All of those facial expressions are great. (X-Men #4)
Ewwwww. (X-Men #4)
File this one under “references that haven’t aged all that coherently.” (X-Men #4)
She yelled so hard it changed the shape of the panels! (X-Men #4)
These jerks and their delightful wardrobe! (X-Men #4)
Why is he allowed to live there, again? (X-Men #4)
That is… an outfit. (X-Men #4)
You can almost hear the inchoate yelling. (X-Men #5)
Cerebro is officially ridiculous. I mean, more ridiculous than usual. (X-Men #5)
Psylocke, just admit that you were sunbathing. No one will judge you. (X-Men #5)
More Fenris fashions. (X-Men #5)
“We worked really hard to reconcile the continuity between these two titles, and we wanted to make damn sure that you appreciated the effort.” (X-Men #5)
Cyclops was right. (X-Men #5)
That’s actually a really cool way to transition into a flashback. (X-Men #5)
“In addition to a Mutant Death Factor, I come with my own exposition!” (X-Men #6)
Someone’s crossed the X-axis! (X-Men #6)
He’s also got a dark pink tie in some panels. (X-Men #6)
SERIOUSLY WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS HE’S STUCK IN (X-Men #7)
Psylocke is the master of the deadpan plot twist. (X-Men #7)
If you don’t automatically hear this line delivered by Christian Kane as Eliot Spencer, I don’t know what to tell you. (X-Men #7)
Maverick. (X-Men #7)
It’s rough to be Alison Blaire. (X-Men #5)
I unironically love this trio of dramatic poses; and also the fact that I absolutely believe that these characters would pose dramatically before fights. (X-Men #6)
Aw. (X-Men #6)
NEXT EPISODE: Larry Stroman somehow manages to make the MLF look cool. (Also, there’s a Hulk crossover.)
I’m fairly sure I’ve linked to “Class of ’64” before, but it’s one of the best-developed reimaginings of the X-Men I’ve found, in or out of canon.
Unfortunately, R. Orion Martin’s “X-Men of Color” series no longer appears to be online, but you can learn more about it here and here. (Also worth reading: Darryl Ayo’s rebuttal to Martin’s article.)
In which Miles is almost caught up on The Gifted (but still hasn’t seen The Prisoner and should be very ashamed of himself); Omega Red is a cool action figure but a boring character; Professor Xavier definitely knows what you did last night; Fenris remains delightfully trashy; Weapon X had an improbably high survival rate; Sabretooth cleans up pretty well; we need to work some new rules for dividing up character voices; the Mojoverse has terrible employee benefits; and mongoose blood will definitely not give you superpowers.
X-PLAINED:
Refugees from the Age of Apocalypse
Creative use of teleportation
X-Modifiers
Jay & Miles at Emerald City Comic Con
X-Men vol. 2 #4-7
The sitcom model of creative logistics
One way to bring someone back to life
Mutant Death Factor
Omega Red (Arkady Gregorivich)
Wolverine’s school pictures
Gambit’s ponytail and the logistics thereof
Sex at the X-Mansion
Fenris fashion
Ritualistic facepalming
Moira MacTaggert’s nightmares
Formalwear and motorcycle safety
An elegantly choreographed cockblock
Retracting tentacle logistics
Carbonadium synthesizers
Dr. Pepper Twizzlers
Ponytails as moral compasses
Sabretooth’s excellent taste in formalwear
Ornithology
Those big, weird tube handcuff things
Cyclops and Wolverine’s eventual friendship
The return of Longshot
What would happen if you gave a human a transfusion of mongoose blood
Some X-Cellent fanfiction
X-details we’d change
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor Meets the Hulk!
Special thanks to consulting X-Pert and Actual Scientist Dr. Lauriel Earley!
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.)
Say what you want about Jim Lee’s art, but his Magneto is GREAT. (X-Men #1)
You’d think S.H.I.E.L.D. would pay Nick Fury enough to buy a suit that fits. (X-Men #1)
Fun fact: almost every spot illustration of an X-Man that you’ve ever seen comes from this or the following issue. (X-Men #1)
We are worried about Psylocke. (X-Men #1)
CORRECTION: Gambit did not kiss Jean. He kissed a robot replica of Jean, which then exploded. We regret the error, but Gambit probably regrets it more. (X-Men #1)
LOOK AT THIS FASHION GOD. (X-Men #1)
“Also, one of them has an underscore in his Twitter handle.” (X-Men #1)
Magneto, master of text. (X-Men #1)
Another image from early in Lee’s tenure that shows up a lot in other publications. (X-Men #2)
Okay, NOW we get it: Nick Fury spent his entire suit budget on pouches. (X-Men #2)
Never not hilarious. (X-Men #2)
We’re just gonna let this page speak for itself. (X-Men #3)
Raise a glass. (X-Men #3)
NEXT EPISODE: Havok gets a job.
OUR PRODUCER MATT HUNTER IS A SUPER RAD DUDE! HERE IS WHERE YOU CAN FIND HIM ON THE INTERNET:
In which we enter a new era of X-Men; Magneto reluctantly returns to villainy; Jay tries to like X-Men volume 2; when in doubt, you should open your story with a space fight; Nick Fury has so many pouches; experimenting on babies unsurprisingly backfires; psychic powers are pink; Claremont deserved better; Producer Matt makes his on-air debut; and you (yes, you!) are once again the recipients of a Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Award for Excellence in X-Cellence.
X-PLAINED:
Loa
The 1991 relaunch of X-Men
X-Men vol. 2 #1-3
Chris Claremont’s departure from Marvel
X-Men vs. Uncanny X-Men
Blue Team
Gold Team
Why Magneto is emblematic of Claremont’s vision for the X-Men
Why there are so many copies of X-Men #1
How comics sales are counted
Our very different perspectives on X-Men #1
A space fight
Revision vs. reversion
What may or may not be in Nick Fury’s pouches
Daring loungewear worn well
Fabian Cortez
Flatscans
Disproportionate escalation
The Acolytes
Delgado, kind of, maybe
Several notable absences
The Magneto Protocols
That one time Magneto got turned into a baby
Some dubious science
A semi-invisible plane
Code Silver
Further miracles of magnetism
Producer Matt Hunter
Chiptunes
Podcasting about video games
The Fourth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence
Best X-Toon holiday episodes
NEXT EPISODE: Havok gets a job!
Special thanks to Cordelia for her help on the episode opening!
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 Abs-lantis will not be denied; “slightly traumatized” is basically the default state of Xavier’s original students; we pick up the slack for Nicieza; Banshee and Moira MacTaggert probably have an active and varied love life; Xavier miscounts the X-Men; we look back over the Claremont/Simonson era of the X-Universe; and Jay makes a case for the re-resurrection of Jean Grey.
X-PLAINED:
X-Men: Red
Namor’s beard
The conclusion of the Muir Island Saga
Uncanny X-Men #280
X-Factor #70.
Cool orange spacesuits that make you immune to telepathy
Off-brand Magneto hats
Literary terrors of our childhoods
Agents DeMarco & Heacock (R.I.P.)
Casual use of nuclear weaponry
The cavalry
The end of the Shadow King
The most dysfunctional timeline
Uncanny X-Men #200-278
The case for an eclectic X-Universe
X-Campus
Resurrections, and when they do and don’t work
NEXT EPISODE: Ed Piskor’s Grand Design
The visual companion to this episode will be up sometime before the end of 2017, by which point Jay’s lungs will hopefully be working again. Yay?
(Seriously, though, fuck this cold. Fuck this cold so much.)
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 are probably more familiar with this show than Jay and Miles are; Paul Smith makes good art; the Shadow King is so extra that his narration has its own narration; Evil Sexy Moira is a fashion queen; there are absolutely no circumstances in which it is appropriate to use the phrase “fist-o-rama”; Legion gets possessed; and we know absolutely nothing about Pokémon.
X-PLAINED:
Universes where people are other people
What Miles thought of Thor: Ragnorok (spoiler-free)
The Muir Island Saga (Part 1)
Uncanny X-Men #278-279
X-Factor #69
Teflon continuity
Our (lack of) favorite episodes of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
The Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men wiki
An alternate timeline
Corpse telepathy
A diabolical plan, sort of
Topicality
Theft
Sci-Fi Warlord Moira MacTaggert
Improbable aerodynamics
The greatest thing
The death of Peter Nicholas
The uncanny genital valley
Interesting ways to expand Cyclops’s powers
X-Pokémon
NEXT EPISODE: The Muir Island Saga concludes!
ART CHALLENGE: Send us your horrifying X-Pokémon! (Note: We were not kidding when we said that we know absolutely nothing about Pokémon, which means that we will probably believe anything you tell us about canon. Have fun!)
You can find 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.)
“Oh, like THAT’s a big deal or something.” (Uncanny X-Men #273)
That’s a lot of X-Men. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Bobby, you incorrigible scamp! Way to EXPLODE THE PIPES IN THE SOLE BATHROOM SHARED BY EIGHTEEN PEOPLE. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
The original creative teams will be played by Storm in this panel. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Awk-ward. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Telekinetics don’t need shower curtains. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
We unironically adore this ridiculous pair of panels. (Uncanny X-Men #273)
This is a lot creepier if you remember that the Shadow King took over Jean permanently in one of the earths Excalibur visited… (Uncanny X-Men #273)
Meanwhile, in the sexy, sexy Savage Land… (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Between the art and the cascade of dramatic Magneto captions, this splash kinda encapsulates the whole arc. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Whoa. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
To be fair, that was always a really iffy battle tactic. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
“Also, am I imagining the sudden switch to romance comic framing?” (Uncanny X-Men #274)
No one gets dressed more dramatically than Magneto. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Zaladane: boring as hell, but damn does she know how to dress! (Uncanny X-Men #274)
That’s prudent, I suppose, for a certain value of the term. (Uncanny X-Men #274)
Please note that: A) Ka-Zar is calling Rogue “Red” despite the fact that her hair is clearly brown. B) A mostly-naked man and his tiger buddy are clearly not REMOTELY the weirdest things those S.H.I.E.L.D. troops have shared a transport with. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
It sure is 1991. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Every goddamn time. (Uncanny X-Men #275)
Where’s an editorial footnote when you actually need one? (Oh, fine, I’ll do it: See Classic X-Men #12 and #19, respectively! -Jaded Jay) (Uncanny X-Men #275)
In which we return triumphant from hiatus; it’s still always Inferno in here; no one should ever under any circumstances date Cameron Hodge; Kenneth is a fundamentally hilarious name; Magneto’s family gets retconned to death; Pterosaurs are still the absolute worst; and Magik totally deserves a sidekick.
X-PLAINED:
Ka-Zar’s real name
Shanna the She-Devil
Our new production set-up
What we did on our summer vacations
Previously on X-Men
Further limits of the mutant metaphor
Uncanny X-Men #273-275
A crisis of leadership
A comic that is a metaphor that is also a comic
Cable’s OkCupid profile
Changing creative dynamics on the X-line
Archangel’s middle name
Gambit vs. Wolverine
Censorship Steam
The protean X-bathroom
Magneto’s retconned family
Colonel Semyanov
A perhaps ill-conceived team-up
The Self-Styled Mistress of Magnetism
Some remarkably lucky timing
The semantics of heel turns
Gender and sidekicks
Mr. Sinister’s powers
NEXT EPISODE: The end of New Mutants!
You can find 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.)
Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original!
WELL, THEN. (Uncanny X-Men #264)
“Also, we think they might be slightly evil.” (Uncanny X-Men #264)
Seriously, though, THEY ARE NEVER GOING TO MENTION THE TENTACLES AGAIN. (Uncanny X-Men #264)
But can it teach aerobics? I DON’T THINK SO. (Uncanny X-Men #264)
Wolverine WWII flashbacks are usually pretty fun. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
No, YOU ship it. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
Her hair is so great, though. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
How can one character be so awesome? It seems kind of unfair. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
Don’t fuck with Seraph. She’ll kick your ass and leave you with a blood debt to Viper. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
“Look, it was this or leather pants.” (Uncanny X-Men #268)
It’s fair to assume that whatever Jubilee is doing in the background is roughly a million times more entertaining than whatever’s going on in the A-plot. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
Jim Lee cocktail dresses, topped off with Jim Lee hair. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
It was REALLY HARD to not make this whole visual companion nothing but Jubilee. I hope you appreciate my restraint. (Uncanny X-Men #268)
Remember that time Cap made an awkward pass at Wolverine? (Uncanny X-Men #268)
Come for the broken spine; stay for spoiling the surprise twist! (And yet, somehow, we still love this cover.) (Uncanny X-Men #269)
If I had a dollar for every day I’ve woken up like this… (Uncanny X-Men #269)
In which Jim Lee does a pretty solid Barry Windsor Smith. (Uncanny X-Men #269)
“Now put on some damn pants and fight me!” (Uncanny X-Men #269)
“But you’re… you’re so evil! And sexy!” (Uncanny X-Men #269)
Well, that explains a thing or two. (Uncanny X-Men #269)
It’s really not the Savage Land without a sexy montage. (Uncanny X-Men #269)
Okay. This looks bad. (Uncanny X-Men #269)
It’s easy to make fun of this page, but at the same time, it’s really damn cool. (Uncanny X-Men #269)
Lila Cheney: falls into the heart of a sun, comes back more stylin’ than ever! (Uncanny X-Men #269)