Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

374 – SMEK

Frank Punisher, wearing his skull uniform, frolics arm-in-arm with Carl the X-Cutiioner, dressed in a motley assembly of supervillain gear, through a field of flowers.
Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Frank Punisher is not a role model; Carl the X-Cutioner is not very good at secret identities; Miles tries his hand at poetry; and everything’s funny with a sidecar.

X-PLAINED:

  • Frankencastle
  • Frank Punisher and his cultural context
  • Punisher #12-16
  • Carl the X-Cutioner
  • S.H.I.E.L.D.
  • The New Mutant Liberation Front and several members thereof
  • William Connover (again)
  • Agynt Kymberly Taylor
  • Optimal sidecar use
  • Simon Trask
  • What it’s like to kiss Frank Punisher
  • Poor management technique
  • How we choose what to reveal when
  • The timeline where Magik is textually queer

NEXT EPISODE: The actual X-Men!


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

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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!

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372 – Monty Python’s Life of Magnus

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which the first Magneto miniseries is actually a Joseph miniseries; Magneto lost a lot of nuance in the ‘90s; Fabian Cortez is friend to neither man nor bird; Joseph finds his inner supervillain; Marvel’s United Nations is unusually heavily armed; and bears are much cooler than guns.

X-PLAINED:

  • Magneto (again)
  • The Acolytes (again)
  • Joseph (again)
  • Magneto #1-4
  • Amelia Voght (again)
  • Religious statuary
  • Razors
  • New Avalon
  • Magneto’s voice
  • How not to make a point
  • Armstrong
  • A Trask who may or may not be Simon
  • Weird torture
  • Peonies
  • A big, silly fight
  • Happy X-Men comics featuring Wolverine
  • The many nexuses of reality

NEXT EPISODE: Assassination!


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

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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!

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371 – Beware of Psychodrama

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Douglock is Douglock; Kitty Pryde gets lost in nostalgia; it continues to suck to be Colossus; Professor Xavier is a jerk; the MLF makes one and only one valid point; Ben Raab’s Excalibur run begins; the Acolytes try to get the band back together; and the land mines are a metaphor that are also real land mines.

X-PLAINED:

  • Exodus
  • Excalibur #104-106
  • The current state of Excalibur
  • Douglock
  • B.P.R.D.
  • New Mutants #64 callbacks
  • Wolfsbane’s default form
  • Nostalgia
  • The Xavier Protocols (again)
  • The MLF (again)
  • The Mysterious Moonstar
  • Selby
  • The Prodigy
  • Character shifts between writers
  • Age of Jay and Miles
  • How not to write a letter in a comic book
  • Assless chaps
  • Land mines
  • Unuscione
  • Scanner
  • Mutant lawyers
  • Cyclops’s color vision

NEXT EPISODE: Magneto, now with his own miniseries!


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

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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!

368 – Six Teenagers in a Van

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we return to Rutland, Vermont; Emma Frost faces her salad demons; Banshee is not even supposed to be here today; no one should ever have to drive in New York City; Fenris is both evil and obnoxious; and we’re still not over that one Senator Kelly action figure.

X-PLAINED:

  • How to help us help queer and trans youth
  • Generation X #22
  • Generation X Annual 1996
  • Halloween with Generation X
  • Stag Beetle Magazine
  • X-casting Nicholas Cage
  • Neurotica
  • William Castle
  • Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations
  • Saturday morning cartoons
  • Weird gardening
  • Some very clever lettering tricks
  • Several humans
  • Train delays
  • Fenris
  • Mutagen Wave Generator
  • The Worst Action Figure (more) (again)
  • Robert the Ship
  • Our favorite Beast iterations
  • Abbreviations

NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine and some other guys!


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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Help Us Support Queer and Trans Youth!

Actual map of Florida.

On Monday, March 28, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB1557–the notorious “don’t say gay” bill–into law. This bill is part of an unprecedented wave of legislation targeting queer and trans youth, with potentially deadly consequences.

Florida may be America’s favorite trash fire, but we’re not willing to give up on our home state; and we’re DEFINITELY not willing to give up on the queer and trans kids who live there.

So we’re fighting back.

All April, we’ll be raising money for Equality Florida. Between our own contributions and the generous support of anonymous donors, we’re in a position to match up to $6000 of your contributions AND offer some very cool prizes.

HERE’S WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO:

AND HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL GET:

  • IF YOU DONATE UNDER $25 – You’ll have our eternal love and gratitude, as well as the warm, fuzzy feeling of making a difference.
  • IF YOU DONATE $25 OR MORE – We’ll thank you on the podcast. (Note: these’ll be straightforward thanks, not the silly kind we do for patrons.)
  • IF YOU DONATE $50 OR MORE – Miles, who is adamantly Not an Artist, will draw you an earnest and possibly terrible social media X-avatar.
  • IF YOU DONATE $100 OR MORE – We’ll record a custom voicemail greeting for you.
  • IF YOU DONATE $200 OR MORE – Jay will knit you a hat.
  • IF YOU DONATE $500 OR MORE – We’ll record a Hawk Talk on a subject of your choice.

Thank you, so much, for fighting with us. <3

-J&M

367 – Jay and Connor X-Plain X-Casting

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Jay and guest X-Pert Connor Goldsmith explore approaches to podcasting about X-Men; difficult characters; costume preferences; our mutual mistrust of horses; owning our perspectives; and good on-ramps.

X-PLAINED:

  • The ghost of Madelyne Pryor
  • Cerebro (podcast)
  • Good Selene stories
  • Potential vs. payoff
  • Costume opinions
  • Fashion in comics
  • Horse problems
  • The Maple Hill Farm books
  • Science vs. magic
  • Learning to love X-Force
  • Speaking ~as~ vs. speaking ~for~
  • Twitter
  • The (fairly uncomplicated) ethics of liking things
  • Reading as a prosecutor
  • Catching up to the modern X-Men
  • Critical perspective

NEXT EPISODE: Generation X


Find links and further reading related to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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 366 – Nine-Tenths of the Law

Listen to the episode here.


366 – Nine-Tenths of the Law

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which the Beast miniseries is actually a cleverly disguised Karma miniseries; Gateway’s moral alignment remains a mystery; Cannonball rocks some sideburns; there are many reasons to dislike Viper; and every #1 is somebody’s first.

X-PLAINED:

  • An off-panel death
  • X-Force #62
  • Beast #1-3
  • Karma’s family and backstory (again)
  • Twin absorption
  • MacGuffins and/or children
  • Clearcut and Mindmeld
  • Unconsciousness
  • Spiral (again)
  • Marios
  • What to do (visually) with six arms
  • Spiral’s mutates
  • Some very impressive body horror
  • MId-fight stalling
  • Misplaced revenge
  • Hank McCoy’s multiversal offspring
  • The history of Karma’s sexual orientation

NEXT EPISODE: Jay and Connor Goldsmith X-Plain X-Plaining!


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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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 365 – A Whole Year of This Nonsense

Listen to the episode here.