We’re celebrating International Podcast Day with a bonus mid-week episode!
In which Jay and Al settle down in the living room to talk about cats, conventions, X-karaoke, Summers Brothers road trips, and what Al has planned for those New Mutants he’s been collecting in New Avengers!
SOME RELEVANT LINKS:
You can find all of our RCCC minicomics right here!
David Malki’s Magneto voicemails are a gift to the world. You can find the full collection here.
This episode comes courtesy of our rad Patreon subscribers. If you want to join their ranks and help keep us on the air and ad-free–and unlock more cool stuff–you can do that right here!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which we get back on the continuity train; everything is the aftermath of Inferno forever; you should never fight a tractor or a horse without first putting on some damn pants; Vincent Price would’ve made a terrific Doctor Strange; Rusty Collins never really gets a fair break; Boom Boom is in over her head; and Brett Blevins takes his place as the definitive New Mutants artist.
X-PLAINED:
Mirage’s on-again-off-again Valkyrie career
Asgardia
The New Mutants’ previous Asgard adventures
The best single issue of all time
The Naglfar
A proposal for a new calendar
New Mutants #77-80
The Ust-Ordynski Collective (again) (more)
There’s Stuff Going On: The Doctor Strange Story
A very bad decision
Why unicorns are the worst
Doctor Stephen Sanders / Doctor Strange / Doctor Dad
Let’s Make a Deal
Whether arson counts as a personality trait
Several nefarious plans
Creative growth
Disaster City
Fun with the Technarchy
Mindful representation
Miles’s dad’s comics collection
NEXT EPISODE: Judgment War!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
Art by David Wynne. No prints this week, but you can contact David to purchase the original!
In which we return to Rose City Comic Con and somehow manage to one-up last year’s Stryfe cold open; Greg Pak has secretly written all of the X-books; Cullen Bunn may or may not be watching you RIGHT NOW; the X-Men distill down to murder and kissing; Toshiro Mifune should be everybody; Miles swears first (for once); and we can’t wait to see all of your X-Men roller derby names!
X-PLAINED:
Cold open escalation
Onslaught
Greg Pak
Continuity exegesis
Marrying history and narrative
Murder and kissing
X-Treme X-Men vol. 2
Reimagining characters across the multiverse
Governor-General James Howlett
Magneto: Testament
Where superheroes should and shouldn’t intersect with geopolitical events
Our X-Men buddy-cop duos of choice
X-Commencement speakers
X-Men roller derby names
Contemporary vs. retrospective representations of current events
NEXT WEEK: The New Mutants go to Asgard!
There’s not exactly a visual companion to this episode, but you can find a Rose City Comic Con gallery on our blog!
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!
No prints for sale this time, but you can still contact David Wynne for the original of this week’s illustration!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which Logan Bonner, Max Carleton, and Crystal Frasier hike up their boxers and join us at the gaming table for an X-Men: Evolution tabletop adventure; what happens in virtual reality stays in virtual reality; Shadowcat is great at boats; Jubilee and Boom Boom blow up everything; Havok tries; and Team Reckless Endangerment wins the day!
FEATURING:
Logan Bonner as Writer and Gamemaster / Erik the Rad
Max Carleton as the Shadowcat / Pirate Kitty
Crystal Frasier as Jubilee / the Genie
Jay Edidin as Havok / the Corsair
Miles Stokes as Boom Boom / Boomavara
NEXT EPISODE: Live from RCCC, with Greg Pak!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which everyone dies (or something); every Summers is miserable in their own way; we are pretty done with Nanny and the Orphanmaker; Lady Deathstrike is a surprisingly astute art critic; the X-Men’s digital invisibility does not extend to the White Pages; we venture into slightly less charted territory; Wolverine has a really bad day; and you should totally come hang out with us at Rose City Comic Con!
X-PLAINED:
Origins of Lady Deathstrike
Jay & Miles at Rose City Comic Con
X-Ray party etiquette
Uncanny X-Men #248-251
The precise inverse of an anticlimax
The Siege Perilous (more) (again)
Dramatic parallels
Summers tragedy disambiguation
Jim Lee’s first X-issue
The apparent death of Storm (this time)
The merged Reavers
What it takes for Jay to play a sidescroller
An X-band
Longshot’s departure
A really ineffective rescue
Art-critic Deathstrike
Administrative assistant Jubilee
Zaladane
An unconventional approach to genealogy
The ickiest method of mind control
Dark Claw
NEXT EPISODE: GIANT-SIZE SUMMER SPECIAL!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which Jay and Miles return to Rose City Comic Con; “Having a Wild Weekend” is the mash-up t-shirt of Excalibur stories; swears are for everyone; Arcade is not a subtle villain; we love Art Adams a lot; Minor-Domo is the Harvey and/or Janet of the Mojoverse; Kitty gets another new costume; and the X-Babies carjack their creators.
X-PLAINED:
The Agent
Jay and Miles at Rose City Comic Con 2016
What Excalibur has instead of annuals
Competing theories of Eriks Larsen
“Having a Wild Weekend” (Marvel Comics Presents #31-38)
The Community reference that keeps on giving
How to fight on the Internet without being a dick
A large number of thinly veiled TV references
The X-Babies
Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem
Ricochet Rita (again)
Psychonauts
Exploding children (more) (again)
The House of Ideas
The New Universe
Major Domo
Minor Domo
Jay’s dream vacation
Cats Laughing (more) (again)
Cosplay you should totally do
Why you should always read the EULA
The classic X-Men spirit
Some of our favorite cameos
The return of Judith Rassendyll
One fairly specific way to ruin a wedding
Where to find Havok in comics
X-Men we’d like to see as wizards
NEXT EPISODE: Death in the Outback
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which the back-up stories of Atlantis Attacks are way better than the main event; the Serpent Society is hilarious; Longshot finds a rock; the S.U.R.F.E.R.S. are no Neutrinos; our volume of digressions is inversely proportional to our investment in this crossover; Jay overthinks sunglasses; and somehow we still aren’t entirely done with Inferno.
X-PLAINED:
Leonard McKenzie
Princess Fen
Tiger Shark
A dubious crossover event and three splendid backup stories
The best thing in Marvel Puzzle Quest
Skateman
Atlantis Attacks
Uncanny X-Men Annual #13
New Mutants Annual #5
X-Factor Annual #4
Ghaur
Llyra
Homomermanus
The Serpent Society
Boomslang
Why snakes don’t wear vests
The Maple Hill Farm books
The Horn of Doom (again)
Namorita
Impractical swimwear
Surf, or S.U.R.F.E.R.S., or whoever the hell they are
Zak and the Neutrinos
The trouble with mobile landmarks
A case of mistaken identity
The true meaning of something, probably
Ralph Macchio, but not that Ralph Macchio
Circumstances in which it is acceptable to throw a small child down an elevator shaft
The definitive Boom Boom
Eligible gentlemen of the Marvel Universe
Boom Boom Von Doom
A false dichotomy
Sally Pashkow
A really great outfit
Presidencies rated by X-Books
Best and worst moral inversions
NEXT WEEK: Mojo Mayhem!
ART CHALLENGE: Send your best Boom Boom romance stories, covers, and pin-ups to xplainthexmen(at)gmail.com by SEPTEMBER 15, with the subject line BOOM BOOM RULES.
NOTE: In this episode, Jay briefly confused two Marvel villain teams: the Serpent Society (snake-themed villains); and the Sons of the Serpent, also known as the Serpent Men (hate group). We would like to offer our apologies to the Serpent Society, who are ridiculous but not, as far as we know, racist.
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
In which Jay may or may not have sold their voice to a sea witch; Gambit and Deadpool are somewhat lackadaisical superheroes; everything Fat Cobra does is amazing; Miles is a prepared gentleman; Gambit is there to look pretty and throw something; and there is now a Ben Acker vocaloid hovering around the studio.
X-PLAINED:
Acker & Blacker
Thrilling Adventure Hour
X-Men #214, but not the real one
Deadpool v. Gambit
As-needed approach to continuity
The ontology of Deadpool
The time the Absorbing Man turned into cocaine
Wolverine Season One
What makes Gambit creepy
The roadtrip miniseries you didn’t know you needed
A theoretical poker game and its theoretical outcome
NEXT EPISODE: Atlantis Attacks!
There is no visual companion to this episode! Go read Deadpool v. Gambit! It’s great!
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!
Contact David Wynne to inquire after the original of this week’s illustration.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which everything is worse with Nazis; Excalibur gets its groove back; Meggan has an identity crisis; Kitty gets a crush; a dragon gets interdimensional sanctuary; and the Cross-Time Caper starts not with a bang, but a foomp.
X-PLAINED:
The death of Lilandra Neramani
Excalibur #8-11
The best name in Hollywood
Still more of Inferno’s aftermath
A basketball game
Blackbird disambiguation
Several long-delayed reunions and one subsequent resolution
Alastaire Stuart (and his banana)
Tourists who are also lizards
Lightning Force
A number of unfortunate encounters
The difference between Errol Flynn characters and Errol Flynn
The fall of Nigel Frobisher
The switch that turns the engine invisible
What may be the world’s least subtle euphemistic use of the term “roommate”
How the discourse around comics has changed since the ’80s
Jubilee vs. power creep
NEXT EPISODE: Deadpool v Gambit, with Ben Acker!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
In which Elisabeth hacks the Matrix; Magneto is the worst at small talk; Hela overreaches; parents just don’t understand human speech; everything is better with super-rings; Selene has a Xena moment; almost anything can be solved with a kiss; and even if you transform Doug Ramsey into a giant red murder monster, he’ll still be a huge nerd.
X-PLAINED:
The S-Men
New Mutants Forever #1-5
Magma’s revised family tree
Updating the New Mutants
The delicate balance of the Forever line
The web
Idiom confusion
A flawed cultural analogy
Tiberius the Generic
Several profoundly dubious costumes
Family resemblance
Skull v. Skull
The dearth of canonically asexual X-characters
NEXT EPISODE: Different Nazis
Miles here – in one of the questions for this episode, I conflated asexuality and aromanticness. Those are totally two different things. Apologies – I’m still learning!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
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!
