The Mutant Ages

This is Firestar's origin story, arguably a more accurate and official one than the (worse) one that she gets in the comic books later on because Angelica Jones was invented specifically for Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. We loved this origin story for her because it involves her pushing back against a sociopathic mean girl at school and, perhaps best of all, the X-Men are in this episode. Storm makes the mistake of asking Firestar for her backstory, which is why we get to hear an extremely lengthy summary of every single time Angelica got bullied for being a mutant (and for being poor). You know who else is in this episode? The Juggernaut, bitch. Further reading: https://screenrant.com/xmen-emma-frost-firestar-horse-butter-rum/ Next episode: "Spider-Man Unmasked," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at themutantages@gmail.com, or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

After a brief detour of Maddy and Ryan sharing some fun facts about Ms. Lion, it's time to get into an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends that is hard to read as anything but gay: "The Fantastic Mr. Frump." The titular Mr. Frump is an old friend of Aunt May's who suddenly finds himself out of a job and down on his luck. Meanwhile, Doctor Doom has cast a magic spell on an amulet that bestows almighty power upon its wielder, and Mr. Frump ends up grabbing the thing by accident. Mr. Frump then decides to use his new godlike power to turn New York City into a never-ending Pride parade, and that would probably be fine with Peter, Bobby, and Angelica, except for Doctor Doom manipulating Mr. Frump into attacking the superhero trio. Next episode: Listener Mail E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981) was not created during a time period when Bobby Drake was canonically gay, but watching "The Origin of Iceman" sure has Maddy and Ryan wondering about that. Thanks to the return of Video-Man (who has his own origin episode earlier in this series), Bobby Drake loses his mutant powers. Under the pretext of researching why this could have happened, Peter Parker straps Bobby into the university lab's memory machine, which allows Angelica and Peter to watch all of Bobby's embarrassing high school social gaffes on a big-screen TV. We soon learn Bobby would rather create a blizzard than dance with a girl, and even now, he can't manage to sit next to a girl on a couch. Also, this episode has some all-time great J. Jonah Jameson comedy in it, so we're excited to see him as a recurring fixture on this show. Next episode: "Triumph of the Green Goblin," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Ryan, Todd, and Maddy reconvene to discuss the second half of Deadpool 2 (2018), in which Deadpool and Cable do not kiss, to the chagrin of 2018-era Maddy. In 2025, though, we can all recognize what little gayness this movie could manage, which is Cable using his last bit of time travel juice to save Deadpool's life. Of course, after that, Cable would have to fight Colossus for Deadpool's affections, right? Except he's not going to have to, because there were no subsequent movies with Cable in them, even though the character says he's going to "stick around" after this. What happened? Disney bought Fox, that's what happened. We sure wouldn't be mad to see Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz returning as Cable and Domino in the MCU, though... Next episode: "The Prison Plot," Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Maddy, Ryan, and Todd convene to answer listeners' questions, including ones about which five X-Men should go on a cross-country RV trip together, which X-Men would be able to stand eating ten hot wings in 5 minutes (without using their powers), various X-Men novelizations, and even some more discussion of what Magneto was doing in X-Men '97. In our defense, one of you wrote us an email about it, so we had to talk about it again, okay? The episode ends with a rousing game of Two Truths and a Lie, but sadly no episode of The Mutant Ages: The Comic Book. We'll be back with that sometime soon, but we haven't recorded that yet. Instead, what's coming up is... Next episode: Deadpool 2 (Part 1)!!! E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

The Gifted deserved a better finale for season 2 than "oMens," and it definitely deserved a better series conclusion than this, but "oMens" is nonetheless the final episode of this show before its cancellation. Unfortunately, it's anticlimactic and clunky. We get to see all the plot points you would expect, such as the Mutant Underground finally coming together to face off against the Hellfire Club and Esmee Cuckoo betraying her sisters to join with Lorna, but it all happens so fast and with so little reflection on the part of the characters involved that it's pretty disappointing to watch. There's just one good scene in which John Proudstar uses his super-strength to beat up a shitload of Purifiers, and it's extremely satisfying. Next episode: The Gifted wrap-up/reflections E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges, MIDImyers and RyanPagella. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Multiple major characters die in "calaMity," the third-to-last episode of The Gifted's final season, except wait, we shouldn't call Sage a major character, should we? It's a damn shame what this show has done to her, and we can't believe how anti-climactic her death scene turns out to be. Sage takes the fall for Lorna's bad spycraft within the Hellfire Club, even though the reasons for her being the scapegoat don't make a lot of sense. The rest of "calaMity" is a thrill ride that builds up to Jace leading the Purifiers in The Gifted's version of the Morlock Massacre, in which a surprisingly high number of Morlocks survive, thanks to Blink calling Marcos (and not her ex-boyfriend John) to bring in all the ex-Mutant Underground folks with some getaway cars. Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts, it's Blink who doesn't make it out of this situation alive. But isn't she supposed to be alive at the end of this show? Hmmm... Next episode: "Monsters," The Gifted E-mail us your feedback at themutantages@gmail.com or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges, MIDImyers and RyanPagella. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!