Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: alex summers

72 – Thrown Under the Plot Bus

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Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 9/6/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints and cards available until 9/6/2015 at the shop, or contact David to purchase the original.

 

In which Dazzler is not a team player; Longshot is the Zonker Harris of the X-Men; Juggernaut is That Guy; Rachel and Miles channel Statler and Waldorf; and Alex Summers is seriously never, ever going to finish grad school.

X-PLAINED:

  • Mutant X
  • The only well-adjusted Scott Summers in the Multiverse
  • The Goblin Entity
  • Uncanny X-Men #217-219
  • The evolution of the X-Men’s lineup
  • Standards for a good twist
  • Doonesbury
  • Several Dungeons & Dragons analogies
  • A dubious literary allusion
  • Flying jeeps
  • CrimeBros
  • The fundamental tragedy of Longshot
  • Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and several homages thereto
  • Geordie and Rupert
  • Havok (more) (again)
  • Car-wreck sex
  • An unfortunate end to a camping trip
  • The Plot Bus
  • Several ways to stat Rogue up as a D&D character
  • Narrative-friendly power sets

Special thanks to:

  • The wonderful Adam Warrock, for letting us sample his song “Teamwork” in this episode! You can listen to the full track here, and find more of Adam’s work at adamwarrock.com.
  • Harrison Barber for his X-Pert D&D advice (not to mention nearly fifteen years of tolerating our nonsense at the gaming table)!

NEXT WEEK: X-Men: Evolution with Robert N. Skir!

You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Rachel 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 prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!

As Mentioned in Episode 17 – The Island of Dr. Corbeau

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Listen to the episode here!

Is there a friendship equivalent to “we ‘ship it”? Because, that. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
And you think it’s a pain when your parents visit. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
Corsair, X-Plained. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
Cyclops: Not all that quick on the uptake. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
Remember when this happened and it was hilarious? (Uncanny X-Men #114)
Get used to it, kid. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
Roy and Phil are the new Harvey and Janet. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
That’s… pretty valid, actually. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
Corsair does a lot of X-Plaining this issue. (Uncanny X-Men #154)
In Cyclops’s defense, he did, in fact, have the worst childhood ever. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
This is basically how the Shi’ar say Hello. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
Never change, Kitty Pryde. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
The lady in the fuchsia coat is hardcore judging you, Corsair. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
The Brood’s arsenal includes a super rad op-art ray. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
‘Kay, then. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
Wolveine is hella into fighting with the Brood, which is good, because he’s gonna be doing a lot of that a couple arcs from now. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
Spoiler: He’s gonna be okay. (Uncanny X-Men #155)
REMEMBER THESE BADASSES? They’re back. And we love them. (Uncanny X-Men #156)
We weren’t kidding when we said Phil and Roy were the new Harvey and Janet. (Uncanny X-Men #156)
THE STARJAMMERS ARE SO RAD THAT WE CAN ONLY TALK ABOUT THEM IN ALL CAPS. (Uncanny X-Men #156)
Hepzibah demonstrates the proper way to interrupt a dramatic moment. P.S. REMEMBER WHEN WE SAID THE STARJAMMERS ARE FUCKING DELIGHTFUL? THE STARJAMMERS ARE FUCKING DELIGHTFUL, YOU GUYS. (Uncanny X-Men #156)
The Brood are dicks, man. (Uncanny X-Men #156)
It’s okay. He’ll be back. (Uncanny X-Men #157)
Yeah, we’re not sure what’s going on in that first outfit, either. (Uncanny X-Men #157)
Uncanny X-Men #157, in which Kitty Pryde saves the world with costumes. Like, seriously.
And then, for no apparent reason, she changes into a Peter Pan outfit. You do you, Kitty. You do you. (Uncanny X-Men #157)
Meanwhile, in Avengers Annual #10, it’s raining Marvels.
Fun fact: Jessica Drew is long-time buds with the X-Men. (Avengers Annual #10)
Well, that explains it. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
Rogue’s default villain M.O. was really, really creepy. (Avengers Annual #10)
REMEMBER HOW THAT HAPPENED AND NONE OF THE AVENGERS SAW ANY PROBLEM WITH IT? (Avengers Annual #10)
You know the runs that gymnasts do as the lead-up to really spectacular tumbling passes? This is Chris Claremont’s equivalent, only instead of doing a bunch of flips, he is going to call out some of the most bullshit writing of the previous year. (Avengers Annual #10)
STANDING. FUCKING. OVATION. That said, it’s pretty depressing that this came out in 1981 and still reads as a lot more progressive than the handling of sexual violence in a lot of current comics. (Avengers Annual #10)
The return of Dr. Peter Corbeau. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
I WONDER IF THIS WILL BECOME RELEVANT LATER. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
Senator Kelly: Still a jerk. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
“Hey, Alex, you know how all you wanted was a normal life? Yeah, I just dropped by to tell you our dad’s been alive for the last twenty years. And he’s a space pirate. And your hat looks stupid.” (Uncanny X-Men #158)
Object lesson: Everyone is Mystique. Everyone is always Mystique. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
Can we talk for a sec about Rogue’s superlative villainface game? (Uncanny X-Men #158)
CAROL MOTHERFUCKING DANVERS. (Uncanny X-Men #158)
Next week is going to be SO AWESOME.

Links and additional reading:

17 – The Island of Dr. Corbeau

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In which we make our Comics Alliance debut, Cyclops makes a startling discovery, Carol Danvers joins the team (sort of), Chris Claremont calls out some bullshit, Havok still has terrible taste in hats, and Peter Corbeau gets his own theme music

Content note: In this episode, we spend a lot of time talking about a rape that occurs in a previous Avengers arc, the community and narrative response thereto, and the larger landscape and ethics of portrayals of sexual violence in superhero comics.

X-Plained

  • Mystique’s mercurial alliances
  • Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
  • Uncanny X-Men #154-158
  • Avengers Annual #10
  • Bollywood Starjammers
  • The dread Psi-Scream
  • Shi’ar Fashion Technology
  • Dr. Peter Corbeau (more) (again)
  • Rogue
  • Carol Danvers
  • The Whole Marcus Thing
  • Chris Claremont vs. rape culture
  • Computers
  • Gender politics of the Dark Phoenix Saga

Next week: Dracula!

Clarification, since we neglected to specify in the episode: Avengers #200 was written by James Shooter, George Pérez, Bob Layton, and David Michelinie; Avengers Annual #10 was written by Chris Claremont.

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Support us on Patreon!

As Mentioned in Episode 14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

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Listen to the podcast here!

Oh, hey, it’s another cover people will be riffing on until the end of time! They were flying fast and furious in these days. (X-Men #139)
This happens to us pretty regularly with college friends. (X-Men #139)
Shoulda listened to the Leprechauns, Kurt. (X-Men #139)
This isn’t plot-relevant, We just think Nightcrawler’s Scooby Doo moment is great. (X-Men #139)
The beginning of the end of Byrne on X-Men. (X-Men #140)
Storm vs. street harassment. (X-Men #140)
Storm is a somewhat possessive mama cat. (X-Men #140)
BERSERKER! (X-Men #140)
We’re really happy for you, and we’re gonna let you finish, but Daryl is the best Wendigo in comics. (B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine #4)
Wolverine reaffirming his humanity by helping other characters find theirs remains a running motif. (X-Men #140)
Canadians, weigh in. Is this a real thing? Do your laws actually account for Wendigos? (X-Men #140)
For X-Men #141 and 142, see Episode 6, “Days of Future Whatever.”
This cover accurately reflects Rachel’s feelings about Christmas. (X-Men #143)
TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH, WOLVEIRNE. (X-Men #143)
Lee “Better Enjoy This Arc Because She’ll Never Be Written Very Well Again” Forrester. (X-Men #143)
“Not an Alien homage!” (X-Men #143)
The fact that he straight-up cheats at pool is a pretty legit charming Cyclops detail. (X-Men #144)
X-Men #144 is, structurally and thematically, a Creepy story. Still can’t believe this was CCA-compliant.
Outside of a few moments of the Dark Phoenix Saga, there’s probably no scene in X-Men that’s been redrawn as much as this one (but never retconned). (X-Men #144)
[Insert joke about Man-Thing and erections here.] (X-Men #144)
Aw. (X-Men #144)
Rachel and Doctor Doom are bros.
“This is why we can’t have nice things or tenure-track positions.” (X-Men #145)
AHAHAHAHWHAT (X-Men #145)
Toadworld. Think about that for a minute. (X-Men #145)
And thus began a long tradition of supervillains falling for Storm. (X-Men #145)
Well, that’ll end well. (X-Men #145)
Arcade! (X-Men #146)
Doom and Arcade have some fundamental differences over the proper execution of deathtraps. (X-Men #146)
Angel, you had ONE JOB. (X-Men #146)
Storm’s secondary mutation is weaponized claustrophobia. (X-Men #146)
Seriously. Don’t piss off Storm. (X-Men #146)
Fuckin’ Murderworld, man. (X-Men #146)
She is, of course, a robot, because if there’s anything Arcade and Doom can bond over, it’s their mutual love of making robot duplicates of EVERYONE THEY HAVE EVER MET. (X-Men #146)
But not that Rogue. (X-Men #147)
Recap! (X-Men #147)
You can tell it’s bad news because she’s got special balloon borders. (X-Men #147)
Aw. (X-Men #147)
I like to imagine that both of them have, in fact, had worse first dates. (X-Men #147)
YAYBO! New stuff! Go buy some!

Links and Further Reading:

YAYBO! WE’RE ON TWITTER!

The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage

Savage Wolverine #21

All Those Signature Moves We Listed Off (We’ll Do a Visual Directory Eventually, We Promise):

FASTBALL SPECIAL VARIATIONS:

  • Fastball Special: Colossus throws Wolveine at something.
  • Phaseball Special*: Someone throws Kitty through robots

OTHER MOVES:

  • The Most Comics-Code-Adherent at What He Does*:  The thing where Wolverine has his claws out during a fight but doesn’t cut anyone.
  • Cue-ball Special*: The thing where Cyclops takes out like six bad guys with ricochets from one optic blast.
  • Slippery Slope*: The thing where Iceman tries to be awesome and ends up beating up his teammates by accident.
  • Blue-Plate Special Special*: The thing where an X-man uses their powers to prepare lunch.
  • The thing where Kitty wrecks everything by accident phasing through it.
  • The thing where everyone switches opponents mid-fight, and that’s what turns the tide.
  • The thing where Nightcrawler is awfully dashing about beating people up.
  • The thing where Storm’s claustrophobia saves the day.
  • The thing where Angel just dodges shit for like an hour instead of participating in the fight.
  • The thing where Xavier fakes his own death.
  • The thing where Cypher and/or Kitty and/or Illyana and/or Wolverine do the “Ain’t I a stinker?” thing from the control booth of the Danger Room.
  • The thing where Cyclops uses his optic blasts to slow or stop inertia or a fall.
  • The thing where Storm has no powers and STILL kicks someone’s ass into next week.
  • The thing where Colossus and Wolverine throw themselves at Magneto every goddamn time despite being made of metal.

*We made these names up. They are not official canon, but we live in hope.

14 – Look Upon My Man-Thing and D’Spayre

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In which Canada is complicated, the X-Perts join Twitter, Rachel cares about a Wolverine story, Angel had one job, Kitty Pryde is pretty cool, Cyclops gets a hat, neither of us knows how to pronounce “Aleytys,” Doctor Doom is a terrible date, and the X-Men have an awful lot of signature moves.

X-Plained:

  • Department H
  • Department K
  • Director X
  • The Weapon Plus Program
  • Weapon P.R.I.M.E.
  • Weapons I-XVI
  • The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage
  • The new normal
  • Stevie Hunter
  • The Wendigo
  • Berserker rage
  • Yard work
  • Wolverines
  • Angel’s one move
  • The N’Garai (again)
  • Lee Forrester
  • D’Spayre
  • Magic-Feather villains
  • Man-Thing
  • Doctor Doom
  • Arcade
  • Why it sucks to be Havok
  • The X-Perts’ relative areas of X-pertise
  • Cyclops vs. Storm
  • Signature moves

CORRECTIONS: Lee’s dad’s house is in Florida, not Louisiana; Doctor Doom is not in Europe but in New England, where has taken over Toad’s theme park, because that was definitely a thing.

If you’re looking for our coverage of X-Men 141 and 142—”Days of Future Past”—you can find that in Episode 6, “Days of Future Whatever.”

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

Summers School: Gabriel 101

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On Episode 5 – The Retcon that Walks Like a Man, we met Gabriel Summers, and did a very quick drive-by introduction to the Summers family and their really depressing space adventures. Because this shit is complicated, Rachel,* the resident Summers Family Continuity expert, has put together a brief visual guide to Gabriel’s backstory. Click through for the origin of the third and worst Summers Brother:

Meet Scott and Alex Summers! They’re brothers. Their parents have just pushed them out of a burning airplane. Scott and Alex are going to crash in a minute and then have awful childhoods, but all you really need to know for now is that they’re going to become X-Men when they grow up.
Meet Mister Sinister! He’s a creepy, creepy man who knows even more about the Summers family than Rachel does (and that’s a lot). In 1993, Mister Sinister let slip that Scott and Alex might have a third brother, and for over a decade, pretty much every orphan in the Marvel Universe had “probably a Summers brother” stuck on to the end of their official bio.
But in 2005, X-Men: Deadly Genesis came around. Deadly Genesis was a straight-up retcon of 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1. It also—finally—resolved the question of the third Summers brother.
Meet Christopher and Katherine Summers! They’re Scott and Alex’s parents. They’ve just thrown Scott and Alex out of a burning airplane, then gotten abducted by aliens. This part of the story has been X-canon since the ’70s—but what Deadly Genesis reveals is that Katherine is pregnant. Christopher gets sent off to the slave pens, and Katherine ends up a Comics Code-compliant-analogue-to-concubine of the evil space emperor. Christopher breaks out and tries to free her, but he’s caught, and Katherine—and apparently her now-nearly-to-term fetus—are killed. (Christopher later becomes a space pirate named Corsair, which is awesome but irrelevant to this particular story.)
Meet Fetus Summers, who turns out to be viable after all! He gets rapid-aged by means of Fancy Space Science, named Gabriel, and sent to be a slave of the Shi’ar’s representative on Earth. Later, his powers manifest and he kills the only person who was ever nice to him, then escapes into the sewers with nothing but his favorite book of Roman myths and a case of dramatically expedient amnesia.
Gabriel gets picked up by Dr. Moira MacTaggert—Professor X’s ex—and becomes one of her group of teen mutants in training, under the code name Kid Vulcan. X consults—and, in the process, pieces together Gabriel’s history but doesn’t tell anyone, in keeping with a long tradition of lying to Scott about the existence of his living relatives. Professor X is a dick.
To confirm his theory, X brings Scott out to train with Gabriel for a day—but still doesn’t tell either of them that they might be brothers. (Gabriel’s powers, incidentally, have to do with energy manipulation and redirection, which his how he can do that with Scott’s eye beams.)
When the X-Men are all captured on Krakoa (the Island That Walks Like a Man!), X convinces Moira’s kids to go rescue them. Immediately before they leave, he tells Gabriel that Scott and Alex are his brothers. The new kids rescue Scott, and Gabriel tells him that they’re brothers. Scott’s super beat up and his powers are broken, so the new kids leave him and go to rescue the rest of the captive X-Men—but instead, they all get killed.
Scott returns to the X-mansion, understandably distraught. X decides the most expedient course of action is to totally wipe Gabriel out of Scott’s memory. Did I mention that Professor X is a dick? Professor X is a dick. When the new X-Men return to Krakoa to rescue the original team, he continues to mess with their perceptions to support this version of events.
What X doesn’t know is that Gabriel and his teammate Darwin are actually still alive, so when the X-Men launch Krakoa into orbit, Gabriel and Darwin go with it. They get stuck in stasis for years, in space. OOPS.
Later, Gabriel wakes up pissed, comes back to earth, kills Banshee, kidnaps Scott and Scott’s alternate-timeline-future-daughter (I know, I know. Just run with it.), and forces Professor X to show them what actually happened. Darwin—still in stasis inside Gabriel—is extracted and revived, Gabriel flies off to fight an evil space empire, and absolutely no one lives happily ever after. X-Men!

*Edidin, not Summers or Grey.

As Mentioned on Episode 5 – The Retcon That Walks Like a Man

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Listen to the podcast here!

 

Giant-Size X-Men #1. Prepare for forty years of riffs on this cover.
The best-dressed mob in Germany.
And THAT’S how you punch a tractor.
“Oh, y’know. Fight crime, see the world, get your memory rewritten every few weeks, maybe go on a really fucked up date with Dracula…”
When Xavier finds him, Thunderbird is literally wrestling a buffalo to death.
Sunfire’s first appearance, in X-Men #64.
Most of the New & Different X-Men get a full page or two to join the team. Banshee? Two panels. He’s just that chill.
“Think you can just walk away, Wolverine? We’ll come after you with our deadliest weapon yet: Alpha Flight crossovers!”
Wow. You… certainly made some choices there, Professor.
Sunfire is absolutely delightful.
At this point, I’m pretty sure he’s just messing with them for fun.
This is the second of three times Sunfire calls Nightcrawler “Misfit” on one page–which is actually a pretty welcome break from the X-Men referring to each other exclusively by ethnic epithets. Len Wein, DON’T DO THAT.
This jerk.
This is pretty much the platonic ideal of an X-Men fight scene: teamwork, cool powers, and narration busting Kool-Aid-Man-style through the fourth wall.
Fun fact: Polaris will later go on to get an advanced degree in geophysics.
“You know… stuff?”
We see what you did, there.
Moira MacTaggert has opinions about retcons.
Introducing: The Worst Summers Brother
“Hey, kids, want to be superheroes?”
It’s worth noting that Moira’s team’s emergency psychic training regimen includes a Hostess Fruit Pie ad callback.
They are so doomed.
It’s almost like you live with a telepath who messes with people’s memories all the time.
Wait, what? But that’s not how it…
…oh. That explains some things.
Damn, X. That’s cold.
Professor X: Master of the retcon, worst surrogate parent ever.
Sorry ’bout that, guys.
Then Gabriel goes and punches an empire to death.

Further Reading:

Rachel made a separate guide to Kid Vulcan, which you can find here.

Giant Size X-Men #1

X-Men: Deadly Genesis

Cheryl Lynn Eaton on Storm and race

 

5 – The Retcon That Walks Like a Man

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In which the Bronze Age begins; Dave Cockrum is your god now; the band gets together; Sunfire joins the team; cultural sensitivity is not Marvel’s strong suit; Sunfire quits the team; it sucks to be Cyclops; Professor X crosses a moral event horizon; Sunfire joins the team; Ed Brubaker channels Thomas Hardy; you are probably a Summers brother; and Sunfire quits the team.

X-Plained:

  • Bamf-Voltron Nightcrawler
  • Giant-Size X-Men #1
  • The worst hat of the Marvel Universe
  • The Mostly-New, Mostly-Different X-Men
  • A business-casual angry mob
  • The limits of creative good intentions
  • Tractor punching on the Ust-Ordynski Collective
  • The correct spelling of “fine”
  • Canada
  • Sunfire’s utter disdain for everything, including you
  • Krakoa: The Island That Walks Like a Man!
  • Characteristics of good X-fights
  • Yet another miracle of magnetism
  • X-Men: Deadly Genesis
  • Summers Family Continuity (Introductory)
  • More hats
  • The Muir-MacTaggert Research Facility
  • Summers Family Continuity (Intermediate)
  • The Charles Xavier Scale of Supervillainy
  • Relative immunity
  • Wolverine’s ubiquity

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION:

  • What would you do with thirteen X-Men?
  • Help us find all-ages-friendly Marvel Girl stories!

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!