Possibly the grooviest Dracula-related cover ever published. (X-Men Annual #6)
HELL, YEAH, IT’S DRACULA! (X-Men Annual #6)
Kitty is having SO MANY FEELINGS, and you will NEVER UNDERSTAND! (X-Men Annual #6)
Check out Cyclops and Nightcrawler exchanging a look, like, “Parents? What the hell are those?” (X-Men Annual #6)
This panel is actually a pretty good encapsulation of what I remember about being 13. (X-Men Annual #6)
TBH, a lot of Kitty’s dreams probably start like this. (X-Men Annual #6)
THAT’S NOT A BAT. (X-Men Annual #6)
Dracula is probably the only person who looked at a bright green catsuit and yellow pouches and thought “stealth.” He’s mysterious like that. (X-Men Annual #6)
Ah, 13: that tender age when a young girl’s heart turns to eldritch summonings. (X-Men Annual #6)
Dracula, that’s really the kind of thing you should be keeping track of. (X-Men Annual #6)
[Eliot Spencer voice] “It’s a very distinctive sound effect.” (X-Men Annual #6)
How does Nightcrawler know the Montesi Formula? Who knows? Who cares? He’s a good pal. (X-Men Annual #6)
OH, SNAP. (X-Men Annual #6)
That’s our Wolvie! (X-Men Annual #6)
Lilith really looks like she’s visiting from an Archie comic. (X-Men Annual #6)
Skids and Northstar!
NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!
And here’s a bonus gallery of Jay’s convention sketches:
Quentin Quire is indisputably the Nancy of the X-Men.
In which Dracula probably doesn’t drink his blood from a World’s Greatest Dad mug; Miles massively underestimates the cultural ubiquity of Sexy Dracula; Bill Sienkiewicz may or may not have ever seen a bat; Kitty gets possessed; and Dazzler is singularly well suited to a Vegas residency.
X-PLAINED:
Dracula’s ungrateful children
Marvel Dracula
A fortuitously named writer
Rachel Van Helsing
X-Men #159 (again) (briefly)
Sexy Dracula
The secret origin of sexy Draculas
Fastball Special body mechanics
X-Men Annual #6
A nightmare
“Bats”
Yet another Castle Dracula
The Montesi Formula
Sound effects, spoken or otherwise
Lilith
Chairs
The relative efficacy of holy symbols against Dracula
X-Vegas
Characters we have grown to love as a result of the podcast
NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!
Check out the visual companion to this episode–along with Jay’s convention sketches–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!
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.)
In which we return to Rose City Comic Con and somehow manage to one-up last year’s Stryfe cold open; Greg Pak has secretly written all of the X-books; Cullen Bunn may or may not be watching you RIGHT NOW; the X-Men distill down to murder and kissing; Toshiro Mifune should be everybody; Miles swears first (for once); and we can’t wait to see all of your X-Men roller derby names!
X-PLAINED:
Cold open escalation
Onslaught
Greg Pak
Continuity exegesis
Marrying history and narrative
Murder and kissing
X-Treme X-Men vol. 2
Reimagining characters across the multiverse
Governor-General James Howlett
Magneto: Testament
Where superheroes should and shouldn’t intersect with geopolitical events
Our X-Men buddy-cop duos of choice
X-Commencement speakers
X-Men roller derby names
Contemporary vs. retrospective representations of current events
NEXT WEEK: The New Mutants go to Asgard!
There’s not exactly a visual companion to this episode, but you can find a Rose City Comic Con gallery 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!
No prints for sale this time, but you can still contact David Wynne for the original of this week’s illustration!
In which continuity has its eyes on you; the multiverse is so complex that we have to drag Al Ewing out of the audience to X-plain it; the X-Men mean a lot of different (but mostly compatible) things to all of us; we will accept any retcons necessary to maintain Magneto’s history as a Holocaust survivor; and ECCC rocks our world.
X-PLAINED:
Secret Wars
Alternate universes vs. alternate timelines
Multiversal problem-solving
New Arcadia
Definitive alternate-timeline X-Men
The weird joy of reading comics out of order
That one alternate timeline where Storm has a leather jacket and is hooking up with Wolverine
The only happy Cyclops in the multiverse
What makes the X-Men the X-Men
Intersections we’d like to see explored in canon
The appeal of universe-hopping
Relative ratios of metaphors to punching
Proof of concept in comics publishing
Battleworld characters we’d like to import into the 616.1
Which X-Men should get solo series
NEXT WEEK: X-Terminators!
CORRECTION: During the panel, Jay claimed that Spider-Man had been married for their entire life. Jay was in fact five years old when Spider-Man got married. We regret the error, but maintain our stance that Spider-Man is totally married.
You can find links to all our ECCC coverage–as well as a live video of the Hamilton cold open, from the Phoenix Comics party–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!
We are so ridiculously lucky: our hometown con is the coolest. It’s only a few years old, but Rose City Comic Con is one of the most fun, accessible, welcoming, and all-around celebratory comics shows we’ve ever been to. This was our first con as Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, and our first ever live episode; and we can’t imagine a better place to start.
Click through the gallery below for photos from the con, the panel, and the party! (We’ll toss the sketches up separately tomorrow!)
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 10/4/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Someone left Rachel alone with the button press.
More con prep.
We have a table! (Also, a lot of people were really irate about the word balloon, SIGH.)
WHOADANG, it’s the brand new zines and con-exclusive t-shirts!
Punk Cyclops was one of our favorite cosplays of the show.
Even Marvel characters are sufficiently confused by their own continuity to need our help!
Benja Barker of Portland’s Alter Egos Society hooked us up with this incredibly cool X-Men belt buckle, which sneakily velcros around pretty much any belt.
Monsters of Podcasting celebrating at the Kaijucast booth after our Sunday panel. L to R: Rachel and Miles; Zee and Jamie of the British History Podcast; Kyle of Kaijucast (and our producer!).
“Let’s just meet at the panel room,” we told the guests. “There shouldn’t be a line or anything.”
Damn, there were a lot of you. HI, PORTLAND!
Rachel and Miles X-plain Cable and Stryfe in the live episode cold open. (Photo courtesy of Kyle Yount.)
Left to right: Ann Nocenti, Miles Stokes, Rachel Edidin, Jeff Parker, Chris Yost. (Photo courtesy of Kyle Yount.)
Custom drink menus from The Steep & Thorny Way to Heaven. (The X-Men menu was 21+; New Mutants were all-ages.)
SO. GOOD.
Magneto and friends hang the Days of Future Past wall.
(Magneto also doubled as DJ and bartender. Thank you, Myrrh!)
Live cold-open previews have been a thing since our ECCC meetup. This time, we got some help from Fern. Yes, we have TWO tiny Squirrel-Girl X-perts, and they are both THE BEST. (Photo courtesy of @pawpaw5771)
There are a LOT of variations on this photo, but I think Max and Brandon may have been the first. (Photo courtesy of Brandon Goede.)
White Phoenix has no patience for this post-apocalypse nonsense. (Photo courtesy of Cassandra Carter.)
The word balloons from ECCC were also out in force. (Photo courtesy of Cassandra Carter.)
The British History Podcast wants you to know that your dark future really doesn’t have a damn thing on the past. (Photo courtesy of Jamie and Zee.)
The team-up you weren’t expecting. (Photo courtesy of Christopher Troy.)
We’re gonna go ahead and say that “continuity” is the correct collective noun for Cyclopses. In that spirit: here’s continuity of Cyclopses. (Photo courtesy of Jeff Polier.)
Another homage to the original cover. Dave, on the left, helped build and weather the wall. Katie’s Marvel Girl is updated from the o5 group previously pictured on our blog. (Photo courtesy of the Proctors.)
This Shadowcat is not only an awesomely on-point cosplayer (that Lockheed!) but also one of the coolest teenagers we’ve ever met. (Photo courtesy of Tom Kishel.)
Two very happy, very tired X-Perts. (Photo courtesy of Myrrh Larsen.)
NEXT WEEK: Fallen Angels!
Special thanks to a LOT of people without whom the con and show wouldn’t have been possible:
Panel Guests: Ann Nocenti, Jeff Parker, and Chris Yost
Earth-811 Craft Department: Dave Proctor and Cameron Harris
Everyone from Rose City Comic Con; but particularly Mikey Nielson, Ron Brister, and Paula Brister.
Team X-Plain: Tina Abate, David Wynne, and Kyle Yount.
The Absolute Goddamn Best: Katie Moody and Anna Sheffey.
Last but not least: Max Carleton, Dusty Eppers, Jason Betournay, Scott Hazle, Fern, Kestrel, Jasper, and everyone who turned out to help, yell, party, and X-Plain with us at and after RCCC!
In which we record our first live episode; Rose City Comic Con is AMAZING; Ann tells us how to torture the X-Men; Jean Grey needs more friends; Chris survives an encounter with an angry vampire; Squirrel Girl sets the high bar for questions; everyone has opinions about Longshot’s hair; Jeff gets meta; Cyclops is the best at fighting Sentinels; and Rachel ALMOST gets through an entire panel without swearing.
X-PLAINED:
Cable (Nathan Summers)
Stryfe (Also Nathan Summers)
Rose City Comic Con
Christopher Yost
Jeff Parker
Ann Nocenti
The X-Men
Superheroes vs. soap operas
Continuity vs. evolution
Updating the Silver Age
What defines an X-book
All of our iconic X-eras
Close encounters of the fan kind
The Continuiteens
Marvel Girl and Squirrel Girl team-ups
Narrative regrets
How we’d end the X-Men
X-Men best suited to professional wrestling
Our personal mutant metaphors
Which of the X-Men is best at fighting Sentinels
NEXT WEEK: Fallen Angels!
There’s no visual companion this week, but you can see photos from the panel, party, and more in our Rose City Comic Con roundup!
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!