Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Author: Jay

As Mentioned in Episode 417 – Pterodactyl with a Gun

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Rogue anxiety dreams like nobody’s business. (Uncanny X-Men #353)
We call this move the “Lois Lane.” (Uncanny X-Men #353)
I love it when people remember that the Xavier School is–at least ostensibly–a real school. (Uncanny X-Men #353)
WOLVERINE, WHAT THE HELL?!? (Uncanny X-Men #353)
Not the best place to hide incredibly sensitive mechanical equipment, y’all. (Uncanny X-Men #353)
This is supposed to be a clever bait-and-switch, but that hand is fairly obviously not Rogue’s. (Uncanny X-Men #353)
He sure is. (Uncanny X-Men #353)
Valid question, buddy. (Uncanny X-Men #354)
Sauron’s current whereabouts, X-Plained. (Uncanny X-Men #354)
Continued from previous. (Uncanny X-Men #354)
Fuckin’ Marvel Canadians. (Uncanny X-Men #355)
Remember answering machines? (Uncanny X-Men #355)
Yes, excellent. (Uncanny X-Men #355)
Hi, brainwashed Alpha Flight! (Uncanny X-Men #355)
This sequence is objectively perfect. (Uncanny X-Men #355)
Jean, you REALLY don’t spring that costume on someone. (Uncanny X-Men #354)
…Fair, though. (Uncanny X-Men #355)
NEXT EPISODE: this whole mess

417 – Pterodactyl with a Gun

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In which you, too, can use Cerebro; Jubilee is here, for some reason; the Xavier School should absolutely not be accredited; Hulk Hands would solve many of Rogue’s problems; Sauron gets a gun; Psylocke pulls a Lois Lane maneuver; you really shouldn’t spring a Phoenix costume on anybody; Joseph has (another) identity crisis; and Canada has problems.

X-PLAINED:

  • Miles at SDCC
  • Uncanny X-Men #353-355
  • X-Men #73
  • A running motif
  • Wolverine’s sons
  • Margaret Stone
  • “fun”
  • The location of the original X-jet
  • A red herring
  • Sauron (more) (again)
  • Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy… in space!
  • How to ship a pterodactyl
  • Mighty appendages
  • The Agee Institute
  • Boundaries
  • Wallpaper
  • Joseph (more) (again)
  • New Year’s Resolutions
  • Sebastian Shaw and his wraith buddy (again)
  • The X-Men’s answering machine
  • What Wolverine does
  • Alpha Flight
  • Canada problems
  • A crossover
  • Phoenix problems
  • Jean Grey’s ‘90s costume
  • Found families
  • What makes the Dark Phoenix Saga an X-Men story

NEXT EPISODE: Reignfire, resolved!

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As Mentioned in Episode 416 – The Screaming Room

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Okay, but it’s pretty fucking creepy as a toy, too. (Excalibur #118)
Aaaaand there he goes. (Excalibur #118)
Meanwhile in AWESOME. (Excalibur #118)
Oh, THAT guy. (Excalibur #118)
Nightcrawler’s nightmare. (Excalibur #119)
Colossus’s nightmare. (Excalibur #119)
Shadowcat’s nightmare. (Excalibur #119)
Douglock’s nightmare. (Excalibur #119)
Meggan’s nightmare, featuring a whole lot of great cameos! (Excalibur #119)
I’m not a smoker, but I wanna learn to blow smoke rings like that. (Excalibur #119)
Ouch. (Excalibur #120)
NEXT EPISODE: Why, indeed.

416 – The Screaming Room

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In which we are incapable of X-Plaining the Great Lakes Avengers; Pete Wisdom evolves; Douglock hacks the island; Nightcrawler cosplays Nightcrawler; and we find ourselves bafflingly defensive of the Bamfs.

X-PLAINED:

  • How to recruit Unus the Untouchable to your super-team
  • What Excalibur has been up to
  • Excalibur #118-120
  • An excellent use of danger room technology
  • Some fairly deft metacommentary
  • Colossus vs. another tree
  • Bamfs and the character assassination thereof
  • Nightmare
  • Characterization via lettering
  • Several nightmare scenarios
  • Pete Wisdom vs. Nightmare
  • Meggan’s true form (again)
  • A poorly conceived romantic gesture
  • Foreshadowing
  • Relative Bamf quality
  • Other Marvel villains we’d like to see menace the X-Men
  • Our thoughts on Legion and The Gifted

NEXT EPISODE: A pterodactyl with a gun!

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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As Mentioned in Episode 415 – Stardust

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This is a cruel hoax. Mister Sinister appears nowhere in this miniseries. (Gambit vol. 2 #1)
Meet Olivier Stoker and his somewhat peculiar aesthetic. (Gambit vol. 2 #1)
Those playing-card captions. (Gambit vol. 2 #1)
WHAT THE HELL IS IN THE BOX, THOUGH?!?!!? (Gambit vol. 2 #1)
She must be an angel: surely no mere mortal’s hair would censor their swimsuit areas with such precision. (Gambit vol. 2 #1)
WHY IS THERE A TENTACLE (Gambit vol. 2 #2)
Spooning with Sister Katrina. (Gambit vol. 2 #2)
Meet Sybil! (Gambit vol. 2 #2)
“LITERALEEEEEEEEEEEEE” (Gambit vol. 2 #2)
Stoker and his little friends. (Gambit vol. 2 #2)
Surfin’ Pew S A. (Gambit vol. 2 #3)
Maybe next time try speed dating. (Gambit vol. 2 #3)
She’s fun at parties. (Gambit vol. 2 #3)
Anielle unleashed. (Gambit vol. 2 #4)
Aw, Katrina, no. (Gambit vol. 2 #4)
And they all lived happily ever after? (Gambit vol. 2 #4)
NEXT EPISODE: This fuckin’ thing.

 

415 – Stardust

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In which Gambit does Stardust; Wilbur Weston holds no one’s redemption; Gambit is unequivocally bisexual; Lucifer is kinda goofy; and we still don’t know what’s in the box.

X-PLAINED:

  • Family businesses
  • Gambit vol. 2 #1-4
  • What Gambit’s been up to
  • Some peculiar parallels
  • Father Miguel Bonavita
  • Sister Katrina
  • Father Marcelo
  • A box
  • Tante Mattie Baptiste
  • Olivier Stoker and/or Lucifer
  • Fancy captions
  • The Cross of Redemption
  • Anielle, who may or may not Hanael and may or may not also be a fallen star and/or angel
  • Gambit’s subconscious
  • Octopus Gambit
  • The Grigori
  • Sibyl
  • Cerberus
  • Wormwood
  • Pew surfing
  • CyberFork
  • Spitting locusts, sadly
  • A bad take on the trolley problem
  • An ambiguous ending
  • A pecular transition
  • Genre displacement
  • Warlock as a form of art
  • Elon Musk’s closest X-villain analog

NEXT EPISODE: Dark night of the Bamf!

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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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As Mentioned in Episode 414 – Blackwater Boy Band

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Man, borzoi are so weird.
I mean, look at these alien-ass dogs.
Who are they, really?
What do they want from us?
This one looks like a greyhound jumping out of a splash of water, only all the parts are dog.
I wonder if they know what we’re thinking.
Probably, right?
Seriously, though, LOOK AT THEM.
NEXT EPISODE: Gambit gets another miniseries!

414 – Blackwater Boy Band

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In which Wild Child makes an unlikely Santa Claus; Sabretooth champions continuity; Random’s last name should’a been Violence; Forge doesn’t have to like you; and Mackie’s X-Factor run gets interesting—right before its untimely end.

X-PLAINED:

  • Another X-Factor
  • X-Factor #142-145
  • Unrealized anticipation
  • Deadline
  • What Val Cooper wants for Christmas
  • The evolutionary symbolism of noses
  • Several breeds of dog
  • The secret history of Val Cooper and Wild Child
  • Wildheart
  • The Secret Empire
  • The X.U.E. (more) (again)
  • Ice skating, interrupted
  • Another cool way to draw Havok’s powers
  • A clever retcon
  • The X-Factor that might have been
  • Greystone’s origins
  • Micah
  • A temple of doom
  • The hierarchy of cool skulls
  • Branching timelines and the implications thereof
  • An Alex Summers / Moira MacTaggert chimera

NEXT EPISODE: Gambit, again.

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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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As Mentioned in Episode 413 – Convergence

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We’re still not sure about the word for a gatefold-and-a-half, but here’s a good one. (X-Force #75)
Welcome to Exploding Colossal Man! (X-Force #75)
Karma and her girlfriends. (X-Force #75)
I’d like to think she spends her time being an asshole at New Age bookstores, too. (X-Force #75)
Wandering down memory lane with Mirage and Warpath. (X-Force #75)
OOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh (X-Force #75)
This is really about as far as that ever gets X-Plained. (X-Force #75)
I really dig the weirdness of the art of the Colossal Man. (X-Force #75)
If you know, you know. (New Mutants vol. 4 #30)
This gimmick has been used a lot over the years… (X-Force #76)
…but it plays nicely here. (X-Force #76)
Noooooooooooooo! (X-Force #76)
A very fun fight (at least for the reader). (X-Force #76)
Two great tastes that go great together! (X-Force #76)
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor spirals towards its inexorable lack of conclusion.

413 – Convergence (feat. Douglas Wolk)

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In which X-Force goes to Burning Man Exploding Colossal Man; Douglas Wolk may or may not have superpowers; Karma gets girlfriends; we are already tired of Reignfire; Meltdown and Sunspot initiate a love triangle; and Jay is writing some more X-Men.

X-PLAINED:

  • Road trips
  • X-Force #75-76
  • New Mutants vol. 4 #30
  • A gatefold and a half
  • Burning Man
  • Exploding Colossal Man
  • Karma’s name
  • Echidna Faire
  • Text
  • Selene (more) (again)
  • Crowd scenes
  • Various character relationships
  • Callbacks
  • Mud
  • A magic box and a fancy stick
  • Eitri the Dwarf
  • A grand conjunction
  • A big, silly fight
  • Peak late ‘90s queer culture
  • Echidna Faire
  • Bowling
  • Etienne Rousseau
  • Updating Bastion’s facial hair
  • Wolverine’s mentees

NEXT EPISODE: The beginning of the end of X-Factor

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!