Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

280 – Business-Casual Basilisk

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

In which the future is not great at codenames; spot foil is cool as hell; Mountjoy is bafflingly business-themed; Bishop goes full Point Break; Jean Grey and Lorna Dane should absolutely be friends; and Jay & Miles are heading to ECCC 2020!

X-PLAINED:

  • Lola vs. L.O.L.A.
  • A very good cat
  • Bishop #1-4
  • Lucas Bishop
  • Earth-1191
  • X.S.E.
  • A surprising convergence
  • Guilt
  • Bantam
  • Mountjoy
  • Some terrible banter
  • Several nontraditional modes of possession
  • Shard Bishop
  • How the kids talk these days
  • Hancock
  • Fashion of the future
  • A complex ethical struggle

NEXT EPISODE: More Cats references.


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10 comments

  1. The talk about a black cover with gloss black spots made me think of the old GURPS Illuminati sourcebook, which used just this trick to “hide” a bunch of slogans on the cover. The slogans were along the lines of “Eat the rich! The poor are tough and stringy.”, “Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.”, or “Decadence is its own reward.”

  2. Fitrzroy does indeed get press-ganged into the Hellfire Club by Selene and Madelyne Pryor (whom Selene has manipulated to her side) though I don’t think it’s the UK one.

    Mountjoy is another one of my obscure 90s faves, he’s so delightfully unnerving and grotesque. I think the business metaphors might work better for someone who is meant as a descendant of Emma Frost or Sebastian Shaw (who Fitzroy actually is descended from) As for his outfits, hey, there are real people today who like dressing from decades or even centuries past, maybe he’s just like that!

    Thanks for the episode!

    1. Let’s take it a step further. Mountjoy doesn’t just *dress* like that because he likes it. He’s not actually called “Mountjoy.” His real name is Jeff Kowalski, but he called himself after Baron Mountjoy to suit his cosplay.

      More seriously, that Ostrander chose that name is interesting to me, because it’s a fairly parochial reference that one might not expect an American to know.

    2. IIRC Mountjoy infiltrated the London Hellfire Club having gone silent partner in their Scribe/Red Rook, but I thought it was with Margali Szardos as their Red Queen (the Black Queen being Emma Steed (A little nod to their inspiration their). I think Maddy was in another iteration of the Club.

      1. Yup! Mountjoy possessed Scribe in the London Branch, while Selene, Maddy, Fitzroy, and Shaw were the 90s Manhattan branch.

  3. I’d totally missed out on Mountjoy; he’s fun. Really nifty power set, but the jokiness of the terminology seems out of place in a Bishop comic — or the 1990s for that matter. It’s the sort of thing that belongs in a Mojo story or something. (I was fine with “silent partner,” I rolled my eyes at “hostile takeover” and sprained something at “divest.”

    And I agree his look is just weirdly anachronistic for a business-coded villain (unless he’s going for Ebenezer Scrooge). Now, the power suit was out of fashion by ’94, but a Gordon Gekko look (rolled up sleeves, suspenders) still would’ve fit the metaphor better than what he’s got in this.

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