Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Category: podcasts

204 – Naughty By Nurture

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In which Jay runs away to Latveria (but Hub is here to save the day!); you shouldn’t eat the brown promethium; Magneto and Cap fight over the world’s tiniest man; Rom is somewhat set in his ways; all anyone in the 616 really wants out of a disguise is plausible deniability; and Hub was inside your heart all along (and you might want to see a doctor about that).

X-PLAINED:

  • Several Limbos
  • Captain America Annual #4
  • Captain America vs. Magneto
  • The return of the theoretical Magnetostache
  • The Great Mutant Massacre (but not that one)
  • Drunk-at-a-wedding Magneto
  • Mister One
  • Mister Two
  • Ghost Writer
  • Peeper
  • Lifter
  • Burner
  • Slither
  • Shocker
  • Skin suffocation
  • Rom #17-18
  • The Toy Collector
  • Dick Warlock, revisited, more, again
  • Bill Mantlo
  • Rom: Spaceknight
  • Dire Wraiths
  • The secret lives of inanimate objects
  • Brandy Clark and Steve Jackson
  • Jacob the Dire Wraith and His No-Good Son Jimmy
  • The smell of evil
  • Swiss army eyeballs
  • Sidekicks for the Transformers

NEXT EPISODE: The Return of Rictor!

Special thanks to Emergency Back-Up Cohost Hub of Titan Up the Defense!

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!

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203 – The X-Man’s Burden

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

In which the Morlocks used to have more agency, we have a surprising amount to say about the Rat King from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Archangel receives some exceptionally disturbing news, and 90s comics are all about finding the parts you love.

X-PLAINED:

  • Marrow’s internal organs
  • The post-Image Exodus era
  • Judging books by their covers
  • Uncanny X-Men #291-293
  • Sexy dead girls (again)
  • The Morlock leadership vacuum
  • A significant Callisto personality retcon
  • Failures of leadership due to own-death-faking
  • The magical life and magical death of the Morlock Sewer Wizard
  • Science Made Stupid
  • Storm’s claustrophobia (again)
  • MeMe, scourge of Miles’s childhood
  • 90s Jean Grey: cartoon vs comic
  • The Br’er Rabbit Technique
  • Some unfortunate and significant continuity errors
  • Professor Xavier’s impressive upper body strength
  • Mikhail Rasputin’s genuinely terrifying mutant powers
  • Bobby Drake’s potential
  • Morlock organizational techniques
  • Mikhail Rasputin’s very bad plan
  • Jean Grey’s real talk
  • The Home for Infinite Losers
  • Piotr Rasputin, tragedy collector
  • Copyright law and Fair Use
  • Queer headcanon
  • X-beards

NEXT EPISODE: Hub from Titan Up the Defense joins Miles to talk Bronze Age X-weirdness!

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.)

202 – Rhapsody in Blue (and Gold)

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

In which music is dangerous and confusing, Jamie Madrox has a weakness for femmes fatale, the term “f-holes” makes Miles turn 12, and we bid a fond farewell to Larry Stroman.

X-PLAINED:

  • That time Havok was the nexus of all realities
  • How to get to Florida, Magneto style
  • X-Factor #79-81
  • Lesser-used applications of super-speed
  • Rhapsody (Rachel Argosy)
  • Mutant late bloomers
  • The surprising convenience and safety of fictional shop windows
  • Excalibur-weird vs. X-Factor-weird
  • Tiny cellos
  • The worst kid in the neighborhood
  • A creative use of mutant powers
  • Whether Madrox creates duplicates during sex (again)
  • Astral wheat fields
  • Musical manslaughter
  • Sean Young (who is decidedly not Catwoman)
  • Hell’s Belles
  • Rahne’s World
  • Polaris’s body image issues
  • Beefiness disambiguation
  • Wolfsbane’s conditional poker face
  • Cyber (Silas Burr)
  • Strong Guy, who just works here, man
  • Alex Summers, inspiring and/or deceptive authority figure
  • Bringing back the classics (and when not to)
  • The surprisingly homogenous Multiverse

NEXT EPISODE: Mikhail Rasputin ruins everything.

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.)

201 – Pump Up the Jam

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

In which we begin our third podcast century; Cyclops is bi-inclusive; we have high standards for Mojoworld; Dazzler can survive your big-budget horror show; Jim Lee makes his exit; video games that involve Protomen are better than video games that don’t; and plasma is the new magnetism.

X-PLAINED:

  • Carter Ryking and his Very Durable Underpants
  • Fontanelle
  • Jay & Miles Town Cry ye X-Men
  • An upcoming event
  • X-Men #10-13
  • A somewhat disappointing Wizard of Oz pastiche
  • Those who like to go both ways
  • A mysterious, shadowy figure; revealed
  • Several of Cyclops’s uncoolest Dad moments
  • Zima
  • Moist Alley
  • Mojo II: The Sequel
  • The Image exodus
  • Mojonium™
  • An announcement
  • Longshot in the Mojoverse vs. Longshot in the 616
  • A Maverick adventure
  • Alexander Ryking
  • The other Xavier File
  • Warhawk
  • The Ryking Hospital for Paranormal Research
  • A poorly defined power set
  • Technicolor skeletons
  • When and where paper was invented
  • A likely-irrelevant pattern
  • The devil who haunts Stryfe’s dreams
  • Some non-X Marvel recommendations
  • Rusty Collins’s codename

NEXT EPISODE: A musical interlude with X-Factor!

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.)

200 – Lightning in a Bottle, with Louise Simonson

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

In which we celebrate a major milestone with the coolest person ever to work on the X-books and look back at the last four-plus years of the podcast; and nobody ends up on trial at the Hague.

NEXT WEEK: Jay & Miles take a much-needed vacation.

NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men take the fight to Mojoworld!

Check out our blog for links to the stuff we discussed in this episode!

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.)

199 – Space, Geeks, and Gaveedra Seven

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

In which Shattershot is definitely better than the Cold War; Beast X-plains the X-teams; Cyclops is a tired babysitter; sustenance is not frivolous; Jim Henson is the hero that Mojoworld needs; Shatterstar is not a great head of state; it’s hard to be Val Cooper; and Cable has definitely figured out how to take you (yes, YOU) out.

X-PLAINED:

  • Astra
  • Content-to-story ratio
  • The Mojoverse (more) (again)
  • Longshot
  • Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven)
  • Spiral (Ricochet Rita)
  • Arize
  • X-Men Annual #1
  • Uncanny X-Men Annual #16
  • X-Factor Annual #10
  • X-Force Annual #1
  • A pivotal battle
  • Mujahideen
  • A callback
  • Several denizens of Mojoworld
  • X-Team disambiguation
  • The Death Sponsors
  • A dubious solution to the Kobayashi Maru scenario
  • Whether Arize is a mutant
  • Telepathic favoritism
  • Spiral’s origin story
  • A new regime
  • Earth-84309
  • Powerpax (Frankie Power)
  • Darkchild
  • Cyberlock
  • A metasingularity
  • A large number of back-up features
  • The X-Men’s top ten enemies
  • Amalgam (but not that one)
  • Darick Robertson’s juvenilia
  • The return of Taki
  • The Cable Protocols
  • Brazilian Marvel characters
  • Our feelings about Laura Kinney’s backstory

NEXT EPISODE: Louise Simonson

CORRECTION: BonziBuddy was not released until 1999. We regret the error.

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.)

198 – How to Destroy the Universe Without Really Trying

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

In which Excalibur goes 16-bit platformer; Alysande gets new threads; Shadowcat should probably just change her code name to Ripley; Captain Britain may or may not destroy the universe; Doctor Doom tries his hand at human resources; Excalibur is at home with weirdness; and no lizard needs breasts.

X-PLAINED:

  • Invisible Boy
  • Human heralds of Galactus
  • Excalibur Special Editions
  • Excalibur: Air Apparent
  • Excalibur: XX Crossing
  • Dr. Jonothon Cayre
  • Norm the LMD
  • Lava pits of Scotland
  • Some dubious herpetology
  • Eric the Cyborg (Coldblood-7)
  • Robert Cop
  • Special Man
  • Air-Walker and/or Gabriel Lam
  • A cosmic explosion
  • Captain Britain’s extra costume
  • Sidestep
  • An exceptionally awkward job interview
  • A counterintuitive plan
  • The other time-displaced X-Men
  • The best version of Angel
  • Angel’s third-greatest nemesis
  • Gladiator Hank
  • A very fancy vest
  • The best Excalibur Special Edition
  • The Phalanx vs. the Technarchy
  • Warlock vs. gender
  • Our thoughts on Avengers: Infinity War

Note: according to the letter column from Excalibur #54, at least some of the art credits for Excalibur: XX Crossing were incorrect, so some of our descriptions of who drew what in this episode are wrong. See the comments below for more information!

NEXT EPISODE: Shattershot!

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.)

197 – Wolverine and the Honker of Doom

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

In which Wolverine is an eternal teenager; most of what Jay knows about Hawaii comes from Lilo and Stitch; Shiv is a complicated fellow; Nightcrawler represents an unattainable beauty standard; the Easter Bunny flies at dawn; Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure is delightful; Logan inadvertently starts a cult; Gahk does as she pleases; Jay and Miles are going to FlameCon; and we are all now Honkers forever.

X-PLAINED:

  • What Bloodscream and Roughouse have been up to
  • Albert and Elsie Dee
  • An unorthodox vocal warm-up
  • Wolverine: Bloody Choices
  • Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure
  • The Wolverine formula
  • Kamehameha Day (which Jay mispronounced; sorry!)
  • Mr. Bullfinch
  • Mr. Kapeland
  • Shiv
  • Doc Corbel
  • Nick Fury’s penmanship
  • How retail works
  • Secret agents, maybe
  • A stimulating combination
  • Karate pants
  • A darker, grittier version of the Easter bunny
  • Wolverine’s apocryphal childhood
  • Characters who can pull off the Wolverine hairstyle
  • Don Adams as Wolverine
  • Win/win murder scenarios
  • Two adult men discussing their feelings
  • Honkers
  • Cargo cults
  • The Tribe of Fire
  • Gahck
  • Some romance
  • A Spiny Honker
  • The Honker of Doom
  • Pit traps, with and without shallow holes
  • A dastardly but ineffectual plot
  • Apocalypse, kind of
  • One of Wolverine’s many kids (who may or may not be Erista)
  • Jay & Miles at FlameCon 2018
  • How to get us at your local convention
  • Reading comics with Miles’s dad
  • Seriously, though: honkers

NEXT EPISODE: Even more Excaliburs

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.)

195 – Johnny Got His Robot Arm

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

In which Jay may have Stockholm syndrome; Nick Fury is objectively sillier than G. W. Bridge; we get a brief artistic reprieve; Cable’s legal expertise does not extend to trademarks; our favorite Ship returns; Miles’s grandmother calls it like it is; Sauron is bad at taxonomy; and Garrison Kane is basically a very violent Inspector Gadget.

X-PLAINED:

  • Brother Mutant
  • X-Force #8-10
  • X-Force (again)
  • A protracted flashback
  • The Wild and/or Six Pack
  • A heist
  • A trap
  • Yet more Ed Wood references
  • A future
  • The Professor (Ship)
  • Gratuitous face shadows
  • A mystery
  • Cable casting
  • Several misplaced word balloons
  • The logistics of tentacle arms
  • The High Lords (Externals)
  • Michael Bay’s Johnny Got His Gun
  • General Clark and his diving suit
  • Good Magneto stories
  • How to get your dad into X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur vs. the Anti-Phoenix!

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.)