I don’t remember Thunderbird having that many muscles or, y’know, being white. (X-Calibre #1)
“Sure thing! That’s BLAMM with two Ms?” (X-Calibre #2)
Aw, buddy. (X-Calibre #2)
But shouldn’t that be Rusty Collins’s icon? (X-Calibre #2)
…well, shit. (X-Calibre #2)
Almost our Kurt, and very much not our Kurt. (X-Calibre #2)
OH HELL YEAH (X-Calibre #3)
TFW Magneto forces you to visit your One Big Ex’s intentional community. (X-Calibre #3)
They have fun. (That is a lie. They do not have fun.) (X-Calibre #3)
Oh, come on. (X-Calibre #3)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (X-Calibre #4)
Not AGAIN. (X-Calibre #4)
Welcome to the Age of Apocalypse!
NEXT EPISODE: these goofs, in space
LINKS & FURTHER ALLUSIONS
That really depressing historical anecdote about ballast tanks came courtesy of friend of the show Joe Streckert, of the Weird History Podcast. Thanks, Joe!
In which a whole lot of things burn; Nightcrawler gets gritty; it’s hard to be Dead Man Wade; Apocalypse’s IT department has some explaining to do; Mystique is the most mom of all moms; Doug Ramsey dies (again); and Jay will fight anyone who says comics can’t be “real” literature.
X-PLAINED:
Damask
X-Calibre #1-4
Switchback
Cain Marko of Earth-295
Avalon
Destiny of Earth-295
Nightcrawler of Earth-295
Ghost Dance (actual)
Ghost Dance (fictional)
John Proudstar of Earth-295
The Infernal Gallop vs. the Infernal Galop
Moonstar of Earth-295
Dead Man Wade
The Pale Riders
Videoconferencing software of Earth-295
The Excalibur
Walter Newell
Callisto of Earth-295
A lot of murders
A really dark historical precedent
Parenthood
Death by existential crisis
The worst plan
Variations on the death of Doug Ramsey
Geography of the Age of Apocalypse
The rest of the Marvel books during the Age of Apocalypse
Jay vs. Western canon
NEXT EPISODE: Gambit and the X-Ternals
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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!
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)
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.
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!
In which it is probably not actually possible to be too nasty for Earth-295; Sinister is on nobody’s side but his own; Vulcan is still the worst Summers in the multiverse; the Bedlam Brothers are too delightful for the EMF; Heaven is just straight-up Rick’s Bar now; Polaris of Earth-295 is the saddest Polaris; Scott Summers and Jean Grey make a good team in most universes; and the metaphors of 1995 read very differently in 2020.
X-PLAINED:
Nathaniel Essex of Earth-1610
A regrettable tattoo
#Creators4Comics
Scott Summers (Cyclops) of Earth-295
Alex Summers (Havok) of Earth-295
Factor X #1-4
Working for the Man
Costume design as narrative
The EMF (Elite Mutant Force)
Northstar and Aurora of Earth-295
Sam and Elizabeth Guthrie (Cannonball and Amazon) of Earth-295
Jesse and Terrence Aaronson (Bedlam Brothers) of Earth-295
Heaven (the bar)
Scarlett McKenzie of Earth-295
Someone who is not Magneto
The Brain Trust
Lorna Dane (Polaris) of Earth-295
An obscene monument
Innuendo of several sorts
That time Jean Grey got captured
Resistance of various sorts
Poetic almost-kinda justice
One more fallen angel
Villains of the Age of Apocalypse
NEXT EPISODE: Generation Next!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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!
To his credit, I’d be pretty nonplussed if this fell through my ceiling. (Weapon X #2)
The setup… (Weapon X #2)
…and the punchline. (Weapon X #2)
I see what you did, there. (Weapon X #3)
She doesn’t seem to have a sash, so I’m just going to go ahead and assume that Carol-295 just carries rhythmic gymnastic ribbons to make her leaps look more dramatic. (Weapon X #3)
This version of Gateway is really cool, and deserves both more page space and more analysis than he gets. (Weapon X #3)
CAROL FOREVER. (Weapon X #3)
Was Logan just, like, saving this for a rainy day? (Weapon X #4)
That is certainly one way to navigate an airship. (Weapon X #4)
You know nothing pleasant is going to follow this sound effect. (Weapon X #4)
‘Kay. (Weapon X #4)
NEXT EPISODE: Vulcan is still the worst Summers Brother in any universe, though.
In which we celebrate a birthday; nuclear war is never a good Plan A; every Logan is Old Man Logan; we are underwhelmed by the Pretty Boys of Earth-295; Jean Grey is one hell of a pilot; there are so many reasons not to like Donald Pierce; teleporters are the narrative nuclei of the Age of Apocalypse; and Gateway of Earth-295 deserves significantly more in-depth exploration than we can provide.
X-PLAINED:
Weapon X (Logan)
Weapon X #1-4
Irony
Coordinating costumes to tattoos (and vice versa)
How to ride a sentinel
Apocalypse’s sea wall
Mutant power classifications
The mass human evacuation
Nuclear war
Magma
A load of malarkey
Interactions of telepathy and PTSD
The Pretty Boys of Earth-295
How not to jump out of a zeppelin
What Carol Danvers smells like
Gateway (Earth-295)
An exceptionally high-tech guilt trip
Unconventional navigation
Character transformations between universes
The complex conundrum of Jean Grey
When humans became aware about mutants
Logan’s D&D alignment
Our own D&D character histories
NEXT EPISODE: Factor X!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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!
In which it’s kind of a relief to be talking about a fictional apocalypse right now; Joe Madureira defines the look of the mid-late 1990s; Sunfire is less cheesecake than crepes Suzette; it all comes back to capes; Wild Child is more than he seems; Holocaust sucks about as much as you’d expect of someone who picked that code name; Jay has surprisingly strong feelings about Morph; Miles is all about judging some babies; resistance is fundamental to the X-Men’s identity within a superhero-universe paradigm; nobody deserves to be quarantined with Quentin Quire; and our two-week lead is making proofing these podcasts an increasingly surreal experience.
X-PLAINED:
Several things Blink might have done but did not.
The status quo as of mid-March, 2020
Earth-295 (more) (again)
Astonishing X-Men #1-4
Our coverage of the core Age of Apocalypse series
Age of Apocalypse as proof of concept
The best character design of Earth-295
Some guy named Rex
A lake of blood which may or may not be figurative
Sabretooth’s last-ish stand
The revolutionary value of silliness
Jay’s favorite Orwell quote
The Infinite Processing Plant
DefCon Armageddon
A very cool fight scene
Catharsis
Mutants without the metaphor
Best and worst X-Men to be quarantined with
NEXT EPISODE: Weapon X!
Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.
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!