Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

62 – Giant-Size Special #2

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/28/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/28/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which we welcome Logan Bonner, Mikey Neilson, and AdministratriX Tina to the gaming table for an original X-Men Animated Adventure; the real enemy is BS&P; Australia is kind of terrible; Rogue is concerned about kangaroos; Wolverine taps into the power of love; Storm makes a long-distance call; and Cyclops plans for failure (but not color-coded labels).

FEATURING:

  • Logan Bonner as Writer, Gamemaster, and Broadcast Standards & Practices
  • Tina Abate as Wolverine
  • Mikey Neilson as Storm
  • Rachel Edidin as Cyclops
  • Miles Stokes as Rogue

NEXT WEEK: Walking the Wildways!


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41 comments

  1. I’m not even done with the episode yet, but I have to applaud this whole enterprise, and especially Miles’s Rogue. It seems you now have one fewer listener, because you have ki– I mean, destroyed me with laughter.

  2. I was a little on the fence about this on a conceptual level, since you wouldn’t necessarily be explaining anything, and even when you are wildly off-topic, you usually are informative. But I’m glad I gave this the benefit of doubt. Learning that kangaroos can’t walk backwards qualifies as explaining. I’m sure it was an important plot point during the Australian era at some point. All is well.

  3. I have to point out that kangaroos are in fact group animals. The collective noun is mob.

    Also, as for why there was an evil genetic/cybernetic lab under a random TV station, remember that Rupert Murdoch is Australian.

  4. Two things: I appreciated an attempt to give the animated series its own Australian Era (however short-lived) and Miles’ Rogue voice is oddly fetching.

    1. I also promise to vote for Rachel to play someone more chatty the next time you guys do this. Although you totally nailed the awful cartoon version of Scott. Kudos.

  5. While everyone was hilarious and awesome, Miles was the MVP in the podcast FOR SURE! Your week worth of Rogue-voice-practicing was WELL worth it!

    (Also Mikey as Dr. Stormpheus made me laugh a lot.)

    And yes, I listened to the whole thing. All of it.

    1. THIS IS MY FAVORITE GAME EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I so badly wish I had a copy. One of my friends used to have it, and we played it all the time.

      1. It’s not the game as a whole–you’d still need your own cards, for instance–but we’ll be posting the episode we played on the site in the next couple days!

      2. I haven’t played it since I was a kid but I still have it. I (well my wife) had our first child in January and I am anxiously ticking down the time I get to start playing stuff like that with him! I am still amazed it had minis of so many characters though the heroes are a bit unbalanced since some are so fragile (though there were always fights for who got to play wolverine)

  6. The mental image of Jean Grey playing her ukelele in her downtime is matched only by the mental image of a TV advert for the new fragrance “Wolverine by Maison Logan… It smells like revenge”

  7. I loved this episode so much. I totally LOLed during my subway commute at Mikey’s impression of 90s Animated Storm, in line to use the X-bathroom: ‘WOLIVERINE, OTHERS ARE WAITING PATIENTLY!!!!”

  8. Ah, so next time is New Mutants Annual #2 and X-Men Annual 10! Alan Davis followed by Art Adams no less.

    As an unabashed, somewhat excessively keen (some might say obsessive, though I hope in at least a wholesome way) Cypher and Warlock fan, I’m not going to say I will judge you by your reactions to these two issues, but I will TOTALLY judge you by your reactions to those two issues.

  9. This might be my favorite Rachel & Miles ever. Funny as heck, and despite everyone playing opposite gender characters, I never had a doubt which character was speaking. As a GM, I’ve got to salute Logan Bonner, too — that was a near perfect example of letting everyone get in their last action to work together at the end of the fight.

    Do it again sometime, okay?

  10. You guys are a treasure. Miles was frighteningly good at Rogue improv, and Rachel, your Cyclops was everything people hate about Cyclops (I mean that as a compliment!). I’m so glad I found this podcast…

    1. “If you’re reading her a bedtime story, I’m gonna tuck her in.”

      Bravo. Just exemplary work.

      1. That’s really when Miles-as-Rogue hit critical mass. Trust me, I’ve listened to this week’s episode several times. I’ve made charts. Color coded ones. Cyke would be displeased.

  11. My one question from this podcast is how did the producers of the animated series not do a point of view episode from Cyclop’s perspective in series five so they could get around paying the colorists for an entire episode?

  12. Gotta say, this was incredibly awesome. All the best stuff of D&D with no inane grappling rules (which would have defeated the point of Animated!Wolverine with no robots around).

    Gotta ask, though. Going off of the Role Playing theme… what class or character type would any of the X-Men play when it comes to pen/paper roleplaying?

    I only ask, because I realized that Scott would likely play Paladin 98% of the time. And if it was Animated!Scott, he’d find some way to angst and wonder if he’s not being Lawful Good enough.
    The remaining two percent of the time, Jean would have pulled relationship rank on Scott and made him play someone else. So he played a Bard and emulated his heroes he doesn’t speak about (Captain Kirk, for example. Possibly his father too). And while he complains about it and goes back to playing Scottius the Paladin, he secretly loved playing the Bard for a while.

    I can’t help but see Ororo playing a wizard, making pronouncements whenever she casts spells. And has gone into enough dept that all of her spells have ridiculously long names she chants out.

    I could see Kurt playing the Bard, easily. And he swashes buckles with the best of them, charming everyone and everything in sight.

    But I really wonder what the other X-Men would play as.

  13. I just finished catching up listening to the entire podcast today. And I just have to say, you guys are amazing!

    I found you googling podcast recommendations and I’m so glad I did. I’ve loved the X-men forever, but have been too intimidated by the massive history to get into the comics. Now I’ve actually bought a few on Comixology and really, really enjoyed them!

    Keep up the good work and again, thank you so much for this. It’s totally awesome and much appreciated. And I’m not sure how I’m going to be patient enough to wait week to week now!

  14. “And you can’t say ‘chest!’ …I think.”

    I believe the key to excellently bad TAS Cyclops dialogue is the sing song-y nature of Norm Spencer’s bizarre line readings. It was like he was reciting the script as if lettered in ’90s comics font — contrived pitch variation and emphasis of arbitrary wOrDs!

    Alongside aggressively bland overstatements of the obvious, that is.

    Miles’ Rogue lived up to the hype. That community college pun was inspired.

    “Regal” TAS Storm’s inability to utter mundane statements without turning them into sweeping, florid proclamations will never get old.

    The mechanics of the game play were largely lost on me, but that proved immaterial. I simply could not listen to the episode at work as I normally would due to busting out into fits of laughter every two minutes. There was just no way to even begin explaining myself to coworkers. Hence, it has taken me three days to get through.

    Thank you. I needed that. By all means play with your format and experiment in “concept” episodes whenever the mood or occasion strikes! Fine, fine efforts all around.

    1. Confession: In retrospect, it is POSSIBLE that my animated Cyclops voice is based less on actual animated Cyclops than on my talking X-Factor Cyclops action figure.

      1. Wait. You mean… LET’S GO, X-MEN / Optic.Blast.FIRE / ZARK! Talking Cyclops from Toy Biz’s earliest, busted-ass batch of Marvel figures circa 1992?! This changes everything.

        In my youth, many a battle was won (frequently against Talking Magneto) due to the timely intervention of Talking Cyclops. I have every reason to believe he remains buried alongside his comrades in a huge storage bin somewhere at my Dad’s house. The “voice box” is bound to be close at hand, still fully functional. This brings me great joy. I may need to listen to the episode again.

  15. I wish I had never heard this! My eight year old and I are watching the animated show and it is now not possible to hear Rogue speaking anyway but like Miles. And my son has also been speaking in that voice all day long.

  16. I think you should both know that I definitely used the phrase, “Hotter than a sinner in the afterlife!” at a Civil War reenactment I attended this weekend. I make no apologies (and the other folks in my group thought it was hilarious).

    In other news, that bit about Wolverine in the bathroom had me laughing so hard in my office that I was afraid someone would come over to see what was wrong, forcing me to explain why I was laughing. This was brilliant from beginning to end, and I really, really hope that you do it again.

  17. You disappoint me. You have Pretty Boy and Lady Deathstrike in the same room, and noone goes for the obvious joke, as they combine to form the villainous… PRETTY LADYBOY DEATHSTRIKE!

    It’s propagating the evil trans villain trope, but at least she’s glamorous. 🙂

    1. That would be because outside of one very specific cultural context–which is not ours or the majority of our listeners’–“ladyboy” is a really fucking offensive and transphobic term. You’re not gonna hear that word come up in jokes on the podcast, nor is it welcome in the site comments.

  18. Getting a late start on X-Plains, but slowly getting caught up. THIS was the best episode by FAR! And that’s not indictment of past episodes, it’s that this one made me laugh so much harder and more often!

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