Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

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66 – The Mutant Massacre, Part 2

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/26/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/26/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which we wrap up our first official two-parter; Gambit ruins everything; Rachel has a theory about Mister Sinister; Marvel communication technology is behind the times; Trish Tilby is tired of your bullshit; Walter Simonson is the best of the best; X-Factor pulls it together; Power Pack gets uncomfortably dark; Miles has Thor feelings; and even more mutants die.

NOTE: This episode is the second of a two-parter! If you haven’t listened to Episode 65, where we cover the first half of the mutant massacre, you should probably do that before you listen to this one!

X-PLAINED:

  • Masque
  • Tentacle disambiguation
  • More of the Mutant Massacre
  • A Sinister hypothesis
  • Several Marauder-related retcons
  • X-Factor #9-11
  • Power Pack #27
  • The Mighty Thor #373-374
  • Trish Tilby
  • Artie & Leech
  • Several awkward reunions
  • Walter Simonson
  • The fall of Angel
  • Apocalypse’s horsemen
  • Yet another crossover that will probably scar the Power kids for life
  • Franklin Richards
  • Thor, Donald Blake, and Sigurd Jarlson
  • The best issue of any comic, ever.
  • The Tunnelers
  • Ongoing repercussions of the Mutant Massacre
  • Rachel & Miles’s horseman identities
  • Which X-Men could and should wield Mjolnir

NEXT WEEK: The New Mutants party like it’s 1299!

You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E7: Turn of the Rogue

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AND WE’RE BACK! Hi, Evolution! I’ve missed you!

Not only am I back recapping X-Men: Evolution, but I get to jump back in with my hands-down favorite episode of Season 1.

Remember back in Episode 3, when I told you that a lot of the best stuff in Season 1 revolves around Rogue? This is what I’m talking about, right here. “Turn of the Rogue” is a great showcase of my favorite aspects of X-Men: Evolution: the balance and interaction of the superheroic and the personal; emotionally resonant coming-of-age stories; and some of the strongest writing and performances of the season.

Also, Mystique turns into an eagle.

LET’S DO THIS THING.

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As Mentioned in Episode 52 – Previously on Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men…

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Listen to the episode here!

Art by David Wynne.
Art by David Wynne.

Given the nature of this week’s episode, we decided against putting together a visual companion (we instead recommend clicking through the preceding visual companions as fast as you can). However, we did assemble a handy index of every single previous episode, which you can find below the cut!

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Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E5: Speed and Spyke

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Before we jump into this one, let me tell you kids a story.

Once upon a time, there was a gentleman by the name of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was an incredibly important figure in comics: these days, he’s best known as the creator of Static Shock and the co-founder of Milestone Media; for his work across the DCAU; and as a tireless and outspoken advocate for black representation in superhero comics.

In 1989, when McDuffie was an editor at Marvel Comics, he wrote a biting, satirical pitch that has since become industry legend. In his pitch, McDuffie points out that 25% of African-American superheroes appearing in the Marvel Universe over the last year have had skateboard-based superpowers or fighting styles, and proposes a new team to take advantage of this and other equivalently exciting trends, featuring four black guys on skateboards:

McDuffie

Twelve years later, the fifth episode of X-Men: Evolution would introduce the Xavier Institute’s sole black student and the show’s first original character, Evan “Spyke” Daniels:

A black guy on a skateboard.

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Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E3: Rogue Recruit

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Oh, hell, yeah! It’s Rogue time, y’all!

Evolution Rogue is awesome. She’s one of the characters who fares best in reimagining–as I wrote about Cyclops in S1E1, Rogue is very recognizably written in the spirit of some of the best previous versions of the character, with the letter flexible enough to let her develop organically in her new context and setting.

So it should be no surprise when I tell you that a lot of the best stuff in the generally pretty shaky and uneven Season One centers around Rogue. And that, my friends, begins here. Lace up your best New Rocks, dig up some black lipstick (or steal your friend’s eyeliner crayon and be careful not to lick your lips), and get ready to rumble.

Or, y’know, whatever.

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Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution

S1E4: Mutant Crush

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Let me get this out of the way fast: “Mutant Crush” is my least favorite episode of X-Men: Evolution. Yes, even more than “The Cauldron,” which I’m pretty sure is objectively the worst episode of the series.1

But while “The Cauldron” is terrible, it’s hilariously terrible. “Mutant Crush” is. Well. It’s a decently written episode, I guess. And it’s got a lot of moments I dig. It’s just also really fucked up and disturbing, and not in hilarious and pedantic ways.

Seriously: Shit gets dark in this episode. If you don’t want to read a humorous write-up of a story that is essentially about stalking and kidnapping, you may want to skip this one. I recognize that this is essentially a humor column, and I tried to find okay ways to be funny about this episode, but I mostly ended up with a lot of tonal whiplash, and a pretty high volume of commentary on the ways women are socialized to appease violent men, and some really inappropriate references to John Fowles’ The Collector.2

And on that note: Here is a link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline’s help page. NDVH is a pretty solid organization, and in addition to the actual hotlines–which include a phone line and web-based chat, both confidential and anonymous–they’ve got a very good list of resources, including LGBTQI and teen-specific stuff. (NDVH is, however, mostly U.S.-specific. If you know of international resources or have other specific recommendations, please stick ‘em in the comments, and maybe we can get something useful out of this clusterfuck of an episode.)

Right. So. LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME X-MEN!

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Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E2: The X Impulse

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You know how I said that X-Men: Evolution is really entertaining even when it’s really, really bad? This week, we’re gonna put that to the test. Prepare for more rock puns than you have ever heard in a single 22-minute stretch. Also, Transformers. Kinda.

In other news, I still have no idea what the titles refer to.

BUT FIRST, A PRETEND HORROR MOVIE!

We open with the Pryde home, in a fictional town in Illinois. The town has a name, but I don’t care what it is, and it’s never going to be relevant again, so I’m just gonna call it Fake Deerfield. Cool? Cool.

OH, MY GOD, IT'S CINEMATOGRAPHY!
OH, MY GOD, IT’S GRATUITOUS LIGHTNING!

Kitty dreams that she’s falling, and–spoiler–she actually falls through her bed and floor and lands in the basement. She wakes up screaming, and her parents rush down to comfort her. They think she was sleepwalking–until they look up and a PORTENTOUS FLASH OF LIGHTNING illuminates her blanket, embedded in the basement ceiling.

OH MY GOD! THAT’S–actually, wait, that’s not scary at all.

Okay, look, I get what they were shooting for here, but you know who has the least horror-movie powers of just about all the X-Men? Hint: It’s definitely Kitty, barring the stories where phased becomes her default state (which this isn’t). Framing this scene and the Prydes’ cheerfully generic suburban house like a horror movie reminds me of one of those recut trailers where you try to make a movie look like a genre it obviously isn’t; or a kid telling a shaggy-dog joke and then waiting for you to be overjoyed at the lack of punchline; or the entire movie White Noise.1 It’s all buildup, with no proportionate payoff.

NOPE!
Ew, Cerebro, no. Don’t do that.

Meanwhile, back at Stately Xavier Manor, Kitty’s late-night spill pings Cerebro. Does anyone else find it unsettling that Professor X has a psychic supercomputer that provides him with turnaround full body scans of teenagers?

Also, Cerebro accurately predicts the outfit that Kitty is going to wear to school the next day.2

“What am I?” wails Kitty. “What’s happening to me?” Just give it five seconds, kid–the credits montage identifies you quite clearly as Shadowcat.

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21 – Kurt Busiek at the Coffee-a-Go-Go

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Famous Five
Art by David Wynne

In which special guest Kurt Busiek is the J. Robert Oppenheimer of X-Men, Rachel and Miles learn to love the Silver Age, Cyclops gets a job, Bernard the Poet falls from grace, we really wish X-Men: The Secret Years was a real book, everyone recites poetry, and we still don’t get around to Marvels.

X-Plained:

  • METOXO, the Lava Man
  • The true, secret purpose of Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • The Phoenix retcon
  • Archival pocket dimensions
  • Enid Blyton’s X-Men
  • Early-to-mid-20th Century American Jewish Socialism
  • Why the X-Men are terrible mutant P.R.
  • Band names of the Silver Age
  • An X-Men series that might have been.
  • Why Cyclops should be the Rachel Maddow of Marvel
  • Quicksilver’s childhood dreams
  • The Coffee-a-Go-Go
  • Bernard the Poet
  • Zelda Kurtzberg
  • The Barefoot Beats

Next week: The wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey!

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Support us on Patreon!

Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E1: Strategy X

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I was a little too old to catch X-Men: Evolution the first time around. It debuted my freshman year of college, corresponding with the peak of my nerd pretension—that larval-geek phase where you insist on calling all comics graphic novels—and like the arch little fucker I was, I dismissed it sight-unseen as X-Men dumbed down.

A few years ago, I finally sat down and watched my way through X-Men: Evolution and came away with two conclusions: teenage Rachel was kind of a dolt; and X-Men: Evolution is delightful.

Not only is Evolution not X-Men dumbed down, it’s a really clever, appealing reinvention. In fact, Evolution accomplishes what the Ultimate universe never quite could: shaking off years of continuity and attracting an entirely new audience with a distilled version of one of Marvel’s most convoluted lines.

groupshotIf you’re not familiar with X-Men: Evolution, the premise is roughly thus: The Xavier Institute is an extracurricular boarding school of sorts, whose students are mainstreamed into their district school—Bayville High—for academics. Some of the characters—Storm, Wolverine, and Professor Xavier on the side of the angels; Mystique, Magneto, and a few others on the other end of the moral spectrum—stay adults; everyone else is aged down to teenagers. Evolution draws characters and some story hooks from the comics, but for the most part, it occupies its own discrete continuity.

And as continuities go, it’s a good one. It’s clever and fun, it’s got a ton of heart, and it stays true to the core themes and characters of the source material without becoming overly beholden to the letter of the text. By the end, it’ll become a really, really good show; but even when it’s bad, X-Men: Evolution is bad in really entertaining ways.

Which is important, because X-Men: Evolution gets off to a pretty rocky start.

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