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Tag: Rogue
254 – Carry Each Other
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In which Nicole Miller is fashion designer to Earth-1218 and Earth-616, Jay rejects the word “bestest”, we kind of want to just read every word of X-Men #30 aloud, One is a perfect wedding song for Scott and Jean, and you save the last dance for who brought you.
X-PLAINED:
- The perils of animated weddings
- X-Men: The Wedding Album
- Nonstandard trim sizes
- Misattributed Oscar Wilde quotes
- Shatterstar’s favorite Olympic event
- Jean Grey’s short-lived modeling career
- Computo, Commander of the Robot Hive
- A most excellent wedding dress
- Cursive fonts in comics
- Jean Grey and Jubilation Lee, ambiguously excellent chosen family
- X-Men #30
- An event decades in the making
- Wolverine, Master of Penmanship
- Charles Xavier, reader stand-in
- The largely forgotten Madelyne Pryor
- The understandably tentative Rachel Summers
- The bow-tie scene
- A phenomenal two-page spread
- A set of perfect vows
- A bittersweet song for a bittersweet couple
- Victor Creed, vengeful kitty-cat
- Rogue and Gambit, best worst wedding guests
- Video albums vs. Instagram
- Beast and Banshee, jazz combo
- Scott and Jean as a couple vs. individuals
- The necessity of Scott and Jean’s relationship context
NEXT EPISODE: Goodbye, Phoenix. Hello, Britanic.
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As Mentioned in Episode 253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley
253 – Autumn in the Uncanny Valley
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In which an engagement begins; Jean Grey’s Walden Puddle counterpart is definitely Nicole; Cyclops is the telepathic equivalent of a pit trap with spikes at the bottom; Charles Xavier’s subconscious is very dialogue-heavy; nobody ever has appropriate professional boundaries; Cable dabbles in passive aggression; and the best is yet to come.
X-PLAINED:
- Some of Blaquesmith’s recent activities
- Uncanny X-Men #308-310
- A very sweet retcon
- Thanksgiving “traditions”
- How to scare crows
- Emplates
- Feelings and telepathy
- A proposal
- A misprint
- Thanksgiving at the Xavier School
- A somewhat alarming manifestation of a conscience
- The lies Charles Xavier tells himself
- Xavier’s depression beard
- The evolution of Amelia Voght
- Angry Claremontean Narrator: The Movie
- The anticlimactic return of Carl “X-Cutioner” Denti
- An unexpected resolution
- Foreshadowing
- Trans voices in the larger comics conversation
NEXT EPISODE: The wedding!
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HAPPY PRIDE! This month, we’re donating all of the proceeds from our TeePublic shopto Trans Lifeline!
As Mentioned in Episode 251 – Triple Word Score
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Here’s Ben Martin on the Legacy Virus as an AIDS allegory:
I wanted to get a deeper take on the Legacy Virus as an analogy for AIDS. As you’ve mentioned more than once on the pod, it’s clear that’s what the writers had in mind, but I feel it misses the mark in a couple of important ways over the life of the story element.
My first issue with the analogy is that the big stigma about AIDS in the early days was that it only affected gay men, when in fact that was not the case. I was born with a genetic blood disorder called hemophilia, and many of the kids and staff from the hemophilia summer camp I attended as a teenager in the 1990s contracted HIV from contaminated blood products used for treatment. While I was fortunate to avoid the contaminated products, many I grew up with did not, as half of all people with hemophilia in the U.S., including 90% of those with severe hemophilia, contracted HIV. You may remember Ryan White, who did a lot of public outreach about HIV and AIDS after contracting it through treatment for his hemophilia. With the exception of Moira MacTaggart, the Legacy Virus only targeted mutants, meaning it missed the mark on the way AIDS was incorrectly and maliciously used as a propaganda weapon against homosexuals, when in fact it was something that could affect anyone who contracted it. Leaving out that aspect is a disservice to the wide range of people affected by HIV and AIDS in my view. I would have loved to see a human villain use the Legacy Virus to stir up hatred, only to find out they contracted it themselves. Maybe that’s what they tried to do with Moira, but I recall either Beast or Xavier saying it’s likely she only contracted it through prolonged exposure to it while studying it.
My second issue is that, through the magic of comic book science, the Legacy Virus was altogether wiped out (with the exception of a few samples in test tubes that popped up in an X-Force run as far as I know). My friends who are still living with HIV and AIDS today do so with a decreased quality of life and tons of medication. They are, fortunately, alive, but their lives are not what they were before. That’s a smaller nitpick, but I personally think it would have been really interesting to see characters contract the virus, receive the cure, but still be living with some consequences of the disease in some way, whether it be a change to their mutant powers or just poor health in general or something like that.
On a side note, if you can find it, there’s a fantastic 2010 documentary called “Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale” currently available on Amazon Prime that explores the impact of HIV on the hemophilia community. It’s very powerful and is an important story.
LINKS & FURTHER THEORIES
- You can hear about Infectia in happier times on Episode 92 – Living in Ship.
- Jay recently discussed the backup story from Classic X-Men #43 (along with some other Phoenix-related comics) on fellow X-cast Battle of the Atom!
251 – Triple Word Score
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In which Jay proposes a new way of comparing superheroes; Beast faces an ethical dilemma; Mister Sinister has an Xavier moment; Sabretooth is a terrible houseguest; Cyclops totally gets what you see in Wolverine; Psylocke would absolutely be into hunting humans for sport; Sage probably vapes; rich people are definitely not like us; Shinobi Shaw is his own best friend; and Classic X-Men backup stories are canonical as hell.
X-PLAINED:
- Blue Team vs. Gold Team
- X-Men #27-29
- Threnody
- The fate of Infectia
- One of Mister Sinister’s favorite aliases
- Dr. Gordon Lefferts
- Several complicated choices
- A very frustrating cover
- A secret meeting
- The dubious evolution of Charles Xavier
- Communication
- An invitation
- A sick burn
- Rich people
- The key to happiness
- The theoretical adventures of Honey Badger and Princess Powerful
NEXT EPISODE: Val Cooper joins a cult!
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As Mentioned in Episode 249 – The Parent Trap
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LINKS & FURTHER MUTATIONS:
- Go look at Peter Nguyen’s Gifted illustrations and cry for the comics that might have been!
249 – The Parent Trap
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In which Sabretooth is weirdly ubiquitous; Maverick is a terrible guest; not all second chances are equivalent; Graydon Creed is the red delicious apple of people; Mystique is the master of murder monologues; and the Darkholmes give the Summers family a run for its dysfunctional money.
X-PLAINED:
- X-Men Unlimited #3-4
- Sabretooth (more) (again)
- Emergency back-up Wolverine
- Faces
- A stained-glass window that is probably a metaphor
- Evocation
- Maverick’s nose
- Maverick’s manners
- Commcast (but not that one)
- Sabretooth’s mind
- The “mystery” of Nightcrawler’s parentage
- Mystique’s murder monologues
- Killing Eve
- The skull of friendship
- Several versions of Nightcrawler’s backstory
- Glove magic
- One way to get out of an awkward family conversation
- The ‘90s X-Men cartoon
- Character migration between media
NEXT EPISODE: Fabian Nicieza!
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As Mentioned in Episode 245 – Natural Causes
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LINKS & FURTHER ADVENTURES:
- The popular perception of Juggaloes is both inaccurate and classist as hell. Don’t be that guy.
- Jay is not wrong about Gambit and Johnny Castle.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu (as illustrated in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja)
- SERIOUSLY, DON’T PULL THE KNIFE OUT!!!!!
245 – Natural Causes
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In which Rogue flouts air traffic regulations; Jay is very sorry for how badly he butchers Gambit’s accent; stealth is directly proportionate to how loudly you dress; Rogue and Gambit win the gold in Pairs Punchin’; Candra is a big jerk; you should ABSOLUTELY NOT remove an impaled object; Rogue busts through some tropes; and we have complicated feelings about the Ultimate universe.
X-PLAINED:
- Rogue’s biological parents
- Marvel New Orleans
- Brood Trouble in the Big Easy
- Rogue/rogue disambiguation
- Rogue #1-4
- Bella Donna Boudreaux
- What may or may not happen if Rogue kisses a Transformer
- Cody Robbins (again)
- Natural causes
- Supervillain funeral crashers (again)
- Inverse Ninja Law (Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu)
- The Bill the Pony incident
- Relative culpability
- Nature vs. nurture
- Tante Mattie (Mattie Baptiste)
- Candra’s new threads
- How long it takes to drive from Westchester, NY, to Caledcott, MI
- How Jay learned to love Gambit (but not to stop worrying)
- Gris-Gris
- Lapin
- Fifolet
- Punching hallucinations
- Questa
- Knives as superpowers
- Inversions of several gendered superhero tropes
- Closure
- The limits of intent
- Magnetos’ (sometimes) kids’ hair
- Whether we’ll cover Ultimate X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Spiky boys, yelling!
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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!
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