Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 396 – Giant-Size Special #11

January 1, 2023 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

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

Illyana Rasputin knows what you did. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Bernard Chang channels Bob McLeod. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Bernard Chang channels Paul Smith. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

“Well, you would have, but you left him at the altar and Rogue and Gambit took your spot…” (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

I’ve missed these kids. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Well, Monet is actually two kids, and… (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Wolfsbane x-plains smooching. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

And that jerk seagull doesn’t even care. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #1)

Basically, you’re all going to end up either awesome, dead, or ignored by most writers. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

“Did you bring me a present, Uncle Mikhail?” (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

How to make a long conversation visually compelling, part one. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Bernard Chang channels Bill Sienkiewicz. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

It’s easy to forget how much more control of her powers Rahne gained over a decade of comics. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Karma: even scarier than Magik. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Aww kid (New Mutants: Truth or Death #2)

Look at all that science! (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

If this was Mystique instead of Karma, she’d turn into an eagle right after saying that. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Now that is a title page. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

When Best Teenagers become Best Young Adults. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

How to make a long conversation visually compelling, part two. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

It’s cool, Doug, you’ll come back to life and marry a large wife. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Aww hell yeah (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Poor counterpart-less Magma and Karma look so bored. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

Pure, uncut nostalgia. (New Mutants: Truth or Death #3)

NEXT EPISODE: Sabretooth betrays an X-team! Again!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

Behold the glory that is the Hardee’s kids meal comic X-Men: Time Gliders
Subscribe to Al Ewing’s email newsletter!

396 – Giant-Size Special #11

January 1, 2023 Miles 14 comments

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

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!

X-PLAINED:

Jay’s spatial and temporal whereabouts
Cannonball, Mirage, Magik, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Karma, Magma, Cypher, Warlock, and Douglock
New Mutants: Truth or Death
Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin, gal pals
Triple-dog dares
Nova Roma, or not
Mikhail F**king Rasputin
The arrogance of reality warpers
How to write Magma
The Technarchy and the Phalanx
Hardee’s X-Men: Time Gliders
Farmboy chic
Bernard Chang’s 21 Panels
Branching vs. overwriting timelines
The effects of de-aging and history rewriting on immunology
Found family
She Who Swam With The Acanti
Sleep-Eeze Mattresses Starring The Hulk
Arrako
Continuity synchronicity
S.W.O.R.D. as a workplace drama
The moral downfall of Abigail Brand
The leadership styles of Storm, Magneto, and Sunspot
Himbo disambiguation
The fates of Armor, Risque, and Peeper
Mysterium Clicker
Santa Claus
The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence

(Note: Our interview with Al Ewing contains spoilers for X-Men: Red!)

NEXT EPISODE: Sabretooth betrays an X-team! Again!

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!

As Mentioned in Episode 395 – Boxer Briefs of Humanity

December 18, 2022 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

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

“Weirdest disco ball I’ve ever seen, Sarge, and I used to hang out at that evil disco Dazzler used to play at.” (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Maybe this is why the X-Men refuse to use the phone. (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Shades of Weapon X. (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Jeez Nathan just ring the freakin’ doorbell (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Rose Gilberti, you were too good for this world. (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

World 1-4 (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Dun duh dun duh dun, Inspector Aaron (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Cable’s psychic link x-plains Machine Man (Cable & Machine Man Annual 1998)

Look, I know the IT department has gotten messy over the course of the pandemic, you don’t have to rub it in (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

EWWW (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

Aww shit we’ve wandered into a TED Talk (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

Sometimes I wish PowerPoint had never been invented (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

And sometimes, as a joke, the Siege Perilous will transform a robot into a naked man with a goatee. (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

Attacked by exposition (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

Go-Go Gadget Free Will! (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

EWWW NOW HE’S DOING IT TOO (Machine Man & Bastion Annual 1998)

NEXT TIME: The Old New Mutants meet the New New Mutants

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

The Marvel Universe of Superheroes Exhibition (currently at OMSI in Portland, Oregon).
- You can check out Jay’s article Beyond the Mutant Metaphor in the exhibit’s catalogue!

395 – Boxer Briefs of Humanity

December 18, 2022 Miles 7 comments

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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!

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!

HAWK TALK – Keeper

December 12, 2022 Miles One comment

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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!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

You can buy Keeper digitally at BigCartel or physically at Studio Two Boys!
Check out Dave’s band Cave People!
Find Dave on Twitter (twice)!

As Mentioned in Episode 394 – We All Have to Go Sometime

December 11, 2022 Jay Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

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

It’s the OZT broadcast that keeps on giving! (X-Men #66)

Cecilia Reyes, reluctant hero. (X-Men #66)

I really thought this was a callback to a bit of Iceman’s Silver Age origin story, but it is not. (X-Men #66)

Here for the meme. (X-Men #66)

Sabra, puncher of cars, owner of the world’s most durable bra. (X-Men #67)

Speaking of callbacks. (X-Men #68)

I know that Marrow is not actually supposed to be kicking herself in the face here, but I can’t see it any other way. (X-Men #68)

Can you imagine a more awkward person to get stuck in a bathroom conversation with than Henry Peter Gyrich? (X-Men #68)

Again, here for your Internet use. (X-Men #68)

Sabra’s costume is fairly cool. (X-Men #68)

HOW DOES SHE SAY THAT MUCH WHILE JUMPING OUT OF THE WATER DOLPHIN-STYLE? (X-Men #69)

And that’s that, sort of. (X-Men #69)

NEXT EPISODE: Bastion and his fleshy appendages!

LINKS & FURTHER LIFE LESSONS:

Nearly 40 years after Secret Wars II, Spider-Man is still teaching people to poop.

394 – We All Have to Go Sometime

December 4, 2022 Jay 15 comments

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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!

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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As Mentioned in Episode 393 – Camping With Uncle Mustang

November 27, 2022 Jay Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

Aw, man. (Wolverine #115)

Go, Jubilee! (Wolverine #115)

It never really gets old. (Wolverine #115)

Five X-Men in an elevator. (Wolverine #115)

Meet Mustang! (Wolverine #116)

“Hey. Hey. Wake up. Hey.” (Wolverine #116)

Aw, Mustang, no. (Wolverine #116)

Definitely the creepiest version of the Prime Sentinels. (Wolverine #117)

Dr. Whatever-his-name-is and his fancy mad-science lab. (Wolverine #117)

Been a (traumatic) while. (Wolverine #117)

The inevitable finally occurs. (Wolverine #117)

NEXT EPISODE: The Mostly New and Different X-Men!

393 – Camping With Uncle Mustang

November 27, 2022 Jay 8 comments

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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!

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!