Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Category: podcasts

226 – Les Mutants

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

In which Havok actually used to be pretty great; there are at least four attorneys in the Marvel Universe; Genosha continues to be wildly problematic; Hieronymus Bosch was not Comics Code-compliant; Quicksilver goes on vacation; Polaris has no time for your love triangle; Wolfsbane can maul as many magistrates as she wants; and Multiple Man makes a choice.

X-PLAINED:
• Damian Tryp
• An unconventional staffing practice
• Genosha (more) (again)
• The devolution of Alex Summers’ personality
• Several attorneys in the Marvel Universe
• X-Factor #88-91
• Random (Marshall Stone III)
• Joe Quesada’s signature ribbons
• Checkbook heroism
• Kids these days
• Genoshan reconstruction
• Several gardens of earthly delights
• Puberty
• A mercifully abandoned plan
• A conspiracy
• A significant tonal shift
• Mutate #24601
• RoboJean
• Genosha’s sanitation system
• Dick Chalker
• Magneto Rex
• Humans in Magneto’s Genosha

NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine vs. everything

Thanks to everyone who helped bring Jay’s weird musical dream to life:

*Luz Bianca, Greg Black, Jeremy Borders, Lucas Brown, Kitty Byrne, *Tina Carelton, *Finn Carter, Everett Christensen, Veryan Croggan, Chris Eddleman, *Christina Eddleman, edibleflowers, Sol Foster, Emily Freville, Matt Gardner, Eric Michael Gray, Pete Gresser, Becky Hawkins, Andrew Hill, Jeff Holland, Al Kennedy, Steve Lacey, Kevin Lanigan, Elana Levin, *Alex Lundquist, Dan McMahon, William Mason, Steve Neal, notwhelmedyet (Lynn), Duck Orsino, Shannon Pack, Erin Pence, *Steve Pence, Philthy, Mariana Poole, rainproof, Samantha Riedel, Scott Sharplin, Adam Slevison, Richaundra Thursday, Dave Tomaine, Devin Toohey, and Grace Young.

*Soloists

Special thanks to Juliana Finch, Christian Lipski, and Laser Webber for technical advice; Christina Eddleman for recording the demo track; and Matt Gardner and Peter Gresser for [Easter egg description redacted].

Check out the visual companion to this episode–as well as the full lyrics to “At the End of the Fight”–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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)

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

In which we check in on Firestar and the New Warriors; superheroes often celebrate Bring Your Mom To The Amazon Day; Fabian Nicieza employs only the finest of lampshades; and Emma Frost still doesn’t apologize for blowing up that pony.

X-PLAINED:

  • Vance Astro(vik)
  • Penance (but not that one)
  • Austin Gorton’s X-Aminations
  • New Warriors #10
  • Firestar (Angelica Jones)
  • The New Warriors
  • Visual representations of invisible mutant powers
  • The Hellions (more) (again)
  • Tarot and her Morrisonian powers
  • Bevatrons
  • Oxy-cution
  • The inevitably increasing complexity of superhero origins
  • The Miracle of Microwaves
  • New Warriors #31
  • Nova Roma
  • Magma (Amara Aquilla) (or Allison Crestmere, I guess)
  • A brief and futile attempt at Roman soldier disambiguation
  • Empath and his large collection of red flags
  • Gender-based intuition
  • A massive, stupid, and quickly undone retcon
  • Super-nature versus super-nurture
  • The hypothetical psychological roots of Emma Frost’s fashion phases

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor finally makes it to Genosha!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

224 – Fix the Future

24 comments

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

In which Alan Davis performs his pièce de résistance; the personification of Death is surprisingly supportive; Rachel Summers is the One True Phoenix; Kitty Pryde goes full ’90s; syntax saves the world; and the first Excalibur series should really have ended with #67.

X-PLAINED:

  • Origins of Phoenix mythology
  • Excalibur #61-67
  • The Phoenix Force (more) (again)
  • Rachel Summers (more) (again)
  • Earth-811 (more) (again)
  • Phoenix vs. Galactus
  • A pep talk from Death
  • The One True Phoenix
  • The dark, distant future of 2013
  • The dark, even more distant future of 2015
  • The extremely complicated future of Kate Pryde
  • Rory Campbell / Ahab
  • What may or may not be Ahab’s theme song
  • Moby Dick, kind of
  • That one time Widget was a car
  • Resistance Coordination Executive
  • Dark Angel
  • Killpower
  • Albion
  • Grace
  • Tangerine
  • Arthur
  • An Excalibur #54 callback
  • Excalibur (the gun)
  • Kitty’s new image
  • How to hack the robot apocalypse
  • Saved by the Bell: The College Years
  • Where Excalibur should have ended
  • Tactical use of Magneto’s hat
  • Anti-assimilation stories in X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: The Passion of Butter Rum (feat. Austin Gorton)

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

223 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival

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

In which Dracula probably doesn’t drink his blood from a World’s Greatest Dad mug; Miles massively underestimates the cultural ubiquity of Sexy Dracula; Bill Sienkiewicz may or may not have ever seen a bat; Kitty gets possessed; and Dazzler is singularly well suited to a Vegas residency.

X-PLAINED:

  • Dracula’s ungrateful children
  • Marvel Dracula
  • A fortuitously named writer
  • Rachel Van Helsing
  • X-Men #159 (again) (briefly)
  • Sexy Dracula
  • The secret origin of sexy Draculas
  • Fastball Special body mechanics
  • X-Men Annual #6
  • A nightmare
  • “Bats”
  • Yet another Castle Dracula
  • The Montesi Formula
  • Sound effects, spoken or otherwise
  • Lilith
  • Chairs
  • The relative efficacy of holy symbols against Dracula
  • X-Vegas
  • Characters we have grown to love as a result of the podcast

NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!

Check out the visual companion to this episode–along with Jay’s convention sketches–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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

222 – A Tale of Two Betsys

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

In which it has been a pretty intense month; there is a lot to unpack about Psylocke; we are confused by hip teen lingo; Cyclops definitively lacks game; organized crime is anything but; and the mystery of the third Summers brother officially begins.

X-PLAINED:

  • How the Maximoffs joined the Avengers
  • X-Cutioner’s Song fallout
  • An X-ceptionally convoluted set of retcons
  • X-Men #20-23
  • How not to repair an airplane
  • One way to get out of an awkward conversation
  • Several Betsys Braddock
  • Revanche
  • Dubiously organized crime
  • Kwannon
  • Nyorin’s diary
  • Awkward family conversations
  • Mike Milbury
  • Twin Peaks Season 3
  • Akira Yoshida

NEXT EPISODE: Dracula in Vegas!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

221 – Better Than LEGO

12 comments

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

In which Miles stops worrying and learns to love X-Force; you should absolutely not google the phrase “face jam”; the kids take a field trip to Graymalkin; Jay reverse-engineers Shatterstar’s hair; Donald Pierce gets a new job; Sam Guthrie is the most trustworthy man in the Marvel Universe; Cable is your guns grandma; Professor earns its name; X-Force really only has one setting; and not every Sluggo is lit.

X-PLAINED:

  • A bunch of stuff Quicksilver did
  • Several cats
  • X-Force #20-23
  • The Externals (more) (again)
  • A deeply unlikely hairstyle
  • Graymalkin / Ship / Professor
  • A somewhat one-sided reunion
  • Yahoos
  • Inaccurate arithmetic
  • Why Feral sounds like that
  • Neither Tom, Dick, nor Harry
  • War Machine (James Rhodes)
  • Salvage
  • Sam Guthrie’s long trail of dead father figures
  • Shatterstar
  • How to fight an External
  • The seventh plague
  • What Domino’s been up to
  • Hammer’s mom
  • Tigerstryke (more) (again)
  • Sluggo (but not that Sluggo)
  • Learning to appreciate the ’90s

NEXT EPISODE: Psylocke Vs. Revanche!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

220 – On Your Bike

7 comments

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

In which we approach the end of Alan Davis’s Excalibur run; “duopenultimate” is not actually a word; Captain Britain pops the question; we do in fact (kinda) get follow-up on Alysande Stuart’s death; Miles needs to get a little less credulous about bureaucrats’ good intentions; Shadowcat engages in espionage; Nightcrawler and Cerise are tactically saucy; and the sun definitely ought to set on the British Empire.

X-PLAINED:

  • Warpies
  • Excalibur #61-65
  • The Jaspers Warp (more) (again)
  • The RCX (more) (again)
  • Agents Gabriel and Michael
  • What happened to Jay’s mom’s Hypercolor™ T-shirt
  • What not to do with a dead parrot
  • Several Hamlet references
  • Scott Wright (MicroMax)
  • The Cherubim
  • Cloud Nine
  • Agent Peter (Nigel Orpington-Smythe)
  • Warpie naming conventions
  • Beetroot
  • Screen tone
  • An idiom
  • Evasive makeouts
  • A specific thing on The Gifted
  • Why Kitty Pryde tends to go by her given name

NEXT EPISODE: Space Fight!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

219 – Brutal Hearts: An Appreciation of Emma Frost (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, Tea Fougner, Kel McDonald, and Diana Fox)

27 comments

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

In which Jay recruits X-writers Seanan McGuire and Leah Williams, cosplayer Tea Fougner, and innocent bystanders Kel McDonald and Diana Fox, for a night of Emma Frost appreciation.

X-PLAINED:

  • Why Emma Frost is amazing; why we love her; and why you should, too.

NEXT EPISODE: Return of the RCX!

WHITE QUEEN COCKTAIL RECIPE:

Combine:

  • 1.5 oz gin
  • .5 oz rose elderflower syrup
  • Splash of elixir vegetal
  • Prosecco to fill glass

Top off with:

  • Smoke bitters

No visual companion this week! Go read some comics about Emma Frost!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

218 – Careful What You Lick

28 comments

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

In which X-Cutioner’s Song may be over, but its repercussions continue; Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone; superhero comics are and always have been political; Bishop learns to banter; the X-Men gain an unlikely ally; and Magneto remains exceptionally difficult to kill.

X-PLAINED:

  • Jay & Miles at VVCBF
  • Uncanny X-Men #298-300
  • The Acolytes (more) (again)
  • The Upstarts (more) (again)
  • Several important lessons
  • A very fancy room
  • A very fancy brain
  • The unpleasant fate of Sharon Friedlander
  • The all-new, all-different Acolytes
  • Carmella Unuscione
  • The return of one of our favorite antagonists
  • A sick burn
  • The fate of Asteroid M
  • Molting
  • A debate
  • Graydon Creed (more) (again)
  • The tentative redemption of Robert Kelly
  • How to lose a debate with Joe Biden
  • A large number of prescient political references
  • Friends of Humanity
  • How to engage with a fascist in a televised debate
  • Noah DuBois
  • Fatale
  • A generic rural mob
  • Milan
  • A narratively convenient superpower
  • Amelia Voght
  • Seamus Mellencamp
  • Neophyte
  • The gospel of Magneto
  • A joyous reunion
  • The helmet that wouldn’t die
  • Ponytail ethics
  • Timelust
  • Several accents
  • The current state of Rogue’s powers

NEXT EPISODE: All Emma All Episode (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, and more)!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)

217 – Piotr the Obscure

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

In which it sucks to be a Rasputin; X-Men and Uncanny X-Men muddy the waters; Cyclops and Psylocke’s weird flirtation somehow manages to get even more awkward; Colossus has a long series of bad days; and you should totally come see us at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.

X-PLAINED:

  • An atypical curriculum
  • Jay & Miles at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival
  • X-Men #17-19
  • What Colossus and Magik have been up to
  • X-Men title disambiguation
  • The terrible fate of the town of Neftelensk
  • Blind Faith (Alexi Garnov)
  • Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna)
  • Darkstar
  • Beard auras
  • Cathartic interdimensional landscaping
  • Flagwatch 113
  • Red Flag 113
  • An awkward encounter
  • The Soul Skinner
  • The tactical value of cute little ears
  • Dubious cold-weather apparel
  • Jude the Obscure
  • Weaponized angst
  • An inopportune coloring error
  • Lack of pants
  • Whether Pyro could control Jubilee’s “fireworks”
  • How to enjoy dated comics

NEXT EPISODE: Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone!

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!

We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)