Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Category: podcasts

437 – Dismember the Titans

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“Hot Topic Rennfaire” was a somewhat controversial choice for X-Force’s prom theme. (X-Force #85)

In which the overlap between Rocky Horror and ‘90s X-Force fans is probably pretty significant; Pandemonia has priorities; the warehouse gets an evil, sexy glowup; swears are great; Johnny Blaze’s motorcycle probably shouldn’t still be on fire; and there is no single definitive X-Men experience.

X-PLAINED:

  • Master Pandemonium
  • X-Force #85
  • X-Force/Champions Annual 1998
  • What X-Force has been up to lately
  • The regrettable absence of Doctor Doom
  • Possession
  • Community
  • Cougars (euphemistic)
  • The thrift cycle
  • Rusty Collins on Krakoa
  • Fashion
  • An eons-old accord between the Houses of Chaos and the Lord of Valhalla
  • Jennifer Kale
  • The list
  • Swears
  • A statue of Hades
  • Various appendages sticking out of the earth
  • Hercules
  • The mystic power of sarcasm
  • The greatest fear of a Titan
  • Monet St. Croix vs. the Count of Monte Cristo
  • Good X-books for your fifteen-year-old niece

NEXT EPISODE: Wolverine vs. Vampires (again)!

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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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436 – The Feel-Good Movie of the Summer

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In which Colossus has had a rough time of it; the X-Men are at their best in bar fights; Bronze-age Wolverine was a jerk; Ursa Major deserves more page space; kids dig Nightcrawler; and we imagine an X-Men newspaper comic strip.

X-PLAINED:

  • Notable incidents in Iceman’s romantic history
  • X-Men: Liberators #1-4
  • Nostalgia
  • Friendship
  • A bar fight
  • Province 13
  • General Sergei
  • Several dead deer
  • Gregor and Valeri
  • Nikolas
  • Zener cards
  • Several children
  • Omega Red (more) (again)
  • Ariana
  • Ideal formats
  • Beast vs. Dark Beast
  • A theoretical X-Men newspaper comic

NEXT EPISODE: X-Force gets possessed!

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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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435 – Giant-Size Special #12 (feat. Kieron Gillen)

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Illustration by David Wynne

In which we have had an eventful year; Longshot is a classic folk hero; writer Kieron Gillen makes a triumphant and mildly terrifying return to the show; and you remain the best listeners of any podcast, ever.

X-PLAINED:

  • Our tenth birthday party!
  • 2023
  • Longshot vol. 2 #1
  • Longshot as a folkloric archetype
  • Longshot (more) (again)
  • Dismal Nitch, Washington
  • The Thingee
  • Baum, Kansas
  • Corn
  • Betty
  • Barrie, Kansas
  • The Albony Avenue Sanitarium and several of its residents
  • Innocence, broadly
  • The Wuggly Ump, by Edward Gorey
  • Love
  • Immortal X-Men
  • Nathaniel Essex and several significant clones thereof
  • Defining Mister Sinister
  • Making Charles Xavier sympathetic
  • Reset phrases
  • Eternals
  • The 10th Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence
  • Many people to whom we are grateful

NEXT EPISODE: X-Men: Liberators

NOTE: If you want to avoid Immortal X-Men spoilers in our interview with Kieron Gillen, you can skip to 01:38:50 for the Corbeau Awards!

Special thanks to:

  • Matt Hunter
  • Dylan Higgins
  • Al Kennedy
  • Max Carleton
  • Kieron Gillen
  • Tea Fougner
  • Anna Stokes
  • All of our patrons
  • All of you listening, always <3

“Sinister Is Cloning This Town” performed by Steve and Erin Pence

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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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434 – Return to Cape Citadel

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In which the X-Men turn 35; we pause to celebrate the death of Henry Kissinger; Jay is a space nerd; Marrow hang-dries her delicates; space shuttles are not rockets; the band gets back together; and the Danger Room isn’t the first piece of X-tech to get sentience and a robot body.

X-PLAINED

  • How Excalibur got a Blackbird
  • Uncanny X-Men #360
  • X-Men #80
  • Many callbacks
  • The Benassi Rocket
  • The Cassini Probe
  • The All-New, Slightly Off X-Men
  • The Grey King (Addison Falk)
  • Chaos and/or Xhaos (Dan Dash)
  • Mercury
  • Rapture (Sister Joy)
  • Crux (Cristal Lemiuex)
  • Landslide (Lee Broder)
  • The Founder
  • Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau (again)
  • The Mutant Defense Net
  • Heroic narration
  • Lack of spacefaring continuity
  • Friendship
  • Technology
  • Costumes
  • All-New All-Different Dungeons & Dragons

NEXT EPISODE: GIANT-SIZE WINTER SPECIAL #10

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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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433 – Looking Back at Looking Back

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In which we take a retrospective look at X-Factor and Excalibur: where the series began, where they went, and what’s in store after the ends of their first volumes.

X-PLAINED:

  • What Rictor’s been up to
  • X-Factor
  • Excalibur

NEXT EPISODE: A Corbeau cameo!

The visual companion to this episode is scattered through the last eight years of visual companions, mostly under the X-Factor and Excalibur tags.

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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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432 – Weird Little Adventures

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In which we reach the end of Larry Hama’s run on Generation X; Gaia remains remarkably normal for someone who has spent millennia chained up alone in a citadel; Synch practices radical forgiveness; we ponder the nature of Emma Frost and Sean Cassidy’s relationship; and Forge is extra unqualified to lecture on ethics.

X-PLAINED:

  • How Jubilee stopped being a vampire
  • The Draco, kinda
  • Generation X #44-47
  • Bianca LaNeige (again)
  • Polaroid cameras
  • Gaia (more) (again)
  • Reality warping
  • Woody and Arlo Guthrie
  • Iceland
  • Several continuity errors
  • Psi War fallout
  • Paul Weller
  • New school uniforms
  • Accreditation
  • Miss Pickwick
  • Penance’s nationality
  • Guthrie manifestation
  • Teamwork
  • Forge’s decision-making skills
  • Paradox
  • Indoor/outdoor moppets
  • Four theoretical horsemen of Apocalypse
  • Awkward family holidays

NEXT EPISODE: Jay & Miles autopsy X-Factor and 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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431 – Doctor Jennifer Murder’s Drop-In Deathatorium

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No notes. (Generation X Underground Special #1)

In which Synch is a more versatile character than he originally got credit for; “eep” and “eek” are likewise underused; space makes everything better; Nate Grey is the proto-himbo; and if you can decipher the secret code in this episode, you, too, can win a Silver Surfer jet ski!

X-PLAINED:

  • Diablo
  • Generation X Underground Special
  • X-Men Unlimited #30
  • X-Man: All Saints Day
  • Jim Mahfood
  • Skin’s video-game preferences
  • Strange superpowers
  • Poster pirates
  • Visual representations of the passage of time
  • “Banshee’s Angels”
  • Charlie’s Angels
  • The infamous donut-day riots
  • Perfect costumes
  • Adequate restraints for small children
  • The raw power of funk
  • Generation X vs. the Beat Generation
  • The greatest disco event in the universe
  • Nate Grey
  • Some kid named Jerome
  • Countess Absynthia Von Mort
  • Transylvania
  • Dr. Cindy’s Castle
  • The state of Phoenix affairs
  • The color bar at the top of the page in ‘90s comics

NEXT EPISODE: Generation X suits up!

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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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430 – The Bad Feelings Box

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In which birds have no business in sex dreams; feelings are complicated and allegories are imperfect; Mystique made some valid points; Psycho-Man is good at UI; Callisto was right; and the label “Omega-level mutant” actually kind of makes sense.

X-PLAINED:

  • Psycho-Man
  • Malice (but not that one)
  • Hate Monger (but not that one)
  • Finding good comics from the ‘90s
  • Uncanny X-Men #359
  • X-Men / Fantastic Four Annual 1998
  • ­X-Men #79
  • The dead man’s hand
  • Dr. Aubrey Agee
  • Psi-War fallout
  • Dr. Bradley Beynon
  • Hadley the robot
  • Poker twinks
  • La Bludgeon
  • Psycho-Man’s Bad Feelings Box
  • An invisible bear trap
  • Marvel’s floating poker game
  • Officers Aguinal and Cleveland
  • Antagonists vs. villains
  • Omega-level mutants

NEXT EPISODE: The Generation X Underground Special, feat. Al Kennedy!

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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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429 – Slightly Sticky

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Dracularmy (X-Men Unlimited #21)

In which you should stop hatin’, there’s a big difference between fill-ins and filler, Snow Valley needs higher Ferris wheel standards, Todd DeZago must really hate video rental clerks, and we’re all monsters – some of us just smell better than others.

X-PLAINED:

  • Strong Guy’s hellacious history
  • The nature and purpose of X-Men Unlimited
  • X-Men Unlimited #20-21
  • Rock Trolls (Chambliss, Nettles, and Munson)
  • What Asgard was up to in 1998
  • Magik vs magic
  • The Snow Valley Harvest Festival
  • Jubilation Lee, one of the guys
  • Eagles vs Hats
  • Fatman, Beardlady-o, Stickman-o, & Frogman-o
  • Tic Tac Toe fundamentals
  • Angry mobs
  • Paige Guthrie, Angry Mom
  • The many potential applications of Husk’s powers
  • Falls Edge, VA vs Eagle Ridge, WV
  • Payphones & video rental stores
  • X-friends
  • Rutland, VT (again)
  • Melvin J. Weals
  • Helen Back
  • The Donnybrook Country Club
  • Cat Fancier & Motorcycle Conventions
  • The Shi’ar Wardrobe Transmogrifier
  • Steel (the Shaq one)
  • The worst pun we’ve ever seen in a comic
  • Earth: the Hipster Planet
  • Which X-Men throw the best and/or wildest Halloween parties
  • Fan-casting X-voices

NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four!

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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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428 – Naked in a Cake

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Love and chaos. (Excalibur #125)

In which you shouldn’t invite nazis to your wedding, there’s a lot of multiverse, Captain Britain and Meggan are pretty heteronormative but make it work, everybody forgot Feron, and the next husband will be Gatecrasher’s.

X-PLAINED:

  • Captain Britain varieties
  • The history of Brian Braddock and Meggan Puceanu, abridged
  • Excalibur #124-125
  • Mutants most likely to jump out of a cake
  • The Crazy Gang (again)
  • Meggan’s crush on Colossus
  • Colossus’s guilt about Meggan’s crush on Colossus
  • A surprise bridal shower
  • The return of Captain UK
  • Brian Braddock’s teetotaling techniques
  • Mimic’s ever-changing facial hair
  • Glorious, glorious chaos
  • Poor, poor Feron
  • Multiple awkward conversations
  • The return of Widget and also everyone else
  • Lightning Force (dammit)
  • A lengthy but not exhaustive list of Captains Britain
  • So many cameos
  • …Seriously, so many cameos
  • Dai Thomas’s anti-iron
  • Shockingly healthy communication
  • Bouquet brawls and garter gar-nage
  • A bittersweet ending
  • Nightcrawler’s best outfit
  • The universe where the X-Men X-Plain Jay & Miles
  • Our hypothetical post-finale Excalibur lineup

NEXT EPISODE: The return of X-Factor! Kind of!

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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!

Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!