Listener Josh Daniel sent us a drawing of Xavier having a J. Walter Weatherman moment (although given Xavier’s history, it’s a lesson he could probably stand to learn as well)!
Tag: charles xavier
As Mentioned in Episode 15 – The Ballad of Harvey and Janet
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Angelica of the D’Urbervilles.
Starting July 31, new episodes of Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men will be available every Thursday at Comics Alliance! We’ll also continue to release them every Sunday–along with the visual companion–at our site, as well as iTunes, and Stitcher, ; but if you want to be the first kid on the block to hear ’em, head to ComicsAlliance.com on Thursdays!
Meanwhile, want to help support the podcast–and get additional content and cool swag? Please take a minute to check out our Patreon campaign! We’ve got some very cool rewards, but the best part–we think–are the Milestone goals, which are sort of like the X-Men team-up moves of Patreon: giant-size annuals, written posts, original art, a print zine, and more!
“What wardrobe?” “My point exactly.” (X-Men #148)
Lee Forrester: The Best Ever. (X-Men #148)
Good luck with that, buddy. (X-Men #148)
“No, but you’ll be a sorcerer with your own Hell dimension! Won’t that be nice?” (X-Men #148)
Hi, Siryn! (X-Men #148)
Caliban and the Morlocks: Introducing the concept of passing privilege to the mutant metaphor. (X-Men #148)
last-page-of-the-issue Magneto reveals are the gift that keeps on giving. (X-Men #148)
Professor Xavier, doing our job for us. (X-Men #149)
KITTY PRYDE, YOU ARE DELIGHTFUL. (X-Men #149)
Prydeslaught, by Logan Bonner: Professor X’s unchecked rage, plus the id of a 13-year-old Kitty Pryde. We dearly wish this were canon.
Let us never speak of this again. (X-Men #149)
Still kinda bummed we didn’t make more Ann Veal jokes about this guy. “Who?” (X-Men #149)
Even his villain speech is kinda forgettable, but we will take literally any excuse to post more pictures of Kitty’s amazing outfit, so. (X-Men #149)
Phaseball Special! (X-Men #149)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA(X-Men #149)
We appreciate how obviously Lee is trying not to laugh in this panel. (X-Men #149)
There’s… a lot going on on that cover. (X-Men #150)
Magneto’s dastardly plan is basically peaceful nuclear disarmament. (X-Men #150)
Dr. Peter Corbeau: That one NPC your DM clearly rolled up as a PC in another campaign but never got to play so instead rolled into his campaign as an overcompetent badass. (X-Men #150)
The Voyage of the Mimi was an educational show, featuring a very young Ben Affleck and an ungodly earworm of a theme song. We both watched a lot of it in middle school science classes.
Wolverine with wet hair. You’re welcome. (X-Men #150)
“Also, man, he’s got killer abs.” (X-Men #150)
If there were an X-Men drinking game, “Dark City-style brain-ray psychic duel” would definitely be on the list. (X-Men #150)
Magneto: Now available with nuance and additional backstory! (Asteroid base sold separately.) (X-Men #150)
Having taken over Storm’s body, Emma Frost celebrates by, um, quoting King Lear. (X-Men #151)
HARVEY AND JANET, WE LOVE YOU. (X-Men #151)
This week in Scenes Only Chris Claremont Could Have Written: A giant robot busting through a ceiling and telling the shocked people inside, “Fear not! All will be revealed in due course!” (X-Men #151)
HARVEY AND JANET FOREVER! (X-Men #151)
Note the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends ad at the top! (X-Men #152)
Wolverine has a progressive attitude about transhumanism. (X-Men #152)
Well done, Wolverine. (X-Men #152)
How X-Men #137 could net you $2500. (Thanks to Carl Horn for finding this for us!)
15 – The Ballad of Harvey and Janet
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In which we announce exciting new developments, the ASPCA should probably have a word with Emma Frost, Kitty Pryde gets a new costume, Lee Forrester is still the best, Cyclops has an octopus on his chest, Magneto has a change of heart, and Wolverine embraces transhumanism.
X-Plained:
- The Thomas Hardy novel of superhero comics
- Friendship
- X-Men #148-152
- Unstable Denim
- Disco Dinner Clubs
- Caliban (a little)
- Kitty Pryde’s amazing fashion sense
- Garokk the Unremarkable
- Atlantean couture
- Why Magneto is Interesting
- The Massachusetts Academy
- The Persona Exchange Gun
- Harvey and Janet
- How to win $2500 in 1980
- Editorial Outsourcing
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 13 – Last Stand on the Moon
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
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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.
As Mentioned in Episode 12 – Inner Circle Jerk
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
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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
- 18th 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
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!
6 – Days of Future Whatever
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In which we more or less prepare you for the upcoming feature film; Rachel Summers is a black hole of continuity; Kitty Pryde breaks the Danger Room; Earth 200500 is clearly the best earth; even the X-Men have no idea what’s going on; First Class Emma Frost is so boring that we forget she exists; wolverines are definitely not wolves; and you can have Rachel’s Community references when you pry them from her cold, dead hands.
X-Plained:
- Rachel Summers
- “Days of Future Past”
- Gravestone engraving standards of 2013
- The Mostly-New, Mostly-Different Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
- Another unfortunate hat
- Causality in the Marvel Multiverse
- Earths 811, 1191, 295, 311, and 200500
- Hall monitors with laser rifles
- How to fix a broken timeline
- The X-Men cinematic universe, and points of divergence from the comics
- The one thing X-Men: The Last Stand does right
- The Xavier Index of Cinematic Continuity
- The difference between Canis lupus and Gulo gulo
- A Days of Future Past cinematic cram course
- Fix-it fic
- Blink, Bishop, and dark-future mash-ups
- The enduring appeal of Earth-811
- The significantly less enduring appeal of Earth-242
- The Nazi Excalibur of Earth-597
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: Greg Rucka, Cyclops, and Starjammers!
Summers School: Gabriel 101
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.