Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Category: podcasts

427 – Standard Deviation

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In which we have grown to love Adam Pollina; the Vanisher is delightfully awful; Ekaterina Gryaznova gets a new look; Domino rejoins X-Force; superheroes actually have a conversation instead of fighting; Cannonball rejoins X-Force; we don’t even remember recording this one; and something cool is coming (stay tuned).

X-PLAINED:

  • Arcadia DeVille
  • The Deviants
  • X-Force #81-84
  • What’s been up with X-Force
  • The goddess Pele and the heart thereof
  • Beachwear
  • An episode of The Brady Bunch
  • Krotok the Lava Man
  • Lava Men, in general
  • Gortokians
  • Jinku the Lava Man
  • A diabolical plan
  • Jesse Aaronson (Bedlam) (but not that one)
  • Terry and/or Christopher Aaronson
  • The Aguilar Institute
  • The Griffin (Ekaterina Gryaznova, again)
  • Infinite Guthries
  • Ulysses Dragonblood
  • Odysseus Indigo
  • Lucas Wyndham
  • M.U.S.E. (Mutant Underground Support Engine)
  • A very Summers situation
  • Foreshadowing
  • Whether Shard can (and should) be resurrected by the Five
  • Accidental foreshadowing

NEXT EPISODE: The end of Excalibur!

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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426 – A Gift from the Lower Regions

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In which the Shi’ar have zero chill; Bishop and Deathbird do space opera; we travel to the far-future year of 2018; Alanna Nerimani stretches the definition of “bird”; Deathbird is the cool aunt; Bishop needs a break from dark futures; and Bishop and Sauron have an intimate encounter.

X-PLAINED:

  • The current number of Summers brothers
  • Uncanny X-Men #358
  • Team X 2000
  • The Shi’ar Empire (more) (again)
  • Shi’ar voices
  • Parker Posey vs. Posie Parker
  • Sexual dimorphism in art
  • The Ursaa
  • Organs
  • The Chnitt
  • Karel
  • Several cameos
  • Nullifier charges
  • Tu
  • The first appearance of Cyclops’s Captain America teddy bear
  • 2018
  • Alan Smithee
  • Gith
  • Deathbird’s terrible childhood
  • Shi’ar-occupied Earth
  • Alanna Nerimani
  • Your cool murder aunt
  • Earth-9922
  • Deathbird’s war journals
  • The Morlocks (but not those ones)
  • Team X (but not that one)
  • Bribery
  • A very sexual encounter
  • Explorations of disability and ableism in comics
  • Beast’s long, slow heel turn

NEXT EPISODE: Domino rejoins X-Force!

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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425 – Shooting the Moose

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In which moose are nothing to mess with; Cyclops requests a reality check; Bachalo does Kirby; Rogue absorbs a catchphrase; and the Shadow King needs a villain song.

X-PLAINED:

  • Uncanny X-Men #356-357
  • X-Men 77-78
  • The Cable Principle
  • Corvid disambiguation
  • An aborted narrative
  • Moose
  • Sherrif and/or Officer Chris
  • Stacy’s sister Melissa
  • Cul-de-sacs
  • Ptarmigan Creek
  • Dubiously credible lies
  • Nostalgia
  • Bad times in Westchester
  • Bad times in space
  • Punching birds
  • Moon Wolf
  • An absolutely inappropriate theatrical reference
  • Ainet
  • Ananansi vs. Anansi
  • The Shadow King (more) (again)
  • Psi-War
  • Temptation
  • Shadow powers
  • Hair swaps
  • Solo Disney+ series for X-Men
  • How to make Gambit work onscreen

NEXT EPISODE: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy… IN SPACE!

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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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424 – Times Change

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In which everything is Havok’s fault; Jay is a bad influence; Polaris makes some valid points; Jamie Madrox is the Bobby Drake of X-Factor; and X-Factor vol. 1 ends with a bang.

X-PLAINED:

  • Muppet rules
  • X-Factor, vol. 1, in general
  • X-Factor #146-149
  • Sense of place
  • Jude Black and his inexplicable facial hair
  • Boundaries
  • Edible Arrangements
  • A different kind of sports bar
  • Kevin
  • Nostalgia, I guess?
  • Several confrontations
  • Temporal insanity
  • A very specialized course
  • What happens next
  • The universe where Dazzler replaced Jean Grey in the original X-Factor
  • Characters we would like to have seen more of

NEXT EPISODE: Psi-War!

Special thanks to muppets Michal Richardson, Bilal Dardai, and Matt Hunter!

(You can find an mp3 of just the muppet opening in the visual companion.)

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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423 – Moby Dick Ice Cream

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In which subtlety is not Sabra’s strong point; Moira takes a vacation; Meggan broods; you should take care in referencing the Dark Phoenix Saga; Excalibur may or may not shave Mimic; and Captain Britain is a silly man.

X-PLAINED:

  • Ghosts
  • Excalibur #121-123
  • The Mutant Underground
  • Empathic recon
  • An extremely disgruntled kiss
  • Kitty’s new costume
  • Several of Legion’s personalities
  • A mysterious disk
  • A very fancy trash can and/or ice cream maker
  • Ice cream of Cloud City
  • A good dog
  • Remains of Operation Zero Tolerance
  • The devolution of Douglock
  • Mimic (Calvin Rankin)
  • Mimic’s facial hair
  • Some Prime Sentinels
  • Wedding planning
  • Liking parts of things
  • Villains who want to marry Storm
  • Maddy Pryor

NEXT EPISODE: The end of X-Factor!

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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422 – Cairn Touch This

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In which the X-Men’s membership is a complicated subject; not all angels know each other; we need to talk about Beast’s Wasp costume; Cecilia Reyes speaks for all reasonable folk; Storm gets a mysterious package; and reading comics day-and-date may not be for everyone.

X-PLAINED:

  • The variable loyalties of the N’garai
  • X-Men #74-76
  • A somewhat atypical team lineup
  • A whole lotta backstory
  • How to join the X-Men
  • Warren Kenneth Worthington III as a religious figure
  • Flechette clean-up
  • Teenage drama
  • Detective Jim Logan
  • A lot of murder
  • The N’garai
  • Beast’s Wasp costume
  • Explanatory captions for real life
  • The Ru’tai
  • Pilgrimm
  • Mai’Keth the Undying One
  • The Eye of Kierokk
  • Maggott’s secret origins
  • X-Men cartoons for a 7-year-old
  • Reckoning with loss in comics

NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur rushes toward its conclusion

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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420 – The Legendary House of Wolverine, feat. Christopher Michael Roman

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In which Jay sits down with scholar Christopher Michael Roman to discuss his recent book, Queering Wolverine in Comics and Fanfiction: A Fastball Special; alongside queer theory, porous bodies, and nontraditional mentorship.

CONTENT NOTE: This episode includes graphic discussions of physical trauma as well as consensual if weird fictional sex.

NEXT EPISODE: Colossus and Meggan finally go to Dudleyworld, sort of!

No visual companion this week, but if you want to pick up Chris’s book, you can do that here!

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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419 – Stuff Happens

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Run, Penance! The retcons are coming for you! (Generation X #40)

In which the St. Croix family is constructed largely of retcons; Generation X adjusts surprisingly quickly to a massive status quo shift; Psi-War is coming soon to a podcast near you; Snow White – I mean, Bianca LaNeige – has an intriguing but exceptionally minimal backstory; and if you die in this podcast episode, you die in real life.

X-PLAINED:

  • Hellfire Club history
  • Generation X #40-43
  • MillXnials
  • Mercy General Hospital vs Our Mother of Mercy Hospital
  • Ambiguous psionic overlap
  • Nicole & Claudette & Monet & Marius St. Croix
  • The Downtown Stomp
  • Synch, agreeable and bland (for now)
  • Vincent Adultman
  • The nature of Penance
  • A glacial but effective pace
  • Bianca LaNeige, evil Snow White from space
  • Warpy, Stinky, Spiky, Windy, Greasy, Brainy, and Blurry
  • The Enchanted Forest of Oregon
  • Claremont:Body Swaps::Hama:Getting Stuck In Other Dimensions
  • Jay vs. Accents
  • Terminal Dream Syndrome
  • A surprisingly gruesome fill-in
  • An underrated era for Emma Frost
  • Betty & Veronica, presenting like mandrills
  • Zak the Neutrino
  • Albert & Elsie-Dee (briefly)
  • The Dodsons vs Mike Allred
  • Dr. Bronner’s uncredited Marvel career
  • Our coverage of Ultimate X-Men (or lack thereof)
  • Dr. Phil Zimbardo’s xplainthexmen study

NEXT EPISODE: Queering Wolverine with Dr. Christopher Michael Roman!

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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418 – Reignfirefighters

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In which S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are scarier in suits; Reignfire is the new Erik the Red; “background assets” would be a very funny euphemism; it’s always either time travel or clones; and you should probably not get a corporate logo tattooed on the side of your head.

X-PLAINED:

  • Crimes of Dark Beast
  • X-Force #77-80
  • The Mutant Liberation Front
  • Reignfire (repeatedly)
  • Video Renaissance
  • Almost Reno, NM
  • The inversion of several common tropes
  • Small towns
  • Different kinds of mutants
  • X-Force Fun Facts
  • Skids (Sally Blevins)
  • Several continuity errors
  • Some kidnappings
  • Sexiness without prurience
  • Background assets
  • Dr. Joshua (again)
  • (Henry Wallinger)
  • Psychic shenanigans
  • Las Vegas
  • Word-balloon disambiguation
  • X-Force’s new HQ
  • Historical X-Men we’d like to see

NEXT EPISODE: Generation X and the Seven Dwarves

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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417 – Pterodactyl with a Gun

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In which you, too, can use Cerebro; Jubilee is here, for some reason; the Xavier School should absolutely not be accredited; Hulk Hands would solve many of Rogue’s problems; Sauron gets a gun; Psylocke pulls a Lois Lane maneuver; you really shouldn’t spring a Phoenix costume on anybody; Joseph has (another) identity crisis; and Canada has problems.

X-PLAINED:

  • Miles at SDCC
  • Uncanny X-Men #353-355
  • X-Men #73
  • A running motif
  • Wolverine’s sons
  • Margaret Stone
  • “fun”
  • The location of the original X-jet
  • A red herring
  • Sauron (more) (again)
  • Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy… in space!
  • How to ship a pterodactyl
  • Mighty appendages
  • The Agee Institute
  • Boundaries
  • Wallpaper
  • Joseph (more) (again)
  • New Year’s Resolutions
  • Sebastian Shaw and his wraith buddy (again)
  • The X-Men’s answering machine
  • What Wolverine does
  • Alpha Flight
  • Canada problems
  • A crossover
  • Phoenix problems
  • Jean Grey’s ‘90s costume
  • Found families
  • What makes the Dark Phoenix Saga an X-Men story

NEXT EPISODE: Reignfire, resolved!

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!