In which we carefully avoid spoiling Uncanny X-Men and remain disappointed by the lack of Wolverines heists; and Rachel mispronounces Bachalo but doesn’t realize until she’s already editing the video (oops).
Reviewed:
Uncanny Avengers vol. 2 #1 (0:27)
*Uncanny X-Men #30 (2:59)
Wolverines #4 (4:17)
Spider-Man and the X-Men #2 (5:52)
Amazing X-Men #16 (6:57)
*Pick of the Week (8:22)
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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 2/1/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which Nimrod is probably an honorary Summers by this point; Claremont hits a centennial; it’s probably pretty hard to get an unconscious person into tight leather pants; the X-Men finally encounter a world that actually hates and fears them; and the Power Pack fits somewhat uneasily with the grown-up Marvel Universe.
X-PLAINED:
Nimrod
Uncanny X-Men #193-195
Thunderbird II (James Proudstar)
Situation-inappropriate attire
The worst Hellions
Firestar (Angelica Jones)
Why you call ahead before breaking into NORAD
Leadership
Public opinion
Juggernaut fights
How the X-Men wake up
Nazgûl
Tyranny of the Masses: The Robot
The Voltron Special
The Power Pack
Navigating crossovers
NEXT WEEK: Firestar!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
In which All-New X-Factor ends, Iceman is his own best foil, and Jordie Bellaire is a hell of a colorist.
Reviewed:
All-New X-Men #35 (00:26)
Wolverines #3 (2:19)
X-Factor #20 (3:45)
*Magneto #14 (5:01)
*Pick of the Week (7:18)
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!
Rachel here! ICYMI, they’ve just announced the casting for the three new kids in X-Men: Apocalypse. Let’s take a look:
Sophie Turner as Jean Grey:
Sophie Turner is the only one of the three I’ve seen in anything, ever; and I could not be happier to see her step into Jean Grey’s bright yellow boots. Turner’s a fantastic actress, and Sansa Stark is basically the Jean Grey of Game of Thrones: completely awesome and chronically thrown under the bus by both canon and audience. (Incidentally: talk shit about Sansa stark in the comments, and we will cut you. Sansa rules.)
Alexandra Shipp as Storm:
Totally unfamiliar with Shipp, but she looks like a baby Storm, and she’s not Halle Berry, so that’s two points in her favor.
Tye Sheridan as Cyclops:
With the caveat that I’m no more familiar with this kid than I am with Shipp, can we take a moment to agree that the correct casting for teen Cyclops is and always will be Swing Kids-era Robert Sean Leonard?
Rachel here! As you may or may not know, Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men–the podcast, the videos, and everything we do here on the site–is entirely listener supported, via our kickass Patreon subscribers. And last night, while we weren’t looking, they unlocked one hell of a milestone goal:
Starting next week, I’ll be recapping and reviewing not one, not a dozen, but every single episode of animated high-school drama X-Men: Evolution.
It’s no secret that I lovethis show. I love it a lot. I love the awkward teenagers (and even more awkward early animation); the dubious fashion; the high-school angst; the godawful Season One finale. I love the way it starts terrible and then slowly and subtly gets awesome while you’re not paying attention. I love that there’s an episode where it stops being a superhero show and instead spends 22 minutes doing a straight-up homage to old-school girl-gang movies.
And I love seeing characters and premises I love reinvented and refiltered through very different sensibilities: what shifts and evolves, and what core themes persist through the changes. In a lot of ways, Evolution is the most daring adaptation of X-Men; certainly, it’s the one that moves furthest from any other incarnation of the series and team. Sometimes it succeeds brilliantly. Sometimes it fails spectacularly. But it never stops being fun.
If you want to watch along with me, you can find the full series on Marvel’s YouTube channel, starting here. I’ll be kicking off next week with Season 1, Episode 1: “Strategy X.”
If you want to help support the podcast–and see Rachel recap and review all 52 episodes of X-Men Evolution–now might be a good time to click over to our Patreon.
Art by David Wynne. Prints available until 1/25/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
In which writer G. Willow Wilson joins us to talk about her new run on X-Men; the Future is really confusing; we consider the many iterations of Rachel Grey; Storm probably has strong feelings about climate change; and writing for a shared universe takes some seriously fancy footwork.
X-Plained:
Jubilee
Shogo (a little)
The future vs. the Future
X-Men vols. 1-4
The logistics of stepping into a book mid-series
Pigeonholing and “girl” books
The proper pronunciation of Kamala
Storm (again)
Psylocke
M
Rachel Grey (again)
Cross-title coordination
Writing in a shared universe
Super-powered ecology
The gender politics of telepathy
Writing and dialogue across media
Marginalization, intersectionality, and the mutant metaphor
Next Week: Pink robots from the future!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
In which we continue to be frustrated by Cyclops, but everything else is pretty great.
Reviewed:
Wolverines #2 (00:23)
X-Force #14 (2:23)
*Amazing X-Men #15 (4:59)
Cyclops #9 (7:26)
Nightcrawler #10 (9:39)
*Pick of the week (11:24)
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!
Realistically, there’s no way we’ll have time to even look at them until later in the month, so we’re extending the deadline of the Corbeau Coloring Contest by one week, to January 21.
ALSO: Some of you expressed interest in an organized Corbeau Swap, in which you’d make awards for each other–kind of a very specific Secret Santa. If you would be into participating in that, pleas sound off in the comments; if we hit critical mass–let’s say a dozen people or more–we will go ahead and get that up and running! (And if someone else felt like taking point on that, we would be even more excited about it, because, this month, man.)
We’re still catching up on Patreon–a lot of thresholds hit at once this month–and having a blast putting together the first round of comics care packages. WE HOPE YOU LIKE TINY PLASTIC DINOSAURS AND GLITTER PAINT.
