The Dane Curse – The Uncanny X-Men #249 – Danger Room #294

2 Comments

1. Hey, Adam & Jeremy. Your recent bump in output has been welcome. Spring came early in my neck of the woods and I’ve been listening to the new episodes while out recovering from cabin fever.

   A couple tidbits on this episode:
   I had to give a hardy Alf-laugh when I realized that you were possibly trolling us. I mean, you weren’t really puzzled by why issue #249 was referred to as “Prelude to Shattered Star,” were you? At one point didn’t you explicitly point out the “star” that Dazzler created? Sure, it was superficially meant to be an X-Men calling-card of sorts, but it was also representative of the X-Men’s unity. Shattered star… get it?

   I dunno, seems like foreshadowing to me. Though I should confess that Ive read ahead, so that gives me some unfair insight (be prepared, there’ll be more symbolism and subtext in the X-Men’s future. It won’t necessarily require a multi-layer analysis to get through, but reading up on the concept of liminal space and symbolic rituals/rebirth may give some context; it may even make for a more enjoyable journey through the next 20+ issues. The work of anthropologist Victor Turner is a good place to start).

   On Donald Pierce’s unsolicited and aggressive kiss of Lady Deathstrike: spoiler alert… he’s a villain. Dominating, intimidating, and harming others is kinda his job as a fictional archetype. I get the sense that him getting #metoo-ed wouldn’t be much of a deterence for unscrupulous behavior. And for the sake of conflict and juxtaposition in a comic, he kinda has to remain rotten and offensive. Hopefully our future selves will understand the utility of a character like Pierce and not go into cardiac arrest when seeing him depicted as being uncouth toward a female character (who also happens to be pretty rotten in herself!).

   Lastly, I thought I remembered Longshot’s struggle with identity/sanity being hinted at before his departure in #248. Identity itself has been (and will be) a major theme/motif during this arc, even Master Mold/Nimrod experienced it. I’ll have to look back at past issues, but I’m pretty sure it’s been a thing with Longshot for awhile now, only exasperated by events in Inferno.

   That’s all. Thanks for keeping this podcast going. I’m out.

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2. Agreed with above. It’s about the star the X-men use. It’s being shattered as they fall one by one.

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