Saving the world is all well and good, but Kitty Pryde knows what superheroism is REALLY about: the costumes!
This month, we’re celebrating Kitty’s myriad and multiversal superthreads with David Wynne’s fantastic homage to the classic Frazetta What’s New Pussycat? poster, featuring a whopping seven of Kitty’s signature looks over the years. For bonus mileage, go meta and incorporate it into your own superhero costume—or use the matchingmugs to get you through the Kitty’s Costumes drinking game next time you marathon the Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men archives!
What’s New Shadowcat? shirts will be available until April 1, then disappear forever (mugs, tote bags, and/or throw pillows may persevere longer). David also has the original art for sale over here!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/8/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which we bid a fond farewell to Bill Sienkiewicz; Secret Wars II continues to ruin everything; the New Mutants end up in an improbable number of gladiatorial arenas; Shadowcat’s secondary mutation is queer subtext; Magik gives no fucks about your crossover event; Warlock transcends storytelling conventions; and Karma rejoins the team.
X-PLAINED:
The chronologically inconsistent mobility of Professor Xavier
The Shadow King
New Mutants #29-34
Steve Leialoha
The Arena (more) (again)
Evil group projects
Easter eggs
Rachel Summers: butch fashion icon
Some major failures of positive size diversity in comics
Madripoor
Ashake
The incredible changing Guthries
The wickedest club in Cairo
Default X-teams
Cypher’s powers
NEXT WEEK: Miles and Elisabeth Allie X-Plain X-Men / Alpha Flight
In which Miles once again holds down the fort, and Rachel is too tired to come up with more engaging copy than this.
Reviewed:
All-New X-Men #38 (00:19)
Spider-Man and the X-Men #3 (1:46)
Amazing X-Men #17 (3:08)
Wolverines #8 (4:29)
Uncanny Avengers #2 (6:15)
Pick of the Week: Avengers World #17; which is neither technically an X-book nor of this week, but is good enough that we don’t care. (8:19)
RACHEL ADDS:
I kind of love Miles’s vague implication that I’m cooling my heels in Mexico until things blow over.
Here are my very short and sleep-deprived addenda to the reviews:
All-New X-Men #38
Often, “very Bendis” is a compliment. This is not one of those times: the cleverness comes at the expense of characters’ voices. Not exactly bad, but frustrating. I’m pretty damn excited about Teen Space Pirate Cyclops to the rescue, though; and the fact that that probably means a more organic end to the Cyclops ongoing than the abrupt cancellation I was sort of expecting.
Spider-Man and the X-Men #3
This is the ideal use of this team, and I feel really good about it and also about Ernst busting down walls. The first few issues were fun but kind of flailing; here, it feels like the book is really finding its voice and catching its stride.
Amazing X-Men #17
Too busy cracking up at the return of one of my favorite dumb Silver-Age villains to objectively review this.
Wolverines #8 Um, actually, Miles, both Fang’s debut and the incident in which Wolverine stole his costume took place during the M’Kraan Crystal storyline, not the Dark Phoenix Saga.
That said, there is literally nothing about this issue that I did not enjoy immensely. Also, I really hope that Fang and Volstagg turn out to be buddies, because they obviously should be.
Uncanny Avengers #2
Meh. I’m having trouble caring about this storyline. I recognize that Acuña is objectively good at what he does, but at the same time, his art completely fails to hold my attention, which sort of sums up my feelings on this series in general.
-Rachel, who is not actually on the lam in Mexico; although she has learned a lot over the last few days about the laws and logistics concerning international transport of human remains.
These video reviews are made possible by the support of our Patreon subscribers. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
You know how I said that X-Men: Evolution is really entertaining even when it’s really, really bad? This week, we’re gonna put that to the test. Prepare for more rock puns than you have ever heard in a single 22-minute stretch. Also, Transformers. Kinda.
In other news, I still have no idea what the titles refer to.
BUT FIRST, A PRETEND HORROR MOVIE!
We open with the Pryde home, in a fictional town in Illinois. The town has a name, but I don’t care what it is, and it’s never going to be relevant again, so I’m just gonna call it Fake Deerfield. Cool? Cool.
OH, MY GOD, IT’S GRATUITOUS LIGHTNING!
Kitty dreams that she’s falling, and–spoiler–she actually falls through her bed and floor and lands in the basement. She wakes up screaming, and her parents rush down to comfort her. They think she was sleepwalking–until they look up and a PORTENTOUS FLASH OF LIGHTNING illuminates her blanket, embedded in the basement ceiling.
OH MY GOD! THAT’S–actually, wait, that’s not scary at all.
Okay, look, I get what they were shooting for here, but you know who has the least horror-movie powers of just about all the X-Men? Hint: It’s definitely Kitty, barring the stories where phased becomes her default state (which this isn’t). Framing this scene and the Prydes’ cheerfully generic suburban house like a horror movie reminds me of one of those recut trailers where you try to make a movie look like a genre it obviously isn’t; or a kid telling a shaggy-dog joke and then waiting for you to be overjoyed at the lack of punchline; or the entire movie White Noise.1 It’s all buildup, with no proportionate payoff.
Ew, Cerebro, no. Don’t do that.
Meanwhile, back at Stately Xavier Manor, Kitty’s late-night spill pings Cerebro. Does anyone else find it unsettling that Professor X has a psychic supercomputer that provides him with turnaroundfull body scans of teenagers?
Also, Cerebro accurately predicts the outfit that Kitty is going to wear to school the next day.2
“What am I?” wails Kitty. “What’s happening to me?” Just give it five seconds, kid–the credits montage identifies you quite clearly as Shadowcat.
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 3/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
The first page of Lifedeath II. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Contrast to the first page of Lifedeath I, 12 issues previous. (Uncanny X-Men #186)
Hallucinatory Forge. Check out those background textures, too. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Barry Windsor Smith’s X-Men. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Pretty snake. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Isn’t it cool how when you don’t compulsively draw every woman as super sexy all the time, you can actually tell stories? (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Motion and rhythm in a still medium. (Uncanny X-Men #198)
Didn’t actually talk about these panels in the episode, but can we just take a moment to admire how splendidly Barry Windsor-Smith draws hands? And, y’know, everything else? (Uncanny X-Men #198)
SERIOUSLY, THIS COMIC. THIS IS OUR STORM.(Uncanny X-Men #198)
Tanya Moodie as Hunter in Neverwhere.
Frenzy is both rad as hell and criminally underused. ARE YOU THERE, MARVEL? IT’S ME, RACHEL. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 1 #249)
Idie Okonkwo (Oya) is awesome and adorable and also one of the best new X-characters of the last five years. (Generation Hope #10)
Next Week: A lot of Beauty and the Beast callbacks.
This didn’t actually come up in the episode, but you’ve got just under one week left to get What Would Peter Corbeau Do? t-shirts before they disappear FOREVER.
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 3/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which we discard our regularly scheduled programming to focus on Storm and Lifedeath II; no one draws motion like Barry Windsor-Smith; Storm goes up to eleven; and we really wish we had the frame of reference to place this story in the larger context of diaspora literature.
X-Plained:
Forge
The Adversary
Uncanny X-Men #198 (Lifedeath II)
Storm
The narrative impact of sexualization
Barry Windsor-Smith
Extreme weather in comics
Hallucinatory X-Men
Storm in adaptation
The Storm elevator pitch
Our Storm dream casting
Mjnari
Artist editions
Colonialism
Storm as a liminal figure
NEXT WEEK: The New Mutants Go to the Arena!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
In which we spoil the hell out of Uncanny X-Men #31, Rachel has Mystique feelings, and Kris Anka draws the best bitchface ever forever.
Reviewed:
*Uncanny X-Men #31 (1:00)
Legendary Star-Lord #9 (5:08)
Storm #8 (6:23)
Wolverines #7 (8:45)
Magneto #15 (10:56)
*Pick of the week (13:02)
These video reviews are made possible by the support of our Patreon subscribers. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
I was a little too old to catch X-Men: Evolution the first time around. It debuted my freshman year of college, corresponding with the peak of my nerd pretension—that larval-geek phase where you insist on calling all comics graphic novels—and like the arch little fucker I was, I dismissed it sight-unseen as X-Men dumbed down.
A few years ago, I finally sat down and watched my way through X-Men: Evolution and came away with two conclusions: teenage Rachel was kind of a dolt; and X-Men: Evolution is delightful.
Not only is Evolution not X-Men dumbed down, it’s a really clever, appealing reinvention. In fact, Evolution accomplishes what the Ultimate universe never quite could: shaking off years of continuity and attracting an entirely new audience with a distilled version of one of Marvel’s most convoluted lines.
If you’re not familiar with X-Men: Evolution, the premise is roughly thus: The Xavier Institute is an extracurricular boarding school of sorts, whose students are mainstreamed into their district school—Bayville High—for academics. Some of the characters—Storm, Wolverine, and Professor Xavier on the side of the angels; Mystique, Magneto, and a few others on the other end of the moral spectrum—stay adults; everyone else is aged down to teenagers. Evolution draws characters and some story hooks from the comics, but for the most part, it occupies its own discrete continuity.
And as continuities go, it’s a good one. It’s clever and fun, it’s got a ton of heart, and it stays true to the core themes and characters of the source material without becoming overly beholden to the letter of the text. By the end, it’ll become a really, really good show; but even when it’s bad, X-Men: Evolution is bad in really entertaining ways.
Which is important, because X-Men: Evolution gets off to a pretty rocky start.
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 2/22/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Ruth and Luca Aldine. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #5)
Our introduction to Legion. (New Mutants #25)
Legion has consistently inspired some of the best covers in Marvel’s lineup. (New Mutants #26)
DON’T WEAR FRINGED BOOTS TO THE GYM, TOM CORSI. DON’T DO THAT. (New Mutants #26)
That creepy laughter is so awesome. (New Mutants #26)
VVTOOOOM! (New Mutants #26)
Warlock is the best ever, forever. (New Mutants #26)
WARLOCK IS THE BEST EVER, FOREVER. (New Mutants #26)
Not gonna lie: watching the White Queen take Empath to task was pretty satisfying. (New Mutants #26)
Warlock is not super good at being human, and it is charming as hell. (New Mutants #26)
In which Charles Xavier owns some fairly heinous shit. (New Mutants #26)
No, seriously: Legion covers are pretty much always top notch. (New Mutants #27)
Next time you watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall, pretend it’s about Legion and Professor X. It works surprisingly well. (New Mutants #27)
Jack, Jemail, Cyndi–and David. (New Mutants #27)
Legion’s mindscape. It’s not a Demon Bear, but it’ll do. (New Mutants #27)
Does Jack Wayne scare you? He should. (New Mutants #27)
Cyndi: your angry teenager’s inner angry teenager. (New Mutants #27)
Who needs nuance when you can straight-up stab a dude instead? (New Mutants #27)
Love, love, love this title page. (New Mutants #28)
Lee Forrester contemplates consent, power dynamics, and maybe also Lovecraftian horrors. (New Mutants #28)
The last panel is, of course, a lie. (New Mutants #28)
The first time Legion broke the Marvel Universe. (X-Men vol. 2 #41)
The second time Legion broke the Marvel Universe. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 1 #248)
Legion’s mental prison, at the beginning of X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #1…
…and after the jailbreak in X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #2.
The Origamist. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #4)
It is entirely fair to judge X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 by Mike Del Mundo’s gorgeous, brilliant covers.
Seriously, look at this. They are all this good. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #6)
Professor Y. (X-Men: Legacy vol. 2 #6)
Next Week: We were going to cover a whole bunch of X-Men, but we ended up spending the whole time talking about Storm and Lifedeath II. WE REGRET NOTHING.
Art by David Wynne. Prints, cards, and travel mugs available until 2/22/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which Legion grows from setting to protagonist; Rachel is a master of narrative rationalization; “Claremont” is a verb; Warlock befriends an airplane; Xavier owns a significant mistake; New Mutants does a deep dive into power dynamics; you should go read X-Men: Legacy already; and Si reveals the true secret nature of reality.
X-PLAINED:
Blindfold (Ruth Aldine)
Luca Aldine
Legion (David Haller)
Mental illness in fiction
New Mutants #26-28
Socialized medicine
Appropriate gym apparel
Rachel’s favorite scene from any X-book, ever
Claremonting
Jack Wayne
Cyndi
Jemail Karami
Roughly 20 years of condensed continuity
The Age of Apocalypse
Age of X
X-Men: Legacy vol. 2
Father issues
David Haller’s accent
The Origamist
Santi Sardina
A visual metaphor
The true secret nature of reality
Professor Y
The Franklin Richards Universe Hypothesis
NEXT WEEK: Spotlight on Storm
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
