226 – Les Mutants
Dec 10, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which Havok actually used to be pretty great; there are at least four attorneys in the Marvel Universe; Genosha continues to be wildly problematic; Hieronymus Bosch was not Comics Code-compliant; Quicksilver goes on vacation; Polaris has no time for your love triangle; Wolfsbane can maul as many magistrates as she wants; and Multiple Man makes a choice.
X-PLAINED: • Damian Tryp • An unconventional staffing practice • Genosha (more) (again) • The devolution of Alex Summers’ personality • Several attorneys in the Marvel Universe • X-Factor #88-91 • Random (Marshall Stone III) • Joe Quesada’s signature ribbons • Checkbook heroism • Kids these days • Genoshan reconstruction • Several gardens of earthly delights • Puberty • A mercifully abandoned plan • A conspiracy • A significant tonal shift • Mutate #24601 • RoboJean • Genosha’s sanitation system • Dick Chalker • Magneto Rex • Humans in Magneto’s Genosha
NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine vs. everything
Thanks to everyone who helped bring Jay’s weird musical dream to life:
*Luz Bianca, Greg Black, Jeremy Borders, Lucas Brown, Kitty Byrne, *Tina Carelton, *Finn Carter, Everett Christensen, Veryan Croggan, Chris Eddleman, *Christina Eddleman, edibleflowers, Sol Foster, Emily Freville, Matt Gardner, Eric Michael Gray, Pete Gresser, Becky Hawkins, Andrew Hill, Jeff Holland, Al Kennedy, Steve Lacey, Kevin Lanigan, Elana Levin, *Alex Lundquist, Dan McMahon, William Mason, Steve Neal, notwhelmedyet (Lynn), Duck Orsino, Shannon Pack, Erin Pence, *Steve Pence, Philthy, Mariana Poole, rainproof, Samantha Riedel, Scott Sharplin, Adam Slevison, Richaundra Thursday, Dave Tomaine, Devin Toohey, and Grace Young.
*Soloists
Special thanks to Juliana Finch, Christian Lipski, and Laser Webber for technical advice; Christina Eddleman for recording the demo track; and Matt Gardner and Peter Gresser for [Easter egg description redacted].
Check out the visual companion to this episode–as well as the full lyrics to “At the End of the Fight”–on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)
Dec 03, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which we check in on Firestar and the New Warriors; superheroes often celebrate Bring Your Mom To The Amazon Day; Fabian Nicieza employs only the finest of lampshades; and Emma Frost still doesn’t apologize for blowing up that pony.
X-PLAINED:
Vance Astro(vik)
Penance (but not that one)
Austin Gorton’s X-Aminations
New Warriors #10
Firestar (Angelica Jones)
The New Warriors
Visual representations of invisible mutant powers
The Hellions (more) (again)
Tarot and her Morrisonian powers
Bevatrons
Oxy-cution
The inevitably increasing complexity of superhero origins
The Miracle of Microwaves
New Warriors #31
Nova Roma
Magma (Amara Aquilla) (or Allison Crestmere, I guess)
A brief and futile attempt at Roman soldier disambiguation
Empath and his large collection of red flags
Gender-based intuition
A massive, stupid, and quickly undone retcon
Super-nature versus super-nurture
The hypothetical psychological roots of Emma Frost’s fashion phases
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor finally makes it to Genosha!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
224 – Fix the Future
Nov 26, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which Alan Davis performs his pièce de résistance; the personification of Death is surprisingly supportive; Rachel Summers is the One True Phoenix; Kitty Pryde goes full ’90s; syntax saves the world; and the first Excalibur series should really have ended with #67.
X-PLAINED:
Origins of Phoenix mythology
Excalibur #61-67
The Phoenix Force (more) (again)
Rachel Summers (more) (again)
Earth-811 (more) (again)
Phoenix vs. Galactus
A pep talk from Death
The One True Phoenix
The dark, distant future of 2013
The dark, even more distant future of 2015
The extremely complicated future of Kate Pryde
Rory Campbell / Ahab
What may or may not be Ahab’s theme song
Moby Dick, kind of
That one time Widget was a car
Resistance Coordination Executive
Dark Angel
Killpower
Albion
Grace
Tangerine
Arthur
An Excalibur #54 callback
Excalibur (the gun)
Kitty’s new image
How to hack the robot apocalypse
Saved by the Bell: The College Years
Where Excalibur should have ended
Tactical use of Magneto’s hat
Anti-assimilation stories in X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: The Passion of Butter Rum (feat. Austin Gorton)
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
223 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival
Nov 19, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which Dracula probably doesn’t drink his blood from a World’s Greatest Dad mug; Miles massively underestimates the cultural ubiquity of Sexy Dracula; Bill Sienkiewicz may or may not have ever seen a bat; Kitty gets possessed; and Dazzler is singularly well suited to a Vegas residency.
X-PLAINED:
Dracula’s ungrateful children
Marvel Dracula
A fortuitously named writer
Rachel Van Helsing
X-Men #159 (again) (briefly)
Sexy Dracula
The secret origin of sexy Draculas
Fastball Special body mechanics
X-Men Annual #6
A nightmare
“Bats”
Yet another Castle Dracula
The Montesi Formula
Sound effects, spoken or otherwise
Lilith
Chairs
The relative efficacy of holy symbols against Dracula
X-Vegas
Characters we have grown to love as a result of the podcast
NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!
Check out the visual companion to this episode–along with Jay’s convention sketches–on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
222 – A Tale of Two Betsys
Nov 12, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which it has been a pretty intense month; there is a lot to unpack about Psylocke; we are confused by hip teen lingo; Cyclops definitively lacks game; organized crime is anything but; and the mystery of the third Summers brother officially begins.
X-PLAINED:
How the Maximoffs joined the Avengers
X-Cutioner’s Song fallout
An X-ceptionally convoluted set of retcons
X-Men #20-23
How not to repair an airplane
One way to get out of an awkward conversation
Several Betsys Braddock
Revanche
Dubiously organized crime
Kwannon
Nyorin’s diary
Awkward family conversations
Mike Milbury
Twin Peaks Season 3
Akira Yoshida
NEXT EPISODE: Dracula in Vegas!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
221 – Better Than LEGO
Nov 06, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which Miles stops worrying and learns to love X-Force; you should absolutely not google the phrase “face jam”; the kids take a field trip to Graymalkin; Jay reverse-engineers Shatterstar’s hair; Donald Pierce gets a new job; Sam Guthrie is the most trustworthy man in the Marvel Universe; Cable is your guns grandma; Professor earns its name; X-Force really only has one setting; and not every Sluggo is lit.
X-PLAINED:
A bunch of stuff Quicksilver did
Several cats
X-Force #20-23
The Externals (more) (again)
A deeply unlikely hairstyle
Graymalkin / Ship / Professor
A somewhat one-sided reunion
Yahoos
Inaccurate arithmetic
Why Feral sounds like that
Neither Tom, Dick, nor Harry
War Machine (James Rhodes)
Salvage
Sam Guthrie’s long trail of dead father figures
Shatterstar
How to fight an External
The seventh plague
What Domino’s been up to
Hammer’s mom
Tigerstryke (more) (again)
Sluggo (but not that Sluggo)
Learning to appreciate the ’90s
NEXT EPISODE: Psylocke Vs. Revanche!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
220 – On Your Bike
Oct 29, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which we approach the end of Alan Davis’s Excalibur run; “duopenultimate” is not actually a word; Captain Britain pops the question; we do in fact (kinda) get follow-up on Alysande Stuart’s death; Miles needs to get a little less credulous about bureaucrats’ good intentions; Shadowcat engages in espionage; Nightcrawler and Cerise are tactically saucy; and the sun definitely ought to set on the British Empire.
X-PLAINED:
Warpies
Excalibur #61-65
The Jaspers Warp (more) (again)
The RCX (more) (again)
Agents Gabriel and Michael
What happened to Jay’s mom’s Hypercolor™ T-shirt
What not to do with a dead parrot
Several Hamlet references
Scott Wright (MicroMax)
The Cherubim
Cloud Nine
Agent Peter (Nigel Orpington-Smythe)
Warpie naming conventions
Beetroot
Screen tone
An idiom
Evasive makeouts
A specific thing on The Gifted
Why Kitty Pryde tends to go by her given name
NEXT EPISODE: Space Fight!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
219 – Brutal Hearts: An Appreciation of Emma Frost (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, Tea Fougner, Kel McDonald, and Diana Fox)
Oct 22, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which Jay recruits X-writers Seanan McGuire and Leah Williams, cosplayer Tea Fougner, and innocent bystanders Kel McDonald and Diana Fox, for a night of Emma Frost appreciation.
X-PLAINED:
Why Emma Frost is amazing; why we love her; and why you should, too.
NEXT EPISODE: Return of the RCX!
WHITE QUEEN COCKTAIL RECIPE:
Combine:
1.5 oz gin
.5 oz rose elderflower syrup
Splash of elixir vegetal
Prosecco to fill glass
Top off with:
Smoke bitters
No visual companion this week! Go read some comics about Emma Frost!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
218 – Careful What You Lick
Oct 15, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which X-Cutioner’s Song may be over, but its repercussions continue; Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone; superhero comics are and always have been political; Bishop learns to banter; the X-Men gain an unlikely ally; and Magneto remains exceptionally difficult to kill.
X-PLAINED:
Jay & Miles at VVCBF
Uncanny X-Men #298-300
The Acolytes (more) (again)
The Upstarts (more) (again)
Several important lessons
A very fancy room
A very fancy brain
The unpleasant fate of Sharon Friedlander
The all-new, all-different Acolytes
Carmella Unuscione
The return of one of our favorite antagonists
A sick burn
The fate of Asteroid M
Molting
A debate
Graydon Creed (more) (again)
The tentative redemption of Robert Kelly
How to lose a debate with Joe Biden
A large number of prescient political references
Friends of Humanity
How to engage with a fascist in a televised debate
Noah DuBois
Fatale
A generic rural mob
Milan
A narratively convenient superpower
Amelia Voght
Seamus Mellencamp
Neophyte
The gospel of Magneto
A joyous reunion
The helmet that wouldn’t die
Ponytail ethics
Timelust
Several accents
The current state of Rogue’s powers
NEXT EPISODE: All Emma All Episode (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, and more)!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
217 – Piotr the Obscure
Oct 08, 2018
Show notesArt by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
In which it sucks to be a Rasputin; X-Men and Uncanny X-Men muddy the waters; Cyclops and Psylocke’s weird flirtation somehow manages to get even more awkward; Colossus has a long series of bad days; and you should totally come see us at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.
X-PLAINED:
An atypical curriculum
Jay & Miles at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival
X-Men #17-19
What Colossus and Magik have been up to
X-Men title disambiguation
The terrible fate of the town of Neftelensk
Blind Faith (Alexi Garnov)
Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna)
Darkstar
Beard auras
Cathartic interdimensional landscaping
Flagwatch 113
Red Flag 113
An awkward encounter
The Soul Skinner
The tactical value of cute little ears
Dubious cold-weather apparel
Jude the Obscure
Weaponized angst
An inopportune coloring error
Lack of pants
Whether Pyro could control Jubilee’s “fireworks”
How to enjoy dated comics
NEXT EPISODE: Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)
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