Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Children of the Atom

As Mentioned in Episode 114 – Meltdown

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Welcome to your new favorite miniseries. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
The first 14 pages are a primer on reactor physics and the Chernobyl disaster. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
Also some vaguely sinister chess-playing. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
No, seriously: that’s just straight-up James Dean. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
If you’re not sold on the book by now, please reconsider your priorities. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
Move over, Neal Adams. This is our definitive representation of Havok’s powers. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
Kent Williams is terrifying and wonderful. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1)
Why, yes, we are going to include every cover. Why? (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
Look at how much information this panel conveys. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
General Meltdown! (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
Wait for it… (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
…and done. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
Havok latches onto genre conventions like a baby duck impressing on the first thing it sees. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
It was really, really hard not to just include the whole damn miniseries in this visual companion. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #2)
(Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
Well, then. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
I cannot get over the way Muth paints Scarlett’s hair. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
One of my favorite sequences from the entire series. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
Dr. Meltdown and his trusty overlays. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
Best image of Havok, or best image of Havok? Hint: Best image of Havok. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
The palpable violence of the action sequences is really, really spectacular. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #3)
And onward. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
In which Havok transforms from James Dean to a young Peter Capaldi. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
THIS PAGE (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
So, so doomed. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
No narrative reason for including this. I just really, really love the art. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
The problem with falling too deeply into a character is that you also end up with their genre-specific weaknesses. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
Ouch. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
Well, that’s one way to do it. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
The way Havok’s powers change when they go out of control is really, really amazing. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
No, seriously. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
HOW COULD NO ONE HAVE REACHED BACK TO THIS SERIES? IT’S A GOLDMINE. (Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #4)
NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men Anime.

114 – Meltdown (feat. Susan Beaver)

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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 Havok and Wolverine head to Mexico; Havok tries his hand at noir; Wolverine gets serious about hair gel; Meltdown is probably not actually a common Russian surname; Susan X-Plains nuclear reactors; and we are pretty thoroughly besotted with Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown.

X-PLAINED:

  • Age of Apocalypse Corsair
  • Epic Comics
  • Marvel Comics Presents #24-31
  • Leila O’Toole (Plasma)
  • The Cold War
  • Samantha Smith
  • Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown #1-4
  • General Meltdown
  • Dr. Neutron
  • The varying deadliness of vices
  • Scarlett McKenzie (Quark)
  • Some exceptionally gorgeous artwork
  • Why we love Havok
  • Chernobyl
  • How nuclear reactors do and don’t work
  • Other characters we’d like to see in Meltdown-type stories
  • Adamantium vs. vibranium

NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men Anime

Special thanks to guest reactor X-Pert Susan Beaver!

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

Find us on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher!

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

As Mentioned in Episode 21 – Kurt Busiek at the Coffee-a-Go-Go

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METOXO the lava man, as teased in X-Men #48–but never revealed!
Beast and Iceman teach METOXO the true meaning of Christmas in the 1994 Marvel Holiday Special.
Angel X-Plains the Phoenix retcon. (X-Factor #1)
In X-Men #37, five reasonably normal-looking teenagers dive out of a plane…
…and then this happens. (X-Men #37)
In which Jean Grey, given the choice between the Silver Age’s two stock career options for female protagonists, opts for option A. (X-Men #48)
Scott Summers’ radio career lasted five whole panels. Here are four of them. We remain annoyed that none of them actually show him recording, because that would be really useful as a podcast graphic. (X-Men #48)
The Coffee-a-Go-Go made its debut in X-Men #7, along with regular Bernard the Poet and acerbic waitress Zelda.
There are a lot of Coffee-a-Go-Go stories, but Bobby’s 18th birthday, from X-Men #32, is probably the best.
Bernard the poet sells out in the name of birthday cheer. (X-Men #32)
Zelda’s original line, from X-Men #7 (she was originally a redhead)…
…and Busiek’s homage in the 1994 Marvel Holiday Special.
Iceman vs. ice skating. (X-Men #29)
We’ll be giving it its own post on Monday, but David Wynne’s art of the original X-Men as Enid Blyton’s Famous Five goes way too well with this episode.
Next Episode: Fast-forwarding to 1994 for the wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

Links & Further Reading:

As Mentioned on Episode 4 – American History X-Men

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The Steve Rude covers are the hands-down best part of X-Men: Children of the Atom.
Seriously. This is off the rails. Steve Rude, man.
X-Men: Children of the Atom really, really, really wants to be the Dark Knight Returns of X-Men. It’s not.
X-Men: Children of the Atom tries so hard to make Fred Duncan a noir protagonist. (Hint: nope.)
Bear in mind that Children of the Atom came out in 1999, and is nominally set in the same year.
Oh, hi, guys. (Children of the Atom)
Charles Xavier: the worst ever, forever. (Children of the Atom)
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HIRED HITLER! (Children of the Atom)
After the Rave-Up, they’re going to go do some crimes, like go get sushi and not pay. (Children of the Atom)
Deep stealth Hank McCoy. (Children of the Atom)
Hank dabbles briefly in victim blaming. (Children of the Atom)
Jack “Tricky Dick” Winters. (Children of the Atom)
Well, yes–that’s sort of the problem. (Children of the Atom)
Magneto chews the scenery and regurgitates it into your brain like you are a baby bird of villainy and he is your mother and I think this metaphor kind of got away from me. (Children of the Atom)
Okay, that’s pretty cool: the opening narration of X-Men #1 closes Children of the Atom.
X-Men: First Class, but not THAT X-Men First Class.
Take THAT, Silver-Age gender politics! (X-Men: First Class)
Even the least creepy version of Professor X is still pretty creepy. (X-Men: First Class)
Aw, these dudes. (X-Men: First Class)
Cyclops #1–a one-shot that’s part of the First Class continuity, in which Cyclops actually has a good day.
For more fun, low-angst X-Men in the spirit of First Class, we recommend the hell out of this X-Men / Power Pack miniseries.
How much do we love X-Men: Season One? SO MUCH.
Jean Grey: Now available with a point of view and distinct personality! (X-Men: Season One)
We also appreciate that X-Men: Season One understands the importance of X-Plaining the X-Men.
This comic book, y’all. (X-Men: Season One)
Iceman: chronically under-appreciated, chronically awesome. X-Men: Season One
Most of all, X-Men: Season One is about a bunch of screwed up teenagers figuring out how to be a team. It’s a really neat book.
No one draws shifty faces like Jamie McKelvie. (X-Men: Season One)
Bobby invents Dance Pants in 2019. Don’t tell him. He needs to stumble on it himself.
Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men t-shirts: Now available! (Stickers, too.)
We Are Comics is a campaign to show—and celebrate—the faces of our community, our industry, and our culture; to promote the visibility of marginalized members of our population; and to stand in solidarity against harassment and abuse. See our full post here.
Next week on Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men!

Links and further reading:

The X-Axis Silver Age X-Men Index (archived)

Marvels

X-Men: Children of the Atom

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: Season One

We Are Comics

Redbubble Shop

4 – American History X-Men

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In which Rachel finally gets to say “WHAT?!,” we examine three variations on the Silver Age, Twin Peaks is reality TV, we can’t believe you hired Hitler, Angel is not Batman, even the most sympathetic Xavier is still pretty creepy, Cyclops has a good day, Marvel Girl is not going to throw a dinosaur for you, Iceman is the Troy Barnes of the X-Men, and we say a fond farewell to the Silver Age.

X-Plained:

  • The X-Axis
  • X-Men: Children of the Atom
  • Hard-sell noir
  • How to party like it’s sometime between 1986 and 1991, as filtered through 1999
  • The perils of over-referencing
  • Why Marvel is in the Tommy Westphall Universe
  • The worst guidance counselor ever
  • Villain speeches
  • X-Men: First Class (but not that one)
  • Fun, and several places to find it
  • Angst-free X-Men
  • Gender politics of superheroism
  • X-Men: Season One
  • Teenagers
  • The solution to the Silver-Age-Jean Grey problem
  • Why Iceman matters
  • The Silver Age cram book

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!