Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

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Links and Further Reading:

YAYBO! WE’RE ON TWITTER!

The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage

Savage Wolverine #21


All Those Signature Moves We Listed Off (We’ll Do a Visual Directory Eventually, We Promise):

FASTBALL SPECIAL VARIATIONS:

  • Fastball Special: Colossus throws Wolveine at something.
  • Phaseball Special*: Someone throws Kitty through robots

OTHER MOVES:

  • The Most Comics-Code-Adherent at What He Does*:  The thing where Wolverine has his claws out during a fight but doesn’t cut anyone.
  • Cue-ball Special*: The thing where Cyclops takes out like six bad guys with ricochets from one optic blast.
  • Slippery Slope*: The thing where Iceman tries to be awesome and ends up beating up his teammates by accident.
  • Blue-Plate Special Special*: The thing where an X-man uses their powers to prepare lunch.
  • The thing where Kitty wrecks everything by accident phasing through it.
  • The thing where everyone switches opponents mid-fight, and that’s what turns the tide.
  • The thing where Nightcrawler is awfully dashing about beating people up.
  • The thing where Storm’s claustrophobia saves the day.
  • The thing where Angel just dodges shit for like an hour instead of participating in the fight.
  • The thing where Xavier fakes his own death.
  • The thing where Cypher and/or Kitty and/or Illyana and/or Wolverine do the “Ain’t I a stinker?” thing from the control booth of the Danger Room.
  • The thing where Cyclops uses his optic blasts to slow or stop inertia or a fall.
  • The thing where Storm has no powers and STILL kicks someone’s ass into next week.
  • The thing where Colossus and Wolverine throw themselves at Magneto every goddamn time despite being made of metal.

*We made these names up. They are not official canon, but we live in hope.

14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

In which Canada is complicated, the X-Perts join Twitter, Rachel cares about a Wolverine story, Angel had one job, Kitty Pryde is pretty cool, Cyclops gets a hat, neither of us knows how to pronounce “Aleytys,” Doctor Doom is a terrible date, and the X-Men have an awful lot of signature moves.

X-Plained:

  • Department H
  • Department K
  • Director X
  • The Weapon Plus Program
  • Weapon P.R.I.M.E.
  • Weapons I-XVI
  • The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage
  • The new normal
  • Stevie Hunter
  • The Wendigo
  • Berserker rage
  • Yard work
  • Wolverines
  • Angel’s one move
  • The N’Garai (again)
  • Lee Forrester
  • D’Spayre
  • Magic-Feather villains
  • Man-Thing
  • Doctor Doom
  • Arcade
  • Why it sucks to be Havok
  • The X-Perts’ relative areas of X-pertise
  • Cyclops vs. Storm
  • Signature moves

CORRECTIONS: Lee’s dad’s house is in Florida, not Louisiana; Doctor Doom is not in Europe but in New England, where has taken over Toad’s theme park, because that was definitely a thing.

If you’re looking for our coverage of X-Men 141 and 142—”Days of Future Past”—you can find that in Episode 6, “Days of Future Whatever.”


You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

As Mentioned in Episode 13 – Last Stand on the Moon

Listen to the podcast here!



P.S. We have some rad new stuff in our store, including dark-background Magneto Made Some Valid Points shirts and Chris Haley’s spiffy new YAYBO! design! Go buy shirts so we can buy comics!

Haley_Yaybo_Shirt

13 – Last Stand on the Moon

In which Jean commits genocide, the Shi’ar are total dicks (again), we have feelings about X-Men #137, Claremont and Byrne do what they do best, shit gets real on the moon, Kitty joins the team, and the Dark Phoenix Saga concludes.

 

X-Plained:

  • Inhumans
  • The Kree
  • The Terrigen Mist
  • Teamwork
  • The Dark Phoenix
  • Cameos with cosmic implications
  • The Phoenix event horizon
  • Establishing scale
  • Psychic battles
  • The winged never-nudes of the Marvel Universe
  • Danger-room exposition
  • The Shi’ar’s really dubious justice system
  • Why X-Men #137 is the definitive issue of X-Men
  • Pacing
  • The power of friendship
  • Quiet moments
  • The blue area of the moon
  • The best last stand
  • Moon vandalism
  • The Phoenix Retcon

You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

You made art!

You are delightful. Did you know that? It is true.

David Wynne sent us this family picture of Wolverine and his many, many off-brand knockoffs! (Reminder: If you like David’s X-Plain art and want to take it home with you, you can do that!)

wolverine_legacy_wynne

 

Tim Siltala imagines Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men as it might exist within the Marvel Universe:

rachelandmiles_Siltala

 

Logan Bonner has dreamed up the best crossover-event villain EVER: Prydeslaught: the dark impulses of Charles Xavier merged with the SPECTACULAR fashion sense of 13-year-old Kitty Pryde!

prydeslaught_Bonner

 

Logan also sent us two boxes of blue raspberry Twinkies of Future Past; click through below for a brief chronicle of our (fairly tame) adventures with the Official Snack Food of the Sentinel Apocalypse:

YAYBO! NEW STUFF!

Because you demanded it asked very nicely, we have some super cool new swag in the shop!

Way back in our first episode, we discovered the word YAYBO!, the hands-down best exclamation of the Silver Age of X-Men. Ever since, you’ve been asking us to put it on a t-shirt, but we dragged our heels: after all, what design could do justice to the sheer, unbridled enthusiasm of a cry of YAYBO!?

Finally, we enlisted the help of the most enthusiastic dude we know: the Enthusiast himself, Chris Haley of Let’s Be Friends Again, who created this unbelievably kickass graphic, featuring Iceman and two very excited X-Perts:

Haley_Yaybo_Shirt

Chris’s design is also available in super souped-up print-and-card form!

Haley_Yaybo_Poster

We think Silver-Age Iceman would be proud.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

If you’ve been waiting patiently for a version of Dylan Todd’s sweet Magneto Made Some Valid Points design that would show up on dark t-shirts, YOUR MOMENT HAS COME:

Magneto Shirt in Purple

BUT WAIT! THERE’S EVEN MORE!

These, as well as the black-ink Magneto, and the sweet Ming Doyle pin-up–are now variously available not only as shirts and stickers, but also as tote bags, prints, posters, greeting cards, and even throw pillows. Want to send your grandmother a “Magneto Made Some Valid Points” birthday card? THAT IS NOW A THING YOU CAN DO. Please tell her “Yaybo!” for us.

As Mentioned in Episode 12 – Inner Circle Jerk

Listen to the podcast here!


 

Links and further reading:

The Dark Phoenix Saga has been collected roughly a million times. Here is one such collection. Seriously. You need to just straight-up read these comics. They are very good.


Cameron Harris on Sebastian Shaw (the quote Rachel referenced in the episode but didn’t have on hand):

“So, I was all set up to haaaaaaaaate the HFC and yaaaaaaaaaay Jean and the X-Men. But I didn’t, and it was pretty much because of Shaw. His entrance, his presentation, his presence was all big, bold confidence. He wore those eighteenth-century-dandy duds with complete aplomb, and I could tell almost immediately that he was in charge of everything he wanted to be in charge of. Okay, so a good villain type. This X-fight will be great!

“But he had something I hadn’t expected. I had thought we’d get another (bigger, better, eviller) Mastermind, or a Magneto: grandiloquent (Miles’s word!) and charismatic, would-be king of all he surveys, but not a mano a mano fighter, you know? I’d been reading so many villains whose attacks came from a distance or through non-physical means–and then Shaw is taking a punch from Colossus and laughing about it and taking off his fancy coat to duke it out with the X-Men, and I thought, Holy shit. This guy is the real deal. He’s going to fight them on their terms, not hide behind robots or tele-powers. In fact, the more you beat him up, the stronger he gets! How do you even stop that? (Besides pulling a Hercules-with-Antaeus move, I thought, and was kinda hoping to see that.)
“So. I was into Shaw for that combination: immediate confidence and social control + physical prowess and willingness to fight his own fights. The capper was that when everything at the HFC goes to hell, he hops into a car and leaves. I love a canny opponent who not only isn’t afraid to retreat but doesn’t care how it looks. I commend such priorities.”

12 – Inner Circle Jerk

In which we wade into the first arc of the Dark Phoenix Saga, Rachel does not like Sage, the Hellfire Club are the mean girls of the Marvel Universe, Cyclops and Phoenix have a Moment, Mastermind ruins everything, Emma Frost is a force to be reckoned with, Wolverine gets awesome, and we meet the Dark Phoenix.

X-Plained:

  • Sage
  • The Hellfire Club
  • The Inner Circle
  • Jason Wyngarde (again)
  • Sebastian Shaw
  • Harry Leland
  • Emma Frost
  • Donald Pierce
  • Hegemony and social politics of the Hellfire Club
  • 18th Century bondage cosplay
  • Kitty Pryde
  • The worst disco ever
  • Alison Blaire
  • Tiny shorts
  • How to make Wolverine work
  • Sexual politics of the Dark Phoenix
  • Why Magneto’s powers are broken post-AvX
  • The P.E.N.I.S. five

You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Showdown on the Moon

So, That Happened

Introducing Pufferfish Xavier, by David Wynne. ICYMI, if you’ve fallen in love with any of David’s X-Plain the X-Men originals, you can now purchase ’em here!

Wynne_Pufferfish Xavier

Meanwhile, we’re getting ready to dive into the Dark Phoenix Saga! As always, if you’ve got burning X-questions, stick ‘em in the comments below or our Tumblr askbox, or tweet ‘em to @RaeBeta with the hashtag #xplainthexmen!

As Mentioned in Episode 11 – Who Would Win in a Fight

Listen to the podcast here!



Links and Further Reading: UncannyXMen.net