Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

439 – Fishfic

In which we reach the beginning of an end; Jay totally forgot Gambit was there; we’re all living in the Mary Purcelliverse; the X-Men split the party; and we explore The Bay Area’s Bohemian Hotbed of Student Anarchy.

X-PLAINED:

  • Mary Purcell (sort of)
  • The re-defaulting of the X-Men
  • Uncanny X-Men #362-323
  • X-Men #82
  • Nebraska
  • Pyro (Saint John Allerdyce) and his endless illness
  • Legacy Virus variations
  • Going home again
  • Running back and forth in quarries
  • Marrow, who’s come a long way
  • The two forms of fire: skeleton monsters and sexy ladies
  • Cerebro (the evil one)
  • San Francisco and Tajikinistan
  • Asphalt ball pits
  • A topsy-turvy nonsensical impossible hell
  • Nina the Mannite
  • Desire, love, loss, and fear
  • Skulls and spines
  • The New (New) Brotherhood of Mutants
  • Cerebrites Alpha and Beta
  • A lost, smelly fish
  • Ambiguous art
  • Blood, sweat, and fears
  • Which mutants would cause the most chaos at holiday gatherings
  • Hopes for post-Fall society

NEXT EPISODE: 2 Hunt 2 Xavier


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438 – The Man of Harsh Business

In which Gambit knows how to make an entrance; Rogue and Gambit only have relationship conversations during superhero fights; Wolverine fights a shark; and we have opinions on how to handle certain aspects of backstory.

X-PLAINED:

  • One way to take over Madripoor
  • Uncanny X-Men #361
  • X-Men #81
  • Wolverine: Black Rio
  • The X-Men’s rapid slide back to the status quo
  • Steve Comicraft
  • The fork of loneliness
  • Cyttorak (again)
  • Black Tom Cassidy (again)
  • Peacocks
  • Sarasota Jungle Gardens
  • What’s sticking out of Juggernaut’s pants
  • Favorite versions of the Danger Room
  • Floriography
  • Kali (kind of)
  • Mary Purcell (a bit)
  • Rio Carnival
  • An outfit
  • Detective Antonio Vargas and his mustache
  • Saint Cyrus Leviticus
  • Ezra
  • Comparing mutant and Inhuman culture
  • Demonic homage

NEXT EPISODE: The Hunt for Xavier begins!


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437 – Dismember the Titans

“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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436 – The Feel-Good Movie of the Summer

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

 

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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434 – Return to Cape Citadel

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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433 – Looking Back at Looking Back

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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432 – Weird Little Adventures

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!


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431 – Doctor Jennifer Murder’s Drop-In Deathatorium

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

 

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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