Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

244 – Terminal Nudity

Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!

In which X-Men don’t get to take vacations; Jay makes a somewhat belated announcement; sometimes Gambit is legitimately pretty cool; the assassins get a day-glo-up; The Crow holds up surprisingly well; Gambit gets exiled again; and Artie and Leech damn well better get to live happily ever after.

X-PLAINED:

  • Rogue and Gambit’s honeymoon
  • A thing that Jay is working on
  • Brood Trouble in the Big Easy
  • Bella Donna Boudreaux
  • Gambit #1-4
  • The New Orleans trilogy
  • “X-Ternally Yours”
  • The tithe collector
  • Things about which your mama may or may not have warned you
  • Dramatic captions
  • Candra
  • The Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds
  • The pact
  • Julian Boudreaux (again)
  • Henri LeBeau and his mustache
  • Critical nudity
  • Terminal nudity
  • Marius Boudreaux
  • Accent inconsistencies
  • Draping
  • Jean Luc LeBeau
  • Treachery most foul
  • (Select elements of) Gamit’s origin story
  • How thieves get kids
  • Gambit as a romantic hero
  • Ungrateful children of the Marvel Universe
  • Petite Chou
  • Clubbing with Gambit
  • Subtlety (for some value of the term)
  • Lifestyles of the rich and immortal
  • The Church of Lost Thieves
  • The Elixir of Life
  • An undersold side effect
  • A very lucky break
  • Artie and Leech’s probable adult lives
  • Villains we’d like to see on the X-Men

NEXT EPISODE: Rogue!


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18 comments

  1. There was a Terry Pratchett book called The Thief of Time. However, it was IMO his worst. Just not funny. Even his patchy later work could still raise a few smiles.

    1. Conversely, Thief of Time is perhaps my all time favourite Pratchett book. 🙂 It’s definitely the one I go back to re-read more than any of the others.

      In one story we get Death and other Horsemen, Susan, a particularly fun Igor, Lady Myria LeJeun, Jeremy Clockson and Lobsang Ludd, Nanny Ogg in a lovely moment where her skills make her a more logical cameo than Granny Weatherwax, and of course the first proper appearance of Lu-Tze, the History Monks and “Rule One”.

      To each their own of course, but any book which literally weaponises chocolate has my attention.

  2. Hi guys, my RSS feed (through Apple I’m pretty sure) is linking to the As Mentioned page & not the actual episode page. The episode is titled “As Mentioned in Episode 244…” in my feed, and the notes seem to be from the As Mentioned page. The episode downloads and plays normally, though the title of the episode still starts with “As Mentioned in…” when I download it. Not sure if this is an issue with iCatcher or a general feed problem so I thought I’d mention it here anyways. Thanks!

  3. Another week with no homework!

    Interesting that this is three weeks in a row in which the people deciding what to put on Unlimited were in no hurry to make these particular secondary X-stories available. I’m not sure why that is, but the streak is broken with next week’s Rogue miniseries.

    I can’t say that I’m all that disappointed not to read these, as I’ve just never been able to feel the appeal of Gambit. But I am curious as to whether these stories restate the detail that struck me as particularly bizarre in Brood Trouble in the Big Easy, that “guild” is an everyday New Orleans expression for “family.” Not that the these particular guilds happen to be made up of people who are born into it — that “guilds” is what people in general in this part of the world call all families.

    I mean, I’ll accept that stealthy people wear neon colors. In the Marvel Universe, that’s just blending in with the crowd. I’ll accept a network of underground tunnels in New Orleans. The whole point of them is no doubt that no would ever suspect that there were tunnels there. But some things just go too far.

    1. Perhaps I am wrong, but isn’t this episode covering the Gambit miniseries from 1993-1994 I found that on MU, along with the 1997 Gambit miniseries. So perhaps you can read it after all!

      1. Weird. When I looked before, Unlimited showed no issues available. Now they’re there. Either some sort of weird glitch, or else my aversion to Gambit as a character was causing me to have delusions.

        Too late now — I’ve listened to the podcast. I feel terrible about that. 🙂

        1. I blame the inherent sneakiness of 90’s Gambit. That pink bodysuit and those metal boots must give him a +10 to Avoid Search Engine Detection.

  4. “The Little Cream Puff” (at a decadent nightclub, less of a name, more of an embarassing medical condition) is presumably a downmarket franchise of The Hellfire Club. (“Le Club D’Enfer” is in a classier part of town)

    The Assassins that Gambit attacks crotch-first just look so generically 90’s in their vaguuely S&M vibe. I’m sure Mojo has employed the same bunch at least once.

    I think it was discussed before but you’d have though immortality would be more of a temptation for Assassins, whose line of trade might require them to dea; with life-threatening situations, and thieves, being a much more versatile career, would benefit from varied powers.

    I have… issues with the ending. Gambit giving up Belladonna is a nice, moving movement, but is immediately followed by him leaving her in the dubious care of a monstrously dysfunctional family whose only business is murder for hire. These are perhaps NOT the people you’d want to leave the rehabiliation of a vulnerable woman to.

    IMHO The only acceptable ending would be for the Guild to promise to fund her recovery and chance at a new life, completely unconnected to them because God knows she deserves a chance at that.

    1. Is the Assassins’ Guild’ s business actually stated to be murder for hire in this miniseries (which I haven’t and quite possibly will never read) or is that just something that we’re assuming because they call themselves “assassins”?

      Maybe they just think it sounds cool? Maybe what they actually do for a living is work as systems analysts?

      1. In that case, and based on personal experience, she’d probably be better off with Team Murders-for-Money.

        1. It’s Louisiana, so chances are they work as systems analysts for the oil industry.

          No, wait, that strengthens your point.

  5. Re: What villain should join the X-Men, you guys got so close to my number 1 pick but narrowly avoided it by choosing the wrong Marauder.
    Arclight is brilliant. They have a unique and interesting power signature, a distinctive look and style, they’ve largely been relegated to the background of the stories they are featured in, and there are reasons to believe that they might be a person who is in gender transition.
    So, cool character with story potential and potential for much needed representation? Please yes.

    1. I’ve heard this bit about Arclight possibly being trans before, but would be genuinely interested to know where this has been suggested in the comics.

  6. About the way thieves gets children: This is very true. Another example for that is the famous Thief video games series: The protagonist, Garrett, gets adopted to the order of Keepers by trying to steal from a Keeper. On the third game it’s gets to a full circle where he himself adopts a young girl who tries to steal from him.

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