Bella, as seen on FaceTime between rounds of headbutting the phone.
The late, great, immensely fluffy Buzz Lightyear.
What, you thought this whole thing was just gonna be photos of cats? (Sorry) (X-Force #20)
Whoops. (X-Force #20)
That hair, though! Why, Shatterstar? WHY? (X-Force #20)
Those spacesuits look incredibly cumbersome. (X-Force #20)
You never forget your favorite ship. (X-Force #20)
That is a GREAT use of a spread. (X-Force #20)
X-Force really only has the one setting. (X-Force #21)
Aw. AW. (X-Force #21)
AWWWWWWWWW (X-Force #21)
“THE TEETH COMMAND IT!” (X-Force #21)
And that’s why you always leave a note. (X-Force #21)
“The guns were inside you all along!” (X-Force #22)
Well, then. (X-Force #22)
But he looks so happy about it! (X-Force #22)
I was gonna make a callback to that one tangent about how Cable probably carries a bunch of tampons because they are useful and he seems like the kind of dude who has a good attitude about menstruation, but it seemed too forced. (X-Force #22)
This is both excessive and silly, Gideon. (X-Force #22)
“Am I forever damned to eat crackers sideways?!” (X-Force #23)
Look at him! He’s just propped up in the corner! (X-Force #23)
OH, SNAP! (X-Force #23)
I’m still kind of peeved that this isn’t spelled out in Sam’s accent. It just feels wrong like this. (X-Force #23)
In which Miles stops worrying and learns to love X-Force; you should absolutely not google the phrase “face jam”; the kids take a field trip to Graymalkin; Jay reverse-engineers Shatterstar’s hair; Donald Pierce gets a new job; Sam Guthrie is the most trustworthy man in the Marvel Universe; Cable is your guns grandma; Professor earns its name; X-Force really only has one setting; and not every Sluggo is lit.
X-PLAINED:
A bunch of stuff Quicksilver did
Several cats
X-Force #20-23
The Externals (more) (again)
A deeply unlikely hairstyle
Graymalkin / Ship / Professor
A somewhat one-sided reunion
Yahoos
Inaccurate arithmetic
Why Feral sounds like that
Neither Tom, Dick, nor Harry
War Machine (James Rhodes)
Salvage
Sam Guthrie’s long trail of dead father figures
Shatterstar
How to fight an External
The seventh plague
What Domino’s been up to
Hammer’s mom
Tigerstryke (more) (again)
Sluggo (but not that Sluggo)
Learning to appreciate the ’90s
NEXT EPISODE: Psylocke Vs. Revanche!
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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Everyone in this comic book is yelling at all times. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
There is also a lot of leaping. The early ’90s were very leaping-heavy years. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Garrison, you delightful scamp! (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
That’s right. The Six Pack is named after beer. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Grizzly is kind of a delight in this series. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Stryfe is ALWAYS a delight. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Look at these ridiculous guns. LOOK AT THEM. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
Every fight in this series is exuberantly ridiculous, and it’s great. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
Cable is a really, really terrible boss. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
More leaping! (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
MORE LEAPING! (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Having studied under Cable, Kane knows how to leap into battle. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Blood and Metal also does the action-movie thing where the hardboiled dialogue is often vaguely suggestive. (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
“It makes sense, though. Having an evil clone runs in my family.” (Cable: Blood and Metal #1)
Yes, Garrison. Ninjas. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
That’s Stryfe; and this explains a thing or three. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
We forgot to mention this scene in the episode, but at one point, Garrison Kane is just randomly eating a fucking enormous sandwich. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
And then on the next page, he dramatically rips his shirt off, because, look, SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
Shorts! (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
Look, if you haven’t worked out that Stryfe looks like Cable by this point in the series, I’m not sure I can help you. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
I keep imagining Stryfe yelling, “Brother!” in Liquid Snake’s voice; and now you can, too. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
“I also got you some unflattering but comfortable briefs. (Cable: Blood and Metal #2)
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is a masterpiece of modern literature; plus, it’s by the only person who will ever love Robocop vs. Terminator as much as Jay does.
In which Miles has a Dracula problem; we are really, really excited about FlameCon; Fabian Nicieza is the unsung hero of the early ’90s; Jay doesn’t explain the Iranian Hostage Crisis; Cable does not have a good history with trademark disputes; Cable: Blood and Metal is secretly an allegory for the X-books of the early 1990s; friendship and explosions don’t have to be mutually exclusive; and history evokes but doesn’t quite repeat itself.
X-PLAINED:
Dracula disambiguation
One way to stop a vampire invasion
Wang beams
Cable: Blood and Metal #1-2
The continuing miracle that is Fabian Nicieza
Cable (as established in 1992)
Stryfe
The Wild Pack and/or Six Pack
The ongoing evolution of John Romita, Jr.
Tolliver
Several heists of varying quality
Numerous patches and their contents
How the Wild Pack became the Six Pack
An idiom, examined
A total dick move
Muscles-and-guns power creep
Guns of tomorrow
The McNinja point
A brief flirtation with Magic: The Gathering
A typo that became canon
The new She-Ra
The new, improved Garrison Kane
European nipple lasers
Mr. Richter
The evolution of Cable
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor gets political.
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.)
And now for something completely different. (X-Force #8)
Fun fact: You can drop this dialogue into almost any panel involving Cable and at least one other character, and it’ll still work. (X-Force #8)
On one hand: Mignola is great. On the other hand: I have some questions about the decision to just straight-up draw Garrison Kane as Marlon Brando. (X-Force #8)
Aw, A.I.M., you wacky kids. (X-Force #8)
Cable’s sense of drama is ON POINT. (X-Force #8)
Domino is pretty genre-aware. (X-Force #9)
Not gonna lie: I dig Liefeld’s take on Blob. (X-Force #9)
If you weren’t imagining Feral’s line in the voice of a 10-year-old Danny Tamberelli, congratulations: you are now. (X-Force #9)
‘Kay. (X-Force #9)
And that, kids, is why balloon placements matter. (I mean, there are a lot of other reasons, too. But this is one of them.) (X-Force #9)
Stryfe’s armor doesn’t just have nipples. Stryfe’s armor has FOUR nipples. (X-Force #10)
Nothing is okay about this picture. (X-Force #10)
Speaking of likenesses, remember the time Cannonball was David Bowie? (X-Force #10)
In which Jay may have Stockholm syndrome; Nick Fury is objectively sillier than G. W. Bridge; we get a brief artistic reprieve; Cable’s legal expertise does not extend to trademarks; our favorite Ship returns; Miles’s grandmother calls it like it is; Sauron is bad at taxonomy; and Garrison Kane is basically a very violent Inspector Gadget.
X-PLAINED:
Brother Mutant
X-Force #8-10
X-Force (again)
A protracted flashback
The Wild and/or Six Pack
A heist
A trap
Yet more Ed Wood references
A future
The Professor (Ship)
Gratuitous face shadows
A mystery
Cable casting
Several misplaced word balloons
The logistics of tentacle arms
The High Lords (Externals)
Michael Bay’s Johnny Got His Gun
General Clark and his diving suit
Good Magneto stories
How to get your dad into X-Men
NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur vs. the Anti-Phoenix!
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.)