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In which we return to Rose City Comic Con and somehow manage to one-up last year’s Stryfe cold open; Greg Pak has secretly written all of the X-books; Cullen Bunn may or may not be watching you RIGHT NOW; the X-Men distill down to murder and kissing; Toshiro Mifune should be everybody; Miles swears first (for once); and we can’t wait to see all of your X-Men roller derby names!
X-PLAINED:
- Cold open escalation
- Onslaught
- Greg Pak
- Continuity exegesis
- Marrying history and narrative
- Murder and kissing
- X-Treme X-Men vol. 2
- Reimagining characters across the multiverse
- Governor-General James Howlett
- Magneto: Testament
- Where superheroes should and shouldn’t intersect with geopolitical events
- Our X-Men buddy-cop duos of choice
- X-Commencement speakers
- X-Men roller derby names
- Contemporary vs. retrospective representations of current events
NEXT WEEK: The New Mutants go to Asgard!
There’s not exactly a visual companion to this episode, but you can find a Rose City Comic Con gallery on our blog!
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No prints for sale this time, but you can still contact David Wynne for the original of this week’s illustration!
Ah, Onslaught. I read that when I was young. I liked it then, but keep in mind, I was 11.
And wait, wasn’t it the Gem of Cyttorak? The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak. Which grants the power of the Crimson Bands, but it’s still a gem that grants that power.
I did like the Howlett/Hercules romance in X-Treme X-Men. And Dazzler as a leader was really neat.
Magneto: Testament is phenomenal. Just some soul-destroying work. And huge props to Carmine Di Giandomenico and Matt Hollingsworth, because it looks gorgeous. The Red Skull one was really good, too, really haunting and disturbing. I can definitely see why that one would have been really difficult to write.
Buddy cop duo: Jubilee and Bishop, of course. Bish & Jubez.
X-Commencement: I’ll say Cable.
Roller derby names: I desperately want a Marvel roller derby comic. So, so bad. I love that A-Force had Dazzler doing roller derby. For names: Hitty Pryde? Skarma? Spleen Grey? Killa Cheney? I’m not good at this.
I will say that, for as much as the ’90s could be awful, it does also have some absolutely amazing stuff, as well. Age of Apocalypse, Generation X, a lot of incredible one-off issues in various books. There was a lot more to love than people recall, I think.
Actually, thinking about it more, Onslaught pulling the Gem out of Juggernaut was still stupid and ignored continuity. The Gem was separate from Juggernaut, not a part of him. And I think the last we’d seen it, Juggernaut had hurled it into space after an attempt to share the power with Black Tom. So, yeah, it was still stupid and continuity-ignoring.
Possibly of interest to people here, Comixology just added a bunch of X-related collections, including both volumes of the Cross-Time Caper, Mekanix, and (sigh) X4.
X-roller derby names: Scarlet Bitch? Shade-Throw-Cat? Domino-trix? Elbow-laris? Lilariat Cheney?
Also, Risqué and Penance kind of already are roller derby names.
Add green team uniforms and brown bomber team jackets and they could be the Roller Rouges.
Jay and Miles are on a roll. Top quality podcasts one after another! But what was the secret at the end?
The reveal at the off-site party, you mean? *whistles innocently*
yeah exactly, that seemingly large reveal you totally shouldn’t tell anyone. Especially not in a reply to this comment……
It’s not mine to reveal. It’s podcast related, so the X-perts may be able to share it with listeners at some point. Or not. It’s their choice.
So, hearing Onslaught’s plan explained (getting into Count_Zero contextualizes X-Men with Anime), didn’t end up being as much of a “What?!” moment for me, if only because I had already seen Neon Genesis Evangelion. Technically, I’ve gone through the story 5 times – once as the anime, once as a manga, once with Mark Oshiro’s blogs on the series, once the Rewatch thread on RPGnet that was done by Shadowjack, and once with the RP thread on RPGnet where they RP’d supporting characters on the series as if they were posting on a message board during the series’ events that was done last year (as last year was canonically when Third Impact was supposed to happen – and thankfully didn’t).
Actually, if I was going to do a tribute podcast to Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men done for anime (Count_Zero and someone-who-I-can-rope-into-the-gig Analyze Anime), an explanation of The Human Instrumentality Project would be a perfect cold open, particularly since it’s a lot less explicitly textual, than, say, Kyubey’s people’s plan in Madoka Magica.
Ok so I’ve been thinking about appropriate commencement speakers, and I’ve got a couple –
Reed Richards at the Xavier Institute – “Follow your dreams, and if people tell you that something can’t be done grab a group of your friends and do it yourself (but um…maybe invent better cosmic ray shielding first).
Alex Summers at the Jean Grey School “Education is the greatest pursuit we can follow. As graduates of the Jean Grey School there are going to be a lot of people insisting that you have to be superheroes. Don’t listen to them, go off to college, get your degrees and don’t let yourself get sucked back in here. Education, not superheroics are what you should try and achieve.
Reverend Stryker at the Massachusetts Academy (thanks to conservatives on the Academy board wanting to “teach the controversy”) – “Mutants are servants of the devil and must be expunged from the earth. The media is going to tell you this is evil and impractical, don’t believe them. There is nothing that a small group of dedicated servants of God can’t achieve if their faith is strong and their weapons are explosive enough”
“In the interests of efficie.. I mean ‘environmental considerations’, we have buses waiting outside to take you home, where you’ll be safe.”
“What… too soon?”
I love it! I was trying to come up with some way to reference that story in his speech, but couldn’t quite find the wording.
I actually think that the Bishop/Sage buddy-cop thing from the Morrison run is pretty great. They’re a good duo for that kind of thing.
Also, I hate to “um, actually” you, but as an expert in Jay and Miles continuity (I’ve listened to every episode at least twice, and I’ve listened to the first 115 at least thrice, and most of them many, many more times than that), I can tell you that Miles swore first at an earlier convention, too, though I don’t remember off-hand if it was Emerald City or Rose City. Either way, at this point, while Jay may have more of a potty mouth in general, Miles definitely gets there first at the conventions. 🙂
It was at the Vegas Valley Comic Festival in Episode 83.
I actually think that the Bishop/Sage buddy-cop thing from the Morrison run is pretty great. They’re a good duo for that kind of thing.
Also, I hate to “um, actually” you, but as an expert in Jay and Miles continuity (I’ve listened to every episode at least twice, and I’ve listened to the first 115 at least thrice, and most of them many, many more times than that), I can tell you that Miles swore first at an earlier convention, too, though I don’t remember off-hand if it was Emerald City or Rose City. Either way, at this point, while Jay may have more of a potty mouth in general, Miles definitely gets there first at the conventions. 🙂
As for a commencement speaker, it’s a toughie. On the one hand, Hank McCoy – eloquent, charismatic, funny – is obvious, if he weren’t borderline evil. Kitty would be great, but there’s always the risk of a racial slur, so she’s out. Havok would go in one of two directions – either talking about how REAL school is better (see post above) or about how he’s an Alex and mutant identity doesn’t matter – and NEITHER is pretty. Cable, Bishop, Rachel, Nate Grey… all the future kids are out. And that leads to my personal choice: Emma Frost. Emma has the same strengths as Beast, but has the hero-villain thing going the CORRECT direction. She could legitimately talk about finding a home at Xavier’s, she can talk about what it’s like to have a life as a closeted mutant, she could talk compellingly about the temptations that are out there, particularly for a powerful mutant, and she’d do it all with that northeastern-or-British snark. I’d enjoy it, anyway. And if not Emma, then Doop. No one would understand him, but I’m sure it’d be great.
I think the Bishop/Sage partnership is from Claremont’s X-treme X-men (which was running concurrently with Morrison’s New X-men, so not far off). They were the lead cops in the first generation of the XSE that Ororo organized.
Never read it. But they definitely appear in the Morrison run in the “Murder in the Mansion” arc (139-141). I didn’t know the partnership from any other context, so thanks for the info!
Hah! I distinctly remember that arc, but for some reason thought it happened in Xtreme rather than the other way around.
But yeah the Xtreme run was a nice one. Since it was Claremont it was a lot heavier on Continuity but had some neat ideas.
Derby names…
Jean Cray
Gone Rogue
Moira Mac Tag Her
Lila Chainy
And not punny, but Skids and Shadowcat would both be amazing Jammers. Frenzy, Vertigo and Malice all just sound badass.
Derby Name
Emma Fists, the Fight Queen
::: spins bow tie, buys 12 pairs of cargo shorts ::
Commencement Speaker: Galactus.
Not only because everyone sees him as a being like themselves — imagine how Glob Herman or Doop would see Galactus — but man, the stories he could tell. You think mutants are hated and feared? Entire civilizations dedicate themselves to his eradication. He knows a thing or two about being unique. He also knows about self-righteous bald guys with too much power.
Roller Derby Names:
–Professor Wrecks (hey, a woman could use the name)
–Wrecks-23
–Xorn Up From the Floorn Up (okay, that one’s awful but I love it)
I’d love to see a Bishop and Banshee buddy cop adventure. With Bishop just tsking everything too seriously and Banshee just being totally chill! I want Black Tom and Fitzroy as villians!
In regards to Derby names:
Lila Painy and Abigail Branding-Iron
Me: “You know, I think I’ll download this episode to my smartphone so I can listen to it in my car through the stereo this morning.”
Miles: “…if you’re listening to this on your iPhone or car radio somehow…”
Jay: “Then you are already dead.”
Me: 🙁
BTW, if that panel about retcons and continuity was recorded and posted online, I’d love to hear that. That sounds amazing.
Roller derby names:
Jean Melee
Jube-kill-spree
Rob-hurt-o Da Costa
Killyana Rasputin
Since ‘boom boom von doom’, I’ve had ‘Ablockapyse’ on the mind and have been ever so subtly suggesting it to newer skaters on my derby team
Great episode and panel, it’s nice to re-live the experience of being there in person. This definitely moved X-Treme X-Men Vol 2 up in my to-read list, I don’t think I’ll be able to wait for the podcast to get there before reading it. 🙂
Bring in the High Evolutionary as Commencement Speaker. It’s good to get a different perspective, and he’s an erudite fellow with a charming accent and a positive attitude about following your ill-defined dreams.
Roller Derby Name: Ricochet Rita
It’s not a Roller Derby name I made up, but a few years ago at a Roller Derby match in New York there was a referee with the name Lady Refstrike.
She had big foam hands with Wolverine claws instead of a #1 finger. It was awesome.
That is amazing.
Roller Derby Names
Annihila Cheney
Reign Sinclair
Bobby Accosted
Mr. Insensitive
Omega Bled
How about Rogue-a-go-go, Mangling Maddie Pryor, Kitty “Shadow-splat” Pryde for Roller Derby names?
The Xavier School Commencement speaker is an easy decision. Professor X would have his favorite person give the commencement address, himself.
I actulaly had to go and look up what roller derby involved as I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone explain it. Based on that;
Rogue’n’Roll (Quite proud of that one for some reason)
The Scarlet B-word
If we include male characters
Havok and Cannonball are too obvious as names really, so how about;
Sunblock (I leave it to you to work out whether Sunfire or
Sunspot would be better using that name… i can see Bobby getting into the game)
“All out WAR”-lock
I think Layla Miller would be a great, if incredibly fatalistic, commencement speaker.
Roller derby name: Lady Deathskate.
Yesssssssss.
Eunice the Untouchable!
The Sluggernaut!
Erik the Shred! {who, rather obviously, will turn out to be Adam X the Xtreme}
Note to self: mine this thread for a derby name (referee, and male, specifically)