Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

120 – Observed by a Family of Lizard People

Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

In which everything is worse with Nazis; Excalibur gets its groove back; Meggan has an identity crisis; Kitty gets a crush; a dragon gets interdimensional sanctuary; and the Cross-Time Caper starts not with a bang, but a foomp.

X-PLAINED:

  • The death of Lilandra Neramani
  • Excalibur #8-11
  • The best name in Hollywood
  • Still more of Inferno’s aftermath
  • A basketball game
  • Blackbird disambiguation
  • Several long-delayed reunions and one subsequent resolution
  • Alastaire Stuart (and his banana)
  • Tourists who are also lizards
  • Lightning Force
  • A number of unfortunate encounters
  • The difference between Errol Flynn characters and Errol Flynn
  • The fall of Nigel Frobisher
  • The switch that turns the engine invisible
  • What may be the world’s least subtle euphemistic use of the term “roommate”
  • How the discourse around comics has changed since the ’80s
  • Jubilee vs. power creep

NEXT EPISODE: Deadpool v Gambit, with Ben Acker!


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24 comments

  1. Don’t know if you guys have noticed, but the last couple of episodes have been cut short on Google Play by close to half.

    1. I thought we had a fix, but it apparently didn’t work. We’ll see what we can do – in the meantime, I’d recommend using iTunes or Stitcher or our web site. Apologies for the trouble!

      1. No worries! I have back up plans for my back up plans when it comes to making sure I don’t miss the newest episodes. I just figured you guys would want a head’s up. NEVER STOP DOING THIS. 🙂

  2. Apparently, there are two Nazi Excaliburs, as Hauptmann England is different from the Kommandant Englander featured in episode 97 (I thought it was just implied by the spelling the first time I saw her, but, looking at it again, there’s definitely a swastika on her breast).

    For the “Ice Queen” stuff, I guess the descriptor was being put in to handwave why nobody noticed her being replaced by a fascist.

    You know, I’d never realized that goyim don’t immediately process Nazi characters as scary/threatening until you pointed it out.

    Since we have Kitty’s Judaism and lesbian relationships commingling in an episode, might I ask if anyone has any theories or thoughts on how comics (and geek media in general if you include Buffy) has such a high overlap between Judaism and homosexuality in women? It seems like all the Jewish female characters are lesbian, and all the lesbian characters are either Jewish or matched with a Jewish lesbian of the same or equal prominence in the title. That’s odd, right?

    1. And in the X-Men, Bobby’s gay and Jewish. Scarlet Witch’s child Wiccan is gay and Jewish. Her other son is not Jewish, and is into girls. Interesting correlation there, and it’s definitely stronger with mutant characters.

    2. Huh, I hadn’t thought about that before, but that is weird. See also Kate Kane on the DC side. And Harley Quinn is apparently half-Jewish, and bisexual. I don’t have any theories as to why, but I’m really curious if someone else does.

    3. The only thing I can think of is the number of superficial stereotypes Jewish women and lesbians have in common as imposed by mainstream straight Christian masculine culture – intelligence, assertiveness, glasses, “plain” masculine and/or awkward features, alienation, outspoken socialism, the list probably goes on…

    4. The Nazi’s automatically presumed level of threat would, I think, depend on locale too. For many in Europe the Nazi’s were the very definition of evil for generations. As a Brit I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me to read someone ostensibly Nazi as being anything other than loathesome, and I suspect Alan Davis would feel the same.

      Without the personal Jewish/Romani/homosexual impact of the Holocaust it is perhaps possible (if not advisable) to process them as more, and I hate myself for using the word, “acceptable”.

      As an example, the US may have had Hogan’s Heroes, but the UK had “Allo, Allo”, a long-running, ridiculously farcical sitcom about life in WWII Occupied France which deliberately avoided any mention of the Holocaust, because there was no way to make it tonally fit, and this depsite the fact that at least one of the Nazi’s was clearly a flamingly camp gay.

  3. Dick Warlock has a wikipedia page. Apparently, Dick Warlock was a city official in 2002’s Spider-Man.

  4. Dick Warlock is a great name. It does have some competition from Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster.

    Excalibur in New York was a lot of fun. Brian’s awful day was hilarious. And I did really like Rachel checking on on Nathan. It’s a nice touch. I like those two having a family relationship. I like seeing them together and I want to see more of them together. I’d love to see a book with those two on a team together.

    And, of course, Kitty meeting up with the New Mutants was a really effective scene. Really well-done.

    On the heroes changing races: I also think of the time the Punisher became black. That was, uh, not good.

    The Nazi Excalibur is entirely more entertaining than I’m comfortable with. I mean, Nazi Moira is amazing. But Nazi Excalibur as a whole is great. Though Slave Kitty is incredibly dark and uncomfortable.

    And yay for Cross-Time Caper coming! I love the Cross-Time Caper.

  5. I haven’t read Excalibur since it came out (when I was 7-8) and all I remember of this era is how much of a crush I had on Satyr-9. I feel super awkward now.

  6. The Angry Claremontian Narrator mentioned me! And it was an Excalibur episode! And it had Dick Warlock! My week has been made. Love you, Jay and Miles. Keep up the awesome work.

  7. I know I’m jumping ahead here, but looking through Alan Davis’s last issue of Excalibur, I was surprised at how obvious it is that he was portraying the relationship between Kitty and Rachel just as Claremont had intended. Kitty: “It’s good to see you again Rachel my love. You’re grown. I wish we could touch.”. When you get to those issues, if you could explain Widget I would be eternally grateful!

  8. Since you mention the W.H.O. being an obvious Doctor Who reference, I suppose I should point out that since we’ve got alternate dimension fascists and an eyepatch here, the specific story this arc seems to be referencing is Inferno.

      1. Well, it’s certainly not an *exact* parallel, so I’m not sure that’s necessarily relevant, but I admire your pedantry! *salutes* 🙂

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