In this episode:

Mike and Ed discuss the end of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The X-Xen claim that Magneto and Toad have been kidnapped by an inter-dimensional being, Mastermind is dead, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have retired to Eastern Europe. Are any of those things okay? Should there be an investigation into Mastermind’s death? Should there be a rescue mission to recover Magneto (and Toad)? Are super-terrorists just allowed to retire? Is that a thing? Mike and Ed have some divergent opinions. Where do you stand?

Behind the issue:

Clearly this is not the true end of Magneto. He returns in X-Men #17 (February 1966) and it is eventually revealed that he escaped from the Stranger by stealing a spaceship and returning to Earth, whereupon he immediately tried to kill all of the X-Men.

In this issue:

The X-Men detect a super-powered being of unknown origin, and seem a little nervous about it. Meanwhile, a tall man with a shock of white hair moseys through the city, walking on air and through walls - he is clearly the super-powered being and is ultimately referred to as the Stranger - until he finds Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The Stranger battles Magneto and his team, overpowering him. He turns Mastermind into a solid block of matter, and then the X-Men burst in and start battling the Brotherhood too. Ultimately, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver confess to the X-Men that they are quitting the Brotherhood, having repaid their debt to Magneto. The Stranger then kidnaps Magneto and Toad, flying off into space with them, with the X-Men powerless to assist.

Assumed before the next episode:

People are wondering whether they are more safe, knowing that a super-powered alien can overpower Magneto and take him into space.

This episode takes place:

After the Brotherhood has been disbanded in a very unorthodox manner.

Full transcript:

Edward: Michael, it's the end of an era. It's the end of the brotherhood of evil mutants. They are no longer a brotherhood. They're done.

Micheal: problem solved.

Edward: I'm sure there'll be other problems out there, but it is nice that one of the big super terrorists hanging over the head of our country is no longer an issue anymore. The X-Men have reported that Magni and the towed, the leader and one of the members of the brotherhood have been kidnapped, detained by some sort of alien being. And, the three remaining members, two have retired and one is apparently dead.

Micheal: So there's a bunch of stuff that comes out of it let's. The X-men at their word and say that, what'd they say? An alien took Magni and towed away

Edward: some sort of alien or interdimensional being someone who's not from here, it was you who said that. How do you define an alien? An alien is someone not from Earth? And it sounds like this guy's not from Earth.

Micheal: So let's just call him just for sake of convenience. See, this alien is taking magni and towed away, so that's okay. Fine, but. Do we just leave it at that? If say a kindly grandmother and her,

Edward: wanna hear where you're going with this,

Micheal: kidnapped by an alien, would we just be like, oh, well, aliens, you know, aliens, they just, they just kidnap people

Edward: I think. I think, well, I think, well, hey, I think there's a difference between a grandmother and a.

Micheal: But why is there, I mean, the point is like there isn't actually like

Edward: no, there's no if, if, wait a minute, you're arguing. There's no difference between a terrorist and a grand.

Micheal: But not certainly.

Edward: Who is your grandmother?

What is your grandmother like? Michael?

Micheal: I loved my grandmother's. I did, but what I'm trying to say, I'm not comparing, I'm not saying that you've gotta treat your grandmother like a terrorist, but you probably need to treat terrorists as human beings. I mean, or criminals or accused. Criminals still have the same rights as the, as the rest of us, and so,

Edward: Do they, do they do They have the same, right?

Like do,

Micheal: of course they do.

Edward: Like I have the freedom of movement. I can go around and I could go to the grocery store, I can visit my mom, I can visit my grandmother. But if you're a terrorist and you committed a crime, we put you in jail. You don't have freedom of movement anymore. Let's, we take that right away.

Micheal: No right's been taken away. There's been no trial of Magni in towed. Like right now. Right now, they are men that might be accused it's been allegedly committed crimes, and if they're convicted of it, then sure, some of their civil liberties will be taken away restricted. My point is that if, the X-men come and say, don't worry guys, an alien stole these two people and took them away, what's the response like?

 We're now not alone in the universe and we know that and, so we must be considering. There could be these alien abductions and we need to have a response to it. I'm sure if your grandmother was kidnapped by aliens, you'd want to have some kind of response. You'd want Reed Richards to get into a spaceship and chase down those aliens and rescue your grandma.

Edward: Absolutely. Well, lemme put an asterisk. I think that's true. Unless my grandmother was a terrorist, in which case, you know what, I'm okay. You can leave her. It's a terrorist exception. Terrorist exception to grandmother kidnapping.

Micheal: Don't think there is an exception to it.

So I'm saying that the public sympathy might not be there, but if, let's just make it more earthbound. If an accused terrorist was in a boat that caught the wrong tide and the engines out and it's going out to sea, would you expect the Coast Guard to go rescue that person?

Edward: I think so,

Micheal: yes. You would

Edward: yeah. You'd want go and capture those. You wanna capture them. I wouldn't want the Coast Guard to rescue them. You. I want them to go and capture them.

Micheal: I know, but, the law works that you actually would have to, you have an obligation to try to rescue them. I think you do have an obligation to do that. How you treat them after you re rescue them is another matter.

Edward: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's correct. I think the difference is a little bit is. That the amount of resources and effort it would take to capture a boat floating in the ocean is a little different than the amount of resources it would take to capture an interdimensional kidnapping. There are a lot of Coast Guard people that can go and help a lot of people who get trapped in boats. Mm-hmm. I think we have to be, we have limited resources for capturing interdimensional, kidnappings. We have like what, four or five people on the planet that can do that for?

Micheal: What did Reed Richards go to space for recently? Didn't he go for some kinda personal reason, like,

Edward: well, it was semi-personal. It was, his father-in-law had been killed by the scrolls and he went and negotiated a peace treaty with the scrolls as part of that peace treaty, the person who this individual scroll, who killed his father-in-law was put to justice on the scroll home world.

Micheal: Yes. So personal. So, okay, got it. So anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I understand your point, we're not gonna bankrupt the entire Earth to save Magni, but the question has to be asked, to what extent do we actually extend ourselves with respect to not just leave inside the terrorist part, which is hard to do, but leave it from the, what is, what is the extent to which we will actually take steps to address interplanetary crime or aliens. Now we don't have to worry about just bad guys on earth doing bad things to people, but people from other dimensions or other worlds doing bad things to our people. So what's our response? And I don't know what it is yet, but right now it seems to be.

Okay. It's too bad. See, later Magnis. See later tote, you're going to another planet or another dimension or something.

Edward: So, hey, maybe the answer is, we put it onto Reed, Richards to-do list and he can prioritize it versus all the other things. If there's a bunch of grandmothers but that been kidnapped, let's get to the grandmother's first. And Magni can be somewhere further down the list and maybe somewhere on his list. Getting flying cars to the masses. And personally, I'd rather have flying cars be a common consumer purchase product than save Magni. Like, that's my own personal priority list.

Micheal: Typical, typical capitalist and socialist kinda conversation. But anyways, to move on to the next point, so let's assuming that the X-men are telling the truth, right? What if they aren't? How do we know that aren't the truth?

Edward: You and your, decept, you think not everyone's a lie. Like why would they be lying about this?

Micheal: Well, because they've been fighting because Mag's been trying to kill the X-Men. And so then they come back and say, Hey guys, uh, what?

Edward: To be fair, to be fair, Mag's been trying to kill everyone. That's not just the X-Men,

Micheal: but they've been in hand, hand combat with him and they have, so the X-Men come back and say, Hey, hey guys. U