Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Regarding ECCC 2020

After a lot of thought, we’ve made the difficult decision to pull out of Emerald City Comic Con 2020. As other creators have written, this isn’t a choice we’ve made lightly–we don’t do a lot of conventions, and ECCC is in many ways our home show, with a lot of love and traditions attached; as well as significant investments of time, money, and planning.

It’s worth pointing out that we’re very lucky: for us, those losses, while difficult, won’t be devastating. We’re also really, really angry, as we watch friends forced to choose between public health and their own livelihoods because the institutions responsible have so completely dropped that ball.

To the friends and fans who were planning to attend the show specifically to see us: we are so sorry to be missing you, and we’ll try to come up with something special over that weekend. To our listeners in the Pacific Northwest, we’re already well into planning an event in Portland at the end of April; while it’s obviously a far cry from ECCC, hopefully we’ll be able to see many of you in person there.

All our love,
Jay & Miles

Come to the Coolest* Party in Seattle

*statement not evaluated by anyone cool, but there will be pie.

Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes, in partnership with Phoenix Comics, request the pleasure of your company at the 2019 Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men Emerald City Comic-Con Listener Meet-Up and Slightly Early 5th Birthday Party!

on Saturday, March 16

from 8 to 10 PM

at Phoenix Comics, Seattle

Featuring fine company, exquisite entertainment (including at least one sing-along), refreshments (including pie), and pie (we’re very excited about the pie). Guests of all ages are welcome; no convention badge is required. Costumes encouraged!

 

As Mentioned in Episode 235 – Fatal Extractions

Listen to the episode here.


235 – Fatal Extractions (Fatal Attractions, Part 2)

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

In which Magneto may or may not own a Namor body pillow; Cyclops probably doesn’t color-code his files; Colossus is Not Okay; bats are nature’s flashers; there are a lot of reasons to be mad at Fatal Attractions; Charles Xavier is surprisingly durable; the X-Men know their Aeschylus; Jean Grey goes in through the face; and bringing Wolverine to fight the guy who controls metal was probably not a great idea.

X-PLAINED:

  • Mutant Alpha
  • Uncanny X-Men #304
  • X-Men #25
  • False foreshadowing
  • Costume storage and display
  • Relative moral event horizons
  • The character dehabilitation of Magneto
  • The Magneto Protocols
  • How Cyclops organizes his files
  • An excellent eulogy
  • The complicated legacy of Illyana Rasputin
  • Several noteworthy absences
  • A memorable funeral
  • The ‘behold’ thing
  • A protective mesh of electromagnetic fire
  • A well-played callback
  • A strategically dubious plan
  • Several Prometheus Bound quotations
  • An uncharitable assumption
  • The blood-brain barrier
  • A severe costume injury
  • The definitive scene of Fatal Attractions
  • The root of Onslaught
  • Which X-Men would podcast
  • Our preferred comics formats

NEXT EPISODE: Colossus still can’t catch a break


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 212 – Drumbeats of Despair

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER MISHAPS:

212 – Drumbeats of Despair: X-Cutioner’s Song (Part 3 or 3)

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

In which nobody but Stryfe’s diary understands him; Apocalypse is the best at what he does (and what he does is remarkably versatile); Scott and Jean weaponize their clichés; Jae Lee does his best Patrick Nagel; Apocalypse is poisonous; Cable goes full T-800; nothing good ever happens to Cyclops on the moon; Stryfe dies as passive-aggressively as he lived; and X-Cutioner’s Song finally concludes.

X-PLAINED:

  • How Cable dies
  • The Story So Far
  • Still more trading-card taxonomy
  • Uncanny X-Men #296
  • X-Factor #86
  • X-Men #16
  • X-Force #18
  • An AU we’d like to read
  • The not-Stüssy S
  • How to effectively reference X-Men #137
  • A decoy baby
  • An abortive escape
  • Moon gravity
  • Revelatory vandalism
  • A trip to the moon
  • A probably excessive number of hawk facts
  • Various daring rescues
  • How to kill time in space
  • Cathexes
  • A very fancy moon base
  • The cavalry, kind of
  • Stryfe vs. Cable
  • An X-Cellent epilogue
  • Several Silent Hill 2 references
  • Stryfe’s Legacy
  • Pawnee, Indiana vs. Marvel
  • Sexy high-security prisons of the future

NEXT EPISODE: Live from FlameCon, featuring Sina Grace, Magdalene Visaggio, and Leah Williams!


Special thanks to Matt for the subject of this episode’s cold open; and to the Protomen for use of their cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”


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 211 – A Cornucopia of Mayhem

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER EXPERIMENTS:

211 – A Cornucopia of Mayhem: X-Cutioner’s Song (Part 2 of 3)

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

In which Jubilee is underwhelmed by X-Force; Havok and Gambit make weirdly good buddy cops; Department K is a hot vacation destination; Cable is secretly a Coen Brothers protagonist; you can cancel Community but you can never take away Jay’s gratuitous Community references; Rusty goes full cultist; nobody is Stryfe’s real dad; smoking on a space station is a REALLY bad idea; Apocalypse is here to help; and Miles lies at length about music.

X-PLAINED:

  • Kuurth
  • Various Juggernauts
  • The Story So Far
  • More trading-card taxonomy
  • Uncanny X-Men #295
  • X-Factor #85
  • X-Men #15
  • X-Force #17
  • Varyingly hilarious misunderstandings
  • Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love
  • What happened
  • Good Cop / Sleazy Cop
  • A deal
  • A tragic absence of Draculas
  • The Coen Brothers’ X-Cutioner’s Song
  • Thanksgiving with Cable
  • Miles’s summer camp hijinks
  • Murderbots in space (again)
  • A dubious strategy
  • MLF Redshirts
  • The second time someone force-fed superheroes baby food in space
  • A dropped plot thread
  • Things you shouldn’t do on space stations
  • Additional awkward reunions
  • Whether Stryfe is a Summers
  • The X-Cutioner’s signature karaoke song

NEXT EPISODE: Dang, this event is long.


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 210 – The End of Tomorrow

Listen to the podcast here!



LINKS & FURTHER ADVENTURES:

210 – The End of Tomorrow: X-Cutioner’s Song (Part 1 of 3)

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

In which you may or may not have your own Black Bug Room; FlameCon was in fact every bit as wonderful as we projected (and more); Caliban hates true love; no one will ever be as extra as Mister Sinister; X-Cutioner’s Song is secretly a farce; we achieve Peak Cable; and the quintessential ’90s crossover event begins!

X-PLAINED:

  • The Black Bug Room
  • A good deal of pre-event status quo
  • Uncanny X-Men #294
  • X-Factor #84
  • X-Men #14
  • X-Force #16
  • Trading card taxonomy
  • The opening strains of a crossover event
  • A concert that worked out better in theory than in practice
  • An abduction
  • Several attempted murders
  • A large number of awkward reunions
  • An even larger number of inter-team brawls
  • Two villains pretending to be other villains
  • Cape logistics
  • Peak Cable
  • Many pouches
  • Many guns
  • The origin of Hope Summers
  • Our hopes for mutants in the MCU

NEXT EPISODE: Aw, Stryfe, no.


NOTE: At one point in this episode, Miles said “X-Force” when he actually meant “X-Factor.” If you can tell us where, you win the prize of eternal smugness (not as much smugness as Sinister, but still a lot).


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.)