Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 226 – Les Mutants

Listen to the podcast here!



At the End of the Fight

Lyrics by Jay Edidin, with apologies to Herbert Kretzmer

Performed by *Luz Bianca, Greg Black, Jeremy Borders, Lucas Brown, Kitty Byrne, *Tina Carelton, *Finn Carter, Everett Christensen, Veryan Croggan, Chris Eddleman, *Christina Eddleman, edibleflowers, Sol Foster, Emily Freville, Matt Gardner, Eric Michael Gray, Pete Gresser, Becky Hawkins, Andrew Hill, Jeff Holland, Al Kennedy, Steve Lacey, Kevin Lanigan, Elana Levin, *Alex Lundquist, Dan McMahon, William Mason, Steve Neal, notwhelmedyet (Lynn), Duck Orsino, Shannon Pack, Erin Pence, *Steve Pence, Philthy, Mariana Poole, rainproof, Samantha Riedel, Scott Sharplin, Adam Slevison, Richaundra Thursday, Dave Tomaine, Devin Toohey, and Grace Young.
*Soloists

[X-FACTOR]
At the end of the fight you’re another page older
And that’s all you can say for the X-Factor life
It’s a struggle, it’s a war
And just when you think that you’re winning
You find yourself stuck on the moon, facing down Stryfe
And the fight’s just beginning

At the end of the fight you’re another fight older
And the X on your jacket won’t keep out the chill
And the readers all hurry past
To the six other X-books they’re buying
As the Legacy Virus spreads fast, ready to kill
One fight nearer to dying

[COMPANY]
A tthe end of the fight there’s another fight coming
A crossover next week, an annual soon
Like a storm that’ll break any second
Foreshadowing Fatal Attractions
There’s a reckoning still to be reckoned
Plus the critics’ hot takes and reactions
And the future is not looking bright
At the end of the fight

[VAL COOPER]
At the end of the fight there will be a debriefing
You don’t get to slack in a government job

[STRONG GUY]
We’ve got better things to do
And this system doesn’t seem fair
After all, we threw all the punches

[POLARIS]
Plus, we don’t care

[STRONG GUY+ WOLFSBANE]
And we need a vacation.

[MULTIPLEMAN]
Have you seen how Val Cooper is fuming today

[QUICKSILVER]
She might be possessed, she seems so out of sorts

[VAL]
Step it up Summers, there’s paperwork waiting–
They’re not dissertations, just mission reports

[COMPANY]
At the end of the fight it’s another fight over
To whatever extent superhero fights end
Fight Magneto, fight the Blob
Fight some guy we just met in a sewer
What the hell, at least it’s a job
Just find us the next evildoer
‘Cause there’s no resolution in sight
At the end of the fight


LINKS & FURTHER NONSENSE:

226 – Les Mutants

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

In which Havok actually used to be pretty great; there are at least four attorneys in the Marvel Universe; Genosha continues to be wildly problematic; Hieronymus Bosch was not Comics Code-compliant; Quicksilver goes on vacation; Polaris has no time for your love triangle; Wolfsbane can maul as many magistrates as she wants; and Multiple Man makes a choice.

X-PLAINED:
• Damian Tryp
• An unconventional staffing practice
• Genosha (more) (again)
• The devolution of Alex Summers’ personality
• Several attorneys in the Marvel Universe
X-Factor #88-91
• Random (Marshall Stone III)
• Joe Quesada’s signature ribbons
• Checkbook heroism
• Kids these days
• Genoshan reconstruction
• Several gardens of earthly delights
• Puberty
• A mercifully abandoned plan
• A conspiracy
• A significant tonal shift
• Mutate #24601
• RoboJean
• Genosha’s sanitation system
• Dick Chalker
Magneto Rex
• Humans in Magneto’s Genosha

NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine vs. everything


Thanks to everyone who helped bring Jay’s weird musical dream to life:

*Luz Bianca, Greg Black, Jeremy Borders, Lucas Brown, Kitty Byrne, *Tina Carelton, *Finn Carter, Everett Christensen, Veryan Croggan, Chris Eddleman, *Christina Eddleman, edibleflowers, Sol Foster, Emily Freville, Matt Gardner, Eric Michael Gray, Pete Gresser, Becky Hawkins, Andrew Hill, Jeff Holland, Al Kennedy, Steve Lacey, Kevin Lanigan, Elana Levin, *Alex Lundquist, Dan McMahon, William Mason, Steve Neal, notwhelmedyet (Lynn), Duck Orsino, Shannon Pack, Erin Pence, *Steve Pence, Philthy, Mariana Poole, rainproof, Samantha Riedel, Scott Sharplin, Adam Slevison, Richaundra Thursday, Dave Tomaine, Devin Toohey, and Grace Young.

*Soloists

Special thanks to Juliana Finch, Christian Lipski, and Laser Webber for technical advice; Christina Eddleman for recording the demo track; and Matt Gardner and Peter Gresser for [Easter egg description redacted].


Check out the visual companion to this episode–as well as the full lyrics to “At the End of the Fight”–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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)

Listen to the episode here.

LINKS & FURTHER READING

225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)

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

In which we check in on Firestar and the New Warriors; superheroes often celebrate Bring Your Mom To The Amazon Day; Fabian Nicieza employs only the finest of lampshades; and Emma Frost still doesn’t apologize for blowing up that pony.

X-PLAINED:

  • Vance Astro(vik)
  • Penance (but not that one)
  • Austin Gorton’s X-Aminations
  • New Warriors #10
  • Firestar (Angelica Jones)
  • The New Warriors
  • Visual representations of invisible mutant powers
  • The Hellions (more) (again)
  • Tarot and her Morrisonian powers
  • Bevatrons
  • Oxy-cution
  • The inevitably increasing complexity of superhero origins
  • The Miracle of Microwaves
  • New Warriors #31
  • Nova Roma
  • Magma (Amara Aquilla) (or Allison Crestmere, I guess)
  • A brief and futile attempt at Roman soldier disambiguation
  • Empath and his large collection of red flags
  • Gender-based intuition
  • A massive, stupid, and quickly undone retcon
  • Super-nature versus super-nurture
  • The hypothetical psychological roots of Emma Frost’s fashion phases

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor finally makes it to Genosha!


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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 224 – Fix the Future

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER COSMIC ENTITIES:

224 – Fix the Future

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

In which Alan Davis performs his pièce de résistance; the personification of Death is surprisingly supportive; Rachel Summers is the One True Phoenix; Kitty Pryde goes full ’90s; syntax saves the world; and the first Excalibur series should really have ended with #67.

X-PLAINED:

  • Origins of Phoenix mythology
  • Excalibur #61-67
  • The Phoenix Force (more) (again)
  • Rachel Summers (more) (again)
  • Earth-811 (more) (again)
  • Phoenix vs. Galactus
  • A pep talk from Death
  • The One True Phoenix
  • The dark, distant future of 2013
  • The dark, even more distant future of 2015
  • The extremely complicated future of Kate Pryde
  • Rory Campbell / Ahab
  • What may or may not be Ahab’s theme song
  • Moby Dick, kind of
  • That one time Widget was a car
  • Resistance Coordination Executive
  • Dark Angel
  • Killpower
  • Albion
  • Grace
  • Tangerine
  • Arthur
  • An Excalibur #54 callback
  • Excalibur (the gun)
  • Kitty’s new image
  • How to hack the robot apocalypse
  • Saved by the Bell: The College Years
  • Where Excalibur should have ended
  • Tactical use of Magneto’s hat
  • Anti-assimilation stories in X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: The Passion of Butter Rum (feat. Austin Gorton)


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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 223 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival

Listen to the podcast here.



And here’s a bonus gallery of Jay’s convention sketches:


LINKS & FURTHER GAMBLES:

223 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival

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

In which Dracula probably doesn’t drink his blood from a World’s Greatest Dad mug; Miles massively underestimates the cultural ubiquity of Sexy Dracula; Bill Sienkiewicz may or may not have ever seen a bat; Kitty gets possessed; and Dazzler is singularly well suited to a Vegas residency.

X-PLAINED:

  • Dracula’s ungrateful children
  • Marvel Dracula
  • A fortuitously named writer
  • Rachel Van Helsing
  • X-Men #159 (again) (briefly)
  • Sexy Dracula
  • The secret origin of sexy Draculas
  • Fastball Special body mechanics
  • X-Men Annual #6
  • A nightmare
  • “Bats”
  • Yet another Castle Dracula
  • The Montesi Formula
  • Sound effects, spoken or otherwise
  • Lilith
  • Chairs
  • The relative efficacy of holy symbols against Dracula
  • X-Vegas
  • Characters we have grown to love as a result of the podcast

NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!


Check out the visual companion to this episode–along with Jay’s convention sketches–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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 222 – A Tale of Two Betsys

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER SORROWS

222 – A Tale of Two Betsys

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

In which it has been a pretty intense month; there is a lot to unpack about Psylocke; we are confused by hip teen lingo; Cyclops definitively lacks game; organized crime is anything but; and the mystery of the third Summers brother officially begins.

X-PLAINED:

  • How the Maximoffs joined the Avengers
  • X-Cutioner’s Song fallout
  • An X-ceptionally convoluted set of retcons
  • X-Men #20-23
  • How not to repair an airplane
  • One way to get out of an awkward conversation
  • Several Betsys Braddock
  • Revanche
  • Dubiously organized crime
  • Kwannon
  • Nyorin’s diary
  • Awkward family conversations
  • Mike Milbury
  • Twin Peaks Season 3
  • Akira Yoshida

NEXT EPISODE: Dracula in Vegas!


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.)