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In which we more or less prepare you for the upcoming feature film; Rachel Summers is a black hole of continuity; Kitty Pryde breaks the Danger Room; Earth 200500 is clearly the best earth; even the X-Men have no idea what’s going on; First Class Emma Frost is so boring that we forget she exists; wolverines are definitely not wolves; and you can have Rachel’s Community references when you pry them from her cold, dead hands.
X-Plained:
- Rachel Summers
- “Days of Future Past”
- Gravestone engraving standards of 2013
- The Mostly-New, Mostly-Different Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
- Another unfortunate hat
- Causality in the Marvel Multiverse
- Earths 811, 1191, 295, 311, and 200500
- Hall monitors with laser rifles
- How to fix a broken timeline
- The X-Men cinematic universe, and points of divergence from the comics
- The one thing X-Men: The Last Stand does right
- The Xavier Index of Cinematic Continuity
- The difference between Canis lupus and Gulo gulo
- A Days of Future Past cinematic cram course
- Fix-it fic
- Blink, Bishop, and dark-future mash-ups
- The enduring appeal of Earth-811
- The significantly less enduring appeal of Earth-242
- The Nazi Excalibur of Earth-597
You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.
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Next week: Greg Rucka, Cyclops, and Starjammers!
I do need to get around to reading more of the early Claremont era stuff. Unfortunately I missed out on the Comixology sale.
Also, I have a question. I really like Rachel Summers due to reading my mom’s old run of Excalibur, but I always forget how complicated her backstory is. Are they any other X-Men whose backstory that manages to top her in sheer complexity?
(Also, is it wrong that I still kinda like her mullet look from Excalibur?)
Cable’s is as bad (if not worse), because Summers kids. Fewer cosmic forces, but more clones.
(Alan Davis’s not-so-secret superpower is the ability to make even the worst haircuts look awesome.)
He also makes that costume look good. I’m glad that her current outfit draws inspiration from that outfit. I remember seeing pictures of her in her Marvel Girl inspired outfit, and it really didn’t fit the character.
For what it’s worth (which is to say, NOTHING) as I’ve been re-reading the early Claremont issues, I’ve run across one other instance of family members being immune to each other’s powers: Banshee and Black Tom cannot directly zap each other, and it’s noted at some point that this is because the two are cousins.
I just watched First Class pretty recently. I don’t recall Shaw’s group of villains being referred to as the Brotherhood at ANY point in the movie. They do, however, specifically refer to them as the Hellfire Club.
Yeah they never do I dont know how they got that idea at all.
I imagine you both have seen the Terminator, I’ve heard that Cameron was supposed to do an X-Men movie and it seems like Terminator has a lot of similarities to Days. Sarah Connor reminds me of Kitty, even hardening into a Kate Pryde persona by the end. The punks the Terminator attacks in the beginning are like the punks who accost Kate Pryde. Skynet are Sentinels and the Terminator is a Nimrod!
You mention that Pyro is English. My memory (from over 20 years ago) is that he was actually Australian. Great podcasts, by the way. Cheers.
I know this is 10 full years too late but I am just getting into x-men properly and this podcast has been INCREDIBLE! I’m not the biggest comic book reader but podcasts are definitely my medium so this could not be a better format for me. Thank you guys for your x-planations!
But yeah quick question, you mention in Earth 295 that professor X gets killed by a future version of his son and I’m curious if that may be Legion? They did such an incredible job with that show, I’m now wondering if they’re going to involve him/ Farouk in future Marvel cinematic universe stuff or any other more current Marvel happenings? This may get talked about in your 400+ more episodes but I’m only on ep 6 so please bare with me 🙂
Yep, that’s Legion we were talking about, specifically in the Legion Quest storyline! (As you suspect, we talk a TON about Legion over the years.) And agreed – that show was phenomenal, probably my favorite Marvel-related show.
If you’re a fan of the character and are interested in diving into the comics a little, there was a recent run of comics set in the Krakoa era in which Legion (and Nightcrawler) featured heavily:
Way of X (5 issues)
X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation (1-shot)
Legion of X (10 issues)
X-Men: Before The Fall – Sons of X (1-shot)
The Uncanny Spider-Man (5 issues)
Less recently, Si Spurrier’s run of X-Men Legacy was all about Legion and was great. That’s collected in one big volume.
Welcome to the podcast! Glad to have you!
Thank you so much for your prompt reply. Will definitely look into some of these comics you suggested and will continue listening and awaiting more Legion storylines.
Thanks again for making such an incredible podcast (for us auditory processors) and for keeping up with this blog 🙂 You guys rock!