Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Category: podcasts

497 – Stranger Things

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In which Prosh’s plans sort of come to fruition; we do not know very much about movies; Iceman dies (but is fine); The Stranger gets around; and Toad learns nothing.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Stranger
  • X-Men Forever #4-6
  • Prosh (more) (again)
  • The story so far
  • Astra (again)
  • The Black Womb Project
  • Toad’s secret origins, possibly
  • Fashion
  • Hazard
  • Amanda Mueller (a bit)
  • Anguirus
  • The end of human civilization
  • Foreshadowing
  • A dramatic reveal
  • Several makeovers
  • Darth Toad
  • Fighting arenas / community theaters

NEXT EPISODE: Mystique reassembles the Brotherhood!

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

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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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496 – Time After Time

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In which Prosh assembles a peculiar team; the cosmic forces are somewhat paranoid; Mystique gets shit done; and we are very into the concept of Toadland.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Black Womb Project
  • X-Men Forever #1-3
  • Prosh
  • Several custom-grown people
  • A motley crew of mutants (and one human)
  • Cataclysm keys
  • The assassination of Graydon Creed
  • Several poignant reunions
  • The cosmic construction worker (Death)
  • Why the Phoenix Force chose Jean Grey
  • How much continuity is too much continuity
  • Pyro’s romance novels

NEXT EPISODE: The rest of the series!

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

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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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495 – The Goth

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In which Rogue is beset with leadership; Psylocke’s telekinetic sword is narratively inconsistent; the Crimson Pirates are bad at their job; and you should not look to Frank Punisher as a role model.

X-PLAINED:

  • Whether Dani Moonstar is still a Valkyrie
  • X-Men #103-104
  • Uncanny X-Men #384-385
  • A crossover
  • Tessa (somewhat)
  • A test
  • The Goth (group)
  • Skulls
  • The Crimson Pirates
  • The mind of Tullamore Voge
  • Something “rough trade” does not mean
  • Visual representation of telepathy
  • Kymri (again)
  • The Goth (individual)
  • Skycycles
  • A ruse
  • How to get the X-Perts at a convention near you
  • What happened to the Massachusetts Academy

NEXT EPISODE: X-Men Forever

The visual companion to this episode will be up in the near future!

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

494 – You’ve Got Evil Mail

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In which the X-Men zealously protect their trademarks; Cable can have as many moms as he wants to; not everyone should have to be a superhero; Lady Deathstrike knows how to handle unauthorized emails; and somehow there are still more gun arms.

X-PLAINED:

  • Lady Deathstrike
  • X-Men Unlimited #27-28
  • X-Men Annual 2000
  • One reason to recycle code names
  • Thunderbird III (Neal Shaara)
  • Sanjit Shaara and his electronic diary
  • Karima Shapandar
  • Bastion and the Prime Sentinels (again) (briefly)
  • Omega Prime Sentinels
  • Rebirth Island and what lurks there
  • Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna)
  • Unusual disturbances
  • Whether Gambit sleeps
  • The Black Death
  • Internet security training with Bastion
  • The genealogy of Nora Ephron romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail
  • Fashion
  • Stryfe (again) (briefly)
  • Psylocke’s telekinetic katana
  • Interactions between Madelyne Pryor and her large adult son
  • Spiral’s Body Shop

NEXT EPISODE: The Brotherhood targets Senator Kelly… again.

Check out the visual companion to this episode here!

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

493 – Now a Major Motion Picture

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In which the first X-Men film turns 25 (and holds up remarkably well).

X-PLAINED:

  • A startling absence
  • The X-Men’s big-screen debut
  • An X-film that might have been
  • X-Men (2000), in general; and related publications
  • Some very casting
  • What makes a good adaptation
  • Wolverine’s hair
  • Those costumes
  • The cinematic X-Men
  • The cinematic Brotherhood
  • Sabretooth’s eyebrows
  • Condensed backstories
  • The movie magic of magnetism
  • The worst toy of all time
  • Going to school with superheroes
  • Things we’d like to have seen in the movie

NEXT EPISODE: The origin of Thunderbird! (Not that one.) (Or that one.)

The visual companion to this episode is the film X-Men (2000).

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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 Dashery shop!

492 – Brain Sharks

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In which the Shockwave Riders are exceptionally silly; we are deeply impressed by brain sharks; and chrome plating and gun arms are among the lesser explored recurring Claremont motifs.

X-PLAINED:

  • The fate of Sara Grey
  • Revolution Claremont X-book disambiguation
  • Uncanny X-Men #381-383
  • The Neo (again)
  • An unmarked anniversary
  • A secret treasure trove
  • Vagaries of telekinesis and telepathy
  • The Shockwave Riders
  • Brain sharks that eat memories
  • The stuff of legend
  • The Lost Souls
  • Dirges and non-dirges
  • One way to start a conversation
  • Simyon Kurasov
  • Colonel Alexi Vazhin (again)
  • The Slash
  • How to dress to go clubbing
  • Blinkers, somewhat
  • Ransom Sole
  • Big Casino
  • Sketch
  • Revenant
  • Major Debra Levin
  • Bludgeon, Cudgel, and Manacle
  • Houndification
  • The best 21st century X-characters

NEXT EPISODE: The first X-Men movie turns 25!

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

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

 

491 – Live from the Library

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In which we record live from the Library of Congress; time travel complicates everything; X-Men is a fundamentally queer narrative; we attempt to summarize a lot of history very fast; and when identities are politicized, claiming them becomes a political act.

X-PLAINED:

  • LC-GLOBE
  • The first openly queer X-Man
  • Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • Why we do what we do
  • Why the X-Men are worth studying
  • Returning nuance to critical discussion of media
  • A brief(ish) history of X-Men and queerness in X-Men
  • Iceman Watch
  • Retroactive foreshadowing
  • The mutant metaphor
  • Found family
  • Subtext
  • Text
  • Facets of mutant activism
  • Coming-out stories
  • Various vectors of diversity
  • Some comics Jay wrote
  • Comics in libraries
  • Where to start with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • X-Men for horror fans
  • Our favorite X-Men lineups
  • Identity politics
  • The T-O virus vs. the Legacy Virus

NEXT EPISODE: Brain Sharks!

This episode doesn’t exactly have a traditional visual companion, but you can click through the entire slide deck from the live show–and find links to the essays we mentioned–on our blog.

Jay has some additional thoughts on identity politics, which you can read here.

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

 

490 – Chekhov’s Angel Dust

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In which Chris Claremont tries to make the Neo happen; Cecilia Reyes continues to have no time for this bullshit; Rogue gets some action; Shadowcat flees the comic; and Tessa returns.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Evolutionaries
  • X-Men #100-102
  • The current X-Men rosters
  • Thunderbird (Neal Shaara)
  • Claremont vs. continuity
  • Dove crimes
  • The Neo
    • Domina
    • Jaeger
    • Rax
  • Fancy space suits
  • What to do with someone else’s bone claws
  • Some guy named Seth
  • The High Evolutionary’s love nest
  • A Phoenix-saga callback
  • Rave
  • Warren Kenneth Worthington III’s weird fantasies
  • Whether unstable molecules are self-cleaning
  • Seventeen deaths of Mister Sinister
  • Salvo the Living Gun
  • How to keep track of X-Men
  • Time travel problems
  • X-Men LEGO sets we’d like to see

NEXT EPISODE: Live from Washington, D.C.!

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

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

 

 

489 – The Eyepatch of Love

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In which Pete Wisdom does his best Charles Xavier; Alastair Stuart has not aged well; San Francisco has monster problems; and there’s probably an alternate universe where Dr. Niles Roman fronts a metal band for toddlers.

X-PLAINED:

  • The value of Pete Wisdom
  • X-Force #102-105
  • Revolution (more) (again)
  • Counter X (more) (again)
  • Flight
  • Elf stuff
  • Alastair Stuart (again)
  • The eyepatch of love
  • Science City 53
  • Meatspore stormtroopers
  • Project Cuckoo
  • Dr. Niles Roman
  • Tactics vs. Strategy
  • Monster problems
  • The Violence Machine
  • The apparent death of Pete Wisdom
  • What a good X-Force HQ needs
  • The most X-treme possible lineup

NEXT EPISODE: X-Men!

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

Find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

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 Dashery shop!

XplaintheXmen Live in Washington DC!

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Join us for an X-beginner-friendly, mutant-metaphor-focused, live episode of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men: presented by LC-GLOBE, the LGBTQ+ organization of employees of the Library of Congress!

When: 6:00 PM on Friday 06/06/25

Where: The Mumford Room (LM-649) in the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC
If you’d like to join the staff in attending, you’d be very welcome – to reserve seats, please email us so we can get a headcount and make sure you’re on the list. Hope to see you there!