Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

106 – The X-Terminators

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which Nextwave is both canon and not-canon; Inferno officially begins; X-Terminators is basically a cartoon; Bill Gaines cannot catch a break; Artie and Leach are superbabies; Takeshi Matsuya is fantastic; you should probably never take our advice about anything; Boom Boom is pretty good at superhero costume design; Walter Peck was right; Miles still won’t stop saying that one line about stealing a baby; N’astirh is no pigeon; and “No Mutant Is an Island” is a patently inaccurate statement.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Beyond Corporation
  • The Defilers
  • X-Terminators #1-4
  • The first 35 issues of X-Factor, briefly
  • Two teams with the same name
  • Fredric Wertham
  • Bill Gaines
  • Crotus
  • Babies
  • A boarding school that may or may not be Phillips Exeter Academy
  • Muffy
  • Saint Simon’s Academy
  • Wiz Kid (Takeshi Matsuya)
  • Nuprin
  • Medical advice from goblins
  • The Goblin Buster
  • Metareferential snack food
  • RadSport Sport Fashion Outfitters
  • An exceptionally specific Ghostbusters reference
  • Helen and Tim
  • Dubious spell semantics
  • How not to incorporate a crossover into a miniseries, and vice versa
  • “No Mutant Is an Island”
  • A brief history of Magneto’s helmet
  • Definitive Magnetos

NEXT WEEK: The fall of Magik.

Special thanks to multiversal metacontinuity wizard Al Ewing for the last-minute assist on the cold open!

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

Find us on iTunes, Google Play, 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

Jay & Miles Review the X-Men, Episode 81

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Week of April 20, 2016:

In which Extraordinary X-Men finally lives up to its name; Jay and Miles accidentally wear matching shirts (but don’t bother to change); and Jay fails to come up with something exciting to put in the video-description copy.

Reviewed:

  • Extraordinary X-Men #9 (Pick of the week, obviously)

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. These video reviews–and everything else here–are made possible by the support of our Patreon subscribers. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

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ECCC 2016 Round-Up!

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Listen to the live episode here.

Miles, Scott, and Jay performing the Hamilton cold open live at Phoenix Comics (video courtesy of Annie Bulloch):

ECCC Show Diaries:

ETA: If you absolutely can’t get enough of Hamilton and X-Men cross-references, here’s the time someone asked Jay to associate songs from the show with specific X-characters and they couldn’t stop.

105 – Live from ECCC with Kris Anka, Al Ewing, Scott Koblish, and G. Willow Wilson

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

 

In which continuity has its eyes on you; the multiverse is so complex that we have to drag Al Ewing out of the audience to X-plain it; the X-Men mean a lot of different (but mostly compatible) things to all of us; we will accept any retcons necessary to maintain Magneto’s history as a Holocaust survivor; and ECCC rocks our world.

X-PLAINED:

  • Secret Wars
  • Alternate universes vs. alternate timelines
  • Multiversal problem-solving
  • New Arcadia
  • Definitive alternate-timeline X-Men
  • The weird joy of reading comics out of order
  • That one alternate timeline where Storm has a leather jacket and is hooking up with Wolverine
  • The only happy Cyclops in the multiverse
  • What makes the X-Men the X-Men
  • Intersections we’d like to see explored in canon
  • The appeal of universe-hopping
  • Relative ratios of metaphors to punching
  • Proof of concept in comics publishing
  • Battleworld characters we’d like to import into the 616.1
  • Which X-Men should get solo series

NEXT WEEK: X-Terminators!

CORRECTION: During the panel, Jay claimed that Spider-Man had been married for their entire life. Jay was in fact five years old when Spider-Man got married. We regret the error, but maintain our stance that Spider-Man is totally married.

You can find links to all our ECCC coverage–as well as a live video of the Hamilton cold open, from the Phoenix Comics party–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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

 

The Whole Cyclops Has a Good Day Sketchbook, as of April 2016

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Jay here! Because a handful of people have asked for them all in one place, here are the full current contents of the Cyclops Has a Good Day sketchbook, in chronological order.

(In the name of being precise about these kinds of things, I should note that these are not all of the Cyclops Has a Good Day drawings that I have–there are a good 6-10ish that are free-floating or digital–just the ones in the official sketchbook. I may add the others later, but they’re somewhat more scattered at the moment.)

Tyler Crook
Meredith McClaren
Dean Trippe
Steve Lieber
Doc Shaner
Pete Woods
Maris Wicks
Stephanie Lantry
Matt Grigsby
Ibrahim Moustafa
Katie Cook
Kris Anka
Bill Sienkiewicz
Joe Quinones
Art Baltazar
Scott Wegener
Janet K. Lee
Al Ewing
Alex Sanchez
Peter V. Nguyen
Jake Wyatt
Erica Henderson
Dylan Meconis
Ron Randall
Cully Hamner
David Wynne
Scott Koblish
Tea Berryblue
Jessi Jordan

 

Jay & Miles Review the X-Men, Episode 80

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Weeks of April 6 and April 13, 2016:

In which Uncanny X-Men gets a new artist; Old Man Logan takes our breath away; All-New X-Men gives us the team-up we didn’t know we needed; and X-Men ’92 gets the villain we’ve been waiting for.

REVIEWED:

  • Uncanny X-Men #6 (00:59)
  • *Old Man Logan #4 (05:43)
  • All-New X-Men #8 (09:15)
  • X-Men ’92 #2 (12:49)

*Pick of the Week (18:26)

Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. These video reviews–and everything else here–are made possible by the support of our Patreon subscribers. If you want to help support the podcast–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!

Come join us on Imzy!

Jay and Miles Try to Draw and Cyclops Has a Good Day at ECCC 2016!

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WOOHOO IT’S SKETCH ROUND-UP TIME!

We do bad X-Men drawings for $1 at cons (although we might end up raising the price, because we spent a somewhat ridiculous amount of time on these). Here’s most of what we did at ECCC, minus a few that we forgot to photograph:

Miles starts with a classic.
Cyclops Has a Good Day, by Jay. (It seems kind of unfair to commission something that’s *my* sketchbook theme–I’m used to other people having to think of these!)
Seriously, y’all, Miles will take ANY EXCUSE to draw Adam X the X-Treme.
If you ask Jay to draw Warlock, you will get a Warlock heart. Every time.
There were a lot of Colossus requests this year! Here’s Miles’s favorite.
This person wanted a shadowcat and a Magik in her zine, so we made them a matched set: Shadowcat by Jay…
…and Magik by Miles.
Jay’s attempt to capture the grandeur of ’90s Rogue’s hair fell tragically short.
Someone wanted Miles to draw the death of Nightcrawler, so, that happened.
What happens when Jay gets tired of coloring in AoA Colossus.
Miles is all about the really sharp dudes; in this case, Stryfe.
Jay REALLY ENJOYS drawing Shadowcat with swoopy Alan Davis hair.
Miles takes a stab at Inferno Colossus.
Jay drew a Warlock that is a heart that is also a bookplate. Your argument is invalid.

David drew a lot of really beautiful sketches and commissions, but for some reason, this is the only one we actually have a photo of:

d_cable

And here are the newest additions to Jay’s Cyclops Has a Good Day sketchbook (the downside of working shows = very little time to run around and get commissions and sketches, alas!):

Cully Hamner
David Wynne (who has actually drawn more of these than anyone else, but also had never previously been on the same continent as the sketchbook proper! Someday I will do an all-David Cyclops Has a Good Day gallery.)
Scott Koblish
Tea Berryblue
Jessi Jordan (who was also our marvelous table neighbor!)

 

As Mentioned in Episode 104 – The Noodle Incident

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Extraordinary X-Men
Uncanny X-Men
All-New Wolverine
Old Man Logan
All-New X-Men
X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever
X-Men ’92
NEXT WEEK: Continuity Has Its Eyes on You: Live from ECCC with Kris Anka, Al Ewing, Scott Koblish, and G. Willow Wilson!

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

104 – The Noodle Incident (feat. Brett White and Dennis Hopeless)

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which Brett White joins us for a look at the current state of the X-line; Dennis Hopeless helps shed some light on a persistent mystery; Brett has a lot of feelings about the Dark Riders; All-New Wolverine is our everything; All-New X-Men is the new New Mutants; X-Men ’92 is the prize at the bottom of the continuity cereal box; we speculate on potential fatalities in the upcoming Death of X; and everything is probably going to be more or less okay.

X-PLAINED:

  • Why everyone is mad at Cyclops
  • The Noodle Incident
  • How we variously define X-titles
  • The current state of the X-line
  • The 8-Month Gap
  • Secret Wars
  • Earth 616.1
  • Extraordinary X-Men (Current series)
  • Uncanny X-Men (Current series)
  • All-New Wolverine
  • Old Man Logan (Current series)
  • All-New X-Men (Current series)
  • X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever
  • X-Men ’92 (Current series)
  • The Dark Riders
  • Being personally invested in characters you don’t own
  • Favorite formats
  • The mystic end of the X-Men cinematic universe
  • Mysteries and mysteries

NEXT WEEK: Continuity Has Its Eyes on You: Live from ECCC with Kris Anka, Al Ewing, Scott Koblish, and G. Willow Wilson!

EDITED: NOODLE INCIDENT SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. We’ll be announcing the winners sometime between 4/18 and 4/22. Thank you to everyone who participated!!!

You can find a 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

 

ECCC Show Diary: Day 4

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Jay here! It’s 1:30 AM, I’m scrambling to get Episode 104 up, and I’m dead on my feet, so I’m gonna keep this one pretty cursory.

Four days is a lot of convention. I know there are shows where it’s standard, but we really, really felt the extra day today.

  • I don’t even know.
  • I’m really tired, y’all.
  • Some stuff happened?
  • OH! There was some really great cosplay.
  • And we did a bunch of sketches and forgot to take pictures of most of them.
  • The end of a con is always pretty bittersweet. We’re exhausted and very ready to be home, but we also had an amazing time and saw (and made!) a lot of very dear friends who we will now miss dreadfully!
  • Speaking of which, we have to send David back to the UK tomorrow, and that sucks, because he’s awesome. Someone invent safe and affordable teleportation now, please.
  • Ooh, maybe I should do a con highlights list! Yeah, I’m gonna do that.

ECCC 2016 HIGHLIGHTS:

  • MEETING YOU! We know our listeners are awesome, but, man, nothing drives that point home like meeting you in person. You are universally delightful. One of you brought Miles beer.
  • Meeting creators! Scott Koblish is a national treasure, y’all. Also, apparently a lot of people whose work we really, really love listen to the show; which is both awesome and intimidating as hell.
  • Seeing old friends and meeting new. Man, we’re going to miss you so much.
  • THE LIVE SHOW. Oh. My. God.
  • The Hamilton cold open actually gets its own list item, because I am incredibly proud of that ridiculousness, and because Scott Koblish is–again–a national treasure; because he not only dove headfirst into that ridiculousness, but did it again the next night at our birthday party while standing on a chair.
  • SPEAKING OF WHICH, our 2nd birthday party was so damn fun. Phoenix comics was amazing! You were amazing! The cake was amazing! Going to a bar and sitting down and eating non-cake afterwards and talking until stupid o’clock was amazing!
  • Okay, look, this is my favorite show. (Sorry, RCCC: you’re lovely and our hometown con, but ECCC got a seven-year head start working its way into my heart.) I know the people who run it. I know a ton of people who go. I know the city, and I have a great place to crash, and basically I love ECCC and I love all of you and this has been a nonstop-amazing four days. Thank you. So much.
  • I’m going to borrow some words from David, who’s already said it far better than I can at this point: “All in all, ECCC has been an amazingly fun adventure full of life affirming positivity. I keep wanting to do a (series of) tweet(s) acknowledging all the great people I’ve met this weekend, but there are just too many. I would inevitably forget someone, so it’s better if I don’t do it. Just know: if I spent time with you, I’m glad I did, you are awesome.”

AND HERE ARE A FEW PHOTOGRAPHS FROM TODAY:

LOOK AT THESE PUNK X-MEN LOOK HOW AWESOME THEY ARE
LOOK AT THESE PUNK X-MEN LOOK HOW AWESOME THEY ARE

 

Someone wanted me to draw a Warlock book plate in their X-Men sketchbook. The sketch on the facing page is X-Factor Cyclops by Ibrahim Moustafa, which was intimidating as all hell.
Someone wanted me to draw a Warlock book plate in their X-Men sketchbook. (You can only see a corner of it in this photo, but the sketch on the facing page is gorgeous X-Factor Cyclops by Ibrahim Moustafa.)
Remember Tea, that terrific Namor from earlier in the show? Today she was dressed up as Little Marvels AvX Cyclops, complete with a Bucky Bear!
Remember Tea, that terrific Namor from earlier in the show? Today she was dressed up as Little Marvels AvX Cyclops, complete with a Bucky Bear!
The nice folks at We Love Fine gave me a magnetic Goat Simulator goat, which I have spent the evening gleefully attaching to every metal or metal-studded object I could find--including David, who was still wearing his con badge under his jacket.
The nice folks at We Love Fine gave me a magnetic Goat Simulator goat, which I have spent the evening gleefully attaching to every metal or metal-studded object I could find–including David, who was still wearing his con badge under his jacket.

(We didn’t try any new Lush stuff today. Also, I think we accidentally left a bunch of it back in Portland. Maybe I’ll fold the rest into the roundups of cosplay and sketches later this week…)