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In which the term “bloodlust” shows up a lot in popular culture; Wolverine pees between panels; Michael Higgins has a lot to answer for; Jay wants to fight a comic book; Nightcrawler’s limbs have never seemed more potent; Florida kids don’t understand basements; and Doug Ramsey didn’t die for this.
X-PLAINED
- Chaos War
- Destiny’s diaries
- Wolverine: Bloodlust
- Excalibur: The Possession
- Bloodlust
- Several approaches to sound effects
- The greatest sound effect
- Perfect binding
- Several men who may or may not be Santa Claus
- The Christmas spirit
- Saskia
- The Hair
- Some varyingly graphic murders
- The Alshra
- The Neuri
- Wendigo rules
- Adamantium vs. healing factor
- Where Wolverine pees
- A statement of enmity
- Potent limbs
- Mr. Kaplan
- Weird happenings
- A man who is very obviously Merlin
- Some pedagogy
- An unfavorable Ed Wood comparison
- The Changeling (again)
- X-Force P.R.
- Space bros
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Boy, that really was terrible. Thanks for taking one for the team, guys! I hope it wasn’t *too* painful.
God I remember reading the Excalibur issue when it came out, and I too wanted to punch the book!
IT IS SO BAD AND I AM SO ANGRY AT IT
I don’t usually vibe with Jay’s negativity, though I respect his bad cop to Miles’s good, but it was so cathartic to hear his anger! Back when I bought that book I changed my policy of being an X completionist to “I will never by anything by Higgins ever again.” I hated that comic and am so happy to discover others do too.
The colouring was pretty great though.
With that stilted dialog in that Excalibur comic – I just finished reading The Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre for a Star Wars Legends Youtube video project I’ve been working on – and that first line with Meggan kinda gave me flashbacks to some of the horrifically stilted dialog that McIntyre gave Leia in that book.
Also, the Excalibur comic, and your reactions to it, remind me a lot of the review I watched of Bearded Idiot At Earth’s End.
Brief aside – on my SRW streams, I’m running into another gruff voiced character (Ryoma Nagare from Getter Robo Armageddon), and between him and the captain of the Yamato, it’s wearing out my throat – I’m trying to do something closer to your Wolverine voice, but I keep putting too much rasp into it, which between the two is getting painful. Do you have any tips for how you do your Wolverine voice?
My Logan voice (like my Rogue and Gambit voices) is pretty much an attempt to replicate the character’s voice from the 90s animated series. I recommend mainlining X-Men: TAS clips on YouTube to internalize Cal Dodd’s growl-without-rasp glory!
Vonda McIntyre? Oh dear God…
And just like that, suppressed memories of Superluminal, a sci-fi schlock paperback that pre-teen me probably only read because of the cover (and because I was a readaholic) come flooding back.
An… interesting double act of issuse here.
I remember being really irritated at the Excalibur story being invalidated, because I’d paid money for that ruddy special and suddenly it was “Surprise! We got your money and it doesn’t mean anything!” and then re-read it and thought “Well, I’m still annoyed at spending the money but I feel Alan Davis was fully justified in his choice”
I also like to think that Doug’s ghost appeared to help out because he was told it would help Kitty, and Merlin promised to give him a good reference for his upcoming “back from the dead” appeal… he was, of course, lying.
The last time I complimented someone on their potent limbs I was escorted out of my local Sears by security.
I remember having that EXCALIBUR special and even back then I didn’t think it was very good.
Also, re: Kurt’s Beyonder Hair, I’m waiting for him to rock a Flock of Seagulls ‘do. I feel like he could bring that look back strong.
Jay’s anger seems very much justified. And Miles’s ghost voice sounds a bit like Hub from TUTD’s Raven voice.
(Also – as a professional tutor who gets very protective of standards in my industry – I had Jay’s reaction to Miles’s tutoring analogy right before Jay did. Miles, you’re great, but PSA, if you ever have a tutor who does that, you probably need to hire a new tutor).
PEDAGOGY HIGH FIVE!
(At some point, I’m gonna end up nerding out really hard about Writing Center theory on the podcast, and it’s gonna be SO FUN.)
I am totally there for any and all iterations of that.
I have an education degree and my job literally involves teaching college faculty how to teach. I am so down to help with this!
I’m not sure if it’s irony or symmetry (if either) but my mother, a teacher for many years, always said her primary goal was to teach her pupils how to learn.
I’m so glad you complemented Bernie Jaye’s colours on Bloodlust. She’s one of my favourite colourists and I wish she’d done more work in the US market. She also edited a lot of the Davis/Moore Captain Britain and wrote Hell’s/Dark Angel for Marvel UK in the nineties. I’d love to see someone try to explain that.
It’s probably all in my head but I have a feeling that the butchered family is based on Alan Davis’s own family. They basically look like younger versions of the caricatures Davis draws in the Clan Destine ashcan a few years later.
As for the Excalibur special I think Marvel agree with Jay’s assessment. It not only isn’t on Marvel Unlimited but it doesn’t show up in searches as though it never existed.
It not being on Marvel Unlimited meant that I was unable to read it as homework for the podcast. Which sounds like a blessing, although possibly if the podcast had caused me to read it, I would be able to sue. It certainly sounds like it.
But the podcast did cause me to read Wolverine: Bloodlust. I didn’t read it the first time round, because I had given up the X-books and superhero comics in general. But if it had come out in, say, 1988 (and it easily could have), I would probably now be cringing at how much I loved it.
Because, my God, is that a product of the “Comics can be for grownups! They can, they can, they can!” era. Special/Prestige/Dark Knight Returns format, check. Terribly, terribly serious first-person narrative captions, check. Thematically about Man Pain, check. Political message, check. Not great handling of female character, check.
Although it’s far from the worst product of the grim-and-gritty-posing-as-adult period, and the art is gorgeous.
Jay, thank you so, so much for the wonderful collection of words that is “Who’s having yeti feelings?”
Just wanted to put in a pitch for Kevin Cannon’s Far Arden (and its sequel) for fantastic descriptive sound effects, including “HUMAN-SIZED BITE!!”
RE: Colossus & Cyclops conversations.
I recently just re-read X-Infernus where a handful of X-Men and Academy X kids head into Limbo to save Illyana from Belasco’s daughter Witchfire and there was a pretty interesting couple of exchanges between them that involved Peter trying to convince Scott to approve the mission. I believe the interactions are in the fist couple issues, but it’s only a four issue story.
Wow, Bloody Choices, that’s a random old Wolv 1shot, I didn’t think any of the X-Podz would ever cover. Well maybe ThePodcastThatGoesSnikt, but hey, u guys beat them to it. And we all know this is a competition, to be the first to cover stuff. u win! 😛
I’ve heard you guys say the ‘Tumbler’ & the ‘blog’ before, do all these words just mean THIS website?
Would u guys ever ACTUALLY had ADs in the show, if enough people didn’t donate? lol 😛
The following is the tumblr:
http://xplainthexmen.tumblr.com/
Notice the “tumblr” in the URL. The site you’re on now is “the wordpress”.
Ahh, OK thank you. Whats the difference/purpose of the tumblr vs this site? I still haven’t gotten around to googling what a tumbler is :P.
Not to speak for Jay and Miles as to the purpose of the different sites, but I can tell you the differences between the two. Tumblr blogs are are more for just image posts and comments. WordPress sites are more versatile with posting audio, RSS feeds, etc, plus you can own the domain.
sweet, thx alot Sam from Philly 😀
I can’t imagine floating the river where I’m not allowed to drink. You should come float the North Platte in Wyoming Miles. It is apparently a superior experience.
Higgins is my most hated writer in all of comics because he utterly destroyed my favorite book of the time (Power Pack). Along with Tom Morgan, who drew children like miniature bodybuilders. Uuuuugh, so bad.
I was also following New Mutants at the time, and similarly despised the book’s Liefeldization into X-Force (it wasn’t until he was off the book that I started liking it again).
I guess a lot of folks have a similarly complicated relationship with early 90s comics.
Also: YES PLEASE cover the Wolverine Jungle Adventure! I was so disappointed when Daken didn’t turn out to be THAT kid.