Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

As Mentioned in Episode 251 – Triple Word Score

Listen to the podcast here.


Here’s Ben Martin on the Legacy Virus as an AIDS allegory:

I wanted to get a deeper take on the Legacy Virus as an analogy for AIDS. As you’ve mentioned more than once on the pod, it’s clear that’s what the writers had in mind, but I feel it misses the mark in a couple of important ways over the life of the story element.

My first issue with the analogy is that the big stigma about AIDS in the early days was that it only affected gay men, when in fact that was not the case. I was born with a genetic blood disorder called hemophilia, and many of the kids and staff from the hemophilia summer camp I attended as a teenager in the 1990s contracted HIV from contaminated blood products used for treatment. While I was fortunate to avoid the contaminated products, many I grew up with did not, as half of all people with hemophilia in the U.S., including 90% of those with severe hemophilia, contracted HIV. You may remember Ryan White, who did a lot of public outreach about HIV and AIDS after contracting it through treatment for his hemophilia. With the exception of Moira MacTaggart, the Legacy Virus only targeted mutants, meaning it missed the mark on the way AIDS was incorrectly and maliciously used as a propaganda weapon against homosexuals, when in fact it was something that could affect anyone who contracted it. Leaving out that aspect is a disservice to the wide range of people affected by HIV and AIDS in my view. I would have loved to see a human villain use the Legacy Virus to stir up hatred, only to find out they contracted it themselves. Maybe that’s what they tried to do with Moira, but I recall either Beast or Xavier saying it’s likely she only contracted it through prolonged exposure to it while studying it.

My second issue is that, through the magic of comic book science, the Legacy Virus was altogether wiped out (with the exception of a few samples in test tubes that popped up in an X-Force run as far as I know). My friends who are still living with HIV and AIDS today do so with a decreased quality of life and tons of medication. They are, fortunately, alive, but their lives are not what they were before. That’s a smaller nitpick, but I personally think it would have been really interesting to see characters contract the virus, receive the cure, but still be living with some consequences of the disease in some way, whether it be a change to their mutant powers or just poor health in general or something like that.

On a side note, if you can find it, there’s a fantastic 2010 documentary called “Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale” currently available on Amazon Prime that explores the impact of HIV on the hemophilia community. It’s very powerful and is an important story.


LINKS & FURTHER THEORIES

251 – Triple Word Score

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

In which Jay proposes a new way of comparing superheroes; Beast faces an ethical dilemma; Mister Sinister has an Xavier moment; Sabretooth is a terrible houseguest; Cyclops totally gets what you see in Wolverine; Psylocke would absolutely be into hunting humans for sport; Sage probably vapes; rich people are definitely not like us; Shinobi Shaw is his own best friend; and Classic X-Men backup stories are canonical as hell.

X-PLAINED:

  • Blue Team vs. Gold Team
  • X-Men #27-29
  • Threnody
  • The fate of Infectia
  • One of Mister Sinister’s favorite aliases
  • Dr. Gordon Lefferts
  • Several complicated choices
  • A very frustrating cover
  • A secret meeting
  • The dubious evolution of Charles Xavier
  • Communication
  • An invitation
  • A sick burn
  • Rich people
  • The key to happiness
  • The theoretical adventures of Honey Badger and Princess Powerful

NEXT EPISODE: Val Cooper joins a cult!


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As Mentioned in Episode 218 – Careful What You Lick

Listen to the episode here.



LINKS & FURTHER NONSENSE:

 

218 – Careful What You Lick

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

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.)

As Mentioned in Episode 161 – Do You Even Howl, Bro?

Listen to the podcast here.



LINKS & FURTHER READING:

161 – Do You Even Howl, Bro?

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

In which we return to Excalibur, and Excalibur returns to form; “Girls’ School from Heck” is way better than we remembered; Jay has strong feelings about penmanship; we examine the semantics of field hockey; the band gets back together; Dai Thomas has no time for your comic-book bullshit; and you should never, ever install a good/evil switch in your technological abominations.

X-PLAINED

  • The first appearances of Colonel Vazhin
  • Perks of home recording
  • FlameCon 2017
  • Jay & Miles at Rose City Comic Con
  • Excalibur #32-36
  • “Girls’ School from Heck!”
  • St. Searle’s School for Young Ladies
  • St. Trinian’s and a large number of references thereto
  • Regional variations in boarding school hijinks
  • Miss Rutherford
  • A poorly staged panel
  • Phoebe Huntsman
  • Kitty Pryde’s penmanship
  • Margaret Thatcher’s weirdly wholesome fantasies
  • The kinda-reformation of Mesmero
  • The end of Chris Claremont’s run on Excalibur
  • Some complicated contradictions related to the ethics of consumption
  • An abduction
  • The ethics of psychic interrogation (kinda)
  • Mariner disambiguation
  • A rescue
  • An unlikely partnership
  • Darkmoor Research Center
  • Dr. Walshe
  • A somewhat convoluted plot
  • Whether the Danger Room could function as a bathroom
  • The physics of Asteroid M

NEXT EPISODE: Weapon X!


You can find 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.)

Special thanks to Gavia Baker-Whitelaw for helping us assemble the St. Searle’s marginalia!

As Mentioned in Episode 158 – No Focus, Less Direction

Listen to the podcast here.



LINKS & FURTHER LISTENING
 

158 – No Focus, Less Direction

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

 

In which we return triumphant from hiatus; it’s still always Inferno in here; no one should ever under any circumstances date Cameron Hodge; Kenneth is a fundamentally hilarious name; Magneto’s family gets retconned to death; Pterosaurs are still the absolute worst; and Magik totally deserves a sidekick.

X-PLAINED:

  • Ka-Zar’s real name
  • Shanna the She-Devil
  • Our new production set-up
  • What we did on our summer vacations
  • Previously on X-Men
  • Further limits of the mutant metaphor
  • Uncanny X-Men #273-275
  • A crisis of leadership
  • A comic that is a metaphor that is also a comic
  • Cable’s OkCupid profile
  • Changing creative dynamics on the X-line
  • Archangel’s middle name
  • Gambit vs. Wolverine
  • Censorship Steam
  • The protean X-bathroom
  • Magneto’s retconned family
  • Colonel Semyanov
  • A perhaps ill-conceived team-up
  • The Self-Styled Mistress of Magnetism
  • Some remarkably lucky timing
  • The semantics of heel turns
  • Gender and sidekicks
  • Mr. Sinister’s powers

NEXT EPISODE: The end of New Mutants!


You can find 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.)

152 – Ghosts of Future Present

Art by David Wynne. Contact David to purchase the original!

In which Franklin Richards makes everything more complicated; Reed Richards is a terrible parent; Days of Future Present is a surprisingly good ghost story; Valeria Richards is awesome (but does not appear in this crossover); everyone’s got hounds these days; Banshee is your sad cyborg dad; Phoenix has a lot of feelings; and X-Factor once again manages to up the ante for child endangerment.

X-PLAINED:

  • Nightcrawler’s brief clerical career
  • Days of Future Present
  • Annuals, in general
  • Some extraordinarily specific Namor headcanon
  • Fantastic Four Annual #23
  • New Mutants Annual #6
  • X-Factor Annual #5
  • Uncanny X-Men Annual #14
  • Franklin Richards
  • Several statuses quo
  • The reproductive potential of Doombots
  • Ms. Marvel (Sharon Ventura)
  • Ahab
  • A Code Red Time Emergency
  • One of Jay’s dream pitches
  • Your sad cyborg dad
  • The worst tea party
  • One hell of a kiss
  • Robocop vs. Terminator

NEXT EPISODE: Excalibur gets eclectic!


The visual companion to this episode will be up later this week.

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.)

Jay Recaps X-Men: Evolution
S1E9: Survival of the Fittest

I can summarize most episodes of X-Men: Evolution from memory, in a fair degree of detail; so it surprised me when, in reviewing the Season 1 roster, I realized I recalled almost nothing of “Survival of the Fittest” beyond the fact that it involved some kind of summer camp scenario. When I started to watch, I realized why: in a season where even the bad episodes are usually entertaining, this one is just boring as all hell.

On my first pass, I stopped taking notes five minutes in, because nothing was happening. By the halfway mark, I was actively fantasizing about watching paint dry.1 But I am nothing if not committed, readers. I promised you a recap, and a recap you would have, come hell or high water.

Ah, well. At least I get to judge cartoon teenagers for their fashion choices.

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