In which Miles finally makes it to Battlepod; we delve into our favorite continuity snarls for the benefit of the Beyonder; Kang is everyone; we’re really grateful that the D.C. Multiverse is out of our usual scope; someone gets a new costume; and the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts reaches its shocking conclusion!
Featuring Paul O’Brien of House to Astonish and Kieran Shiach of Journey Into Misery; with Greg Rucka as the voice of the Beyonder!
X-PLAINED:
Kang
The Third Summers Brother
The D.C. Multiverse
Cable
This is the final episode of the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, a nine-part crossover event featuring the bravest and boldest of comics podcasts. You can find a list of the previous #SCOIP episodes–and where to jump into participating podcasts–on our blog!
ART CHALLENGE: Miles apparently came home from Secret Convergence with a snazzy new costume that may or may not be a hostile alien symbiote! What does it look like?
Rachel 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!
IT LIVES! Head over to FanBrosShow to listen to Part 1 of the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, where the Beyonder makes his podcast debut; and DJ BenHaMeen, Chico Leo, J. Rachel Edidin, Graeme McMillan, and Chris Sims discuss THE fundamental question of fandom: WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT?
While the Super Doctor Astronaut Peter Corbeau Awards for Excellence in X-Cellence* officially made their debut in last week’s Giant-Size Special, we wanted to take a moment to revisit them: the X-books, creators, and concepts that rocked our year.
If your name–or a project to which you contributed–appears on the list below,** and you would like an actual, physical Corbeau Award to hang on your wall, please drop us a line, and we will make and mail you one. It will be beautiful and classy as hell, it will definitely involve some glitter glue.
And so, without further ado, it is out great pleasure to present:
THE 2014 SUPER DOCTOR ASTRONAUT PETER CORBEAU AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN X-CELLENCE!
Best X-Writer – Brian Michael Bendis, for Uncanny X-Men, All-New X-Men, and general line architecture
Best X-Artist – Kris Anka, for Uncanny X-Men and general visual and costuming impact
Best X-Colorist – Chris Sotomayor, for Cyclops
Best X-Letterer (Now and Forever) – Tom Orzechowski, for everything ever forever
Jean Grey Award for Creative Resurrection – Nightcrawler (Amazing X-Men)
Best New Character – Forget-Me-Not (X-Men Legacy #300)
Best Complete Arc – Cyclops #1-5, by Greg Rucka, Russell Dauterman, Chris Sotomayor, Carmen Carnero, et. al.
Best Soap Opera – All-New X-Men, by Brian Michael Bendis et. al.
Silver Lining Award – Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #4, by Marguerite Bennett, Juan Doe, et. al.
Golden Retcon – X-Men: Days of Future Past
Irene Adler Award for Most Anticipated Future Run – G. Willow Wilson onX-Men
About Damn Time – Storm, by Greg Pak et. al.
Cyclops Has a Good Day Award – Wolverine and the X-Men #40, by Jason Aaron, Pepe Larraz, et. al.
Best Listeners of Any Podcast Ever – YOU**
CLASSIC CORBEAUS (for older X-material covered in the podcast during 2014)
Harvey and Janet Award for Best Walk-On – The staff and guests of the Heartbreak Hotel
Lost Treasure – Beauty and the Beast, by Ann Nocenti, Don Perlin, et. al.
Sure, Why Not? – The Leprechauns of Cassidy Keep
Still the Best Issue After All These Years – Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 #137
*Did you know you can just straight-up make up your own awards and give them to whomever you want? The Internet is awesome, y’all.
**LOOK! IT’S A COLORING CONTEST!
Listeners, while we love you dearly, we do not love you quite enough to make and mail all roughly ten-thousand of you your own Corbeaus. If you want a Corbeau of your very own, you’ve got two options:
1) Make your own, using the art below. We officially certify that it will be official and the Real Deal, and if anyone challenges you on that, we will glare meaningfully in their direction.
2) Show us your coloring skills. That’s right. It’s a CORBEAU COLORING CONTEST. Color the following image using in any medium you want: digital art, crayons, spray-painted macaroni–the sky is the limit. E-mail us a picture of your work at xplainthexmen(at)gmail(dot)com, with the subject line CORBEAU COLORING CONTEST, by January 14 January 21. The listener whose Corbeau comes closest to the transcendent perfection of its namesake will receive a physical Corbeau–glitter glue and all–to hoard privately or share with their remaining nine-thousand-odd peers at their discretion.
Alternately, Rachel made this in Blingee. Use it as you see fit:
Art by David Wynne! You can get prints here through 11/2/2014; or contact David to purchase the original.
Kitty’s Fairy Tale is one of the best and most beloved issues of Uncanny X-Men.
D’awwwwww. (X-Men #153)
The Beast With No Name does his best River City Ransom. (X-Men #153)
The rest of the X-Men are as delighted with Kitty’s fairy tale as we are. (X-Men #153)
No, seriously. This issue is FANTASTIC. (X-Men #153)
In a lot of ways, Kitty’s Fairy Tale is a fantasy riff on the Dark Phoenix Saga with a happy ending, which makes the end of the issue kinda bittersweet. (X-Men #153)
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine: We read it so you don’t have to.
The fact that she still has her skates is really damn charming. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1)
Don’t call Wolverine, Kitty! He’ll bogart your miniseries! (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1)
Kitty’s dad: kind of the worst. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #2)
Your homework: Rate the creepiness of this scene on the X-Men scale of one to Belasco. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #2)
Okay. That’s legitimately fairly cool. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #2)
In which Al Milgrom is not Frank Miller, and Chris Claremont writing for Al Milgrom is not Chris Claremont writing for Frank Miller. SIGH. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #3)
“Well, Kitty Pryde called me from Japan and then disappeared… BUT WHO COULD THIS INTANGIBLE MASKED OPPONENT POSSIBLY BE?” (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #3)
Can we talk about how Yukio’s outfit in this scene is THE BEST OUTFIT EVER? (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #3)
And that’s why you always leave a note. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #3)
Samurai eyefucking, illustrated. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #4)
Oh, Kitty, no. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #4)
Remember being fifteen and thinking “Shadowcat” was a really good, really grown-up code name? (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #4)
Headcanon: Yukio moonlights with the Hong Kong Cavaliers. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #5)
This cover is a pretty good metaphor for what went wrong in this series. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #6)
Sorry, Wolverine. Your Samurai eyefucking game is lacking. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #6)
THE BEST PART IS THAT THEY ARE DRESSED LIKE THAT TO GO OUT FOR ICE CREAM. We would SO have hung out with these weirdos in high school. (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #6)
Seriously, Yukio, what the hell are you even wearing? I mean, it’s awesome, but, what? (Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #6)
Excalibur Kitty is the best Kitty. (Excalibur #2)
NO, SERIOUSLY.
That time Kitty realized it was very much the early aughts.
Despite its dubious title and weirdly hypersexy-shiny art, X-Treme X-Men: Mekanix is actually a super solid Kitty Pryde series.
Professor K.
Kitty and Illyana sass is the best sass. (Wolverine and the X-Men #37)
If you like granular, obsessive journeys into media, we recommend the hell out of the podcast Into It, in which our friend Elle interviews people about their pop-culture obsessions.
Next Week: Rachel finally gets to make some Spalding Grey jokes.
In which we welcome back Greg Rucka, Rachel makes a valiant effort to read Secret Wars, Earth-200500 is still the best Earth, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine is kind of dodgy, Ogūn is low-rent Mister Sinister, Miles talks about empathy, Greg has an Edna Mode moment, and we all love Kitty Pryde.
X-Plained:
X-Men #153
Kitty’s Fairy Tale
Earth-5311
Earth-200500 (again)
Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1-6
Samurai eyefucking
Ogūn
Special cuddles
Some really dodgy stuff
The best Kitties Pryde
Professor K.
Smart kids in fiction
Why we love Shadowcat
Point-of-entry characters and gender
Costume theory
Our favorite new podcast
Next Week: Cyclops is the worst at vacations.
You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.
Since it’s already come up on Twitter, we want to take a minute to address Sunday’s announcement that writer Greg Rucka will be leaving Cyclops after issue five.
If you’ve been following this podcast–or Rachelelsewhere–for any length of time, you know that we love Greg, we love Cyclops, and we love Greg’s work on the Cyclops ongoing. We are of course sorry to see him leave–but we absolutely support his decision.
More, we are so glad to have seen one of our favorite writers (and human beings) set the tone and bar for a title that’s come to mean a lot to both of us. We’re looking forward to reading the remaining three issues of his run–and we fervently hope oncoming writer John Layman will continue in the same spirit.
We also want to take this opportunity to address something that’s likely to come up again as we delve into more series and creators come and go:
As far as we are concerned, it is never, ever cool to hassle or guilt-trip a creator for leaving a company-owned book, and–assuming they’ve not been disclosed publicly–their reasons for doing so are nobody else’s business.
Some of the discretion we choose to exercise here is a matter of professional courtesy or necessity–we’re both comics-industry professionals, and one of us is an employee at a publisher. Mostly, though, it’s a matter of basic human decency. Comics creators are people, and it’s important to us to respect their personal/professional boundaries, just as we want and expect others to respect ours. Gossip and speculation about other people’s intentions are really, really not welcome here.
Greg is a friend, so in this case it’s a little more personal than usual–but as far as we’re concerned, that’s a hard line, one we’ll be both observing in the podcast and enforcing in the comments.
TL;DR – If you want to complain about Greg Rucka leaving Cyclops or speculate about his reasons for doing so, you need to take that shit elsewhere.
When we say that Quentin Quire has the same fashion sense as Rachel, this is not what we’re talking about. (Wolverine and the X-Men #3)
Seriously. She’s never going to take it off again.
YAYBO! Thanks to your support, we’ve unlocked a bunch of very cool milestone goals on Patreon, from weekly video reviews of current X-books, to original illustrations, written posts, giant-size semiannuals, and more!
Why we can’t have nice things. (House of M #7)
As promised, from Uncanny X-Men #497.
Cyclops seems to like the premise of Schism about as much as we do.
We were going to photoshop word balloons in so Cap was yelling “What are we fighting about, again?” and Cyclops was yelling, “I have no idea!” but we ran out of time, so I guess just take that as read.
Yeah, that’ll end well, Iron Man. (Avengers vs. X-Men #5)
AND THAT’S WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE! (Avengers vs. X-Men #11)
This moment has shown up in flashbacks in something like four books so far this month, so it’s probably gonna be PRETTY RELEVANT in the near future. (Avengers vs. X-Men #11)
Pretty much everything you need to know about Battle of the Atom. (Wolverine and the X-Men #37)
This was the only yearbook photo we could find with both of us in it. TRIVIA: Can you spot the other current comics-industry pro in this photo?
Aw, bros. (Wolverine and the X-Men #40)
Oh, that’ll be awkward. (Uncanny X-Men #23)
There are… kind of a lot of X-Men books currently coming out.
A reasonably comprehensive list of current X-titles.
We are 100% with Cyclops on this. (Wolverine and the X-Men #40)
Heh. (Schism #1)
Next week: Rogue! And space adventures! And Carol Danvers!
Also next week: Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men on Comics Alliance! It’ll go up here, as well as iTunes and Stitcher, at the usual time, but you’ll also be able to catch new episodes every Thursday at ComicsAlliance.com!
Bonus not-at-SDCC cosplay pics: Miles as Starman…
…and Rachel as space-pirate-in-a-polo-shirt teenage Cyclops.
In which we correct a startling omission, explore the current state of the X-Universe, and speculate wildly; Quentin Quire has excellent fashion sense; Rachel gets a new accessory; Miles goes off-brand; the X-Men are somewhat complicated; Iron Man has poor decision-making skills; Charles Xavier dies for real; Beast might be a supervillain; we briefly forget Marc Guggenheim’s first name; and the future remains a relative mystery.
For purposes of continuity, it’s probably worth noting that this episode was recorded before the SDCC Marvel panel.
X-Plained:
Quentin Quire
Patreon
A startling omission from the official SDCC lineup
The current state of the X-Men
Decimation
Dark Reign
Utopia
Schism
Avengers vs. X-Men
Mutant politics
Hope Summers
The Phoenix/P.E.N.I.S. five (again)
The (real) (this time) (we think) death of Charles Xavier
Teenager hijinks
Crossover events
Battle of the Atom
Semantics of supervillainy
How Wolverine is 100% definitely going to die
Jumping-on points
Current X-books
Jubilee
You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.
In which death is a revolving door, we really liked Days of Future Past, space pirates are the best pirates, Vulcan is (still) the worst, Miles has a Corsair costume, Lilandra has lovely plumage, no one knows how to pronounce “M’Kraan,” we studiously avoid discussing the Phoenix force, Saurids speak Hebrew, Raza Longknife’s name is a bit on the nose, Rachel is the worst at hugs, Greg has a ‘ship, and we all kind of identify with Cyclops.
X-Plained:
The Starjammers (and how to pronounce their names)
The Shi’ar
The Neremani Dynasty
Plumage
Apostrophe abuse
Corsair
The secret origins of the Starjammers
Why Hepzibah talks like that
The Rule of Cool
Visor iterations
Summerstaches
Cyclops’s dubious deductive skills
Hugs
The All-New, All-the-Same X-Men
Teenagers, again
Cyclops #1
Cyclops vs. Scott
Space-parenting
Rachel’s convention sketchbook
Greg’s Kitty Pryde feelings
An exceptionally vivid threat
Intergalactic fashion
Corsair’s pecs
Key parties in space
The greatest romance of the Marvel Universe
You can find a visual companion to the episode – and links to recommended reading – on our blog.
