Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

453 – X-Men ’97, Part 1

SPOILER WARNING: ALL OF THEM, NONSTOP

In which we put the comics on hold to take a look at X-Men ’97; it is still always Inferno in here; Wolverine is best used sparingly; a Marvel show finally embraces politics; Wolverine is best in small doses; Madeylne Pryor still always deserves better; Jubilee grows up; and we are all in on this series.

X-PLAINED:

  • “Beyond Good and Evil”
  • X-Men: The Animated Series and our respective feelings about it
  • X-Men ’97, episodes 1-5
  • Watching X-Men ’97 with and without context
  • Making animated Cyclops work
  • The Magneto’s-hair-length morality index
  • Politics
  • Voices
  • Adaptation pacing
  • Agency
  • Abcissa
  • Foreshadowing
  • Time compression
  • Horniest Rogue
  • Death in cartoons
  • A metaphor
  • Nonbinary identity in 1997
  • Character evolution

NEXT EPISODE: Episodes 6-10


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As Mentioned in Episode 412 – Yappin’ and Scrappin’

Listen to the podcast here.


Links & Further Reading

412 – Yappin’ and Scrappin’

In which Kelly and Seagle’s X-runs begin with immense promise; dark psychic residue gets just everywhere; Storm’s past is literally buried; Wolverine is just saying is all; Cecilia Reyes’s job doesn’t deserve her, and Cyclops and Phoenix are the worst at being normal.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Grey family reunion
  • X-Men #71-72
  • What counts as an Uncanny X-Men #138 cover reference
  • Baggage and also suitcases
  • Steve Seagle’s (scuttled) Phoenix plans
  • Bone whiskers
  • Telemarketer power moves
  • Cecilia Reyes
  • Marrow (Sarah)
  • Sam Guthrie’s tiny ponytail
  • The ol’ wall-of-televisions trope
  • The cost of one banana
  • Sebastian Shaw vs the IRS (maybe)
  • A mostly empty attic
  • Wolverine’s etiquette lessons
  • The dessert claw vs the salad claw
  • The physicality of Carlos Pacheco’s art
  • Cannonball, the grown-up in the room
  • Magneto’s increasingly complicated past
  • Magnus, Erik, and Max (again)
  • Uncanny X-Men #351-352
  • Cecilia Reyes’s return-to-office
  • Intersectionality
  • Pyro, forever dying of the Legacy Virus
  • Daredevil vs Cecilia Reyes’s bedside manner
  • Kevin, Lord of the Jungle
  • Ending conversations by turning into a bird
  • A.I.M.* (*Advanced Idea Mechanics)
  • Crows of Ill Portent
  • A Box of Entity
  • Condors and Cockatoos
  • Logan’s denim proclivities
  • Arcade vs. Mojo

Special thanks to Dylan Higgins for edits and production assistance!

NEXT EPISODE: X-Force goes to Burning Man!


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As Mentioned in Episode 411 – Tearaway Pants

Listen to the podcast here.


411 – Tearaway Pants

In which we actually kind of like a Sabretooth story; we’re not asking for viscera, here; all pants on Earth-616 are tearaway pants; we’d like to see more Wolverine stories about bodily autonomy; Gambit’s hallucinations have hallucinations; and there are probably too many X-books.

X-PLAINED:

  • Punch-clock villains
  • Hydro-Man’s secret weakness
  • 411
  • ‘90s fashion
  • X-Men Unlimited #17-18
  • X-Men Unlimited vs. annuals
  • A difficult casting decision
  • Forge’s neutralizer gun
  • Costume injuries
  • Color symbolism? Kinda? I guess?
  • Mrs. Hoo
  • Saberine & Wolvertooth
  • Warren Kenneth Worthington III vs. shirts
  • How to dress for Earth-616
  • Hot buttered whatever
  • Boob foliage
  • Clones
  • Very tenacious blood stains
  • The return of the Angry Claremontean Narrator
  • Lots of hallucinations
  • Oscar the Fixer
  • Hydro-Man
  • Redemption, symbolic and otherwise
  • The evolution of Magneto’s name
  • Our ideal X-line

NEXT EPISODE: Back to the core!


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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 406 – The Most Dangerous Mini-Game

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER READING

406 – The Most Dangerous Mini-Game

In which we disagree about the value of Stan Lee intros; everybody wants Wolverine; Mister Sinister lurks; Haley Blanding deserves better; Thunderbird fights a tiger; and Xavier and Magneto do their usual thing.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Circus of Crime
  • Stan Lee intros
  • Wolverine #-1
  • X-Factor #-1
  • X-Force #-1
  • X-Men #-1
  • Proust vs. Sartre
  • How Logan joined Alpha Flight
  • The secret origin of the word “canucklehead.”
  • USDA, Annex B
  • Myron MacLain
  • Logan’s cigars
  • Yet more continuity errors
  • Sabretooth’s ridiculous car
  • The balance of scary and silly
  • Wolverine’s cowboy hat
  • Summers family bullshit
  • The Blandings and/or Masterses
  • Vince
  • The Proudstar family
  • One or more cats named Coyote
  • The origin of Thunderbird’s totem
  • Edwin Martynec (again)
  • Chondu the Magician
  • Ringmaster
  • Yet more Xavier and Magneto flashback drama
  • The bottom of the resurrection queue
  • Good car-trip episodes

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor continues to make poor decisions


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!