Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

HAWK TALK – Call Any Vegetable

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This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked about vegetables. Kind of.

Topics, roughly:

  • Vegetables. Like we said.
  • Is Apocalypse a fruit?
  • Ghost vs. slime trees
  • Dwarves in the rutabagas
  • Ramen mishaps
  • How to be less terrible at cooking
  • Cherimoya, that weirdo

As Mentioned in Episode 322 – Do More Crimes

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Never let Gambit take you anywhere. (X-Men #46)
Jean, seriously, do you have any idea how old your niece and nephew are? (X-Men #46)
Bobby, no. (X-Men #46)
We have X-Babies. This is not a drill. (X-Men #46)
Charming, ain’t they? (X-Men #46)
Wait… who?! (X-Men #46)
HI, DAZZLER! (X-Men #47)
This whole issue feels kind of like a Western, helped along by this incredibly classic framing. (Uncanny X-Men #327)
“Okay, but also, your face is melting.” (Uncanny X-Men #327)
OH SNAP denied (Uncanny X-Men #327)
This is legitimately adorable. (Uncanny X-Men #327)
“Y’know… stuff.” (Uncanny X-Men #327)
NEXT WEEK: Hawk talk!

NEXT EPISODE: SOMEHOW, EVEN MORE X-BABIES!

LINKS & FURTHER MISDIRECTION:

322 – Do More Crimes

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

In which the X-Babies fail to charm; clones are people, too; Iceman doesn’t (quite) come out; Gambit and Bishop bond; Joseph comes into ambiguous being; and Principal Nezu and Charles Xavier would probably get along okay.

X-PLAINED:

  • Inconsistent quality
  • X-Men #46-47
  • Uncanny X-Men #327
  • The X-Babies (more) (again)
  • Sfogliatelle
  • Gog
  • Gog’n’Magog
  • Politics of the Mojoverse
  • Personhood of constructed entities
  • What makes an X-Babies story work
  • Jay’s favorite episodes of The Muppet Show
  • Age-appropriate literature
  • Fictional books
  • Fun with Bishop
  • Several restaurants
  • Hypothetical casting
  • What Magneto’s been up to
  • Joseph
  • Sister Maria
  • Why Magneto gets de-aged a lot
  • Amnesia
  • Various orphans and individuals affiliated therewith
  • How to keep up with upcoming X-titles
  • A cross-media friendship
  • True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee

NEXT EPISODE: HAWK TALK

THE ONE AFTER THAT: MORE X-BABIES SO MANY X-BABIES

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

As Mentioned in Episode 321 – Revolving Doors

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Damn, those bunny slippers are intense.(X-Force #48)
Please note that Siryn has her own personal breeze. (X-Force #48)
“Y… you’re not?” (X-Force #48)
Large. (Uncanny X-Men #328)
LARGE. (Uncanny X-Men #328)
THAT IS NOT HOW YOU FIRST-AID A MAJOR ABDOMINAL WOUND (Uncanny X-Men #328)
We may never know why Professor X chose to install Cerebro in a Multi-Axis Trainer, but he certainly appears to have done so. (Sabretooth Special #1)
Dang, that’s a lot of drop shadows. (Sabretooth Special #1)
Deja vu all over again. We may never know why Professor X chose to install Cerebro in a Multi-Axis Trainer, but he certainly appears to have done so. (Sabretooth Special #1)
NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE CLONE ZONE!

321 – Revolving Doors

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

In which Sabretooth does not get effectively rehabilitated; nobody has the moral high ground; Val Cooper is the worst possible person to call in any emergency; Bishop needs a better support system; Jay knows several things about onions; and not everything has to be a mammal.

X-PLAINED:

  • Sabretooth (more) (again)
  • X-Force #48
  • Uncanny X-Men #328
  • Sabretooth Special #1
  • Bunny slippers
  • An intervention
  • Stages of grief
  • What not to do with Sabretooth
  • An evil squirrel
  • Onions
  • The three genders
  • Mutant Massacre callbacks
  • Caption disambiguation problems
  • The overabundance of boobs on fictional non-mammalian species

NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE CLONE ZONE!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

As Mentioned in Episode 320 – The Accountability Wagon

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
I know the cover blurb isn’t actually foreshadowing, but the cover blurb is kiiiinda foreshadowing. (Excalibur #91)
There’s writing a phonetic accent… and then there’s writing someone making fun of someone else’s accent, phonetically. (Excalibur #91)
Aw. (Excalibur #91)
For your Twitter fight needs. (Excalibur #91)
This is roughly how I react to having to share personal information with colleagues, too. (Excalibur #91)
They’re good friends. (Excalibur #91)
THE SUBTITLES THO (Excalibur #91)
Creeeeeepy. (Excalibur #91)
I know his teeth are also supposed to be steel, but they look just off enough from the rest of his face that I can’t shake the idea that they’re normal teeth, which idea is profoundly and inexplicably unsettling. (Excalibur #92)
Huh. (Excalibur #92)
You sure did. (Excalibur #93)
[Music rises] (Excalibur #93)
Ah, Rahne. You’re such a good kid. (Excalibur #93)
FUCK YEAH RAHNE SINCLAIR! (Excalibur #93)
NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day.

320 – The Accountability Wagon

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

In which Pete Wisdom is the guy you love to glare at; Nightcrawler is right (and a delightfully complex individual); Colossus has a lot of issues; and Wolfsbane gets the confrontation we’ve been waiting for since the New Mutants graphic novel.

X-PLAINED:

  • Wolfsbane’s powers
  • Excalibur #91-93
  • The somewhat nebulous age of Kitty Pryde
  • Betrayal
  • What’s been up on Muir Isle
  • Organized sports, Excalibur-style
  • Pubs and what happens in them
  • Drinking with Excalibur
  • Shovel talks
  • Phonetic accents, redeemed
  • A fairly one-sided fight
  • Colossus’s issues (more) (again)
  • Anatomy and physiology of organic steel
  • Accountability, trauma, and their intersections
  • An exceptionally cathartic confrontation
  • A hoodie Jay desperately wants
  • Where cold opens come from
  • Whether and how Gambit passes for human

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

As Mentioned in Episode 319 – Giant-Size Special #9

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
There’s… a lot of design happening here. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
Even if the podcast couldn’t all be ink appreciation, the visual companion can! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
Sir, this is a Wendy’s. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
LOOK AT THAT BEARD. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
THE DRAMA! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
Tremble’s collection of human curiosities. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
This might be my favorite look for Apocalypse. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
This one’s pretty sharp, too, though. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #1)
What I’m getting here is that the Askani Sisterhood has been recruiting Asbury Park mermaids. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #2)
More artists should use color silhouettes–they can be such a cool effect! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #2)
Feelings… AND TEXTURES! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #2)
Marauder, schmaurader; I know a reaver when I see one. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #3)
The secret origin of ruby quartz! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #3)
“Sinister, you say? Ooh, that’s good. I should write that down.” (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #3)
This is a bad plan and I do not want to be part of it. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #3)
LOOK AT THIS GLAM MOTHERFUCKER (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #4)
Aw, he’s still got a heart, maybe, kind of. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #4)
Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #4)
TIME LOOP! TIME LOOP! (Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix #4)

LINKS & FURTHER ADVENTURES

The written list of the SDAPCAfEaX winners will go up on Monday! If you are a creator who won and would like a physical award, drop us a line, and we will make it happen.

319 – Giant-Size Special #9 (feat. Vita Ayala, Tini Howard, and Leah Williams)

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

In which Jay and Miles receive a mysterious missive and are visited by three of our favorite X-writers; Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix is a pleasant surprise; Nathaniel Essex is the most dramatic man in the Marvel Universe; the sewers of Victorian London were a happenin’ place; Apocalypse isn’t even French; Beast is the flip-side of Sinister; community is for everyone; the Internet is (kind of) Krakoa; and death is fixable, but trauma might take a little more work.

X-PLAINED:

  • A quotation
  • Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4
  • A closed loop
  • Time travel with Scott Summers and Jean Grey
  • Mister Sinister (Nathaniel Essex)
  • A somewhat excessive visual aid
  • Beards
  • Cootie Tremble
  • The cultural context of sideshows
  • The first Marauders and/or Nasty Boys
  • Victorian Apocalypse
  • Strained allegories
  • Sanctity
  • Apocalypse vs. the Hellfire Club
  • Oscar the Somewhat Less Nasty Boy
  • Varyingly anachronistic costuming
  • The secret origin of ruby quartz
  • A very vague objective
  • A makeover
  • A closed time loop
  • Actual Cat Wizard Jonathan Hickman
  • Something Jay is not in fact going to pitch to Marvel
  • Creative dynamics and processes in the current X-line
  • Revolutionary joy
  • What’s cooler than one sword
  • The Sixth Annual Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence at X-Cellence

NEXT WEEK: Jay & Miles take a break

NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur gets several Peters and a wolf!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

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!

HAWK TALK – Surviving 2020

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This would usually be a skip week, but the world is still being a jerk, so we made you a bonus, entirely unedited, and almost entirely off-topic episode. This time, we talked (exhaustedly) about This Freaking Year.

Topics, roughly:

  • This year was pretty rough
  • Maybe next year will be better?
  • Some things are cool, though

NOTE: Miles watched Knives Out immediately after recording this episode, and Jay was right: it is delightful.