In which we record live from the Library of Congress; time travel complicates everything; X-Men is a fundamentally queer narrative; we attempt to summarize a lot of history very fast; and when identities are politicized, claiming them becomes a political act.
X-PLAINED:
LC-GLOBE
The first openly queer X-Man
Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
Why we do what we do
Why the X-Men are worth studying
Returning nuance to critical discussion of media
A brief(ish) history of X-Men and queerness in X-Men
Iceman Watch
Retroactive foreshadowing
The mutant metaphor
Found family
Subtext
Text
Facets of mutant activism
Coming-out stories
Various vectors of diversity
Some comics Jay wrote
Comics in libraries
Where to start with Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
X-Men for horror fans
Our favorite X-Men lineups
Identity politics
The T-O virus vs. the Legacy Virus
NEXT EPISODE: Brain Sharks!
This episode doesn’t exactly have a traditional visual companion, but you can click through the entire slide deck from the live show–and find links to the essays we mentioned–on our blog.
Jay has some additional thoughts on identity politics, which you can read here.
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 X-Force is kind of silly; that really isn’t what “quantum” means; polite and lawful are two entirely different things, and Sam Guthrie is only one of them; Selene vogues; and the Hellfire Club plays the dead girlfriend card.
X-PLAINED:
Blackheart
The Damocles Foundation (more) (again)
Lucas Bartholomew Guthrie
The difference between prisons and jails
X-Force #98-98
Whether Dr. Octopus enjoys the literary stylings of Elmore Leonard
One way to get out of prison
The Glitterbox
An unsuccessful heist
Celestial cigarettes and/or golems
Thomas and/or Tyler Zebulon and/or Zeke Guthrie
Demon Bears as urban pests
Selene, Always Voguing
Gatherers
Various evil scientists
The Sword
Junkyard life
Lenny Delmonico
Psychic rodeos
Nightmare chambers
Bat sex
An offer Sunspot can’t refuse
Hank McCoy’s villain arc
New Mutant superlatives
NEXT EPISODE: Astonishing X-Men!
Check out the visual companion to this episode 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!
In which Gambit is fundamentally goofy; t’ieves love research; Magneto was ripped; Professor Xavier remains a jerk; Miles attempts to convey something very fundamentally visual in an audio format; Marrow is adorable; the X-Men pretty much disband (again); and a miniseries is the opposite of a vacation.
X-PLAINED:
Where Wolverine went
Gambit Annual 1999
Uncanny X-Men #372
X-Men #92
A lot of backstory
A very cute plastic goose
What Gambit does in his free time
Those weird fluid-filled tubes they put people in all the time for some reason
Gambit’s abs
The fart ghost (Mary Purcell)
Manhattan, Indiana
A very minor continuity error
Fart ghost metaphysics
A very bad idea
A muppetworthy death
Dream’s various ends
X-pajamas
Professional dinosaurs
Thinkers
Theoretical Cyclops-Daredevil team-ups
X-characters recognizable as civilians
NEXT EPISODE: The return of the Damocles Foundation!
Check out the visual companion to this episode 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!
“Jack, I served with Cannonball, I knew Cannonball, Cannonball was a brother of mine. Jack, you are no Cannonball.” (Generation X #32)
smek (Generation X #32)
David Bowie and Hacker T. Dog. (New Mutants #92)
I’ve missed 80s Boom-Boom. Yeep! (New Mutants #92)
The character find of 1990. (New Mutants #92)
“This haunted house is nuts, especially that broccoli guy! We need to tell Jean Grey about it and make sure she wears that Phoenix outfit when she comes to visit!” (New Mutants #92)
Did we cover this issue mostly for 80s Boom-Boom? Yes. Yes we did. (New Mutants #92)
And you thought Ship was cool, kids. (New Mutants #92)
Speaking of things Boom-Boom would do… (Generation X #33)
Keep an eye on this guy. (Generation X #33)
Miles totally would have stuck with hard science in college if the labs had looked like this. (Generation X #33)
No, no… The WHAT goes at the end, not in the middle! (Generation X #33)
Welcome to a dimension of pure CHAIR. (Generation X #33)
And now for something completely different. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Now I want to see Adam Pollina draw Mystique’s creepy nephew from X-Factor. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
I believe Danish armored mother-and-son murderers refer to this as hygge. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
1 pet robot. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Random stuff piled up outside the panels – this must be an issue of Generation X! (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Mutant, mutant, angst, angst. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
What an obituary that would have made. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
It’s easy to forget how legitimately terrifying the Orphan Maker can be. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
So that happened. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Better or worse than the kids that wet their pants on Santa’s lap? (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Oh, kiddo. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
Well that’s just lovely. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
NEXT TIME: Doctor Moira MacTaggert versus the Legacy Virus.
And now for something completely different. (Generation X Holiday Special #1)
In which Santa Claus makes problematic choices; we make good on a promise; Sebastian is the new Deadpool; Skrulls get stuck as animals more than you’d think; Nanny and Orphan-Maker celebrate; and Jubilee stops worrying and learns to love Christmas.
X-PLAINED
Santa Claus’s flirtations with villainy
A new direction for Generation X
Larry Hama
Al vs. U.S. geography
Generation X #32-33
Generation X Holiday Special
New Mutants #92
Thing One & Thing Two St. Croix
The Circus of Crime
The Pirates of Dark Water (somewhat)
Hacker T. Dog
Why Wolfsbane is scared of clowns
Skrull Kill Crew
Carnie Voltron
Chief Authier
Phat beats
A reality biscuit
Emplate’s pocket dimension
Chimera and Dirtnap
Variant interiors
Nanny & Orphan-Maker (more) (again)
Santa Claus (in general)
Benefits of inconsistent characterization
NEXT WEEK: Break week
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur!
Check out the visual companion to this episode 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!
In which we spend too long trying to place a time-travel miniseries in continuity, Al Kennedy does us a solid, Bernard Chang draws some excellent New Mutants young and old, Al Ewing x-plains X-Men: Red, Forearm and Random play Nintendo, and we reveal the winners of The Ninth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence!
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!
You’ve come a long way from tick-tick-boom, Tabitha. (X-Force #63)
Dammit, X-Force! You were already living in the same house as the X-Men, and now you have their color scheme too? (X-Force #63)
When continuity is character. (X-Force #63)
Oh, great, it’s that dream again. (X-Force #63)
Yep, Lila Cheney is just that good. (X-Force #63)
“Alright, Agents! Just like we practiced: POSE!” (X-Force #63)
Ah, come on, Bobby – you’ve been to space and multiple other dimensions. Get over yourself. (X-Force #64)
Meanwhile in Spookytown (X-Force #64)
GAVEEDRA BENJAMIN SEVEN YOU PUT THOSE SWORDS DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR (X-Force #64)
But… but ambush is the exact thing you just did! (X-Force #64)
We immediately love John Francis Moore’s Meltdown. (X-Force #64)
We’ve missed you, Julio. (X-Force #64)
Michael McCain, AKA Forearm, AKA a guy in a shirt best described as “normal”. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
You put that down! Bad dog! Drop it! DROP IT! (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Meltdown auditions for Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Like the Rainbow Bridge but somehow more cosmic! Or at least differently cosmic. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Presenting Malekith the Accursed. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Is Caliban huge or is Shatterstar tiny? The world will never know! (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Our high school English teacher always told us we needed to learn the rules of writing so we could more effectively break them. This page does that with its panel borders. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Mutants and dwarves and giants, oh my! (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
Hela: goddess of death and high fashion. (Cable & X-Force Annual 1997)
