Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Month: May 2024

As Mentioned in Episode 450 – Live at the Clinton Street Theater

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A smooth criminal. (Uncanny X-Men #428)
X-Men: First Class: The Draco (Uncanny X-Men #428)
Well, then. (Uncanny X-Men #428)
I love that Wolverine tries to stop nude Nightcrawler from stealing the plane by throwing a beer can at it. (Uncanny X-Men #429)
You’d think he could at least let the cafeteria staff know he was planning on sleeping in there. (Uncanny X-Men #429)
Annie, no. (Uncanny X-Men #429)
This Hell sucks. (Uncanny X-Men #431)
And then Mystique flew violently out of a child’s abdomen, in one of the less bizarre scenes in this story arc. (Uncanny X-Men #431)
Dinner in Hell. (Uncanny X-Men #432)
*grumble grumble Daimon Hellstrom grumble* (Uncanny X-Men #432)
So, that happened. (Uncanny X-Men #433)
Either, really. (Uncanny X-Men #434)
Ginniyeh is the only remotely adequate demon in this arc. (Uncanny X-Men #434)
Awkward. (Uncanny X-Men #434)
NEXT EPISODE: Business as usual.

LINKS & FURTHER NONSENSE

450 – Live at the Clinton Street Theater

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In which we celebrate our tenth anniversary by X-Plaining what may be the most reviled X-arc; you should not try this at home; Mystique is so much better than this story; Azazel is a really boring devil; Nightcrawler should probably be missing a hand; the Xavier School definitely does not have an HR department; and we would prefer that you not pee on Iceman.

X-PLAINED:

  • Nightcrawler’s (most recent) parentage
  • Uncanny X-Men #428-434
  • X-Men Blue: Origins #1
  • The X-Men, like, in general
  • Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner)
  • Some narrative choices
  • Mystique
  • Baron Christian Wagner
  • Marvel Europe
  • Azazel
  • Church sex
  • Nightstreaker
  • Isla des Demonas
  • Foibles of Warren Kenneth Worthington III
  • Annie and Carter Ghazikhanian
  • Abyss
  • Kiwi Black
  • The Cheyarafim and Neyaphem
  • Bad times with psychic therapy
  • Post-traumatic supervillainy
  • Uncool Hell
  • A miracle of magnetism
  • The only cool thing in Uncool Hell
  • A very elegant retcon
  • X-Muppets
  • Characters who deserve more page space
  • Miles’s favorite X-Person
  • What the Worthington Corporation does
  • A character who could reasonably be Azazel’s kid

NEXT EPISODE: Back to X-business as usual!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

What We Talk About When We Talk About Talking About Stuff

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Hello!

We’ve mentioned before that we love our commenters here, and we do–you are some of the most consistently interesting and civil folks on the web. However, we want to take a moment to establish a few ground rules in context of some trends we’ve been seeing:

  1. This is not your personal blog. Keep comments germane to the post and the discussion.
  2. No linkspamming. If you post a link, it needs to have context–included in the comment–related to the conversation or the post. See above re: this not being your personal blog.
  3. No AI. No links to AI “art.” Seriously.

We’ll be enforcing these pretty rigorously, so if your comments aren’t getting through or are disappearing, consider how they may be interacting with the above guidelines.

Stay awesome!

Much love,
J&M

As Mentioned in Episode 449 – Dressing the X-Men, with Russell Dauterman

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Listen to the episode here!

The Marvel Art of Russell Dauterman!
Storm’s X-Men Red design.
The Scarlet Witch’s new design.
Nightcrawler’s original design by Dave Cockrum.
Hellfire Gala redesigns!
And some close-ups.
Jean Grey costume variant cover for X-Men #1.
Rogue costume variant cover for Excalibur #18.
Gambit costume variant cover for Gambit #5.
Thor costume variant cover for Thor #31.
Speaking of Thor – Russell’s wraparound cover for The Mighty Thor #1.
More covers! Here’s Marauders #1.
Scarlet Witch #3.
Giant Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost #1.
Variant cover, X-Men Legends #1.
Variant cover, X-Men ’97 #1.
NEXT EPISODE: Jay & Miles live at the Clinton Street Theater!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

449 – Dressing the X-Men, with Russell Dauterman

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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In which artist Russell Dauterman joins us to discuss super-powered costume design!

X-PLAINED:

  • Why it’s important to get a professional to design your superhero costume
  • Why Miles doesn’t trust the government
  • Russell’s history at Marvel
  • Designing for the Hellfire Gala
  • Mutant fashion
  • The word “fashionize”
  • Iconic looks
  • Modernizing superhero costumes
  • Powers vs. personality
  • Punk goddess Storm
  • Designing for drawability
  • Magic hair
  • Russell’s influences
  • Definitive Rogue costumes
  • X-Men ‘97
  • Best X-team costumes
  • Jay’s holy grail cosplay
  • Magic hair, cosplayed
  • Costume retrospectives
  • Where to find Russell online
  • Evil twin trends of the 1990s
  • Fuck You Pink

NEXT EPISODE: Jay & Miles Live at the Clinton Street Theater!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 448 – Skamageddon

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Listen to the episode here.

The two Emma Frosts: Shadowy and Pouty. (X-Force #87)
James Proudstar x-plains Uncanny X-Men #281. (X-Force #87)
Reconnecting via X-Factoring. (X-Force #87)
Now that is a lair. (X-Force #87)
Magma’s back! And she’s a jerk! (X-Force #87)
Meet Paradigm. (X-Force #87)
The New New Mutants vs. the New Hellions. New. (X-Force #88)
We can accept covering Empath’s face with word balloons – but hey, show some respect to Firestar! (X-Force #88)
Feral’s back – just in time to wreck Jay’s voice again! (And Siryn’s, but we’ll get to that later.) (X-Force #88)
Life got complicated since the last time these two saw each other. (X-Force #88)
X-Force’s x-treme tactics have just saved us like half an issue of misunderstandings! (X-Force #88)
The techno-organic virus: bad for free will and not great for skin health. (X-Force #88)
Paradigm x-plains X-Force. (X-Force #89)
This party sucks! (X-Force #89)
Blood relation has no inherent virtue. (X-Force #89)
Aww, there’s plenty of logic! Just look at the little manual that comes with most Tarot decks! (X-Force #89)
Among Dani’s new powers is the ability to turn robot-guys into eggs. (X-Force #89)
Kind of a weird font choice. Times New Armageddon? (X-Force #89)
Feral never misses an opportunity to learn the worst possible lesson. (X-Force #90)
Tarot, is that really a new manifestation of your mutant power, or did you just rob a Spirit Halloween? (X-Force #90)
Welp, I guess the entire West coast is completely demolished and will take decades to rebuild. Funny how no other comics have mentioned that… (X-Force #90)
Sorry, Jesse. Your brother is the absolute worst. (X-Force #90)
Sam Guthrie: annoying people into virtue since 1980-something. (X-Force #90)
BADDA BOOM (X-Force #90)
Aww. (X-Force #90)
NEXT TIME: Talking X-costumes with Russell Dauterman!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

448 – Skamageddon

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Feral’s back – just in time to wreck Jay’s voice again! (And Siryn’s, but we’ll get to that later.) (X-Force #88)

In which timeline math is almost never worth it; Tarot comes back from the dead (kind of) (maybe); Magma makes a heel turn; “King Bedlam” would be a great name for a ska band; not every nude man can turn into a bear; and you don’t have to talk to your supervillain relatives.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Triune Understanding
  • Birthday party follow-up
  • X-Force #87-90
  • Legacy and continuity
  • Bedlam (Jesse Aaronson)
  • Tarot (Marie-Ange Colbert)
  • Goat Simulator
  • King Bedlam (Christopher Aaronson)
  • The New Hellions
  • Perils of body-swapping
  • Linear time
  • Science
  • Armageddon Man
  • Paradigm
  • Senator Owen Danville
  • Family
  • A fancy hat
  • Madame Web
  • Many natural disasters
  • Early Genoshan history
  • Longshot as a villain

NEXT EPISODE: Dressing the X-Men with Russell Dauterman!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!