The Original Story 6-10: Annotized

Chapter Six:

*I6: Obviously if Reed Richards were brought it then he could kill Charles's dream of becoming an X-Man by pointing out that he wasn't really a mutant.

*I11: You can't blame Shadowcat for stealing Storm's catchphrase - I mean, come on, for as long as she's been with the X-Men and her big standout point is that she's Jewish.

*II3: The Danger Room course that is set up is the same as the one Shadowcat went through in the 1989 cartoon Pryde of the X-Men.

*II8: Despite how it may read, the customary welcoming to the team is not celebrating by the passing of a towel.

*III2: Or $400 in our reality's money. And while Mr. Fanastic is, in fact, fairly wealthy, he still does not make the 2008 Forbes list of the top 15 wealthiest fictional characters - in fact, the only Marvel character to make the list is Tony Stark at $7.9 billion. If Joe is serious about his wealth in TNS1 and Forbes is accurate, it would make him the second richest character in the Marvel Universe.

*III3: Consider Joe was feeling down, needed picked off the ground, and was in a new town, the YMCA was a smart choice for places to go.

*IV10: Carlton "Hindsight Lad" LaFroyge figures out Speedball's secret identity not too long after he moved into the same building. Rina "Timeslip" Patel discovered that fact after her consciousness transfered into her future self that was already part of the New Warriors team. After returning to her body, she tracked him down and revealed her knowledge to his dismay.

*IV14: The New Warriors comic book ended after issues 75 which was fortunate as plans were in place to have Squirrel Girl join the team.

*IV15: Neither Nita nor Robbie need fret as they would be published again in 1999. And 2005. And 2007.

*IV24: Timeslip lost her powers in the last issue of the first run of New Warriors striving to save the world's superheroes from losing their powers.

*IV28: Back in the 80's, it was generally thought that a pierced left ear on a male signified they were a dominant homosexual while a pierced right ear meant they were a submissive homosexual. This later "evolved" into pierced left ear signifying straight and pierced right ear signifying gay. After society grew up a little more, a pierced ear on either side showed that one wore an earring.

*IV30: While it appears the joke is on the male members of the group around their obliviousness around their teammate's possible sexual orientation, it's also a sign of their maturity and friendship that the sort of thing doesn't cross their minds.

*V2: In the DC Universe, Paradise Island aka Themyscira is the home of Wonder Woman and the Amazons. In the Marvel Universe, Paradise Island is the home of a bunch of animal/human hybrids in the North Atlantic. In our reality, Paradise Island is located in the Bahamas near Nassau. Marvel so got the raw end of this deal.

*VI: Joe's consciousness has switched places with his future self in TOS14 due to use of the Time Gem he gets hold off then. This effect is exactly how Timeslip's powers work.

*VII4: These rantings would have been from Joe's future self.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 3
Villains defeated by Kyle: 3
Villains defeated by Joe: 9

Chapter Seven:

*I1: Doug was killed on Paradise Island when he threw himself in front of an attack that was aimed at Rahne "Wolfsbane" Sinclair. This action was later noted by Joe IRL in a Top 10 Dumbest Things Done in the Marvel Universe at #1: "I'll take the bullet meant for my invulnerable teammate."

*I3: Marrow was one of the few survivors of the Mutant Massacre. Considering that a good handful of the X-Men were injured to the point where their powers didn't function properly - including Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Shadowcat who are in the plane at that time, it's unfair to say that they didn't care.

*I4: Here, Marrow refers to Gambit who was hired by Mr. Sinister to lead the Marauders through the sewers and past their defenses. She remains unaware that she survived because Gambit, himself, rescued her from the slaughter.

*I8: This is Shadowcat's nickname for Nightcrawler.

*II4: This does give Joe a one-jacket advantage over the villain Shatterfist.

*II6: Night Thrasher’s name is Dwayne, not Roger.

*II7: Cecilia Reyes was an X-Man almost unwillingly for all of two issues or so.

*III1: People will often use the word ‘ever’ to try to point out the importance or uniqueness of the leading statement. However, as it has become overused, the guys IRL will often reiterate the word ‘ever’ after a short pause to give it even a more heightened sense of truth.

*III3: Despite being the second time Chuck has noted that he needed to change his codename, he would not take on a new nom-de-guerre until finding himself in a different dimension in TOS24 and again after having his powers stripped away and given a new costume in TNS14.

*IV4: A recurring theme throughout TOS and TNS is the tie-in of musical artists, song titles, or lyrics either with characters, lines delivered, or titles of chapters. "Paradise" topped the U.S. charts at #39 way back in 1977.

*V2: Fabian Cortez is a combination of Magneto's right hand man and that dick at work who tries to boss everyone around when the real boss calls off or is on vacation.

*V3: This is the most Kyle ever swears throughout the Story.

*VI1: Joe has speculated in the past IRL that each gay person has a certain number of "points" that are placed in a variety of categories. While Joe, himself, claims to have put a surplus into "gaydar", it would seem that Alex put quite a bit into "fashion awareness".

*VII1: This is part one of the two part act for the majority of all group battles within TOS, TNS, and comics, in general - sparring goes to one-on-one. Part two, especially with TOS and TNS, comes when one member of one of the sides sudden shifts their attack, calls out "Switch Partners", and everyone else immediately falls in line like dominoes with the new attacks being much more effective.

*VIII2: Ignoring Fabian Cortez, the other six Acolytes are all creations of Joe's. While many will have this as their only appearance, Dismay will play the most prominent role - not only continuing to harass the guys in TOS, he will carry over into TNS until his death in TNS59.

*IX1: This chapter is Badger's last appearance until his identity as the new Foot Soldier is revealed in TNS61.

*XII1: Spectrum will later become the new Rainbows in TNS59. His powers here appear to be undeveloped, but by the time TNS rolls around, he will learn to adjust his arms to match the color of various energy frequencies and project them.

*XIII2: This is a line from the 1980 movie Airplane in which Peter Graves' character asks a young boy homo-erotic questions such as that one as well as "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?" and "Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

*XIV3: This is a play off of one of the Incredible Hulk's notorious lines, along with "Hulk Smash!"

*XX3: This occurrence of Fabian Cortez using his powers to accelerate Marrow's bone growth completely out of control would be followed up several months later in the X-Men comic books by Fabian Corez using his powers to accelerate Marrow's bone growth completely out of control.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 3
Villains defeated by Kyle: 4 (this Chapter - Spectrum)
Villains defeated by Joe: 9

Chapter Eight:

*II1: The Infinity Gauntlet is an actual metallic glove that is embedded with the six Infinity Gem - each with the capability of giving total control over Time, Space, Mind, Power, Soul, and Reality. Together, they can provide omnipotence, so the Infinity Watch is a group, each taking one gem. One would think the intelligent thing to do would be to spread the gems across the Universe as opposed to giving them to a bunch of people who hang out together regularly, but oh well.

*II7: Rina takes the honor of being the first person outside of Kyle to utter his catchphrase.

*III7: The "fastball special" is a maneuver created by Colossus and Wolverine where someone with superhuman strength literally throws a comrade into battle.

*IV4: As it will turn out, Kyle is incapable of properly checking a pulse. We'll give him the benefit of a doubt as he just avoided being smashed with a large flying machine by a giant green guy.

*IV5: Her vanishing is really simply transporting herself to Limbo, as seen in TOS14.

*V: This is the point at which Joe from TOS6 finds himself while being interrupted from Timeslip from TOS14. While Timeslip's visions were a cut-and-paste panel of what she would see, this paragraph is a cut-and-paste of the previous paragraph.

*VI6: Considering Charles was taken down by the same person that took down Rogue, Storm is being a little harsh with the decision.

*Interlude Title: This is a play off of the 1963 movie "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World".

*Interlude2: While Colossus's intelligence rarely comes into play or measurement, it is a note that he grew up on a Russian farm. Whether Rend is biased against Russians or farmers is unclear.

*Interlude4: This is a reference to a Marvel RPG character created by Charles Bailey whose character's first four attributes were Poor, Poor, Poor, and Feeble. Despite having a codename Static, he was constantly referred to as Poor, Poor, Poor, Feeble Man.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 3
Villains defeated by Kyle: 4
Villains defeated by Joe: 10 (this Chapter - Gamora)

Chapter Nine:

*II12: This will not be the last time Joe denotes the feebleness of the trio. In TNS19, he will cheerfully note that Chuck and Kyle are "total fuck-ups" minutes before he is stripped of all of his magical powers.

*III2: Heroes for Hire was started by Luke Cage under the theory that if one is being all superheroic and stuff, hey, you might as well take in a little cash on the side.

*IV20: Back before Reed Richards took his girlfriend's brother into space and before Marvel was "Marvel", the Human Torch was an android who took on the name Jim Hammond. Besides being able to burst into flames, manipulate fire, and fly, his synthetic blood also has restorative properties - not only healing ailments but also imbuing the recipient with powers.

*VI4: Besides She-Hulk, other characters who have shown signs of metafictional awareness are Deadpool, Loki, Louise Mason, Rick Jones, Wyatt Wingfoot, and Howard the Duck.

*VII10: Naturally, an android would be exempt for any hypnotic or mental effects.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 3
Villains defeated by Kyle: 4
Villains defeated by Joe: 10

Chapter Ten:

*II1: The Rainbow Bridge (aka Bifrost Bridge) is the bridge that connect the land of Asgard to Earth and is how the gods can travel back and forth between realms.

*III4: It's hard to say if Joe's use of Thor's vernacular is a sign of respect or subtle mocking.

*IV1: Joe, in his wisdom, once more already elaborates on Asgardian/Human aging differences here.

*IV6: During a RPG of Champions IRL, Kyle had a character whose motif of attack was hurling dead puppies at his foes.

*IV7: The Asgardians tend to go by names that follow the theme of *Name* the *Descriptive Adjective*.

*VIII9: Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, has a vast amount of properties which includes allowing the wielder to fly, project energy, dispel illusions, summon storms, destroy the undead, return automatically to the thrower, and more. It is also enchanted so that only those deemed 'worthy' can wield it.

*VIII12: As Rina hadn't been 'recruited' to the Supercools at the time, Joe's use of the line makes him the first Supercool outside of Kyle to speak it.

*IX2: Galactus swore not to harm Earth, mostly because Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four threatened to pop a cap in Galactus' immortal ass with the Ultimate Nullifier - pretty much the only thing in existance that could destroy him.

*IX4: Here, Galactus mimics Homer Simpson's enjoyment of the thought of particular food.

*IX6: Galactus must sustain his life energies by devouring the energies of planets that can host living entities. In other words, purple giant needs food badly.

*X2: Despite Loki's nigh-immortality and invulnerability, he hasn't been shown to have any kind of exceptional mental resilience, thus Joe's non-use of the Hypno-Jacket can probably be written off as a mixture of being in pain, impulse thoughts, and knowing that most egotistical gods take notice when interrupted by puny humans.

*X15: The X-Men met Loki for the first time during a two-part mini-series called, simply, "X-Men/Alpha Flight". In X-Men/Alpha Flight #2, Loki is bullied by "Those Who Sit Above in the Shadows" into releasing the X-Men (and Alpha Flight), and swearing never to harm them again. Later, in (Uncanny) X-Men Annual #9, Loki interprets that promise to mean that he will never harm those particular people again, and so he kidnaps Storm, as well as all of the New Mutants, since none of those individuals were present at the first fight. At the conclusion of *that* battle, Kitty Pryde convinces Loki to alter his promise to include past, present, and future X-Men, as well, or she's going to run and tell. [Thanks, Joe]

*XI3: Thor's Belt of Strength doubles his strength and endurance levels. While this wouldn't do a whole lot for a normal human (or Joe, for that matter), the fact that Joe's strength is also enhanced by the Wonder Glove (when he can wear it) doubles to an equivalent to where this could, in theory, allow him to lift or carry a ton or so. Unfortunately, it does almost nothing to enhance the damage one of his punches would inflict.

*XI7: It would have been hard to understand Kyle with a broken jaw anyway, but it's important to note that he still has a favor owed to him.

Villains defeated by Chuck: 3
Villains defeated by Kyle: 4
Villains defeated by Joe: 11 (this Chapter - Loki)