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!
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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!
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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.)
Okay, but seriously, he could have gotten that cape anywhere. (X-Force #11)
Early Deadpool was just kind of a jerk. (X-Force #11)
In which Garrison Kane and all of his teeth are watching you poop. (X-Force #11)
The best thing about this is that Rictor’s shirt changes color from green to read between issues, and I have decided that it is DEFINITELY Hypercolor(TM). (X-Force #11)
Hi, Crule. (X-Force #12)
Somewhere, Flash Gordon is very confused and very naked. (X-Force #12)
Just posting this for Rictor’s outfit, which really only gets more remarkable with every drawing. (X-Force #12)
If I were a better person, I might have pasted this together with the other half of the four-page spread… (X-Force #13)
…but, alas, I’m not. (X-Force #13)
Thaaaaaat’s our Cable! (X-Force #13)
Yeahno. (X-Force #13)
I really like the way Shoemaker draws battle-damaged Cable. (X-Force #14)
MY FEELINGS (X-Force #14)
Awk-ward. (X-Force #14)
Spoiler: FRIENDSHIP WINS. (X-Force #15)
And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids! (X-Force #15)
In which Jay returns from Latveria; Sabretooth is significantly less menacing in French; Fabian Nicieza takes the reins; X-Force wins our hearts and minds; Gideon plunders Flash Gordon’s wardrobe; Crule does not actually rule; Rictor was right; Ship is the friend who helps you move, but better; the X-Force kids strike out on their own; and it’s probably impossible to explain Joseph too much.
X-PLAINED:
The secret origin of Gideon
How to get deported from Latveria
Marvel en français
X-Force #11-15
Some gratuitous posturing
Pico
What the actual Domino has been up to
One hell of an outfit
Peacock powers
Crule
A comical mix-up
A somewhat radical cosmology
A very dramatic strike force
Tygerstryke
X-Force post-Liefeld
Weapon P.R.I.M.E.
A four-page spread
A fight for one is a fight for all
Vance Astro
The death of Copycat
Things only Cable and Domino could do
Joseph (more) (again)
Marvel style and its evolution
NEXT EPISODE: Fire, life, and backstory!
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.)
“Send the Marines” is Tom Lehrer’s tribute to American interventionism, and also a very catchy song.
Aside from this Onion article, I could find no information about the alleged Stretch Armstrong recall, so I suspect that story may in fact be apocryphal. -J
In which Shattershot is definitely better than the Cold War; Beast X-plains the X-teams; Cyclops is a tired babysitter; sustenance is not frivolous; Jim Henson is the hero that Mojoworld needs; Shatterstar is not a great head of state; it’s hard to be Val Cooper; and Cable has definitely figured out how to take you (yes, YOU) out.
X-PLAINED:
Astra
Content-to-story ratio
The Mojoverse (more) (again)
Longshot
Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven)
Spiral (Ricochet Rita)
Arize
X-Men Annual #1
Uncanny X-Men Annual #16
X-Factor Annual #10
X-Force Annual #1
A pivotal battle
Mujahideen
A callback
Several denizens of Mojoworld
X-Team disambiguation
The Death Sponsors
A dubious solution to the Kobayashi Maru scenario
Whether Arize is a mutant
Telepathic favoritism
Spiral’s origin story
A new regime
Earth-84309
Powerpax (Frankie Power)
Darkchild
Cyberlock
A metasingularity
A large number of back-up features
The X-Men’s top ten enemies
Amalgam (but not that one)
Darick Robertson’s juvenilia
The return of Taki
The Cable Protocols
Brazilian Marvel characters
Our feelings about Laura Kinney’s backstory
NEXT EPISODE: Louise Simonson
CORRECTION: BonziBuddy was not released until 1999. We regret the error.
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.)