Tag: magneto
233 – Electromagnetism Unlimited
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In which X-Men Unlimited begins; Cyclops’s powers remain wildly inconsistent; electromagnetic fields are the gamma rays of the early ‘90s; Siena Blaze should probably take some science courses; Magneto is a complex dude; and the Marvel Universe could really use adequate mental healthcare.
X-PLAINED:
- Tradeoffs
- X-Men Unlimited
- Several other Unlimited series
- The Gregorian calendar
- Chris Bachalo
- Storm’s-eye view
- Electromagnetic fields
- Diverse approaches to problem-solving
- One of Cyclops’s many issues
- An unfortunate encounter with Magneto
- A memorial
- Magneto, his origins, and his many pseudonyms
- The Victor Von Doom paradox
- A terrible plan
- Physical mannerisms in comics
- An unfortunate encounter with Magneto, revisited
- Mental healthcare in the Marvel Universe
- What happened to the Soul Sword
NEXT EPISODE: FATAL ATTRACTIONS
Special thanks to consulting X-Pert @beccastareyes!
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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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224 – Fix the Future
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In which Alan Davis performs his pièce de résistance; the personification of Death is surprisingly supportive; Rachel Summers is the One True Phoenix; Kitty Pryde goes full ’90s; syntax saves the world; and the first Excalibur series should really have ended with #67.
X-PLAINED:
- Origins of Phoenix mythology
- Excalibur #61-67
- The Phoenix Force (more) (again)
- Rachel Summers (more) (again)
- Earth-811 (more) (again)
- Phoenix vs. Galactus
- A pep talk from Death
- The One True Phoenix
- The dark, distant future of 2013
- The dark, even more distant future of 2015
- The extremely complicated future of Kate Pryde
- Rory Campbell / Ahab
- What may or may not be Ahab’s theme song
- Moby Dick, kind of
- That one time Widget was a car
- Resistance Coordination Executive
- Dark Angel
- Killpower
- Albion
- Grace
- Tangerine
- Arthur
- An Excalibur #54 callback
- Excalibur (the gun)
- Kitty’s new image
- How to hack the robot apocalypse
- Saved by the Bell: The College Years
- Where Excalibur should have ended
- Tactical use of Magneto’s hat
- Anti-assimilation stories in X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: The Passion of Butter Rum (feat. Austin Gorton)
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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 223 – Live at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival
Listen to the podcast here.
And here’s a bonus gallery of Jay’s convention sketches:

LINKS & FURTHER GAMBLES:
- We discussed X-Men #159–and a lot of other Dracula-relevant material–in Episode 18 – You’ve Got a Dracula Problem.
- You can hear–and see!–us read the picture-book adaptation of “Days of Future Past” in the Jay & Miles Storytime Special.
As Mentioned in Episode 218 – Careful What You Lick
Listen to the episode here.
LINKS & FURTHER NONSENSE:
- Come see us at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival!
- The delightful PDX Broadsides will also be there!
- This episode involves a LOT of references to past story arcs. Here’s where you can hear us talk about those:
- Learn about one of the less obvious reasons not to masturbate with cacti in Episode 78 – The Eye Killers and Other Cautionary Tales.
- You can hear about the beginning of X-Men vol. 2 in Episode 178 – Giant-Size Special #6.
- We covered God Loves, Man Kills in Giant-Size Special #1.
- You can see Miles’s childhood X-Men drawings in Jay & Miles Made a Zine About the X-Men, now available on Gumroad!
218 – Careful What You Lick
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In which X-Cutioner’s Song may be over, but its repercussions continue; Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone; superhero comics are and always have been political; Bishop learns to banter; the X-Men gain an unlikely ally; and Magneto remains exceptionally difficult to kill.
X-PLAINED:
- Jay & Miles at VVCBF
- Uncanny X-Men #298-300
- The Acolytes (more) (again)
- The Upstarts (more) (again)
- Several important lessons
- A very fancy room
- A very fancy brain
- The unpleasant fate of Sharon Friedlander
- The all-new, all-different Acolytes
- Carmella Unuscione
- The return of one of our favorite antagonists
- A sick burn
- The fate of Asteroid M
- Molting
- A debate
- Graydon Creed (more) (again)
- The tentative redemption of Robert Kelly
- How to lose a debate with Joe Biden
- A large number of prescient political references
- Friends of Humanity
- How to engage with a fascist in a televised debate
- Noah DuBois
- Fatale
- A generic rural mob
- Milan
- A narratively convenient superpower
- Amelia Voght
- Seamus Mellencamp
- Neophyte
- The gospel of Magneto
- A joyous reunion
- The helmet that wouldn’t die
- Ponytail ethics
- Timelust
- Several accents
- The current state of Rogue’s powers
NEXT EPISODE: All Emma All Episode (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, and more)!
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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!
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 195 – Johnny Got His Robot Arm
Listen to the podcast here!
LINKS & FURTHER READING
- Shing Yin Khor’s A.I.M. comics are delightful.
- Jay’s Bela Lugosi is but a pale imitation of the real deal.
195 – Johnny Got His Robot Arm
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In which Jay may have Stockholm syndrome; Nick Fury is objectively sillier than G. W. Bridge; we get a brief artistic reprieve; Cable’s legal expertise does not extend to trademarks; our favorite Ship returns; Miles’s grandmother calls it like it is; Sauron is bad at taxonomy; and Garrison Kane is basically a very violent Inspector Gadget.
X-PLAINED:
- Brother Mutant
- X-Force #8-10
- X-Force (again)
- A protracted flashback
- The Wild and/or Six Pack
- A heist
- A trap
- Yet more Ed Wood references
- A future
- The Professor (Ship)
- Gratuitous face shadows
- A mystery
- Cable casting
- Several misplaced word balloons
- The logistics of tentacle arms
- The High Lords (Externals)
- Michael Bay’s Johnny Got His Gun
- General Clark and his diving suit
- Good Magneto stories
- How to get your dad into X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur vs. the Anti-Phoenix!
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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!
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.)
191 – Unconscionably Sexy (feat. Kelly Thompson)
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In which writer Kelly Thompson joins us to talk Rogue and Gambit; Antarctica is Earth’s answer to the Blue Area of the Moon; Kelly unfreezes one of the great X-romances; Rogue has walked a mile in everyone’s shoes; you should probably not take romantic cues from fictional characters; Gambit should always wear hot pink; and continuity is fundamentally messy.
X-PLAINED:
- What happened in Antarctica
- The Trial of Gambit
- Rogue and Gambit
- Narrative tension vs. growth
- Dueling accents
- Kelly’s defining Rogue and Gambit stories
- The cool-versus-creepy line
- Making deep cuts accessible
- The evolution of Rogue
- The future of the X-line
- Favorite costumes
- Equal-opportunity objectification
- Fundamental contradictions of continuity
- Hawkeye team-ups
- Date night with Rogue and Gambit
- MTV’s Are You the One
- RomCom hybrids
NEXT EPISODE: Meet the N-Men!
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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!
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 178 – Giant-Size Special #6
Listen to the podcast here.
OUR PRODUCER MATT HUNTER IS A SUPER RAD DUDE! HERE IS WHERE YOU CAN FIND HIM ON THE INTERNET:
THE 2017 SUPER DOCTOR ASTRONAUT PETER CORBEAU AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE AT X-CELLENCE:
- Best Writer: Charles Soule, for Astonishing X-Men
- Best Artist: Alessandro Vitti, for Iceman
- Best Colorist: Felipe Sobreiro, for Generation X
- Best Ongoing Solo Series: Iceman
- Best Ongoing Team Series: Generation X
- Irene Adler Memorial Award for Most Anticipated Upcoming Series: Storm, by Ta Nehisi Coates and Jen Bartel
- How-Was-This-So-Good? Award for a Premise That Shouldn’t Have Worked But Did: “Weapons of Mutant Destruction” by Greg Pak
- Cyclops Has A Good Day: Champions #12, for good friends being good friends.
- So That Happened: Last page of Jean Grey #10
- Nate Grey Award for Best Cross-Dimensional Import: Bloodstorm in X-Men: Blue
- Coming Back Strong: Hope Summers in Jean Grey
- Norman Osborne Award for Gratuitous Resurrection: Logan
- Light of Our Life: Honey Badger
- These Deep Cuts Form a Picture: Gifted
- Best Non-X Marvel Title: Runaways by Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka
Classic Corbeaus
- Buried Treasure: “Weapon X,” as published in Marvel Comics Presents
- You Tried: Chris Claremont, circa 1991
- Why Havok Didn’t Finish His Dissertation This Year: He was busy being Magistrate on Genosha
- Object Permanence Is Overrated Award for Inconsistent Corporeality: Amanda Sefton
- Murder Rainbow Award for Most Entertainingly and Chromatically Redesigned Costumes: Late-run New Mutants
- Lurking in the Wings Award: Guido Carosella
- Sauron’s Jorts Award for Draculas Who Are Not Draculas but Try Real Hard: Crimson and the Blackbirds
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Charles Xavier’s swimsuit area as distressingly rendered by Whilce Portacio
- Major Christopher Summers Award for Most Awkward Family Reunion: Rachel Summers and Jean Grey in “Days of Future Present”
- Kitty Pryde Sartorial Exception of Excellence: The Rocketeer ensemble from X-Men: True Friends
- On-the-Nose Award for Effective Use of Heavy-Handed Metaphor: Genosha
- Best Jacket Ever Award: Cyclops in X-Factor Forever
- Erik the Red Award for Justifying the Existence of This Podcast: Jen Askani
- Future Past Award for Most Anticipated Upcoming Series Coverage: X-Factor
AND FINALLY:
- Best Listeners of Any Podcast, Ever: YOU. Extra hard, this year.