Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

68 – The Most Dangerous Game

most dangerous game v5
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 8/9/2015 , or contact David for the original.

In which we catch our breath after the Mutant Massacre; Miles’s taste is both epic and adorable; Dazzler’s Achilles heel is fame; Madelyne Pryor; it’s hard to be a teenage ghost; Crimson Commando is not actually Frank Borman (but we wish he were); Wolverine may or may not make truck noises; Heroes for Hope is profoundly baffling; and Sunspot would definitely be way into Leslie Knope.

X-PLAINED:

  • Several untimely deaths
  • Uncanny X-Men #214-216
  • Heroes for Hope
  • The post-Mutant Massacre X-Men
  • Malice
  • Another set of Phoenix callbacks
  • The Murder Grandpas
  • Crimson Commando
  • Super Sabre
  • Stonewall
  • Actual superhero Marsha P. Johnson
  • Priscilla the jerk
  • Wolverine SFX
  • Some fairly spectacular misunderstandings
  • One hell of a jam comic
  • X-costumes
  • A Thomas Magnum for 21st-century X-kids

NEXT WEEK: Elle Collins and Graeme McMillan X-Plain Beast’s solo adventures!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 65 – The Mutant Massacre, Part 1

Listen to the episode here.



If you want to follow along with the crossover, you can find a guide to the reading order–and how we’re dividing it between episodes–here.

 

65 – The Mutant Massacre, Part 1

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/19/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 7/19/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which we hit the first big X-centric crossover; a lot of Morlocks die; X-Factor is a dark farce; Kitty Pryde talks down a mob without using racial slurs; when Doug Ramsey tells you there’s a problem, you listen; and Callisto should be one of the iconic leaders of the Marvel Universe.

X-PLAINED:

  • Death by intellectual-property dispute
  • The Mutant Massacre
  • Mutant Massacres that might have been
  • Uncanny X-Men #210-213
  • New Mutants #46
  • The Marauders
  • The best way to guarantee the New Mutants’ involvement in a storyline
  • Limbo fashion
  • The responsibility of leadership
  • Wolverine vs. Sabretooth
  • Psylocke vs. Sabretooth
  • The evolution of crossovers
  • Characters we’d like to see more of post-Secret Wars

NEXT WEEK: The Mutant Massacre, Part 2!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 63 – Wildways

Listen to the episode here!



LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

ART CHALLENGE: Design a new graduation costume for one or more of the New Mutants! Send your designs to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION, and we’ll collect ‘em on the blog at the end of the week!

63 – Wildways

Guest art by Ryan Hill!
Guest art by Ryan Hill!

In which cartoon logic is terrifying; it’s immensely frustrating to be Doug Ramsey; Psylock gets evil robot eyes; queer subtext is not just for the ladies; Danger Room cold opens are the new Kitty’s costume changes; Mojo predicts reality TV; Longshot joins the X-Men; and we answer what may be the best question we have ever gotten.

X-PLAINED:

  • Captain Britain Corps
  • Alan Davis
  • New Mutants Annual #2
  • X-Men Annual #10
  • Captain Britain (Brian Braddock)
  • Psylocke (Betsy Braddock)
  • Slaymaster
  • Mojo
  • Why cartoon logic is terrifying
  • Animal Man vol. 1 #5, “The Coyote Gospel” (Incorrectly described as “The Ballad of Wile E. Coyote” in episode)
  • Wildways
  • Robot eyes
  • Template
  • Snitch
  • Straight Arrow
  • Jubilee (but not that Jubilee)
  • The trouble with determining character ages in superhero comics
  • The stated mission of the New Mutants
  • The proto-X-Babies
  • Longshot’s X-Men debut
  • The New Mutants’ graduation costumes
  • A really charged costume choice
  • Tonal shifts in New Mutants
  • X-Men vs. geese

NEXT WEEK: APOCALYPSE NOW!


ART CHALLENGE: Design a new graduation costume for one or more of the New Mutants! Send your designs to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line GRADUATION, and we’ll collect ‘em on the blog at the end of the week!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Special thanks to Ryan Hill for this week’s art, and to Claire Miller for the research X-Pertise!

 

As Mentioned in Episode 58 – Miniseries Mayhem

Listen to the episode here!



LINKS & FURTHER READING

58 – Miniseries Mayhem

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/31/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/31/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which Nightcrawler does Weird Tales; Iceman does Back to the Future; we want a vacation home in Dave Cockrum’s brain; Bamfs are terrible; the 1983 Iceman miniseries is straight-up bananas; parents just don’t understand; and Rachel will take literally any excuse to talk smack about John Ruskin.

X-PLAINED:

  • Vanisher
  • Nightcrawler #1-4
  • Bizarre Adventures #27
  • Iceman #1-4
  • The Well at the Center of Time
  • The downside to hanging out with pirates
  • A shark wizard in a tiny loincloth
  • Better living through sound-effect awareness
  • Boggies
  • The key to a classic Nightcrawler story
  • Earth-5311
  • Bamfs
  • The full extent of Rachel’s Smurfs knowledge
  • Cretaceous Sam
  • Sehv
  • Illyana Rasputin’s porn collection
  • The Drake family
  • An exceptionally unlikely girl next door
  • The definitive Miles’s Mom anecdote
  • Marge Smith / Mirage
  • White Light
  • Idiot
  • Kali (but not that one)
  • Two generations of Officers Ratchit
  • Pornography no one wants to see
  • Death by time travel
  • Oblivion
  • Night Man (kinda)
  • Our ideal cross-media adaptations

NEXT WEEK: X-Men ’92, with Chris Sims and Chad Bowers!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E6: Middleverse

I like this episode, because this is where Evolution starts to catch its stride and find its voice. “Middleverse” is kind of a mess animation-wise, but it’s also a one-off, a lighthearted breath of fresh air before we dive headfirst into the Big Ongoing Story next episode.

It also gets bonus points for being a Forge episode, which is almost always a plus. Comics Forge tends to be dark and brooding and at the center of convoluted storylines and soap opera, but two out of three animated Forges are uncomplicatedly delightful. The best animated Forge, of course, is Wolverine and the X-Men Forge, who just straight-up is Miles to the extent that we had his action figure in college and more than one person assumed it was a custom portrait. But Evolution Forge is pretty great, too.

Continue reading

As Mentioned in Episode 55 – How Nightcrawler Got His Groove Back

Listen to the podcast here!



LINKS AND FURTHER READING: