Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

349 – Onslaught Secret Weapon Force Power Slammers

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

In which Onslaught nomenclature has some consistency issues; electricity is the new magnetism; Nate Grey mopes; Sinister doesn’t care about your guns; the Xavier mansion blows up (again); and we track down an elusive Sentinel.

X-PLAINED

  • Doctor Doom’s absolutely irrelevant Onslaught encounter
  • Cable #34
  • Incredible Hulk #444
  • X-Man #18
  • X-Force #57
  • Onslaught Phases vs. Impacts
  • Ozymandias (more) (again)
  • Post (more) (again)
  • Cable’s ridiculous motorcycle
  • Several Hulks
  • Behemoth
  • Cable/Storm
  • The Betty Conspiracy
  • Rocks that yell
  • Alpacalypse
  • Multiversal disambiguation
  • Some unlikely sound effects
  • An anti-Sinister failsafe
  • A self-destruct system
  • Warpath and Risque
  • A hug
  • A very specific Sentinel
  • Coming out in adulthood

NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk

NEXT EPISODE: Somehow We Have Made 350 of These (and also more Onslaught)


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25 comments

  1. I think this might be your shortest ever episode, inasmuch as the version of it that is downloadable from this site appears to be 128kb long and lasts seven seconds.

    I mean, I’m all for brevity and all, but… 😉

    Or maybe it’s just me?

    1. Yes, but what a great seven seconds! Miles’s concise phrasing, Jay’s exasperated tone as he prepared to once again explain an aspect of Onslaught. And the disdain for the source material is so strong that they gave up trying to explain this silliness. Or perhaps this episode was making a statement; that these particular issues just aren’t worth covering.

      What other podcasters would have the courage to devote as little time to Onslaught as it deserves?

      I say we commend these souls and the brave statement they are making and I can only hope that someday, I, a humble podcast listener, will display as much courage as they have and be worthy of their near weekly illumination on most things X-Men!

      And if, in the extremely unlikely event that this was a gaffe, I’m sure they will remedy the situation soon.

  2. …I mean, really, that’s pretty much all that needs to be said about Onslaught, isn’t it?
    Next week: Operation Ze-

  3. Hi guys! I’ve been listening to your podcast since three years ago and now that you ‘ve reached the era at which I started reading X-titles I’m super excited!
    Hope you’re both well and I’ll keep listening meanwhile.

    Matias from Argentina

  4. Silence!!!

    Nothing can be less irrelevant than the appearance of Doctor Doom! If Victor Von Doom should grace a story by appearing in it, then the most important element of that story is the presence of Doom! Other aspects of Onslaught must be judged by their relevance to Doom and to reverse that would be deserving of death …if it were not such pitiable folly!!!

    1. Man, if Doom had actually used his time-travel knowledge to be the Onslaught Event’s secret final boss — as was revealed in a later Marvel-wide event, for example — that would have been hysterical.

      X-fans at the time would have rioted, of course, but it’s a much more fitting use of Doctor Doom as a villain and plotter than what got published, which instead treats him like a chump in the end.

      Also: I had no idea that “BOOM” effect from the Ozymandias panels was supposed to be a call-out to Simonson’s Surtur “DOOM” lettering. Or even that it was supposed to be related to Ozy at all — because chisels sound nothing like that. I was totally wondering what the “boom” was supposed to refer to while reading it last week. I figured that since the Hulk was in the story, those were his footsteps and he was coming for Ozymandias for some reason. Then I forgot about it.

  5. It’s weird listening to this on Tuesday evening. My internal clock says that J&M is a Monday afternoon activity. Good episode and all, but it took me a few minutes to adjust.

  6. When reading X-Force
    We will all be rooting for
    Mister Sinister.

    This is really not all that inaccurate in my case.

  7. Weird. I can only listen to the full episode on the website, not in my podcatcher. I only get the first 6 seconds in Podcast Addict. This should be… fun.

  8. Sinister is right.
    Stop posturing, Domino!
    The gun is stupid.

    You were all macho.
    Cyclops made you babysit.
    That was a message.

  9. Am I terrible?
    Sinister is a monster.
    I want him to win.

    Should one say something
    About Cable and the Hulk?
    No, it was boring.

    Ozymandias.
    Five syllables in his name.
    Good for a haiku.

    1. Okay, okay, you win! Well done, sir! I applaud you and bow before your mastery! OR as Doom might say, “Doom does not surrender! I will bide my time and plan that Doom may destroy that fool, Richards, with his might haiku mastery when it is least suspects it!”

  10. I win? Now I’m sad.
    You see, I was unaware
    This was a contest.

    Contests in haiku
    Are a bit like rap battles,
    But much nerdier.

    1. Clever, I am not.
      Haikus never come easy.
      But this has been fun.

      This was a contest.
      Though only inside my head.
      I should practice this.

      Hulk is strongest one.
      There is no debating that.
      Though Cable I like more.

  11. So I *have* read this era of Peter David’s Hulk and you guys did a great job of summarizing most of the Hulk iterations. There’s one you missed and that’s a central character in this arc. If you notice in some of the screen shots in your “As Mentioned” post, Hulk has longer hair and is sort of a pea-soup green as opposed to his normally Jolly Green color. This is a mentally unstable hybrid Hulk that resulted from a head injury Hulk had suffered circa the “Ghosts of the Future” storyline, and exacerbated by a battle with a rampaging Thor in Incredible Hulk #440. The Onslaught story eliminates this Hulk and post-Onslaught he’ll be back to savage green again until basically the end of volume 1.

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