Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

Tag: excalibur

329 – Scheming and Argument

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

In which Nate Grey has the soul of a man in a mesh shirt; Black Air is somehow even worse than you thought it was; Hulk does not want to be x-treme teen from alternate dimension; we are excited as hell for the upcoming Frasier/Ewing Gamma Flight; and Moira MacTaggert is (sometimes) the adult we need.

X-PLAINED:

  • Nate Grey’s (possible) demon zombie baby
  • What Excalibur’s been up to lately
  • Excalibur #94-95
  • X-Man #12
  • Yet another take on roughly the same dark future
  • Dark-future disambiguation
  • Bangs
  • The Black Wall
  • Leather vs. vinyl
  • Sentinels pooping sentinels
  • Nate Grey (more) (again)
  • Gamma Flight
  • Excessively silly diagnostic technology
  • Squeezits(TM)
  • A minor intervention
  • X-characters most likely to lead a successful book club
  • Warlock on Krakoa

NEXT EPISODE: The Herald of Onslaught (for real, this time, we promise)!

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As Mentioned in Episode 320 – The Accountability Wagon

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
I know the cover blurb isn’t actually foreshadowing, but the cover blurb is kiiiinda foreshadowing. (Excalibur #91)
There’s writing a phonetic accent… and then there’s writing someone making fun of someone else’s accent, phonetically. (Excalibur #91)
Aw. (Excalibur #91)
For your Twitter fight needs. (Excalibur #91)
This is roughly how I react to having to share personal information with colleagues, too. (Excalibur #91)
They’re good friends. (Excalibur #91)
THE SUBTITLES THO (Excalibur #91)
Creeeeeepy. (Excalibur #91)
I know his teeth are also supposed to be steel, but they look just off enough from the rest of his face that I can’t shake the idea that they’re normal teeth, which idea is profoundly and inexplicably unsettling. (Excalibur #92)
Huh. (Excalibur #92)
You sure did. (Excalibur #93)
[Music rises] (Excalibur #93)
Ah, Rahne. You’re such a good kid. (Excalibur #93)
FUCK YEAH RAHNE SINCLAIR! (Excalibur #93)
NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day.

320 – The Accountability Wagon

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

In which Pete Wisdom is the guy you love to glare at; Nightcrawler is right (and a delightfully complex individual); Colossus has a lot of issues; and Wolfsbane gets the confrontation we’ve been waiting for since the New Mutants graphic novel.

X-PLAINED:

  • Wolfsbane’s powers
  • Excalibur #91-93
  • The somewhat nebulous age of Kitty Pryde
  • Betrayal
  • What’s been up on Muir Isle
  • Organized sports, Excalibur-style
  • Pubs and what happens in them
  • Drinking with Excalibur
  • Shovel talks
  • Phonetic accents, redeemed
  • A fairly one-sided fight
  • Colossus’s issues (more) (again)
  • Anatomy and physiology of organic steel
  • Accountability, trauma, and their intersections
  • An exceptionally cathartic confrontation
  • A hoodie Jay desperately wants
  • Where cold opens come from
  • Whether and how Gambit passes for human

NEXT EPISODE: Same Sabretooth, different day

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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 309 – Excellent Turtle

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Really, who wouldn’t fall for him? (Excalibur #87)
Okay, then. (Excalibur #87)
Sugar Man doesn’t really add anything to the Genosha storyline. (Excalibur #87)
Cover > comic. (Excalibur #88)
Seriously, WHAT DID HE WRITE WITH? (Excalibur #88)
WE HAVE FUN. (Excalibur #88)
Okay, fair. (Excalibur #89)
This is some old-school mystery comic staging, and I AM HERE FOR IT. (Excalibur #89)
Sure, why not? (Excalibur #90)
Damnit, Black Air! (Excalibur #90)
I bet they’re great at parties. (Excalibur #90)
…Okay, then. (Excalibur #90)
Ha, ha, Pete Wisdom’s life is worse than yours. (Excalibur #90)
I’m not gonna say this is the MOST ominous narration ever superimposed over a hookup, but it’s up there. (Excalibur #90)
Rory Campbell is anti-mutant, but he’s also just a raging asshole. (Excalibur #89)
DRAMATIC PARALLELS! (Excalibur #90)
NEXT EPISODE: Swingers in space.

309 – Excellent Turtle

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

In which ballistics get weird; Black Air is no W.H.O.; we have surprisingly mixed feelings about Pete Wisdom and Kitty Pryde as a couple; there is an actual creepy clown bar in Portland; blood eagles are excessively ostentatious; the Uncreated just want to be cool; and Rory Campbell continues his descent into supervillainy.

X-PLAINED:

  • The Forever Man
  • Turner D. Century
  • Excalibur #87-90
  • Excalibur (more) (again)
  • Genosha (more) (again)
  • Some extremely confusing bullets
  • Philip Moreau
  • Jenny Ransome
  • Black Air
  • Dream Nails
  • Spy bars
  • Foundations of Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom’s relationship
  • Captions
  • Work/life separation
  • A creepy clown bar
  • Easy Tiger
  • Blood eagles
  • Shrine
  • A virus and/or bacteria
  • The Uncreated
  • Gor the God-Butcher
  • Data security
  • Rory Campbell vs. Spoor
  • How the X-Men got their name
  • Terrigen toxicity

NEXT EPISODE: Starjammers!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 301 – Can’t Beat the Real Thing

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
This is in fact an ENTIRELY REASONABLE position under the circumstances. (X-Men Prime #1)
Dennis is his own disparaging narrator. (X-Men Prime #1)
I don’t know why John Constantine is here to question Trish Tilby’s ethics, but SOMEONE needs to. (X-Men Prime #1)
Why is Val here? WHO KNOWS? (X-Men Prime #1)
Pretty sure this is supposed to be Onslaught, but it’s not going to be confirmed, so… (X-Men Prime #1)
“I repurposed all the brain parts that would normally go to fashion sense. On one hand, I can keep track of every team in play. On the other hand, this is how I dress myself.” (X-Men Prime #1)
Mondays, amirite? (X-Men Prime #1)
That’s… exactly what a chaperone is, though. (X-Men Prime #1)
GUYS SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE JUST IN A HURRY (X-Men Prime #1)
Just wait ’til Age of X-Man. (X-Men Prime #1)
Emplate: still exceptionally creepy. (X-Men Prime #1)
nopenopenopenopenope (X-Men Prime #1)
I’ve seen at least three horror movies that basically start this way. (X-Men Prime #1)
NEXT EPISODE: The fall of Avalon, and some related situation comedy.

LINKS & FURTHER HOMECOMINGS:

301 – Can’t Beat the Real Thing

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

In which we enter our fourth century of podcasting with brand new theme music; we have both Wolverine questions and wolverine questions; it is extremely rough to be Bishop; the creator of Garfield may or may not live in a sewer on Earth-616; Rogue needs better coping mechanisms; bigotry is depressingly timeless; and everything is Onslaught now.

X-PLAINED:

  • Joseph’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
  • Our new theme music
  • X-Men Prime #1
  • A genuinely cool cover gimmick
  • What happened after the end of the world
  • Boundaries
  • War crimes vs. fashion crimes
  • Destruction of real landmarks in fiction
  • A mysterious assailant
  • Actual embodied chaos god Jim Davis and his Earth-616 namesake
  • Several memorable Garfield stories
  • Marrow (Sarah Rushman)
  • The secret origin of the Morlocks
  • A friendship we miss
  • Unhealthy coping mechanisms
  • The perennially dubious journalistic ethics of Trish Tilby
  • Dennis
  • The death of Dennis
  • Flaws of the mutant metaphor (more) (again)
  • Several refugees from Earth-295
  • Mr. Summers and Mr. Summers
  • The secret origin of the Genoshan mutates
  • The Acolytes
  • The continuing relevance of the mutant metaphor (more) (again)
  • Cross-universe characterization

NEXT EPISODE: The fall of Avalon!

NOTE: The Garfield strips Jay mentions appeared in newspapers, on purpose, in October 1989.

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog.

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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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 294 – The Infernal Gallop

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Man, I love this cover. (X-Calibre #1)
Cain Marko, man of peace. (X-Calibre #1)
Welcome to Avalon. (X-Calibre #1)
That is an EXCELLENT point. (X-Calibre #1)
I don’t remember Thunderbird having that many muscles or, y’know, being white. (X-Calibre #1)
“Sure thing! That’s BLAMM with two Ms?” (X-Calibre #2)
Aw, buddy. (X-Calibre #2)
But shouldn’t that be Rusty Collins’s icon? (X-Calibre #2)
…well, shit. (X-Calibre #2)
Almost our Kurt, and very much not our Kurt. (X-Calibre #2)
OH HELL YEAH (X-Calibre #3)
TFW Magneto forces you to visit your One Big Ex’s intentional community. (X-Calibre #3)
They have fun. (That is a lie. They do not have fun.) (X-Calibre #3)
Oh, come on. (X-Calibre #3)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE (X-Calibre #4)
Not AGAIN. (X-Calibre #4)
Welcome to the Age of Apocalypse!
NEXT EPISODE: these goofs, in space

LINKS & FURTHER ALLUSIONS

294 – The Infernal Gallop

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

In which a whole lot of things burn; Nightcrawler gets gritty; it’s hard to be Dead Man Wade; Apocalypse’s IT department has some explaining to do; Mystique is the most mom of all moms; Doug Ramsey dies (again); and Jay will fight anyone who says comics can’t be “real” literature.

X-PLAINED:

  • Damask
  • X-Calibre #1-4
  • Switchback
  • Cain Marko of Earth-295
  • Avalon
  • Destiny of Earth-295
  • Nightcrawler of Earth-295
  • Ghost Dance (actual)
  • Ghost Dance (fictional)
  • John Proudstar of Earth-295
  • The Infernal Gallop vs. the Infernal Galop
  • Moonstar of Earth-295
  • Dead Man Wade
  • The Pale Riders
  • Videoconferencing software of Earth-295
  • The Excalibur
  • Walter Newell
  • Callisto of Earth-295
  • A lot of murders
  • A really dark historical precedent
  • Parenthood
  • Death by existential crisis
  • The worst plan
  • Variations on the death of Doug Ramsey
  • Geography of the Age of Apocalypse
  • The rest of the Marvel books during the Age of Apocalypse
  • Jay vs. Western canon

NEXT EPISODE: Gambit and the X-Ternals

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!

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As Mentioned in Episode 286 – Family Before Continuity

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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Don’t worry! The world will end before they can die in that plane crash! (Excalibur #86)
Pete Wisdom is a happy man with a happy life. (Excalibur #86)
MAH PUIR WEE HOVERCRAFT (Excalibur #86)
I want a team that’s just him and Chamber, brooding. (Excalibur #86)
A green and pleasant, &c. (Excalibur #86)
Well, so much for that mission. (Excalibur #86)
Me, too, Sam. Me, too. (X-Force #43)
I relate so hard to Shatterstar right now. (X-Force #43)
Time travel has some good looks. (X-Force #43)
Aw, these dudes. (X-Force #43)
“We’re here for you, in all our oddly-proportioned glory!” (X-Force #43)
He hasn’t, actually, but that won’t be revealed for a while yet. (X-Force #43)
“Man, is THIS what happens when your boss ditches you for another book?” (X-Force #43)
I know, right?! (Cable #20)
Pretty sure that every one of the original five has, at some point, referred to Hank as their best and/or closest friend. (Cable #20)
Ouch. (Cable #20)
OUCH. (Cable #20)
I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING (Cable #20)
Aw, these guys. And it didn’t even take a bathtub! (Cable #20)
Sometimes a family is eight people in tight clothing posing dramatically for the end of the world. (Cable #20)
NEXT EPISODE: Welcome to Earth-295! Hope you survive the experience!

LINKS & FURTHER EVENT HORIZONS: