Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: Shadowcat

As Mentioned in Episode 284 – Precious Baubles

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LINKS & FURTHER CROSSOVERS

284 – Precious Baubles, feat. Chip Zdarsky

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which we sit down with writer Chip Zdarsky to talk crossovers, continuity, metaphors, and X-Men/Fantastic Four!

X-PLAINED:

  • X-Men/Fantastic Four
  • A reunion
  • Richards kids
  • The state of Franklin Richards’ powers
  • Balancing characters in team books
  • Superhero teams as families
  • Several metaphors
  • Chip’s definitive X-Men
  • Reed Richards vs. Charles Xavier
  • Doom
  • Krakoan fashion
  • Switching gears
  • An exchange of portraits
  • Whether Garfield is a mutant
  • Evolution

NEXT EPISODE: Legion Quest (for real, this time)!

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As Mentioned in Episode 276 – Wizard Problems

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
I’m still kind of angry that this isn’t the interior art style. (Excalibur #83)
But are there roller skates? (Excalibur #83)
Still creepy; still cool. (Excalibur #83)
‘Kay. (Excalibur #83)
There’s something very Philip Bond about this pair of panels; and I, for one, am here for it. (Excalibur #83)
Ew. (Excalibur #83)
Evil Kitty’s hair is SO GREAT. (Excalibur #84)
Seriously. So. Excellent. (Excalibur #84)
Is it, though? (Excalibur #84)
Purple on purple. (Excalibur #84)
“Magic, subtext, whatever.” (Excalibur #84)
Choices, choices. (Excalibur #84)
It’s like when a character has been written out of a show but the actor’s contract isn’t up so they have to keep doing flashbacks. (Excalibur #85)
Starring Eliot Spencer as Wolverine. (Excalibur #85)
That’s just… not true. Like, at all. (Excalibur #85)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (Excalibur #85)
Next Episode: Jorts Unlimited!

LINKS & FURTHER DIVERSIONS:

276 – Wizard Problems

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Excalibur gets a regular writer again; we judge a book against against its covers; nothing good ever comes from being sexy on Muir Isle; and the soul sword’s real power is cutting through continuity.

X-PLAINED:

  • Stegron
  • Dinosaur powers
  • Excalibur #83-85 (The Soul Sword Trilogy)
  • Warren Ellis on Excalibur
  • Excalibur (more) (again)
  • Bends Sinister and Bend Sinister
  • Outsider days
  • Mail
  • Boundaries
  • Darkoth
  • Gravemoss
  • The Winding Way
  • Shrill
  • A problematic prosthesis
  • Roger Corman’s The Raven
  • A large number of continuity errors
  • Gratuitous dickery
  • An untold tale
  • The semantics of skin removal
  • Possession vs. retrograde amnesia
  • The circle of nostalgia

NEXT EPISODE: Jorts Unlimited!

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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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As Mentioned in Episode 272 – Children of the Phalanx

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
(X-Factor #106)
Damn skippy. (X-Factor #106)
Ew. (X-Factor #106)
Okay, the Phalanx is legitimately both cool and scary here. (X-Factor #106)
The looks on their respective faces really make this panel. (X-Factor #106)
R.I.P. (X-Factor #106)
Oh, THESE jerks. Again. (X-Factor #106)
Forge-o-Vision involves a lot of lucite rods, apparently. (X-Factor #106)
Douglock X-Plains the Phalanx. (X-Factor #106)
Spoiler: It’s all Phalanx. (X-Force #38)
My kingdom for this panel as drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith. (X-Force #38)
HE LOOKS LIKE A DINOSAUR OKAY (X-Force #38)
The Babel Spire has some serious Inferno vibes. (Excalibur #82)
Oh, yeah, this DEFINITELY ends well. (Excalibur #82)
Presenting: The stealth team. (Excalibur #82)
NEXT EPISODE: The Summers family goes rock climbing.

272 – Children of the Phalanx (the Phalanx Covenant, Part 2 of 3)

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Ship was inside Cable all along; Life Signs is the Two Towers of the Phalanx Covenant (but only in the bad ways), it’s lucky that the Phalanx doesn’t have WiFi; Nightcrawler embraces chaos; and we promise the crossover gets better next chapter.

X-PLAINED:

  • How Cable got his Ship back
  • Miles’s official stance on candy corn
  • The Two Towers of the Phalanx Covenant
  • X-Factor #106
  • X-Force #38
  • Excalibur #82
  • A monastery party
  • Douglock (more) (again)
  • Forge-O-Vision
  • How Steven Lang got mixed up with the Phalanx
  • Stages of Phalanx development
  • Babel
  • Giuseppe Russo, shepherd
  • The Phalanx, but dogs
  • Shinar
  • What you get when you meet a stranger in the Alps
  • Whom we’d like to see draw the Phalanx
  • Mindwifery
  • Adulthood
  • “Stealth”
  • Where baby Phalanxes come from
  • Teamwork
  • Good stories about Hope Summers
  • What happened to Paul Bailey

NEXT EPISODE: Rock climbing with the Summers Family

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

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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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As Mentioned in Episode 268 – Disquettes

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Back to the Future made time travel seem like so much more fun. (Excalibur #81)
I love Christmas traditions! Red and green outfits, walks on the beach, having the lighthouse that was destroyed in a climactic multiversal event suddenly exist again for no good reason… (Excalibur #81)
I kind of love these weirdos. (Excalibur #81)
It’s cool, Douglock, Jay doesn’t recognize them either. (Excalibur #81)
Comedy gold. (Their choice of seating helps too.) (Excalibur #81)
Charles and Moira: best exes. (Excalibur #81)
Seriously, best exes. (Excalibur #81)
“For me, it’s always like this.” (Excalibur Annual #2)
“-and he looks faaaaabulous!” (Excalibur Annual #2)
Jamie Braddock: terrible from the start. (Excalibur Annual #2)
There! Fixed! Take that, psychology! (Excalibur Annual #2)
“Sorry, Amanda – spooling looked so cool we had to do it again, and we drew your name from the hat.” (Excalibur Annual #2)
Cons: spooling nightmares and crashing planes. Pro: that plane is so spacious! (Excalibur Annual #2)
“Until next time, boils and ghouls – pleasant screams!” (Excalibur Annual #2)
Either that picture is only symbolically there, or Kitty’s computer has real bad taste in image choice. (Excalibur Annual #2)
Kurt Wagner: best bro. (Excalibur Annual #2)
We didn’t talk about this in the episode, but the nerd in me really appreciates that this issue took two full pages to show us exactly how Proteus’s jail cell works. (Excalibur Annual #2)
NEXT TIME: Jay and Seanan McGuire talk villains!

268 – Disquettes

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Excalibur addresses a number of dangling plot threads, Britanic finally gets (somewhat) interesting, Kitty really wants Douglock to be Doug, Professor Xavier and Moira MacTaggert are the best exes, and the future has peculiar priorities.

X-PLAINED:

  • The life and death of Jamie Braddock
  • Excalibur #81
  • Douglock (more) (again)
  • Inker ambiguity
  • Britanic and Meggan’s Christmas costumes
  • The Excalibur Lighthouse’s sudden and inexplicable resurrection
  • Mo’ time travel, mo’ problems
  • 20,097 rocks on a shoreline
  • Douglock: overly literal, dryly funny, or just plain thirsty?
  • The Emotional Beat of Damocles
  • The problems with crunch time
  • Princess Diana: Excalibur vs. X-Statix
  • Language and time
  • Excalibur Annual #2
  • Appropriately bombastic narration
  • Fashions of the future
  • Psychic psychotherapy
  • Sibling rivalry
  • Mr. Poo
  • Braddock moppets
  • Oversimplification vs. ambiguity
  • Spooling chambers (more)
  • Excalibur as an X-leftovers book
  • Air travel: leg-room vs. sorcerous doom
  • Hannibal King: vampire detective and/or penciler
  • Shadowcat and the pain of hope
  • A Doug’s-eye view of New Mutants
  • Emma Frost and aging
  • Dazzler and roller derby

NEXT EPISODE: Jay and Seanan McGuire talk villains!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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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As Mentioned in Episode 267 – The Saddest Joyride

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
One of those images that has really, really stuck with us over the years. (Uncanny X-Men #314)
It took a lot of self restraint not to post every single drawing of Emma in Bobby’s body from this issue. (Uncanny X-Men #314)
Those Sienkiewicz inks! (Uncanny X-Men #314)
DAMN, Emma. (Uncanny X-Men #314)
You can almost see Generation X forming between the panels. (Uncanny X-Men #314)
Programming a hologram of his dead sister to harangue him in the Danger Room may be the most Bishop move yet. (Uncanny X-Men #314)
He sewed that cape out of SO MANY cheap vinyl Catwoman costumes. (X-Men Annual #18)
Never take teenagers hostage; they’ll just judge you ’til you let them go out of sheer insecurity. (X-Men Annual #18)
[Insert Jude the Obscure joke here.] (X-Men Annual #18)
Don’t fuck with Jean Grey. (X-Men Annual #18)
WHY IS THERE A GIANT SQUID HERE (X-Men Annual #18)
Aw, Bishop. (X-Men Annual #18)
For more of this beautiful friendship, we’d recommend giving canon a miss and going straight to fellow X-Podling Adam Reck’s delightful Bish & Jubes–and, while you’re at it, supporting the collected edition on Kickstarter!
On Fridays, we wear fuchsia. (Uncanny X-Men #315)
That is one sweet coma beard. (Uncanny X-Men #315)
Yes, this is a good speech; but also, I just realized that given that the whole trial happens in space, it definitely falls under maritime law, AND I FORGOT TO MAKE ANY JOKES ABOUT IT IN THE EPISODE. (Uncanny X-Men #315)
NEXT EPISODE: We’re so close to nearly reaching what’s almost the Phalanx Covenant!

LINKS & FURTHER ACTION POINTS

267 – The Saddest Joyride

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which Emma Frost is a better Iceman than Bobby Drake; Generation X is aggressively foreshadowed; Malcolm and Randall are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Bishop’s Hamlet; and we launch a campaign for our own Multiversal designation.

X-PLAINED:

  • The first time the X-Men met Emma Frost
  • Uncanny X-Men 314-315
  • X-Men Annual #18
  • A game show nobody should ever under any circumstances actually make
  • Emma Frost’s recruitment tactics
  • Previously unexplored ice powers
  • The direct prelude to Generation X
  • Caliban (more) (again)
  • SoftPaws(TM)
  • The giant squids of New York
  • The neophyte
  • A trial, kind of
  • X-Men power fantasies
  • Earth-X-Plain

NEXT EPISODE: We’re so close to nearly reaching what’s almost the Phalanx Covenant!

Game show music by MusicManiac301; used with permission.

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!