Sometimes when the world’s a trash fire, it’s hard to figure out where to start. We talk activism, figuring out how you can help, and what we’re doing to fight back against anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in Florida.
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
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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!
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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!
In which you can now listen to a unique episode of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men every day for a year; Shi’ar tech support leaves something to be desired; Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau does not appear in a story; it’s Deathbird, not Dueprocessbird; Zenn-La gets destroyed a lot; and we shall never speak of this incident again.
X-PLAINED:
Where babies come from
The Shi’ar (again)
Cable/X-Force Annual 1996
X-Men Unlimited #13
Organs
Shi’ar ship names
Pulse
Unconventional use of the Danger Room
Butt-first framing
Interplanetary extradition
The word “contemplative”
Binary (again)
More Shi’ar ship names
Zenn-La
Silver Surfer (Norrin Radd)
The Inciters
A giant metal space skull
Junction, NY
A metaphor for America
Marie Cavendish
Mutants with synthetics-based powers
Literary intersections
NEXT EPISODE: Beast!
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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!
In which we lie extensively about how comics schedules work; the Mystery School is clearly a backdoor pitch; the Wisdom family has a lot going on; red dyes fade fast; and we (roughly) calculate the odds of Cyclops having a good day.
X-PLAINED:
Marvel’s KISS comics
Pryde and Wisdom #1-3
Age
Cheerful hissing
Jardine
A serial killer
Department F66/The Mystery School
Stoats
Kill Your Boyfriend
Several skeletons
Harold Wisdom
Serial disambiguation
Inconsistent use of inhibitor guns
Romany Wisdom
A man stone
Distinctive hair
Some woman who seems important but never gets a name or follow-up
John Gideon
The Tube
The inexplicable evolution of Romany Wisdom
How not to end your miniseries
Forgotten friendships
The relative odds of Cyclops having a good day
NEXT EPISODE: Space Adventures!
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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!
In which standing in fields looking confused is a way of life; Psylocke gets a new superpower; when you gotta confess you gotta confess; Iceman’s dad stands up for justice; we mourn a Sentinel; and it’s probably a good thing that most companies don’t do mind melds as a team-building exercise.
X-PLAINED:
Levels of mutant power
Omicron-level mutations
Miles’s brief baseball career
Uncanny X-Men #338
X-Men #58
X-Men Annual 1996
Archangel’s wings
Joseph vs. Holographic Magneto
Shadow teleportation
The errand theory of confession
Graydon Creed (more) (again)
“Drake Roberts” and “Samson Guthry”
Several ways to memorialize the Mutant Massacre
Onslaught, but an anteater
A fight
Several JJJ cameos
X-baseball games
A highly atypical Sentinel
Several oblique warnings
X-Men ‘97
Media inspired by the X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Pryde & Wisdom
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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!
In which Chris Bachalo draws excellent critters; Bastion is a terrible boss; everyone fucks in the Danger Room; Jubilee fails a midterm; and humans were the real monsters all along.
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!
In which the 1990s were full of miniseries; Mystique and Sabretooth take a sabbatical from X-Factor; Mystique’s powers are wildly inconsistent; we meet a second Cypher; most secret agents are Mystique; and you should never tell Sabretooth about your girlfriend.
X-PLAINED:
Sabretooth’s ambitions
Sabretooth and Mystique #1-4
A Helicarrier heist
Hydra
AIM
The sounds of autopsies
How Mystique’s powers work, sometimes, kind of
Commander Cypher
Technosassins vs. Cyburai
Catalyst
Complimentary types of awful
Caption colors
Access
Gender dimorphism of monsters
The Comics Code Collar
Dismember and Corrosion
The time Cyclops offered to help Cable steal a spaceship
The Black Womb Project
NEXT EPISODE: bits ‘n’ bobs
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
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!
In which Excalibur has a lot going on; Margali Szardos is never up to any good; Nightcrawler grows into leadership; we delve into the politics of superheroism; Pete Wisdom earns his keep; Miles catches a Prisoner reference; and we reach the end of Warren Ellis’ Excalibur.
X-PLAINED:
John the Skrull
Excalibur #100-103
The current state of Excalibur
Black Air (again)
The Hellfire Club (London Branch)
Australia
Margali Szardos (more)
Demonic ethernet
Captain Britain’s new-old suit
Emma Steed
Dune
Several fights
Combat IT
Boolean definitions of madness
The Department
Laserdisks
Patriotism
Many doppelgangers
Nightcreeper
Another reference to Dante’s Inferno
NEXT EPISODE: Some absolute nonsense
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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!