Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Hellions

As Mentioned in Episode 225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
I miss when comics had dialogue on their covers! And when Emma Frost was ten feet tall. (New Warriors #10)
“Your uzi is no match for my very tall right boot!” (New Warriors #10)
If Emma’s telepathy weren’t invisible, this is exactly how viscerally violent it would look. (New Warriors #10)
Oh, Speedball – never change. Like, especially into a mopey edgelord with spikes inside his costume. (New Warriors #10)
Angelica Jones, you warm my heart. And also everything else. (New Warriors #10)
The tarot of the who now? (New Warriors #10)
You tell her, Firestar! (New Warriors #10)
Darick Robertson, you sure can draw… everything. (New Warriors #31)
Background-Cyclops is annoyed at the damned teenagers always hogging the phone line with their endless calls and their AOLs. (New Warriors #31)
Cannonball’s facial expression speaks for us all. (New Warriors #31)
Remember – neither of these women actually has flame powers! (New Warriors #31)
I bet there’s a long German word for the terror that comes from knowing you’re about to crash into your friend’s crotch at seventy miles per hour (and a second word for the terror that comes from being on the receiving end). (New Warriors #31)
Shine on, you justifiedly resentful diamond. (New Warriors #31)
That’s it. That’s the whole explanation. (New Warriors #31)
Emma Frost believes strongly in clear labels. (New Warriors #31)
I liked the yellow better, but this ain’t bad. (New Warriors #31)
Next time: X-Factor finally makes it to Genosha!

LINKS & FURTHER READING

225 – Class Reunion (feat. Austin Gorton)

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

In which we check in on Firestar and the New Warriors; superheroes often celebrate Bring Your Mom To The Amazon Day; Fabian Nicieza employs only the finest of lampshades; and Emma Frost still doesn’t apologize for blowing up that pony.

X-PLAINED:

  • Vance Astro(vik)
  • Penance (but not that one)
  • Austin Gorton’s X-Aminations
  • New Warriors #10
  • Firestar (Angelica Jones)
  • The New Warriors
  • Visual representations of invisible mutant powers
  • The Hellions (more) (again)
  • Tarot and her Morrisonian powers
  • Bevatrons
  • Oxy-cution
  • The inevitably increasing complexity of superhero origins
  • The Miracle of Microwaves
  • New Warriors #31
  • Nova Roma
  • Magma (Amara Aquilla) (or Allison Crestmere, I guess)
  • A brief and futile attempt at Roman soldier disambiguation
  • Empath and his large collection of red flags
  • Gender-based intuition
  • A massive, stupid, and quickly undone retcon
  • Super-nature versus super-nurture
  • The hypothetical psychological roots of Emma Frost’s fashion phases

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor finally makes it to Genosha!

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 180 – Lawful Badass

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Listen to the podcast here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
What you see is pretty much what you get. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
Cybernetic fuckboys. Don’t worry, they’re all going to die soon. For now. Mostly. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
That is… certainly some dialogue, there. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
And that’s why she’s the boss. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
“We eat dinner naked. It’s very sexy. And then we do the sexy dishes, sexily.” (Uncanny X-Men #281)
Oh, no! Not Bevatron! (Uncanny X-Men #281)
If you had told me a year ago that there was armor worse than Cameron Hodge’s ruby quartz armor, I would not have believed you. Mea culpa. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
Oh, no, not again. (Uncanny X-Men #281)
OH HELL YES. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
Professor X is kind of a sore winner. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
And then, suddenly, Storm was telekinetic. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
That’s gotta sting. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
“But first, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” (Uncanny X-Men #282)
Earth-1191 is AMAZING. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
I really want to know if all these criminals dressed up special for the occasion, or if this is just what everyone hangs out looking like in the future. (Uncanny X-Men #282)
ABOUT DAMN TIME. (See what I did, there?) (Uncanny X-Men #282)
“Ha, ha!” (Uncanny X-Men #283)
Aw, this kid. (Uncanny X-Men #283)
“I’m going to the comics shop to cancel my subscription RIGHT NOW!” (Uncanny X-Men #283)
Bishop, I know you come from a difficult timeline, but even you have to appreciate how rad that Walt Simonson Archangel design is. (Uncanny X-Men #283)
Are… Iceman and Colossus levitating? (Uncanny X-Men #283)
This is why we–or at least the Upstarts–can’t have nice things. (Uncanny X-Men #283)
NEXT EPISODE: Guns ‘n’ Pouches!

FURTHER READING, WATCHING, & LISTENING:

180 – Lawful Badass

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

In which Jay is deeply invested in The Gifted; Trevor Fitzroy is generally inexcusable; there are a lot of reasons to be uncomfortable in the Hellfire Club; the mix just got altered in this little clambake; Jean Grey (kind of) dies (again); Earth-1191 gives the Age of Apocalypse some glam competition; Lucas Bishop is a pretty decent metaphor for fan culture; everyone is probably Kang the Conqueror; and now Miles really has no excuse for not watching The Prisoner.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Chronomancer and his Chronobots
  • The Gifted
  • Lucas Bishop’s creative origins
  • Trevor Fitzroy
  • Goatee Theory
  • X-Factor #67
  • Uncanny X-Men #281-283
  • Dapper Lesbian Shinobi Shaw
  • A briefly useful mnemonic
  • Cybernetic fuckboys
  • The return of Warren Kenneth Worthington III’s hair
  • Beef and Bevatron
  • The deaths of the Hellions
  • Warhammer
  • Some of the challenges of X-Plaining the ’90s
  • Bringing a knife to a Sentinel fight
  • Bantam
  • A bunch of bad guys from the future
  • Bishop
  • Randall
  • Malcolm
  • Earth-1191
  • The Gamemaster
  • X-Men we’d like to see come out as trans (revisited)
  • Whether either or both of us are Kang the Conquerer

NEXT EPISODE: Pouches and Guns

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.)

119 – Red Night of the Soul (feat. Elisabeth Allie)

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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 Elisabeth hacks the Matrix; Magneto is the worst at small talk; Hela overreaches; parents just don’t understand human speech; everything is better with super-rings; Selene has a Xena moment; almost anything can be solved with a kiss; and even if you transform Doug Ramsey into a giant red murder monster, he’ll still be a huge nerd.

X-PLAINED:

  • The S-Men
  • New Mutants Forever #1-5
  • Magma’s revised family tree
  • Updating the New Mutants
  • The delicate balance of the Forever line
  • The web
  • Idiom confusion
  • A flawed cultural analogy
  • Tiberius the Generic
  • Several profoundly dubious costumes
  • Family resemblance
  • Skull v. Skull
  • The dearth of canonically asexual X-characters

NEXT EPISODE: Different Nazis

Miles here – in one of the questions for this episode, I conflated asexuality and aromanticness. Those are totally two different things. Apologies – I’m still learning!

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

Find us on iTunes, Google Play, 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 82 – Birds and Boys

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne.
Teenagers, amirite? (New Mutants #55)
This dress was one of the most memorable parts of this issue for both of us. (New Mutants #55)
“Psst, kid. Drugs make you cool. Pass it on!” (New Mutants #55)
One more of the dress. (New Mutants #55)
This jerk. (New Mutants #55)
Raise your hand if you’ve had nightmares along these thematic lines. (New Mutants #56)
That’s… an interesting deck you’re using, Tarot. (New Mutants #56)
Somewhere there’s a universe where June Brigman drew the rest of this arc, and it was roughly a million times better than the version we got. (New Mutants #56)
Line of the issue, EASILY. (New Mutants #56)
I remain retroactively disappointed that they didn’t do a classic romance comic cover for this issue. Art challenge? (New Mutants #56)
I love how weird and elegant Brigman’s Bird Brain is. (New Mutants #56)
That One Time Magneto Said “Heck.” (New Mutants #57)
SIGH. Remember last issue, when June Brigman drew this dude and it was awesome? (New Mutants #57)
Saturday Morning New Mutants. (New Mutants #57)
Forget love: the REAL universal language is squawks. (New Mutants #57)
God damnit. (New Mutants #58)
Nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay again. Also, why the hell does Dani sleep in fishnets? (New Mutants #58)
NEXT WEEK: Live from Las Vegas with a space barbarian in tiny briefs!

LINKS:

82 – Birds and Boys

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Art by David Wynne.
Art by David Wynne.

 

In which Louise Simonson’s New Mutants run gets off to a rough start; drugs are not a reliable way to impress your space girlfriend; Magma gets a character arc; Tarot’s powers are kind of iffy; it’ll take more than a few illegal fish to stop Magik; and Bird Brain thoroughly fails to live up to his potential.

X-PLAINED:

  • Sunspot’s brushes with villainy
  • The de-aging of the New Mutants
  • New Mutants #55-58
  • A memorable dress
  • Raek
  • A cautionary tale
  • The New Mutants as a Saturday morning cartoon
  • Bird Boy / Bird Brain
  • June Brigman
  • A romantic dilemma
  • Several alternative foci for Tarot’s powers
  • Redemption and humanization of villains in X-books
  • Undignified birds
  • The best and worst of Bret Blevins
  • Non-comics writers we’d like to see write X-books
  • Other teen time travelers we’d add to All-New X-Men

NEXT WEEK: Live in Las Vegas!

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Rachel 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’ll have prints of this week’s illustration up at our shop later this week. As always, you can contact David Wynne to inquire after the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 71 – The Once and Fuchsia King

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 8/30/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Spoiler: They will be back next issue. (New Mutants #51)
“If they’d learned anything from me, they’d be faking their own deaths!” (New Mutants #51)
DRAMA! (New Mutants #51)
No, the OTHER Plan Omega. (New Mutants #51)
Kevin Nowlan draws a rad Hepzibah. (New Mutants #51)
PROFESSOR XAVIER IS A JERK. (New Mutants #51)
“Well, I should probably see what the study group thinks, but I’m thinking fuchsia.” (New Mutants #51)
Sebastian Shaw takes dress codes seriously. (New Mutants #51)
She even LOOKS like she stepped off a power metal album cover. (New Mutants #52)
HE’S NOT WRONG. (New Mutants #52)
Aw, kiddo. (New Mutants #52)
Fighting xenomorphs, from the look of it. (New Mutants #52)
Love the body language on this page. (New Mutants #52)
We keep saying that this whole era feels like an inexorable escalation toward Inferno, and, yeah. That. (New Mutants #52)
I was gonna make a “subtext: not just for the ladies” joke, but I’m pretty sure it’s just text at this point. (New Mutants #53)
Aw, man. (New Mutants #53)
TWIST! Don’t worry, this’ll come back up eventually. (New Mutants #53)
“…But can you take them anywhere?” Spoiler: NO. No, you can’t. (New Mutants #53)
Magik intimidating Empath is the gift that keeps on giving. (New Mutants #53)
Make good choices, Cypher! (New Mutants #53)
Or, y’know, not. (New Mutants #53)
Sam Guthrie: Everyone’s best big brother. (New Mutants #54)
“I love you, but I have to leave the team because your costumes are SO BAD.” (New Mutants #54)
SO, THAT HAPPENED. (New Mutants #54)
Has anyone else noticed that Doug’s superhero career is basically a series of dress rehearsals for his eventual death. (New Mutants #54)
I genuinely can’t tell if this is a good burn or not: on one hand, the New Mutants’ costumes are objectively way worse; but on the other hand, the Hellions’ costumes are way more circus-y. (New Mutants #54)
NEXT WEEK: It’s hard to be Havok.

LINKS:

  • If you’re curious about the Starjammers, go listen to Episode 7 – Cyclops Has a Good Day, in which we discuss them at length with Greg Rucka.
  • The podcast where two dudes watch and review Grown Ups 2 every week is an actual, real thing, which you can listen to here.

71 – The Once and Fuchsia King

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 8/30/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 8/30/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

 

In which the New Mutants return from space; Professor Xavier ruins everything; Magneto is the Craig Pelton of X-Men; Cypher carouses shamefully with Hellfire tramps; Karma quits the team; and we wrap up Chris Claremont’s New Mutants run.

X-PLAINED:

  • Leong and Nga Coy Manh
  • New Mutants #51-54
  • The Starjammers (again)
  • The paradox of Professor X
  • Several dramatic speeches
  • The Hellfire Club for Creative Anachronism
  • Plan Omega (but not that one)
  • A fairly epic dress-code violation
  • Magik vs. Limbo
  • A very specific bit of fancasting
  • Best Magneto
  • What X-fans (may or may not) live for
  • A well-wrought nightmare
  • Hellion disambiguation
  • Doug Ramsey’s Fancy Hair
  • New Mutants X Frank Zappa
  • Wacky teen hijinks at the Hellfire Club
  • Carousing shamefully with Hellfire tramps
  • A heroic challenge
  • A counterintuitive heart’s desire
  • Claremont’s New Mutants run.
  • Libraries
  • Emma Frost’s accent
  • The sounds of blastin’

NEXT WEEK: It’s hard to be Havok.

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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

As Mentioned in Episode 61 – Even Horses

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 6/21/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
So much love for this cover. (New Mutants #41)
Danielle Moonstar on cultural identity. (New Mutants #41)
I guess when you’ve spent ten years trapped in a demon bear, it’s easier to take things like flying horses in stride. (New Mutants #41)
“Ill wind.” Who even says that? (New Mutants #41)
SPOILER: This does not end well. (New Mutants #41)
Yeah, I can see how that might put a crimp into a friendship. (New Mutants #41)
Oof. (New Mutants #41)
How badass is Dani? BADASS ENOUGH TO SHOUT DOWN DEATH. (New Mutants #41)
On the list of iconic showdowns of New Mutants, this one will always be near the top. (New Mutants #41)
A very different brush with death. (New Mutants #41)
There’s a lot going on here, but the best part is that Lila is wearing a Lila t-shirt. (New Mutants #42)
AW, SAM. (New Mutants #42)
Headcanon: Sam never has any idea what his mom’s going to look like when he gets home. (New Mutants #42)
In Joshua’s defense, his fears will turn out to have been ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED. (New Mutants #42)
Damnit, Sam. (New Mutants #42)
Later, he’ll sprout wings, but we try not to talk about that story. (New Mutants #42)
Lila goes and changes, but seriously, how great is this look? SO GREAT, RIGHT? (New Mutants #42)
This does not seem like safe behavior around an aircraft in flight. (New Mutants #43)
In which Sunspot does his best Miles. (New Mutants #43)
Aw, they’re so happy. About revenge. (New Mutants #43)
In the New Mutants’ defense, Empath is in fact the literal worst. (New Mutants #43)
Have I mentioned recently how goddamn underrated Doug Ramsey is? Doug Ramsey is so goddamn underrated. (New Mutants #43)
Moment of silence for Dani’s super awesome Kyle Baker-inked hair. (New Mutants #44)
Illyana’s door signs are pretty priceless. (New Mutants #44)
Friendship! (New Mutants #44)
Kinda love the team reaction shot going on here. (New Mutants #44)
If Reverend Craig were an ice cream flavor, he’d be Presbyterianism and dick. (New Mutants #44)
Changing in a parking lot on the way to a school dance is about as New Mutants as it gets. (New Mutants #45)
Our first introduction to Larry Bodine. (New Mutants #45)
They’re talking about two entirely different things, but only one of them realizes it. (New Mutants #45)
THESE jerks. (New Mutants #45)
X-Factor keeps popping up as the off-screen bogeyman in other titles. (New Mutants #45)
Oh, Larry, no. (New Mutants #45)
(New Mutants #45)
Warlock trying to understand death is pretty much always the saddest thing. (New Mutants #45)
Aw, Kitty. (New Mutants #45)
Aw, everyone. (New Mutants #45)
Trivia: This scene has been referenced in a number of flashbacks, but it’s almost always misidentified as Doug Ramsey’s funeral. (New Mutants #45)
It’s really remarkable how consistent the evolution of Kitty’s feelings about identity politics has been, from here, through Mekanix, and into All-New X-Men. (New Mutants #45)
Next Week: GIANT-SIZE SUMMER SPECIAL SUPER TABLETOP TEAM-UP!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING: