A Geek History of Time - Episode 26- The X-Men and the Civil Rights Movement

Episode Date: August 18, 2019

Damian summarizes the zeitgeist and current events in the United States at the time the X-Men started. Ed tries heroically to use clean language whilst still talking about George Wallace, and fails.

I said good day sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla Nabish name. Well you know works are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gole, a gole, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think Don Henley.

Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect an artery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a 43 year old

world history teacher in northern California, and I have been a nerd as long as I can remember Starting with being introduced Dungeons and Dragons a couple of years younger than the rule books actually said I was supposed to be They indicated for ages 12 and up and I was nine if I recall. How about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher and also a returning history teacher because... Welcome back to the fraternity. Oh, lots changed apparently, both in our history as well as in the curriculum. But I've been a geek most of my life as well. I can think back to one of my first books is the Look It Up book of US Presidents.

Oh yes. It stopped with Reagan. That's how old I am. That's how long ago. Yeah. And I have handwritten under each president listed whether they were corrupt, neutral or decent. Oh wow. Yeah. So you were experimenting with alignment or decent. Oh wow. Yeah. So you were

experimenting with alignment even then. Even then. Nice. Nice. So. All right. We've got a doozy this week because we are touching on something we both love. Okay. Racism. Great. Great. Something, one of those things that you love to hate right? Yes. Yeah, no We're touching on the X-Men. Yes, which is which is something we legitimately love. Yes. Yeah so I think I already know where I mean clearly I'm pretty sure I already know where this is going But where do you want to start with this? This is gonna be a big one I want to take it chronologically.

I think that's probably the best way. And I think because when we do it chronologically, because of our history as a country, it's going to be thematic as well. You're going to see a shift in the specific issues being the social best is being looked at, looked at shifting as time goes off. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Uh, I'll start us off in the 1960s. Okay. Uh, so X-Men was first published in 1963. All right. Uh, this was one year after the fantastic, fantastic four got published. Yes. That was a superhero family.

Yeah. This was one year after the Hulk, uh, got published, uh, who is a superhero family. Yeah, this was one year after the Hulk Got published who is a superhero who is severely misunderstood and ultimately just wants to be left alone Yeah, there was a very James Dean kind of Rebel that it caused just just you know everybody you're tearing me apart exactly kind of Vibe in the first first few issues. Yeah, absolutely before some of the tropes and that one really solidified. True. And before they figured out what ink they were going to use to color them. Yeah. So you know that story right?

Oh yeah. Well, I know that he started out gray. And they couldn't get the mix right. And on the very last page of like one of the things it was green. And they're like, that's the one. There you go. Whatever that was. Yeah. Can you imagine being the poor schmuck, printer's apprentice who was working on that, like I did that by mistake.

I mean, I've gotta go back and remix how the, man, yeah. My step-to-step loves that story. This is also a year after Thor and Spider-Man were introduced. Okay. Thor is a man who is literally a world apart. And Spider-Man is a teenager who had teenage problems and he was coming into his own as a hero as well.

Which was different. Yeah, we're absolutely. Yeah, and prior to these kinds of storylines, when we're talking about three color super hero comics, we're talking about a history that's dominated by Superman. Yeah. The, you know, the, the, the, the Er example of the genre. And then Batman, you know, who are these very arch. Yes. Very, very melodramatic and, and very, very, very melodramatic and very, kind of phrase, the phrase that comes to mind is cookie cutter, but they're, they are these. The archetypical.

They're archetypical. Yeah, they're, they're archetypical figures, whereas what all of these characters have in common is this is like the introduction of Hamlet into comic books. Hamlet is the first example speaking as an English teacher. Hamlet is widely regarded and it's always taught of course as being the first example of a protagonist truly having an inner life. And the development and the development of

actual character development in a protagonist, in particularly a revenge story. Yeah, and he's different by the time spoiler he does at the end. Yeah, but he's a different person than everybody dies. But like he's a different person than where? You die if you're a guy. But he's a different person from start to finish and you're absolutely right. I think in many ways comic books up until that point had been, first off, there was a lot of one-off.

There was a lot of, I wanna try this genre, I wanna do this. Then the comic could authority comes in and just cuts all that out, check our previous episodes. But very beginning of the canon, you just, as a gentleman. As it were, but I think that at the end of it all, the superhero genre was still stuck in a 1930s melodrama pulp kind of milieu.

Yeah. And Marvel was not competing well with DC in doing that, so they went this other way. I have no evidence that that was there. We need to do this. There's no smoking gun for that, but it seems to be a big shift because you also have two characters, Iron Man and the Wasp, who come out the same year as the X-Men. And they are people who were heroes by virtue of their choices and how they interacted with their own technology. And the Wasp was a pill-popper. Really?

Yeah. Back up. Yeah. Hold back the truck up. So her and Henry Pym, Ant-Man, they got their big and not till later, he's just quite ignoring. Girlfriend ignoring. Yeah, well, oh, him and Reed get along famously. Famously.

Famous like best pals. So and Sue and Janet perform a codependent club. Okay. Um, but uh, no, the original PIM particles were pill form. Oh, and it's early 1960s. What else is in pill form? Just for your mother's little helper. Yeah, that too. Also, the thing that helps you not be a little mother. Oh! Wow! Oh! Wow! And in 1966, it becomes legal for anybody to obtain it. You don't need to.

Oh wow. See, I was going to go as Dexadrin, but you know. Also true. Yeah. But like everything's greenery, it's carried, you know, greenberry medics, it should be pointed out, carried, you know, a hundred pills for, you know, keeping patrols awake long enough to. Right. So, but yeah, she was a pill-popper for her power. Wow. 100 pills right for you know keeping patrols awake long enough to right

So but yeah, she was a pill popper for her power So which is a technology at the time. Yeah, well, that's the thing and Tony Stark didn't quite have transistors yet He literally had a Ungrounded prong plug to plug to plug to recharge the armor. Yeah, it's also the first year That the Avengers teamed up Almost exactly the same month there within a month really yeah, okay Also the first year that the Avengers teamed up. Almost exactly the same month, there within a month. Really? Yeah.

This is so for and Iron Man and all those guys show up, show up in their own series, and then immediately get thrown into a team up. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. They really were trying to do everything they could to get all every issue sold.

Pro all the spaghetti on the wall. Hey, didn't cook it. Doesn't matter. It's not no stick. It's, you know, yeah, it'll either be a L. Dente or a little shatter. We don't care if something's got to happen. Okay. Yeah.

So this is also 1963, three years after the counter sit-ins. Okay. Yes. Okay, yes. There's too much to go into there, but that really was one of the first eye-catching demonstrations of resistance and opposition to oppression by young people. Yeah, well, it was one of the first times that news of those civil rights actions got outside of whatever community was taking place in. It was the beginnings of the mass media picking picking up civil rights movement as a movement. Right. This is two years before the freedom

rides. Freedom rides I'll go into a little bit. So the freedom rides were white and black civil rights activists making sure that buses that ran across straight state lines were desegregated. Because there was a, well, I'll get to it in a second. The pre-commerce clause? Yeah, the point in the original in 1960 stated that if you had a business that went across the states within the state, it's still we're harving a hard time trying to figure out how to get you to not be shitty. But going across state lines, that's clear federal authority and we can clearly tell you knock that shit right back.

And so that also includes their depots because a depot is still part of the process of whatever it is you're in the midst of doing. So they're both subject to federal laws, a result. And like I said, the South was ignoring point in versus Virginia in 1960. And the federal government just looked the other way. They didn't do much to enforce it. Again, you know, I have a lot of praise for Eisenhower. This is not amongst it. You'll well know. This is one of the places where Eisenhower fell down the mostly. Young people had to take matters into their own hands quite honestly because the elders, the trusted elders who run things weren't and they actually

had to make the change that the government was supposed to be making. When they did this, white mobs burned the buses. They beat the freedom writers severely, federal government threatened action, but didn't follow through much. Yeah. It says, though, there was this invisible set of rules allowing these things to occur. And the only thing that could stop it

was young students acting as catalysts and being willing to face the violence of dominant society. You also start to see Martin Luther King stepping at it this time. Some would say he was taking over and they would say it was some chagrin and he was asking black activists to stand down from time to time too. To focus on what are the fights that we can win? Kind of, yeah, and let's. Okay, what are the fights that we can try to get better coverage on?

Yeah, and also, let's get them focused on our method and our message of that peaceful resistance. Okay. There's also a level of compromise going on within the civil rights movement that's burgeoning at the time, recognizing that you need constant confrontation and even though it's righteous and morally valid, it was not as effective as it was appearing less so because of confrontation. So you have this movement toward, no, no, we all need to show our best selves and some

people like well how dare you judge my best self I've been here a while what are you doing okay but he's talking about the effectiveness of this and how white society will just a dominant society mostly white society will just blame you for causing a conflict instead of looking at why people are trying to hit you yeah and if you aren't back, it's a lot harder for them to hide behind that and say, well, if they just didn't. Because they just didn't. Yeah.

And they still got clubbed on the head. And they still have beaten up an attack with dogs. Yeah. Kennedy actually condemns the Freedom Rides on Patriotic. Yeah. Kennedy. Uh-huh. Because it made us look bad in the Cold War.

Oh, well, yeah, OK. And he's a Cold Warrior. Yeah. Oh, the, yeah. Okay. And he's a Cold Warrior. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the the the embodiment as you said the embodiment standard bearer of of what that had become and Then continued to be yeah, and because He embodied this fight for the rest of the world's freedom. It was very embarrassing for For America to not have freedom at home. So could you just shut up? Can you just, can you, can you, can you, we'll work on this, but for now, you know, yeah.

Well, maybe we'll work on this. Like there's no real promise that. Yeah, well, yeah. But the students essentially told him the stuff it, by the way. 1963 is also the year after James Meredith gets barred from the University of Mississippi. Okay. James Meredith was a veteran. I was like to point that out, who inspired by JFK, decided he wanted to pursue a degree

from the University of Mississippi, making the very obvious to us now argument that any American had the right to attend any university that received funding from taxpayers. That, yes, to us nowadays. Exactly. Really? Like, this is an argument. Why do we even have to argue this? Yeah, he got turned down twice. And he got the NAACP to back his case when he was rejected, saying that they'd rejected him only because of his race, which flew in the face of Brown vs. Board, which was less than a decade old. Yeah.

So he's like, hey, desegregate the schools, I'm trying to go to a school, it's receiving federal monies, taxpayer monies, state taxpayer monies, it's receiving monies from us. This is not a private university. Yeah. Therefore, how come they get to? It goes to the state appellate court in Mississippi, which actually ruled in favor of actual justice over prejudice, which status stunned me. All right.

The state then sued to get it up to the Supreme Court because no just deed goes unpunished and the Supreme Court also ruled in favor of justice over prejudice. They have held the appellate court. Yay. So he got to go. Yeah. Except that he didn't get to go yet. The governor of Mississippi, a man named Ross Barnett, okay, what a southern 1950s, 1960s name. He decided he'd support prejudice over justice in a two fold way. First, he ignored the ruling of the highest courts of the land. Yeah. Because that's a thing that happens. And as an executive tasked with carrying out the laws upholding the Constitution, he overheard it. Secondly,

he declared to the white folks of Mississippi that, quote, no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor. Now, to me, that's a challenge, accepted moment. That's nullification. Yeah. Right there. You know, the last time anybody tried doing that, it ended badly. Yeah? I mean, it ended badly for everybody, but it especially ended badly for the idiot

Pecker Woods who tried to nullify. Yes. We had a whole war. Yeah, everyone showed up. Everybody, yeah.ify. Yes. We had a whole war. Yeah, everyone showed up. Everybody, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We had a series of episodes about that war.

And, yeah. Yeah. Well, white people Mississippi, though, were like, yeah, that's a ringing affirmation of white supremacy and therefore the law of the land. Yeah. So the state legislature in Mississippi then passed laws to make an end around to Meredith being accepted.

Well sure you can accept him, but it doesn't mean he gets to go. And it's some serious expo's facto bullshit tied to voter registration laws and voter fraud. Yeah, that should echo a little. Wow, okay. Maybe not echo but rhyme. Yeah. Let's say it rhymes. Yep.

So it took Robert F. Kennedy, the attorney general of the United States. Several secret phone calls and secret face-saving plans to coddle the white fragile racists like the governor to let Meredith attend a school which his own taxes helped fund which he got the GI bill to get to go to school. So he matriculates in the fall. It happens. White people in Mississippi were totally one over, stopped being racist. No wait. Okay fine. It's funny because it even says no wait in my notes. Yeah. That should read that they rioted burn cars and objected to all the protection that Meredith had from the federal government. Well yeah, because when the federal government steps

in to do something they don't like, it's tyranny and the war of Yankee aggression all over again. When the federal government doesn't step in to protect their fragile identitarian issues, it's a failure of government to respect the values of proper voters or whatever. Whatever. So there's this man named Edwin Walker who he's a racist firebrand veteran and he took to the radio and said, here's a fun quote, Mississippi, it is time to move. We have talked, listened and been pushed around

far too much by the anti-Christ Supreme Court. That was Ed's hand meeting his head. Rise to a stand beside Governor Ross Barnett at Jackson, Mississippi. Now is the time to be heard. Thousands strong from every state in the union rallied to the cause of freedom. Wait. Uh-huh. Wait. Yep.

This jack hole is framing this as a freedom issue. Oh, they're keeping a dude from doing, from attending a university, a public university. A public, what I was about to say, a university he has literally paid to support out of his tax dollars. Yes. And these Neanderthal jug head morons are trying to frame this one in particular jug head in the antithol moron.

Jug head, not jar head, I have nothing against marines, I want to make that very clear. But this bucket headed pimple is trying to claim this is a freedom issue. But he's on the radio so it's okay What yeah Okay, he goes on quote the battle cry of the Republic What no no no sit down shut up your cancel fuck you no I'm sorry. We sang that while we were kicking your asses No, I'm sorry. We sang that while we were kicking your asses.

You don't know you don't get that. You're gonna like this. Oh, no, I'm not. Barnett, yes Castro. No. How are you conflating? Because Castro is a communist and black people, most like communism. Therefore, yeah, but yeah, that's a non-sec order. No Castro doesn't have any F**king do it is un-American To get in the way of our freedom to restrict people's freedoms to get the way of our freedom to be racist pecker wood right Jackass Yeah, okay, well what you could be a racist pecker with Jackass You just can't actually like prevent somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. Quote bring your flag your tent and your skillet

It's now or never The time is when the president of the United States commits or uses any troops federal or state in Mississippi The last time in such a situation I was on the wrong side. That was in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957 and 1958. This time out of uniform, I am on the right side. I will be there. And I hope you get bayoneted, you fuck wit. I would just like to point out he was in uniform or he's claiming. Yeah, so he was a veteran. So he's claiming that he served in Little Rock. I couldn't find any record either way. OK.

I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more.

I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more.

I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take him in more. I'll take as white people. I don't see why this is such a problem. The governor also stoked the fires, despite the fact that he had his secret deals with RFK, he's an elected official sworn to uphold the constitution I might add, and he said this after he signed off on Meredith's enrollment into Ole Miss. Oh no. Quote, gentlemen, you are trampling on the sovereignty of this great state and depriving it of every

vestige of honor and respect as a member of the United States. You are destroying the Constitution of the United States may God have mercy on your souls. Okay, wait, no. Hold on. I want to parse that for a second. Because this, this, the Andertal. And this is an insult, by the way, to our Neanderthal, and this is an insult by the way to our Neanderthal ancestors. Absolutely, but I know.

I am one. But, but this, this, this Australia pithicine, Nimrod, is first off. First off, we talked about this. Yes. He's invoking honor, which is directly, directly taking out a lost cause ideology. Oh, absolutely. We fought honorably. So did they.

You fought the same goddamn war. Stand up, show the breast, fall down, or not. That was the way the war was fought, get over it. But we fought with honor but we fought with honor, they fought with money, whatever. They had more of it get over it. You were fighting for someone else's ability. Yeah, you know, yeah.

And by the way, die mad about it, which they did. And that makes me so happy on cold nights. But so he starts with this invocation of honor, which is such lost cause bullshit it makes once Ed's been. And then he turns around and has the unmitigated audacity to paraphrase Frank Zappa to invoke the Constitution. Yes. And try to say that they are destroying the Constitution, the 14th Amendment of which is supposed to protect... Do process.

Do process and the rights of everybody... Yes. ...under the law. Yes. What's your point? My fury is in Candesan sir. That's that's my point. I you know We we have lamented

To to one another Usually outside the podcast, but but you know, we've made snarky remarks on it to this effect that you know We're now living in a post-facts political environment. You mean a time where people lie? Well, yeah, and that fake news air quotes is lies. Yeah, lies. But the fact that our current president gets away with just pulling random garbage out of his fundament and flinging it and not getting sufficiently called on it. And we have lamented that like, oh my god, what kind of era are we living in? In a way, it's almost oddly comforting to find out that, no, no, racist jack holes

have been doing this shit for years. Yeah, I would say it's comforting from a symmetry perspective. I don't know that it's comforting for marginalized people. Well, I said almost comforting. I mean, from the point of view of like, you know, no, the world is just always sucked. Yeah, yeah. You know, and it's not that this is any new, you know, intensification of this problem. It's, you know, there's a certain weird kind of fatalistic

comfort in that. Yeah. But at the same time, your canceled sit down, shut up. Mm-hmm. Let the other people talk, die in a fire. Die in a fire mad about it. Yeah. To combine.

Yeah, that you set. Yeah. And it just went the wrong way on you. Yeah. Yeah, like that guy. Yeah, yeah. It's a good guy, yeah. This isn't going to aid well.

And you know, sadly, it probably will. Yeah. So, anyway, sorry, I've had my sex buffer. Yeah, so. All right. So the hate and vitriol with both of these things were met and of course, you know, there are people who were hateful on well only really one side because the other side was just trying to go to college But I can't both sides this yeah, no you can't you this is not an issue that can be both cited There is a very clear moral imperative here

Yes, and there is one side that is trying to act according to it And there's another side that is actively impeding it. Yeah, yeah, like period right so no so why can't they meet in the middle? Because there is no god damn middle and and I know I Know that you're just saying this to get the obvious response out of me But like I still have to say it There is no middle here. That's true. Now it should be pointed out of course the two of us are California Liberal leaning yeah you farther than me, but you know Product of the generation that you know was born after all of this happened.

Right. So, you know, the mindset and the worldview of people who looked like us living in that part of the country at that time was such that whatever mental gymnastics they had to go through to justify it was necessary because it was their whole paradigm. Yes. Which doesn't make it right, but helps with the understanding of how the hell could you be that bass backward? Yes. So, anyway, carrying on.

So yeah, all of this kind of overwrought language. Kind of... Wait, are you talking about mine or there's okay, uh, may God have mercy on your souls Yeah, yeah, uh, it's well, that's that's again straight out of oh, yeah, a lost cause anything is you know high melodrome Yeah, so it's that's a a really good background Where comic books having an overrought language yeah? where comic books having an overwrought language didn't seem so overwrought at the time. It normalized it. Okay.

So other things that happened the year the X-Men came out, Wallace was elected Governor of Alabama. Yeah. You know where he was inaugurated? Where? Where? Where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the CSA. Okay, okay, hold on.

I want to clarify something. Do we know? Did he choose that spot as like, yes. I want it really. It wasn't just like they both happened on the front of the Capitol steps or something. No, and here's why. Here's this quote. Oh no.

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth I draw the line and the dust and tossed the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation now Segregation tomorrow and segregation forever right. Yeah, I remember I remember that quote But I hadn't I hadn't realized that he actually said that from the same spot where Gefferson trader to the country peckerwood Davis had okay Wow I didn't think I could think less of George Wallace and now I do okay here's more

uh that June George Wallace now governor stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest desegregation forcing the national guard to remove him from that spot. And he later said, quote, the President wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-communists who have instituted these demonstrations. Okay, yeah, sure. Surrender the state to specifically Martin Luther King and his his group of pro-communists who have instituted yeah who have just started

this whole fight they've just they've just started this whole conflict you know because they just they just want up and everything and just cause trouble they're just a bunch of trou makers. Yep. God, these people suck. Also, I mean, George Wallace. So, I mean, obviously. But. In 1963, August, King gives us, I have a dream speech. Yeah.

And it's considered one of the most famous speeches of modern history. And it has the lines, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. Yeah.

And rhetorically, it's actually, it's really cool. Interestingly, to me, though, he'd planned his speech to be a sweeping metaphor based on promissory notes. And you can still hear that in the beginning. Yeah. And then he goes off script and actually inspires folks. Yeah. But I love this promissory note bank statement kind of interest coming. Do. Yeah. That's being

paid. But it was falling really flat. Yeah. So he ad lipped an improvised with far better result. Lots of rhetorical flash and flourish, cool uses of an afra. Oh,, no, it's one of it's yeah, it is it is all the more impressive for being something that he he wound up throwing together out of parts of other stuff that he'd said previously. I mean and also he's a pastor with a PhD in in that kind of stuff. Yeah, so I mean if you go back and read Daniel 2, it's flat places made crooked or made straight. Or a tall place made flat. Yeah, it's a good stuff. Yeah, less than a month later, in September, the KKK sets off a bomb in a church,

killing four black girls, aged 14 and under, in what King called quote, one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. He was not wrong. Long, wrong. Wallace suggested a curfew for black people. Right.

Because, you know, for their own safety. Within the week, two black young men were shot and killed. Johnny Robinson, age 16, was shot by a police officer for running away from him. Virgil Ware, age 13, about 16 miles from Birmingham, was shot by a 16-year-old on a bicycle coming home from an anti-integration rally. Lovely. History rhymes.

Yeah. King sent Wallace a telegram. Oh. Love the stones on this guy. He says, The blood of four little children is on your hands You're irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that is induced continued violence and now murder All right, so this is the zeitgeist into which the X-Men are born the Avengers were a really cool team doing cool stuff mostly staying in New York

to which the X-Men are born. The Avengers were a really cool team doing cool stuff, mostly staying in New York, dealing with crime and cosmic threats. At one point, Thor stops some mobsters from stealing for coats. Yeah. Cosmic threats. Yeah, it's gross misallocation of resources. Yeah.

Or misallocation of Re-Thortheth. Oh. Oh. Oh. The liver spotted, Paltrune. Oh. Oh The liver spotted pull Trune I've given up I'm giving up on Victorian isms ladies and gentlemen. I'm having to go farther back And into the linguistic lexicon and and get Elizabethan on your ass. Oh My god, oh

Oh, sorry did I hammer that home too hard? Oh, oh That was low key fun you nailed it. Yeah, oh Then we're done The Fantastic Four had been to the moon and back a couple times by this point actually yes Most of their problems they dealt with were in the Yancey Street gang, people who wanted to bone Sue Storm, name more being... And name more being... Far away dictators and Russians.

Yeah. Of course, all the supervillain variety. The big global level kind of threats. Okay, the X-Men, they tackled the idea of being an outsider in society and how to address that almost from the beginning. And here's the thing, it was an accident. Really? Yes, Stanley had, if you think about all the heroes I'd listed, almost all of them were

brought about by radiation of some sort. Okay, yes. Which again in the 60s, it makes total sense. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, well, it was what everybody was afraid of. It was the underlying subconscious fear. Exactly. And beyond radiation, it was technological marvelousness. Yeah. So you had the PIM particles in pill form. Yeah.

And you had Tony Stark, right? Yeah. So he didn't want a whole team being radiated again. That's fair enough. So here's a quote from him. I couldn't have everyone bitten by a radio. I have to spider or is apt with gamma rays. And it occurred to me that if I just said that they were mutants it would make it easy. Then it occurred to me that instead of them just being heroes that everybody admired what if I made other people fear and suspect and actually hate them because they were different?

I loved that idea. It not only made them different but it was a good metaphor for what was happening with the civil rights movement in the country at the time. Hey, you gnian Ed here. And Damien. Damien. Yeah. You went to the market for a new book? You know what I am?

All right. Well, I got a series to recommend to you. Oh, that's fantastic. You know what? I would love to read a book about like Irish folklore and Celtic folklore, but set in urban setting in America. Got anything? Wow, that's not at all artfully set up.

But I do, as a matter of fact, have something for you. The American Fairy Tale trilogy by Bishop O'Connell starts with the stolen. The second volume is the forgotten, the final volume is the return. You'll remember the second volume later. The uponning son of a bitch. No, that's the title is the forgot.

Which is fine, because I'm sure they could find it on Amazon And they would actually find the title without having to rely on your baddie memory Good day, sir And on that note back to the show Okay, so you said it wasn't on purpose right but it Okay, so you said it wasn't on purpose, but it clearly was on his mind. Yeah, though, here's the thing. Some of this is just him remembering himself being more woke later. Okay.

Okay, he's looking back going, oh yeah, I totally, you know, I was thinking about that all the time. But Marvel did pretty quickly start to deal with prejudice. So it clearly was in his head. Well, yeah, but it was incidental too, I got to get these super kids powers. How do I do it? Okay. So it was then like, well, we're here.

Why don't we? Yeah. So here's the thing though. It's still a white guy in New York putting into allegory what he imagines the problems of black people to be. Yeah. So it's wildly flawed. It's very one dimensional at times, right?

But I'm still going to give him all kinds of credit here, because at least he's bringing it up, and publishing it for kids to read. Knowing that kids in the South are going to be reading these comics, and having these ideas work in an allegorical way, it's going to drip into their heads in ways that their parents will be unable to act. It'll be sub-rosa, it'll get past whatever editing or censoring might happen because

after all it's just comic books and who can take those seriously. Right. You know, same way any kind of drawn medium in our culture gets treated. Which is funny because kids geto. That's in many ways why the CC was created. It's the which is funny kids ghetto. That's in many ways why the C the CC was created. Yeah, the comic book code was created was because oh god, we don't know what these kids are reading. Yeah, so we're not taking any of this seriously, but oh my god, we have to take this seriously. Right. That weird and then they fixed it and walked away and then people got everybody went. Yeah,

social. Okay, so wait, what are the exact rules? Okay, so the rules don't say I can't do this. Right, yeah. So to me, the brilliance was that he didn't paint the mutants all as one thing either. And this is brilliant for two reasons. Number one, it allows him to hold up a mirror to society, which is something that all literature does, and we've said from the beginning.

But it allows him to do so in a safe way. If your chief bad guy is also a mutant, we can walk away and not feeling chastised if we don't want to be challenged by his art. Okay. And this is important for Mass Appeal, which is what a comic book is aimed at in 1963. Yeah. Also, it allows him to look at how non-universal the oppressed experience is. Okay. Okay. So you have walked me through what precisely

you mean by that? Sure. So everybody understands what it's like to be Peter Parker. Okay. Everybody's been an awkward teenager. Okay. A mutant's problem is that they're born that way and not everybody has a problem that they're born with.

Okay. It's not a stage that we all go through. Okay. Understood. And therefore, anybody who reads about the X-Men, I mean, it's cool that Cyclops is shooting raised from his eyes and that Jean Grey is using telekinesis and that the beast is flippy. Yeah. Those things are cool and Angel has wings and Iceman to me is the coolest of them all.

But all those things are neat. But also they're hated for who they are which is not something that everybody would get and yet they're being exposed to it. Okay. So it's not a universal experience. But now it's being universalized Okay, so you have a group of people who are feared and therefore hated because of their difference from the group Okay, you have a group of people with differing views on how to count and sat oppression by the way

Some choose integration to prove that they're not different enough from the other group to warrant this treatment and some choose segregation citing safety over inclusion Okay Some choose to rise up and dominate, citing that you'll never truly be safe if people want to hurt you, and some choose not to back down when it comes to defending themselves in their own dignity, and they establish their own rights as persons by any means necessary. Nice. Thank you. And that's... Way to get that in there. Yeah. That's the big point of the experiment. It's a white guy's understanding of what black male civil rights leaders and activists

thought. He's not consulting Diane Nash at all. Well, no. And he's trying to... Well, because in the 1960s, as we've noted in previous episodes... Women did exist. Women, yeah, to the people who were writing this stuff, that that was outside of their frame of reference.

Right. And yeah. But he's trying to bend that understanding in the storytelling that is palatable to kids, and keep in mind it's a comic book in the 1960s. It is not a polemic, it is not anything other than colorful paper. There's so many ways. It's not a polemic. It is not anything other than colorful paper. Yes.

There's so many ways. It's not an academic paper. It's not trying to be the final word on why racism is bad. It's a comic book. Now as an artifact of its time, X-Men is pretty rad. So, I want to look at the two leaders of the good guys and the bad guys in the edge. Okay, you've got two male leaders in 1963 grabbing the spotlight in New York. Martin, those are King. Yeah. And Malcolm X. Now Stanley is working in New York. So what's gonna be in the New York Times, what's gonna be on the lips of everybody, what's gonna be in the generals' like guys, these two guys. Martin, those are King's doing his stuff all throughout the south but you can't help but get headlines

yeah Malcolm X is very New York specific yes so he's writing about professor X and Magneto right from the beginning professor X wants mutants and humans to live side by side is equals yes Magneto wants to separate and therefore to live side by side is equals. Yes. Magneto wants to separate and therefore by extension of that to dominate. Yes. Okay, now. Now, question. Sure.

How early on in the nascent beginnings of the X-Men do we find out the backstory of Magneto being a survivor of the Holocaust? That gets retconned I want to say in the 80s or 90s. Really it's that late. Yeah. Okay. Prior that he is just evil. He is just a evil with a point.

He's a he's a mutant separatist. Yep. And separatism must be bad because we're well intentioned extremists. Well intentioned extremist. Not even well intentioned extremist Not even well intentioned straight up trying to eat massive massive extremist, okay, but his methodology is very similar to What's what's being seen as a fringe thing? Yeah, now he's also dressed almost entirely in orange He's got purple piping. Yeah, now this signifies a things, right? Purple, I remember. Purple signifies royalty, leadership, power, dominion, and orange if I remember correctly is mental imbalance.

So in his case, in his case, I'm going to get, try to get Jungian on this, that imbalance is the urge to dominate and fanaticism. Yes, okay. Yeah, absolutely. So anything that he does is colored by... So everything in tension. Well done. Well done.

Anything he does is colored by his insanity. Okay. Clearly he's insane if he wants to dominate everyone. That's not what a good American would do. That's not what a good hero would do. It's not what a good, that's not what one what a good American would do. That's not what a good hero would do. That's not what a good, that's not what one of what one of the good ones would do. Ooh, yeah. And like you said, he wears purple trim, right? Yeah. Which he sees himself as a leader, a ruler, right? Either at the time or in the future, right? It also purple

and orange contrast very nicely with yellow and blue. Okay. And that's the extra one. That's the extra one. That's the extra one. Now blue was self sacrifice. They might be, but moral rightness. Moral, okay, moral righteousness.

And then gold again is leadership. Gold is, but yellow. Yellow, okay. Is for lesser powered individuals and or side kicks. So you have a whole team who are all together collectively wearing yellow to fight with them. To fit in that. Yes.

So they're that symbolic of them kind of being underdogs in that fight against magneto. Magneto. And what we can do together Magneto. Magneto. Yep. And what we can do together. Okay. All right. Versus separatism. Now, if you remember your comment, it could also be taken to mean that Professor X is the real leader of the whole

operation and they're all his minions. Could be. Yeah. That's also, yeah. He has an interesting color scheme too though, because there's some green going on with him, but it's the more natural green. Yeah. He's also natural green. Yeah. He's also handicapped. Yeah. And he, again, Stanley, not a handicapped individual,

able-bodied, so trying to write for what he assumed was what handicapped people thought. Yeah. Wrote some really problematic shit early. Yeah, well, yes. But, foundly, if I remember correctly. Yeah. So, if you remember your comic book code, right? I remember correctly. So if you remember your comic book code, right?

Anyone who's against status quo cannot prevail. Out right, yeah. Status quo is God. Therefore, they must be a bad guy. Well, since the status quo is racist as fuck, someone against that, even in regards to mutants and mutinous has to be the bad guy. Okay. So somebody, yeah. Okay, so so you can be against it, the institutional races and the oppression, whatever like like professor acts and still be a good guy, but it is acting upon being

against it and looking and seeking to overthrow it. Yes, because you're now an agent of chaos. You're now an agent of chaos and disorder. All right. All right. Rather than trying to work within the system and integrate. All right. All right.

So this feeds into the narrative that there are good ones and bad ones. Which is kind of profoundly unfortunate actually. Yeah. A good one wants to be a part of the status quo. And yeah. And they'll seek to prove themselves as worthy of such. Yeah. Based on the values that are already in place. Yeah, based based on the values of the majority majority They'll also fight to protect it culture even to protect those who would do them harm. Well, yeah There's that wearing blue thing. Yeah A bad one rejects all that. Mm-hmm. A bad one in comics means that by extension, they're gonna try to take over the world Well, because melodrama. I mean Yeah, yeah, it's a comic book. It's a convention of the genre. Absolutely. The bad ones ruin it for

everyone else. Well, yeah. Remember that Wallace quote? Oh, Lord, the president wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro communists who have instituted these demonstrations. If it weren't for the bad ones, the good ones wouldn't have a problem here member of the jfk can be allowed to go to college you should heal right so they would have a way of you learn

member jfk condense writers and i know patriotic i know thank god we've changed and no one's been blackballed from his profession for choosing to make a public and unavoidable objection to oppression of his community, getting called on to each erotic and mean to the troops for such an objection while ignoring the actual substance of that objection on the thought that went into it.

I have no idea who you're talking about. Now I've seen people decorating their lawns with the Betsy Roth's flag on purpose. Never before. Yeah. But then when... Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. And... What a weird coincidence that was.

Yeah, what a weird coincidence. It's just so weird. Yeah, and it should be pointed out, Betsy Ross was a quaker and an abolitionist and like... Mm-hmm. Okay, so sorry. anyway, moving on. And the army that she sowed a flag for broke its promises to slaves who fought. Yes, no denying, yeah, so.

So, now to the fun stuff. Oh, okay. Stanley was pulling straight from the headlines to make his characters echo the culture of their times The best that he knew how right so professor X was Martin Luther King and Booker T. Washington rolled into one Okay, because professor X rolled everywhere You know Carry on not even gonna okay. I'm gonna even gonna keep on trucking.

He wanted full inclusion and understanding. He wanted it to be peaceful, but conscious choice on the part of humans. They have to choose to want us, but it needs to be peacefully done. He figured mutants would have to prove it to them, but he had faith that they'd accept it once they were shown the rightness of it, and he wants mutants to prove themselves worthy of the inclusion and trust by constantly bettering themselves, the talented tenth. Yeah. And wait, that's the boy.

But it's the boy who's watching. Yeah, and I'm trying to remember the term, but there was a group of... It means Tuskegee. Yeah, well, it's Tuskegee. It's in the US Navy. There there was a particular group that was the golden I want to say it was the golden 12 who were the first Commission of African-American officers Okay

And I'm gonna have to look it up now because I read about it and it it I remember that it happened But I don't remember the detail next episode because I'm here about it. Yeah. Yeah. So here is Professor X talking. I was born of parents who had worked on the first A-bomb project. Oh. Which is weird because he's bald in his 1963.

Yeah. There's some time compression going on there. Yeah, a little bit. Like yourselves, I'm a mutant possibly the first such mutant I have the power to read mine. That got retconned. Yeah, yeah I have the power to read minds and to project my own thoughts into the brains of others But when I was young normal people feared me distrusted me I realized the human race is not yet ready to accept those with extra powers So I decided to build a haven, a school for X-Men.

Now we're gonna unpack that a little, but I would point out to you that like, well, I'll just get to it. The first bit is standard exposition of every comic, right? Remember every issue might be a kid's first issue, so there's that. But then, quote, normal people feared me. you, so there's that. But then, quote, normal people feared me. So just that phrase means that he acknowledges he's not normal. He has internalized the impression. Now, the idea

of... Yeah. Keep in mind the times, it's 1960. Yeah, yeah. But already he's defining himself as different according to the status quo standards. Yes. Mutants aren't normal. And I want to come back to this when you take over and talk about gay rights. Yeah. Secondly, I realize that the human race is not yet ready to accept those with extra powers. Yeah, Chuck, they are actually. All right. Captain America, the fantastic four. Yeah. I earned a cabinet America was done on purpose. Yeah, you know, that was that was government health care. Um, you've made an argument before I have that. I really do need to do. Yeah, we got it. We got to find a way to put that together. The Fenn has before was by accident. The ultimate, the ultimate FDR WPA projects. Yeah. 100% embodiment

of the New Deal. Yeah. Yeah. Ironman did it to himself. The wasp was popping pills for it. Antman was popping pills for it. Thor was an alien. Who by the way, but Thor, you could, Thor had had an alter ego. He did. And there was, and it was a weird, in the beginning of the beginning of Thor's cannon This one don't go so much. Yeah, yeah and I think the the difference in defensive of

Proff Chuck I think the the issue is just even the very word mutant. Yeah, you know, has the connotation comes from the Latin motore, which is to change to change. Yeah. And so there's this there's this connotation of of uncleanliness, there's this connotation, of perversion or twisting or something like that. Absolutely. And when somebody, within the American paradigm, when somebody builds a suit to make himself super strong and bulletproof, that is living up to what it is

that is striving, that is trying to, you know, the PIM particles. And in the 1960s, medicine and technology, we're in the big deal. We're gonna save us. We're the big deal. And whereas being innately other, innately is a different thing.

In a way that makes the quote, normal people feel inadequate too. Yes, and it's not something that they can achieve. Right. You can look at Iron Man and you can go, well, you know, you give me a box of scraps in a cave. I can do that. Right.

Only I'm not Tony Stark. Right. But you could see how to get into it. But you could see how to go from point, how to go from point A to point B. Yep. Whereas the X-Men all started at point D and then went from there. So they were born on third. Yeah. And now the normal folks. Normal folks.

Our piss that they're seeing someone else's problem. Yeah. Yeah, you know, there could be a whole unpacking of the idea of privilege going on there. But yeah, but of course that wouldn't even occur to anybody back in 60s because that's that's something people are arguing over about today. You could even argue that the Hulk Was more normal because their objection wasn't his powers. It was his attitude Yeah, yeah, it was his anti-social nature Yeah, you know, so they just don't accept that people were born that way as a valid avenue to power. Yeah, you were saying. Yeah. Third, a school for X-Men, who just point out to ski again, no, I've said, okay.

Professor X, I go off on a tangent about, you know, elitism. And, you know, you want to integrate everybody, but you're separating them off into this private school environment, like, you know, Hogwarts for superheroes. But he's teaching them how to pass in dominant society. True. And so do true. But he's also inculcating into them the idea

that they're a cadre of, you know, the specials. So there's this weird push pull between, we want to assimilate, but we're also this elite. Now you see why racists argue vociferously against historical black colleges, or the black entertainment channel. Or, or, or, like anytime somebody carves something out for themselves since they're not allowed elsewhere. Then it was like, well, you're the real racists.

Yeah, you have that specific thing. Why do you have to have a gaming night for just women? Right. Well, because too many... Your gamer, your gamer, your jackasses? Well, how come you get all these walls built around your city? You made a ghetto.

You literally boxed a city. And you're the one who played the bricks. Yeah, so anyway, just throwing that out there. literally boxed us and you're you're the one who played the bricks yeah yeah so anyway just just throw that out there but yes so professor X seeks greater justice and he seeks that as a means to an end because that's what's gonna liberate humans from their hatred of mutants so he the oppressed he is he is doing a favor for the dominant culture by liberating them from their own toxicity. Yes.

Wow. That actually manages to bring up magical minority stereotypes. Wow. Troops are tropes for a reason. Nowadays people are like, no, I'm not going to both be oppressed by you and save you from your own And you educate yourself Exactly. I'm out. Yeah come see me when you're ready. Yeah But yeah, and and that liberation from hatred is gonna result in human acceptance of mutant equality Right the way to help liberate the oppressors from their flawed world view. Bless their hearts from their flawed world view. Bless their hearts.

I... It's too... One of those phrases out of Southern culture that I think makes some parts Southern culture worth keeping around. Oh, bless his heart. Right. I try to remember which comic was.

I want to say it was Jeff Fox worthy, but that could be wrong. You can say anything you want to about somebody if you followed up with bless his heart. I always say bless your heart in a non-Texas way. Yeah, nice. Yeah. So, here's how you can liberate the oppressors.

You can save the oppressors from their poor thinking if you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and together we shall overcome. Okay. and together we shall overcome. Okay, you know, I think, because, you know, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by Mahandas Gandhi. And I think it's interesting. The literature is inspired by Thoreau. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Gandhi expressed it a lot better than Thoreau, but that's just my opinion. No, I'm with you but but Gandhi I Think had a clearer eye and again, this is this is a artifact of Lee being a member of the dominant culture trying to imagine the mindset of somebody trying to work against the dominant culture. Sure. Because, you know, Gandhi, and I know also King, but for some reason, you know, thinking about liberating people from their own toxicity, sounds very Hindu, Buddhist kind of, you know, that kind of worldview.

And I don't think that would be anything that Gandhi would have ever actually said. Because, you know, his whole take was, no, no, no, look, we're going to make them face how violent this is, and we're going to count on the fact that they are not completely monstrous. It's worth noting that in later years, Gandhi said, no, nonviolent resistance wouldn't have worked against the Nazis because they'd have just killed us all. Right. And we didn't have the moral compunction not to do that. They'd...

Gandhi had the good luck of dealing with the British. Yeah. Which is a really hard sense to say. It's, well, yeah. But it's true. But it is, it isn't that true. Yeah. That very, very English, very, you know, there's a right and proper way to do things.

The very idea of noblesse oblige, you know, he basically nonviolent resistance shows if you're not actually behaving in a manner, befitting noblesse oblige, it really makes it hard for you to justify what you're doing. Yes. You know, and yeah, the Nazis didn't have that problem. No. Yes. You know, and and yeah, there's the Nazis didn't have that problem. No. No. They had a really massive solution, but they didn't have that problem. Yeah. And so, but anyway, speaking of rhyming, you know, yeah, Gandhi, um, Gandhian, and I think King probably would have said to Lee, you know, you're throwing a lot of messianic

pressure on Chuck here. You know, maybe think a little about that. Again, but a product of where he was and what he was doing. Now, here's a wonderful quote from Professor X. Not all of them want to help mankind talking about mutants some hate the human race and wish to destroy it some feel that mutants should be the real rulers of earth it is our job to protect mankind from those from the evil mutants

good ones and there's bad ones bad ones and it should also be pointed out that magneto led the brotherhood of evil mutants. Like it was in their name. It was. Now it gets written on later as a sardonic title. Like you're going to call us that we might as well. You're going to call us monsters. The monsters we shall be. Exactly. But no, in 63, 64, it was, no, no, we are the brotherhood of evil mutants.

Because that way you could defeat them by page 24. Yeah. Yeah. Which again, comic code authority. Uh page 24. Yeah, yeah. Which again, Comic Code Authority. Uh-huh, you gotta do. You gotta do. So, now I'm gonna stop there. Okay. Because then we're gonna get next time

into a lot of what Stanley wrote at the back of his comics called Stanley's soap box. Oh yeah. And there's some beautiful, beautiful things that he has there. And it's gonna be quote heavy next time. Okay. But so far, we've talked about the X-Men for maybe 15 minutes. Yeah. And racism in the South for the other 45. Is there any take- I think it was racism generally, but most intensely. Yeah. In the South. Yeah. Well, you know, the takeaway as as anytime we get discussing and this is one of the we haven't actually talked about comic books in this context that much in the series yet

But when we talk about it the two of us Without the microphone here one of the things that keeps coming up is always damn SJW is trying to insert all this liberal bullshit into my comics. I just want read I just want to read comics and And you know from the get go they've been it's like you know what he figured out really quickly the writers Endley and the artist everybody involved figured out real quick. You know what this is now a gory We're gonna run with it. Yes, like we're picking up this ball and we're flinging it down the field. And I've got a beautiful quote on that for next time. Yeah, and, and, and, you know, I mean, the other classic example is Cap Punching Hitler

in the face on the cover of the first issue of Captain America. Which came out six months before we declared war yes on the Nazis yes so get away from me with your i just want to read comics don't give me your politics they have always been political you know the people who always say that are huge punish her fans which i find interesting yeah they think that that's a political find interesting that they think that that's a political. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're immune to subtext.

Yeah. Or text. In many cases. So how about you? Yeah, I forgot how volatile the early 60s were and how entrenched the mainstream was. And frankly, finding these quotes was disheartening as fuck because because they're so... Well it's literally a century after secession.

Yeah. And it's the same shit on it's over again. It's literally 50 plus years ago and it's the same shit all over again. Like I'm hearing the same like it's there is this scene in Tron. Yeah, the movie Tron, the first one which is Bridges, right? And Bruce Boxlite and everything. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, where he's talking about, oh, and David Warner, of course. Um, and he's talking about how, um, how I forget Sark's boss's name like his maker, but yeah, yeah, but uh, Dillinger maybe Some like Dylan Dillinger. Yeah Dylan. Well anyway, that Dekinger Dex

It's started with a D anyway, so he He says that the guy took all of his ideas for making video games. Yeah And he has his quote and he says the creep didn't even bother to change the name the guy took all of his ideas for making video games. Yeah. And he has this quote and he says, the creep didn't even bother to change the name. Mm-hmm. That's what it feels like. Like, our racists today haven't even

bothered to code their language anymore. Well, they don't even have the decency to be hypocritical. Do you really? Do you, okay. I'm, I'm, I totally get the face for it. Yeah maybe maybe we'll go a little bit but you know here's the thing do you really expect anybody with that level of intellect yeah to to even to to try to be original I mean you know not really the only the only thing that's changed is that the guys nowadays, you know, the

smarter of them have better haircuts and they started out anyway, Spencer is the one I'm thinking of, you know, trying to say, well, you know, we're not advocating our kind of violence, we just think, you know, why people ought to have their own homeland. Right. You know, and like, okay, stop back up. If we analyze the logic, ultimately you are calling for people to be kicked out of wherever they live.

You are talking about ethnic cleansing. Yeah. And the fact that that's, you know, non-violent in, you know, air quotes. Right. Doesn't make it any less what it is. and you're still a prick and a Nazi and You deserve not only to get punched the way you did but to have it happen repeatedly. I yeah, no I guess I guess my problem is that it's elected officials that haven't gotten any more original

Okay, yeah, yeah So yeah, it's my takeaway is I'm depressed and I want to eat chocolate so fair enough. Yeah Tell you what why don't we do this? I'm going to recommend That people read the X-Men from the very beginning Okay from the first issues I can run the first 24 issues run through those get yourself the app Whether it's the Amazon app or the Marvel ultimate Whatever app read the first 24 issues. Okay, that's that's my reading suggestion for this week. Okay. What's yours? I'm I'm what am I I'm trying to think of what I'm reading this week? I'm going to recommend the works of a very good friend of mine, Bishop O'Connell,

the American Fairytale series. It's modern urban fantasy, but it has a very strong tie to, you know, fairy legend and Celtic myth and folklore. And I think at some point I may try to get him in here for an interview. And it's not directly tied to what we're talking about here, but it is what I have on my mind right now in terms of reading. And so I'm going to recommend that. Cool. I'm very strongly for now.

That one's for free. Cool. All right, well, we will catch you all in the next episode. Indeed. But in the meantime, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And make sure to not let anybody pull the Adamantium out

of your skeleton in the meantime. and make sure to not let anybody pull the adamantium out of your skeleton in the meantime.