In which the X-Men’s membership is a complicated subject; not all angels know each other; we need to talk about Beast’s Wasp costume; Cecilia Reyes speaks for all reasonable folk; Storm gets a mysterious package; and reading comics day-and-date may not be for everyone.
X-PLAINED:
The variable loyalties of the N’garai
X-Men #74-76
A somewhat atypical team lineup
A whole lotta backstory
How to join the X-Men
Warren Kenneth Worthington III as a religious figure
Flechette clean-up
Teenage drama
Detective Jim Logan
A lot of murder
The N’garai
Beast’s Wasp costume
Explanatory captions for real life
The Ru’tai
Pilgrimm
Mai’Keth the Undying One
The Eye of Kierokk
Maggott’s secret origins
X-Men cartoons for a 7-year-old
Reckoning with loss in comics
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur rushes toward its conclusion
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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!
In which we actually kind of like a Sabretooth story; we’re not asking for viscera, here; all pants on Earth-616 are tearaway pants; we’d like to see more Wolverine stories about bodily autonomy; Gambit’s hallucinations have hallucinations; and there are probably too many X-books.
X-PLAINED:
Punch-clock villains
Hydro-Man’s secret weakness
411
‘90s fashion
X-Men Unlimited #17-18
X-Men Unlimited vs. annuals
A difficult casting decision
Forge’s neutralizer gun
Costume injuries
Color symbolism? Kinda? I guess?
Mrs. Hoo
Saberine & Wolvertooth
Warren Kenneth Worthington III vs. shirts
How to dress for Earth-616
Hot buttered whatever
Boob foliage
Clones
Very tenacious blood stains
The return of the Angry Claremontean Narrator
Lots of hallucinations
Oscar the Fixer
Hydro-Man
Redemption, symbolic and otherwise
The evolution of Magneto’s name
Our ideal X-line
NEXT EPISODE: Back to the core!
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In which standing in fields looking confused is a way of life; Psylocke gets a new superpower; when you gotta confess you gotta confess; Iceman’s dad stands up for justice; we mourn a Sentinel; and it’s probably a good thing that most companies don’t do mind melds as a team-building exercise.
X-PLAINED:
Levels of mutant power
Omicron-level mutations
Miles’s brief baseball career
Uncanny X-Men #338
X-Men #58
X-Men Annual 1996
Archangel’s wings
Joseph vs. Holographic Magneto
Shadow teleportation
The errand theory of confession
Graydon Creed (more) (again)
“Drake Roberts” and “Samson Guthry”
Several ways to memorialize the Mutant Massacre
Onslaught, but an anteater
A fight
Several JJJ cameos
X-baseball games
A highly atypical Sentinel
Several oblique warnings
X-Men ‘97
Media inspired by the X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Pryde & Wisdom
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Damn, those bunny slippers are intense.(X-Force #48)
Please note that Siryn has her own personal breeze. (X-Force #48)
“Y… you’re not?” (X-Force #48)
Large. (Uncanny X-Men #328)
LARGE. (Uncanny X-Men #328)
THAT IS NOT HOW YOU FIRST-AID A MAJOR ABDOMINAL WOUND (Uncanny X-Men #328)
We may never know why Professor X chose to install Cerebro in a Multi-Axis Trainer, but he certainly appears to have done so. (Sabretooth Special #1)
Dang, that’s a lot of drop shadows. (Sabretooth Special #1)
Deja vu all over again. We may never know why Professor X chose to install Cerebro in a Multi-Axis Trainer, but he certainly appears to have done so. (Sabretooth Special #1)
In which Sabretooth does not get effectively rehabilitated; nobody has the moral high ground; Val Cooper is the worst possible person to call in any emergency; Bishop needs a better support system; Jay knows several things about onions; and not everything has to be a mammal.
X-PLAINED:
Sabretooth (more) (again)
X-Force #48
Uncanny X-Men #328
Sabretooth Special #1
Bunny slippers
An intervention
Stages of grief
What not to do with Sabretooth
An evil squirrel
Onions
The three genders
Mutant Massacre callbacks
Caption disambiguation problems
The overabundance of boobs on fictional non-mammalian species
NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE CLONE ZONE!
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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!
I don’t know if there’s a word for what’s going on with Rogue’s hair, but it is AMAZING. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE! (Uncanny X-Men #218)
“Y’all enjoy your group hug. I’m just gonna FLING THIS FUCKING ROCK INTO SPACE.” (Uncanny X-Men #218)
Aw, Longshot. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
I know this story is all about teamwork, but Rogue definitely wins MVP of Uncanny X-Men #218.
‘Kay. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
The really great thing about this reference is that there’s also a Brigadier Lethbridge Stuart running around UK-616. I bet they get each other’s mail all the time. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, Havok! (Uncanny X-Men #218)
Car Wreck Sex: The Alex Summers Story. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
This plotline will continue to dangle for like a year and a half. (Uncanny X-Men #218)
Take a drink. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
Damn, kid. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
Please let us know if you can work out the timeline here, because we’ve basically stopped sleeping, and it’s not pretty. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
I always figured Magneto would have way nicer penmanship than this. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
Lorna, you can FUCK WITH MAGNETIC FIELDS WITH YOUR MIND, AND ONE TIME YOU THREW AN ISLAND INTO SPACE. Are you really that surprised at a freak earthquake? (Uncanny X-Men #219)
If the X-line were a sitcom, they’d totally have cut from here to Scott arguing with hallucinations over in X-Factor. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
It’s okay. Everyone will be too distracted by your hat to notice the tights. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
Our heroes and yours! (Uncanny X-Men #219)
THAT. HAIR. (Uncanny X-Men #219)
NEXT WEEK: Origins of X-Men: Evolution, with Robert N. Skir!
FURTHER LISTENING:
Special thanks to the wonderful Adam Warrock for letting us sample his song “Teamwork” in this episode! You can listen to the full track here, and find more of Adam’s work at adamwarrock.com!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 9/6/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which Dazzler is not a team player; Longshot is the Zonker Harris of the X-Men; Juggernaut is That Guy; Rachel and Miles channel Statler and Waldorf; and Alex Summers is seriously never, ever going to finish grad school.
X-PLAINED:
Mutant X
The only well-adjusted Scott Summers in the Multiverse
The Goblin Entity
Uncanny X-Men #217-219
The evolution of the X-Men’s lineup
Standards for a good twist
Doonesbury
Several Dungeons & Dragons analogies
A dubious literary allusion
Flying jeeps
CrimeBros
The fundamental tragedy of Longshot
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and several homages thereto
Geordie and Rupert
Havok (more) (again)
Car-wreck sex
An unfortunate end to a camping trip
The Plot Bus
Several ways to stat Rogue up as a D&D character
Narrative-friendly power sets
Special thanks to:
The wonderful Adam Warrock, for letting us sample his song “Teamwork” in this episode! You can listen to the full track here, and find more of Adam’s work at adamwarrock.com.
Harrison Barber for his X-Pert D&D advice (not to mention nearly fifteen years of tolerating our nonsense at the gaming table)!
NEXT WEEK: X-Men: Evolution with Robert N. Skir!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
