Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

370 – The Sound of Evil (feat. Max Carleton)

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Max Carleton and Miles take a trip back to the Silver Age, the origins of Marvel Girl’s telepathy are questionable, the nature of Polaris’s parentage is also questionable, and the quality of Sauron’s origin story shall never be questioned.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Locust (Dr. August Hopper)
  • Uncanny X-Men #46, 52, and 60
  • Genuine tragedy
  • Funereal fashion
  • Frederick “Amos” Duncan
  • The Juggernaut (Cain Marko) (again)
  • The Crimson Cosmos
  • Energy globules
  • Charles Xavier’s telepathy lending library
  • Jean Grey, spiteful seamstress
  • Erik the Red (the first one) (Scott Summers)
  • Lorna Dane, fashion icon
  • Filially-obligated villainy
  • Psychic-delia
  • The sadly short-lived Roy Thomas / Neal Adams run
  • Suspension of disbelief
  • Pteranodons
  • Sauron (Karl Lykos, fantasy nerd)
  • Alex Summers, perpetual captive and/or villain battery
  • Miles’s favorite two-page spread
  • How to choose the perfect supervillain name
  • X-Men: The Animated Series, 1960s Edition
  • Our Silver Age X-creator wish list
  • Magnetism

NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur!


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369 – Carly Askani

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Storm & Joseph X-Plain the X-Men, Alex Summers is not brainwashed this time, he promises, Scott Lobdell writes better moments than stories, Ed McGuinness draws very large chins, and it’s Denver the Last Dinosaur, not Denver the Lost Dinosaur

X-PLAINED:

  • Uncanny X-Men #339
  • Spider-Man disambiguation
  • A. Kubert disambiguation
  • J. Jonah Jameson (again) (hooray!)
  • Sneaking songs
  • The history of smoking regulation on airlines
  • Creed disambiguation
  • Havok’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
  • Bonding while falling out of planes
  • X-Men #59
  • The copyright status of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
  • Well-drawn Wolverines
  • Hercules vs The Tick
  • Wolverine Annual 1996
  • The tragic death of Mariko Yashida
  • Silver Samurai (Kuniuchio Harada)
  • Sunfire (Shiro Yoshida) and what he’s been up to since Fatal Attractions
  • Josef Stalin, apparently?
  • Red Ronin and its nemesis, a time-lost dinosaur who we assure you is not Godzilla
  • Jedi and/or samurai vs. doors
  • Our logo fonts
  • James Howlett, guidance counselor
  • Onslaught but not evil
  • Whether Magneto could wield Mjolnir

NEXT EPISODE: The Silver Age with Max Carleton!


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368 – Six Teenagers in a Van

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we return to Rutland, Vermont; Emma Frost faces her salad demons; Banshee is not even supposed to be here today; no one should ever have to drive in New York City; Fenris is both evil and obnoxious; and we’re still not over that one Senator Kelly action figure.

X-PLAINED:

  • How to help us help queer and trans youth
  • Generation X #22
  • Generation X Annual 1996
  • Halloween with Generation X
  • Stag Beetle Magazine
  • X-casting Nicholas Cage
  • Neurotica
  • William Castle
  • Roger Corman’s Poe adaptations
  • Saturday morning cartoons
  • Weird gardening
  • Some very clever lettering tricks
  • Several humans
  • Train delays
  • Fenris
  • Mutagen Wave Generator
  • The Worst Action Figure (more) (again)
  • Robert the Ship
  • Our favorite Beast iterations
  • Abbreviations

NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine and some other guys!


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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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X-TRA – Fighting the Fight

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.

Click through here to find out more about our campaign to raise funds for Equality Florida!

367 – Jay and Connor X-Plain X-Casting

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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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366 – Nine-Tenths of the Law

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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!

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365 – A Whole Year of This Nonsense

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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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364 – Department of Pareidolia

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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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363 – Licked by a Shadow

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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!

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362 – Lazy Summer Day

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

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.

X-PLAINED:

  • The worst mutant power
  • Generation X #20-21
  • X-Factor #127
  • Bachalo critters
  • Bastion (more) (again)
  • Daria (but not the one you’re thinking of)
  • Chevy the janitor (again)
  • Mean Cuisine
  • Harker the cat
  • A threatening salad
  • Yet another time-traveling Nate
  • Flirting
  • A movie reference
  • U.S.1 and Baron von Blimp
  • Several ways to fail a midterm
  • “Autism”
  • Miguela Torres
  • Trevor Chase
  • A series of interviews
  • Richard Starkings and Comicraft
  • Destiny’s absence from film

NEXT EPISODE: Baseball!


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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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