Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

337 – Wild Genes and Old Magic

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

In which Excalibur is beset by shady organizations; Nightcrawler gets a new look; nobody hates Pete Wisdom as much as Lockheed hates Pete Wisdom; Brian Braddock should not be allowed to dress himself; Excalibur invades Black Air; and Onslaught continues to lurk.

X-PLAINED:

  • Some countries Magneto has invaded
  • Excalibur #96-99
  • Black Air (more) (again)
  • The London branch of the Hellfire Club
  • Nightcrawler’s new look
  • Meggan’s new look
  • The return of Alistaire Stuart
  • How not to dress for the Hellfire Club
  • The Shadow Cabinet (a little)
  • Hacking
  • Agent Scratch
  • Avengers vs. Avengers
  • Addiction recovery
  • Accreditation of the Xavier School
  • Developing a library X-collection

NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk!

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor’s increasingly low recruitment standards!


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336 – Serpents in Eden, feat. Si Spurrier

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

In which writer Si Spurrier joins us to talk Nightcrawler, the unsustainability of Krakoa, bringing back Legion, the stuff growing on Dr. Nemesis’s head, Welsh accents, founding (and not founding) a mutant religion, and—yes—Onslaught.

NEXT EPISODE: Shady Secret Organization Team-Up!

Follow Si on Twitter!


 

The visual companion to this episode is Way of X #1-2.

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335 – Bone Town

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

In which we cover somewhat peculiar content under somewhat peculiar circumstances; nobody does it like Alan Davis; in this house, we appreciate Gracie Gamble; Bernard the Poet makes a comeback; nominal errors are not what they appear; and you should probably not leave your children with most of the X-Men.

X-PLAINED:

  • Ravencroft vs. Ravenscroft
  • Unusual recording circumstances
  • ClanDestine #1-8
  • X-Men/ClanDestine #1-2
  • Destines including but not limited to:
    • Rory (Crimson Crusader)
    • Pandora (Imp)
    • Adam
    • Walter
    • Kay (Cuckoo)
    • Dominic (Hex)
    • Samantha (Argent)
    • Newton
    • Gracie Gamble
  • Elalyth
  • The Relative Stranger Protocol
  • Lenz
  • Dr. Hywel Griffin
  • GRYPHON
  • Earth-95710
  • Synraith
  • How normal people unwind
  • A dimensional rift and affiliated tentacles
  • How to draw sexy ladies without wrecking your comic
  • A big fight
  • X-sitters
  • The evolution of Hank McCoy’s personality

NEXT EPISODE: The Way of Si Spurrier


LISTENER CHALLENGE: Send your takes on the ’90s stylings of Bernard the Poet to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, and we’ll publish ’em all in a deeply dubious poetic extravaganza!


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

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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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HAWK TALK – Wizards

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked about wizards.

Topics, roughly:

  • Fantasy wizards
  • Space wizards
  • Beards and wizards and gender
  • Vancian spellcasting
  • Wizard taxonomy
  • The Baal Shem
  • Book learnin’
  • Towers and Discworld wizards
  • Dragonlance wizards
  • Tolkien wizards
  • Iceman with a wizard beard
  • Which animals make the best wizards
  • Magic: the Gathering
  • Our wizardy D&D characters

334 – Genetic Nonsense

In which William Stryker is exceptionally difficult to kill; the terminology around Emplate’s powers is absolute nonsense even by comic-book standards; inkers deserve more credit; we would totally read comics about Murmur the Softpoken Mummy; Bishop comes to the rescue; and nothing really resolves.

X-PLAINED:

  • What happened to William Stryker
  • Gratuitous use of the adjective “genetic”
  • Emplate (again)
  • Generation X #12-14
  • Inks
  • Penance’s original backstory
  • Pining
  • A really unpleasant reunion
  • Accent problems
  • Gayle Edgerton
  • Vincente
  • Bulwark
  • D.O.A.
  • A somewhat chaotic victory
  • Mutant teams from non-anglophone countries
  • X-characters Miles would like to write

NEXT WEEK: HAWK TALK

NEXT EPISODE: ClanDestine!


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

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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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333 – Fight Train

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

In which Miles discovers owl legs; Iceman dwells in subtext; Dark Beast overperforms; Daredevil is a delightful trash fire of a person; Graydon Creed’s presidential run is somewhat less shocking in 2021; Rogue does not enjoy playing ‘Got your nose’; and Mister Sinister is not a friend to public transportation.

X-PLAINED:

  • Post-Decimation resurrections
  • Owl legs
  • Uncanny X-Men #331
  • X-Men #51-52
  • Iceman’s complicated personal life
  • Casual crossovers
  • The facial hair of Warren Kenneth Worthington III
  • The terrible decisions of Matt Murdock
  • How to subtly test your in-laws for mutant powers
  • What Mister Sinister sounds like
  • A bad plan
  • The debut of Bastion
  • DNA
  • Foreshadowing

NEXT EPISODE: Emplate Sucks


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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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332 – Gideon Falls

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

In which Swimsuit Catalog is not an actual style of martial arts; Onslaught dabbles in vandalism; Crule is a special guy; we identify briefly with X-Force; and Charles Xavier is the Keyser Soze of Onslaught.

X-PLAINED:

  • Externals on Krakoa
  • Relative levels of violence in X-books
  • X-Force #52-54
  • Camp Hayden, KY
  • Onslaught-facilitated power-ups
  • Gideon (again)
  • At least one apparent death
  • How it feels to be us
  • Businesswear
  • Whether Cannonball is an external
  • Nazis in the Captain Britain Corps
  • Doop

NEXT EPISODE: Sinister vs. Public Transit


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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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HAWK TALK – Hack the Planet

This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, in honor of the 1995 film’s 1337-week anniversary, we talked about the finest movie about technology ever made, Hackers.


Topics, roughly:

  • Hackers
  • Mister The Plague
  • What David Bowie and Angelina Jolie have in common
  • Razor & Blade
  • The glory of Matthew Lillard
  • Counterculture
  • Queer (sub)text
  • Focal characters
  • Jay’s sequel pitch

In retrospect, we should have talked way more about Phreak, played amazingly by Renoly Santiago. Sorry, Renoly! That’s what we get for doing Hawk Talk without our usual outlines.

331 – Surprised by Brood

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

In which we take a break from the lead-up to Onslaught; Hannah Conover is the queen of dangling plot threads (and also of the Brood); Wolverine is the strangest angel; William Conover is the chillest minister in the Marvel Universe; and Excalibur writer Tini Howard gives us the inside scoop on Gambit’s trench coat.

X-PLAINED:

  • Mutant Brood
  • The Brood vs. Brood X cicadas
  • X-Men vs. Brood: Day of Wrath #1-2
  • Theological origins of John Ostrander
  • Hair
  • An unspoken motif in pin-up art
  • Reverend William Conover (more)(again)
  • Hannah Conover (more)(again)
  • The Brood (more)(again)
  • The Brood Empress
  • The Firstborn
  • Atypical Queen-Broodling power dynamics
  • Brood of the future
  • A strange angel
  • What Gambit’s trench coat is made of

NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk

NEXT EPISODE: The end of the Externals!


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

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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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330 – Suddenly, Ninjas

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

In which the podcast turns seven; Matt has officially edited half the podcast; a lot of things are made by metal; Doctor Strange is a big weirdo; Gambit is a scoundrel, not a villain; Wolverine goes goth; Onslaught could probably use a better herald; Bishop fires two guns whilst going aaaaaaa; and we commit to making what sense we can of Onslaught.

X-PLAINED:

  • How Betsy got her body back
  • Several simultaneous anniversaries
  • Uncanny X-Men #329-330
  • X-Men #50
  • Some ninja bullshit
  • A lot of less-benign-than-it-looks racism
  • Excellent use of a neon sign
  • An odd couple
  • The evolution of art tools
  • Steam vs. metal
  • Gomurr the Ancient
  • The Ebon Vein
  • Catastrophic magic
  • Our favorite iterations of Doctor Strange
  • The Crimson Dawn
  • How one becomes Gomurr the Ancient
  • Tar (Proctor of the Crimson Dawn)
  • Post (Herald of Onslaught)
  • An entity who may or may not be Onslaught
  • Continuity party tricks
  • Survivors of the Age of Apocalypse

NEXT EPISODE: Brood X!


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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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 TeePublic shop!