In which the rest of the X-Men return from space; Maggott is the new cool; Gambit’s past catches up with him; Chris Bachalo takes over as regular artist on Uncanny X-Men; Deathbird flirts singularly aggressively; Eany and Meany eat a truck; dating a telepathic ninja is going to take some getting used to; and Havok predictably remains ABD.
X-PLAINED
Motormouth (Harley Davis)
Motormouth and Killpower
Uncanny X-Men #347-349
Grovel and Spat
A horse guy who is actually a cat-frog-lizard guy
An extraordinarily half-assed action figure
Load-bearing backstory
Landscape
The other Nanny
Elegant foreshadowing
Beast’s appearance as a mutant power
Gambit’s chest hair
The end of playtime
CCA-compliant foliage
Deathbird and Bishop
A vanity plate
Eany and Meany
One-off psychometry
Psylocke vs. Maggott
Decompression
Havok’s enduring lack of a Ph.D.
NEXT EPISODE: X-Force hits the road!
NOTE: In this episode, Miles theorized Grovel’s voice as sounding halfway between Cable and Kermit the Frog without realizing that he was in fact just describing Sweetums. -Jay
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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 Al Kennedy and Miles enter a somewhat post-OZT world, the art of Frank Teran (whose uncle built a jetpack) elevates an otherwise merely decent story, Puck is played by Bob Hoskins, Wild Child gets a chance to shine, Mystique and Forge are sitting in a tree, and Swamp Thing is amazing.
X-PLAINED:
Spider-Man’s head cold
Sabretooth: Back to Nature #1
Sabretooth (Victor Creed)
Wild Child (Kyle Gibney)
Horrible violence, expertly implied
The ubiquity of sewers
Saturday morning cartoons of R-rated movies
Serial killers with G.I. Joe names
Improbable tracking
Bilingual crime
Chekhov’s waterfall
DRUGS
X-Factor #136-137
The Hound program
Skeumorphism
Doctor Valerie Cooper and Major Edmond Atkinson, excellent exes
Questionable wound-dressing
Holograms
Government jobs
The sad fate of the Chase family
Nimrod disambiguation
The Marvel Universe According to Doctor Seuss
NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men return from space!
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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 spend too long trying to place a time-travel miniseries in continuity, Al Kennedy does us a solid, Bernard Chang draws some excellent New Mutants young and old, Al Ewing x-plains X-Men: Red, Forearm and Random play Nintendo, and we reveal the winners of The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence!
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 Jay has exciting news, Rick Leonardo draws an impressively creepy mad scientist’s lair, the clouds are purple and so is the prose, Powers of X gets a subtle prequel 21 years early, Cable’s own tolerance has finally reached zero, and we summarize Bastion’s backstory way, way faster than Bastion does.
X-PLAINED:
Machine Man (X-51) (Aaron Stack)
Operation Zero Tolerance (more) (again)
Jay’s upcoming parental leave
Bastion (Sebastion Gilberti)
M-Tech
Powerman 5000
Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998
Hobgits and their sound effects
Street Fighter: the Roleplaying Game
Batroc ze Lepair
Jack Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
X-51 / X-23 overlaps
Classic Summers Family Bullshit
Psionic soapboxes
What makes Bastion a compelling villain
The necessity of companions
Master Mold 3.0 & Nimrod 2.0
Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998
Terrible font choices
ZORCH
Cable vs. floors
The carbon footprint of robotic fascism
Marvel Comics Presents #17-24 (just a little)
Incredible Hulk Annual #7 (just a tad)
The Siege Perilous
The future of Machine Man
The hypothetical 2022 version of Bastion
Historical events in which we’d love to see long-lived mutants take part
NEXT WEEK: We take a break for the holidays!
IN TWO WEEKS: The Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men 2022 Giant-Size Winter Special!
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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!
This would usually be a skip week, but thanks to some generous donors to Equality Florida, Hawk Talk is back! This week: Dave Tomaine and Rho Sovia’s graphic novel, Keeper!
In which there’s always room for another X-cast; Cecilia Reyes wasn’t even supposed to be here today; Sabra has indestructible underwear; prime sentinels are probably even worse pets than quail; Marrow probably swears more than superhero comics allow for; and Operation Zero Tolerance comes to an end.
X-PLAINED:
The original proposed ending of Operation Zero Tolerance
The actual ending of Operation Zero Tolerance
X-Men #66-69
Operation Zero Tolerance (so far)
Prime Sentinels (again)
Bastion (more) (again)
Spidey and His Amazing Friends
Cecilia Reyes
The most reluctant X-Men
Nanomachines
Trust
Miles’s least favorite X-Men story
Sabra
Superheroes who wear white
Wizard dogs
Indestructible undergarments
Angie Quail
Candy Southern (again)
Actual quail
Bones
Metal Gear Solid
Officers Aguinal and Cleaveland
The sound of a soul losing its shape
One of many problems with the carceral system
What men do in bathrooms
A showdown
Operation Zero Tolerance in retrospect
Silly superhero names
Non-mutant characters who pair well with X-Men
NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk
NEXT EPISODE: Bastion’s secret origin!
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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 Operation Zero Tolerance continues; the X-Men take over Wolverine; wolverine is the designated John McClane of the X-Men; torsos are confusing places; and we sincerely hope that Jean Grey got to do some off-panel dating.
X-PLAINED:
Bastion’s priorities
Operation Zero Tolerance (so far)
Wolverine #115-118
How to villainously declaim
Mustang
Roustabouts
Waking up with the X-Men
Where (some) Prime Sentinels come from
Fatality, kind of
Felipe, Arvell, and Helmut
Inevitability
A reunion
Government intervention
Anatomy
Jaz disks
Friendship
Jean Grey’s romantic history
The League of Nations vs. The League of Nathans
NEXT EPISODE: Mostly New and Different X-Men!
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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 changes things up; we theorize about Prime Sentinel hierarchy; the headmasters go undercover; fictional characters spend a lot of time in sewers; M’s secret comes to light; J. Jonah Jameson is at his best in X-books; Jay pitches a video game; Marrow gets a makeover; and part of journalistic integrity is choosing what not to cover.
X-PLAINED:
Banshee, recently
Generation X #29-31
Uncanny X-Men #346
Bastion
Daria
Leave It to Chance
Miguela Torres
Venice Beach
Skin’s cousin Gil
Inconsistencies that may or may not be deliberate
Jolt Cola™
Yet another take on Prime Sentinels
The Mullet of Leadership
A cool kid
Cat drama
DOA (again)
Cars
A kiss
Several attempted murders
Marrow’s appearance
Boyd and Mathers
X-fighting games
Mutant leadership philosophies
NEXT EPISODE: X-Men cleverly disguised as Wolverine
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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!
This would usually be a skip week, but thanks to some generous donors to Equality Florida, Hawk Talk is back! This week, we talk about lawyers and law.
In which the X-Mansion has unusually large vents; Cable’s hair should not be floppy; Nate Grey meets his maternal grandparents; and we would really like to know more about the Siege of the Vapor Ants.
X-PLAINED:
Cable #45-47
X-Man #30
What various Nathans have been up to
Operation Zero Tolerance (again)
The Siege of the Vapor Ants
Three grenades
Beefy vents for beefy men
Danger
Shi’arese
Cable vs. Bastion
So much beer
Three rad ladies
Several Greys
Roust
Every appearance of Joey and Gaylin Bailey
Several faked deaths
Possible impact of the MCU on the X-comics’ status quo
Character ages
NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk
NEXT EPISODE: Generation X
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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!