Original Air Date
- Jan. 7, 2026
Part 1 Begins
Super Show ID 1: Superhero Smash (0:10)
- You’re listening to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best in Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore”
- I’m your host, Dr. Gian Pagnucci, a.k.a. The New Professor X
Heroic Audio Episode Theme: The Ice Man Cometh (0:20)!
- I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have snow than rain
- So I’m featuring Ice Man, a member of the X-Men in this episode of Superhero Smash
- The Ice Man is a mutant with the power to create snow and ice
- So maybe he can come turn this rain back into snow for us
Heroic Opening Song (5:35)
- “Snow (Hey Oh)” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Super Show ID 2: Superhero Smash (0:30)
- You’re listening to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Cinematic Universe, and our U-niverse too!
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email the New Professor X using the address SuperheroSmash3000@gmail.com
- I love to hear from the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans
- And you can rest assured that no matter how much super cool stuff I talk about on the show, you don’t have to worry because this is a NO SPOILERS show!
- If you are enjoying today’s show, you can catch more Superhero Smash one more time next week, Wednesday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. on WIUP FM 90.1, before the end of IUP’s Winter Break
The X-Men to the Rescue! (2:00)
- Ice Man was an original member of the X-Men
- The rest of the team was Psyclops, who could shoot laser beams from his eyes, the Angel, who had wings and could fly, Marvel Girl, who had mental powers, and the Beast, who originally had large hands and feet and could climb and jump everywhere and eventually turned blue and became covered in fur
- While Psyclops led the team into battle, the true leader of the X-Men was Charles Xavier, a.k.a. Professor X, who was wheel chair bound but had incredible mental powers
- You might think of him as the old Professor X because I am the New Professor X
- The team had many great adventures, including being featured in several animated features
- The original 1989 series had one of the best superhero theme songs of all time!
Heroic Instrumental Theme Song (1:42)
- “X-Men: The Animated Series” TV theme song
- From Sci-Fi’s Greatest Hits Vol. 4: Defenders of Justice
The Superhero Smash Comic Book Vault (2:00): First Appearance of The X-Men
- The Comic Book Vault Sound Effect (0:12)
- The X-Men First Appearance: The X-Men #1
- Publication Date: September 1963
- Publisher: Marvel Comics
- Writer: Stan Lee
- Artist: Jack Kirby
- Value on eBay today: $11,800 (CGC graded 7.0 on a 10-point scale)
- Ice Man was on the cover with the rest of the team, throwing snowballs at Magneto
Cold Super Song #1 (4:32)
- “Ice Ice Baby (Radio Mix)” by Vanilla Ice
Part 1 Ends (@16 minutes)
Part 2 Begins (@16 minutes)
Super Show ID 3: Superhero Smash (0:30)
- Listen to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore” in the MCU, the DCU, and our U-niverse too!
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email the New Professor X using the address SuperheroSmash3000@gmail.com
- I love to hear from the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans
- If you are enjoying today’s show, you can catch more Superhero Smash one more time next week, Wednesday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. on WIUP FM 90.1, before the end of IUP’s Winter Break
Super Secret Origin Story: The Origin of the Ice Man (3:00)
- The X-Men are all mutants
- In the Marvel universe, humans are known as homo sapiens while mutants are known as homo superior because of their incredible powers
- Mutants’ powers comes when the X-factor gene activates, typically when a person is a teenager
- There have been a lot of comic books dedicated to mutants and X-Men chracters
- There is a story in X-Force #97, where “mutant genes” are explained:
- The Celestials, who are godlike beings in the Marvel universe, “concentrated most of their efforts on three species, turning one into a race of near immortals, the Eternals. They gave primitive man the X-Factor gene which would one day bear superhuman fruit. To the subterranean dwellers called Deviants they bequeathed a genetically unstable lineage where mutation is the norm not the exception.”
- The X-Men often had to fight the Deviants, especially a group called the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
- Bobby Drake had his ice powers activate when he was a teenager and was attacked by some school bullies
- After this incident, Professor X brings Bobby to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters where he becomes one of the X-Men
- This origin story is told in X-Men #1
- There’s a great scene in the comic where Bobby says he can be ready to fight a villain much quicker than the rest of the team because he doesn’t have to change into a costume. Instead, he just ices up his body and yanks on a pair of boots
- Kind of reminds me of another famous snowman getting dressed
Cold Super Song #2 (2:54)
- “Frosty the Snow Man” by Gene Autry with The Cass County Boys (the 78 rpm version)
Oh No! The X-Men Are Defeated! (3:00)
- Although the X-Men were great at defeating mutant menaces, what the enemy they couldn’t defeat was low sales!
- Although the X-Men have always been an interesting concept, they just were not popular in the early days of Marvel comics
- In March 1970, the X-Men comic book was canceled after issue #66
- Issues #67-93 were then just reprints of the original stories; these reprints lasted until 1975
- This seems a rather poor sales strategy, although the reprints would have been cheap to produce
- Even more crazy, though, rather than restarting by reprinting issue #1, Marvel instead chose to reprint issue #12 in issue #67 and proceed from there
- Fortunately, the X-Men weren’t finished
- In 1975, Marvel relaunched the X-Men in Giant-Size X-Men #1
- This is an extremely valuable comic book
- I saw a 9.8 near mint copy priced at $25,000 on eBay
- Giant-Size X-Men #1 brought new members to the team, including Storm, Colossos, Night Crawler, Thunderbird, and the ever popular Wolverine
- Members of the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans will recall that in
- Superhero Smash Back Issue Bin (Season II): Audio Issue #30: Deadpool & Wolverine (8/1/24)
- This action-packed audio episode celebrates the new Marvel movie teaming the merc with the mouth and everyone’s favorite mutant
- Professor X and Cyclops remained with the team in Giant-Size X-Men #1, but the other old members were removed for the time being, including, sadly, Ice Man
PSA: Visit the IUP Kathleen Jones White Writing Center (0:30)
- Another heroic team using the power of peer review
- The hard fighting tutors of the…
- IUP Kathleen Jones White Writing Center
- Shout-out to Dr. Dan Weinstein, the Director of the Writing Center and LLW Associate Professor
Cold Super Song #3 (3:00)
- Bobby Drake was gone, but not forgotten
- “White Is In the Winter Night” by Enya
Part 2 Ends (@30 minutes)
Part 3 Begins (@30 minutes)
Super Show ID 4: Superhero Smash (0:30)
- Listen to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore” in the MCU, the DCU, and our U-niverse too!
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email the New Professor X using the address SuperheroSmash3000@gmail.com
- I love to hear from the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans
- And this is a good time to give a Superhero Smash Super Shout-out to the students in the New Professor X’s English 281: Superhero Literature
- If you are enjoying today’s show, you can catch more Superhero Smash one more time next week, Wednesday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. on WIUP FM 90.1, before the end of IUP’s Winter Break
The Death of Thunderbird (3:00)
- The X-Men comic book returned to new stories with X-Men #94
- A comic book I’m lucky enough to own because I somehow got a copy as a kid!
- Len Wein wrote Giant-Size X-Men #1, but beginning with Issue #94, the writer for the X-Men was Chris Claremont, who’s run on the title would become historic
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- The artist was Dave Cockrum
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- To show just how different the new X-Men title was going to be, in Issue #95, Claremont killed off the brand new character Thunderbird
- Thunderbird was the first Native American superhero, and I should note that in the story, his death is the fault of his arrogance and recklessness
- Killing a major new character was a shocking move
- And although my friend Alex always says no one ever really dies in the superhero world, Thunderbird did actually stay dead for many years, appearing only occasionally as a ghost
- In honor of Thunderbird, R.I.P., here’s a song just for him
Cold Super Song #4 (3:07)
- “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons
The X-Men Rule Comics! (2:00)
- Chris Claremont would go on to write X-Men for 16 continuous years until issue #279
- Along the way, Claremont became a master storyteller, and the X-Men comic became groundbreaking
- Even more important than the death of Thunderbird, Claremont turned the focus of the comic on issues of diversity and prejudice
- Society began to distrust mutants and tried to imprison and eradicate them
- While the X-Men still tried to help humanity, Magnet0, who had survive the Holocaust, began to wage a war against humanity
- This put him at direct odds with his one good friend Charles Xavier
- The military also developed Sentinel robots who cruelly hunted mutants
- It was a dark and dangerous time for mutants, but a great time for readers and fans
- This focus on diversity and real world conflict, along with the always angry Wolverine, quickly made X-Men the most popular comic book of the time with skyrocketing sales!
Cold Super Song #4 (9:02–play ~5 minutes)
- “The X-Men Song” by Ray Wall Band
- Super long at over 9 minutes, so we won’t play it all
Part 3 Ends (@45 minutes)
Part 4 Begins (@45 minutes)
Respect Everyone, Be Kind, and Do Good! (4:00)
- The reason the X-Men became so beloved is that they are about respecting everyone
- The X-Men’s mutant powers would always manifest when they were teenagers, capturing a sense of the angst so many teenagers feel as they come of age, in a world that doesn’t seem to understand them
- Also the book focused on the danger, harm, and loss caused when we act with prejudice and treat other people as bad just because they are different
- In the comics, Magneto was named Max Eisenhardt but he was renamed Erik Ledhnsherr for the films
- In the first X-Men movie, we see the Nazi’s marching jews to prison camps in the rain
- We watch in horror as a young Erik is separated from his parents
- When Max’s mother Edie begins screaming for him, a Nazi officer shoots and kills her
- This causes Erik to go crazy and his powers manifest when his outstretched hand causes a metal gate to bend and rip, nearly opening, before a Nazi guard hits him with the butt of a rifle and knocks him out
- That moment is the origin of Magneto, who becomes a supervillain
- It’s an important message that there is a high cost to hatred and prejudice
- As the new Professor X, my message to you, like the message of the X-Men, is to always treat everyone with respect and kindness
- Help everyone you can and watch out for our internal bias
- When you want to shy away from someone who is different, try instead just saying hello to them and asking how they are doing
- Everyone needs kindness because the actions we take today can have big ramifications for the world we will live in tomorrow
Cold Super Song #5 (2:18)
- “Do Good” by .Xom
- “Do Good” is sung in mostly Korean, with a chorus where they sing the words “do good”
Super Show ID 5: Superhero Smash (0:30)
- Listen to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore” in the DCU, the MCU, and our U-niverse too!
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email the New Professor X using the address SuperheroSmash3000@gmail.com
- I love to hear from the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans
- If you are enjoying today’s show, you can catch more Superhero Smash one more time next week, Wednesday from Noon to 1:00 p.m. on WIUP FM 90.1, before the end of IUP’s Winter Break
Super Romantic Interlude: The Many Girlfriends and Boyfriends of Bobby Drake (2:00)
- Bobby Drake had a lot of girlfriends in the comic books
- His first girlfriend was Judy Harmon from his hometown before he joined the X-men
- He then dated a waitress named Zelda Kurtzberg in the early X-Men comic books
- Bobby also eventually dated Kitty Pride, another member of the X-men who had the power to phase through walls and other matter
- Then, in 2015, Bobby was revealed to have been a closet gay man
- In many ways, Bobby represents anyone who has tried to find love, wether gay or straight
- And I think it’s important for us to accept everyone for who they are
- But that search for love is always challenging, as this next song reminds us
- And this is a good time to give a Superhero Smash Super Shout-out to Aimee who suggested this song after hearing last week’s Captain Cold episode
Cold Super Song #6 (3:20)
- “Cold as Ice” by Foreigner
- Foreigner performed live at IUP’s Fisher Auditorium in 2009
- I want to give a Superhero Smash Super Shout-out to Lloyd Onyett, retired IUP IT professional who loaned me money at the concert so I could get Foreigner’s greatest hits CD signed by the band!
Super Show ID 6: Superhero Smash To Be Continued Next Issue! (1:00)
- Listen to Superhero Smash on WIUP FM 90.1
- A musical force for good!
- Featuring “The Best Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore” in the DCU, the MCU, and our U-niverse too!
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email the New Professor X using the address SuperheroSmash3000@gmail.com
- I love to hear from the Legion of Superhero Smash Fans
- And this is a good time to give a Superhero Smash Super Shout-out to Cormac and Loughlin Pagnucci and their pal Simba who helped as my Musical Engineers during the break
- A super team up with Comics Studies Scholars Alex Romagnoli and Sandy Eckard!
Cold Super Song #7 (2:41)
- “Snow” by Rosemary Clooney with Percy Faith
Super Show ID 6 (0:10)
- And remember, while Superhero Smash is about the adventures of amazing individuals,
- “You don’t need superpowers to be a hero. The only thing it takes to be a hero is the courage to do what’s right when someone needs your help.”–Gian Pagnucci
Heroic End Credits Song for Ice Man (3:28)
- “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” by Kristen Bell, Agatha Lee Monn & Katie Lopez from Frozen
Part 4 Ends (@60 minutes)
