Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

20 – The Brood They Carried

In which Claremont levels up; the Brood are legitimately scary; Colossus is an ethical dude; Nightcrawler and Wolverine share beers in the face of certain death; Storm turns into a space whale; we are Carol Corps for life; New Mutants are really into Magnum, P.I.; Kitty meets a dragon; and Xavier dies (again).

X-Plained:

  • Broo
  • The Brood Saga (X-Men #161-167)
  • Paul Smith
  • Space fashion
  • A really terrible awards ceremony
  • Tim O’Brien’s X-Men
  • The Brood
  • How to tell a good Wolverine story
  • Rocket sharks
  • The single most badass magical-girl transformation sequence of all time
  • Binary
  • The X-Men’s Kobayashi Maru
  • Friendship (more) (again)
  • The Acanti
  • Whether Cyclops watches Star Trek
  • The New Mutants
  • Cloning
  • Our secret cold-open formula
  • Cosmic crossovers

Next Week: Kurt Busiek! We would have words with thee!


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21 comments

    1. My guess is the Marvels series (and its sequel) will be discussed a fair bit, due to their handling of the X-Men in their various incarnations. The first Marvels series features an issue spotlighting the Silver Age X-Men, and the sequel series (Marvels: Eye of the Camera) goes from the Silver Age right up to the Fall of the Mutants.

  1. Great episode as always, but your teaser for the next episode has me really excited, both because Kurt Busiek is one of my favorite comic writers and because that line from the Ultron Unlimited story (I’m assuming that’s where it comes from initially) is one of my all time favorite moments in comics.

    1. Ours, too! It’s not actually relevant to the episode (except that we are, in fact, talking with Kurt), but we could not resist the opportunity to throw it in.

  2. I dunno, I think a lot of people read “The Things They Carried” in college. I’ll guess that at least 6 people got the reference. Or will have gotten the reference by the time everyone who can reasonably be expected to listen to the podcast gets around to it.

    Back to the X-Men, any plans to give “Secret Wars” a bit of coverage? It’s not strictly an X-book, but they do have a big part in it, and I think it was a landmark moment in Magneto’s mid-’80s face turn.

    1. Count me in for people who got the reference/thought it was pretty great. I read that book in college too and have reread it since and it’s one of my favorites. Good pull, Rachel.

  3. This is just reckless speculation but:

    Fang looked a lot like the Legion of Super Heroes’ Timberwolf, who looked a lot like a knockoff Wolverine. (And if you’ve forgotten your 7th grade reading, White FANG is a well-known WOLF in literature.) Is Fang’s whipping boy status due to Marvel taking shots at DC?

    1. Well, as I recall Timberwolf was a bit of a whipping boy himself. So I don’t think off-brand Timberwolf ever stood much of a chance.

  4. Listening to and loving the latest episode. I love the Brood when they show up later on, but I don’t think I ever read much Paul Smith X-Men, so I need to revisit this story. It sounds amazing!

    The Star Trek thing reminds me, though, of one of my favourite daft-comic-tie-in bits ever, and that’s in one of the two Star Trek/X-Men crossover comics, when the comic has a “paging Dr McCoy” moment.

    I honestly hadn’t twigged the coincidence before, so it was a really fun thing to see.

  5. Since you referenced X-men reading Star Trek in this I thought I would mention that I just finished reading Uncanny X-men #65 “Slaves of the Star-Spawn”. On page 5 Iceman specifically calls Havoc a liar while stating that “I’ve seen scarier stories on Star Trek”. I can’t imagine that Beast doesn’t watch it with him (being both his friend and an intellectual) so I am assuming all three of them sat down and watched it together ^_^

  6. I really liked this arc, but I just couldn’t figure out when exactly professor x got the embryo implanted into him. Did it happen in New mutants? I ask because I’ve recently been reading uncanny X-Men from the beginning, and leading up to the brood saga there doesn’t seem to be any moment where this could have happened.

  7. Listening to this again, because I like you guys. 🙂

    X-Men #164 is the first comic I remember ever reading, and Carol/Binary is sooooo cool!

  8. I recently started re-reading Claremont’s classic run and just finished the Brood Saga earlier today. I noticed a sharp uptick in the quality of writing during this arc and took to the internet to see if this was a common opinion. It led me to discover this podcast. I’m now listened to and enjoyed this and the first two episodes. You guys do a great job! I was happy to hear you go into detail about Kurt and Logan’s religion talk and Pete and Kitty’s almost sex. These are some of the best character development moments in the history of the X-men. I was a bit disappointed that you didn’t cover Kitty’s terrifying dream, but i realize you can’t cover everything. I’m looking forward to listening to the rest of the podcasts!

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