Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 13 – Last Stand on the Moon

July 6, 2014 Jay 14 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

You can tell she’s evil on account of the foreshortening. (X-Men #135)

Well, that escalated quickly. (X-Men #135)

“Inexorable” is a word we use a lot when talking about the Dark Phoenix Saga. This is one of those moments that can only lead in one devastating direction. (X-Men #135)

You can tell it’s a big deal because of the cameos… (X-Men #135)

…and the cross-promotion. Hi, Silver Surfer! (X-Men #135)

MALEFIC DESTINY! Claremont can be pretty overwrought, but for a story like this, we would argue that he is PRECISELY WROUGHT ENOUGH. (X-Men #135)

See, shit like this? This is why “malefic destiny” is an entirely appropriate and to-scale phrase. (X-Men #135)

AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE! (X-Men #135)

The Shi’ar: Why You Can’t Have Nice Things. (X-Men #136)

But first, a brief round of Danger Room exposition! (X-Men #136)

In John Grey’s defense, “what to do when your child is possessed by a potentially malevolent cosmic force” is really not covered adequately in most parenting books. (X-Men #136)

Comics Wolverine > Movie Wolverine. (X-Men #136)

If Xander’s crayon speech from that one Buffy episode is not direct homage to this scene, I will EAT MY HAT, and also your hat. (X-Men #136)

GOD DAMNIT, PROFESSOR X. (X-Men #136)

And THAT’S how you do a high-stakes psychic duel! (X-Men #136)

This will definitely not come back to haunt you. DEFINITELY NOT. (X-Men #136)

Maybe we will just put this cover in every single “as mentioned” gallery forever. Really, it deserves it. (X-Men #137)

The Watcher is like the narrative equivalent of pullquotes. (X-Men #137)

One step closer to the end. (X-Men #137)

But first, Beast pretty definitely gets a happy ending from a space massage therapist with epic green sideburns! (X-Men #137)

Again: Comics Wolverine > Movie Wolverine. (X-Men #137)

“I’ll take ‘scenes that always make Rachel tear up’ for 200, Alex.” (X-Men #137)

Yeah. (X-Men #137)

TEAMWORK! (X-Men #137)

“I’ll take ‘scenes that always make Rachel tear up’ for 1000, Alex.” (X-Men #137)

Can we have a moment of silence for this completely and absolutely perfect page? (X-Men #137)

The (definitely absolutely 100% permanent) death of Phoenix. (X-Men #137)

This is one of those covers that will be riffed and referenced until the end of time. (X-Men #138)

X-Men #138 renders 11 of the last 12 episodes of this podcast pretty much redundant.

The end… (X-Men #138)

…and the beginning. (X-Men #138)

P.S. We have some rad new stuff in our store, including dark-background Magneto Made Some Valid Points shirts and Chris Haley’s spiffy new YAYBO! design! Go buy shirts so we can buy comics!

13 – Last Stand on the Moon

July 6, 2014 Jay 12 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which Jean commits genocide, the Shi’ar are total dicks (again), we have feelings about X-Men #137, Claremont and Byrne do what they do best, shit gets real on the moon, Kitty joins the team, and the Dark Phoenix Saga concludes.

X-Plained:

Inhumans
The Kree
The Terrigen Mist
Teamwork
The Dark Phoenix
Cameos with cosmic implications
The Phoenix event horizon
Establishing scale
Psychic battles
The winged never-nudes of the Marvel Universe
Danger-room exposition
The Shi’ar’s really dubious justice system
Why X-Men #137 is the definitive issue of X-Men
Pacing
The power of friendship
Quiet moments
The blue area of the moon
The best last stand
Moon vandalism
The Phoenix Retcon

You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

You made art!

July 5, 2014 Jay One comment

You are delightful. Did you know that? It is true.

David Wynne sent us this family picture of Wolverine and his many, many off-brand knockoffs! (Reminder: If you like David’s X-Plain art and want to take it home with you, you can do that!)

Tim Siltala imagines Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men as it might exist within the Marvel Universe:

Logan Bonner has dreamed up the best crossover-event villain EVER: Prydeslaught: the dark impulses of Charles Xavier merged with the SPECTACULAR fashion sense of 13-year-old Kitty Pryde!

Logan also sent us two boxes of blue raspberry Twinkies of Future Past; click through below for a brief chronicle of our (fairly tame) adventures with the Official Snack Food of the Sentinel Apocalypse:

Along with Prydeslaught, Logan sent us two boxes of Twinkies of Future Past.

This is what happens when the Sentinels win!

Like their regular-continuity counterparts, the Twinkies of Future Past are pretty vile, so we brought some to a friend’s 4th of July cookout to see if they’d be any better grilled. (Also, someone there recognized Miles based on his voice, which was both weird and awesome!)

Post-grill, the Twinkies looked way worse, but tasted way better.

Also, they turned our tongues hella blue. The end!

YAYBO! NEW STUFF!

July 4, 2014 Jay Leave a comment

Because you ~~demanded it~~ asked very nicely, we have some super cool new swag in the shop!

Way back in our first episode, we discovered the word YAYBO!, the hands-down best exclamation of the Silver Age of X-Men. Ever since, you’ve been asking us to put it on a t-shirt, but we dragged our heels: after all, what design could do justice to the sheer, unbridled enthusiasm of a cry of YAYBO!?

Finally, we enlisted the help of the most enthusiastic dude we know: the Enthusiast himself, Chris Haley of Let’s Be Friends Again, who created this unbelievably kickass graphic, featuring Iceman and two very excited X-Perts:

Chris’s design is also available in super souped-up print-and-card form!

We think Silver-Age Iceman would be proud.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

If you’ve been waiting patiently for a version of Dylan Todd’s sweet Magneto Made Some Valid Points design that would show up on dark t-shirts, YOUR MOMENT HAS COME:

BUT WAIT! THERE’S EVEN MORE!

These, as well as the black-ink Magneto, and the sweet Ming Doyle pin-up–are now variously available not only as shirts and stickers, but also as tote bags, prints, posters, greeting cards, and even throw pillows. Want to send your grandmother a “Magneto Made Some Valid Points” birthday card? THAT IS NOW A THING YOU CAN DO. Please tell her “Yaybo!” for us.

As Mentioned in Episode 12 – Inner Circle Jerk

June 29, 2014 Jay 11 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

“What’s up, Jean?”

“Oh, y’know, idyllic ancestral memories about an 18th-Century Jean Grey who hunted humans for sport.” (X-Men #126)

You know that thing where you visit your parents and they still try to ground you after you stay out late, even though you’re 30? (X-Men #129)

“Professor, this is the Claremont era, not the Silver Age. We evolve dynamically now.” (X-Men #129)

Someday, we’re going to do an entire episode about Emma Frost and the subtle but important difference between weaponized femininity and pandering to the male gaze, and it will be so rad. (X-Men #129)

Jamie McKelvie’s completely badass Emma Frost redesign.

Jean and Scott are not disco people. (X-Men #130)

“What’s up, Jean?”

“Oh, y’know, idyllic ancestral memories about getting married in a cemetery, in fetishwear.” (X-Men #130)

AWKWARD. (X-Men #130)

Ladies and gentlemen, Alison Blaire. (X-Men #130)

People tend to forget that Emma Frost, however briefly, actually managed to holder her own against the Phoenix Force. Daaaamn, Frost. (X-Men #131)

Warren Worthington and his shorts. (X-Men #132)

This scene will be referenced over and over and over until the end of time. (X-Men #132)

“About fucking time you caught on,” says the audience. (X-Men #132)

Aw, Wolverine. We remember when you were cool. (X-Men #132)

In X-men #33, we hit Peak Awesome Wolverine. It’s all downhill from here, kids.

Mostly here for the hat detail, which is pretty clever; and the tiger line, which is not. (X-Men #133)

Beast is a good bro. (X-Men #133)

Sebastian Shaw is legit fairly awesome. (X-Men #134)

Yo, Mastermind, let’s talk about manipulating omnipotent cosmic forces and natural consequences. (X-Men #134)

Oh, shit. (X-Men #134)

Next week: Epic Showdown on the Moon, and what might be the best issue of X-Men ever.

Links and further reading:

The Dark Phoenix Saga has been collected roughly a million times. Here is one such collection. Seriously. You need to just straight-up read these comics. They are very good.

Cameron Harris on Sebastian Shaw (the quote Rachel referenced in the episode but didn’t have on hand):

“So, I was all set up to haaaaaaaaate the HFC and yaaaaaaaaaay Jean and the X-Men. But I didn’t, and it was pretty much because of Shaw. His entrance, his presentation, his presence was all big, bold confidence. He wore those eighteenth-century-dandy duds with complete aplomb, and I could tell almost immediately that he was in charge of everything he wanted to be in charge of. Okay, so a good villain type. This X-fight will be great!

“But he had something I hadn’t expected. I had thought we’d get another (bigger, better, eviller) Mastermind, or a Magneto: grandiloquent (Miles’s word!) and charismatic, would-be king of all he surveys, but not a mano a mano fighter, you know? I’d been reading so many villains whose attacks came from a distance or through non-physical means–and then Shaw is taking a punch from Colossus and laughing about it and taking off his fancy coat to duke it out with the X-Men, and I thought, Holy shit. This guy is the real deal. He’s going to fight them on their terms, not hide behind robots or tele-powers. In fact, the more you beat him up, the stronger he gets! How do you even stop that? (Besides pulling a Hercules-with-Antaeus move, I thought, and was kinda hoping to see that.)

“So. I was into Shaw for that combination: immediate confidence and social control + physical prowess and willingness to fight his own fights. The capper was that when everything at the HFC goes to hell, he hops into a car and leaves. I love a canny opponent who not only isn’t afraid to retreat but doesn’t care how it looks. I commend such priorities.”

12 – Inner Circle Jerk

June 29, 2014 Jay 20 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which we wade into the first arc of the Dark Phoenix Saga, Rachel does not like Sage, the Hellfire Club are the mean girls of the Marvel Universe, Cyclops and Phoenix have a Moment, Mastermind ruins everything, Emma Frost is a force to be reckoned with, Wolverine gets awesome, and we meet the Dark Phoenix.

X-Plained:

Sage
The Hellfire Club
The Inner Circle
Jason Wyngarde (again)
Sebastian Shaw
Harry Leland
Emma Frost
Donald Pierce
Hegemony and social politics of the Hellfire Club
18^th Century bondage cosplay
Kitty Pryde
The worst disco ever
Alison Blaire
Tiny shorts
How to make Wolverine work
Sexual politics of the Dark Phoenix
Why Magneto’s powers are broken post-AvX
The P.E.N.I.S. five

You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Next week: Showdown on the Moon

So, That Happened

June 25, 2014 Jay 3 comments

Introducing Pufferfish Xavier, by David Wynne. ICYMI, if you’ve fallen in love with any of David’s X-Plain the X-Men originals, you can now purchase ’em here!

Meanwhile, we’re getting ready to dive into the Dark Phoenix Saga! As always, if you’ve got burning X-questions, stick ‘em in the comments below or our Tumblr askbox, or tweet ‘em to @RaeBeta with the hashtag #xplainthexmen!

As Mentioned in Episode 11 – Who Would Win in a Fight

June 22, 2014 Jay One comment

Listen to the podcast here!

Rachel and Miles of 2003, testing out early “Who Would Win in a Fight” hypotheses. Rachel hasn’t had long hair in years, but she still fights dirty.

Cycloptometry, from X-Factor #39.

Some of our favorite X-spinoffs.

That’s Rachel Summers, sending Kitty Pryde’s consciousness back in time in the original “Days of Future Past” comic. (X-Men #141)

Fun fact: the title of this podcast is roughly 90% Michael C. Maronna’s fault. (Photo courtesy of Will McRobb.)

Mystique and Destiny: CANONICAL AS FUCK. (Astonishing X-Men #51)

The Siege Perilous will body-swap you with a Japanese assassin, or send you to Australia, or whatever. Unless you’re Quentin Quire, anyway. (Uncanny X-Men #229)

Lee Forrester takes shit from nobody. (X-Men #143)

You can, in fact, judge this book by its cover. (Nightcrawler #1)

Would you buy logical causality from this man? YES. Yes, you would.

From That One Time Rachel Discovered Blingee and Spent Two Days Doing Nothing but Animating Starbursts on Longshot and Dazzler Covers.

Miles’s favorite superhero.

Just in case you were wondering what it looked like.

Paracyclophus, by Legitimus Maximus.

Janet K. Lee is the inventor of the Metawolverine, the most powerful creature in Canada.

Next week: The Dark Phoenix Saga!

Links and Further Reading: UncannyXMen.net

11 – Who Would Win in a Fight

June 22, 2014 Jay 12 comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS

In which we answer 45 straight minutes of your questions and alienate everyone with our answer to Jean vs. Emma, Miles is probably too nice to win in a fight, we are really into The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Rachel is the Vega to Miles’s Shepard, Excalibur is awesome, you should stop punching the DNA, Wolverine is Rogue, Longshot is the prettiest man, and Professor X is a pufferfish.

X-Plained: