Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

40 – Give Them Something to Punch (With G. Willow Wilson)

Art by David Wynne. Prints and travel mugs available until 1/11/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.
Art by David Wynne. Prints available until 1/25/2015 in the shop, or contact David for the original.

In which writer G. Willow Wilson joins us to talk about her new run on X-Men; the Future is really confusing; we consider the many iterations of Rachel Grey; Storm probably has strong feelings about climate change; and writing for a shared universe takes some seriously fancy footwork.

X-Plained:

  • Jubilee
  • Shogo (a little)
  • The future vs. the Future
  • X-Men vols. 1-4
  • The logistics of stepping into a book mid-series
  • Pigeonholing and “girl” books
  • The proper pronunciation of Kamala
  • Storm (again)
  • Psylocke
  • M
  • Rachel Grey (again)
  • Cross-title coordination
  • Writing in a shared universe
  • Super-powered ecology
  • The gender politics of telepathy
  • Writing and dialogue across media
  • Marginalization, intersectionality, and the mutant metaphor

Next Week: Pink robots from the future!


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

Halloween X

We’ve been talking up the Stealth/Plainclothes cosplay contest a lot lately (reminder: deadline is Friday, November 7!), but right in the middle of that came Halloween–and our listeners turned out in some stellar X-wear. Check it out:

The All-New, All-Different, All-Unofficial Kitty’s Kostume Korner!

Last week, we challenged you to help us revive that awesome ’80s celebration of Kitty Pryde’s Spectacular Revolving Wardrobe, Kitty’s Kostume Korner! Much as we love the classic yellow-and-black she’s been sporting for the last decade-plus, we remember when Kitty reinvented her costume twice an issue–and you sent us some great revamps in that tradition. Click through for the full lineup!

An additional note regarding fan art, costume design, and sourcing: There’s one image we didn’t run, because it was done directly on unsourced art by another artist. We totally get that sometimes that’s the simplest way to do a design, and the person who submitted it was in no way attempting to claim the original art or plagiarize–but if you’re submitting a piece like that, the source needs to be noted and visible in the image–and, ideally, used with the permission of the original artist–for us to run it on this blog, i.e. “Recolored from [artist] design” or “drawn over art by [artist].”

If–like us–you’re someone whose costume design aspirations outpace your drawing skills, we also recommend resources like Hero Factory (again, we recommend citing ’em if you’re using ’em, as Rick did above).

2 – Sentinels in the Mist

In which we introduce the villains of the Silver Age: Magneto makes some valid points, Mastermind is a Nice Guy of OkCupid, the Scarlet Witch predicts Cat Breading, the Trasks should really have known better, and the Comics Code Authority is down with pterosaurs.

X-Plained:

  • Common characteristics of enduring X-villains
  • Mutant identity politics and moral relativism
  • Context-agnostic Juggernaut flashbacks
  • An unorthodox approach to anthropology
  • Cyclops’s greatest diplomatic achievement
  • Silver-Age haberdashery
  • An innovative modification to vampire mythology
  • Cultural assimilation
  • The propaganda-and-sweater-vest machine
  • Hex bolts
  • Supplemental reading

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!

1 – The Strangest Podcast of Them All

In which we begin at the beginning: everything clicks with #3, Professor Xavier is a jerk, Magneto is a fearless fashionista, Cyclops gets a name, Jean Grey has a chronic case of the Silver Age, and allegorical diversity is not enough.

X-Plained:

  • Mutant genetics and taxonomy
  • Practical semantics of “X-Men”
  • Charles Xavier’s equally dubious ethics and decorating choices
  • Superhero couture of the Atomic Age
  • Why Cyclops can’t control his powers
  • The miracle of comic-book magnetism
  • A problematic analogy
  • X-books for beginners
  • Snow grenades
  • The word “yaybo”
  • The mystery of the ubiquitous plaid suit

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

Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!