Hunter’s post about X-Men listening to This American Life in a story by James Asmus made us do a double-take. We knew of James Asmus as a Chicago comedian [and former contestant on Impress These Apes (video NSFW)]. It turns out he’s moved to LA and writes comic books for Marvel. We asked him to tell us a little more about the This American Life reference he wrote into Nation X #1. Here’s what he had to say:

I’m a huge TAL fan (NPR in general) so when trying to depict the warm and wistfully quiet moments in a road trip, it felt like the perfect way to set the mood.‚  Plus, after years of entertainment and beauty from that show, plugging it was the least I could do.‚  I should also say the artist is one of my absolute favorites, Mike Allred.‚  He’s most famous for creating Madman, but has also worked on‚ Fables, Fantastic Four,‚ X-Statix, and he did the art for all the stuff in Chasing Amy. In my mind, Nightcrawler tuned in, and has been a fan for years.‚  Wolverine usually drives motorcycles (no radio) and appears in about 7 Marvel titles a month (no time for podcasts) so I don’t think he had heard it before.‚ ‚  But he’s a fan now.‚  I’m declaring that right now.‚  It’s official continuity.

Thanks for adding a little bit of WBEZ to the Marvel-verse, James! On a related note, Peter Sagal shared this 1998 Fantastic Four title from Marvel with us. Sagal says Marvel author Chris Claremont was a fan of NPR so it’s only natural that Neal Conan and Manoli Wetherell would make a cameo in Volume 3 Number 9.