is not. He says this is all bad news. Uh and they decide to ride to the temple, they're all on their camels and horses, and before they reach the temple pretty easily, this magical cosmic like fortress, and the sky's all psychedelic looking, but they decide instead of hopping in, they decide to camp for the night. And this is where Rogue has some scenes with Noor.

SPEAKER_01

She can't sleep, she's sitting by the fire. He's like, Oh, you can't sleep either. And she like tries to engage him in a discussion about love, kind of, because she's missing Gambit so much, and he's like, Yeah, like love is pain, it's a weakness I can't afford. And she's like, Yeah, but it's also the only thing that makes life worth living.

SPEAKER_00

So he doesn't really qualify that, like he doesn't he doesn't um agree with her, he just ignores her. Another bad sign.

SPEAKER_01

Also a bad sign. She's like, I hope you get to experience it once in your life, like for all of our sakes, basically.

SPEAKER_00

He doesn't shrug his shoulders, he doesn't shrug his shoulders, but he might as well have.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um and then we cut to Ramatut, who we learn very quickly is Kang. I guess we already knew that. Uh-huh. He's got his own cerebro helmet. He starts, he oh, his assistant turns out to be the external, who is famous from season two of X-Men, like the Gambit Origin episode, where he goes to the swamp to like see his old family, the assassins and the thieves. And that you're tithe. Right. In ten years we tithe again. Thieves and assassins. Your tithe is false.

SPEAKER_01

Yikes.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So I I don't I mean, I know from the comics the external actually like becomes the wife of Apocalypse at some point, and maybe has a kid with it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I think the the um our Facebook group friends told me that one of the zoom sessions. Uh, but Ben perhaps, but uh she's got an insane story.

SPEAKER_01

But getting her backstory at all is interesting that she's around at this time in ancient Egypt, just like hanging around with Kang.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, because her presence in the original sh series is so baffling. Like, who is this why is this woman living in a swamp with all this incredible power, like dealing with these guys? I mean, this doesn't explain that, but at least it gives her some kind of origin point.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

Um, anyway, uh, Kang starts speaking to Professor X.

SPEAKER_01

He has a cerebro helmet, too, kind of. Um, and they are like in the astral plane.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, John DeLancey is the voice of Q. Or not he was the actor that played Q in Star Trek. He's doing the voice of Kang here.

SPEAKER_01

Ah, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The legendary John DeLancey.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I'm sorry, you were saying.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, they're in like the astral plane, and he's Kang is like being a trickster, basically.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Much like Q.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. And we and we saw Kang in a form in the Beyond Good and Evil series in the original series, like he has like a cameo, is he's the janitor at the nexus of time. Uh which is always fun to get that kind of weird Kang stuff. Uh, and then he you know, he talks about like I've had so many names. Uh just I'm like mildly quoting uh the devil's advocate, the Keanu Reeves movie. Yeah, yeah. He confronts the uh um Al Pacino Satan. I've had so many names. And then uh Keanu Reeves is like, Lucifer? And then Al Pacino just gives this crazy luck. That is an all-time great movie. That's like such a great slop. That movie was on TV like every day for a solid 10 years, at a certain point from like 1999 to like 2011, I feel like it was just on TV, either on TNT or HBO as a kid. Um excellent devil movie.

SPEAKER_01

So Kang thinks like, oh, if he can just get some celestial power himself, then he can stop apocalypse and conquer all of time or this timeline.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, none of this makes sense either.

SPEAKER_01

Kang is so powerful, like he's But he also says that Apocalypse can't be stopped and never will be.

SPEAKER_00

But is Kang really a rival to Apocalypse? Is my question.

SPEAKER_01

They both want like uh world domination. Yeah, but I think I feel like Kang I mean it shouldn't care about it, really, though, is the thing because he he could just like hop to a different timeline and do what he wants.

SPEAKER_00

And also, yeah, an apocalypse I feel like is more earthbound, whereas Kang doesn't Kang like conquer other planets and things. Yeah, isn't he more like uh interstellar in some ways? He's not just Earth.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe he is, I don't know. It could be confusing things.

SPEAKER_01

I'm trying to But a Apocalypse gets that like spaceship, so he also becomes non-Earthbound.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but he's always just hanging around Earth. Yeah, it's he's not well that's not true. We see him in the Shiar Empire in the Beyond Good and Evil.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He tricks um Lalandra's sister, Lady Deathbird. Um, but still he's just always dealing with Earth essentially. Alright, anyway. Um, yeah, Kang says Apocalypse cannot be stopped. Um and then we see like there's a transition back to the temple. We see this water crashing against the shore of the temple, which is the met the main metaphor they keep going back to. Right. The eternal shore. Right. Which I I talked about this in the Zoom session. Like, that's just a badass line Apocalypse has in the original show.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Where he just says it once, like they really make a meal out of it here. Right. They're like they make it into like a guiding, like the magic word set, you know, like these this is his open sesame of his character versus like he was just dropping truth bombs in the original series. Everything he said was cool. Uh-huh. And now they're I mean, again, it's cool to like hone in on that stuff because those lines were awesome, but it's it did rub against me in some way of like they're canonizing something cool he just once said originally.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but it's fine.

SPEAKER_01

So Beast um he has his tricorder out and he's measuring gamma particles in the quote unquote temple, and he says it's it was made at least 10,000 years ago. Um, and Apocalypse says it fell from the sky.

SPEAKER_00

The I mean the mention of gamma is intriguing. It I don't think it really pays off, at least yet. But gamma's just one of those magical science elements in the Marvel universe that mainly has to deal with Bruce Banner. Because he's a gamma-based Hulk monster. Uh they see the celestial, they don't know what it is. Um Beast does say it's it's energies of celestial origin. Uh, and then they're like, they just they're in this temple, they're they split up, they're trying to like figure out what's going on. Uh Beast does realize that he's in, quote, ship, his love interest from the original series, the AI, remember, that he falls in love with Apocalypse's ship.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and then the the interesting weird stuff starts to happen in the apocalypse, or Ensabad Noor notices that him himself and all the X-Men are enshrined enshrined in the glyphs in the temple, which is quite suspicious. Their visages are like hieroglyphs in the Right.

SPEAKER_01

And he's like, Oh, this is my future. Like, this is the future that you all knew about. And then he it like turns to rage, like real quick. It's like, you were trying, Professor X, to stop me from fulfilling my destiny as like the ruler of this planet. How dare you!

SPEAKER_00

Right, and then Magneto freak I mean not Magneto, Xavier freaks out and he tele telepathically contacts Magneto. No one knows everything, get back here. And uh then they all start fighting. Like Bishop starts shooting at him. Uh he chokes Charles, he none of them can really lay a hand on it. Yeah, Nightcrawler's arm gets messed up.

SPEAKER_01

And like amongst themselves, I forget who says it, but uh maybe Magneto is like, he's not at his full power, he's not like the full apocalypse that we've got.

SPEAKER_00

I think Charles says that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yet. So like now's our chance to stop him.

SPEAKER_00

And like they're all trying, and he just needs to grab some glowing crystal in the no, yeah, no success.

SPEAKER_01

Charles is like, don't let him get inside of that uh what is it, the temple, the chamber or whatever, where there's like a glowing rock with the crackle dots on it. Right. And they're like, got it, boss, and then like none of them can actually stop him. And he steps in there very easily and like grabs hold of the thing.

SPEAKER_00

I shall ascend. And then, oh, the celestial's name is Isan. Um and then it's like you hear Isan speak as he gets the power. It's confusing because he just sounds like apocalypse. And Esan's like, all creation is forged through destruction, the end bringing forth the beginning, the beginning returning to the end. You will be the end of things, ends Sabah Nor. But all creation must crash against the eternal shore in order to thrive and grow. Again, like this is like the weird, like this is something to do with the celestial mission. And the celestials, I think, in the Marvel universe, are the also the source of life.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

It's complicated. I mean, like Galactus is like he's eating the planets because that restores like order to the universe in some weird way. He's not like doing it evilly. Right. Malevolently, I mean, he's doing it because it's like he's necessary.

SPEAKER_01

He's a benign world eater.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And the celestials, who are similar to Galactus, are like creating life on planets and stuff, but they also want the planets to blow up. Like, I don't know, it's all odd. Okay. Um, Apocalypse gets his magical suit, and then he says his line, I am the Eroxy Eternal Shore, crash against me and be broken. And uh meanwhile, Beast are has somehow fixed the time bands, and Bishop It has to do with the energy and the I think.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, he gets some technology and fixes the time.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, like Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, gamma rays are real, right? Yeah, yeah. Aren't they like just part of the electromagnetic spectrum?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but in the Marvel universe, they take on a character of you know Magic. Magic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Uh all right, so he fixes the time bands. Um Bishop again is like, let's just go. Like hard.

SPEAKER_00

Is everyone gone crazy? And they cut to Professor X with like a ga a bloody gash in his head. It's like maybe they have. You know, he probably has a concussion.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Magneto like forces them into the future. Like a bunch of them don't really want to go. They want to like stay and fight because they I guess because they feel like Well, th they realize it's God out of it.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Professor X says something like, well, we couldn't stop him from becoming apocalypse, but maybe our destiny is to stop him right now for all time.

SPEAKER_01

But that's one of those, like another one of those sloppy time travel things where it's like you never know if the decision you're making is the one that's fated or the one that's gonna like cause your future to become the future that you know.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Versus like what part of it is free will, and like at what point are you breaking off from the path that leads you to that future that you know? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a strong argument against free will, at least the presentation in this cartoon.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And the X-Men storyline in general, you know, everyone just reacting in the moment constantly all that's all you could do. You're just stimulated, and and it's like you have no control over like what happens and what you're gonna do in a certain situation. Um You know, yeah, I the other thing I like about this is that Ensabad Noor is no more in terms of his personality. It's like that's just been deleted. And Apocalypse is just fully formed, it's the end product. He's the same as he is now as he will be in the year 5000.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. The transformation is like so swift. It's like you I don't know. I thought it was gonna be more gradual for some reason. Right. Like in the last episode and this episode, when they draw him at like still as Noor, they like make him hot, like Right, and they give him humanity. Right, exactly. And you're like, okay, that's a far cry from him becoming the apocalypse that we know in the future.

SPEAKER_00

The weird mole man guy.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But no, it's like as soon as he has a hand on that like crackle and crystal thing, it's like his face like just fully deforms in an.

SPEAKER_00

And he goes bald.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That would be a funny line. I'm bald. That's what drove Lex Luthor insane in the original comics. It's again what a travesty that they have not incorporated that lot that uh story lot in the new Superman movies. That Superman is the cause of Lex Luthor's baldness.

SPEAKER_01

Or at least it's what drives him insane.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and that's what Lex Luthor thinks, anyway, because Superman real in the comics he saves his life. He was a mad scientist with a full head of hair. He does some crazy experiment, he loses his hair, but and Superman saves him, but he blames Superman forever for going bald, and that's what makes him into demented Lex Luthor. Right. That is like the growth that is a great word. Right. I mean, it's like it's it's so like shallow and vain and like so fitting in with Lex Luthor's character. Telling of his character. It's like it's one of those ideas that seem like so stupid when they probably originally wrote it in the 40s. Like it's just like as dumb as of storylines you can have, but now in retrospect, it's a master stroke of storytelling. Like I could see a man going absolute bananas if an alien caused them to lose their hair. Um all right. Anyway, uh Apocalypse says, Now who is the god and who is the insect? Uh you know, allusions to dialogue from the X-Men movies. Um that's what I like about the show. They they pull from everything. They pull from like the Marvel movies, the X-Men movies, the cartoons. They like it's a wide the not just the comics, it's like a wide variety of primary sources where they write this stuff. Um Apocalypse's first order is he wants to like attack Ramatut and blow up the city that Ramatut commands.

SPEAKER_01

And uh Ramatut is long gone, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

He's like Apocalypse is like hopped in his time machine and says goodbye, external.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Uh Magneto's like pleaing with Apocalypse one last time, but to no avail.

SPEAKER_00

Um Apocalypse believes in a future like decided by violence and stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Right. An age free of weakness and victims.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Forged in iron and blood. Um The other X-Men have been like pushed into the future, and it's just Magneto and Professor X who remain. And uh, you know, there's like more fighting. Uh like, you know, this time like more desperate fighting. Like Magneto's getting his shit kicked in by Apocalypse. He's also trying his best to like keep Professor X like away from the action.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like both of them Professor X and Magneto are really like defending each other throughout this fight. Like they really put their differences aside and uh like return to their old friendship.

SPEAKER_00

Professor X tries this patented bad therapy attack move where he shows Apocalypse again like his childhood to traumatize him. And it does enrage Apocalypse for a second, but then he just says, eh, whatever, and starts fighting them. He's not, it doesn't stop him. Uh it worked on Magneto as we saw in the original series for sure. Um what happens next?

SPEAKER_01

Uh Apocalypse blasts Magneto. Uh Apocalypse is like controlling the ship at this point to deliver like he's gonna drop a nuclear, but it look it's like nuclear spectrum.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's I think Magneto says it's a black hole. Oh, is it so they they open a black hole on this Egyptian city, and and the funny thing is Magneto's like, I'll use magnetism to stop it. And I'm thinking like in what uh form of astronomy does magnetism stop a black hole?

SPEAKER_01

He really tries his best. He like powers up his little his like magnet bubble and he goes like diving into the black hole. It's a beautifully animated. A bunch of like explosions and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

People are getting sucked into the black hole and dying. That's sad. Yeah. I asked you once on this podcast, do you think ever in the entire history of the universe there's been some civilization where they've either sentenced someone to death by black hole or someone like a living intelligent creature fell into a black hole consciously and you d didn't answer the question satisfyingly.

SPEAKER_01

Really? Do you remember what I said?

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_01

That's how you know it was unsatisfying.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you probably just laughed at me.

SPEAKER_01

Well, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00

I think that's an interesting idea.

SPEAKER_01

But you're not answering the question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's happened.

SPEAKER_01

You think it has happened.

SPEAKER_00

It's a big universe. I think there's some creepy civilization that lives in your black hole, and it's like How did they develop if it if they're near a black hole? They're far enough away.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, there's planets that can orbit black holes.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And uh then it's like if someone commits a grave crime or maybe there's some deskpot and it's like you're sentenced to death, we're throwing you in the black hole.

SPEAKER_01

I think my argument the first time around, and I think this stands, is that that's like the most expensive way to kill someone that you could ever consider.

SPEAKER_00

Why? Because maybe space travels cheap for them.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think so. It just like the energy demands of it are really high.

SPEAKER_00

I don't imagine that that would be Listen, you float if your civilization grows up around a black hole, you probably have access to a lot of exotic space matter. Not necessarily. Well, I'm I'm giving you a scenario. Uh-huh. You have access to a lot of exotic space matter that allows you to create like anti-gravity spaceships and other like incredibly interesting spacefaring technology that allows you to ease of access like off on and off planets.

SPEAKER_01

There's any guarantee of transfer prisoners to being present around black holes. I think like it's we we measure the stuff that's around them and it seems like pretty standard.

SPEAKER_00

I I'm I believe in exotic matter around strange like interstellar objects. That that's my hope.

SPEAKER_01

But a black hole is not that strange of an object, they're all over.

SPEAKER_00

The black hole maybe itself is not that strange, but maybe in the surrounding cosmic debris of which there's like a fury of like a cosmic stew that creates the black hole solar systems, you have no idea. Or at the center of galaxies as well.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

There's all sorts of like strange, uh like intense elemental reactions that we don't know about.

SPEAKER_01

You know what I just thought of? I was thinking like, do you think a multiverse needs to exist for your scenario to play out instead of just a universe?

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_01

Because the universe itself is so like infinite. Yeah. Which means that like the universe kind of is a multiverse for the way that we conceive of a multiverse.

SPEAKER_00

Might as well be on a scale level.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_00

It's also to me, a multiverse is like uh someone could definitely yell at me about dimensionality, but uh if the universe is kind of infinite, then I can see a multiverse just existing in one universe, whereas if you just travel so long and there's parts of it that repeat in such similar ways that it seems like there's versions of me and you doing this podcast right now a zillion years away. It could be that where but we're just slightly different. We're doing the uh you know, the Avengers task podcast versus the X-Men one, you know what I mean? And it's just like and those people are like technically in our universe, but this the repeatingness of the infinite nature of it is it makes it seem like you know, there's just tons of earths out there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean like the most uh confusing part of it is that we don't really understand what dimensions are, right? Yeah, the third and or fourth dimension or something like that.

SPEAKER_00

Like beyond that, there's no concrete way for us to visualize or like uh conceptualize these dimensional spaces.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I love going on YouTube and like looking up those videos, like what does the sixth dimension look like? And then this yeah, pseudo pseudoscience, yeah. But I mean it's stuff that I mean it's stuff that Grant Morrison explored in his Batman comics with like he I think he like declares that the fifth dimension is like uh the realm of imagination or something. And uh so that like anything you can imagine, like that the your imagination is like access to the fifth dimension. Or maybe it's the sixth dimension, I don't know, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah. That's like a portal in your mind is like a space where anything is possible. Where were we? Magneto stops the black hole. It looks like he gets evaporated in the process, but he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01

He gets spit out again like onto a sand dune somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And uh Charles is kind of nearby and he's like frantic. He like goes clawing his way over to him, and then like just over the horizon, Apocalypse appears in his new scary outfit, and uh he's like, I'd make you into a horseman except for your lack of spine, which is like literal and metaphorical, I guess, in a way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh very scary.

SPEAKER_00

He then executes Magneto, or so we think. It's a really demonic scene where Apocal the look on Apocalypse's face he's filled with such like murderous joy, and he zaps him with his per pink laser that and all that remains is his helmet. And uh, I mean, most people have speculated that Magneto is not dead, that he's going to be resurrected as a horseman, along with Gambit. Like, those are gonna be like so half the horsemen are assembled at the least. Right. Uh Gambit and Magneto. Um, but Professor X thinks he's dead, and like Professor X has this most gnarly dialogue for Apocalypse where he's like, How wise it was, you have mother abandoning you. If only Ball let you left you to bake, what a better world we'd have. That's like kind of fucked up for Professor X to say to the literal first mutant of all character uh to any character, but to the first mutant, where he's like, Well, actually it turns out this entire, you know, species I'm a part of, I wish it just died in the sun sands with you. Yep. Although that's not to say that apocalypse is like the progenitor of all mutants.

SPEAKER_01

No, there definitely could have been more mutants after that.

SPEAKER_00

Like it's just human beings make them.

SPEAKER_01

Right. But anyway, it is still like a messed up thing to say to someone, though. I mean, it's I guess true in this case. Like the world would be better if you weren't in it.

SPEAKER_00

He's so over Apocalypse and then can't beat him. And then uh you know, uh Professor X says, I know your future, you'll never be a god, you will always be a monster, but I will always be. And then he starts like it looks like he's gonna just stomp Professor X to death, who's lying prone in the desert. But he steps over him and he says, uh, only a coward feels mighty when stepping on ants, which is great. This is like perfect apocalypse stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I mean it is, but also then he like goes on to treat humanity like ants and like wreaks havoc.

SPEAKER_00

But he also keeps losing to them all the time and it's in different ways. So his theory that like I'm so great I can't be stopped, he's kind of like thwarted constantly.

SPEAKER_01

Luckily, like Bishop shows up, uh Charles is there in the desert crying because his friend Magneto is gone.

SPEAKER_00

Um couldn't stop him. We never stop him.

SPEAKER_01

And then yeah, Bishop comes to get him.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, this leads a lot of questions like How did Bishop know where to get him? That and also he's got a time machine device, like go back earlier and do something else. Like try a different strategy to stop him before it becomes apocalypse. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like do a heist of that celestial stone before apocalypse gets it. You've got time travel.

SPEAKER_01

Presumably now Bishop has been in the future again and he's like coming back from the future to get Charles. So, like what ha what happened in the future? Like, is it fixed? Is it not fixed?

SPEAKER_00

Like uh, I mean, I think uh we can assume that it's just it's like a status quo future.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, it it just with the time travel though, it makes no sense because it just makes you seem like you could go back to when he was a baby and stop on them, or uh um you don't even have to be that gruesome. You could just go back and interrupt Apocalypse's parents from having sex, do a back to the future, like mess up their romance or whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Like uh what's the Stephen King book? I feel like we've talked about it.

SPEAKER_00

Probably not romance in his case, probably poor situation.

SPEAKER_01

Every time like a time travel thing comes up. The where he has to like go back in time and the butterfly thing. No, prevent the Kennedy assassination.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And he but he has to try like a lot of times before he actually because the past is always the past is always uh conspiring to stop the time traveler from changing the past. Like every time the main character is trying to get closer to stopping Kennedy or changing the past, like there'll be a car accident like that almost kills him. And he has to constantly dodge danger.

SPEAKER_01

Like there's like a that book argues for fate, not free will.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Which I believe in personally, that everything is fated.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But by who?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, just experience. I don't know. I think free will is kind of an illusion.

SPEAKER_01

No, I mean like who who is the force that like decides the fate then?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know what the force is, but it's just like a an elaborate game of mousetrap where whenever kicked off the Big Bang or whatever, things have just been just in motion. In motion in the way that was always meant to be, you know. But uh, you know, obviously that's just my uh speculated guess, it's not true.

SPEAKER_01

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but that's that's where I'm at lately on the free will versus fate thing on the side of fate. Um Oh, and then there's like a little teaser for the next episode where Wolverine meets Captain America and Black Widow. Black Widow, voiced by I think Stephanie Beatrice. Is that how you see her name? Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh Beatrice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, from Brooklyn 99.

SPEAKER_01

And she's funny, I like her.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she's really good. She's in the um Twisted Metal was the other show we saw her in. Right. Yeah. She's in a little cameo as Black Widow here, the 90s Black Widow.

SPEAKER_03

Cool.

SPEAKER_00

This is like a callback to that season five episode of Wolverine and Captain America did World War II fighting together. And uh Wolverine's assembling a team to investigate Weapon X, which I know all about, but you will find out tomorrow, Sonia. Okay. Uh any final thoughts here on this episode on what to expect going forward?

SPEAKER_01

This was very fun to see Apocalypse's origin story. I didn't know it was like this.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's cool how it like ties in all the celestial.

SPEAKER_00

I think it is different from the comics a little bit though.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

In the comics, he just finds the the space the outfit, and that's I think he just stumbles on it like and gets it. Okay. It's like an accident. I don't know if there's all I mean, maybe they've rewritten it, but I don't I don't think there's all the stuff where like the celestials chose him to do something uh.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it makes sense to me that they they would, because he's the first mutant.

SPEAKER_00

He's right powerful. And they and the I think in the Marvel lore the Celestials had something to do with mutants being created. Because they were doing experiments on human beings. Okay. Just like in evolution in general, they're doing experiments, and mutants was like part of the experiments they were up to.

SPEAKER_01

Creepy.

SPEAKER_00

Well, interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Um, all right, well, that was fun. Uh, we will be back tomorrow with uh a discussion on Weapon X Lies and DVDs, which is a play in the original episode from the original series, which was Weapon X Lies and Videotapes. They've upgraded to DVDs. And we're also gonna talk about the Odyssey tomorrow, too.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00

Um, it's I wouldn't say it's like a spoilery conversation, but The Odyssey? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I mean the book has been out of the year.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. If you're in the story, it will be spoilery. Right. Like can like I'm just wondering, can a conversation spoil the movie if you haven't seen it?

SPEAKER_01

Like, does it rely on surprises?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01

I think it's really more about like the artistry of the storytelling.

SPEAKER_00

Right, all right. So we'll talk about the Odyssey as much as we please. And then Sonia, until next time.

SPEAKER_01

Bye.

SPEAKER_00

Good night.