Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 295 – The Nuclear Naked

May 17, 2020 Jay Leave a comment

Listen to the episode here.

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

Hey, ‘dere. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

This, but with a hawk. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

Seriously, why the visor? (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

He pulls this look off alarmingly well. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

SUPER DOCTOR ASTRONAUT PETER CORBEAU IS HERE TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

“Just a sec, I gotta go find the Power Glove.” (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

This torso is unacceptable. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #1)

In an homage, obviously. Dang, Jubes. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #2)

BUT, WAIT! THERE’S MORE! (Gambit and the X-Ternals #2)

“Just us, and a bunch of chickens. It got weird fast.” (Gambit and the X-Ternals #2)

Y E S (Gambit and the X-Ternals #2)

I maintain that everything is better if his name is pronounced “Jeff.” (Gambit and the X-Ternals #3)

AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (Gambit and the X-Ternals #3)

Jeff has no patience for events. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #3)

Oh, c’mon. I bet he’s got a ton of cool stolen stuff, too. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #3)

Welcome to the Hall of Tautology. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #4)

It’s okay, but it’s no X-Men #41… (Gambit and the X-Ternals #4)

Well, fuck. (Gambit and the X-Ternals #4)

The Nuclear Naked (reconstruction).

NEXT EPISODE: “Amazing” may be a bit of a stretch.

LINKS & FURTHER INVENTIONS:

Read the comments. No, seriously–they’re really interesting and hella civil.
Star Trek: Voyager was quite a show.

295 – The Nuclear Naked

May 17, 2020 Jay 18 comments

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In which this episode may or may not be a temporal aberration; Gambit is bad at marketing; Jubilee’s sixth birthday was probably worse than yours; Earth-295’s chronology doesn’t make that much more sense than 616’s; Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau wears this timeline well; Rictor makes a terrible Javert; Jubilee has no time for your makeouts; superheroes are basically preschoolers; there is only one Jahf; babies are bad at stealing; and Apocalypse is not a tactician.

X-PLAINED:

How Magneto got his own country
A numerical convergence
Earth-295
Gambit and the X-Ternals #1-4
X-Ternals
The human resistance
The Temple of Human Redress
A terrible way to celebrate your birthday
Lila Cheney of Earth-295
The Nuclear Naked
Super Doctor Astronaut (mermaid) Peter Corbeau of Earth-295
Julio Richter (Earth-295)
Mudir
Homage
Cross-timeline vocabulary
Cosmic peril
The state of the Shi’ar Empire in Earth-295
The Starjammers of Earth-295
Varyingly versatile energy absorption
Jahf
An exchange
Some fancy sewers
Guido Carosella’s devil’s bargains
Earth-295… IN SPACE
The nominal justification for Apocalypse’s society
Which Apocalypse is currently running around Earth-616

NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk!

NEXT EPISODE: “Amazing” might be pushing it.

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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 294 – The Infernal Gallop

May 10, 2020 Jay 3 comments

Listen to the podcast here!

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

Man, I love this cover. (X-Calibre #1)

Cain Marko, man of peace. (X-Calibre #1)

Welcome to Avalon. (X-Calibre #1)

That is an EXCELLENT point. (X-Calibre #1)

I don’t remember Thunderbird having that many muscles or, y’know, being white. (X-Calibre #1)

“Sure thing! That’s BLAMM with two Ms?” (X-Calibre #2)

Aw, buddy. (X-Calibre #2)

But shouldn’t that be Rusty Collins’s icon? (X-Calibre #2)

…well, shit. (X-Calibre #2)

Almost our Kurt, and very much not our Kurt. (X-Calibre #2)

OH HELL YEAH (X-Calibre #3)

TFW Magneto forces you to visit your One Big Ex’s intentional community. (X-Calibre #3)

They have fun. (That is a lie. They do not have fun.) (X-Calibre #3)

Oh, come on. (X-Calibre #3)

AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (X-Calibre #4)

Not AGAIN. (X-Calibre #4)

Welcome to the Age of Apocalypse!

NEXT EPISODE: these goofs, in space

LINKS & FURTHER ALLUSIONS

That really depressing historical anecdote about ballast tanks came courtesy of friend of the show Joe Streckert, of the Weird History Podcast. Thanks, Joe!
Seriously: Mystique-295 is Tovah Feldshuh as Naomi Bunch on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
We differ on the quality of the X-Files episode “The Field Where I Died”; your mileage may vary.

294 – The Infernal Gallop

May 10, 2020 Jay 18 comments

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In which a whole lot of things burn; Nightcrawler gets gritty; it’s hard to be Dead Man Wade; Apocalypse’s IT department has some explaining to do; Mystique is the most mom of all moms; Doug Ramsey dies (again); and Jay will fight anyone who says comics can’t be “real” literature.

X-PLAINED:

Damask
X-Calibre #1-4
Switchback
Cain Marko of Earth-295
Avalon
Destiny of Earth-295
Nightcrawler of Earth-295
Ghost Dance (actual)
Ghost Dance (fictional)
John Proudstar of Earth-295
The Infernal Gallop vs. the Infernal Galop
Moonstar of Earth-295
Dead Man Wade
The Pale Riders
Videoconferencing software of Earth-295
The Excalibur
Walter Newell
Callisto of Earth-295
A lot of murders
A really dark historical precedent
Parenthood
Death by existential crisis
The worst plan
Variations on the death of Doug Ramsey
Geography of the Age of Apocalypse
The rest of the Marvel books during the Age of Apocalypse
Jay vs. Western canon

NEXT EPISODE: Gambit and the X-Ternals

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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 293 – The Monster Under the World

May 10, 2020 Miles Leave a comment

Listen to the podcast here.

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

Almost as cool as the way the backgrounds of the Marvel Universe Series 3 trading cards can be laid out as two giant space-pictures.

Husk, you’ve changed! And Chamber, you… have a face! (Generation Next #1)

Red and yellow outfit, banded metal skin, muscles on muscles, utterly broken by the world… I guess Earth-295 isn’t that different. (Generation Next #1)

We’ve seen Kitty bully younger mutants before… just usually not with as much stabbing. (Generation Next #1)

“I mean, we don’t want them to be inexperienced at dying, do we?” (Generation Next #1)

Know-It-All is pretty sure the depiction of technology in Hackers is way too bland and boring. (Generation Next #1)

Drums. Drums in the deep. (Generation Next #2)

Do minibuses look like that? No. But should they? (Generation Next #2)

This was one of the weirder anti-smoking PSAs of the 90s. (Generation Next #2)

Quietus is troubling. (Generation Next #2)

Paige has a zero-tolerance policy for Monty Python references. (Generation Next #2)

Only Chris Bachalo could make relatively normal people and monsters like that look at home in the same panel. (Generation Next #3)

“Like, the spiritual concept, not like Xi’an from New Muta… You know what, never mind.” (Generation Next #3)

Weirdly, I’ve had this exact same dream. (Generation Next #3)

Meanwhile, everything is terrible. (Generation Next #3)

YIP! (Generation Next #3)

Enclosed V Exposed: Dawn of Panel Layouts (Generation Next #4)

And then Sugar Man ate through his own mangled corpse and burrowed into the next scene. As one does. (Generation Next #4)

noooooo (Generation Next #4)

NOOOOOOOO (Generation Next #4)

Not to downplay the effectiveness of SPLOT SPLANG BONK THOPP, but it’s those irregular, sharp panel borders that really sell the impact. (Generation Next #4)

It all happens so quickly. (Generation Next #4)

And I’ll remember those panels for the rest of my life. (Generation Next #4)

Ever. (Generation Next #4)

NEXT EPISODE: Happy Mother’s Day!

293 – The Monster Under the World

May 3, 2020 Jay 11 comments

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In which not all Mondos are created equal; the kids are only rarely all right; the Age of Apocalypse is not Magneto’s fault; Sugar Man is the stuff of universal nightmares; “cartoonish” is not necessarily a plus; and the Age of Apocalypse is not particularly sustainable.

X-PLAINED:

Generation Next #1-4
The tradition of YA horror in X-books
Bachalo unchained
Whose fault the Age of Apocalypse is
Adaptive technology vs. Apocalypse
Chamber of Earth-295
Husk of Earth-295
Skin of Earth-295
Mondo of Earth-295
Vincente Cimetta
Know-It-All (Claudia)
An abysmal training exercise
Colossus of Earth-295
Shadowcat of Earth-295
Gardner Monroe (Flashback)
Quietus
Sugar Man
The Portland and/or Seattle Core
Illyana Rasputin
Ace
Human collaborators
A gratuitous Monty Python reference
The difference between mass and volume
Number Six
The fall of Generation Next
Growing up in the Age of Apocalypse
Illyana 2.0
Subtext vs. queerbaiting

NEXT EPISODE: X-Calibre!

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!

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HAWK TALK – Formative Novels

April 26, 2020 Miles 29 comments

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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 talk about the (non-comic) books we grew up on!

Books we mentioned, alphabetical by author:

The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams

Start with: The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

Start with: The Book of Three

The Magic of Xanth by Piers Anthony

Start with: A Spell for Chameleon

Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony

Start with: On a Pale Horse

Letters to Jenny by Piers Anthony

Lots of stuff by Dave Barry

Start with: The World According to Dave Barry or any other book

Midnight Hour Encores by Bruce Brooks

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks

Start with: The Sword of Shannara

The Magic Kingdom of Landover series by Terry Brooks

Start with: Magic Kingdom for Sale – SOLD!

Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card

Start with: Ender’s Game

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper

Start with: Over Sea, Under Stone
(But you might want to start with the second book The Dark Is Rising instead and then go back)

Bored of the Rings by Harvard Lampoon

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey

Start with: Dragonflight, or Dragonsinger works too

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Lots of stuff by Cristopher Moore

Start with: Island of the Sequined Love Nun or any other book

He, She, and It by Marge Piercey

Lots of stuff by Tom Robbins

Start with: Another Roadside Attraction or any other book

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, etc.

Start with: Chronicles, Book 1: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

As Mentioned in Episode 292 – Weekend at Sinister’s

April 19, 2020 Jay Leave a comment

Listen to the podcast here.

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

It still really, really looks like the cover of a Star Trek novel to me. (Factor X #1)

Wow, Alex, you’re the worst. Second-worst, after Gabriel, but he doesn’t exist in this universe; so, yeah, you’re the worst. (Factor X #1)

Meanwhile, in Sinister’s secret hideout IN THE HEAD OF THE BIG APOCALYPSE STATUE… (Factor X #1)

Damnit, Sam! You’re better than this! (Factor X #1)

The Bedlam Brothers are way too wholesome to be working for Apocalypse. (Factor X #1)

HOLY SHIT SOMEONE REMEMBERS MELTDOWN (Factor X #1)

That costume. =( (Factor X #2)

See, this is why you’re never going to be Sinister’s favorite. This, and your DNA. (Factor X #2)

Every time, Alex. Every time. (Factor X #2)

If only he hadn’t learned dramatic reveals so well from Sinister, he might never have been found out. (Factor X #2)

It’s like the Silver Age, but different. (Factor X #3)

Ew, but also kind of cool. (Factor X #3)

Aw, Rahne. (Factor X #3)

‘Kay. (Factor X #3)

In Scott’s dubious defense, that’s also just a really poorly thought-out test. (Factor X #3)

Damnit, why’d you have to go and pull on my X-Men #137 heartstrings? (Factor X #3)

This will definitely end well. (Factor X #4)

In case you were wondering whether Alex is still horrible this issue: yes. (Factor X #4)

I KNEW IT! I KNEW THEY WERE TOO GOOD FOR THIS LIFE! (Factor X #4)

DON’T TALK TO ME OR MY BAR EVER AGAIN (Factor X #4)

If only they’d gotten to eat him. (Factor X #4)

NEXT EPISODE: Children are our future!

LINKS & FURTHER VIRTUES

YOU CAN BID ON OUR #CREATORS4COMICS AUCTIONS UNTIL MONDAY, APRIL 20, AT NOON EST:
- A custom voicemail greeting from Jay and Miles!
- A private (remote) screening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Jay–at an intoxication level of your choice–along with a custom cocktail recipe, a very tasteful poster, and–goal just unlocked–Jay’s mother-in-law, a retired school principal who has never seen the film!
Learn more about the original Scarlett McKenzie in Episode 114 – Meltdown.

292 – Weekend at Sinister’s

April 19, 2020 Jay 14 comments

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In which it is probably not actually possible to be too nasty for Earth-295; Sinister is on nobody’s side but his own; Vulcan is still the worst Summers in the multiverse; the Bedlam Brothers are too delightful for the EMF; Heaven is just straight-up Rick’s Bar now; Polaris of Earth-295 is the saddest Polaris; Scott Summers and Jean Grey make a good team in most universes; and the metaphors of 1995 read very differently in 2020.

X-PLAINED:

Nathaniel Essex of Earth-1610
A regrettable tattoo
#Creators4Comics
Scott Summers (Cyclops) of Earth-295
Alex Summers (Havok) of Earth-295
Factor X #1-4
Working for the Man
Costume design as narrative
The EMF (Elite Mutant Force)
Northstar and Aurora of Earth-295
Sam and Elizabeth Guthrie (Cannonball and Amazon) of Earth-295
Jesse and Terrence Aaronson (Bedlam Brothers) of Earth-295
Heaven (the bar)
Scarlett McKenzie of Earth-295
Someone who is not Magneto
The Brain Trust
Lorna Dane (Polaris) of Earth-295
An obscene monument
Innuendo of several sorts
That time Jean Grey got captured
Resistance of various sorts
Poetic almost-kinda justice
One more fallen angel
Villains of the Age of Apocalypse

NEXT EPISODE: Generation Next!

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 291 – Eat Malarkey and Die

April 12, 2020 Jay 2 comments

Listen to the episode here.

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

Logan just straight-up has a mane in this timeline. (Weapon X #1)

Seriously, this has to be the worst mode of transportation. (Weapon X #1)

“I’ll finish you, just like I finished my disserta– ohhhh, shit.” (Weapon X #1)

NEVER NOT FUNNY. (Weapon X #1)

Is… is Logan saying that he hopes Havok gets teleported into somebody’s butt? (Weapon X #1)

Snnnnrk. (Weapon X #1)

He spends hours thinking ’em up. (Weapon X #1)

Seriously, if it weren’t for that damn pose, this page would be SO cool. (Weapon X #1)

Logan subscribes to the Dan McNinja school of tactics. (Weapon X #2)

To his credit, I’d be pretty nonplussed if this fell through my ceiling. (Weapon X #2)

The setup… (Weapon X #2)

…and the punchline. (Weapon X #2)

I see what you did, there. (Weapon X #3)

She doesn’t seem to have a sash, so I’m just going to go ahead and assume that Carol-295 just carries rhythmic gymnastic ribbons to make her leaps look more dramatic. (Weapon X #3)