Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Captain Britain

As Mentioned in Episode 192 – Meet the N-Men

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
All-new, all-different! (Excalibur #45)
And that’s why you don’t bring Technet on a stakeout. (Excalibur #45)
LOOK AT THESE DELIGHTFUL INDIVIDUALS (Excalibur #45)
She’s not wrong. (Excalibur #45)
Really, really good use of shadows, there. (Excalibur #45)
MEET THE N-MEN! (Excalibur #45)
Remember this guy. He’s gonna be a major antagonist. (Excalibur #45)
Ah, Joyboy, we hardly knew thee. (Excalibur #45)
Meggan contains multitudes. (Excalibur #46)
Aw, Zombie Thor looks so happy to be there. (Excalibur #46)
If things like peeing in solitude are important to you, you should probably not join Excalibur. (Excalibur #46)
Nightcrawler: canonically EXTRA heroic. (Excalibur #46)
*Rimshot* (Excalibur #46)
Sparkly! (Excalibur #46)
Meggan’s true form has SERIOUS hair. (Excalibur #46)
Aw, Widget. (Excalibur #46)
One of the all-time classic Excalibur covers. (Excalibur #47)
THE GREATEST LOVE STORY IN COMICS. (Excalibur #47)
Hi, Cerise! (Excalibur #47)
Damnit, Merlyn. This is why we can’t have nice things.(Excalibur #47)
Kurt, if you don’t know which book you’re in by now, I don’t know what to tell you. (Excalibur #47)
They do this with THE WHOLE STORY, and it warms my shriveled heart. (Excalibur #47)
NEXT EPISODE: A Bishop in the house!

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

192 – Meet the N-Men

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

In which Alan Davis’s Excalibur is a spiritual sibling to The Muppet Show; Captain Britain gets a Captain Britain lesson; Opal Luna Saturnyne has no time for your nonsense; Meggan and Rachel take a brief detour into a Hammer film; Earth-148 is extra heroic; no member of Excalibur will ever use a bathroom in peace; Cerise joins the team; Technet embraces the future; and the end of the world is nigh.

X-PLAINED:

  • Pixie’s powers and parentage
  • Several eccentricities of Jay’s apartment
  • Excalibur #45-47
  • Earth-148 (Ee’rath)
  • Comics pacing vs. podcast pacing
  • Technet (more) (again)
  • Amelia Witherspoon and several references related thereto
  • The N-Men
  • How to Captain Britain
  • The multiversal significance of the lighthouse
  • A portentous chess game
  • A particularly aggressive retcon
  • The return of the Neuri
  • The real Meggan
  • Necrom
  • A heroic death
  • The true curse of Excalibur
  • Some very specific citations
  • A reunion
  • Kylun (Colin McKay)
  • A blessed event
  • Cerise
  • Whether Rogue can control Cyclops’s powers
  • Laura Kinney’s upcoming reversion to X-23

NEXT EPISODE: Bishop joins the X-Men!

ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT UPDATE: The wall on which Jay was attempting to mount a desk turned out to be plaster over sheetrock. Office plans are being revised accordingly.

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 182 – Lunch With Technet

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Man, I missed Alan Davis. (Excalibur #42)
“If brute force won’t work, salmonella will!” (Excalibur #42)
It was REALLY hard not to just include every single good facial expression in this issue. (Excalibur #42)
…Sure, why not? (Excalibur #42)
Seriously, though, this? This is perfect comics. (Excalibur #42)
Horatio Cringebottom and Bert. (Excalibur #42)
Ewwww. (Excalibur #42)
He’s gotten… taller. (Excalibur #42)
THIS COVER. Alan Davis, how are you even real? (Excalibur #43)
Jay made a bunch of really inappropriate valentines back in 2013. This was probably the best one. (Excalibur #43)
Dude, you can’t blame someone for their weird sex dreams. That’s just uncharitable. (Excalibur #43)
Brian Braddock is a big jerk. (Excalibur #43)
*SLOW CLAP* (Excalibur #43)
Meet your new OTP. (Excalibur #43)
Seriously, they are so good. (Excalibur #43)
China Doll is not wrong. (Excalibur #43)
MEGGAN DESERVES BETTER. Always. (Excalibur #43)
Pretty much a perfect one-panel summary of Excalibur. (Excalibur #43)
Pitch: A comic where Brian always talks like this, for no apparent reason. (Excalibur #44)
Meggan X-Plains Meggan. (Excalibur #44)
It’s sort of surprising that he’s not used to this sort of thing by now. (Excalibur #44)
You know you’d have asked, too. (Excalibur #44)
Damnit, Micromax. (Excalibur #44)
Meet Brother Brit-Man. (Excalibur #44)
A possibly familiar t-shirt, as it appears in X-Men Gold Annual #1. (Want one of your own? You can get it right here!)
NEXT EPISODE: More tentacles to hug with!

182 – Lunch With Technet

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

In which Alan Davis spins dangling plot threads into gold; comics artists are storytellers; Technet is a feature, not a bug; Brian Braddock’s issues reach their boiling point; if you’re going to learn about Earth from TV, you should probably stick with PBS; and our Lila Cheney t-shirts are officially canon!

X-PLAINED:

  • An unlikely alliance
  • Jay & Miles at Emerald City Comic Con
  • Alan Davis’s return to Excalibur
  • Excalibur #42-44
  • Breakfast with Excalibur
  • Hard-Boiled Henry
  • Horatio Cringebottom
  • Bert
  • Earth-148 (Ee’rath)
  • Kylun (Colin McKay)
  • Unlikely houseguests
  • A romance
  • A fracas
  • The trial of Captain Britain
  • Multiversal moral relativity
  • Micromax (Scott Wright)
  • Lunch with Technet
  • Why public television funding is important
  • How Shadowcat’s phasing interacts with extreme temperatures
  • Our opinions on X-Men: Gold Annual #1

NEXT EPISODE: Omega Red!

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 170 – Minor Punitive Heart Attacks

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Man, Excalibur, way to be jerks. (Excalibur #37)
If I had a dollar for every dream that had started this way… (Excalibur #37)
Spoiler: Nah. (Excalibur #37)
Kitty, you probably should’ve seen that coming. (Excalibur #37)
And now, some West Coast Avengers! (Excalibur #37)
The Lady of the… swimming pool? (Excalibur #37)
Convenient, that! (Excalibur #37)
Headcanon: He is definitely singing that music. (Excalibur #37)
Pietro’s not wrong; he’s just an asshole. (Excalibur #38)
Captain Britain, everybody. (Excalibur #38)
The heart of Limbo! (Excalibur #38)
“The reel, on the other hand…” (Excalibur #38)
“For me, it was Tuesday.” (Excalibur #39)
Bye, S’ym! (Excalibur #39)
And then everyone forgot he existed. (Excalibur #39)
Or maybe you should learn how meter works. Y’know, just a thought. (Excalibur #40)
Lockheed X-Plains Excalibur. (Excalibur #40)
Lockheed, NO. (Excalibur #40)
Aw. Dai Thomas has his moments. (Excalibur #40)
Spoiler: They do not kill him. (Excalibur #40)
The punchline is that they STILL haven’t figure out phones. (Excalibur #40)
This gag really never gets old. (Excalibur #41)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #41)
It’s always Inferno in here. (Excalibur #41)
This must be the best day of Dai Thomas’s life. (Excalibur #41)
Is it ever, though? (Excalibur #41)
THERE IS NO WAY THAT THAT WON’T BACKFIRE HORRIBLY. (Excalibur #41)
I like the idea that Cable is basically the X-Switchboard at this point. (Excalibur #41)
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor Forever!

170 – Minor Punitive Heart Attacks

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

In which Miles speculates about superheroes’ sex lives; Doctor Doom is an incorrigible scamp; the Lady of the Lake visits California; Captain Britain lacks basic superheroic social skills; Jay has strong feelings about doggerel; the warwolves know how to commit to a bit; and Excalibur and the X-Men continue to have terrible communication skills.

X-PLAINED:

  • One aspects of doombot functionality
  • Excalibur #37-41
  • The Soul Sword’s origins and current status
  • Promethium
  • Semantic disambiguation with regards to Limbo
  • The West Coast Avengers
  • The Lady of the Swimming Pool
  • Doctor Doom’s personal demons
  • Several team-ups
  • The heart of Limbo
  • Phoenix science
  • Darkoth the Demon (Desmond Pitt)
  • The Trial of Lockheed
  • A long-awaited reunion that isn’t actually a long-awaited reunion
  • A theoretical Frost-Summers wedding
  • What happened to Jen Askani post- “Endgame”

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor Forever

You can find 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 169 – Bad Kansas

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
SO, THAT’S GRAPHIC. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Yeah, I’m with Phoenix on this one. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Oh, that’s NEVER good. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
I’m not gonna say that Havok’s hat is the greatest abomination of this world, but it’s a pretty bad hat. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Oh, that makes perfect… sense? (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Professor Xavier is a jerk. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Seriously. Professor Xavier is a jerk. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
It’s hard to be a Phoenix host in a hell dimension. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Those eyebrows, though. Daaaamn. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Seriously, those things are off the rails. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
And then the Phoenix defeated the Nazis with the power of gayness. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
Well, that’s one way to do it. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
So, yeah. Giant Naked Cosmic Nazi Space Xavier. (Excalibur: Weird War III)
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Have we mentioned that Brett Blevins is a national treasure and must be protected at all costs? Brett Blevins is a national treasure and must be protected at all costs. (New Mutants Summer Special)
Aw, lurking moppets! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Warlock! We’ve missed you! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Well, that’s one way to make friends. (New Mutants Summer Special)
It’s… it’s… A METAPHOR! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Nothing familiar going on here… (New Mutants Summer Special)
Aw, Rahne. Every dang time. (New Mutants Summer Special)
Mookie has a bright future in P.R. (New Mutants Summer Special)
Welcome to Hunter S. Thompson’s Phantom Tollbooth! Meet Manufactured Consent… (New Mutants Summer Special)
…and a possibly-recognizable political figure. (New Mutants Summer Special)
Media literacy is the real superpower! (No, seriously; it’s really important.) (New Mutants Summer Special)
Somewhere, there’s a parallel universe where Brett Blevins is a really successful political cartoonist. (New Mutants Summer Special)
I’m not sure exactly what we’re supposed to get out of this panel. (New Mutants Summer Special)
This kid is so great. (New Mutants Summer Special)
And now, Situation Ethics! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Burn down the establishment, Mookie! Seize the means of production! (New Mutants Summer Special)
Well, that went some places. (New Mutants Summer Special)
Look, we never said it was a subtle story. (New Mutants Summer Special)
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur: The Fill-Ins!

169 – Bad Kansas

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

In which Justin Thyme is a forgotten superstar of comics; Nazis should pretty much never be used as a metaphor; Charles Xavier is somehow even worse than usual; Excalibur may lack object permanence; Phoenix defeats Hitler with the power of gayness; we may have hit Peak Nocenti; Brett Blevins should draw Boom Boom forever; and the New Mutants get a taste of media theory.

X-PLAINED:

  • The exact nature of Shatterstar and Longshot’s relationship
  • Excalibur: Weird War III
  • New Mutants Summer Special: A Mutant in Megalopolis
  • Justin Thyme
  • Bad Kansas
  • Nazi Charles Xavier
  • Kinda-Nazi Moira MacTaggert
  • The Reichsmen
  • Lightning Squad (again)
  • Naked Space Xavier
  • Largely unsuccessful denouement
  • The Wobbly Sneaker Gang
  • Megalopolis
  • Media theory and several of its anthropomorphic personifications
  • Socially conscious comics
  • The Gifted
  • The New Mutants trailer

NEXT EPISODE: Lockheed X-Plains Excalibur!

You can find 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 161 – Do You Even Howl, Bro?

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Listen to the podcast here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
FlameCon Saturday: ABD Squad! (Yes, Tea’s shirt says what you think it does. Yes, Jay’s hands light up. Yes, we think we’re funny.)
FlameCon Party: Billy and Teddy from Young Avengers #15
FlameCon Sunday: Mod Silver Age Emma and Scott.
Excalibur #32
Not unprecedented, until you realize that the whole thing is a fantasy Margaret Thatcher is having in therapy. (Excalibur #32)
YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?! (Excalibur #32)
Don’t mess with Kitty’s crushes. She’ll cut you. (Excalibur #32)
That is PERFECTLY RESPECTABLE penmanship, thank you very much. (Excalibur #32)
Welcome to St. Subtext’s School for Young Ladies. (Excalibur #32)
(Excalibur #33)
“Also, I’m a superhero.” (Excalibur #33)
(Excalibur #34)
“But you can call me… MR. RAD!” (Excalibur #34)
Let the hijinks commence! (Excalibur #34)
Well, that could’a gone worse. (Excalibur #34)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #34)
Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I’d woken up like this… (Excalibur #32)
TOO SOON, MESMERO. (Excalibur #33)
Do those abs go all the way… wait, no, that doesn’t even make sense. (Excalibur #33)
But if he can hypnotize her just by making eye contact, why bother doing this? Just to mess with her for fun? Total dick move.(Excalibur #33)
[Ron Howard voice]: There were mistakes. (Excalibur #33)
Oh, great. These assholes, again. (Excalibur #34)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE! (Excalibur #34)
GOOD JOB, EVERYBODY! (Excalibur #34)
Trust me, they’re delightful together. (Excalibur #35)
Well, that escalated quickly. (Excalibur #35)
Aw, kiddo. (Excalibur #35)
Right. That guy. (Excalibur #35)
“But not the one from Alaska. The indefinite article.” (Excalibur #35)
And they all lived grumpily ever after. (Excalibur #35)
Our hero! (Excalibur #36)
It’s a nuanced issue, okay? (Excalibur #36)
This is why we can’t have nice… uncontrolled nuclear things? (Excalibur #36)
Best fight dialogue? Best fight dialogue. And check out that word-balloon cut! (Excalibur #36)
We certainly did not see that coming. (Excalibur #36)
And it DIDN’T ONCE OCCUR TO YOU that this might end badly? (Excalibur #36)
I have no idea what the moral of this story is, but it’s sort of heartwarming anyway. (Excalibur #36)
NEXT EPISODE: The angriest naked man!

LINKS & FURTHER READING:

161 – Do You Even Howl, Bro?

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

In which we return to Excalibur, and Excalibur returns to form; “Girls’ School from Heck” is way better than we remembered; Jay has strong feelings about penmanship; we examine the semantics of field hockey; the band gets back together; Dai Thomas has no time for your comic-book bullshit; and you should never, ever install a good/evil switch in your technological abominations.

X-PLAINED

  • The first appearances of Colonel Vazhin
  • Perks of home recording
  • FlameCon 2017
  • Jay & Miles at Rose City Comic Con
  • Excalibur #32-36
  • “Girls’ School from Heck!”
  • St. Searle’s School for Young Ladies
  • St. Trinian’s and a large number of references thereto
  • Regional variations in boarding school hijinks
  • Miss Rutherford
  • A poorly staged panel
  • Phoebe Huntsman
  • Kitty Pryde’s penmanship
  • Margaret Thatcher’s weirdly wholesome fantasies
  • The kinda-reformation of Mesmero
  • The end of Chris Claremont’s run on Excalibur
  • Some complicated contradictions related to the ethics of consumption
  • An abduction
  • The ethics of psychic interrogation (kinda)
  • Mariner disambiguation
  • A rescue
  • An unlikely partnership
  • Darkmoor Research Center
  • Dr. Walshe
  • A somewhat convoluted plot
  • Whether the Danger Room could function as a bathroom
  • The physics of Asteroid M

NEXT EPISODE: Weapon X!

You can find 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.)

Special thanks to Gavia Baker-Whitelaw for helping us assemble the St. Searle’s marginalia!