Tag: callbacks
379 – Stardate: Today
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

In which what happens in space stays in space; a horse is imperiled; Joseph does some dubious science; Gladiator’s name is absolutely not Gary; everybody gets new costumes; and we learn where babies come from.
X-PLAINED:
- Shi’ar taxonomy, sort of
- The Shi’ar (again)
- The Phalanx (again)
- Uncanny X-Men #341-344
- A whole bunch of callbacks to X-Men #98
- A carriage ride
- The Z’noxx chamber (again)
- One way to have safer sex
- FAO Schwarz
- The Shi’ar Imerial Guard (again)
- Diplomacy, kind of
- Space outfits
- Trademarks
- Pure Phalanx
- Dinosaur Kingdom 2
- Where Shi’ar babies come from
- Flirting
- The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vs. Isca the Unbeaten
- Characters we would happily voice if invited to do so
NEXT WEEK: Hawk Talk
NEXT EPISODE: Generation X vs. Black Tom Cassidy!
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!
As Mentioned in Episode 326 – Son of a Gun
326 – Son of a Gun
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

In which it’s hard to be a hologram; the Internet is terrible and you should probably avoid it; we have no idea how Naze is still alive; this is not your mom’s Adversary (if your mom is Fall of the Mutants); Forge is an order muppet; and Sabretooth is not a great addition to most teams.
X-PLAINED:
- Skrulls in American history
- X-Factor’s attrition rate
- The spirit spell (again)
- The Adversary (again)
- X-Factor #119-121
- Hypercolor(TM) t-shirts
- Oblivion vs. masturbation
- Mark Trail (more) (again)
- Forge’s complicated relationship with magic
- The death of X-Factor
- Several retcons
- The resurrection of X-Factor
- (Mis)representation of indigenous cultures in X-books
- Jim Jaspers vs. the Adversary
- The spirit spell (YET AGAIN)
- The Feron of X-Factor
- Val ‘n’ Victor
- Dubious use of technology
- A red herring
- The lingering spectre of Days of Future Past
- Our tech issues
- Reasonable accommodations at the Xavier School
NEXT EPISODE: Cable vs. X-Force
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
Listen to the podcast here.



321 – Revolving Doors
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

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 282 – The Tide Takes the Castle
Listen to the podcast here.
LINKS & FURTHER DELIGHTS:
- When not making our endless nonsense sound good, producer Matt Hunter makes really excellent music, and you should go listen to some!
- Jay does not actually write things on hackertyper.com, but he wishes he could.
- We covered Rogue’s solo series in Episode 245 – Natural Causes.
- This is the plane Philip flew in WWII, if that’s your kind of thing.
282 – The Tide Takes the Castle
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

In which the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning should really be the setting of a stoner comedy; Garrabed Bashur’s brain is probably 90% porn by now; the tide always takes the castle; William Drake remains terrible; Adam X the X-Treme deserved better; Jay pitches a series; disability is not a boolean and exclusively medically-defined state; and we are all about some weird X-Men tie-in products.
X-PLAINED:
- Mariko Yoshida in the afterlife
- Moon Talk
- Some upcoming X-books
- X-Men #38-39
- Uncanny X-Men #319
- Many unhealthy coping mechanisms
- Sinister foreshadowing
- Fancy hair
- Commcast (Garabed Bashur)
- Hawk sex
- An exceptionally resonant callback
- Intersectional bigotry
- The domestic dynamics of the Drake household
- The remarkably poignant return of Adam X the X-Treme
- The opposite of a Jack London story
- An unlikely intergenerational frienship
- A novel use of a novel superpower
- Mutation as and intersecting with disability
- X-Men tie-in products we’d like to see
NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor fills in!
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 218 – Careful What You Lick
Listen to the episode here.
LINKS & FURTHER NONSENSE:
- Come see us at Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival!
- The delightful PDX Broadsides will also be there!
- This episode involves a LOT of references to past story arcs. Here’s where you can hear us talk about those:
- Learn about one of the less obvious reasons not to masturbate with cacti in Episode 78 – The Eye Killers and Other Cautionary Tales.
- You can hear about the beginning of X-Men vol. 2 in Episode 178 – Giant-Size Special #6.
- We covered God Loves, Man Kills in Giant-Size Special #1.
- You can see Miles’s childhood X-Men drawings in Jay & Miles Made a Zine About the X-Men, now available on Gumroad!
218 – Careful What You Lick
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS

In which X-Cutioner’s Song may be over, but its repercussions continue; Uncanny X-Men hits a major milestone; superhero comics are and always have been political; Bishop learns to banter; the X-Men gain an unlikely ally; and Magneto remains exceptionally difficult to kill.
X-PLAINED:
- Jay & Miles at VVCBF
- Uncanny X-Men #298-300
- The Acolytes (more) (again)
- The Upstarts (more) (again)
- Several important lessons
- A very fancy room
- A very fancy brain
- The unpleasant fate of Sharon Friedlander
- The all-new, all-different Acolytes
- Carmella Unuscione
- The return of one of our favorite antagonists
- A sick burn
- The fate of Asteroid M
- Molting
- A debate
- Graydon Creed (more) (again)
- The tentative redemption of Robert Kelly
- How to lose a debate with Joe Biden
- A large number of prescient political references
- Friends of Humanity
- How to engage with a fascist in a televised debate
- Noah DuBois
- Fatale
- A generic rural mob
- Milan
- A narratively convenient superpower
- Amelia Voght
- Seamus Mellencamp
- Neophyte
- The gospel of Magneto
- A joyous reunion
- The helmet that wouldn’t die
- Ponytail ethics
- Timelust
- Several accents
- The current state of Rogue’s powers
NEXT EPISODE: All Emma All Episode (feat. Seanan McGuire, Leah Williams, and more)!
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!
We’re in the process of migrating our official shop to TeePublic! Click over to check it out! (You can still find the designs we haven’t moved yet at Redbubble.)