Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: magneto

As Mentioned in Episode 163 – Shut Up, Conscience

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Soviet Plot is my favorite porn mag. (Marvel Comics Presents #10)
In case you were wondering whether this was an Ann Nocenti story: yes. (Marvel Comics Presents #10)
This picnic is terrible. (Marvel Comics Presents #11)
“Just step out back to the kidnap van!” (Marvel Comics Presents #12)
These fuckers are the worst people in the story. (Marvel Comics Presents #13)
Okay, but seriously, I want a fort like this. (Marvel Comics Presents #11)
“We’ll talk about kyriarchy later, kiddo.” (Marvel Comics Presents #13)
“Okay, but… why did you resign?” (Marvel Comics Presents #14)
Oof. (Marvel Comics Presents #14)
In their defense, this is pretty terrifying. (Marvel Comics Presents #15)
If only they’d given him mongoose blood, he could’a gotten super speed! (Marvel Comics Presents #15)
THESE ASSHOLES, SERIOUSLY. (Marvel Comics Presents #15)
“How did your grandpa die, Zackery?” “Narrative necessity.” (Marvel Comics Presents #16)
And then nothing was ever okay again. The end! (Marvel Comics Presents #17)
Cyclops: Still the worst at vacations. (Marvel Comics Presents #17)
Fun fact: the last time Cyclops was actively hallucinating, he kicked Master Mold’s ass. FORESHADOWING? (Marvel Comics Presents #17)
Moira, this is not an acceptable way to science. Who do you think you are, Charles Xavier? (Marvel Comics Presents #18)
Okay, but did you consider that she might be like one of those cool lizards who can run on water? (Marvel Comics Presents #18)
Cyclops may be a jerk to adults, but he’s canonically pretty decent with little kids. (Marvel Comics Presents #18)
…well, fuck. (Marvel Comics Presents #18)
…well, FUCK. (Marvel Comics Presents #19)
Seriously, Dr. Mustache Guy, what the hell is wrong with you? (Marvel Comics Presents #19)
“I need helper robots. I KNOW, I’LL BUILD LITTLE NAKED ALIENS. THAT’LL BE COOL.” (Marvel Comics Presents #19)
More servitors, because if I have to see this nonsense, you do, too. (Marvel Comics Presents #20)
Shut up, Conscience. (Marvel Comics Presents #20)
“Look, they forgot I even EXISTED for three issues!” (Marvel Comics Presents #20)
“But, like, not the person. The concept. But not really in this story. Anyway, you get the idea, right? Right?” (Marvel Comics Presents #20)
This plan is terrible. (Marvel Comics Presents #21)
Aw. That’s… sort of nice? In an about-to-explode kind of way. (Marvel Comics Presents #24)
NEXT EPISODE: The Mutant Revolution, Live at Rose City Comic Con!

LINKS & FURTHER LISTENING

163 – Shut Up, Conscience

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

In which Rose City Comic Con was in fact pretty awesome; we return to Marvel Presents; Colossus has a bad day; Ann Nocenti engages in some bipartisan satire; Cyclops has a bad day; Moira MacTaggert gets possessed again; Master Mold is really hard to kill; you should absolutely not send Jay naked leprechaun pictures; sentinels are basically rationalization engines; and that is really not how consciences work.

NOTE: In this episode, we said that the U.S.S.R. dissolved in 1989. That actually happened in 1991.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: THE NYCC PANEL HAS BEEN MOVED. IT IS ON THURSDAY, NOT FRIDAY.

X-PLAINED:

  • Sentinel Aesthetics
  • Prime Sentinels
  • “Colossus: God’s Country”
  • Butt physics
  • The Cold War
  • Colossus’s feelings about porn
  • The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library
  • Some varyingly dubious politics
  • The Cold Warriors
  • Alexander, who is probably not actually either Colonel Sanders or Howard Hughes
  • Bipartisan satire
  • Jay’s grandfather
  • An uncomfortable picnic
  • Limbs
  • Number Six (but not that one)
  • Terrible neighbors
  • “Cyclops: The Retribution Affair”
  • Bobbie and Mary Campbell
  • Master Mold (again)
  • Stephen Lang (again)
  • Servitors
  • A well-honed lobster alert system
  • The Retribution Virus
  • Conscience
  • A terrible party
  • Kitty Pryde’s Gal Pal Squad
  • Community Organizer Magneto

NEXT EPISODE: Live from Rose City Comic Con!

You can find a 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 158 – No Focus, Less Direction

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Listen to the podcast here.

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
“Oh, like THAT’s a big deal or something.” (Uncanny X-Men #273)
That’s a lot of X-Men. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Bobby, you incorrigible scamp! Way to EXPLODE THE PIPES IN THE SOLE BATHROOM SHARED BY EIGHTEEN PEOPLE. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
The original creative teams will be played by Storm in this panel. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Awk-ward. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Telekinetics don’t need shower curtains. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
We unironically adore this ridiculous pair of panels. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
This is a lot creepier if you remember that the Shadow King took over Jean permanently in one of the earths Excalibur visited… (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Meanwhile, in the sexy, sexy Savage Land… (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Between the art and the cascade of dramatic Magneto captions, this splash kinda encapsulates the whole arc. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Whoa. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
To be fair, that was always a really iffy battle tactic. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
“Also, am I imagining the sudden switch to romance comic framing?” (Uncanny X-Men #274)
No one gets dressed more dramatically than Magneto. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Zaladane: boring as hell, but damn does she know how to dress! (Uncanny X-Men #274)
That’s prudent, I suppose, for a certain value of the term. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Please note that:
A) Ka-Zar is calling Rogue “Red” despite the fact that her hair is clearly brown.
B) A mostly-naked man and his tiger buddy are clearly not REMOTELY the weirdest things those S.H.I.E.L.D. troops have shared a transport with.
(Uncanny X-Men #275)
It sure is 1991. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Every goddamn time. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Where’s an editorial footnote when you actually need one? (Oh, fine, I’ll do it: See Classic X-Men #12 and #19, respectively! -Jaded Jay) (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Well, that’s convenient timing! (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Murder is negotiable, but frontal nudity? NEVER. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
NEXT WEEK: The end of New Mutants!

LINKS & FURTHER LISTENING
 

158 – No Focus, Less Direction

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

 

In which we return triumphant from hiatus; it’s still always Inferno in here; no one should ever under any circumstances date Cameron Hodge; Kenneth is a fundamentally hilarious name; Magneto’s family gets retconned to death; Pterosaurs are still the absolute worst; and Magik totally deserves a sidekick.

X-PLAINED:

  • Ka-Zar’s real name
  • Shanna the She-Devil
  • Our new production set-up
  • What we did on our summer vacations
  • Previously on X-Men
  • Further limits of the mutant metaphor
  • Uncanny X-Men #273-275
  • A crisis of leadership
  • A comic that is a metaphor that is also a comic
  • Cable’s OkCupid profile
  • Changing creative dynamics on the X-line
  • Archangel’s middle name
  • Gambit vs. Wolverine
  • Censorship Steam
  • The protean X-bathroom
  • Magneto’s retconned family
  • Colonel Semyanov
  • A perhaps ill-conceived team-up
  • The Self-Styled Mistress of Magnetism
  • Some remarkably lucky timing
  • The semantics of heel turns
  • Gender and sidekicks
  • Mr. Sinister’s powers

NEXT EPISODE: The end of New Mutants!

You can find 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 144 – Giant-Size Special #5 (feat. Kid Apocalypse)

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Listen to the episode here.

Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original!
Your friend is extremely agitated and saying strange things. Do you: a) call a super-scientist like Reed Richards, b) call a telepath like Jean Grey, or c) throw her in a straitjacket and hope for the best? (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Wolverine violently poses forward! (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Cable as a wizard with Warlock as a wizard-staff? YES PLEASE (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
You can tell a lot about an artist by how they draw Warlock. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Oh, Doug the Peasant – you may not have your 616 counterpart’s mutant linguistic abilities or Alan Davis Hair Swoop, but at least you have… a mom who’s kind of a jerk? (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
“I mean, jeez, Richard! I could have been on the can or something! (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Yeah, that’s pretty much the normal way to check how strong booze is. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Congratulations, Princess Rain! Now that you’re properly orphaned, you can start your quest – grab a wooden sword and cloth armor and get going! (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Fantasy-Magneto’s outfit: not all that different from Normal-Magneto’s outfit. That reflects well on both of them. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
“You make a valid point owwwwww” (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Magnus’s text parser needs some work. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
New Mutants, Earth 616 style… (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
…and Earth 1991 style. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Andy Kubert draws a pretty kick-ass Werewolf Rahne. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Okay, I know Wolverine’s the bad guy right now, but that’s legit badass. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
This was my favorite part of Hugh Jackman’s Les Miserables. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Cable: master of witty comebacks in any reality. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Wolverine improving his catchphrase? Magnus playing Sentinel? This spread has it all! (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
This is no one’s finest hour. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Wake up, punch Cable, fall back asleep. I’d call that a successful day! (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Wolverine, I know you meant that to be reassuring, but it actually sounds pretty threatening. (Wolverine: Rahne of Terra)
Next time: this guy.

THE 2016 SUPER DOCTOR ASTRONAUT PETER CORBEAU AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN X-CELLENCE

  • Best X-Writer: Dennis Hopeless
  • Best X-Artist: Alti Firmansyah
  • Best X-Colorist: David Curiel
  • Best Ongoing Series: All-New Wolverine
  • Best Miniseries: Worst X-Man Ever
  • Good Sport Award: Scott Koblish
  • Best Book Miles Wishes He Hadn’t Put Off Reading For This Long: Marjorie Liu’s X-23
  • Fun-Matters-More-Than-Good Award: X-Men: Apocalypse
  • Best Actual Wolverine Award: Jonathan the Actual Wolverine
  • Irene Adler Memorial Award for Most Anticipated Upcoming Book Or Series: Generation X
  • Cyclops Has A Good Day award: Cyclops had no good days.
  • Best Stealth X-Series: New Avengers
  • Kristafer Anka Award For Best Withering Sneer In An X-Book: Emma Frost in Inhumans vs. X-Men #1
  • Wet Noodle Award: The Noodle Incident
  • Making Lemonade Award: Inhumans vs. X-Men
  • Best Non-X Marvel Book: The Vision

CLASSIC CORBEAUS (for older X-material covered in the podcast during 2016)

  • Best Cover Ever Forever: Excalibur #4
  • Buried Treasure: Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown
  • Why-Isn’t-This-Collected Award: X-Factor: Judgment War
  • Still Crying Award: New Mutants #64
  • The Unhand That Elf Award: “Unhand that elf!”
  • Better To Reign In Hell Award: Madelyne Pryor
  • You Tried Award: Illyana Rasputin
  • ABD Award: Havok, for still not finishing his dissertation

AND

  • Still the Best Listeners of Any Podcast, Ever – You!

LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

  • Find Kid Apocalypse on Twitter and Bandcamp!
  • Listen to Dennis Hopeless’s original, super-secret, censored version of the Noodle Incident in the cold open of Episode 104!
  • You can hear Scott Koblish’s rap battle with Jay in the cold open to Episode 105…
  • …and his performance of Jay’s song about Summers continuity in the cold open to Episode 134!

144 – Giant-Size Special #5 (feat. Kid Apocalypse)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

Art by David Wynne. Buy prints at Redbubble, or contact David to purchase the original!

In which we get a visit from Kid Apocalypse and debut a track from his upcoming album; Jay No-Prizes Community; Rahne of Terra is pretty damn delightful; Cable is an armchair editor; we finally release the unexpurgated version of Dennis Hopeless’s version of the Noodle Incident; and you remain–to nobody’s surprise–the best listeners of any podcast, ever.

X-PLAINED:

  • Kid Apocalypse (Quinn Allan)
  • Portland Snowpocalypse 2017
  • “Return of the King”
  • Rapping in character
  • Beats in the gutters
  • A vehement defense of Nate Grey
  • Wolverine: Rahne of Terra
  • Earth-1991
  • Geshem
  • Many puns of varying quality
  • EiC Cable
  • A definitely 100% true and accurate explanation of the Noodle Incident
  • The Third Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence

NEXT EPISODE: The debut of Gambit!

In retrospect, we should totally have made reference to the song “Beards Going Nowhere” during our discussion of surfing the timestream on glam hair. We regret the omission.

You can find a 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.)

 

126 – Live at Rose City Comic Con, with Greg Pak

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Art by David Wynne. No prints this week, but you can contact David to purchase the original!
Art by David Wynne. No prints this week, but you can contact David to purchase the original!

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!

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!

No prints for sale this time, but you can still contact David Wynne for the original of this week’s illustration!

Jay Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E10: Shadowed Past

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Ever heard of something called “The Draco”?

No, not the blonde guy from Harry Potter. The “Draco” I’m talking about is an Uncanny X-Men arc where Chuck Austen retconned Nightcrawler’s origin story to involve a father from an ancient race of demon-looking mutants long exiled to a hell dimension by a bunch of quasi-angelic counterparts.1

The Draco is one of the worst arcs of Austen’s already fairly shaky 2 run; and generally considered to be one of the worst X-Men stories ever. It’s the continuity equivalent of awkward makeouts at your company Christmas party: everyone does their best to politely pretend that it never happened, and if anyone brings it up, everyone familiar with the story gets acutely embarrassed by proxy.

I am telling you about The Draco not because it has any relevance whatsoever to X-Men: Evolution–it doesn’t–but so that you will understand where the bar sits when I tell you that “Shadowed Past” is my least favorite take on Nightcrawler’s origin story.

Continue reading

122 – Boom Boom Von Doom and the Ontology of Monsters

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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 the back-up stories of Atlantis Attacks are way better than the main event; the Serpent Society is hilarious; Longshot finds a rock; the S.U.R.F.E.R.S. are no Neutrinos; our volume of digressions is inversely proportional to our investment in this crossover; Jay overthinks sunglasses; and somehow we still aren’t entirely done with Inferno.

X-PLAINED:

  • Leonard McKenzie
  • Princess Fen
  • Tiger Shark
  • A dubious crossover event and three splendid backup stories
  • The best thing in Marvel Puzzle Quest
  • Skateman
  • Atlantis Attacks
  • Uncanny X-Men Annual #13
  • New Mutants Annual #5
  • X-Factor Annual #4
  • Ghaur
  • Llyra
  • Homo mermanus
  • The Serpent Society
  • Boomslang
  • Why snakes don’t wear vests
  • The Maple Hill Farm books
  • The Horn of Doom (again)
  • Namorita
  • Impractical swimwear
  • Surf, or S.U.R.F.E.R.S., or whoever the hell they are
  • Zak and the Neutrinos
  • The trouble with mobile landmarks
  • A case of mistaken identity
  • The true meaning of something, probably
  • Ralph Macchio, but not that Ralph Macchio
  • Circumstances in which it is acceptable to throw a small child down an elevator shaft
  • The definitive Boom Boom
  • Eligible gentlemen of the Marvel Universe
  • Boom Boom Von Doom
  • A false dichotomy
  • Sally Pashkow
  • A really great outfit
  • Presidencies rated by X-Books
  • Best and worst moral inversions

NEXT WEEK: Mojo Mayhem!

ART CHALLENGE: Send your best Boom Boom romance stories, covers, and pin-ups to xplainthexmen(at)gmail.com by SEPTEMBER 15, with the subject line BOOM BOOM RULES.

NOTE: In this episode, Jay briefly confused two Marvel villain teams: the Serpent Society (snake-themed villains); and the Sons of the Serpent, also known as the Serpent Men (hate group). We would like to offer our apologies to the Serpent Society, who are ridiculous but not, as far as we know, racist.

You can find a 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

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!