Look at this gorgeous monstrosity. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
This dude would not appear in the main Marvel Universe until about a decade after he was introduced here. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
FORESHADOWING! (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Mystique’s worst kid, by a fairly wide margin. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Remember her; she’ll be a big deal later. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
Stryfe: The Worst Kid in Your Fandom. (Stryfe’s Strike File)
SPOILER: This cover is profoundly misleading. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
WARREN KENNETH WORTHINGTON III, YOU DID WHAT?! (Uncanny X-Men #297)
A rare moment of candor from Professor X. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
The only part of this issue that I REALLY have trouble believing is that Jubilee was carying around a second pair of ‘blades just for funsies. Those things are cumbersome as heck. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
DAMNIT, JUBILEE. THIS IS WHY NOBODY TRUSTS YOU. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
Aw. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
And Aw, again. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
Yet a third Aw. (Uncanny X-Men #297)
She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll explode your face. (X-Force #19)
Bobby has had a pretty rough year. (X-Force #19)
Slow clap. (X-Force #19)
Vanessa is not having a great time post-X-Force. (X-Force #19)
PHOENIX II DECOLLETAGE! (X-Force #19)
Those are actually… really snazzy team uniforms. Dang. (X-Force #19)
And that was the end of THAT particular metaphor. (X-Force #19)
If you want to get involved in the transcripts–or just hang out with rad folks–come join us on Discord! (Transcription organization happens in the Greymalkin channel.)
In which “wolves” proves a remarkably broad category in the 616; we at least nominally wrap up X-Cutioner’s Song; Stryfe could really use a style guide; we issue our first-ever music challenge; Jubilee is an agent of chaos; Gambit’s powers are a metaphor; Charles Xavier has a complicated relationship to disability; the quality of Jay’s penmanship is a matter of official record; Boom Boom is a remarkably good costume designer; Cannonball comes into his own as a leader; and every “WHAT?!” you hear on this show is fresh and original.
X-PLAINED:
Wolves, to a very limited extent
Jay & Miles (kinda) at NYCC
Transcripts
X-Cutioner’s Song
Stryfe’s Strike File
Uncanny X-Men #297
X-Force #19
A gentle bird caught in a swirling tornado of lust and desperation
Shades of me
Shades of you
Shades of them
Our first-ever music challenge
Some foreshadowing
Nostalgia
A very nice hug
The one good side effect of Stryfe’s technoorganic virus
Charles Xavier vs. disability politics
Several practical jokes in very poor taste
Teacher-student bonding
An excellent epithet
Some lettering choices
An extended Hail Caesar riff
The Clooney Scale
An enduring mystery
Clone powers
Exclamatory logistics
NEXT EPISODE: Hey, remember Excalibur?
MUSIC CHALLENGE: Write and record a song based on or using text from Stryfe’s Strike File (or any of his rants from X-Cutioner’s Song)! Send your masterpieces (or links to ’em) to xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject STRYFE SONG!
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!
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In which nobody but Stryfe’s diary understands him; Apocalypse is the best at what he does (and what he does is remarkably versatile); Scott and Jean weaponize their clichés; Jae Lee does his best Patrick Nagel; Apocalypse is poisonous; Cable goes full T-800; nothing good ever happens to Cyclops on the moon; Stryfe dies as passive-aggressively as he lived; and X-Cutioner’s Song finally concludes.
X-PLAINED:
How Cable dies
The Story So Far
Still more trading-card taxonomy
Uncanny X-Men #296
X-Factor #86
X-Men #16
X-Force #18
An AU we’d like to read
The not-Stüssy S
How to effectively reference X-Men #137
A decoy baby
An abortive escape
Moon gravity
Revelatory vandalism
A trip to the moon
A probably excessive number of hawk facts
Various daring rescues
How to kill time in space
Cathexes
A very fancy moon base
The cavalry, kind of
Stryfe vs. Cable
An X-Cellent epilogue
Several Silent Hill 2 references
Stryfe’s Legacy
Pawnee, Indiana vs. Marvel
Sexy high-security prisons of the future
NEXT EPISODE: Live from FlameCon, featuring Sina Grace, Magdalene Visaggio, and Leah Williams!
Special thanks to Matt for the subject of this episode’s cold open; and to the Protomen for use of their cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
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!
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.)
In which Jubilee is underwhelmed by X-Force; Havok and Gambit make weirdly good buddy cops; Department K is a hot vacation destination; Cable is secretly a Coen Brothers protagonist; you can cancel Community but you can never take away Jay’s gratuitous Community references; Rusty goes full cultist; nobody is Stryfe’s real dad; smoking on a space station is a REALLY bad idea; Apocalypse is here to help; and Miles lies at length about music.
X-PLAINED:
Kuurth
Various Juggernauts
The Story So Far
More trading-card taxonomy
Uncanny X-Men #295
X-Factor #85
X-Men #15
X-Force #17
Varyingly hilarious misunderstandings
Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love
What happened
Good Cop / Sleazy Cop
A deal
A tragic absence of Draculas
The Coen Brothers’ X-Cutioner’s Song
Thanksgiving with Cable
Miles’s summer camp hijinks
Murderbots in space (again)
A dubious strategy
MLF Redshirts
The second time someone force-fed superheroes baby food in space
A dropped plot thread
Things you shouldn’t do on space stations
Additional awkward reunions
Whether Stryfe is a Summers
The X-Cutioner’s signature karaoke song
NEXT EPISODE: Dang, this event is long.
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!
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.)
In which you may or may not have your own Black Bug Room; FlameCon was in fact every bit as wonderful as we projected (and more); Caliban hates true love; no one will ever be as extra as Mister Sinister; X-Cutioner’s Song is secretly a farce; we achieve Peak Cable; and the quintessential ’90s crossover event begins!
X-PLAINED:
The Black Bug Room
A good deal of pre-event status quo
Uncanny X-Men #294
X-Factor #84
X-Men #14
X-Force #16
Trading card taxonomy
The opening strains of a crossover event
A concert that worked out better in theory than in practice
An abduction
Several attempted murders
A large number of awkward reunions
An even larger number of inter-team brawls
Two villains pretending to be other villains
Cape logistics
Peak Cable
Many pouches
Many guns
The origin of Hope Summers
Our hopes for mutants in the MCU
NEXT EPISODE: Aw, Stryfe, no.
NOTE: At one point in this episode, Miles said “X-Force” when he actually meant “X-Factor.” If you can tell us where, you win the prize of eternal smugness (not as much smugness as Sinister, but still a lot).
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!
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.)
Meet the Excalibur of Earth-99476! (Excalibur #51)
This Sauron’s opinions on jorts are never canonically established, but I think we all know. (Excalibur #51)
I see what you did there, Davis. (Excalibur #51)
Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage Land! (Excalibur #51)
The Fantastic Five! (Excalibur #51)
There is definitely an alternate universe that is the same as 616 in every way except that Dai Thomas ended this call by yelling, “The Aristocrats!” (Excalibur #51)
It’s true. I will pretty much always pay to watch the X-Men beat up Professor X. (Excalibur #52)
You know it’s an illusion because none of them is wearing a plaid suit. (Excalibur #52)
Several aspects of Rachel’s backstory as presented in this issue will be retconned away, but this is the most significant of those. (Excalibur #52)
WELL THAT EXPLAINS A THING OR TWO (Excalibur #52)
And then they went to space. For like a year. (Excalibur #52)
That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
Spoiler: Kitty is cutting off his cast and it’s itchy. (Excalibur #54)
That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
Oh, man, can you imagine Meggan at Disney World? I bet she has THE MOST fun and also gets asked to leave very quickly. (Excalibur #54)
It seems kind of ridiculous that he jumps straight to “must be an illusion” after everything he’s seen, but… That’s our Brian! (Excalibur #54)
I love the Crazy Gang and very much want them to be happy. (Excalibur #54)
The best kind of twist ending! (Excalibur #54)
The mystery deepens and gets even cooler-looking. (Excalibur #54)
As promised, here is a photograph of two-year-old Jay dressed as a compsognathus.
In which you should all come see us at FlameCon; all lizards are good lizards; we recap a recap; the Phoenix force is really complicated; Earth-99476 may or may not be the secret history of Earth-616; Alan Davis takes on continuity; the X-Men fail to save the day; the Phoenix says its piece; Rachel takes a vacation in space; Captain Britain doesn’t like to be psychoanalyzed; and the Crazy Gang gets a happy ending.
X-PLAINED:
Evil Shadowcats
Jay & Miles at FlameCon
Excalibur #51, 52, and 54
A brief history of Excalibur
The Phoenix Force
A recap of a recap
What this episode isn’t covering
Lizard Excalibur
The most meta t-shirt in the multiverse
Several long-ago Halloween costumes
Dinosaurs of Earths-616 and -99476
National Lampoon Vacation apocrypha
Earth-99476 and its Savage Land
The Fantastic Five
A vow of vengeance
Feron as an antecedent to Kubark
Alan Davis’s modern authorial counterpart
A telepathic journey
The full history of the Phoenix Force (as established circa 1991)
Inherited vs. inherent mutant powers (and a No-Prize explanation thereof)
The rehabilitation of Rachel Summers
Several retcons yet to come
Jean Grey’s inconsistent relationship to the Phoenix Force
A mysterious disappearance
What the Crazy Gang has been up to
The nicest kind of twist
A very easy way to make Kitty Pryde textually queer
Differentiating X-teams
The X-Plain Discord
Strong Guy’s new hobby
NEXT EPISODE: Cable: Blood & Metal
UPDATE: Not only can birds see color, but they can see a wider spectrum than humans. THE MORE YOU KNOW!
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!
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.)