Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

June 2015 Shirt of the Month – Three Wolverine Moon, by Tyler Crook

Screen Shot 2015-05-30 at 11.09.34 PM

Because sometimes correct taxonomy* has to take a back seat to the rule of cool.

3 Wolverine Moon_announcementart

Artist Tyler Crook (B.P.R.D., Harrow County) brings your wildest dreams–and our favorite persistent error–to howling life on this stunning shirt, which features not only a luminous full moon, but two entire Wolverines more than t-shirts with only one Wolverine on them.

Three Wolverine Moon is available on a wide variety of shirts, which can be worn consecutively or concurrently for additional simultaneous Wolverines; as well as tote bags, throw pillows, and stickers. It’ll be up in our shop until July 1, 2015, after which it will disappear forever.

*Yes, we are aware that wolverines are not wolves. That’s what makes it funny.

 

As Mentioned in Episode 55 – How Nightcrawler Got His Groove Back

Listen to the podcast here!



LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

55 – How Nightcrawler Got His Groove Back

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/10/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 5/10/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which Secret Wars II ruins everything (more) (again) (forever); Rachel Summers hates the Beyonder almost as much as we do; Miles gets mad at comics; Nightcrawler does not do gritty well; Lady Deathstrike gets wired; and we consult our favorite 3-year-old for book recommendations.

X-PLAINED:

  • Rogue vs. Carol Danvers
  • Life before social media
  • Uncanny X-Men #202-205
  • Alpha Flight #33-34
  • Phoenix II vs. the Beyonder (twice)
  • The Reverse Gwen Stacy
  • Still more miracles of magnetism
  • Kitty Pryde disambiguation
  • SFLANNG!
  • Good times in Murderworld
  • The third-worst honeymoon
  • Lady Deathstrike (Yuriko Oyama)
  • Spiral’s Body Shop
  • The Reavers
  • One way to build a Wolverine antagonist
  • Skirting the Comics Code
  • Sound-effects lettering as a narrative device
  • Good X-books for a 3-year-old

Special thanks to Katie and Kestrel P.

NEXT WEEK: The Beyonder kills the New Mutants!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Rachel 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E5: Speed and Spyke

Before we jump into this one, let me tell you kids a story.

Once upon a time, there was a gentleman by the name of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was an incredibly important figure in comics: these days, he’s best known as the creator of Static Shock and the co-founder of Milestone Media; for his work across the DCAU; and as a tireless and outspoken advocate for black representation in superhero comics.

In 1989, when McDuffie was an editor at Marvel Comics, he wrote a biting, satirical pitch that has since become industry legend. In his pitch, McDuffie points out that 25% of African-American superheroes appearing in the Marvel Universe over the last year have had skateboard-based superpowers or fighting styles, and proposes a new team to take advantage of this and other equivalently exciting trends, featuring four black guys on skateboards:

McDuffie

Twelve years later, the fifth episode of X-Men: Evolution would introduce the Xavier Institute’s sole black student and the show’s first original character, Evan “Spyke” Daniels:

A black guy on a skateboard.

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As Mentioned in Episode 53 – Sometimes They Come Back

Listen to the episode here!


53 – Sometimes They Come Back

Rachel screwed up and accidentally gave David material for episode 54 instead of 53, so there's no illustration this week. Instead, we offer both our sincere apologies and this photo of Miles dressed up as Mister Sinister at a costume party.
Rachel screwed up and accidentally gave David material for episode 54 instead of 53, so there’s no illustration this week. Instead, we offer both our sincere apologies and this photo of Miles dressed up as Mister Sinister for a costume party.

In which Wolverine doesn’t care about your baby; Storm takes charge; duels are terrible bases for systems of government; editorial mandate is hell on a marriage; Magneto is a pretty cool teacher; Jean Grey comes back; and we have mixed feelings about the Phoenix retcon.

X-PLAINED:

  • Kenji Uedo
  • Uncanny X-Men #201
  • New Mutants #35
  • Avengers #263
  • Fantastic Four #286
  • Classic X-Men #8
  • The post-Trial of Magneto status quo
  • Nathan Christopher Charles Summers
  • A small cross-section of Cyclops’s myriad issues
  • The wrong means to the right end
  • Magneto’s educational philosophy
  • The politics of creative credits
  • “You Know Who”
  • The Phoenix retcon
  • Several unrelated break-ins
  • The return of Jean Grey
  • Jean and the Phoenix Force
  • Alternate-timeline Madelynes Pryor
  • Jean Grey’s code names

NEXT WEEK: X-Factor begins! (for real, this time – sorry about that SNAFU!)


You can find a companion index to the material mentioned in this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Rachel 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!

 

Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution

S1E4: Mutant Crush

Let me get this out of the way fast: “Mutant Crush” is my least favorite episode of X-Men: Evolution. Yes, even more than “The Cauldron,” which I’m pretty sure is objectively the worst episode of the series.1

But while “The Cauldron” is terrible, it’s hilariously terrible. “Mutant Crush” is. Well. It’s a decently written episode, I guess. And it’s got a lot of moments I dig. It’s just also really fucked up and disturbing, and not in hilarious and pedantic ways.

Seriously: Shit gets dark in this episode. If you don’t want to read a humorous write-up of a story that is essentially about stalking and kidnapping, you may want to skip this one. I recognize that this is essentially a humor column, and I tried to find okay ways to be funny about this episode, but I mostly ended up with a lot of tonal whiplash, and a pretty high volume of commentary on the ways women are socialized to appease violent men, and some really inappropriate references to John Fowles’ The Collector.2

And on that note: Here is a link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline’s help page. NDVH is a pretty solid organization, and in addition to the actual hotlines–which include a phone line and web-based chat, both confidential and anonymous–they’ve got a very good list of resources, including LGBTQI and teen-specific stuff. (NDVH is, however, mostly U.S.-specific. If you know of international resources or have other specific recommendations, please stick ‘em in the comments, and maybe we can get something useful out of this clusterfuck of an episode.)

Right. So. LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME X-MEN!

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Rachel Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E3: Rogue Recruit

Oh, hell, yeah! It’s Rogue time, y’all!

Evolution Rogue is awesome. She’s one of the characters who fares best in reimagining–as I wrote about Cyclops in S1E1, Rogue is very recognizably written in the spirit of some of the best previous versions of the character, with the letter flexible enough to let her develop organically in her new context and setting.

So it should be no surprise when I tell you that a lot of the best stuff in the generally pretty shaky and uneven Season One centers around Rogue. And that, my friends, begins here. Lace up your best New Rocks, dig up some black lipstick (or steal your friend’s eyeliner crayon and be careful not to lick your lips), and get ready to rumble.

Or, y’know, whatever.

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As Mentioned in Episode 47 – The Price of Power

Listen to the episode here!



Many thanks to Emergency Backup Co-Host and Alpha Flight X-Pert (is there an Alpha-Flight-appropriate portmanteau for that?) Elisabeth Allie! Go check out Elisabeth’s blog, and follower her on Twitter!

47 – The Price of Power (feat. Elisabeth Allie)

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/15/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 3/15/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which Emergency Backup Co-Host Elisabeth Allie saves the day; the Berserkers are not the breakout hit you’ve been waiting for; Paul Smith continues to be awesome; nothing good ever happens in the Danger Room; Charles Xavier dabbles in cosplay; Nightcrawler has serious hat game; Rachel Summers lacks healthy coping skills; your life would be way more epic if Claremont narrated it; Northstar is a surprisingly good prom date; Loki is a total dick; and Longshot is totally Miles’s favorite.

X-PLAINED:

  • Madelyne Pryor
  • X-Men/Alpha Flight vols. 1&2
  • The Berserkers
  • An unconventional model of family therapy
  • Aggressive foreshadowing
  • NPC dialogue
  • Jazzercise superheroes
  • Superhero color theory
  • Sasquatch
  • Aurora
  • Those Who Sit Above in Shadow
  • Norse fashion of the ‘80s
  • Very specific superpowers
  • Some sweet boots
  • The price of power
  • A deus ex machina squared
  • Kitty and Piotr’s first date
  • Snowbird’s powers
  • Miles’s favorite X-Man

NEXT WEEK: Asgardian Wars!


You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Support us on Patreon!

Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!