[SPEAKER_05]: Hey everybody, welcome back to The Green Walk in Lane podcast where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order except when we take fun little tangents into the 1970s world of the X-Men outside of the X-Men.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been covering some wonderful script reads and one of my favorite groups to record with every time is the champions.
[SPEAKER_05]: We get to cover Angel and Iceman's adventures with this sort of team of bizarre heroes.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this will debue an early August on my show, which is going to be officially the entire month is themed around, laying up the throne now, or dark stars, dark star month on the show, and on the Patreon.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have some incredible months planned, or stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had this plan for a while, and Marvel in their solicits just announced they're like midnight event happening this fall as well, and I'm like, oh, we get a Dark Force month to especially coincide, which is excellent.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm your host Chad Anderson, I'm going to be reading your narrator today.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, hi.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Mike Rossi.
[SPEAKER_06]: I will be playing Angel, the spy, Pierre, Medvedev, and Medvedev.
[SPEAKER_06]: Medvedev and Crimson Dynamo with very, very poor Russian accent.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Christy Porter, and I will be playing Black Widow, a reporter, Mrs. Petrovich, and a nurse.
[SPEAKER_07]: Number two.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm Michael Ham.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to be playing Ghost Rider and Richard Finster and Boris and
[SPEAKER_07]: happy pride.
[SPEAKER_07]: And those three characters all have a conversation with each other.
[SPEAKER_07]: So let's see how that goes.
[SPEAKER_07]: This will be fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Sean Ferret.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be Hercules, Captain Andrew Vitch, and Titanium Man, and maybe Rush should maybe French.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see what comes out.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm Kevin Canary, and I will be Ivan Petrovich, Emerson Bale, and Griffin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ryan Euryo, and I'm playing Iceman, Rampage, Alexgy, Bruce Ginn, Nurse, and Old Man.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, I'm doing the Martini.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am the Lady of the Months Dark Star, a civilian, a soldier, and a revolutionary.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, we're gonna have a good time today.
[SPEAKER_05]: Scott Frey and my husband Michael were unable to make it literally at the last minute, so we just reassigned all their parts and we're just gonna have a good time.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're gonna be reading champions 8 through 10.
[SPEAKER_05]: Opening with champions 8, which is called divide and conquer.
[SPEAKER_05]: This issue was published in October 1976.
[SPEAKER_05]: with Bill Mantlo and Bob Hall as the creative team.
[SPEAKER_05]: Bruce Patterson on Inks, Don Warfield on Colors, Gasper Saladino and Karen Matlow on Letters, and Archie Goodwin is the editor, and you will notice a shift in the creative team in these last couple of issues as Bill Mantlo takes over.
[SPEAKER_05]: Previously in the Champions, the audience of Superheroes on the West Coast is recently formalized their superhero status as the Champions, funded by the Angel who has just inherited his parents' billions, and with the Black Widow as their newly appointed team leader, the Champions faced the threat of Stuart Clark, Rampage, and his new allies, the Griffin, Crimson Dynamo,
[SPEAKER_05]: Those last three are all Russian operatives sent to America to retrieve the defected Russian superagents, including Alexi Bruskin, a former KGB agent who helped train Black Widow and Dark Star both, as well as recent defectors, Black Widow and Ivan Petrovich.
[SPEAKER_05]: On the cover, our five heroes are being propelled outward by a massive explosion, as a man is on fire.
[SPEAKER_05]: The caption reads, Messenger of Death.
[SPEAKER_05]: The avenging angel, the deadly black widow, Johnny Blaze, the ghost writer, Hercules, Prince of Power, and the incomparable Ice Man, five fighters for justice united to battle for the common man because the world still needs heroes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Stanley presents the Champions.
[SPEAKER_05]: We open on the office of the champions where Hercules looks upon a series of photographs and a fury.
[SPEAKER_05]: As Angel, Ice Man, Ivan Petrovich, Johnny Blaise, Richard Fenster, and Emerson Bale look over his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_03]: By the silver bow of Apollo, what manner of base trick?
[SPEAKER_07]: Better take another look Olympian base, they sure as blazes may be, but this here Cowboy is laying odds there for real.
[SPEAKER_07]: Say it the boy, they've got her!
[SPEAKER_06]: Johnny's right, Hercules, much as I hate to admit it.
[SPEAKER_06]: It'd be pretty hard to fake a bunch of shots like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: They've taken the black widow!
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, Ivan, photographs can give you that kind of information.
[SPEAKER_05]: But what do they tell you of the desperation involved in avoiding burst after burst of searing energy?
[SPEAKER_05]: They can tell you that the unconscious man with Natasha is an old comrade, Alexi Brouskin, the commissar,
[SPEAKER_05]: and they can reveal to you the image of the pair's capter, but they don't show you what you know in your heart.
[SPEAKER_05]: How much it must have hurt the widow to fail in combat?
[SPEAKER_05]: The photos, by the way, show that the Black Widow and Alexey Bruce Skinner in battle with the Titanium Man, and they've been taken against their will in a theoryed Hercules smashes a fist down on the table, shattering it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hercules has seen a now.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is never a here still to be dealt with.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's right, readers.
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't forget that rampage is still in the room.
[SPEAKER_11]: If you remember that guy from the trial in last May, if you mean me, whiskers, you might as well save your breath because rampage doesn't scare.
[SPEAKER_11]: At least now, I'm holding all the aces.
[SPEAKER_03]: He thinks mortal, that thou dust placed too much trust in thy position as courier, and that once thy armors peeled off, that will speak more civilly to thy betters.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, he's so f**k you, he's the way doing me a real close pile, so I'm telling you, to leave this clown to me.
[SPEAKER_08]: Where is she Clark?
[SPEAKER_11]: I was getting to that russky.
[SPEAKER_11]: Don't rush me or I might just up and leave.
[SPEAKER_11]: And you'll never know how to get her back or why the Titanium and kidnapped her in the first place.
[SPEAKER_11]: Why you?
[SPEAKER_11]: Come on then, little man.
[SPEAKER_11]: I almost popped you once.
[SPEAKER_11]: I guess I could do it again.
[SPEAKER_11]: Bye, my miss.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was a penis joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: Benster, you and Belle stay back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of on, the power in that exoskeleton suit of his return, you end up putting the manina for listening frosty, not with the widow at stake.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, I know you ain't the brains behind this cape or clark.
[SPEAKER_08]: All you ever cared about was the dove.
[SPEAKER_08]: And the eye ink, putting together all the pieces yet, but the ones I have all come out spilling mud, the rusha, not getting paid to no rescue.
[SPEAKER_11]: But as long as I get paid, I could care less.
[SPEAKER_11]: But I do know one thing that dude who's running this is really hard to meet you.
[SPEAKER_11]: I don't know who he is, Jim, but he calls himself the outcast.
[SPEAKER_05]: Lawyer!
[SPEAKER_05]: Yvonne punches Rampage right in the jaw, the team ready for action, and Blaze changes into Ghost Rider.
[SPEAKER_05]: By Zeus Friend, it was quite a blow!
[SPEAKER_08]: Nearly broke my blessed hand friend, but it was worth it.
[SPEAKER_07]: It made me laugh and boy shaking it off like it was nothing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let him blaze.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've taken about all we're going to from you Clark.
[SPEAKER_06]: That first they thought you were misguided, but now I realize that you're just playing nuts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Rapage grabs a metal horse head statue from the desk and crushes it in one hand to demonstrate his strength.
[SPEAKER_11]: You know something, Junior?
[SPEAKER_11]: I didn't like the idea of playing messenger what you creeps, but now I'm beginning to think of ways to turn it into fun.
[SPEAKER_11]: But first things first, I'm always a businessman and I always love my pleasure way till the end of the transaction.
[SPEAKER_11]: Stay tuned, champions.
[SPEAKER_11]: Once I press this, you're gonna have a, so I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_11]: Once I press this, you're gonna have your first verbal contact with my employer direct from hell.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Every line in this is just vaguely sexual.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just vaguely, that paragraph was crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: But his rampage pushes the big red button on his chest.
[SPEAKER_05]: He discovers two late that the Russians planned to betray him all along.
[SPEAKER_05]: His armor explodes.
[SPEAKER_05]: But flume!
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's a betwome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules grabs the full desk to protect his team from some of the shrapnel.
[SPEAKER_05]: As Iceman puts up an ice wall to block the rest.
[SPEAKER_07]: By all the gods there be!
[SPEAKER_03]: Man, it's me, man!
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, seemed to me that he looked as stunned as we are.
[SPEAKER_11]: Herks body shielded Ivan, and this ice-it-screenal keeps the rest of us alive.
[SPEAKER_02]: But why in Heaven's name would someone just blow himself up?
[SPEAKER_05]: And outside, Darkstar and the Griffin fly in mid-air.
[SPEAKER_01]: ET's done so much for our poor Mr. Clark.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, I feel sorry for rampage, lady.
[SPEAKER_09]: The little twerp got the money he was after.
[SPEAKER_09]: That's all you ever wanted.
[SPEAKER_09]: How is he to know he wasn't going to live to enjoy it?
[SPEAKER_05]: Less one of us was to told him and ruined everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, a minute ago, my husband and I were practicing this in the kitchen.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's like, I don't remember my voice.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm like, no, no, you have to do a little bit more juvenile.
[SPEAKER_05]: Kevin, it was a perfect match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not as cold as you, Griffin, or as desirous for another steth unless it is absolutely necessary.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, but it was lady.
[SPEAKER_09]: It was.
[SPEAKER_09]: Leastways, that's what our master keeps telling us, ain't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps, but Yuri only commands my obedience, Griffin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not my conscience.
[SPEAKER_01]: That alone has been left to dark start.
[SPEAKER_01]: May heaven help me.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm pretty sure demand a martini has used the line.
[SPEAKER_05]: You only command my obedience, not my conscience at least once before.
[SPEAKER_04]: First of all, I would appreciate you to take all of the video cameras out of my house according to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: And while we ponder the meaning of the mysterious lady's parting words, let us return to the burning office inside.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good out here.
[SPEAKER_07]: All you before the flames block the exit.
[SPEAKER_07]: Fire and fumes don't bother me.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll recover rampages, body.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, stem fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't let this building do a towering infernal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll handle this with an instant indoor snowstorm.
[SPEAKER_05]: Iceman generates a massive pile of snow to put out the flames with a fist.
[SPEAKER_05]: Nasswark?
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a blast of astounding force.
[SPEAKER_03]: These oak and furnishings flew in its way, like leaves before the storm, wins of Eolis.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sturing our path to young villain was splintered debris.
[SPEAKER_07]: Is it safe for us mere mortals now, Warren?
[SPEAKER_10]: I believe so, Mr. Fenster.
[SPEAKER_10]: and realize being the champions lawyer would involve this kind of danger.
[SPEAKER_10]: Frosty, rampage is still a breather.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't move him, he probably has internal injuries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bister, find a phone that still works in Colin ambulance.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's something so funny about Ghost Riders nickname for Iceman being Frosty.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know, there's just, that's a wild facts.
[SPEAKER_05]: as the smoke clears, they pull off rampages, helmet, and see him struggling to remain conscious.
[SPEAKER_06]: What a waste.
[SPEAKER_06]: This guy builds a suit capable of miracles and an insane obsession for money brings him to this.
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't know what it's like to be broke.
[SPEAKER_06]: What it can do to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just not.
[SPEAKER_05]: The fact that they still have sympathy for this man.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tableau, five beings of great skill and power, and only a moment rendered totally helpless, silenced as another being lies dying in their midst.
[SPEAKER_05]: But one of those five refuses to allow even death to cheat him of what he must know.
[SPEAKER_08]: The outcast, Clark, who is he?
[SPEAKER_08]: What's he done with the widow?
[SPEAKER_08]: You're not going to die without telling me, but last you!
[SPEAKER_11]: words, Rusky.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm finished and I know it.
[SPEAKER_11]: I stupid.
[SPEAKER_11]: Let them double cross me.
[SPEAKER_11]: It was outcasts who did it all.
[SPEAKER_11]: Said you and him were tight.
[SPEAKER_11]: Said you know who he was from a long way back.
[SPEAKER_08]: Pull the arc!
[SPEAKER_08]: I can still feel pulse, weak, but he's alive.
[SPEAKER_08]: The life and useless, the ladies still gone and we're left with nothing but riddle.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's on in a fury, punches the wall.
[SPEAKER_06]: Tram, relax, Ivan.
[SPEAKER_06]: The place doesn't need to be busted up anymore.
[SPEAKER_06]: And beating up walls isn't going to get us to the widow any faster.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, Hercules?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, you're on mute, Sean.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was giving the performance of a lifetime.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, the winged youth does speak all right, friendyvon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fourth with our energy shall be fully devoted to rescuing the beauty of Splak Widow.
[SPEAKER_08]: So, vows the Prince of Power!
[SPEAKER_08]: You'll think!
[SPEAKER_08]: If any of you know that we don't really be bad, they be bad, they be bad, you think any of you know what the we don't means to me.
[SPEAKER_08]: You think knowing her for a few weeks even gives you the right to care the way I've cared for years.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think it much matters.
[SPEAKER_07]: Deloitte, Deloitte, the lady John this team and in my book, our caring comes with the job.
[SPEAKER_07]: But I'm through waiting around friends Clark here isn't going to last to that ambulance comes.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm taking them to the hospital now and when I come back, we go find the widow or I go along.
[SPEAKER_07]: Wait, please.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll take him.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm faster.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll raise you some time wings, but for now, just stay out of my way.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm walking here.
[SPEAKER_07]: How do I do New York?
[SPEAKER_07]: Good Lord.
[SPEAKER_07]: I just realize something.
[SPEAKER_07]: That skull, it's not a mask.
[SPEAKER_05]: Why do you think I had to sit down and list a fun stuff frightening most frightening during the Black Tom trial there's a moment where I couldn't access my Irish accent and I led in with they're always after me lucky charms.
[SPEAKER_05]: You gotta do it.
[SPEAKER_05]: You need an intro phrase.
[SPEAKER_05]: And after, a somewhat rattled Emerson Bale is left to resume the more down-to-earth tax scove practicing the law.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, people, listen, listen, Johnny Blaz is taking care of a most immediate problem.
[SPEAKER_07]: But as you have paid to produce public relations, man, I think I better remind you of another one you seem to have forgotten.
[SPEAKER_07]: Namely, that in two hours, the podcast on this building is going to be the scene of a gala occasion, the official inauguration of the Spankin.
[SPEAKER_07]: new superhero group called the champions.
[SPEAKER_07]: And let me tell you friends, both you and you temporary HQ look a mess.
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe we'd better cancel dick with the widow and go strider gone.
[SPEAKER_06]: The glad tidings just don't seem to make all that much sense anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: There was a combo between cancel and dick.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want to say that's very homophobic for pride none of
[SPEAKER_08]: short got the rotten sense of timing fly boy just when I was about to open it me did it maybe Natasha was right in joining this group you want to throw in the towel and dissolve it you guys make me laugh uh a van wait not a chance Bob I suddenly feel like a lover I confess I just feel the sarcopharm stuff in the corner
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not a stripling, but raging against hopelessness that doth drive you on from us.
[SPEAKER_07]: Fabian for me to revise a god hook, Elise, but I think I've installed enough to take care of himself.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, Angel is not available for ice-man today, but I do think that ice-man has a little crush on Ivonne Petrovich as like a daddy, like just lean into that as we're reading the rest of the script because it gets really funny if you, okay, we'll just we're going to turn you together here.
[SPEAKER_10]: If Ghost Riders nickname for Ice Man is Frosty, then Evans must be tasty freeze.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so the superheroes begin the unglabberist task of cleaning up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Iceman grabs a broom, Hercules picks up the fallen file cabinets, and Angel organizes drawers, soon pulling his shirt right off, but he waits until Bobby leaves first.
[SPEAKER_07]: And while he cools off in the lab, figuring out a way to track down the widow, I suggest we make like white tornadoes and get this place in shape.
[SPEAKER_07]: White tornadoes.
[SPEAKER_07]: I could notice that.
[SPEAKER_07]: I felt racist saying it.
[SPEAKER_07]: You looked racist, saying.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh yeah, why?
[SPEAKER_07]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's going to be white?
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ha ha.
[SPEAKER_03]: Remind me, friend, Fenster, to tell the some time of one of my many labors involving the cleansing of the King's stable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like a lot of manure if you ask me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm beginning to think this KPC is for the birds.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't mind, group, I think I'm going to go and give our resident Russian a little moral support.
[SPEAKER_06]: Go ahead, Bobby.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure honored guests and gentlemen of the press will be just as bored with only hercules and eyes.
[SPEAKER_06]: They would be of the presence of the whole group.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not kidding anybody Warren.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know as well as I do, that this is going to be one.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be the biggest bluff of your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: The old days of Professor X.
[SPEAKER_02]: Danger Room are starting to seem like a picnic.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's right, you know, believe me, Dick.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know.
[SPEAKER_06]: And even replacing this ruin costume with a new one isn't going to throw a hoard of disaster hungry newsmen off the cent when they start to smell trouble.
[SPEAKER_06]: At least you didn't have to say believe me, I know Dick.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, Ice Man says the phrase, I'm beginning to think this KP scene is for the birds.
[SPEAKER_05]: K-period, P-period.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what that means.
[SPEAKER_05]: I looked it up, but I couldn't find it.
[SPEAKER_10]: Military for kitchen duty.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, as I was saying, it's a military thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like cleaning up, it's not like quote unquote women's work that military guys have to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: When there's not a woman around, there's always like peeling potatoes for some reason.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay, back to horny hercules.
[SPEAKER_03]: What in the morning?
[SPEAKER_03]: You reckon without the Prince of power, lad?
[SPEAKER_03]: With Hercules at the side, the mortals will give not a thought to anything but the magnificence of our presence, especially if they be ladies and the audience.
[SPEAKER_05]: Forgive us.
[SPEAKER_05]: This now, as we travel across Los Angeles to the seaside older section known as Venice, and focus in on a once abandoned warehouse, abandoned no longer.
[SPEAKER_05]: The woman is Natasha Romanoff, or Romanova if you want to be more correct to the Russian language, better known to the world as the beauty is black widow.
[SPEAKER_05]: The man is a lexie boy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Brucekin, X Russian KGB chief known as the commissar, and also the widows teacher.
[SPEAKER_05]: Too bad that that teaching wasn't enough to enable her to deal with the energy blasts of an armor-clad foe.
[SPEAKER_05]: As Brucekin lies unconscious, Natasha is waking up in a room with green walls, wooden floors, and boards over the windows.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you are a weak method, Natasha.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna now live in here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't do it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am called Darkstar Sarina and the others had made me your jailer to you require anything, Madam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only answers, my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are these others?
[SPEAKER_01]: There are only three others, besides myself, Sarina.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kam Red Bullski, the Titanium Man you have already met, which leaves only the Griffin and Yuri.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you and the Kamisar will meet us all soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Brucekin all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was hit so hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Enter the Titanium Man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Only as hard as was necessary, comrade Widow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, my capital returns.
[SPEAKER_03]: What news, comrade?
[SPEAKER_03]: All goes well, comrade Darkstar.
[SPEAKER_03]: How could it go otherwise?
[SPEAKER_03]: Comrade Yuri planned for every eventuality, but it seems inappropriate to speak of such things in front of our gifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, suppose so comrade.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she must know what is to become of her and why she has wanted home.
[SPEAKER_05]: Just one word, and yet it is the preface to despair for Natasha Romanova.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do I detect concern in you for an end of the state comrade?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yuri would not be pleased.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is for Yuri to say titanium man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I sense there is more in Yuri's attack on the famous Black Widow than a mere desire to serve his country.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is beautiful, covered.
[SPEAKER_09]: Hock, that's all you Rusky's ever do.
[SPEAKER_09]: And the Griffin is getting sick of it.
[SPEAKER_09]: When do we tear into them tin man?
[SPEAKER_09]: When do I make the angel crawl?
[SPEAKER_07]: I can't be coming after you with that voice.
[SPEAKER_07]: It seems unfair that you're just doing my voice.
[SPEAKER_07]: My normal voice.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we give the word, impatient one, what?
[SPEAKER_05]: A red glass hits the titanium man's armor to the ramp and the crimson dynamo stands in the doorway, power glowing in his hand.
[SPEAKER_05]: I apologize an advance.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is going to be absolutely terrible.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, so just all of you, please bear with me with non theater kid of the group.
[SPEAKER_06]: Actually, I'm not even going to look at your faces when I do this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just going to move zoom over here.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is not when we give the word my friend, but when I give it it is the crimson dynamo who leads the new crimson dynamo.
[SPEAKER_06]: a black widow, the commissarter, and one other.
[SPEAKER_06]: He found Petrovich, my father.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes!
[SPEAKER_05]: And by the way, that was not Russian in any way, but delightful.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was exactly what we needed.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for playing along.
[SPEAKER_05]: On a nearby rooftop, Ice Man watches Ivan set up a strange, tube-like device.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Ivan, I can give up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've wanted you to tinker in that one hand for the past hour.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I still haven't gotten the faintest idea of what you've accomplished.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a tracking scope, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Only what's it supposed to track?
[SPEAKER_02]: This looks like a black pearl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's loose.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, it is.
[SPEAKER_08]: I tell you, it is, and of a kind carried only by one man in the world.
[SPEAKER_08]: It likes the Brucekin de Commissar.
[SPEAKER_08]: See, already frequency is showing up on the scope.
[SPEAKER_08]: The pearl is in companion nearby, and where Brucekin is, that's where I'm bitten.
[SPEAKER_08]: We find the widow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then what are we waiting for, friend?
[SPEAKER_02]: A quick, I flag will help us beat the L.A. traffic situation, and in ice that rigged the sled, it will enable you to keep up with me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, remember last time when the big shaft blew through the wall and they had to catch it and break it open and they found a black pearl inside which is literally a modern as it like a sex sex toy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Another tracking the black pearl back to its source.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, Ivan takes the tracker on the ice sled, writing after ice man, on the slide across the rooftops.
[SPEAKER_05]: Kid, I apologize for the way I busted up before.
[SPEAKER_08]: You get me to the widow and I'll see that you're kept in pop sickles for a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're on, as long as you knock off that kid's stuff cramps.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yep, they're cute.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, and across town, yet another champion has found a way to beat the rush hour on a flaming motorcycle.
[SPEAKER_05]: A civilian is shocked.
[SPEAKER_07]: Los Angeles hospital is just ahead, but have lost track of Clark's heartbeat about 10 minutes ago.
[SPEAKER_07]: I hope I haven't out-evil connevaled for nothing.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, no way, must be small, get my eyes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's got to be.
[SPEAKER_07]: made it and probably set a record for flaming skull cycles around the world.
[SPEAKER_07]: What the blazes are bringing you a fellow mortal in need of aid human.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, you can't just barge in here like this and dump a dead man on us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now without an explanation.
[SPEAKER_07]: Such an explanation would mean this mortal death.
[SPEAKER_07]: And you fool will be held accountable for.
[SPEAKER_07]: See to it that he is cared for, or I will return and seek you out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got us a patient.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so the nurses are tending to rampage now.
[SPEAKER_05]: And now we look back on the angel, who's changed back into his old X-Men costume with the halo at the center.
[SPEAKER_05]: Remember that one the magneto design that's a real fact, but that one was blue and white and this one is red and white.
[SPEAKER_06]: I thought I ditched this outfit when I left the X-Men.
[SPEAKER_06]: He wakes up a lot of memories dick.
[SPEAKER_07]: I wish you would told me that before you pointed out I'd get the colors wrong.
[SPEAKER_07]: I can live with it.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're gonna have to fly boy because we just run out of time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Huh?
[SPEAKER_07]: Take a look.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Most of Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_07]: He is where you make history, Warren, and believe me.
[SPEAKER_07]: I wish you luck.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just sent you guys the image of where Angel's changing.
[SPEAKER_05]: And like Dick Fenster's looking so queer is like his head's his hand.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's just staring at the billionaire change you can front of him.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's just also queer.
[SPEAKER_05]: Outside, Hercules and Angel take the stage in front of the crowd of civilians, cheering them on with signs that read things like welcome champs.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are news cameras everywhere, and reporters can't doubt taste their adoration winged one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tis a sweet as the embrosia on high Olympus, it may be too sweet for mere mortal Hercules.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today is a day of history as the world watches the dedication of a new super team.
[SPEAKER_11]: Remember the day the fantastic four got started.
[SPEAKER_11]: It's the same feeling now.
[SPEAKER_07]: And that was my governor brown voice.
[SPEAKER_07]: I understand there were five of them per year.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, rumors governor that here comes the PR flat governor governor brown.
[SPEAKER_07]: This is an honor.
[SPEAKER_07]: We can begin now, Angel.
[SPEAKER_07]: Michael, I'm having a full schizophrenic episode and moments later.
[SPEAKER_06]: Speak true, friend, angel.
[SPEAKER_06]: For that, don't speak for hercules.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll do my best teammate, ladies and gentlemen.
[SPEAKER_06]: Today I give you the start of a dream.
[SPEAKER_06]: The emergence on the American scene of a group of individuals dedicated to fighting for every individual's right to be free.
[SPEAKER_06]: I give you the birth of the champions.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wrote it Angel, but you're making me believe it, and we give you their death at the hands of the, I don't know what she's having at the hands of the crimson dynamo, the titanium man and the griffin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Get the speeches dynamo, just tear him apart.
[SPEAKER_03]: Death to the dogs of the West.
[SPEAKER_05]: And suddenly there are three supervillains in the sky, two armored Russians and a man with wings and a lion mane.
[SPEAKER_05]: Then come the on villains for you face the Prince of Power!
[SPEAKER_06]: But can we even hope to stop them?
[SPEAKER_06]: Is this the end of the champions?
[SPEAKER_05]: Next, the Battle of Los Angeles, but we're going to do it right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Champions number nine, it's the Champions versus Dark Starts, Titanium, and the Crimson Dynamo, the Covered Tulsa's.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's an all-action issue, while Black Widow swings against the skyline, firing a Widow's bite at the Flying Dark Start.
[SPEAKER_05]: The Crimson Dynamo holds Hercules around the neck, as Titanium, man swings a punch,
[SPEAKER_05]: Near moments ago, an impressive ceremony began officially inaugurating the champions of Los Angeles, first superhero group.
[SPEAKER_05]: It ends suddenly interrupted by the battle of Los Angeles, the title of this issue.
[SPEAKER_05]: Shots are fired hitting the stage behind Hercules as the crowd panics.
[SPEAKER_05]: Fistram!
[SPEAKER_05]: By Zeus, Son of Cronos, we are attacked!
[SPEAKER_06]: Iceman is with Avon, searching for the kidnapped Black Widow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ghost Triders on is a way to the hospital for empage, and Hercules and I are in big trouble.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've been set up the Titanium Man, the Griffin, and the Crimson Dynamo.
[SPEAKER_06]: How can just the two of us stand against them?
[SPEAKER_03]: Strike up on my order comrades.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then come ye villains all.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stand fourth and face the fury of Herculees.
[SPEAKER_03]: The prince of power.
[SPEAKER_05]: At the end, we understand you're the prince of power, man.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ha ha ha.
[UNKNOWN]: See you there.
[SPEAKER_06]: And no, he says a lot this, these comments.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, she probably does.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's up to you to hold them Olympian.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, I get the crowd out of the way.
[SPEAKER_07]: Good luck, Warren.
[SPEAKER_07]: They've already started to panic.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're gonna have a mob on your hands if you don't act.
[SPEAKER_07]: And fast.
[SPEAKER_07]: Angel grabs the microphone.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules grabs his face.
[SPEAKER_06]: I hear you dick attention.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the angel speaking.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no need to panic.
[SPEAKER_06]: Clear that area quickly and calmly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Every night, every time my crossie says the word dick, there's just a little clever of like,
[UNKNOWN]: This is camera zoom zoom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Me thinks that our speaker is in vain, friend Angel, only a fast and decisive victory will prevent total chaos.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that is to be denied, you fool.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have already taken the Black Widow, and it is only a matter of moments before you and the wing one fall to us.
[SPEAKER_05]: Angel takes to the air, ready with a quip and punches griffin, right in the jaw.
[SPEAKER_05]: WAH!
[SPEAKER_06]: On a bet dynamo, you're talking to a guy who used to be known as the avenging Angel, Mr.
[SPEAKER_06]: I took everything that was thrown at the X-Men and still came up aces.
[SPEAKER_06]: and I didn't form the champions because I thought they were losing preposition.
[SPEAKER_07]: Officer, get Governor Brown to safety, man.
[SPEAKER_07]: They're attacking the podium, Governor.
[SPEAKER_07]: Have the national guard alerted.
[SPEAKER_07]: If this escalates into a full-scale battle, all the clearer state of emergency, then the behind me, Dick, Fenster, you should give less thought to others and more to defending yourself.
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimson Dynamo crashes right into Hercules.
[SPEAKER_05]: What, too?
[SPEAKER_05]: But I just thought you guys this image is crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, there is till lecture Hercules.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have, but to take my golden mason hand, and that will learn the depths of my anger, a blow strikes the dynamo, could try.
[SPEAKER_07]: I may only be Dick Fenster, boy public relations man, but he is where I show that even an ad man can carry some clout.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let us go, to think he struck a glancing blow.
[SPEAKER_05]: Finster takes a wooden panel and hits the armored dynamo, but it just breaks, and the villain doesn't even notice.
[SPEAKER_05]: Crack!
[SPEAKER_06]: Heads up, you walk inside in can, it's fist into the attack.
[SPEAKER_06]: I must be more careful with this one called Hercules.
[SPEAKER_06]: It will take more than muscle to stop me.
[SPEAKER_06]: This armor is the pride of Soviet engineering, and in it I cannot, will not be beaten.
[SPEAKER_05]: And at that moment, Johnny Blaz pulls in, hitting the brakes on his motorcycle, scream!
[SPEAKER_05]: Griffin is in the air, talons, and fists, ready.
[SPEAKER_07]: Rampages in the hands of the docks now, but they weren't laying odds on his survival.
[SPEAKER_07]: Whoa, there's a crowd up ahead, round our temporary headquarters.
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course, the inauguration must have started already.
[SPEAKER_07]: I might have made it back in time if I hadn't stopped at the studio to pick up my real bike.
[SPEAKER_07]: Couldn't show up here as Johnny Blaz has tried a mystic flame cycle.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's the stunt writer, the one that's almost stopped me at the hospital.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Griffin here, so that's why I see it rampaged to blow himself up.
[SPEAKER_07]: They must have figured on the vodness and then picking off the pieces.
[SPEAKER_09]: You're gonna be the easiest to then to get rid of, cowboy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Words creature.
[SPEAKER_05]: The Griffin swoops down, but Johnny Blaze changes into ghost writer and dodges him.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm learning to appreciate whenever we see ghost writer transforming.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's like a halfway point where he didn't have time to get into full drag just yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: It makes me laugh every time.
[SPEAKER_07]: Gotta park this normal back and create a flame cycle.
[SPEAKER_07]: Get some real mobility before it does tag me.
[SPEAKER_07]: Too many folks around here to risk blasting out with Hellfire.
[SPEAKER_07]: Now my blazing skull starting to panic the crowd even more.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now Griffin strike now while he is surrounded by the crowd.
[SPEAKER_03]: The ghost like youth who does send a cold chill through my being.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is a danger.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yet I did not ally myself with some of the champions, but with all.
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep your eyes open, Dynamo, and you'll see the Griffin do it his way.
[SPEAKER_05]: Voice is killing me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, man, here it comes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Determined to aid his companion, Hercules pulls off an impressive move that he must have learned from Captain America during his time with the Avengers.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, it's show not be.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, you misjudged your throw.
[SPEAKER_06]: Your amace has bounced off my armor.
[SPEAKER_05]: Demase carines off of the Dynamo's armor and directly into Ghost Griders' hand, even as the demon leaps into the air off of his bike and discharges a blast of Hellfire in order to take out the griffin with a fatash.
[SPEAKER_05]: It was no mistake, mortal.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was more case of getting the right angle so I could catch it and use his momentum to lift me above the crowd to where I can blast toenails here without zapping the good people a lot of sayentials.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[SPEAKER_07]: Touch down safe sound and away from the mob.
[SPEAKER_07]: I will listen to Zeus for that one now.
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's see if I can repay it Thor style go may go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, go straighter
[SPEAKER_05]: Ghost Rider throws the mace, and it socks Griffin right in the jaw, and then bounces off the villain and back into the hand of her Achilles, who's fending off a blast from the Crimson Dynamo ZAT.
[SPEAKER_03]: Her Achilles thinks the team mate, and now with Mason Hand, meet things to his time to end the spray.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what of the one called Angel?
[SPEAKER_05]: Crimson Dynamo is knocked back.
[SPEAKER_05]: Strang, and what, indeed, of Angel?
[SPEAKER_05]: Look up, and you'll see him narrowly avoiding having his wings singged by the titanium man's prowl.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can't dog forever, Doug.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can sure try, friend, but since that would eventually get boring, I'll think I'll show you that power doesn't amount to beans when your opponents later and faster than you are.
[SPEAKER_03]: No!
[SPEAKER_03]: You are upsetting my center of balance.
[SPEAKER_03]: My own blue jets are driving me, Earthward.
[SPEAKER_05]: Angel flips around on the air and stomps the titanium man, causing him to lose his balance and propel toward the earth, where Ghost Rider is hitting Griffin with another blast of hellfire.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's just great except for the fact that he's fallen right towards Hercules.
[SPEAKER_05]: And cue the Blupper Real.
[SPEAKER_05]: Titanium man's bulk lands right on Hercules, knocking him right through the stage.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have a second image of smashing armored men into Hercules.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is Legs Flya Kimbo.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Griffin sneaks up behind him, raking the back of his skull with his claws, scrit, and making go strider in the art look like a 100 year old man for just one battle.
[SPEAKER_05]: The jerk, he's forgotten about me and turned his back.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ugh.
[SPEAKER_05]: Angel flies over and concern as Griffin knocks out Ghostbryter who turns back into Johnny Blaze.
[SPEAKER_05]: What's with this guy?
[SPEAKER_09]: He not come out and his mask disappears.
[SPEAKER_05]: Griffin, if you've hurt him, I'll you will do nothing Angel except fall.
[SPEAKER_05]: The foreangel can get there, he's knocked out with a blast from crimson dynamo who soon stands directly over Warren's face to shout his triumph with blaze in Griffin's paws and titanium man holding Hercules' body over his shoulder, the champions are soundly defeated and it's only page nine.
[SPEAKER_05]: We polished off the champions.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, save the iceman.
[SPEAKER_06]: He can be dealt with, comrades.
[SPEAKER_06]: All that concerns us is that Devan Petrovitch is now unguarded and his date of reckoning is at
[SPEAKER_05]: Remember Ice Man, across the city, he's transporting his Von Petrovich and his tracking device, on an ice slide, no doubt leaving piles of melted ice everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've crisscrossed most of Santa Monica, but how much longer?
[SPEAKER_08]: No, we're almost there, kids.
[SPEAKER_08]: The skin, there's beeping louder, tracking the black pearl that comes off, always carries with him.
[SPEAKER_08]: There!
[SPEAKER_08]: This is the beach, kid.
[SPEAKER_08]: We've hit the jackpot, that warehouses where we'll find the window.
[SPEAKER_02]: or maybe a welcoming committee.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's slow down and think of think this out before.
[SPEAKER_08]: Inc, with Natasha and Danger, missing kids, me and the widow been together in a long time.
[SPEAKER_08]: I've seen the lady open tight, seen her down.
[SPEAKER_08]: We've been through a lot of changes together, but neither of us ever run out when the other needed help.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the sky, float images of the Black Widow and her first few costumes with Hawkeye and Daredevil at her side in each.
[SPEAKER_05]: Why you pigheaded old Russian?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who said anything about running out?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just trying to point out to you that there's a 30 foot jump between this roof in the other one, but now I'm beginning to wish that I'd let you jump and find it find out yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I swear, sometimes I think mutants are the only ones with any brains on this planet.
[SPEAKER_05]: Here, it ain't the link in tunnel, but it'll get us across.
[SPEAKER_05]: In a gorgeous panel, Iceman forms a huge tunnel of ice from one roof to the other, but the three villains are all flying back to their headquarters, each of them carrying and unconscious champion nearby.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while you're walking, try giving a thought to the idea of teamwork.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're all on the same side, Pops, which you seem to forget.
[SPEAKER_08]: You bit or save the speeches for later, kid.
[SPEAKER_06]: How convenient.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if the next targets have saved us that struggle of looking for them by coming to us.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will remove the boy comrades.
[SPEAKER_05]: Titanium Man fires a green energy beam at Ice Man who dodges it and fires a blast of ice right back covering the villain's arm and a block of ice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Looks like the face your partners, Junior, and we're next!
[SPEAKER_02]: Do me a favor, Pop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go find Widow and leave these supertypes to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, my arm are suddenly free, since about me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Dynamo!
[SPEAKER_06]: You were careless, Titanium Man.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know that you've powers.
[SPEAKER_05]: A blast from the Red Warrior hits Ice Man, Strat and Ivan runs for it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Kid, they've got him, oh, pay him back for you, Junior.
[SPEAKER_08]: Even though I don't think much of your super team, you were one of the best, but all that matters now is finding the Black Widow.
[SPEAKER_05]: And inside Dark Star is delivering two glasses of water on a tray to the storage room where Bruce is still tied up, but the Black Widow has escaped her restraints and is hiding on the ceiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is time for your near Tarina.
[SPEAKER_02]: Use a sleep, young one, though, how can she sleep?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's such a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot say, still, she must be Tarina, I apologize.
[SPEAKER_02]: You lied.
[SPEAKER_05]: Above you, my former pupil.
[SPEAKER_05]: Darkstar clicks on the light and Natasha swings down and kicks her in the face, slam, Bruce can bends down behind her to not darkstar over, but as the trace scatters, darkstar does a flip and lands right back on her healed boots.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not for long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well done, student.
[SPEAKER_01]: You make an old man growl.
[SPEAKER_01]: You forget to come red Brucekin that I was your pupil as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And while the agility of the same the Black Widow, Thor surpasses my own dark star has other powers that third command.
[SPEAKER_01]: Power such as this.
[SPEAKER_05]: Abin energy escapes dark stars hand blasting Brucekin off the ground.
[SPEAKER_05]: Black Widow meets the energy with one of her own widow bites.
[SPEAKER_05]: Zab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lexi has some kind of force coming from her hand.
[SPEAKER_05]: Weave me child, save yourself!
[SPEAKER_00]: I would be untruthed your teaching, where I have to do that!
[SPEAKER_00]: Alexi Brucekin!
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would be untruthed that same teaching, where I have to act differently, Madam Widow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though I cannot say which of us is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing, even though I've recovered my widows bite, it has no effect.
[SPEAKER_05]: Natasha, above you, on this guylight.
[SPEAKER_05]: If on Petrovich smashes through the skylight, gun drawn, scratch.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, hey, if you so soon forgotten me, old one, Iran.
[SPEAKER_08]: Same as they've already let see what.
[SPEAKER_08]: We'll chat after my tranquilizer bullets have taken care of your jailer.
[SPEAKER_05]: If on opens fire, but dark star dodges with another flip.
[SPEAKER_01]: To do that, they must hit me even Petrovich.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that they shall not do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I train very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: at, but can she be in two places at once?
[SPEAKER_08]: How have you been Tasha?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fine, old friend, just fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ugh!
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't start.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tarts start five as anyone.
[SPEAKER_05]: Then Natasha kicks her right in the guts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Doom!
[SPEAKER_05]: Linia!
[SPEAKER_01]: Child!
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I am all right, teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Say for my dignity.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's it, the only spot that's going to be hurt little girl.
[SPEAKER_08]: No, suppose you tell me where the others are before.
[SPEAKER_05]: Unhand her traitor.
[SPEAKER_05]: Who in places?
[SPEAKER_05]: That's right, the Crimson Dynamo Andy, his allies are there with the rest of the unconscious champions, including Ice Man now.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're all back together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the others whom you sought Ivan Petrovich.
[SPEAKER_01]: There they are here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then where you are widow for the champs get it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: The real Crimson Dynamo is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want of us?
[SPEAKER_06]: Not us widow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just you, Iván and the old man.
[SPEAKER_06]: The state has its reasons for wanting you and the commissar.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I have mine for wanting Iván Petrovich.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am called the Crimson Dynamo now, but I have born other names.
[SPEAKER_06]: One of which was the outcast.
[SPEAKER_08]: No.
[SPEAKER_08]: It can't be!
[SPEAKER_05]: They told me you were dead!
[SPEAKER_00]: What if he had had?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you know him?
[SPEAKER_05]: The Crimson Dynamo removes his helmet to show his black hair and thick jawline.
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, he looks a lot like him on.
[SPEAKER_06]: As a father knows his son, Madame Natasha.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am Yuri Petrovich.
[SPEAKER_05]: Next, in final battle, no, okay, if you listen to my show during Pride Month, I have an interview with Jenny Isabella where we talk about this story and her original story was going to reveal that Iván was black widows father, but instead we get this story, I don't know exactly why the change, but now we have a new crimson dynamo whose Darkster's boyfriend, but also the son of Iván, okay, here we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Champions number 10.
[SPEAKER_05]: Still the same team, Bob Hall's pencils in these three issues, rock, it's still Bill Mantlow, Frank Gicoia on Inks.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ray Holloway on Letters, Dawn Warfield on Colors Archie Goodwin on at it.
[SPEAKER_05]: On the cover, Hercules is being assaulted by hail fire blasts from Ghost Fryter as Angel lunges at him from the back.
[SPEAKER_03]: A side, Satan spawn, the sons of Zeus must break free!
[SPEAKER_07]: Back Hercules, or you'll feel the full fury a hell before I let you escape this room.
[SPEAKER_05]: Champion versus Champion, the demon and the demigod, Stanley presents the champions, and one man's son is another man's poison, and yes, that's the name of the son.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's actually good.
[SPEAKER_05]: The champions are all defeated and slowly waking up in the dark star stands in front of the titanium man and the crimson dynamo with Evan Barry ears up in the air to hold them in place.
[SPEAKER_06]: You are going to die champions and you're never even know why.
[SPEAKER_01]: by their waking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't maintain the dark field much longer.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let them awake, the titanium and fears them not.
[SPEAKER_05]: The champions are awake.
[SPEAKER_05]: Blaze changes back to go strider and the heroes push against the dark walls that are closing in on them.
[SPEAKER_07]: The mortal female dark star.
[SPEAKER_07]: She holds us in some manner energy field.
[SPEAKER_06]: The last thing I remember is the battle at our inauguration, but that was in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_06]: Where in blazes are we now?
[UNKNOWN]: Yori, I.
[SPEAKER_06]: We will not be much longer than yet.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just long enough to enjoy their helplessness.
[SPEAKER_05]: Darkstar puts bands of darkness around Hercules, wrists, face filling.
[SPEAKER_03]: No mere power of darkness can hold the sun of Zeus by a Killy shield.
[SPEAKER_05]: Nothing, the field defies you Olympian.
[SPEAKER_05]: Iceman and Ghost Rider lash out against the field beginning to overload Darkstar's control of her dark field.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright then, spooks up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see if the combined powers of Iceman and Ghost Rider can do any better.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is... That bellow the ghostly old horror after from like the 20s and 30s.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is, if you can drop the old bellow legocy routine long enough to go into action.
[SPEAKER_07]: If you knew the source of my power frozen one, you would not question its manifestation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lainia, it is too much yori.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't hold them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then prepare for us to depart at once, comrade.
[SPEAKER_06]: We will do our gloting at the safe distance.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the champions, that's really the French comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shumpy on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll be held by a force even greater than nine titanium men.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The girls up to something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing can stay out the parts are now.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the villains of the piece disappear.
[SPEAKER_06]: Good lord.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're fading out.
[SPEAKER_06]: The field around them is gone, but so are they.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are on the surface once more.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, the Akurusid interfered in champions' languish imprisoned in a place yet unknown to them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And sure enough, the heroes find that they've been placed in a room with steel walls.
[SPEAKER_06]: God, and they've left us inside some kind of steel cubicle.
[SPEAKER_07]: If they think they trapped us, then they've reckoned with that Hercules angel.
[SPEAKER_03]: That'll speak as true!
[SPEAKER_03]: There'll be no metal, where they're forged by God or man.
[SPEAKER_03]: That may hold against the Princess!
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_05]: It started just as hercules stripped away the wall.
[SPEAKER_05]: But why?
[SPEAKER_05]: And where are we that were surrounded by solid rock?
[SPEAKER_05]: A portal opens to let the villains peek in on the capford heroes.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're a little people.
[SPEAKER_05]: Have you not yet guessed?
[SPEAKER_01]: You said the visual scan is set so they can see and hear us as we have observed them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were watching the whole time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Quiet Bobby, hear them out.
[SPEAKER_06]: What?
[SPEAKER_06]: Stop him, Bobby.
[SPEAKER_05]: If he hits that wall in another ridiculous panel, hopefully he is a legged Zikimbo up-skirt shot almost.
[SPEAKER_05]: Leaps for the portal as it closes and strikes the rock wall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wham.
[SPEAKER_02]: Too late, Warren.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that I could ever hold back a god even if I wanted to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, the earth moves as if the titans imprisoned in the
[SPEAKER_03]: Take it easy, there's more than us at stake.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's the whole state of California.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's weakest to hook you these winged one who even Zeus once feared, but hurt you is will not be shackled.
[SPEAKER_07]: You will if it means my home towns at stake muscles.
[SPEAKER_07]: Don't know why I got this accident if this my home town didn't really put them together.
[SPEAKER_07]: You will if it means my hometown's at stake muscles, and I don't need a spooky act to stop you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Not when I've got hellfire.
[SPEAKER_03]: Never did hurt you least trust me, for a treat that's die power seem to be a gift of Pluto, and the stingy and depths of 80s, but if the Lord of the Dead failed to hold me, what hope has now?
[SPEAKER_06]: Stop it, both of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: No matter what you think of each other, we're a team now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm down her, maybe Blaze jumped the gun, but you got to admit, you do have a tendency to act before you think.
[SPEAKER_05]: And as Ghost Rider blasts hercules with Hellfire and the others try to hold him back, Darkstar watches through her portal.
[SPEAKER_05]: She and her allies soon go to meet Griffin on a hovering ship, and inside that, Black Widow and Alexi Bruskin are held to the wall now in shackles, and Ivan Petrovich is being brought aboard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it not the revealing to see how the capitalists turn on each other in moment?
[SPEAKER_06]: you are a full titanium man to see everything in terms of a class struggle.
[SPEAKER_06]: There were no politics in my desire for the revenge.
[SPEAKER_03]: You docked trees in comrade and once our command shipped with the awaiting graffing brings us home, our masters will hear of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, quick, yeah, and get a board.
[SPEAKER_06]: You live a Stalinist dream, both Skate.
[SPEAKER_06]: The homeland has changed.
[SPEAKER_06]: There are masters that are no longer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And inside the hovering supersonic craft, it's no use in Natasha.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has that spoken since the crimson dynamo was revealed as his son.
[SPEAKER_06]: A son he abandoned, a son he left for dead, you remember that, don't you father?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yuri, must you?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, Lenya, I must, my dear father will be made to remember, and I hope the memory kills him.
[SPEAKER_06]: But not too quickly, I want him to suffer as I have been made to suffer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yuri Petrovich, I have not even gone for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even before we defected, I know he had the son, but both the boy and the vans were dead, killed in a motor accident.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is the story my father fed the world.
[SPEAKER_06]: But if you wish to know the truth, Madame Natasha, then here is the story of a van petrovitch beginning in Moscow, 19 years ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: And in a three-page flashback, I'm not sure we needed, but here we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: A flashback to St. Petersburg years before, when a young Ivan Petrovitch and a purple fur-lined coat and green hat stood with his beautiful blonde wife and his young son in his arms.
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's a young crimson dynamo.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that me too?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: We go to zoo today, papa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Little Yari will soon be as big as his father.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, let it be, the boy is only five.
[SPEAKER_06]: But even though just a boy, I still remember that day everything changed.
[SPEAKER_05]: In the flashback, in the Petrovitch apartment, two men are trying to pay Petrovitch to come to their side.
[SPEAKER_05]: He holds fistfuls of cash, but just throws it back at the men.
[SPEAKER_05]: The revolutionary speaks.
[SPEAKER_04]: The days of the revolution are passed, Ivan Petrovich, communism is dead!
[SPEAKER_04]: You're a scientist, a master technician!
[SPEAKER_04]: The West needs you Petrovich!
[SPEAKER_08]: No, get out!
[SPEAKER_08]: I frozen this nose outside Leningrad, fighting Hitler to save this land!
[SPEAKER_08]: Russia is my home!
[SPEAKER_08]: If there is wrong in it, it must be changed!
[SPEAKER_08]: Not destroyed!
[SPEAKER_08]: Mother, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ashtori, your father is angry!
[SPEAKER_05]: And a short time later, you see Evon putting his wife and child in the car, but I thought we were going to the zoo papa.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yuri sang goodbye to his family dog, Lenya.
[SPEAKER_08]: You and little Yuri must leave Moscow for a while, my wife, stolen stiff, his meetings ugly here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand Ivan, I will write to you from the mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Lenya, stay with father.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: But we never reached mountains.
[SPEAKER_06]: I hurt my mother's cream once over the drawer of the machine gun, and then I knew she was beyond screaming.
[SPEAKER_05]: A man with a machine gun opens fire on the cab of Mrs. Petrovich and she crashes, then falls out of the car dead.
[SPEAKER_05]: The young boy is taken by a bald man in a coat.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this man's name is Medvedev.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mother, mother, I have of the boy, bracket, let's go.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we see Iván silently receiving the news that his wife and son are dead.
[SPEAKER_06]: I could imagine my dear father's grief after all the men who'd taken me had just offered him a fortune to leave Russia.
[SPEAKER_06]: Had they not, but better way to sever all ties, eh?
[SPEAKER_06]: And back in the present.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you mad?
[SPEAKER_00]: How can you possibly believe that of?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, comrade, and the closing in fast, you're in command, Junior, can any orders?
[SPEAKER_06]: Titanium Man, you and dark starter fly out and stop them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not I, Yuri, I will not work any further with that butcher.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, that is the name they called me in the camps, fair one.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a name I relish, as the American pilots will soon see.
[SPEAKER_05]: Titanium Man launches outside the ship to fight the planes that swarm into attack.
[SPEAKER_06]: Shall I go on father or do you still pretend not to know that the American agents, for such where they who had kidnapped me, held me in West Berlin for nine years, training me, educating me, brainwashing me to work against the state but to know of hell.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, there's a lot of politics, we're not going to do a lot of exploring here, but Russia, World War II, Stalin dies East Germany West Germany in Berlin and the wall going up in the Americans are on one side, so we have this American forces thing and this kid is now raised in what he thinks is West Germany.
[SPEAKER_05]: But as future stories will tell us, just like Black Widow and Dark Star, and Vanguard and Ursa Major, and not even Dine, the Wasp and so many more, Yuri was actually trained as a warrior and as a scientist.
[SPEAKER_05]: But where our characters were taken over by we're taken by the KGB or the Red Room, Yuri Petrovich was raised by men who wanted to overthrow Russia.
[SPEAKER_05]: So older and now wearing orange and yellow, he gets on the phone and calls the KGB led by Agent Alexey Brucekin.
[SPEAKER_05]: Go look these characters, it's a lot to keep,
[SPEAKER_05]: It's 1977.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're just gonna run with it.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is caged better to home-punch.
[SPEAKER_06]: I Theater that soon they will discover this radio.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have built this terror.
[SPEAKER_06]: I fucking hate you Chad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so bye.
[SPEAKER_07]: I know I just want to take this little crimson dynamo home and protect him
[SPEAKER_06]: Bring me to the zoo, pop up, bring me to the zoo, pop up.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is Caged Barrett to home perch.
[SPEAKER_06]: I fear that soon they will discover this radio.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have built a firearm to be rescued.
[SPEAKER_06]: It must be soon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good night then, Caged Barrett.
[SPEAKER_05]: Home perch was through to his water.
[SPEAKER_05]: The kgV agents stormed the base and killed the rubbles within.
[SPEAKER_05]: You are saved, boy.
[SPEAKER_05]: These scums will never hurt you again.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't!
[SPEAKER_02]: why it in American.
[SPEAKER_06]: Clean up this den of deeks Boris, while I take the youth back across the wall and home, home to a grave bearing my mother's name and the disgrace of learning that my father had affected.
[SPEAKER_06]: My suspicions were confirmed.
[SPEAKER_06]: My father had sold us out, Ivan Petrovich was a traitor.
[SPEAKER_09]: there is another side boy, one which, hey, dynamo, you want to see what your comrades do into them planes and take in his own sweet time while we hover like sitting ducks up here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure enough, outside the titanium man has destroyed multiple planes, surely killing some pilots while others are parachuting to safety.
[SPEAKER_06]: Lenin's cost, I ordered him to stop the planes, not destroy the Bolski, return to the command ship at once.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the last of the swine.
[SPEAKER_08]: And back in the ship, you said there was another sidebrushing.
[SPEAKER_08]: What do you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Though, now that the boy has gone, you choose to speak.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very well, Ivan Petrovich, know then how you and your son were betrayed.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, another flashback then to show the younger Bruce skin now in a secret meeting with the bald man whose name is Medvedev and he's like a little older here now like he's like a he's like an older teen at this point.
[SPEAKER_05]: How goes it, Medvedev?
[SPEAKER_06]: As plan, Bruce skin, the boy believes himself held by the Americans.
[SPEAKER_06]: He has never guessed that it was his own people who kidnapped him.
[SPEAKER_02]: when the boy hated the West and the air rescue was fake.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's ready.
[SPEAKER_06]: He'll believe any lies broskin feeds him and when the time is right, he'll even hunt down his defector father.
[SPEAKER_08]: In dolls for the glory of the state, a broskin you paid, you played both sides against the middle and destroyed my family to do it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And later, you set up the window in the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did as I was ordered and when I could stand no more, I too defected.
[SPEAKER_01]: The planes are gone, laying here, telling the griffin to proceed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yuri, no, there is something you must hear about your father.
[SPEAKER_05]: The Crimson Dynamo hits Black Widow across the face with a metal hand.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wow, I have no father, and I forbid you to talk to this witch again.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll not have you listening to her lies.
[SPEAKER_08]: Toshio, Yuri, no!
[SPEAKER_08]: You see what you've done, Bruce Kim.
[SPEAKER_08]: You've made my son a killer listening to your teacher, Yuri.
[SPEAKER_08]: Let him tell you how he murdered your mother.
[SPEAKER_08]: Lair, he's telling the truth, Yuri.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ivan grabs his armored son from behind, but ends up flipped over his shoulder.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[SPEAKER_05]: Sensing things shifting in a bad direction, Darkstar turns on her boss and frees Bruce can end the Black Widow, Scrit Scrap.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do not listen of your own will, then you must be made to hear.
[SPEAKER_05]: In turn, Crimson Dynamo fires a blast at Darkstar knocking her against the wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: Scrow.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dope.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your wretched female is jeopardizing the whole operation.
[SPEAKER_06]: I do not need to be told my duty, titanium man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck star!
[SPEAKER_01]: I am unheard of mad on Natasha.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yuri would never try to hurt me, but he must be made to hear the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before the lie he has been living destroys him, and while we lack the strength to force him to hear us, think the stars there are others with such strength.
[SPEAKER_05]: and thus dark star frees the champions from their prison in their earthquake zone.
[SPEAKER_05]: Your mystic flame showers strained me no longer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Huckuli's will be free.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's a city at stake.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe a whole state lies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our captors deceive us hoping to keep us prisoners of false words.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we can't take the chance.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am Huckuli's.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no thousands of generations of men and many times met similar deceit.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will take this chance.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bitch, we know your name.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, do Jesus, like, I'm the Prince of power.
[SPEAKER_04]: We ferg it the first 17 times.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I'm over it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wait, something's happening.
[SPEAKER_06]: Grass, rocks, trees.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how, but we're out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Dark stars power hits and the cage disappears and the champions are back in the grass.
[SPEAKER_07]: So we are, but I'm still not finished with our self-appointed God.
[SPEAKER_07]: Later, Blaze, now all we've got to do is
[SPEAKER_02]: make it to the air base, about a mile from here, common deer plane and head coastward, huh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't ask me Warren, it just popped into my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the old days when Professor Axe would contact us telepathically.
[SPEAKER_06]: Cut one last time to a courtesy of which of Trator's a courtesy of Curtis Prater's.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's a line I dropped pretty often.
[SPEAKER_06]: A courtesy of a Trator's, you know, not lived to stand trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a lot to learn, my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, but it takes more than honor mark to make a war here.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are things UVA to master like tactics.
[SPEAKER_00]: No good commander would leave his pilot uncovered.
[SPEAKER_05]: In a series of impressive moves, Black Widow finally gets to do something.
[SPEAKER_05]: She avoids a blast from the crimson dynamo strow, hits him with a widow's bite, zipped, and then flies over to fry the controls of the plane as Griffin desperately grabs the wheel.
[SPEAKER_06]: Shapes.
[SPEAKER_06]: She shot out the master control.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going into a dive.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have the Widow Griffin radio the submarine that awaits us and tells them to surface and pick us up here.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'll do it, but I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_09]: We're still inside the three mile limit and while I don't mind fighting superheroes, the feds are something else.
[SPEAKER_05]: Under the command of Captain Andrevic, a submarine surface is in the open ocean.
[SPEAKER_05]: Crimson Dynamo flies downward, carrying Black Widow and Dark Star, Titanium Man has petrivic, and Griffin has Bruce skin.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have done your work work, Captain.
[SPEAKER_06]: I will see your sighted for its Jeremy Comrade.
[SPEAKER_06]: I only do as I am ordered.
[SPEAKER_03]: in New York there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I all can't do this for certain, it's a spare-me-comrade.
[SPEAKER_03]: I only do as I am ordered, but I disapprove of these witch hunts, instigated by forces within our government.
[SPEAKER_01]: Captain Androvich, an American fighter, it has seen us.
[SPEAKER_05]: A ship containing the rest of the champions pulls in and ice-man is driving, and the ship narrowly avoids a missile, whoom!
[SPEAKER_06]: Look out, Bobby, they're firing at us.
[SPEAKER_06]: This thing is slower than the X-plane, but it still moves.
[SPEAKER_05]: It got us here, but we better get down there before the sub dives.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules leaps from the plane as the others exit using wings and I slides leaving the ship to crash into the sea, and this time Hercules lands on titanium man instead of the other way around, flying Ghost Rider hits Griffin with a blast of Hellfire flash to healies, you sure you know what you're doing?
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, lad!
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules is sure!
[SPEAKER_09]: They've escaped the champions are here!
[SPEAKER_09]: Keep them busy, but find the widow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Towards thou, Armored One, that didst fell.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hercules in the battle past.
[SPEAKER_06]: There she is, the Dynamo's got her, and the Dynamo's shall keep her full.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some heroes, this is like shooting fish in a barrel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Teacher, they dare not fight the full strength while Yuri holds the widow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then Yuri must be made to let her go studio.
[SPEAKER_05]: Excuse me, Sailor, but I have need of your weapon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Bruskin knocks out a guard and takes his gun and then hits the crimson dynamo multiple times, brick, brick, cattang, clang.
[SPEAKER_05]: Bruskin, you are a fool and suit European dead fool.
[SPEAKER_05]: Crimson dynamo hits him with a blast, stram, and then dark star blankets him an ebbin energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yuri, how do you know the truth?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have understood the act you must have committed, but knowing your ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know now that you are no more than a cold-blooded murderer, and though we too have shared love, now you will face the power of Dark Star.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lenya, my love, no!
[SPEAKER_01]: Captain, the comics are!
[SPEAKER_03]: He was not slain by the animals blast!
[SPEAKER_03]: Brucekin, I beg of you, Comrade.
[SPEAKER_03]: Stop!
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm afraid I cannot do that Captain.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ruskin grabbed the grenade off a down soldier, but before he can shoot it, he is shot from behind, blam.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand Captain, but I have so much to make up for, so much pain, cause to those who were to be vanguard of the revolution.
[SPEAKER_05]: We are old Captain, but they deserve their time to try.
[SPEAKER_05]: As he falls, he drops the grenade into the base of the submarine,
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm having visions in my brain almost like Xavier's giving me thoughts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Wait, what was this guy?
[SPEAKER_06]: The widow in Avonne seemed to know him, my man.
[SPEAKER_06]: But they don't look like they want to talk about it just now.
[SPEAKER_06]: To it appear, my friends.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the black guards are all, but Vink wished.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules pulls the unconscious titanium man out of the water as Darkstar hits the crimson dynamo with the Dark Force and Ghost Rider hits Griffin with Hellfire while Ice Man encases him in ice.
[SPEAKER_07]: The Lion Main One is helpless, man.
[SPEAKER_07]: Back to this book routine, huh?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh well, it's your scene.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to knock it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dynamos down Ivan Petrovich tell me what I am to do with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kid, I...
[SPEAKER_05]: But Ivan looks away in tears.
[SPEAKER_01]: Comrade, you must decide.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am his lover.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can I?
[SPEAKER_08]: You're going to have to kid.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't even know him.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's been too many years.
[SPEAKER_08]: If he's got any good points, you know him better than I ever will.
[SPEAKER_08]: Do what you want with him, kid.
[SPEAKER_08]: I just don't care anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Darkstar chooses to let her love her go.
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't go to the zoo, papa?
[SPEAKER_05]: Fools.
[SPEAKER_05]: You haven't seen the last of the crimson dynamo.
[SPEAKER_05]: Later, Darkstar transports Griffin and Titanium, and through the air with the Dark Force, while also carrying the entire Champions team in a Dark Force bubble with Angel flying at her side, and this woman does not need anyone.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's powerful enough for everybody.
[SPEAKER_06]: I hope somebody's got an explanation for what went on back there and for why the crimson dynamo was allowed to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a side of this battle known only to a few of us age.
[SPEAKER_00]: You must trust that what we did was right and maybe someday you will learn all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, thank you, Madam Natasha.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I will prove worthy of that trust.
[SPEAKER_07]: swell.
[SPEAKER_07]: The team for the common man now even keeps secrets from itself.
[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe you're right avant, maybe the champions are a bus.
[SPEAKER_05]: If on Petrovitch says nothing but his eyes are hooded by a mask, it will take years to draw away.
[SPEAKER_05]: The trip back to Los Angeles is made in silence.
[SPEAKER_05]: Next, the champions move into their new headquarters and a power packed issue, Chockville of guest stars is they face the shadow from the stars.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we got to talk about some key moments here.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's a lot going on in the world in 1977.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is pre Ronald Reagan.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the Cold War.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot happening.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of American awareness about Russian suffering taking place in this time period.
[SPEAKER_05]: And what makes this issue really fascinating for me is that we have so many Russian characters.
[SPEAKER_05]: floating around.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have some representing the old ideals of the KGB, so Bruce can who's trying to make right based on past deeds.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have defectors, and there was like a deep fear in Russia like if we let our agents go to Russia, they'll try to defect.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what Darkstar does in this very issue.
[SPEAKER_05]: She defects for the first of many times, which we'll talk about in the trial later this month.
[SPEAKER_05]: Black Widow has also defected as well as Iván, and then we have kind of the Russian traditionalists.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have titanium man who talks about having
[SPEAKER_05]: We have different agents running around and then the Russian submarine, which is there to help them escape, but like even they turn on each other.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot happening here with these ideas and we're really challenging the politics of young readers as we do this.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now from a narrative.
[SPEAKER_05]: decision when I'm most frustrated with this is Black Widow supposed to be our featured character.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's 1977, we get a female appointed as the leader of a team which just really wasn't happening back then and then we immediately silence her voice and give like seven other characters the narrative while she's chained to a wall for most of the issue.
[SPEAKER_05]: But we do end up with two Russian women on the same team at the end of this and Darkstar is the star player.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you'd like more of my thoughts on this era of politics, go back to the trial of Piotra Rasputin, which we did last year, and I talk a lot about the shifting narrative of Russia and how the portrayal of Piotra often changes with how that is playing out.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we've been touching on this in some of the X-Men script reads as well, as Colossus has faced different things related to Russia, including that backup story,
[SPEAKER_05]: where a demander got to do that onya maca rova, where like the Russian agents are there to like force her back to Russia because she defected as a ballerina.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're seeing these stories play out more and more often.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a ton happening in Ironman and Captain America comics on the same topics around the same time.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a really strong presence in the late 70s.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's focus on the Russia of it all first and the week it just gets lost at the silliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I, I mean, I know at the time when this would have come in out there, you were saying there's a lot of awareness of, you know, the politics around it, but I do love how they sort of tried to ground it in like the familiar and the relatable of like family drama.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, not the relatable of like, yeah, our mothers all get assassinated all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they did try to ground it in some family drama and exemplify this sort of bigger political schema that was going on in a few characters who are all interpersonal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's a good way to tell a very big political story in a very small way that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, hopefully is a little more intimate, a little more familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did, I didn't like that of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think how big out of it, I am just like, maybe I just need more dark star and black widow on the panel together.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, as we're talking about this, the narrative clearly is saying like the Russian government is bad, but maybe the people who like are fighting for it just don't know any better, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like that's very clearly the narrative that's been.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's very like Saturday morning,
[SPEAKER_00]: like, ah, capitalist, but also like, we're not great either.
[SPEAKER_04]: I find it interesting that Darkstar is played as a really sympathetic character.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am a firm believer in believing women's wrongs, and I love a female villain.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it is very interesting in this era.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like there doesn't seem to be a lot of like ladies who just want to be evil and like kill people.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so she definitely plays up more of that trope of like the female villain who
[SPEAKER_04]: is actually more sympathetic and falls in love and is sort of like on the side of her boyfriend because it's her boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I do love the fact that she is the most powerful on the team and everyone sort of like, like most female characters of, you know, the time as well, that, you know, she's the most powerful but no one really kind of gives her credit for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Also her powers extremely ill-defined, which is super fun and we don't really find out like what
[SPEAKER_05]: But he tuned for the trial of dark start at the end of the month.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to be talking not about the Russia stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we'll still talk about Russia, but we'll be talking about the dark force.
[SPEAKER_05]: Her powers are fascinating to me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that Russians can have daddy issues too.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that really kind of ties everything together a little bit.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a crimson dynamo like, I mean, he just, he just wants to be loved by his father.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's something that all American boys want to be loved by their fathers.
[SPEAKER_06]: So now we're just kind of seeing that reflected in people who are supposed to be our enemy for such a long time.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's interesting always to see this Russian stuff play out because from the 50s to the 70s it was such the cold well into the 80s it cold work kind of way of being and it kind of was almost the evolution of like the pulp kind of storytelling where they're playing these like kind of cat and mouse games.
[SPEAKER_10]: And it was also like America dealing with coming out of the Vietnam War where the word didn't happen the way they thought it was supposed to happen.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so we still had this, you know, kind of evil bad guy that was always around there, even though we never gotten to a proper war with Russia.
[SPEAKER_10]: So they would love to tell these stories with these kind of very complex political thrillery type things that are kind of tropey, especially now and kind of silly.
[SPEAKER_10]: But I just have to say demand a giving like a full-on drama performance while the rest of us clowns are like going around is just the biggest crime of the century.
[SPEAKER_10]: but also like that's darks are she's always so serious but it's also loving relationship thing like at the center of this it's like almost and then we're like having flashbacks of you know ridiculousness little yeah this is it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
[SPEAKER_05]: Literally every episode of this month is going to be about Darkstar.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're reviewing old Darkstar comics and even the main issue reviews.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now in 1985, Sting put out the song The Russians, everybody should pause and go listen, but I'm going to read you the lyrics of this really quickly because it perfectly captures this story.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the only irredeemable character in this story seems to kind of be the titanium man.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm not going to sing this for you, but let me read this.
[SPEAKER_05]: In Europe and America, there's a growing feeling of hysteria conditioned to respond to all the threats in the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mr. Kruschev said, we will bury you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't subscribe to this point of view.
[SPEAKER_05]: It would be such an ignorant thing to do if the Russians love their children too.
[SPEAKER_05]: How can I say it my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?
[SPEAKER_05]: There is no monopoly of common sense on either side of the political offense.
[SPEAKER_05]: We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.
[SPEAKER_05]: Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no historical precedent to put the words in the mouth of the president.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no such thing as a winnable war.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a lie we don't believe anymore.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mr. Reagan says we will protect you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't subscribe to the, to this point of view.
[SPEAKER_05]: Believe me when I say to you, I hope the Russians love their children too.
[SPEAKER_05]: We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.
[SPEAKER_05]: What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too.
[SPEAKER_05]: So let's retire the conversation there, but we will certainly talk more about this as we continue to focus on the character Darkstar throughout the rest of the month.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, now let's get lost in the superhero crazy to see if it all.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a wild issue.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ghost Rider finally got something to do first of all.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I just say really quickly, I 100% lost the plot several times in this issue.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, wait, what, when did they get there?
[SPEAKER_04]: What is happening?
[SPEAKER_04]: And now there's a submarine and now they're on a boat.
[SPEAKER_04]: What?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, truly?
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't understand what happened in these issues aside from Crimson Dynamo wanting to go to the zoo as a child.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, literally, don't know what happened.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mr. Ham, let's talk about Ghost Raiders' journey.
[SPEAKER_05]: He gets to really take a prominent role in the team this issue.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he's not southern, huh?
[SPEAKER_05]: So that's, well, I think he's talking about Los Angeles as his home, because that's where he performs on his motorcycle, like in his in his individual series in 70s.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's like performing in a stunt circus, but you're reading the kind of you, but you're reading.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, it's true.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're reading him as a cowboy is accurate.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think it's right.
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I think you're doing it right.
[SPEAKER_07]: You're doing it right.
[SPEAKER_07]: I googled Halfway through and they're like, he's from like Michigan or something.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was like, oh God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn how boys in Michigan.
[SPEAKER_07]: That's so true.
[SPEAKER_07]: Actually, he is one of the few cowboys.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, I was so excited that he got so much to do this episode.
[SPEAKER_07]: Episode, issues, episode of the podcast, issues of the comic.
[SPEAKER_07]: It was a lot of lines, which I hate.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hate that.
[SPEAKER_07]: Best part of this show was the minute where I went to the bathroom and just got to listen to you guys talk for like three minutes.
[SPEAKER_07]: That was great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I really love his like power combo move with hercules.
[SPEAKER_07]: We're like tossing the mace back and forth back and forth and back and forth.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's it's very good.
[SPEAKER_07]: It's very good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Other than that, the real big moments for characters in this issue were angel getting to announce the team to the public and then like the lawyers trying to hold it all together, right like the PR man and the lawyer then we've got like Ivan's crazy journey, but again, we'll save a lot of those thoughts.
[SPEAKER_05]: As we're kind of wrapping up our conversation, I'd love to hear your thoughts on key moments that stood out for you for the characters that you got to portray Hercules was a lot, and it is not Sean's fault.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sean, you committed, but God was he written obnoxiously at this like little triptych.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's start with with Ryan Eorio.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ryan, welcome to you.
[SPEAKER_05]: You got to do so many different voices today, my friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, I, I'm going to apologize for I spend now to, sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see any of those lines before that are read any of those, so my apology.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to say my favorite line was the old man one, but that was fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also really enjoyed to see the kind of flip of Ruskin story, though, too, to see him become the good guy at the end and really want to protect widow and dark star too.
[SPEAKER_11]: So it was nice to see their relationship filled between those two or those three.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find me every Friday on solving for X-Men.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a podcast that me, Sean, and our buddy Kevin do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Currently right now in August, we are reviewing the amazing season two of X-Men 97.
[SPEAKER_02]: And after that, we're gonna jump right back into Wolverine at the X-Men.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, Sean.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this was a pretty gay, like three issues with my favorite.
[SPEAKER_03]: My most favorite line from Hercules is he has a line about throwing around the furniture, but it's not just throwing around the furniture, it's throwing around the oak in furniture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sweet the time to notice.
[SPEAKER_03]: What kind of furniture it was?
[SPEAKER_03]: This man's gay, I love him.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's so fun to a voice, titanium man was fun also.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's very evil, very Russian.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was a nice change of pace.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, you could find me on Johnny Havick.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you could find me on the other podcast with Kevin Cadzlinsky, words of the witches, where we are currently doing a charmed rewatch as we go through the booklets.
[SPEAKER_03]: You can only get in London, which of course he has, cause he's Kevin.
[SPEAKER_07]: Mr. Ham.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I got to play Boris.
[SPEAKER_07]: You probably couldn't tell because I was really in character But I was so thrilled to get one Russian line because I was so jealous everyone literally everyone I was going to play a Russian except for me and I got my one line as Boris and I just I couldn't be more grateful That I got to show off like that's what you got to be dick
[SPEAKER_07]: That's, I did get to be dick.
[SPEAKER_07]: Love that guy.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's always walking here.
[SPEAKER_07]: Dick, I, I just, I have, I have too many shout outs.
[SPEAKER_07]: I think Christy having to play two Russian women was incredible because she genuinely changed her voice for each of them.
[SPEAKER_07]: And while I was away, I could tell Mike, come on.
[SPEAKER_07]: That, that Russian to Spanish accent was unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_07]: That was so good.
[SPEAKER_07]: I was, I was, I was.
[SPEAKER_07]: incredible and and little baby Crimson was so good and Sean just another shadow for you because I don't know what year your accent was Russian Italian New York.
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know, but it was good.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I was I was loving it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Everyone did a great job, but those of us who had to come out with new Russian accents out of nowhere Congratulations to us.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, and if you want to find me, I'm a horror on the internet.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think, you know, in hindsight, maybe Michael Ham should have been given that crimson dynamo lines, and he could have really flexed those Russian muscles.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so I think, you know, Angel just kind of doing this thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I don't know what those accents were.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I don't whoever you tell me to blame, I'm going to blame them for that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Every one of us has delighted by your performances today.
[SPEAKER_06]: The most heartbreaking line, I think I've ever had in any of these script reads is, is, is, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the
[SPEAKER_05]: I think he's my papa.
[SPEAKER_09]: Papa, papa.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, no, it was fun and it's probably better that you didn't tell me I was going to have to do that until you started recording because otherwise my internet might also have gone down and then you would have been more screwed.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so, no, this was great.
[SPEAKER_06]: I always love hearing Sean proclaim himself as Hercules, Ryan did an excellent job of stepping in for Ice Man and y'all are y'all are awesome and great.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's also so humbling to be here with you guys.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I am an infrequent poster on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Billisstrator.mic.
[SPEAKER_06]: I will be at San Francisco Zine Fest most likely on Sunday, September 6th, as well as SQX outside of DC on September 12th and 13th.
[SPEAKER_05]: So good to see you, my friend.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Kevin and Christy specifically need to put out like a YouTube tutorial about how to do Russian character.
[SPEAKER_05]: And both of you can just pardon your face and listen to this as you thought.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see your face and your secrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean the Facebook is definitely part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I could do the voice without the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh There's so much great stuff this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: This issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of silliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll never forget Hercules is the Prince of Power, and I love how You never get tired of delivering that line like
[SPEAKER_00]: Never once is in for like, oh, sigh, it's always full bore every time when I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think honestly played with Kevin and all of this is sort of made me want to like really just like get into the chest with the Russian.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so I do appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and Amanda Stark starts fantastic and I really like just that like one moment where like, and this is just because I'm just like a silly soft little queer where I'm just like, no, I want
[SPEAKER_00]: demand to like like dark style no like oh I just want them just to now be girlfriends forever uh just a little Russian defector girlfriends evil spine they're both kind of evil it's fine there's a lot going on there's a lot going on we were both ripped from their parents and raised by the old people yeah yeah it's a whole thing you're also gonna I mean I don't understand her powers either but that's fine
[SPEAKER_05]: You will after the trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, as far as where you can find me, I'm Christy Porter on Blue Sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I'm a writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a cosplayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I currently working on an ongoing erotic fantasy series with my partner, Phillip CV.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find more about that at shecomeswithmagic.com.
[SPEAKER_05]: come for the beautiful art, stay for lines like these tits will save the world.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a beautiful book.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't wait for people to see it.
[SPEAKER_10]: Kevin It's so exciting.
[SPEAKER_10]: This is always a delight.
[SPEAKER_10]: I look forward to these champion readings more than anything in the world and I wish you listeners at home could see these people while they're doing these lines.
[SPEAKER_10]: That is probably the biggest joy in some cases
[SPEAKER_10]: So, so many other facial expressions that everybody's using.
[SPEAKER_10]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm shocked that, you know, issue 10, they're only just like getting their headquarters and this book is not gonna last past 17.
[SPEAKER_08]: So they're like, they spend more time getting together as a team than they did actually being a team.
[SPEAKER_10]: I apologize for the accent.
[SPEAKER_10]: I was supposed to be a very minor side character that I thought was only in two issues or so of this book.
[SPEAKER_10]: And so I went very broad with it.
[SPEAKER_10]: So did not intend to have to do actual plot or exposition.
[SPEAKER_10]: But you stepped in as riff and as well, which was so was my favorite so good.
[SPEAKER_10]: So I'm trying this is me and now I'm Michael probably beat the hell out of me But I was trying to match what he did when you respond like two issues ago or whatever and then I lost that I've ever listened to a single episode of this show
[SPEAKER_10]: You'll never, you'll never understand what I did to him.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I lost the plot of that voice very quickly.
[SPEAKER_10]: I love all of you people and would literally show up here just to watch this.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, if I would, I would buy tickets to this show.
[SPEAKER_10]: So thank you all for all of that.
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm not really
[SPEAKER_10]: social media, but in September, I'll be at the uncanny experience and in August, I'll be at Flamcon in New York City, so please see me in person there and say hi.
[SPEAKER_10]: And if all stars align at this point, I may be the new Jan Brady for the month of at least July and August on solving for X, where I'm going to be replacing one Kevin for another for just a brief time.
[SPEAKER_10]: Uh, and then please check out the Patreon on Grimalkin Lane where you can hear Chad and I talk about Kang, Immortus, the Scarlet Saturian, and every other version of Kang the Conqueror as we do timey whiny.
[SPEAKER_04]: Champions are wild.
[SPEAKER_04]: You guys are fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like this team is super crazy.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you guys, you guys bring, bring the wildness to it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, I've been very fortunate to do a bunch of these like from the beginnings when Chad started doing these readings.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the most chaotic of
[SPEAKER_04]: the group bings I will say.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's in the Captain Britain ones are nuts.
[SPEAKER_04]: Those are sounds.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I've listened to those but I have not been a part of them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just absolute nonsense.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do appreciate being the quote unquote straight man of the crazy Russians.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you get in dark stars just being so serious and and like oh no but I love him.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, also I need to look up who it was, but shout out to the voice actress from the, uh, the, uh, the X and animated series because I literally just stole her voice.
[SPEAKER_04]: For, for this, like that's literally just the voice that I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, um, love her, love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll guess you'll hear me on the trial of Darkstar.
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, as I think the only Darkstar cosplayer that I've ever seen, I'm very honored to be a part of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: She is quite awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I will be also at, so in August, I will be at.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oda Khan and Flam Khan and then very soon after that, I will be at Dragon Khan and the Uncane experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a very, very busy summer.
[SPEAKER_04]: I might melt, I might tie, but I'm very excited.
[SPEAKER_05]: I saw a drag queen just the name.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't see her perform, but in Toronto, there's a drag queen named Demanda Tension.
[SPEAKER_05]: I just saw the sign, which is,
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so hopefully I get to meet her side note at the time of recording, I was just out today.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to be making my Canadian debut in Toronto at the X-Men health art gallery.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to be doing an X-Men 97 season two watch party hosted by Anthony Olavera.
[SPEAKER_04]: Very excited for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So again, by the time you listen to this, it's already going to be over, but hopefully I'll meet her.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have seen her on promos before because I do have a Canadian drag queen friend so I've seen demand attention on some of those already, but I do love that however I'm going to have a fight with her about the trademarking of my get a table.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so I will be seeing Tay and also a baby valve valve.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yay!
[SPEAKER_05]: Alright, my friends, making this show remains just a tremendous joy.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know this is a longer recording.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're doing champions less often, but we have been doing longer recording, so thank you for sticking around for three scripts.
[SPEAKER_05]: The next three champions issues, we're going to do three next time.
[SPEAKER_05]: It goes really crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you remember at the end, it was like, hey, there's going to be a big, like a guest starts.
[SPEAKER_05]: Next time is like Black Goliath and Stiltman and the Stranger.
[SPEAKER_05]: And a guy named Carnal Tharn the possessor.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we're gonna go cosmic, but like also really industrial.
[SPEAKER_05]: And thank God rampage is fucking button for like We're laying in had two deaths.
[SPEAKER_05]: He had to die twice in these three issues.
[SPEAKER_05]: For those that heard the rampage trial, the next time we see rampage, he's in the hospital, Iceman goes to visit him and like rampage switches places with Bobby and like wraps him up in bandages and then mind controls him and makes him fight the champions.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a whole thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not even in the Champions title.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's in Spider-Man.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll review it eventually on my show, but it's truly crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, you can follow me at Grimalkan Underscore Leon on Instagram most prominently unposting regular content and I just fucking love hanging out with my friends So thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is just such a huge boost to my week on any time we're recording my book gay Mormon dad came out I hope you've read it if you have I hope you left a review.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so deeply proud of it and by
[SPEAKER_05]: August, I will have been at a couple different shows, but in August, you can find me at Flamcon, and I'm going to be hosting a huge retreat for Friends of the podcast in New York City, which I'm very excited about, and then in September, watch for me at the uncanny experience post announcements later this year as they show up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks everybody for hanging out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for making me laugh through this craziness.
[SPEAKER_05]: The very next episode of the show after this is going to feature a dark star story from Iron Man annual number four, which is a champion's little champion's lineup of appearance.
[SPEAKER_05]: My guests on that episode are going to be Emma Yana-Mora and Sean Ganka, who are also going to be here to talk about the production of X-Men 97 season 2.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have some really fun plans throughout the rest of the month.
[SPEAKER_05]: Over on the Patreon, all the characters we're covering are related to the Dark Force,
[SPEAKER_05]: Howard House, recording I've already done it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is Marewa Ayadele and Jam Damatias, both talking about the character of Livia and who Jam created and Marewa used really prominently in the storm era of the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: So stay tuned for that.
[SPEAKER_05]: That was a really fun recording.
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got some fun plans through the rest of the month.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks everybody for listening.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you to my fellow champions, the world still needs champions.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you all back here next week on Graeme Ultimate.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
[SPEAKER_05]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
[SPEAKER_05]: Look for us on Patreon where we are releasing weekly episodes about obscure characters and facts.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a great way to participate with the podcast for only just a couple of dollars a month and it helps support what we are doing here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, the best way you can help
[SPEAKER_05]: Grimmulkin Lane is by sharing and liking and subscribing, but also please leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.