colossus – Page 6 – Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

323 – Baby Talk

February 14, 2021 Jay 12 comments

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

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

In which we spend a large amount of time on a group of small characters; X-Babies stories cover a wide range of quality; Mojo is relegated to public access; the ‘Vengers rebel against their creator; the X-Babies excavate Star Comics; we adjust our opinion of the mid-‘90s; and WandaVision is probably not connected to the Mojoverse.

X-PLAINED:

Fun with blood
The X-Babies
Mojo
Pint-Sized X-Babies #1
X-Babies Reborn #1
X-Babies: Stars Reborn #1-4
The Brotherhood of Mutant Bullies
X-Baby nomenclature
The Pix
Hell’s Kitchen
The Wildways (more) (again)
Monkey Wagon
Bubblefield
Marshmallow Marsh
Gamesboro
The Textbook Sisters
The ‘Vengers
A transformation
Mr. Veech
Nandy
Star Comics and several characters therefrom
The Adorable X-Babies
Our opinions on the mid-‘90s
Welcome to Westview

NEXT EPISODE: X-Teens!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 320 – The Accountability Wagon

January 17, 2021 Jay One comment

Listen to the episode here.

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

I know the cover blurb isn’t actually foreshadowing, but the cover blurb is kiiiinda foreshadowing. (Excalibur #91)

There’s writing a phonetic accent… and then there’s writing someone making fun of someone else’s accent, phonetically. (Excalibur #91)

Aw. (Excalibur #91)

For your Twitter fight needs. (Excalibur #91)

This is roughly how I react to having to share personal information with colleagues, too. (Excalibur #91)

They’re good friends. (Excalibur #91)

THE SUBTITLES THO (Excalibur #91)

Creeeeeepy. (Excalibur #91)

I know his teeth are also supposed to be steel, but they look just off enough from the rest of his face that I can’t shake the idea that they’re normal teeth, which idea is profoundly and inexplicably unsettling. (Excalibur #92)

Huh. (Excalibur #92)

You sure did. (Excalibur #93)

[Music rises] (Excalibur #93)

Ah, Rahne. You’re such a good kid. (Excalibur #93)

FUCK YEAH RAHNE SINCLAIR! (Excalibur #93)

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day.

320 – The Accountability Wagon

January 17, 2021 Jay 21 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which Pete Wisdom is the guy you love to glare at; Nightcrawler is right (and a delightfully complex individual); Colossus has a lot of issues; and Wolfsbane gets the confrontation we’ve been waiting for since the New Mutants graphic novel.

X-PLAINED:

Wolfsbane’s powers
Excalibur #91-93
The somewhat nebulous age of Kitty Pryde
Betrayal
What’s been up on Muir Isle
Organized sports, Excalibur-style
Pubs and what happens in them
Drinking with Excalibur
Shovel talks
Phonetic accents, redeemed
A fairly one-sided fight
Colossus’s issues (more) (again)
Anatomy and physiology of organic steel
Accountability, trauma, and their intersections
An exceptionally cathartic confrontation
A hoodie Jay desperately wants
Where cold opens come from
Whether and how Gambit passes for human

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 311 – Love Makes a Super Team

October 25, 2020 Jay 2 comments

Listen to the episode here.

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

This friendship really never gets old. (X-Men Annual 1995)

Freakin’ Genesis, man. (X-Men Annual 1995)

The Nasty Boys, they are not. (X-Men Annual 1995)

Nathaniel Essex: The Hollywood Dracula Years. (X-Men Annual 1995)

The ladies love the cape. (X-Men Annual 1995)

In all fairness, I’m not sure I’d want to be naked in Teen Hank and Bobby’s makeouts cabin without cleaning first, either. (X-Men Annual 1995)

Meanwhile in the UK, a dramatic man and his dramatic ponytail! (X-Men Annual 1995)

I still think the photos were a bit much. (X-Men Annual 1995)

Anniversary or no, this image does not justify a double gatefold. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

Jean Grey: thirsty on main. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

Me, too, Monet. Me, too/ (Uncanny X-Men #325)

Damn, Piotr. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

“Non, mon ami, I do not have Prince Albert in a can.” (Uncanny X-Men #325)

Marrow may be bloodthirsty, but she’s also inclusive! (Uncanny X-Men #325)

What. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

Ew. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

This is why we can’t have nice things and/or organs. (Uncanny X-Men #325)

NEXT EPISODE: The Nobody People, with author Bob Proehl!

311 – Love Makes a Super-Team

October 18, 2020 Jay 16 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which we decide to stop recognizing the nominal difference between X-Men and Uncanny X-Men; time travel may or may not wait for you; Mister Sinister has probably appeared in at least one Ed Wood film; we are a pro-Tingle podcast; X-Men is about family; the Braddock twins catch up; Sailor Moon > Shinobi Shaw; Generation X is inducted into the baseball tradition; and Storm does what she does with Morlocks in sewers.

X-PLAINED:

Franklin Richards’ impressive lineage
311
Yet another structure for annuals
X-Men Annual 1995
Uncanny X-Men #325
Serious academic discussions
Faye Livingstone
Mister Sinister’s Hollywood adventures
Tyler Dayspring / Tolliver / Genesis (again)
Teenage optimism
An absolutely nonsensical villainous plot
A Hank McCoy that might have been
Friendship
Fraternal correspondence
Romance
Morlocks
The first time Storm stabbed a Morlock leader in the heart
Gene Nation
A really excessive cover
An intergenerational baseball game
Another fairly nonsensical villainous plot
The second time Storm stabbed a Morlock leader in the heart
X-horror
Other media X-fans may enjoy reading, playing, or watching

NEXT EPISODE: Bob Proehl X-Plains the Resonant Duology!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 300 – Götterdämmerung

July 5, 2020 Jay 2 comments

Listen to the episode here.

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

Trust us–it looks better on foil. (X-Men: Omega)

Those skulls can’t be stable. (X-Men: Omega)

The gang’s mostly here! (X-Men: Omega)

[Cries in Dark Phoenix Saga] (X-Men: Omega)

Truly, he has been preparing for this moment for his entire life.

It’s cute how Nate assumes that it’s possible to talk Magneto out of fighting anybody, ever. (X-Men: Omega)

I’d like to imagine that the M’Kraan crystal made the conscious choice not to show her Onslaught. (X-Men: Omega)

YES! (X-Men: Omega)

Just, um, imagine that he’s holding a gun and also using his powers out of… enthusiasm? For the gun? I guess? (X-Men: Omega)

“Wait, are you the angry Claremontean narrator?!” (X-Men: Omega)

It’s okay. He’ll be back in about 14 years. (X-Men: Omega)

Nobody expects an ongoing series! (X-Men: Omega)

And that, as they say, is that. (X-Men: Omega)

NEXT EPISODE: Back in the 616!

LINKS & FURTHER EPICS:

Janet K. Lee makes really, really gorgeous comics and other art.
A lot of the episodes we mentioned are in the roundup from our 5th anniversary episode.
You can hear more about Jay’s chickens-in-law in Hawk Talk: Florida Mans

300 – Götterdämmerung

July 5, 2020 Jay 11 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which the Age of Apocalypse comes to an end; Angel briefly lives up to his potential; Bishop was sometimes right; It’s not a climactic ending without an X-Men #137 reference; Colossus breaks our hearts; X-Men: Marvels Snapshot will be out in September; and somehow we have made 300 of these things.

X-PLAINED:

Beast vs. Dark Beast
X-Men: Omega
The entirety of the (first) Age of Apocalypse
Potpourri vs. incense
Dramatic hair
Many, many errors
Unforeseen consequences
A long-anticipated team-up
Many deaths
Art as artifact
Narration that has haunted Jay for 20 years
One of the more persistent deaths of David Haller
Blast Attack
The end of a world
Refugees from the Age of Apocalypse
Our favorite X-milestone issues
Theoretical teams
Orphans
When X-Men: Marvels Snapshot is actually coming out
Our favorite show bits
How Jay’s chickens-in-law are doing

NEXT EPISODE: X-Men Prime

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

As Mentioned in Episode 293 – The Monster Under the World

May 10, 2020 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the podcast here.

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

Almost as cool as the way the backgrounds of the Marvel Universe Series 3 trading cards can be laid out as two giant space-pictures.

Husk, you’ve changed! And Chamber, you… have a face! (Generation Next #1)

Red and yellow outfit, banded metal skin, muscles on muscles, utterly broken by the world… I guess Earth-295 isn’t that different. (Generation Next #1)

We’ve seen Kitty bully younger mutants before… just usually not with as much stabbing. (Generation Next #1)

“I mean, we don’t want them to be inexperienced at dying, do we?” (Generation Next #1)

Know-It-All is pretty sure the depiction of technology in Hackers is way too bland and boring. (Generation Next #1)

Drums. Drums in the deep. (Generation Next #2)

Do minibuses look like that? No. But should they? (Generation Next #2)

This was one of the weirder anti-smoking PSAs of the 90s. (Generation Next #2)

Quietus is troubling. (Generation Next #2)

Paige has a zero-tolerance policy for Monty Python references. (Generation Next #2)

Only Chris Bachalo could make relatively normal people and monsters like that look at home in the same panel. (Generation Next #3)

“Like, the spiritual concept, not like Xi’an from New Muta… You know what, never mind.” (Generation Next #3)

Weirdly, I’ve had this exact same dream. (Generation Next #3)

Meanwhile, everything is terrible. (Generation Next #3)

YIP! (Generation Next #3)

Enclosed V Exposed: Dawn of Panel Layouts (Generation Next #4)

And then Sugar Man ate through his own mangled corpse and burrowed into the next scene. As one does. (Generation Next #4)

noooooo (Generation Next #4)

NOOOOOOOO (Generation Next #4)

Not to downplay the effectiveness of SPLOT SPLANG BONK THOPP, but it’s those irregular, sharp panel borders that really sell the impact. (Generation Next #4)

It all happens so quickly. (Generation Next #4)

And I’ll remember those panels for the rest of my life. (Generation Next #4)

Ever. (Generation Next #4)

NEXT EPISODE: Happy Mother’s Day!

293 – The Monster Under the World

May 3, 2020 Jay 11 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which not all Mondos are created equal; the kids are only rarely all right; the Age of Apocalypse is not Magneto’s fault; Sugar Man is the stuff of universal nightmares; “cartoonish” is not necessarily a plus; and the Age of Apocalypse is not particularly sustainable.

X-PLAINED:

Generation Next #1-4
The tradition of YA horror in X-books
Bachalo unchained
Whose fault the Age of Apocalypse is
Adaptive technology vs. Apocalypse
Chamber of Earth-295
Husk of Earth-295
Skin of Earth-295
Mondo of Earth-295
Vincente Cimetta
Know-It-All (Claudia)
An abysmal training exercise
Colossus of Earth-295
Shadowcat of Earth-295
Gardner Monroe (Flashback)
Quietus
Sugar Man
The Portland and/or Seattle Core
Illyana Rasputin
Ace
Human collaborators
A gratuitous Monty Python reference
The difference between mass and volume
Number Six
The fall of Generation Next
Growing up in the Age of Apocalypse
Illyana 2.0
Subtext vs. queerbaiting

NEXT EPISODE: X-Calibre!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!